9 Times Chekhov's Gun Wasn’t a Gun

As No Film School's resident screenwriter, I feel like a lot of my time is spent covering the basics to make sure the next generation has the foundations they need to succeed in Hollywood.

But what happens when you think your work gets a little more advanced?

That's when you can have even more fun. You can take plot devices like Chekhov's Gun and add a little flavor to it. Like, what if it's not a gun at all?

Let's dive in.

What's Chekhov's Gun?

We have a whole post on Chekhov's gun you should check out. But I'll be brief here: Chekhov’s Gun is a dramatic principle that states every element in a story must be necessary, and irrelevant elements should be removed.

The concept comes from the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov.

It is the ultimate rule of "plant and payoff." If you draw the audience's attention to a detail early on, that detail must have a purpose later. If it doesn't, it’s just clutter.

The idea is that if you show us a gun in Act One, it needs to go off by Act Three.

But what happens when it's not a gun?

1. The Parker Jotter Pen — GoldenEye

Look, we could have used any Bond gadget here, but this one is probably my favorite instance of them. In the first act, Q gives James Bond a pen that acts as a class-four grenade. It’s armed by three clicks and disarmed by three more.

The "trigger" isn't pulled by Bond, but by the villain’s henchman, Boris, whose nervous habit of clicking pens leads to a literal explosive climax where you are freaking out trying to decide how many times he's clicked the pen.

2. The Asthma Inhaler — The Goonies

This is a fun one because the inhaler gets used a lot, but as a crutch for Mikey Walsh. In fact, he gets defined by his asthma inhaler, which represents his fragility and "kid" status. But in the third act, after surviving the trials of One-Eyed Willy’s ship, Mikey takes a breath and tosses the inhaler away. He's not fragile anymore. He's a fearless leader.

3. The Compressed Air Tank — Jaws

Early in the third act, Chief Brody accidentally knocks over a CO2 tank, and he is warned that it could blow up. It seems like a minor safety tip from some more seasoned fishermen, but when the shark is finally bearing down on the sinking Orca , that "safety tip" becomes the only weapon left to stop the beast.

4. The Clock Tower Flyer — Back to the Future

This might be the best screenplay ever written. In Act One, Marty is handed a scrap of paper about the Hill Valley Clock Tower being struck by lightning in 1955. At first, it’s just world-building to explain why the clock is broken. But once Marty is stuck in the past, that flyer becomes the precise blueprint for the 1.21 gigawatts of electricity needed to power the DeLorean and send him...back to the future.

5. The Red Swingline Stapler — Office Space

I think this movie scared me in a way that I have lived my life to avoid ever being in a cubicle. So far, I am winning. But Milton’s obsession with his red stapler is the ultimate slow-burn Chekhov’s Gun. He repeatedly warns that if his desk is moved again, he will set the building on fire. Everyone ignores him until the final scene, where the stapler is the only thing Milton saves from the literal ashes of Initech.

6. The Peach — Parasite

One of the best scenes in modern movie history. When the Kim family discovers that the original housekeeper has a life-threatening allergy to peaches, they snap into action to weaponize her allergy. By sprinkling peach fuzz on her, they simulate a cough that mimics tuberculosis and get her fired.

7. The Rock Hammer — The Shawshank Redemption

When Andy Dufresne first asks for a small rock hammer, Red laughs and says it would take centuries to tunnel out with such a tiny tool. The payoff to that statement is one of the greatest in movie history. And it leads to a joyous crawl to freedom.

8. Glasses of Water — Signs

This movie has some of the greatest plants/payoffs of any title ever. I mean, you could easily have talked about the baseball bat over the mantle. But for me, it's the "messy" habit that becomes a weapon against aliens. You have water glasses all over that seem like a kid's quirk and then save the world.

9. Capes — The Incredibles

Edna’s "No Capes!" rule gave us a very funny scene early in the movie where we see someone sucked into a plane's jet. But that lesson sticks with Bob and winds up saving him later, when he's able to use Syndrome's cape against him.

Summing It All Up

I love looking at how writers use different dramatic principles to tell their stories, and I hope these opened your eyes to different ways you can both plant and pay off certain aspects of your script.

Let me know what you think in the comments.