Genre: Dark Comedy/Thriller
Premise: (from Black List) After catching her husband in bed with a hooker, which causes him to die of a heart attack, Sue Bottom buries the body and takes advantage of the local celebrity status that comes from having a missing husband.
About: Today’s script finished on the 2017 Black List just under yesterday’s script, When Lightning Strikes, with 19 votes. This one came out of nowhere. It was absent from The Hit List, which charts the best spec scripts of the year, making its Top 10 ranking on the Black List a mystery in itself. Whatever the case, it’s safe to say this is Amanda Idoko’s breakthrough screenplay.
Writer: Amanda Idoko
Details: 118 pages

I like when writers do this.

Take a popular premise from recent years (Gone Girl) and spin it in a slightly different way. It’s like a cheat code to compete with established IP. The letters “IP” basically stand for “Green Light” in Hollywood and that’s because audiences are familiar with the material, guaranteeing that at least someone shows up to the theater. So when you spin a new idea out of a recent film, you’re hacking the IP DNA, giving yourself an attachment to a successful experience that isn’t yours. Genius!

But how bout the script itself? Was it as good as Gone Girl? Actually, Idoko takes her cues from two other famous directors, the Coens, turning a traditionally male-led genre into a female one. Let’s see how it fares.

Sue Bottom is hopelessly hanging onto the belief that her marriage is okay. The 40-something office worker who’s so invisible that people literally run into her during the day, walks around listening to affirmation-based recordings, reminding herself that she has high self-worth and lots to offer the world.

When Sue shows up to her husband Bill’s work in hopes of a birthday date, she’s shocked to see him buy some flowers and drive to a local motel. Once she’s able to locate his room, she walks in to see Bill banging an extremely large woman named Leah. As soon as the putz sees his wife, he has a heart attack and dies.

An angry Sue tells Leah to scram and then concocts a wild plan. She’ll bury her husband, trash their home, tell the world he was abducted, and have the entire nation feeling sorry for her. Darn it if Sue won’t finally be visible.

What Sue doesn’t know is that her husband was laundering money for a local Indian crime boss, whose hit man & woman found him through Bill’s waste of a brother, Petey. When Petey learns that his brother is missing, he assumes that the Indian duo have kidnapped him for not paying them back. So Petey comes to Sue, assuring her that he knows where Bill is and will get him back.

Meanwhile, Sue finds out the hard way that nobody cares about a middle aged man gone missing. So she doubles-down on her idea, telling the local news that Bill had information on the whereabouts of a famous missing girl.

This gets the nation’s attention, and soon Sue is being doted on by everyone who used to ignore her. However, as the police start connecting the dots of Bill’s “abduction,” they find that literally none of what Sue is saying makes sense. Which means it’s only a matter of minutes before Sue’s fifteen are up.

Breaking News in Yuba County was like a satisfying two eggs, two pieces of toast, breakfast. You nailed the toasting process. It was toasted just enough that it wasn’t limpy but not so much that it could double as a fossilized rock. You didn’t overcook the eggs for once. A little extra butter gave it that naughty kick. It’s the kind of breakfast that starts a day off right. However, it’s not a meal you’re going to list as one of your favorites.

That’s what’s frustrating about Yuba County. It’s the type of wacky idea that needs to be great to work. Whenever you’re following a group of crazy characters, linking all of their plotlines together and setting things up and paying them off every few pages – when all of that comes together, it’s the closest thing in screenwriting to a symphony. And while Yuba County’s arrangement was definitely pleasing to listen to, something was missing.

There was this screenwriting book that came out 20 years ago. I forget the exact title, but I think it was called, “Liked it Didn’t Love It.” This is a critical phrase in the Hollywood ecosystem because it encompasses the large majority of scripts being passed around.

There’s so much competency in the screenwriting trade that you read a lot of stuff that you “like.” But there are very few times that you “love” something. And those are the scripts that matter. Because it’s the “love” script that gets you to the mountaintop, that gets you bought, that gets you produced, that gets people to pay $15 to see your movie. So understanding the difference between a “like” and “love” script is critical to your own success as a screenwriter.

Unfortunately, it isn’t always clear why we “like” something but don’t “love” it. It’s just a feeling we get. How does one quantify that and turn it into a series of actionable steps to make the script better? The first thing you need to do is to strip away all the screenwriting gobbledygook and ask yourself purely as an audience member: “Why didn’t I love this?” Once you identify that, you can start to inspect WHY that’s the case.

When I look back at Yuba County, I keep going back to the main character, Sue. There was something about her that I didn’t like. As all Scriptshadow readers know, if the reader doesn’t love the main character, they’re going to have a hard time loving the story. Now that I’ve identified the problem, I can get into the screenwriting gobbledygook. WHY didn’t I like Sue Bottom?

Sue was overcooked. She wasn’t just ignored. She was CHRONICALLY IGNORED. She came home and her husband, sitting right there, didn’t notice her. She sits at a table with two other people at work. They don’t know she’s there. She’s in line at the store. Someone rams into her because they don’t see her. Everyone forgets her birthday. Her sister uses her. Everywhere we turn, Sue is being aggressively ignored.

I understand that this is to set up Sue’s need for attention. But the problem with going overboard on ANYTHING is that you start to bring attention to it. And once that happens, the reader becomes aware that the writer is trying to manipulate them. Which means the suspension of disbelief is broken.

Remember guys and gals, one of the most important components of writing is being INVISIBLE. You don’t want to announce “HERE I AM! THE WRITER, PULLING THE STRINGS! MANIPULATING YO ASS.” So when it comes to setting up a character like Sue, you don’t have to go 5th gear in every scene driving the point home. Drive it home hard in her introductory scene, then do so subtly in a few subsequent scenes. Because, again, the last thing you want is your reader not believing that your main character is a real person. That’s the character we have to believe in the most.

I’m being hyper-critical to make my point. But I don’t want you to think this script was bad. I actually kept marveling at how much work must’ve gone into connecting all these storylines. And the decision to place a female character in the middle of a Coen Brothers’ish script is something I don’t think they’ve done before, unless you count Francis McDormand as the main character in Fargo. And, again, it was a fun ride. I just left the ride feeling like there could’ve some bigger drops and extra loops. I wanted my Coen Brothers cake and to eat it too.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: The Rule of Threes is a good starting point if you’re trying to figure out how hard to drive something home. So, if you’re trying to drive home that Sue is always ignored, you’d give us three moments of her getting ignored. Of course, there should be variation in the execution of these moments. They shouldn’t all be “screaming from the rooftops” moments of her being ignored. One of those moments could be big, one medium, and one subtle. — Also, The Rule of Threes is a STARTING POINT. Like anything in writing, its use will vary depending on the script.

Genre: Biopic
Premise: (from Black List) The true story of 25-year-old Joanne Rowling as she weathers first loves, unexpected pregnancies, lost jobs, and depression on her journey to create Harry Potter.
About: Today’s script finished high on 2017’s Biopik List – er, Black List – with 20 votes (no. 6 overall). The writer, Anna Klasen, is a newbie. She got some attention earlier in the year for a pilot she wrote. But this is effectively her breakthrough screenplay.
Writer: Anna Klassen
Details: 116 pages

I chose today’s script for a very specific reason.

Motivation.

J.K. Rowling is the greatest success story in literary history. Between the money she got from writing the Harry Potter series and receipts from the movie adaptations, Rowling’s net worth is said to be approaching 1 billion dollars. Just think about that for a second. For typing words on a piece of paper, someone has made 1 BILLION dollars. I don’t know about you but I think that’s pretty damn cool.

And yet today’s script isn’t about counting checks. It’s about the less heralded aspects of writing. The perseverance that’s required. One’s ability to overcome doubt. Not listening to the more “practical” minded people around you. Taking on the devil known as Procrastination. It’s conquering those little things that nobody outside the arts understands.

When Lightning Strikes does this really neat thing in its final scene. It shows Joanne (as she’s introduced here) sitting down to finally write Harry Potter. It then flash-forwards to all of her amazing successes (climbing to the top of the best seller list, going to the premier of the first movie, signing books for adoring fans) and then cuts back to her in that room, alone, before any of it has happened, before she’s typed a word. For all she knows, this book will sell 10 copies. It’s a powerful reminder of why we do this – because amazing things can happen on the other side of those pages.

25 year-old Joanne Rowling works in the refugee branch of Amnesty International. She’d be helping less fortunate people find better lives if she wasn’t so achingly awful at her job. Joanne’s a scatterbrain – her mind always 20 minutes behind or 20 minutes ahead of where everyone else is. This makes her ineffective to the point where she gets fired.

The bad news keeps dumbledoring when Joanne’s mother dies after a long illness. Her mom, it turns out, was the only person who encouraged Joanne to write. So losing her is a major blow.

Joanne is so eager to escape England, she takes a teaching job in Portugal, a country she knows nothing about. Once there, she meets a scholarly rogue named Jorge, a guy she kind of likes, but whose constant drinking leaves her unsure if he’s the one. And then she gets pregnant.

While the weight of that situation settles in, Joanne keeps getting ideas for a book about a boy who goes to wizarding school. But that’ll have to wait while she gets married and tries to manage life as an adult. However once her child’s born, Jorge’s drinking gets worse, and she decides to leave him and the country forever, flying back to the UK.

With no jobs and no prospects, an increasingly depressed Joanne must apply for state financial aid. Things get so bad she even considers suicide. However, something keeps driving her to write that story about the boy who goes to wizarding school. So she takes out the box of all the paper scraps and knick-knacks she’s written ideas for the book on, and begins to write what will become the most popular book series in history.

I don’t know the difference between a Hermione and a Dumbledore, which makes me the perfect person to read this script. I can judge it on its story alone, and not on how slyly the writer references the inspiration behind Severenus Snape. Let’s face it. Ever since “George Lucas in Love,” the formula for these scripts has become as predictable as a Quidditch Match between Gryffindor and Wimbourne.

But what’s unique about “When Lightning Strikes” is that, despite being about the most famous author in the world, there isn’t any writing in it! That’s smart when you think about it. As we’ve established here before, the act of writing is one of the most boring things in the universe. It’s hard to dramatize. So what better way to get around that than to not show it?

The question then becomes, is a non-writing JK Rowling’s life interesting enough to watch an entire movie on? That one I’m not so sure about. One of the first things I do after reading a script about a famous person is ask, “Would that have been interesting had the person not been a celebrity?” Does the story work on its own? Or does it only work because you know this is going to become JK Rowling? If you’re leaning on that the whole script, you’re not making your story as good as it can be.

And the juiciest parts of JK’s journey – while good enough for a documentary or a TV movie – weren’t exciting enough to merit the feature treatment. For example, we have Jorge. Jorge is a drunk. And one night, while drunk, he hits Joanne. She’s devastated, takes her child, and leaves the country. I’m not saying hitting someone is okay. But I guess I was expecting the abuse here to be more of a constant if it was going to affect the story that much? Not a one-time drunken thing.

Or there was the stuff about JK having depression. All we get there is Joanne admitting to a therapist that she sometimes thinks of harming herself, and then a later scene where she looks at a razor for three seconds. “When Lightning Strikes” wants so badly for you to feel its weight and yet it never pushes down. Looking at a razor for three seconds doesn’t convince me that Joanne is suicidal just as a single drunken tussle doesn’t convince me that Joanne endured an unbearable abusive relationship. Even when she was on government aid, I never felt like Joanne was in danger.

And with these stories, that’s the objective. The journey can’t just feel difficult. It must feel impossible. We have to wonder how the main character is going to overcome this. Because remember, we already know that JK Rowling becomes a billionaire. So if she’s not overcoming impossible obstacles to reach that point, why is that a story worth telling? If her journey is only “kinda hard,” is it one the world should hear? Or is it better left to a Wikipedia entry?

With that said, When Lightning Strikes gives us plenty to think about as writers, starting with the title. “When Lightning Strikes.” Is that all zeitgeist novels and films are? Lightning in a bottle? Are our digital documents evenly weighted lottery tickets and nothing more? I don’t think so. I believe that you can align the variables (clever concept, marketable premise, practice practice practice) so that the storm forms around you, increasing the chances that the lightning will strike nearby.

“I’m hoping to do some good in the world.” This is a line Joanne thinks of early in the script and writes down (I’m assuming it was used in the book). I’m not a fan of writing non-specific lines down and then looking for somewhere to put them. Good writing comes organically and the best lines tend to arrive in the moment, as you’re writing the scene. If you’re going into a scene rearranging the characters and the setting and the dialogue rhythm all so you can put in some cool line you thought of 7 months ago, you’re losing the game of screenwriting. Of course, if the line you thought of 7 months ago happens to fit into your story perfectly, use it!

When Lightning Strikes is also a reminder that you’re never going to encounter the perfect circumstances in life for writing. Writers are famous for telling themselves, “Well if I can just cut my hours down at work,” or “If I just had a partner who supported me,” or “Once school is over, I’ll have more time,” or “Once my 4 year old starts school, I’ll have a big chunk of time to write.” Life is ALWAYS going to make writing difficult. And you can’t use that as an excuse. Part of succeeding as a writer is writing when you don’t have the time, when don’t feel like it, when you’re waiting for better circumstances to arise. The next Harry Potter ain’t going to write itself, dude.

While “When Lightning Strikes” offered some slight differences in the writer-biopic formula, it wasn’t enough to get me to cast my best Avada Kedavra spell. This felt too light and feathery. I expected heavier. Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to go google what Avada Kedavra means then decide if I’m Team Ron or Team Harry.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: In the opening scene of When Lightning Strikes, which takes place on a train, Joanne gets the idea for Harry Potter and must find a pen so she can write it down. She desperately asks everyone around if they have a pen and no one does. However, she eventually finds one and is able to get the idea down. — I have a controversial belief when it comes to idea generation. If you have to write a movie (or book) idea down to remember it, it’s not a great movie or book idea. If you’ve got a great idea, YOU WILL REMEMBER IT. That’s what great ideas are. They’re unforgettable. If the next day you’re struggling to remember what that “great” idea was, there’s a good chance it wasn’t that great. Which is actually a nice indirect way of filtering out your weak ideas.

Welcome to the New Year!

If you’re anything like me, you’re saying, “What the hell? How did that go by so fast?” You’re probably also wondering how one more year slipped by without you getting any closer to your dream of becoming a professional screenwriter.

Take heed. I’m here to make sure that doesn’t happen again.

The first step in achieving any dream is setting goals. And the first day of the year is a great time to start. You’re rejuvenated. You’re excited. And you have a clear sense of time to work with. I promise you this. If you leave your writing up to a vague set of circumstances, you won’t have anything to target and you’ll be at the exact same place this time next year. So let’s figure out how to set up and execute goals.

Most writers don’t truly understand screenwriting until their sixth script. That’s when your grasp of the various elements specific to screenwriting (dialogue, structure, character-building) finally come together in a way where you can shift your focus to the more important element of screenwriting – telling a good story. “Six scripts” isn’t a hard and fast number, of course. But it’s a good reference point.

Keeping that in mind, you should be aiming to write two scripts a year, or one script every six months. That way, by year 3, you’re a legitimate threat. Some writers ego-write so they can say they’ve written 4, 5, even 6 scripts a year. But I find this exercise to be pointless. Anything written in two months or less, unless you’re one of the better screenwriters on the planet, tends to be thin and dumb. Six months is an adequate amount of time for you to write something legitimately good.

Obviously, six months is different depending on how many hours you write a day. So the math I’m using is 2-3 hours a day 7 days a week. This may seem excessive to some. But all one needs to look at is athletes or skilled professions to see that those people put AT LEAST 2-3 hours a day into their education. The only reason I’m going with this low a number is because I know most aspiring screenwriters have jobs and families. So I’m assuming you’re squeezing out hours whenever you can find them. If you’re one of the lucky few with time to spare, take advantage of it!

In addition to picking your two screenplays to write, find any way possible to hold yourself accountable. Tell a friend you’re going to have a draft for them to read at [said date]. Pick a screenwriting contest for each half-year. E-mail me and tell me you’re going to submit a script to Amateur Offerings on so-and-so date. The more dates you have locked up, the more accountable you’ll feel, and the more likely you’ll be to push through.

Another thing you should aim to achieve is NOT GIVING UP ON YOUR SCRIPTS. When we did the 3-month writing challenge, a lot of people fell by the wayside. They couldn’t keep up with the intense pace. My experience with why people give up on something is that they run into a problem they can’t solve. Maybe a major character isn’t working. Maybe you can’t figure out a key plot point. Maybe you run out of ideas to keep the story moving. You’ll fight for a solution for a few days, maybe a week, decide that it’s too hard, put the script down for a few days. A few days turns into a week. A week turns into a month. And the next thing you know, you’ve given up.

Here’s a secret you may not know about major script problems. They often result in the biggest story breakthroughs. The amount of thought and analysis put into the problem necessitates that you inspect your story on a much deeper level. It’s through that introspection that a new, way better idea than you could’ve possibly imagined, takes hold. So don’t think of these problems as “problems.” Think of them as opportunities for major breakthroughs.

Also, understand that they WILL happen. If your script is easy to write, you’re probably not challenging yourself enough. So have a game plan ready for these moments. Here are a few solutions for problem-solving. Solution 1 is to shift your focus to a different part of the story. Sure, that plot point may be problematic. But there’s no reason you can’t go back and implement those new ideas you had for your main character. Or write around the problematic section of the story, continuing on with the script. If you know exactly what your ending is going to be regardless of the problematic plot point, go write the ending. Often times advancing one section of a script leads to new ideas for another section. So that may be how you solve your problem.

Solution 2 is to simul-write. Instead of writing 1 script for the first six months of the year and a second script for the second six months of the year. Write them simultaneously, bouncing back and forth between the two based on which one is inspiring you more. I know a lot of writers write this way. What happens is that the different scripts jog different components of your creativity, so that when you jump back to the other script, your mind is reinvigorated with new ideas. Just make sure you’re still adhering to a schedule (a page number each day, regardless of which script you’re working on).

Solution 3 is to place-hold. If you have a problem with a character or a plot point, write a place-holder “generic” version of it. You may not love that version, but if it helps you to keep writing, that’s better than giving up on the script entirely. Again, when you write, you’re keeping a continuous stream of ideas flowing through your mind. Which means you’ll be more likely to come up with solutions for that problem, which you can then go back and implement. If you stop writing, you stop the stream. It’s still possible to come up with ideas, of course. But the process will be more “start-stop,” and offer less return on your investment.

In addition to setting goals for your writing, set goals for your learning. Pick 2-3 components of screenwriting that you’ve either been told you’re weak at or that you know are weak, and strive to improve them this year. Maybe it’s dialogue. Maybe it’s learning how to arc a character. Maybe it’s structure. Maybe it’s suspense or GSU (goal, stakes, urgency) or conflict or learning to build during your second act. Make it a goal to master those 2-3 things by the end of year. Read about them. Place special attention on them in your writing. When you get feedback or notes from me, specifically ask how you did in those areas. The more you’re targeting something, the more likely you are to get better at it.

And that’s it. Write hard and write often. Fight the negative voices in your head (“This article from Carson is all well and good, but I take longer to write scripts because I’m different”). You’re all capable of this if you put in the work and the focus. Below I’m including my 3-month schedule to write a screenplay. Simply double the time within each section so that the process equals half a year. Follow it to a “T,” use it as a guide, or use it as inspiration and do it your own way. The most important thing is that you’re not just writing, but producing fully fleshed out screenplays you can send into the world by the end of 2018. Now go forth and kick ass already. You deserve it!

How to Write a Screenplay in 3 Months:

Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
Week 7
Week 8
Week 9
Week 10
Week 11
Week 12

The Last Jedi has had quite the journey over its first week. It was anointed the boldest Star Wars movie ever before it came out. Initial reviews tabbed it as groundbreaking and “maybe the best Star Wars movie ever!” However, people began to notice a strange trend emerging. While the blockbuster had scored a 93% with critics on Rotten Tomatoes, the audience score on the site was a paltry 55%. This led to rumors (even articles) attributing these reviews to a targeted campaign by everyone from original Star Wars fans still living in their basements to the Alt-Right. But as more audience members came away underwhelmed, it was clear that the latest Star Wars movie had problems.

How big those problems are depends on who you talk to. But it’s concerning that even the people who liked the film hated the Canto Bight plot line, which took up an entire fifth of the movie. One place to measure a film’s success is at the box office. The Star Wars franchise is hard to judge since they’re big enough to hit 500 million even with a bad film. But The Last Jedi is an enormous 170 million dollars behind The Force Awakens over the same period of time (first 11 days).

If the box office continues to fall at this rate, Disney will need to make a hard decision. They’ll either have to paint the film as divisive and cling to the narrative that the original trilogy’s second film was divisive as well. Or they’ll need to make a public apology about the way this film was handled, particularly with what they did to Luke Skywalker.

This statement may sound ridiculous. But if you alienate the hard core fans of your franchise, which The Last Jedi has done, there’s going to be a trickle-down effect. When the most vocal cheerleaders of your franchise begin cheering for its demise, it’s an indication that you did something wrong. This happened with both Man of Steel and Batman vs. Superman and the result has left hundreds of millions of dollars on the table.

I’m still flummoxed by what Rian Johnson did with this film. He claims to be a huge Star Wars fan and yet nothing about his film speaks to that. He actively blows up all the major plot threads JJ put forth. And he handles Luke in a way that’s almost vindictive. Luke spends the entire film being bitter, avoids a final fight with the film’s villain, then dies alone. The indie film lover – the hard core cinephile who loves being challenged – gets high on choices like this. But the majority of Star Wars fans and moviegoers aren’t interested in “artistic street cred” choices. They just want a good Star Wars movie.

Rian Johnson isn’t completely to blame here. He’s pointed out in his interviews that Kathleen Kennedy let him do “whatever he wanted.” There was no “white board” with “all of the story beats laid out.” He had carte blanche. This is terrible management on Kennedy’s part. The second story of a trilogy is supposed to build on established plotlines from Film 1 and build towards an impending climax in Film 3. It’s arguable that The Last Jedi does neither. And if we’re to believe that what Rian Johnson is saying is true – that Kennedy didn’t give him any parameters – that’s a devastating indictment on Star Wars’s overseer, as it’s one of her primary jobs. That mistake has made the third story in this trilogy almost untellable.

To understand how to tell the middle chapter of a trilogy properly, one doesn’t need to look far. In The Empire Strikes Back, screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan builds up two major story threads by the end of his film. The first is that Han Solo has been captured and therefore needs to be rescued. The second is, will Luke defeat Darth Vader (and the Emperor)? In other words, Kasdan made sure his second film BUILT up two important questions that would make Return of the Jedi worth going to.

I’ve realized something about Johnson and it’s the primary reason we’re stuck in this predicament. He hates “mystery” or “question-based” storytelling. We saw this in the way he handled Force Awaken’s two major mysteries (Snoke and Rey’s parents), but you can also see it in the way he answers questions. One of the earliest mysteries fans gleefully speculated on was The Last Jedi title. Who was the “last Jedi?” Was it Luke? Was it Rey? Or, wait, wasn’t “Jedi” plural? Was it referring to multiple Jedi? When Johnson was finally asked this question, he shrugged out a, “Oh, it’s Luke,” the way a bully might march into your basketball game, take the ball, and boot it over the fence. Johnson has zero interest in the mystery/question storytelling form. And that’s fine. Every artist is entitled to their own style. But when the film you followed was built almost exclusively on that style, it’s confusing to the audience. This is something Kennedy should’ve kept closer tabs on.

All of this leads us to Episode 9, which has now become, if not the most difficult-to-write screenplay ever, definitely in the Top 5. You could go insane trying to figure out where the story should even start. Some people believe we’ll solve the problem of Johnson’s dramatically inert ending by jumping forward in time. Maybe pop in 5 years from now when Kylo has become as imposing as Vader and Rey is a Master Jedi. But would that work? The only thing The Last Jedi got right was the budding relationship between the two (whatever that relationship might be). You’re going to stop that cold and put five years in between their last meeting and this one? Not to mention you jumped between the first and second film instantaneously. Wouldn’t it feel jarring if, between the second and third film, we jumped ahead 5 years?

While the relationship between Kylo and Rey is interesting, it doesn’t have a story-friendly arc. The cool thing about Empire was that Luke was an ultimate underdog taking on two giants who couldn’t be beaten. But Rey is already a better fighter than Kylo. So there’s zero suspense in whether she’ll defeat him or not. I’m sure if Rian was making the third film, this wouldn’t concern him at all. He’d be more interested in Rey’s and Kylo’s internal struggles while they fought. That’s great for Sundance. But in a real Star Wars movie, we need suspense. We need to doubt that our hero will defeat the villain. Since The Last Jedi squashes that opportunity, I’m not sure what the audience is supposed to look forward to.

You could lay all the suspense on the Rebels vs. First Order plot. There’s a clear underdog in that scenario. But there are major challenges with that story as well. JJ can no longer use a super-weapon as a major plot device. It would’ve been nice, with the limitations on the character side, if we had a big weapon to alleviate some of that plot burden. But JJ used up the last super-weapon in the Star Wars bag on Force Awakens. So there’s no central “thing” to destroy anymore.

On top of this, Episode 9 has the task of explaining why two entire movies have gone by where the hero has become a trained Jedi without any training. And this is where Johnson’s and Kennedy’s mis-management has really placed the trilogy in a bind. There’s no question that Rey was related to a previous Star Wars Jedi in JJ’s version. That’s how he could explain Rey being as powerful as Kylo. With Johnson making Rey’s parents nobodies, it invalidates that reasoning, which means JJ has to come up with a new reason why Rey is so powerful without training. As a result we’re going to get some clunky explanation that will undo everything Rian set up, who ironically undid everything JJ set up. Watching these three movies in succession is going to be really jarring.

Where does that leave Episode 9? Is there any way to salvage the trilogy? Don’t get me wrong. I’d take the 7 figure check to give it the old college try in a heartbeat. But I don’t envy the job that JJ and Chris Terrio have. Here’s my best guess at where they’ll take it…

Episode 9’s opening crawl will alert us that a year has passed, enough time to fill out some of the Rebel ranks. On the character side, Kylo will be ruling the galaxy with reckless abandon, attempting to take over every planet in sight. He wants to do more than Vader did. And he’s gone even more nuts than Vader was in trying to accomplish that goal.

But Kylo will be lonely. His mentor is now half-and-half. His nemesis astral-projected himself to death. His parents are both goners. Which is why he’s consumed with getting Rey to join him. For this storyline to work, there’s only one place for JJ to go. Kylo and Rey have to be brother and sister. It’s going to be a miserable bout of exposition explaining how this happened (why her parents ditched her, or if Leia had a child with someone else once Han left), but it’s the only way this trilogy can be wrapped up nicely. Kylo and Rey need to be siblings.

Meanwhile, Poe and Finn (who’s hopefully left Rose in the trash compactor) travel to a planet known for having fierce but morally questionable fighters. They need soldiers to take down the First Order and they’ve come here to try and convince this planet to join the cause. They’ll have some adventures on this planet and eventually convince the people to come help. Yippee dee, the Rebels have an army again.

Now we have to destroy the First Order somehow. We don’t have a Death Star as an option. Trying to destroy an entire fleet of ships is too logistically complicated and wouldn’t play well. So I’m thinking that the goal will be to infiltrate the First Order’s base planet – wherever that is – and destroy it. This will mean coming up with an elaborate plan that will require pin-point execution from all our beloved characters: back in ground control, in the air, and inside the First Order headquarters.

That’s the plot I’m expecting. But what is the plot that I want? Here’s the way I see it. You don’t need to honor anything Rian Johnson did since he sure as heck didn’t honor your story. Kathleen Kennedy can’t fire you under any circumstances. You’ve always been tabbed as the “big idea” guy who can’t answer questions, only ask them. Why not make Star Wars Episode 9 your big bad JJ Abrams experiment?

Make it 3 hours long. Not just cause that’d be nuts. But because it’s needed. You have to spend the first hour undoing most of what Johnson did then build up a whole new set of circumstances to play out. Bring in a new villain. That’s insane to do this late in the game but remember, you’re proving that JJ can be just as experimental as Rian. And make him badass. Give us Darth Maul but with more meat. Then, of course, make the Knights of Ren a major part of the plot. Maybe they’re out there scouring the galaxy for more Jedi for Kylo to train. I don’t know. Next we need more aliens in key roles. All the key characters now are played by humans. We need new good aliens, like Chewbacca. And new bad aliens, like Jabba. Get some bounty hunters in there. The Rebels have no choice but to hire them. That should be cool. And just get weird. I mean, who cares at this point? The rule of thumb now is make whatever movie you want. You might as well take advantage of that. And there’s nothing more that I’d like to see than unhinged balls-to-the-wall JJ. Sign me up!

Ho ho ho.

Merry Christmas to all!

I hope everyone got the gifts they asked Santa for. I’m still waiting on my 20 porgs but I know Santa’s busy. I’m sure he’ll be here any minute now.

I’ll keep you posted.