Why THE WORLD'S END Didn't Quite Work For Me

Massive fan of Pegg and Wright. Loved Spaced. Loved the previous entries in the "Cornetto" trilogy.

So why didn't I like The World's End as much as I wanted to?

SPOILERS FOLLOW

Shaun of the Dead saw our heroes face off against a familiar foe - zombies. The undead of course are established genre monsters with a well-explored mythology and widely-understood modus operandi -- you get bitten, you become a zombie, you hunger for human flesh. Simple beasties with understandable aims, they create a clear conflict with any remaining humans who are understandably less keen on the prospect of becoming lunch.

Pegg and Wright took brilliant advantage of this previously established world and grafted a superior, distinctly British comedy on top. With The World's End, however, though sprinkling the film with their customary pop-culture references, the writers are effectively building a mythology of their own.

In The World's End our heroes' pub crawl is derailed not by booze but by robots. Only we're told they're not robots. Or maybe they are. They're like robots, but they're not. They are automatons who look like real people with blue blood and eggshell heads. And headlight eyes. Oh, and they want to turn you into a robot. Or they don't. If you're nice, if you keep your head down, they'll leave you alone. I think.

To what end they are doing all this however is frustratingly never clear.













Nevertheless, our heroes have their foe at last. The gang decide on the obvious course of action: continue the pub crawl.

Some of heroes get lost along the way of course. But, disappearing off-screen and unseen, what fate they suffer is again unclear and the snatched attempts to explain on the run never do the job. Without that understanding however there can be no stakes, no fear for survival of the others. Our heroes go from pint to pint, fighting foes who simply re-animate and return to the melee once they are defeated. They are the definition of disposable villains. No matter how well-shot, choreographed and entertaining the action may be in its own right (and it is), the scenes are rendered essentially meaningless as a result.

Eventually, however, our remaining heroes do make it to the last stop on their epic crawl. The World's End. The finale.

But what should see a climactic showdown between well-established opposing forces with clear aims and stakes of failure, is here mostly dedicated instead to exposition, to a final attempt to explain what on earth the point of it all was. It is in fact almost a literal deus ex machina with a god-like disembodied voice descending to wrap up the story. But despite (or even because of) this final barrage of exposition, the explanation never quite hangs together and cannot anyway mitigate problems with roots far earlier in the film.

Had we come into this last act with a clearer understanding of the aliens/robots' aims and methods -- had the plot work been done -- then more time could have be dedicated to what really mattered at this late stage: the story. As it is, Simon Pegg's final cathartic scenes feel forced rather than earned, tacked on rather than integral.

This all sounds damning; it is not really meant to be so. Despite its flaws, I did enjoy The World's End a great deal. The writers have lost none of their ability to craft witty dialogue. There are plenty of laughs and the film nails that certain wistful yearning for the past we can all recognise. But me being a big fan of their prior work, it cannot help going down in my book as a disappointment.

But hey! At least I got a screenwriting blog out of it. 

MAN OF STEEL - Tone deaf

I saw the new we-are-avoiding-calling-him-Superman-as-long-as-possible Superman film last night. Like many others, my expectations before the film's release had been high -- its cast and crew had pedigree and the trailers, drenched in stirring music and imagery, were highly effective.

Then release day came. And the rumblings of discontent could not be missed. It wasn't just from the fanboys. Many reviews were mixed, if not outright hostile.

Expectations duly lowered, in I went... (SPOILERS follow)

...and, in truth, probably enjoyed the film a little more as a result. If only I had done the same for The Phantom Menace.

Nevertheless Man of Steel remained an unsatisfying experience.

Why did it disappoint so? You could just say, "Well, it's not a great film" and, yes, there are some hokey moments¹, eye-rolling bits of meaningless dialogue². and plot-holes aplenty³ if you choose to look for them.

But there's something else at play. And it's do with the central character himself.

Superman...he's just a little bit silly, isn't he?

"He can fly! Yeah, and he's indestructible⁴! I know -- he's super-strong! Oh, oh, his eyes shoot lasers! Yeah! He's an alien, but..uhh, he looks just like us! And he gets his power from the sun somehow! Radiation, that'll do!"

This isn't a character, it is a child's power fantasy that got carried away.

Now, there are seemingly ridiculous premises to be found in many films. I'm not here to poo-poo the occasional stretch or imaginative leap -- it is amazing what an audience will go with after all. But ultimately the more of these unexplained and slightly daft ideas you cram into one story, the more difficult it becomes to maintain the audience's suspension of disbelief.

This is a particular problem for a "serious" take on the subject like Man of Steel.

Man of Steel is not a comic book concoction of zany characters and outlandish sets; it follows the Dark Knight trilogy handbook of grounded design and a recognisably adult world.

Yet this approach sets up a tonal clash at the heart of the film, the "sombreness" contrasting with the intrinsic shallowness and silliness of its main character (and his adversaries). An irreconcilable tension is felt throughout. Moments of dramatic depth in one scene are undercut in the next by the intrusion of characters like the dubiously-goateed Emperor Zurg General Zod, while the insistence on dour reality means the film-makers can never embrace the humour and fun that so endeared the original Richard Donner film to the public.

I was left with the overwhelming feeling of writers struggling against their material. They know Superman is a bit ridiculous⁵. Evidently keen to pull it in another direction, they tweaked some elements, removing, for instance, the belief-shattering notion that supposedly whip-sharp reporter Lois Lane could not notice the similarity between her colleague and the chap flying around in his underwear.

But I am not convinced they went far enough -- to make a serious Superman work perhaps more sacred Kryptonian cows needed to be slain. Would the fans have accepted that however⁶? And after all the changes had been made, would it even be Superman any more?

Man of Steel is by turns snigger-inducingly daft and yawn-inducingly pompous. It also looks spectacular, has some genuinely good acting performances and manages at times, despite it all, to entertain. Above all, however, the film reminded me of an important screenwriting truth, one not even the biggest budget can disprove -- a consistent tone, in which our characters and their actions fit the world in which we place them, is absolutely essential to an effective and enjoyable story.


Footnotes.
1. "The world's too big, mom!" Vomit.
2. "Evolution always wins!" What does that even mean!?
3. Why was Lois summoned onto Zod's ship again for example?
4. Yes, yes. Kryptonite, I know. But that is little more than a nasty allergic reaction to a clumsy plot device.
5. Come on, even his name sounds cheesy -- it's why the film avoids saying it so long.
6. Some are mighty peeved as it is -- "SUPERMAN DOESN'T KILL!"

The seductive and deadly peril of mystery

CONTAINS SPOILERS

I saw Prometheus the other night for the first time. Yes, I'm terribly late. What can I say? I was out of the country when it was released last summer and the mixed reviews rather put me off seeing it on my return.

It is a strange film in many ways. Absolutely beautiful to look at of course, as you would expect from Ridley Scott. A talented cast, with Fassbender in particular shining as creepy android David. And it has stayed with me since watching.

But then, I have always had a soft spot for ambitious failures. Not for me, that aloof perfection of the masterpiece. Heroic failure is so much more approachable. It is why my favourite computer game remains Trespasser, 1998's ludicrously ambitious -- and often plain ludicrous -- first person physics-them-up. The makers' reach exceeded their grasp¹. But there is something joyfully human in that shortcoming, in that gap between our dreams and our accomplishments. Ultimately the ambition to straddle that divide has driven human progress through the centuries.

And Prometheus certainly is ambitious, seeking to create a new mythology within the existing Alien world while grappling with complex themes such as faith, creation, life and death.

It just never quite pulls it off. The film leaves you dissatisfied, its tantalising promise unfulfilled.

There are several reasons for this², but I'd like to concentrate on just one -- its use of mystery.

Mystery is of course a powerful tool in our trade. I think every good script needs it. These mysteries can be big or small - why a plane crashed, or why a father resents his son - but they serve to draw an audience in. Presented with an effective unknown, with an intriguing question, they cannot help but theorise about potential answers. When used properly mystery transforms the audience from passive receptors to active participants in the drama.

This is especially important in the first acts of a script, when the heavy lifting of character, plot and world introduction can overwhelm. The treat of an answer promised but withheld sustains us through those pages, both as audiences and as authors.

The first half of Prometheus works fairly well in this regard. The film asks some intriguing questions and we are right there with the scientists in seeking the answers.

But there comes a time when any film must turn from asking "what-the-fuck-is-going on" to explaining "this-the-fuck-is-going-on". Especially in a "mainstream film" like Promethues, the audience expects it and will eventually demand it. But if mystery is simply piled on top of mystery, unexplained event on unexplained event, eventually the audience becomes restless. This is what happens in the second half of Prometheus.

Who were the Engineers? Why did they leave the map for us? What were they doing on this planet? What the fuck is that black goo? And why is space-underwear so weird?

We get no answers. Instead, the film-makers load yet more questions on top, as if the same story engines that had propelled the first half would satisfy in the second. Our heads spin with more unanswered questions.

Why did they want to destroy earth so long ago? Why does that one living Engineer want to complete the mission? What's wrong with Fifield's face? 

Coupled with sketchily explained or simply contradictory character actions³, the second half of the film almost collapses under the weight of this ever-growing mountain of mystery.

This robs the story of its emotional power. Moments such as the death of Dr. Holloway lack all impact -- we do not really know what is happening or why David poisoned him, with the entire process happening too quickly for even any visceral sense of mounting horror to develop⁴. The grand finale, meanwhile, is reduced to mere spectacle, the stakes unclear, the sacrifice of the ship's captain utterly unexplained and utterly hollow as a result.

I recognise that, in taking on these Big Ideas, Prometheus has not set itself an easy task. Of course, philosophical questions of creation and the meaning of life are too grand, too complex to expect a Hollywood film to answer in a neat bow in 120 minutes. And I don't think the audience would have expected any such resolution. But plenty of questions raised in the film were within the film-makers' power to answer and, I believe, should have been.

There were other problems with Prometheus, but they are minor ones in comparison with this failure. It reminds us of an important lesson in screenwriting -- mysteries are certainly powerful story tools but they must be used correctly, for they contain an implicit deal with the audience. We say to them, "You will find out the answer, and I promise it will be clever, interesting and unexpected...but I'm going to need you to watch this first."

With Prometheus, the audience kept their side of the bargain. The film-makers did not.

FOOTNOTES
1. This is not a tortured joke about the game's famous arm interface.
2. Unattractive and under-developed characters, clumsy exposition, on-the-nose dialogue and inconsistent or unexplained character motivation all let the side down at various points.
3. I am not the first to note this by any means, but the secondary characters Fifield and Millburn particularly suffer from this incoherence. The former declares himself either a money-obsessed mercenary, or a geologist there for the love of rocks depending on the scene, yet his actions never seem informed by either of these traits. The latter meanwhile is a biologist who in one scene sees no interest in the first ever discovery of alien life, and then just a little later in the film fearlessly grapples with a clearly dangerous squid thing with predictably disastrous results.
4. Besides, the guy was kind of a dick anyway. Who really cared when he died?

Margaret Thatcher and the Power of Myth

I was out at dinner last night with perhaps the one man in the country who had not heard that Margaret Thatcher had died. The group had managed to avoid the inevitable discussion until then, distracted by the complexities of the Chinese menu and the terrifying presence of the waitress watching our every move. I was relieved. It was not a conversation I had particularly wanted. It was a pleasant evening. We all have different political views. Why spoil it?

We managed to hurry the conversation on without incident, but it got me thinking about old Maggie and the reaction to her death. The media wheeling out their long prepared obits and pull-out specials. The children on Twitter asking “Lulz, whose this Tatcher?” The paeans of praise from the right. And of course the vitriol from certain quarters of the left.

In some parts of the country they held parties to celebrate the death of a frail 87 year old grandmother who left office nearly a quarter of a century ago. Classless, petty and demeaning, of course, but hardly unexpected. What I have always found interesting when it comes to Thatcher is that some of those expressing the strongest opinions were barely alive during her premiership. Many are the children of comfortably well-off middle-class families. Where does this deep well of hatred spring from?

Perhaps they were particularly engaged toddlers, imbibing Marx with their mother’s milk.

Or perhaps there is more to it. I don’t much like Gordon Brown. I think he did enormous, lasting damage to the country and was not a particularly pleasant man to boot. But I won’t be dancing a jig when he dies.

This Thatcher hatred goes far beyond her policies.

“Ding dong, the witch is dead”

We cannot escape the obvious. The character of that hatred is defined by her sex. They call her “hag”, “bitch” and worse beside. What makes some left-wing activists, self-described feminists, scourges of misogyny and the imperial patriarchy worldwide pour such scorn on the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom?

Part of the answer I believes lies in the power of mythology, especially on the young.

For them, Thatcher is not just a politician vehemently disagreed with. She is the wicked witch. She has been transformed from a flawed human being into a caricature, a fairy-tale villain. A mythic archetype of the evil mother.

And myths are powerful, almost primal things, as we story-tellers who have read our Joseph Campbell know. Myths play a crucial role in the development and continuation of a society. But they can also shortcut the critical mind, engaging instead on another, alluringly primitive level. This has destructive potential.

Perceived and entirely imagined crimes are laid at Thatcher’s feet. To some, it seems she is guilty of sweeping a post-war collective utopia aside and replacing it with a hard-nosed world of walk on by. It is easy – and downright fun – to hurl abuse at her. She has acquired the comfortable aura of myth. She is barely human. Easier to revile, easier to attack.

In fact, many of those toasting Thatcher’s demise seem to have no deeper an engagement with her than they have with the Evil Step-Mother in Snow White. It is a reflex, a knee-jerk of disdain, a panto boo of a reaction.

The right is guilty too of course in its own way. To many in the Conservative Party, Thatcher is the paragon of all virtue, the Iron Lady, the titan which the current political crop can only fail to match. She is the mythic perfect leader of pure ideology.

This happy mythologising essentially forgoes any messy and turgid discussion of the time’s wider political and economic context, of human error or feeling. Lost among it is the remarkable, flawed and, yes, human figure, who inherited a dire mess of a country, made hard choices, made mistakes certainly, and yet changed Britain profoundly.

This myopia is dangerous. Unambiguous, unthinking hatred satisfies but is an ultimately corrosive force. Margaret Thatcher the woman is dead. But in truth she had long since decoupled from Margaret Thatcher the Myth. Perhaps her death will eventually herald a more thoughtful, genuine engagement with her eleven years as Prime Minister. But somehow, I get the feeling that alluring myth may stick around a while yet. 

Les Miserables/Don Downinthedumps/Tony Terriblysads

I went along to the cinema last night with the girlfriend to see the film version of the English adaptation of the French musical of the 19th Century novel by Victor Hugo.

From a screenwriting perspective it is a little difficult to know what to take from it. I have not seen the stage version nor read the novel. Presumably work had to be done to transfer it from the stage; the excellent William Nicholson (among others) wrote the screenplay and it suffers few obvious ill-effects in its pacing from the adaptation (some film versions of musicals have a glaring "intermission" point that brings the story to a juddering halt). But musicals are sort of a class apart, aren't they? Characters singing their every thought and feeling, often in rhyme. Subtle it ain't.

I did learn a few things though.

• A revolution based mainly on enthusiastic chair-stacking is probably not sustainable.
• The boulanger-lobby in 19th Century France was practically running the place if the authorities' attitude to bread-theft is anything to go by.
• The costume designer must have hated Amanda Seyfried. That's the only explanation for those bonnets.

*vrooooom* *vroooooom* (lightsabre noises)

Yes, the truth is finally out. The veil drawn back. The secret has been revealed.

JJ stands for Jar Jar.

By now I'm sure you've all heard the announcement that Star Trek supremo JJ Abrams is jumping (star)ship to direct the latest adventures of intergalactic rabbit Binks and his merry band. So what are we to make of the news?

I'm a massive Star Wars fan. It was probably the first film that fired my imagination as a child. I remember getting up before school when I was about eight to re-watch The Empire Strikes Back for the hundredth time. Yep, I was a pretty cool eight year old.

So naturally, I'm excited at the prospect of Star Wars returning to the big screen after an absence of ten years. But then I was excited about the prequels too and we all know what disappointments they turned out to be (though I heard about those through a magazine...ahh the pre-internet days). I must confess that for a long time -- too long perhaps -- I was an apologist for the new trilogy, trying to explain away the aching gap between my hopes and the more disappointing reality. As the years have gone by, time has allowed my disappointment to register itself without the fanboy inside me censoring it. I watch the brilliant Red Letter Media reviews and nod along with almost every point (if you haven't watched them, go do it now. They're insightful and fucking hilariously twisted). Nevertheless, despite their evident shortcomings, I still believe there is more merit in the prequels than is sometimes allowed. Yes, the prequels' scripts come across as early drafts in need of a great deal of work, but there are clever and unexpected ideas in there, some brilliant imaginative flourishes. The films are disappointments, but the world is too rich and enjoyable for them to be entirely without worth.

What then of the Disney buy-out and the newly announced sequels? Despite initial surprise and scepticism about the deal (money, money, money), many of my early doubts have been assuaged by the personnel chosen to take the project forward. Most importantly, the writer selected is simply brilliant. Michael Arndt has admired, analysed and even taught Star Wars for decades, as well as writing the wonderful Little Miss Sunshine and Toy Story 3. I cannot think of a better choice. The fact that "consultants" on the film include original trilogy writer Lawrence Kasdan, as well as George Lucas, fills me with hope that finally Star Wars will return to the big screen with a story worthy of the name.

But mystery surrounded the director's chair. Who would get the nod? A young director, like the George Lucas of 1977? Or a left-field but ultimately brilliant choice like The Empire Strikes Back's Irvin Kershner? In the end, you could say Lucasfilm has played it safe. They've gone to a big name. But that by no means makes it a bad choice. Abrams has pedigree in melding exciting sci-fi action with likeable characters and witty direction. He has shown he has the much-needed bottle to take on an established franchise and an army of often cranky fans. But most importantly of all, he makes damned enjoyable films.

I shall follow his progress with great interest. Star Wars is back.

Get in.

Adaptation and the Hobbit

My last post on The Hobbit got me thinking. The process of adaptation is a tricky one, isn't it? While the existence of a novel, say, gives some advantages in terms of "prepared" characters and plot, in other ways adaptation is probably a more difficult task than writing your own material. Those difficulties arguably multiply if the book being adapted is a beloved and/or acclaimed title. For throughout the process of adaptation you must serve two masters -- doing justice to the book to avoid the pitchforks of angry fans, whilst at the same time crafting a film that is effective in the new medium for all viewers.

Those twin masters will occasionally make seemingly contradictory demands. How does the adaptor approach what might be considered narrative failures in the source material? Maintain them for fidelity's sake or correct them for the film's? The ideal of course is to find some middle way that improves the film experience for the majority whilst not pissing off the fan minority. That's no easy task.

Based on the evidence of the first film, in adapting The Hobbit, I think Peter Jackson's team erred too much on the side of respecting the source material. I remember from The Lord of the Rings DVD special features (I am a film geek), how the writers spoke about their more daring departures from the source text in earlier versions of the script and how as each iteration of the film developed, they moved closer to Tolkien. I wonder now whether that process was actually vital to the crafting of those films -- they first and foremost concentrated on writing them as films, before pulling back in places. Having gone through that process on the earlier films however, perhaps this time they didn't feel the need to pursue more radical surgery first.

That's pure supposition of course, but one does feel watching The Hobbit that the book's every comma has been considered for inclusion and that less attention has been given to the overall story experience. But perhaps that is always the danger when it comes to adapting beloved books that have had years to seep into the public conscience.

By contrast less established books do not offer such problems. Michael Crichton's novel Jurassic Park, for instance, was optioned before it was even released and though a best-seller, it had hardly reached cult untouchable status by the time the film was released. It was in some ways perfect for adaptation, possessing a killer concept and some memorable set-pieces, but not so well-established that the many changes the film had to make would be greatly resisted.

I have read an earlier draft of Jurassic Park which stuck much more rigidly to the book's rather convoluted structure. The presence of this "additional" material however leaves the script feeling rushed as it jolts from plot point to plot point without any sense of the wonder that the novel and finished film conveyed so well. In sticking closely to the book that draft of the script in fact delivered an experience far removed from it.

True fidelity to source material, if that is your aim (some adaptations are more daring in this regard than others), comes in recreating the emotions and experiences felt reading the book, not in transliterating page by page to the screen. The exact mechanics of how those feelings are achieved -- the plot and cast composition etc -- can, and arguably must, change to suit the different media. Ironically enough, when an adaptation fails the audience often blames it on the film's divergence from source material -- I would argue that often the reverse is true, that not enough has been changed.