I was going to search out the Colin Trevorrow draft of Episode 9 and review it but the truth is, I’m kinda sick of Star Wars. I still love it but all the contentious buildup to the final movie exhausted me, as I think it did everyone. There was so much angst and conflict associated with the franchise that regardless of how the series turned out, you couldn’t help but feel like you needed time off.
So I did the lazy thing and looked at the Reddit summary of the script instead. Now as long as there’s been Hollywood, people have claimed that the original script was “better than the movie.” I’m guilty of this as well. I still contend the original Source Code script was way better than the movie they made. But the reality is, this claim is rarely true. If there’s a better version of the movie out there, they would’ve made that version. I say this as someone who’s gone back and read all the drafts of famous failed movies. Those old Alien 3 scripts? Not good. This amazing version of “I Am Legend” that’s supposedly out there. Not true. Even with how bad Indiana Jones 4 turned out, the other drafts weren’t any better.
Trevorrow’s Episode 9 opens on BB-8 and Rose Tico, which means, right there, you’ve ensured your movie is a step down from Rise of Skywalker. But in Trevorrow’s defense, he’d not yet seen The Last Jedi and Rian Johnson was probably talking up how Rose was going to be this game-changing character and Colin, eager to please his heroes, believed him.
From there, the Resistance steals a Star Destroyer and comes up with a plan to get to a First Order dominated Coruscant. There’s old tech there that will allow them to send a call for help to planets throughout the galaxy to help fight the First Order. Meanwhile, Rey is battling with whether she should redeem Kylo or not. And, in the script’s one inspired storyline, Kylo finds an old “contingency plan” message from The Emperor to Vader, saying that if Luke kills him, to go train under his master, a 7000 year old Super-Sith. So Kylo goes to him and trains.
Look, the plot isn’t as bad as you would expect it to be considering it got Colin Trevorrow fired. But is it any better than Rise of Skywalker? No. It’s just different. It would’ve sufficed as a final movie. But the reality is that JJ is a better director than Trevorrow so, with both scripts being equal, JJ’s movie would’ve been the better one.
I will say that Trevorrow’s draft seemed to be more fleshed out. For example, there was a nice parallel of Rey continuing to train with Luke and Kylo training with this new guy, organically setting up a final confrontation between the two Jedis. But the counter-argument to that is Rey and Ben teaming up to take down a threat bigger than both of them (the Emperor) is the more inspired choice. The duo teaming up is definitely less predictable.
At this point, though, it doesn’t matter. Star Wars needs an overhaul. Even the announcement that my current directing crush, Taika Waititi, is developing a Star Wars movie didn’t get me excited. Until someone from Disney steps up in front of the internet and gives us a clear plan on what they’re doing with the franchise – the way Kevin Feige does – I’m skeptical. Because up until this point, the franchise’s biggest misstep has been the randomness in which it operates. Give me a clear direction that explains how Star Wars is going to be fresh again and how all the movies are going to coincide with one another, then, and only then, will I hop back on the train.
Or if you announce a Babu Frik standalone movie of course.
By the way, I FINALLY popped in Gemini Man. “Gemini Man!!?” some of you are screaming. “Who the heck cares about Gemini Man!!?” For those who don’t know, Gemini Man was the last high concept spec script from the spec golden era. Twenty-plus years this thing has been in development. And while I wasn’t curious enough to spend 20 bucks at the theater to see how it turned out, I had no problem renting it for a fraction of that.
As I look at more and more projects through the lens of a producer, I become more in tune with how bad scripts get made. The Hollywood dominos are set up not to encourage the best script, but rather to get your movie made any way possible. It’s so hard to get a film made that even if you’re presented a second rate package, you take it because you never know if the opportunity will come again.
Gemini Man is the poster child for this. There’s something flawed about the concept for this movie. I don’t know what it is. I actually love the core idea of an assassin being hunted by the 30-years younger version of himself. But they’ve had 20 years and just as many writers trying to figure the script out and they haven’t been able to do it.
But, lo and behold, Will Smith and Ang Lee agree to do the movie. As a writer, I look at this and say, “Oh no.” Of all the 50+ actors on the planet, no one looks younger than Will Smith. This defeats the purpose of the film’s conceit – that the old man has to go up against his younger stronger faster self. So Smith is not right for the part. Ang Lee, meanwhile, is too cerebral for a movie like this. He’s a great filmmaker. But this is a Bruckheimer movie. And Lee doesn’t know how to make those. So he’s wrong too.
As a producer, however, I see it differently. It’s been 20+ years trying to get this movie made. I somehow got Will Smith to a) read it, and b) like it enough to sign on. This ensures an adequate amount of financing to do the movie justice. I’ve also got an A-list director who’s won Academy Awards before. For reasons I can’t explain, he wants to make this movie. And best of all, Smith wants to work with Lee. If Lee pulled out and I was forced to bring in, say, Peyton Reed, Smith would bail. I don’t know if I’ll ever have another chance to make this movie again so even though all these elements are wrong for the type of movie I’m trying to make, I’m going to pull the trigger.
You can almost talk yourself into it, can’t you? Ang Lee made Life of Pi, Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger, which were all amazing. Will Smith remains one of the most popular actors on the planet. This movie could be a critical AND a commercial success. I’m sure the same type of logic was applied to Dr. Doolittle. You’ve got the actor who just finished playing one of the most successful movie characters of all time. And you’ve got talking animals! There isn’t a single kid on the planet who doesn’t like animals. As a producer, there’s so much here that makes sense. But if you take one step outside the Hollywood bubble, you know that Dr. Doolittle is a dated property and that the project has a high probability of falling in between too silly for the 14 and up crowd and too adult for the Frozen and Pixar kiddies.
Look, none of this stuff is calculable. A lot of it is feel. With a few tweaks, who knows? Maybe Dr. Doolittle is the next Willy Wonka. But if you’re not evaluating it both from within the bubble and outside of it, there’s a higher probability for mistakes.
As for Gemini Man, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. But this script just seemed plagued by problems that couldn’t be solved, which put this awkward strain on the story whereby it’s spending half its time looking for a reason to exist. I mean there’s this scene early on where Will Smith’s character confronts the dock manager, who he’s convinced is a fellow CIA agent here to spy on him during his retirement. The woman tells him he’s crazy and that she has no idea what he’s talking about. After several more intense accusations, he switches gears and asks her out on a date, to which she agrees.
Let’s take a closer look at that, shall we? This woman, who really is CIA by the way, but is pretending not to be. She gets accused by a random man of being a secret agent, which would be unsettling at best and terrifying at worst for any woman in her situation. Yet she agrees immediately afterwards to go out on a date with him. It doesn’t make any sense. And that’s the kind of strain the script is always fighting, which makes it difficult to ever do what it needs to do, which is to have fun.
As for the final product, it isn’t bad. It has a fun motorcycle chase that, if I remember correctly, was one of the cornerstones of the spec. They clearly put a lot of effort into it and I loved the POV stuff down the tiny alleyways. But the movie can never escape its by-the-numbers plot. You’ve got the big bad agency head utilizing his secret clone program to take out his, now, compromised agent. There’s only so many ways you can spin that narrative. One of the biggest tells that a script isn’t working is when actors are having trouble connecting to their characters. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is so chilled out during this movie, you’d think she was popping Xanax between takes. Certain movies were never meant to be and this proved Gemini Man belonged in that category.
It’s not all gloom and doom though! I checked out the first episode of The Outsider last night and MAN was it good. I thought it was going to be another garden variety murder drama but the intensity of the show pushes it beyond anything you’re expecting. It made me realize just how dominant HBO is in the TV space. Their notoriously large development slate (over 100 shows in some form of development) and Game of Thrones style approach to production (only the best written shows get aired) ensure that every single show has something going for it. I mean you’ve got Succession, Barry, Watchman, Thrones, Curb, Chernobyl, Big Little Lies. We’re not talking AMC here, whose notches are years in the past. All of these shows are recent.
So when you say Hollywood doesn’t care about writing anymore, that’s not true. HBO cares A LOT about writing. I’m always learning stuff from their shows. Take The Outsider. A common piece of advice is, if you’ve got a dead body, you’ve got a show. But The Outsider taught me that a minor tweak to the formula can spin that setup in a fresh direction. The Outsider isn’t a whodunnit. It’s a “Did he do it?” At least so far. And by introducing the arrested character as a nice family man who we like, we don’t want him to have done it. So it creates this subterranean narrative whereby we’re hoping that the murderer isn’t the murderer. I can’t wait to dig into the second episode tonight.
I hope everyone is having a great holiday weekend. Let me know your thoughts on today’s post in the comments section!
