BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN VS A SIMPLE FIX

The whole point of this movie was undermined by them not having a good reason to go head-to-head with each other.  In my version of this movie, I'd have given them one that was MUCH more persuasive than "Lex is making me do this!"

Now, I could go into how this movie is a mess of crap, interspersed with rock-stupidity, but if you've seen this movie, you already know this.  So, I'll just jump to the part where I explain how I'd do things differently.  I think it's a fairly simple solution, too.  I tried to write something more like my usual thing but there is just so much to say about this film, I had to give up.  So, here we go:

Start over from Scratch... Almost...

The New GHOSTBUSTERS isn't going to please everybody, but it should. That's not the takeaway here.

Never have 4 women playing fictional ghost hunters
caused so many losers with no lives to lose their minds.

So, usually, when I write about how I'd have made a film differently, it ends up being a fairly involved explanation.  However, there really isn't that much to fix with the new GHOSTBUSTERS movie.  It works fine and, I'd say, it's probably a tighter origin story than the original film.  Honestly, I laughed my ass off and the fact that women made me laugh my ass off makes it all the more interesting and fun to me.

Of course, I'm not threatened by women in the least, so maybe I'm unique among men.  But I'll get to more of this in a bit.  For now, I'll stick with the film, itself.  So…

WHAT WORKED IN GHOSTBUSTERS

Full disclosure: I am not a big fan of the original GHOSTBUSTERS.  That's not to say I don't like the film--I do.  I'm just not one of those people that praises it endlessly.  I'd rather watch CADDYSHACK or STRIPES.  The point is, this film didn't have to live up to any any preconceived expectations for me.  All it had to do was tell a cohesive story and make me laugh.  Which it did!  The bonus is that the cast are all really funny people who made the film quite fun to watch.  Usually, in American cinema, women aren't allowed to be funny.  So, this was a real treat.

Also, the warm reverence this film holds for the original GHOSTBUSTERS is wonderful.  If only every reboot had this kind of respect for its source material.  It was so great seeing all of this film's nods to what came before.

Obviously, the FX were amazing, but there really is no excuse for them to not be in today's world. 

 WHAT DID NOT WORK IN GHOSTBUSTERS

Making MIDNIGHT SPECIAL Actually Special

One of the piece of promotional art for MIDNIGHT SPECIAL (2016). OK, first off, telling me a white kid with glowy eyes is "NOT LIKE US." is hilarious because, well, he's a white kid. He's just like us. He's got glowy eyes? So what? Those could be mirrored sunglasses for all we know! Oh and isn't that cute? He's reading a SUPERMAN comic. MICHAEL SHANNON was IN a SUPERMAN movie! And both that film and this one are not so great! :(

From the director of two films you've never heard of (TAKE SHELTER and MUD), comes MIDNIGHT SPECIAL--a film that dares to tell the story of attractive white people who are the parents of a very advanced and equally white young boy who needs to be protected from an evil (?) religious cult.  Starring Michael Shannon, Kirsten Dunst, the guy who played Uncle Owen in one of the STAR WARS prequels, and the guy who played Kylo Ren in a STAR WARS sequel, this film is one of those movies that will make you wonder if anyone read the script before filming began.

Thus ends my audition script for a job writing for Honest Trailers.

What Works in MIDNIGHT SPECIAL

ARG. That first paragraph was filled with the nicest things I could possibly say about that film.  OK, I could add that the cast is great and the effects are fine.  

The X-MEN Movies: The Marvel Cinematic Universe's Idiot Older Brother

The first X-MEN movie was more than fans had hoped,
but less than what should have been.  The X-MEN
comic is positively epic. The movies have not been.

THIS POST IS A SPOILER-RICH ENVIRONMENT.  Please do not read further  if you don't want the X-MEN movies spoiled for you.  It's never my goal to ruin movies for people so, I generally try to avoid being any more spoilery than I have to, but when writing about a movie series, it's kind of impossible to avoid all spoilers.  YOU HAVE BEEN SPOILER-WARNED!

Don't get me wrong--I enjoyed the X-MEN movies.  All of them.  Well, almost all of them (COUGHx-menoriginswolverineCOUGH).  I was overjoyed when the first X-MEN got so much right.  I was still disappointed in how much it got wrong, though.  I mean, come on, it's me--I've read the X-MEN comics.  Sometimes I wonder if everyone who made that first X-MEN movie had.  As far as I can tell, all they did was read the X-MEN issue of WHO'S WHO IN THE MARVEL UNIVERSE and then just stuck in the more popular characters.  Which was great, all told.  That was more than I was expecting, to be honest.

What the first X-MEN movie got right.

The plot and dialog for all of the films was pretty good with the films getting better and better as they went (not including the two Wolverine stand alone films which were steps backward in quality, though the one in Japan was the better of the two).  It was nice to see the general dynamic of Magneto versus the X-Men being respected as much as it was.  However, there is one thing they absolutely had to get right in order to capture one of the most interesting and long-running dynamics...

The Trouble with Trailers

We all know what trailers are.  When's the last time you saw a really good one, though?  I can't remember.  I'm shocked when I see a trailer that doesn't make me roll my eyes at least once.  Even movies I like have trailers that are stupid.  When I saw TERMINATOR: GENISYS, every single trailer I saw before the film either gave me too much information in the form of spoilers or stupidity, or they gave me not enough information to determine whether or not the movie would be any good at all.  Is there a solution to this problem?  Or is it just really really hard to make a good trailer?

Saving FANTASTIC FOUR: Break the Formula

One of the big problems with Hollywood has always been its urge to make it easy for itself.  Why actually take the effort every time to write a good script when you can plug variables into a formula and BANG you have a shootable script people will put their butts in theater seats for?

Put simply: Formulas don't work.  Not by themsleves.

Sure, they may seem to work for some films, but how likely are those "success stories" to be rewatched?  The key to a crowd-pleasing movie that is also a good movie is to have a formula guide you as a writer, but not to have it dominate your choices.  

FANTASTIC FOUR can be boiled down to an equation.

Young White Male + Problem that Needs to Be Solved + Complications + Implementing the Solution = Climax

Aside from the most basic of backstories given to two of the characters (Ben and Johnny) there is nothing of ANY interest included in this film.

No spoiler alerts for this piece: There is nothing in FANTASTIC FOUR that could be considered a spoiler

The Problem with Pilots and How Solving it Will Make All TV Shows Better

Unlike a lot of pilots, the first episode and the first season of
BEING HUMAN did not suffer from Not Enough Planning
Syndrome.  Sadly, later seasons did. :(

There is a general understanding in Hollywood that TV pilots just aren't very good.  There's a saying in screenwriting circles that says "always start your script as deep into the story as you can."

In Hollywood, today, the former is embraced while the latter is ignored.  At least, that's how it seems to me. I've seen several first episodes of series that seem to have no idea what they're doing.  When ever I mention this to other writers, what I usually hear back is the excuse: "Well, pilots always suck because they haven't figured out what the story is or who the characters are."

I wish so many of us writers weren't so eager to defend half-ass writing.  I get that all that really matters is if people watch, but aren't your story and characters things you should work out before you hand in your "finished" script?  And if you have a clear plan for them in mind, don't you think that will make your pilot and any episodes that follow stronger and more likely to get an episode order?

Seriously: how can you defend the idea that it's OK to flesh out your story and characters further into the series?  Too many shows suffer from Not Enough Planning Syndrome.  It's so easy (though it's also time consuming) to just sit down and answer questions about your story and about your characters.  Just make choices.  Your bosses/fellow writers will let you know if they don't work or if they are just horrible directions to go in.  Figure out where your plot is going beyond the first episode and even beyond the first season.  The question to ask yourself is this: what is the long arc of both my story and my characters?

When Not Enough Planning Syndrome Strikes, We Are All the Victims!