Film Crit Hulk’s latest article dives into convoluted blockbusters like Star Trek Into Darkness, and he makes a particularly deep point about the difference between story and plot:

And so when we look at the stories in Abrams’ work we don’t find much in the way of story at all. We find plots. It’s all master secretive plans built on reveals upon reveals upon reveals. We watch as brilliant characters play a high-stakes game of trying to outsmart each other. We watch those plans get teased out in incomprehensible ways. We watch them unravel a story without a hint of organic discovery.

Lost fans should be shaking their heads in recognition right now.

Hulk’s post clarifies a lesson I’ve been trying to learn. Screenplay is a way to tell a story, but it is not the story itself.

Story is something underneath the screenplay. It’s what the dialogue, action, plot, and pacing of the screenplay are trying to convey.

Without a story, a screenplay is just empty mechanics. It’s hollow and unfulfilling. In short, it’s Transformers 2.