MONDAY'S SCRIPT TIP:

BALANCING ACT

Remember how much fun playing on the teeter-totter (see-saw) was when you were a kid? You'd sit on one end, your friend on the other, and you'd bounce back and forth (I always tried to see if I could eject my friends). What was fun for kids may not be as much fun for adults - imagine big-guy Ah-nuld sitting on one end and skinny Claire Danes sitting on the other. No fun at all! The teeter-totter would be out of balance! Claire would never get Ah-nuld up in the air!

The problem is too much Ah-nuld and not enough Claire. You need an equal amount of each - a balance to make that playground equipment fun.

Just as balance is important on the teeter-totter, it's also important in our screenplays. Too much of anything is a bad thing. You've got to find the right balance. This summer Ah-nuld was back in TERMINATOR: GENESIS, supposedly the first of a new trilogy... though I'm not sure the other two are going to happen, so let's take a look at the previous Ah-nuld flick, TERMINATOR 3...

TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES was an Ebert & Roeper DVD Pick Of The Week when it was released. They called it the perfect Summer movie... it's a well balanced story. When the film came out over summer, many of the reviews mentioned how *funny* it was. This is the first TERMINATOR movie where you might laugh out loud. It's a fun, entertaining film. But is that humor ruining the franchise? Did Ferris & Brancato (THE GAME) and Jonathan Mostow (BREAKDOWN) destroy everything James Cameron created in the first two films?

Maybe they had to?

Cameron's THE TERMINATOR (1986) was a chase-thriller about a killing machine sent back in time to kill every woman in Los Angeles named Sara Conners, because one of them would give birth to the man who will save the human race from annihilation in the future. The film features some shocking violence (the Tech Noir Nightclub scene) and some horrific special effects (like when Ah-nuld repairs himself). It's almost a horror movie.

Cameron's TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY (1991) is a big action flick with some amazing special effects. In the future we have found a way to reprogram the killing machine and it is sent back in time to protect a teenaged John Conners from a new high-tech android made of "liquid metal". We find out that a nuclear war triggered by SkyNet is what triggers the creation of the killing machines, and the story is about Sara and John racing to prevent that nuclear war from ever happening. Just as the killing machine can be reprogrammed, *time* can be reprogrammed! We don't have to destroy the world. T2 is about finding the goodness of humanity. It's a hopeful movie.

TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES (2003) is much, much darker than either of the two James Cameron films. No matter what we do, no matter how hard we try to be good; we will always screw up and start World War 3. The destruction is inevitable. At the end of T2 we stopped the creation of SkyNet... but in T3 someone else creates the system that will destroy the world. There may be goodness in mankind, but we are so deeply flawed that we can't help but do bad things. We're all going to die, and nothing can prevent it!

That is a pretty dark subject for a summer popcorn movie - the evil that resides even in the best of us. Instead of making the guy behind the end of the world some evil warmonger, it's a very level-headed man trying to prevent the violence of war (played by sci-fi guy David Andrews who had to deal with android problems in CHERRY 2000, too).

T2 has hope for mankind - T3 *doesn't*. Just as a half dozen people invented the light bulb all at the same time, the destruction of the world by SkyNet is inevitable. You just can't stop progress.... even if that progress leads to the end of the world. Man is an animal - and all of the civilizing in the world can't stop man from his violent instincts. We are born to kill... each other and eventually ourselves.

And there you have the theme...

Everyone was guilty - and had to deal with their guilt. John Conners doesn't feel worthy - so he runs. He knows that people will dies because of him... that the human race may be wiped out because of him. Claire Danes manages to get everyone she loves killed - and has an actual scene where she deals with that. Claire's dad (David Andrews) has to push the button himself - and knows what that means. He's against SkyNet - yet he's the one who gives it control of the world. And finally Ah-nuld - I wish his scenes as a bad android had been longer. I thought that was one of the best ideas in the film - and THEMATIC - that a machine, by nature, is a machine. It just can't help itself. Ah-nuld may have been programmed to protect John Conners, but all the programming (civilization) in the world can't change what he is - a killing machine. There's a big twist in the story that I won't spoil here, that makes Ah-nuld's whole mission in the past repentant. He's trying to save John Conners to atone for past sins. When we find out what he did in the future, we can't forgive him.

Talk about dark! Both the story and the theme and the characters of T3 are pitch black!

This concept decision and the characters and theme it spawned were the downfall of T3 - making a huge 180 degree change from the first two movies. A change in the wrong direction.

So how do you balance that darkness to create a movie that people will pay to see?
With humor.

To keep the film (and the audience) from going off the deep end they balanced the darkness with humor. We have a Wylie Coyote car chase with Ah-nuld hanging onto a wrecking ball on a speeding crane and CLANG! slamming into a fire truck or SPLAT! hitting the side of a building as they roar through the city. Ah-nuld's signature sunglasses get skewed, making him look silly.

In T2 Ah-nuld says "I know why you cry"... in T3 he says "Talk to the hand". The Terminator character is lightened up for this film because the tone is so dark. The film NEEDS that balance. Though it may seem like a fun summer film, it's much darker than T2 - can you remember any other big summer film with an ending like T3? It makes the end of THE HUMAN STAIN look upbeat!

Audiences go to big sumer movies to be entertained. We want to escape our troubles for a couple of hours. That doesn't mean that your story has to be light and happy and fluffy - it can be dark and downbeat and brutal... as long as you balance that darkness or you're in a genre where audiences expect a downer when they buy their tickets (Noir comes to mind - but even Noir films are filled with funny smart ass lines). You can write an edgy-indie film that is blacker than black, but a studio summer tentpole ovie needs to be *entertaining*. A serious drama can be *too* serious (check out Woody Allen's INTERIORS or Steve Martin's SHOPGIRL) and a goofy comedy like ELF needs a serious emotional center or it becomes too silly and fluffy to care about. You need to find the right balance when dealing with mainstream dark stories, or that teeter-totter is just going to sit there without moving. Heck, even edgie-indie films could use some balance! Light films need a trace of darkness and weight, dark and heavy films usually benefit from some light. Though T3 is nowhere near the movies the first two were, it was a fun summer blockbuster... which is more than we can say for the fourth film.

The big problem with TERMINATOR SALVATION was that it was *too* dark - it needed some humor and hope! Now, you may have thought there were many other problems, and may even think those other things were the main problem... but STAR TREK had all of the same major story and character and logic and lack-of-theme problems that TERMINATOR SALVATION had, yet everyone loved STAR TREK and there was even some talk about it getting a Best Picture nomination... The big difference? STAR TREK was a fun film, TERMINATOR SALVATION was a dark, overly serious film. No balance!

They could have learned a lesson from TERMINATOR 3...
Or *two* lessons, and just not started with such a nihilistic tale in the first place.

BAD ROBOT!

I mentioned that I wished the scenes with Ah-nuld as a bad android would have been longer because the encapsulated the theme so well - and it was such a great idea. After T1's bad android and T2's good android... having an android that is both good and bad was interesting, unpredictable, and gave Ah-nuld a chance to do a little acting.

I would have had the TX (Kristanna Loken - wasted in BLOODRAYNE) be able to control him if she was within 100 feet (cordless phone range) - so Ah-nuld would be constantly battling with himself. You'd never know if he was good or bad - and when she got close he would be powerless to fight her. So Ah-nuld might be protecting John Conners one minute, then become the weapon TX uses to try and kill him the next. Ah-nuld would get lots of juicy scenes where he battles with himself... and John Conners and Claire Danes would have to fight off Ah-nuld as they shot at TX - hoping to push her back or injure her enough that she stopped transmitting commands to Ah-nuld so that he could become himself again. Cool idea they didn't use.... and there could have been a great final battle where Ah-nuld & TX fight each other even though Ah-nuld is within radio distance and also must fight his own machine-nature. That would have made for an unpredictable fight scene that was cool *not* because of massive expensive special effects (like MATRIX: REVOLUTIONS) but cool because of the *idea* of the fight scene. The fight scene would have explored the story's theme!

Though TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES had story problems, by balancing it with humor it becomes at least a *fun* summer film about the end of the world. TERMINATOR: SALVATION could have used a little humor to balance the deadly serious and dark story, or a little hope for humanity... and, well, a much better story. But that's another script tip!

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