Edward Tufte has spent much of his career evangelizing the benefits of storytelling with data, often citing Minard’s famous flow chart of Napoleon’s ill-fated march on Russia as an exemplar of the art. I think it’s safe to say that the evangelism has succeeded when homages appear in popular comics, in this case xkcd. Check out their amazing flow-chart of Jurassic Park (you’ll want to click it to enlarge):
Don’t be misled by the fact that this appeared in a comic: this is an awesome chart. The blank band for the Orcs at the bottom is reminiscent of Napoleon’s army. And I particularly love the highlighted path of the One Ring.
Check the full comic linked below for charts of four other movies: Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Twelve Angry Men (try and do that one in your head before you look) and, my favorite, Primer. (By the way, of you love good sci-fi and time-travel tales, be sure to see Primer if you haven’t already.)
xkcd: Movie Narrative Charts
