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I had the good fortune to interview Vlas and Charley Parlapanides, screenwriters for “The Immortals,” last week in advance of their movie.
They said something that struck me, and I want to share it here. They said that in Hollywood, scriptwriting still has a meritocracy.
“If you have a good script, “ it can get made, Charley Parlapanides said.
“If you do have a big idea, they don't care who you are,” Vlas Parlapanides said.
This is wonderful news to budding screenwriters. It means that if you have a good idea, you can make it work, providing you can get it into the right hands.
More or less.
They also said that you have to work your ass off and that you usually write 5 movies before your sixth one is sold. And then, there's no guarantee it will be made into a movie.
Also, they said you are only as good as your last one. So, if it doesn't make money, no one cares.
What I Learned: It's not as much who you know. Not when it comes to this. Sure, maybe more people will look at your movie if you are famous, or have some kind of connection. But you don't have to be anyone to start.
But you have to make yourself someone to keep going.
Snake sounds like an evil version of the guy who narrates movie trailers. “In a world...where things are not as they seem...” He has this menacing tone to him that makes it sound like if he was narrating a movie, he'd want all the characters to die.
Snake also really, really enjoys what he does. There's a subtle element of glee when he's threatening someone.
I imitated Snake for an animated movie:
In order to do the voice, I watched a bunch of clips of the voice actor, David Hayter, mostly spoofing himself. Hope you enjoy!
Abduction = Bourne Identity + The Face On The Milk Carton
Before Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 2, there was a trailer for this movie called "Abduction."
First of all, the minute I see Taylor Lautner, a) I already sign off on not seeing the movie and b) flagellate myself for knowing his name. (Maybe I'm being mean. I'm sure he's a swell guy.)
As the trailer hints at the plot, and the girl shows him the age-progression photo, I think that's not a bad little scene. Then I remember "The Face On The Milk Carton," a story by Caroline B. Cooney about a kid who learns he's been abducted.
But then, VIOLENCE!
Suddenly there's shooting, and who do you trust? And he's jumping around like he's got spider-powers. And seriously, can we just get back to "I Know My Name Is Steven?"
Because what this looks like to me is that he's been involved in some kind of super soldier program, genetically bred to be better than the rest of us, and kidnapped to be programmed, but maybe programmed for good rather than evil and instead of having any real emotional story it just descends into bullets and screaming and trailer scenes.
About 30 minutes into this movie, I thought, "Geez, this is going by awfully quickly." I had completely forgotten that all the build-up was in the last movie. If I could watch more than one movie in a sitting, it might be that they form a more natural build to a plateau of action.
That said, the director David Yates understood timing. There were many shots that were long enough to take in the scenery and the emotion. They were even a welcome break from the scattershot action movie trailers that came before.
But the speed necessitated that things had to be cut. We never saw the Fred Weasley death scene, unless you sort-of saw it when Voldemort called off the Death Eaters. We also got gipped on Lupin and Tonks. Occasionally, the movies will show something the books didn't, and this is one thing my wife and I both wanted the movies to fill in. We saw them reach for each other, so I guess that was more than the book gave us. I was hoping for a little more from the Molly Weasley/Bellatrix Lestrange fight, but it got the job done. We'd never seen Molly duel, and it would be cool to see her let loose like McGonagall, who kicked ass!
I wonder how much Emma Thompson got paid for her 3 seconds as Sybil Trelawney? Certainly, I'm glad she wasn't dropping crystal balls on Fenrir, who also showed up for 3 seconds. But, that's the nature of movies, they excise or marginalize lesser characters and parts. Hagrid was a huge casualty. Did we really need to see the Carrows?
The one scene from the book that was missing - the only one that really sticks out - was Harry's declaration in front of everybody that Snape was a hero. This could have happened when they were done apparating. The apparation fight was a nice touch, and as they are flying wild, they could have landed right in the middle of everyone.
I'm glad they only hinted at Dumbledore's past. My main criticism of the books has been that more than half of the action happens more than a decade ago. Everything that's happening now got it's start at various times: When Dumbledore was gathering power; when Tom Riddle and Hagrid attended Hogwarts; when James, Lily, Remus, Sirius and Severus attended Hogwarts; and when James and Lily were killed.
I was happy with Neville Longbottom, who has always been my favorite. I root for the underdog, and I feel that if I was in that world, I would be the bumbler who always felt like a second-string extra.
I found that I had to try to cry quietly because I didn't want to miss any of the dialogue. The biggest tearjerker was Snape's pensieve scenes.
I'd like to coin a new phrase: Michael Baywatch: When beautiful people run through explosions in slow motion.
The Bad:
I watched Transformers: ROTF because I felt obligated. The G1 series informed so much of my childhood, I had to go. Granted, the 1980s cartoon movie, if watched at a distance, is pretty cheesy. My emotional connection to my childhood is what makes it my favorite movie.
The high point of the movie for me was the trailer for Harry Potter.
Just like the first one, the changes in Transformers are not what bothered me. At first, I was upset that they actually made Bumblebee cooler by turning him into a Camaro. But now, I've come to expect some changes.
What bothered me was poor scriptwriting, sloppy scifi, continuity problems, lack of plot, lack of character...
Basically, if it wasn't a Transformers movie, I wouldn't have watched it. Or cared enough to post about it.
A lot of people are saying to ignore the plot holes and just enjoy the fun ride. But Iron Man and Dark Knight showed us that you can have both: A whirlwind action-adventure thrill ride that has great characters and story.
Saying that “It's just giant robots fighting, don't expect much” insults Transformers.
Again, the cartoons I grew up with weren't Shakespeare. But they had characters and stories.
I still think this movie, and the last one, are monster movies. Giant aliens with no discernible personality are trying to destroy the world. It ignores the fact that the best thing about the toys when I was a kid was that there were personalities. Example: G1 Swindle. Toy was decent but it was the personality that was great. Mirage. Wheeljack. I could go on and on.
In monster movies, a person gets about 3 lines of dialogue and is killed. They don't have a character, they have one character trait. Sound like ROTF?
Roger Ebert's review is very poignant. It's where I grabbed the Iron Man and Dark Knight thing from. He also said how a child can hold a Transformer toy and use his imagination to craft wonderful stories. And that ROTF was certainly not the work of a vivid imagination.
Some questions:
-If the Allspark created all Transformer life, why does it only make evil robots?
-Why does it take a Matrix of Leadership to bring Prime back to life, but Megatron can just be rebuilt on the ocean floor?
-Why is Megatron such a putz? He shows up on Earth, gets frozen. Gets thawed out, killed by a fleshling. Wakes up again only to kowtow to some ancient Cybertronian. I want my villains better than this.
-During the first fight, a human died. They showed his coffin. Was he in the first movie? Was he supposed to be important?
-How is Optimus a descendant of the primes? Do they have babies?
-Was Ironhide British in the first one?
-How did the government scramble a huge attack force to come in what seemed like seconds?
When Megatron called to Starscream for help at the end of the movie, Starscream should have looked around to make sure no other Decepticons were looking, then said “I'll tell the others you fought bravely.” Then killed Megatron. That one simple action would have changed a lot of my opinion about the movie.
This should have been a kids' movie.
A Bot firing a crotch-mounted cannon; constant testicle jokes; dogs humping; a bunch of cursing; an impossible to ignore drug scene; John Turturro's thong (OK, that part was kind of funny, but still). The ratings board must have been out for popcorn during some of this.
I would be mortified to have my nephews here. My daughter is 2 and loves Optimus Prime. (She calls him Op-pa!) I think, when she's older, I'll have her watch G1 but not the new movies. Kind of like how I'll have her watch Star Wars Eps 4-6, not Eps 1-3.
It's kind of bad when Turturro had to actually ask Jetfire what the plot is.
Plot derives conflict: Character A wants to do something, but Character B wants to stop that. To a degree, there was some of that. But what we got was “There's some big thing we have to destroy before it blows up the sun.” When Hitchcock was asked to define a MacGuffin, he said the audience doesn't care what it is, as long as it drives the story.
Iron Man had a MacGuffin in it, too, the rings that created his power-core-heart-thingy. And the first Batman had the microwave emitter. Dark Knight didn't have a MacGuffin, and that's why it was brilliant.
There was comic relief, but no comedy.
The difference is that comedy flows naturally out of the story or characters. Comic relief is injected, forced into a movie. A robot calling a human a “pussy,” for instance. Jetfire's routine “My father was a wheel....” was hilarious. But it shouldn't have been in the movie. A lot of the gags, like a robot humping a girl's leg, should have been in the Scary Movie franchise instead.
About the Jar Jar Bots. Much has been made to say they were racist black stereotypes. I didn't get that. I hated them, yes. But I thought they were rednecks. I didn't see the correlation.
The Good:
I think I'm being overly critical, so I'll talk about what I liked.
I think Sam and Mikaela are very charismatic. They're not necessary to the movie. But they're likable.
I enjoyed Sam's parents (minus the drug scene.) I liked them in the first one, too.
Any fight scene with Prime was amazing. If he wasn't there, it was kind of blah. But whether it was slo-mo or what, you could really see what the characters were doing. It was a lot of fun to watch those fights. The 3-on-1 where Prime died; his return to take on Megatron and the Fallen; even Jetfire vs. Scorponok; Bumblebee vs. Rampage and Ravage.
And Bumblebee is making up for lost time. He stopped getting his butt kicked and started kicking butt.
There was one point where Ironhide was hurting pretty badly. No incarnation of Ironhide has ever been my favorite, but I was actually sitting there hoping he wouldn't die.
Megatron and Starscream playing the roles that we're used to seeing.
Soundwave and Frank Welker's voice. Soundwave was always one of my favorites. I was curious to see how they were going to use him. The satellite was an interesting idea.
Ravage. Another one of my favorites. Done very well, I think.
This is a version of Transformers 3 I made myself based on what I think the script should be:
As a movie comes to theaters, we're teased, we're fed trailers, we're made to find the stars interesting.
In the coming months before the first Transformers live action movie, I learned some spoilers. Some, like the robotic cast, thrilled me. Some, like the changes in Transformations, irked me. But I learned about a lot of the changes (Even Jazz's death) before the movie, so I was not upset when I saw them in theaters.
Leaving part one, I was very conflicted, but had a mostly positive review.
Part two was awful. I never saw The Matrix 2 because people told me: "The only reason to see Matrix 2 is to understand Matrix 3, which sucked, so don't bother."
Transformers 2 was so terrible that I vowed that there would have to be something amazing to get me to see it. Some friends even said, "It's got Shockwave in it!" Yeah? The last one had Soundwave. You saw how great that was.
There's a hint that the humans have been working with Decepticons. OK. Marissa Faireborne (the daughter of Flint from GI Joe) and Carly. Whatever. Anything good that they bring in is just met with skepticism: "How are they going to mess this up?"
Instead I've made these movies, to show that it shouldn't be that hard to make a good Transformers movies, even though mine are ridiculously cheesy and self-effacing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppG3ZtyIiJs
What I Learned: If you have to win over an audience, it's not enough to give them more of the same. Especially if they've lost confidence in you.
You have to answer their concerns. And the promotional material has to be clear that you've made some changes, without pandering to the crowds.
Disclaimer/background: I'm a traditionalist. I don't think people should break rules of storytelling unless there's a good reason. I write comic books, short fiction and children's books. Just to put my comments in perspective, these are my interests and favorites: My favorite superhero is Spider-Man, and I also like Justice League and Batman. My favorite comic writers lately have been Kurt Busiek, Peter David, and Geoff Johns. I am a huge Transformers fan. In children's books, I go either simple or meta: either really simple stories or books about stories. In movies and books, I am more impressed with something small that makes me feel something rather than something I'm told is a "must-read" or a must-see."
The only reason I haven't seen Green Lantern yet is because the trailer was very...busy...
Parallax. Hector Hammond. Sinestro. The Corps.
I understand you're trying to start a franchise, but this could be bad.
When I first started collecting comics, I knew nothing about GL except what I learned from the SuperFriends cartoon. Then, without really reading the books, I learned that Hal Jordan got his ring when an alien crashed on Earth. That was good enough for me. Then, I learned that it was because Hal is fearless. OK, now I'm very interested.
Now, as I read a few Green Lantern graphic novels a year, I learn that Atrocitus the Red Lantern caused Abin Sur's ship to crash. And that Parallax was contained inside the battery, creating an impurity. And on and on....
It's almost as if all the new stories are actually backstories.
Yes, I'm very glad that they explained the weakness to yellow. Yes, I'm happy for the details being filled in.
But my question - not a criticism, really (This is the first time I've ever questioned Geoff Johns) - my question is how elaborate is too elaborate for an origin story?
How much of it is story, and how much of it is explanation? Can you sum it up quickly while still retaining its power?
Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider which gave him spider powers. He failed to use his powers to stop a burglar. That burglar later killed his beloved Uncle Ben who always told him "With great power comes great responsibility."
You don't really need much more explanation than that for Spider-Man.
What I Learned: You have to keep the beginning simple. Make them want more.
I can't say I've really learned this. I make this mistake all the time. I started a comic book with a time travel story, for crying out loud.
As a writer, you want to sink as much depth into your creations as possible. Then, you can't wait to show your hand. But you've got to hold out, slow bet, up the ante, then go for the big reveal.
So, maybe what we should achieve in an origin story is a sense of wonder: We should be as wide-eyed and amazed as the hero. These wonderful/scary things are happening and we are just along for the ride. And we only learn as much as the hero does.
For the record, I like Kyle Rayner more than Hal Jordan. (Sorry!)
Disclaimer/background: I'm a traditionalist. I don't think people should break rules of storytelling unless there's a good reason. I write comic books, short fiction and children's books. Just to put my comments in perspective, these are my interests and favorites: My favorite superhero is Spider-Man, and I also like Justice League and Batman. My favorite comic writers lately have been Kurt Busiek, Peter David, and Geoff Johns. I am a huge Transformers fan. In children's books, I go either simple or meta: either really simple stories or books about stories. In movies and books, I am more impressed with something small that makes me feel something rather than something I'm told is a "must-read" or a must-see."
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