BIZ TIP TUESDAY:
YOU NEED COOL STUFF
I have yet to see last year's TRANSFORMERS 2, and may never see it...
even though it is a huge hit, the number one film of last summer, and has made $402
million in the USA and a worldwide total of almost $836
million. I used to look at crappy films that made a
lot of money and wonder if we were going to hell in a handcart.
The story doesn't work, the dialogue sucks, but there are lines
around the block. What's up with that? Does everyone in the world have bad taste?
I worked in a warehouse for a decade and I keep in contact
with all the guys, so I started asking them why they liked these
crappy movies. Guess what? They had reasons! There were actually
GOOD things in these crappy films, and to most of the audience
the good outweighed the bad. As a screenwriter, I was so aware of
the *story flaws* that I couldn't see the "cool stuff". Then I realized
that some of that "cool stuff" was missing from my scripts. I
might have a coherent story and good writing and great characters... but I didn't have
that part that made them line up around the block.
"Cool stuff" alone isn't good enough - you need good writing.
But good writing also isn't good enough - you NEED "cool stuff"
in your script or no one will want to see it in the first place,
or they won't like it after they've seen in.
Though TERMINATOR: SALVATION had all kinds of problems, it was still a fun,
stupid, somewhat enjoyable action packed summer sci-fi movie... but as a
TERMINATOR movie? Crappy. If there had never been any Terminator movies, or
if this had not been connected to the franchise - would have been dumb summer
fun (though way too dark and not really much *fun* stuff). Problem is, the
"baggage" of the past films means this has to be better than a dumb summer movie
- and it was not. A severe shortage of "cool stuff" and way too serious.
Though I do not know the whole script backstory, from press stuff I know
that John Conner was a minor character in the original script - which focused
on the Marcus character. When they hired Bale and he became the *star*, he had
the whole script rewritten and (by Bale's account) Bale told the writer what he
wanted to do. I think this may be the case of an interesting script being
turned to crap in rewrites. Remember - you can never judge a script by it's
movie. Our job isn't to write the crappy movie we just paid $11.50 to see,
it's to write that amazing script that the studio paid $250 million to make.
I think Marcus is the most interesting character - and all of the John
Conner scenes undercut the Marcus story and undercut the film. Bale is also too danged
serious an actor, and not very charismatic. Newcomer Sam Worthington, on the other hand,
seems to have charisma to spare. Had this been
all about Marcus, this guy who wakes up in the future after the world has gone
to hell and tries to figure out what happened and figure out who he is now
and what his place in this world is... that would have been involving and
interesting. But when Marcus is often second banana to an emotionless dude who
yells and makes speeches on the radio all the time - the film loses just about
everything. For instance - the big reveal scene becomes about how Conner was
betrayed by Marcus, instead of how Marcus was betrayed... which robs the film of a
really cool reveal scene.
I liked the Road Warrior chase stuff - that was cool - and was
shocked that the kid from ROAD WARRIOR had a sex change and was now a mute
little girl. I thought the different terminators were *almost cool* - but
there wasn't that one cool concept... like the liquid metal T-1000 (or the
T-800 in the first film). These different terminators were okay but not
mind-blowing cool. The grabber one I liked best - it made me jump a couple of
times... but haven't I seen that in TREMORS? When you think about the first
film - the concept of this completely unstopable killing machine from the
future that can imitate the voices of your loved ones and repair it's skin
and pass for human... that was all amazing stuff back then. And it's even
amazing stuff now. When I rewatch that film, I realize how cool it is when the
Terminator pretends to be Sarah's mother on the phone... and lures her into
a trap. And the cool factor of repairing itself - the exposed machinery under
the skin is right out of that Matheson short story. T2 has the amazing shape
shifting T-1000 - kind of the voice imitation taken to the extreme. These
things are leaps of imagination that are not present in T3 and T4 - and that
is a major problem with T4 as a Terminator film. It's doesn't have anything
so amazing that you wonder how someone even came up with that. Though the
big *grabber* Terminators and their motorcycle attachments were cool - a
great idea within the world of Terminators - there wasn't anything that was
outside of what we expect... not a problem for a non-Terminator film, but the
mid-blowing elements are what we *expect* in a Terminator film. We expect the cool stuff.
The other three Terminator movies are chase films - with a cool unstopabale
killer robot of some sort after a human character. In T1 we have Ah-nuld
chasing Sarah Conner. In T2 we have Robert Patrick chasing Sarah and teen John.
In T3 we have Kristanna Loken chasing John Conner as a young man. In T4?
No one is being chased! No one is being threatened! The biggest problem with
this film is that both the antagonist and protagonist have non-existent or
hollow goals. Late in the game someone notices that it might be a bad thing
for Kyle Reese to be killed - but that isn't driving the story... nothing
really is. And here's the problem with the Kyle Reese thing - Skynet has a
billion chances to kill him and is so inept it doesn't act. What's up with that?
I suspect that if TERMINATOR: SALVATION had one mind-blowing cool terminator
element that we had never seen before... and had never *imagined* before...
it would have been a hit. But the film was killed by a lack of cool stuff.
You just have to look for the qualities that touch the
audience, that *amaze* the audience. Those are the important qualities.
If an audience feels NOTHING from a film, it doesn't matter how "good" it is. A film
that doesn't connect with the audience and amaze the audience is defective. It's missing
the most important element - involving the audience, creating an
experience for the audience. Nothing else matters.
One of the first "movies" showed a man sneezing. And that was amazing to an
audience at the turn of the century. But that was millions of movies ago, and
sneezing isn't cool enough anymore. Our challenge is to use our imagination
and creativity to come up with things the audience hasn't seen and does not
expect to see, To expand the horizons of film, not just to work within them.
And that's why some probably awful film like TRANSFORMERS 2 makes all of that
money - it is making those leaps of imagination that amaze the audience.
My breakthrough was to stop looking for what was wrong with a
movie that made $300 million (or more), and to start looking for what was
RIGHT with the film. Now I look at what's GOOD about popular
films that have major flaws. What are the elements that the
audience likes so much that they will forgive everything else?
How can I get similar elements into my (better written)
scripts?
See - the parts that I thought were wrong about some movie like TRANSFORMERS 2 are
the things I already know how to do. I can
write better dialogue than "I just had a full-bllown mental meltdown in the middle of my class!" -
but I needed to learn how to do the things the film did RIGHT. If
I can combine the things I already know how to do and the things
$300 million movies know how to do, I can write a great film that attracts an audience.
My script doesn't have to be *stupid* to attract a mass audience, it just needs to
have to imagination and creativity and "cool stuff" that they like. Look at the new
BATMAN movies - both have been intelligent, interesting, driven by character
and contain a clear message about fear and the politics of fear. These are
*great* movies... and also have enough cool stuff to become massive hit
movies. THE DARK KNIGHT is the #3 movie of all time after TITANIC and AVATAR.
Whatever you think of INCEPTION, it isn't a *stupid* movie (just a cold one) - and it's the hit of the summer,
even though it seems to be too complicated for most people to understand.
It's not
about writing *down* to the audience at all, it's about including the exciting
elements in our well written screenplays.
If a movie plays to an empty theater, NOBODY gets your
message, NOBODY hears your story... and NOBODY cares.
TRANSFORMERS 2 and all of those other films that audiences
love are great movies... part of our job is to find the qualities
that make them great and include those qualities in our own (better written)
scripts. Your brilliant writing may not be as important these days as your brilliant imagination. The cool stuff is what sells the script (which is why this is a Tuesday Tip).
What was RIGHT with that movie?
So, do you think they're going to make a TERMINATOR 5?
Oh... and the Pitching Blue Book is included in the set!
