A writer who’s been dead for over a hundred years pens today’s screenplay. Well…kinda.

Genre: Sci-Fi
Premise: A sci-fi retelling of the The Count Of Monte Cristo.
About: Cristo sold last year to Warner Brothers and later made the lower half of the Black List. Alfonso Cuaron (Children Of Men) is attached to direct. Shorr, the writer, has recently worked on the remake of Ride!, an old John Wayne Western, and Substitution, about a murder plot spearheaded by a substitute teacher. The original writer of “Monte Cristo,” Frenchman Alexandre Dumas, penned an outline of the novel which his frequent ghostwriter then expanded upon. Dumas, of course, is also the creator of The Three Muskateers.
Writer: Ian Shorr (inspired by “The Count of Monte Cristo” by Alexandre Dumas)
Details: 121 pages – undated (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

I don’t know about you, but I really liked the 2003 adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo. I thought it was tres well-directed, even though we haven’t seen much of Kevin Reynolds since. You guys remember Reynolds, right? The infamous director of Waterworld? Oh wait a minute. Kevin Reynolds didn’t direct Waterworld. Kevin Costner did! Because Costner is INSANE. I suppose if I was part of that production, I’d take a decade or two between projects also.

What are we talking about again? Oh yeah, The Count Of Monte Cristo. What I was getting at was that this is one of those stories that resonates no matter what generation you’re in. It’s about injustice, greed, revenge, hope. It cuts to the core of what gets us human beings riled up. So it seems like a no-brainer, in retrospect, that someone would take this story into the future. And that’s where today’s review begins. The future. “The future Carson?” “Yes, Review, it’s time to look all the way to the year…2000.”

Actually, Cristo takes us much further into the future than that, where we meet 13-year-old Coleman. As a homeless orphan, Coleman doesn’t have many options other than to join a gang. So he finds himself bouncing around with the wrong crowd, burglarizing anywhere that has a whiff of money to it.

The leader of the gang, a slimy rat named Pheng, decides to make a much bigger score, though, and rob a house up in the suburbs. And when I say “up,” I literally mean “up.” Floating safely above the scum and lowest common denominators of the city is a suburb…in the air.

Pheng constructs the elaborate heist on one of the homes. But when the team encounters a few unexpected setbacks, Coleman gets left to take the blame. Talk about life on the streets! Or…err…*above* the streets.

To Coleman’s surprise, however, the owner of the estate, a kind man named McCormick, doesn’t press charges. He takes a liking to Coleman and gives him a job, to which Coleman throws every ounce of his soul into.

His exhaustive work ethic contrasts sharply with McCormick’s son, Max, who’s about the same age as Coleman, and works on the theory of privilege – that when you’re born into the good life, everything should be handed to you. As the two boys grow up together, McCormick finds himself gravitating more towards Coleman than his own son, which is not lost on Max.

After years of being neglected for this scrapper, Max has had enough of both his father and Coleman. So he recruits none other than Pheng to off his dad and make it look like Coleman did it. The plan works perfectly and Coleman is sent halfway across the galaxy to a prison planet.

It’s there where he meets the eccentric Gabriel Maldestados. Gabrielle bides time by turning human beings into candle wax. Hey, a man’s gotta have some light to read! Gabrielle takes a liking to Coleman and teaches him everything he knows about conning and fighting and…turning people into candles.

Oh, and let’s not forget that Gabriel also stole a few tens of billions of dollars and stashed it on another planet. So when Coleman escapes and finds the money, he’s able to go back and exact revenge on Max, who has since taken everything Coleman once had.

I thought Cristo was kind of cool. First of all, I love this story. The setup of a man being deceived and then charged for something he didn’t do is basically the ideal recipe to create sympathy for a character. There isn’t a person on earth who isn’t rooting for Coleman after what he went through.

And then there’s the neat twist of the “scrapper” becoming the billionaire. It’s kind of like the nerd who always got bullied showing up to the ten year reunion stronger than everyone. You can’t wait to see everybody’s reaction.

But what was cool about “Cristo” was that this was the first time I was looking at the story through the prism of script analysis. And from that end, I realized how difficult this story was to tell. I mean there is *so much plot* in this tale. We start out as a kid on the streets robbing a floating suburb. We cut to many years later when he’s grown up and working for the people he robbed. Then we’re sent to a prison on another planet. Then we’re traveling around the galaxy on a ship looking for hidden money. Then we come back and finish everything on Earth.

If I were to see this in outline form, I’d be terrified for the writer. I don’t think that’s talked about enough in screenwriting – how the amount of plot can affect your story. Because if you add too much plot, then you’re spending all your time just working through the mechanics of your story. You’re forced into a lot of exposition (“We need to go here before we go here and then we gotta go here!”), and that can bog down the naturalism of the movie. So to navigate that can be tricky.

And yet I thought Shorr did a solid job. Despite all the jumping around, I still felt an emotional connection to Coleman, which is the most important thing. It also goes to show what a time-tested story can do for you. If something’s been popular for 150 years, there’s usually a reason for that. The story works. So you trust it.

Still, I’m amazed at how complicated the structure is here. The most interesting part, which is the Count coming back, newly rich, newly powerful, intent on enacting revenge, doesn’t happen until the third act of the screenplay! So you’re squeezing the coolest part of your story all into a single act.

In today’s approach to storytelling, you’d probably want this happening by the end of the first act. So you’d start your character in jail. Maybe have some flashbacks to indicate how he got here. Then you’d have him escaping by page 15, finding the gold soon after, and then arriving back on earth by page 30. You’d then use the bulk of the movie to see this newly powerful mystery man weave his way into Max’s private upscale society in order to finally murder him. This, for example, is how Gangs Of New York is structured.

But that’s not really how they told stories back in the day, which means, once modernized, you have a structure that both hinders as well as sets the script apart. It’s similar, in that sense, to It’s A Wonderful Life, which also would be rewritten today to have George Bailey experiencing his life-changing moment on page 30, not page 90.

I don’t know, I just think structure is fascinating, so I found this one a delight to examine, especially because it still works despite its old-fashioned approach. I also loved the delightfully quacky Gabriel. I liked that the sci-fi update gave the material a fresh feel. And I liked our hero Coleman, who was sympathetic to the core. I’d still probably try to get to the jail segment faster and bring Coleman back to earth sooner, but I admit I have no idea how to do that. I liked Cristo. Solid script!

[ ] Wait for the rewrite
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: One of the easiest ways to get a script sold or get people interested in material is to take a classic story and place it in a different setting. Maybe it’s in a different location. Maybe it’s in a different time. Maybe it’s with a different class of people. These ideas always get producers excited because stories that stand the test of time are much stronger bets than new stories which haven’t withstood anything.

Roger Balfour comes back from the dead again to review a script that I’m reasonably certain was written exclusively for him. Jack The Ripper…and vampires.

Today’s screenplay will make you reevaluate just how bad your kids really are.

Genre: Comedy-Horror
Premise: A young married couple who can’t conceive decide to use in vitro fertilization. They realize something’s off, however, when their son starts acting like Satan.
About: You might remember this writer as he’s the same writer who wrote The Wedding, the comedy I reviewed a couple of weeks ago about a particularly memorable wedding. I liked that script so much that I went searching for anything else by Goldberg and found this. Let’s hope it was worth the search!
Writer: Andrew Goldberg
Details: 107 pages – June 1, 2010 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

A few months ago I reviewed a script called Zombie Baby. It was about the unique challenges a young couple went through while raising a baby…who was a ZOMBIE. Then, last week a script sold called Hell Baby. I’m not sure what that one’s about but I can probably guess. Today I’m reviewing a script called “My Son Is The Fucking Anti-Christ.” It’s about a couple who learns their young son is the spawn of Satan.

As I tried to get to the source of this latest comedy trend, I came to the conclusion that there are just a lot of fucked up parents out there who happen to be writers. I mean clearly, these scripts are written by people who have children and who either think of them as the devil, or wonder what it would be like if they were the devil. Whatever the case, these people need help. But that doesn’t mean their scripts can’t be funny. And since I really liked Zombie Baby, I was expecting to like “Anti-Christ” as well.

We’re in Costa Mesa San Diego, where I hear the weather is just fab, and that’s where we meet Tim Baker, a likable sort of doofus in his 30s. Tim and his wife Julia are in the middle of being told by their doctor that Tim’s sperm suck. They try *really hard* to swim to Julia’s egg but give up a quarter of the way through. Could this be a metaphor for Tim as well? I don’t know. I’m not sure I’m looking for a lot of metaphors in a script titled “My Son Is The Fucking Anti-Christ.”

Anyway, Tim’s bummed that he’s never going to have kids. But after Julia cheers him up, she offers an alternative. Why don’t they go to a sperm bank and get somebody else’s sperm? It’ll cost them a little money but at least they’ll have a child.

Like most men, Tim isn’t keen on having a baby that isn’t technically his. But in the end, Julia talks him into it, and the next thing Tim knows, he’s browsing through a donor brochure.

Now when you go to a sperm bank there are the top level sperm, the stuff from astrophysicists and world-class lawyers, and then there’s the “B” level sperm, which basically amounts to the guy who stumbles off the street and needs a few extra bucks for his next crack high.

Unfortunately, the couple can only afford the “crack high” group, and since Tim doesn’t want his son to have four nipples, he’s ready to walk out. But at the last second, they find a seemingly perfect donor, someone they assume that the sperm bank mixed into the B group by accident. So Julia gets impregnated by our frozen mystery man and nine months later they have a baby, Zander.

Zander grows up as a normal cheery fun cute boy. But when he reaches six, strange things start happening around him. For example, his schoolteacher zombie-walks into the middle of the street where she meets the face of a bus at 40 miles per hour.

The death is a little suspicious, but nobody thinks much of it until the funeral. It’s there, in front of a large audience, where the priest launches into a graphic eulogy which includes how much he wants to bang the dead corpse of our deceased teacher. And oh yeah, a nefarious-looking Zander watches on with a smile.

Afterwards, the priest approaches Tim and Julia and insists that he was possessed by Satan’s son during the speech, and oh yeah, Satan’s son is Zander!

Naturally, Tim thinks the priest is crazy. We all know these church workers have weird relationships with little boys. But after recruiting his semi-retarded best friend, Gary, Tim finds enough evidence to support the priest’s theory.

It’s not easy learning that your beautiful little six-year old boy dreams of burning all human being in an eternal fire, so Tim isn’t sure what to do. It’s not like you can bribe the spawn of Satan with a Tickle-Me Elmo. It also doesn’t help that the wifey doesn’t believe anything Tim says. But when Zander decides to escalate the destruction, Tim will need to figure out a way to not only save his family, but save the world.

As I tackle other questions in the movie world like, “I thought that the Twilight movies were over. Why is there another one coming out?” and “Did they clone Audrey Hepburn and put her in that Mirror Mirror movie?” I asked myself a simple question in regards to “Anti-Christ.” Why so lowest common denominator?

I mean I’m not gonna say that The Wedding was high-brow or anything. But the humor had some sophistication to it. Here in “Anti-Christ,” we get 16 different semen jokes within the first five pages. I get that everybody has a different sense of humor and different things make different people laugh, but as soon as I read all those jokes, one thing popped out at me – desperation.

When writers are just throwing out one bodily function joke out after another, it gives the impression that they have so little confidence in their idea and their story, that they’re trying to distract you with as many dumb jokes as possible. If they can keep that string going for 90 pages then maybe, just maybe, you won’t realize that there’s no movie here.

As you can probably guess, I’m not a fan of this approach.

And there’s a lot to cover up. For starters, the story just isn’t very imaginative. For example, in a scene that’s supposed to represent Zander becoming more dangerous, Tim looks for something underneath the bed and Zander starts jumping on it playfully. At first. Then he starts to jump harder and harder, until the bed collapses and injures Tim. I suppose you could shoot this in a way where it *might* be funny, but to me it just felt lazy. Aren’t their more creative concept-related ways to have your devil-child injure someone?

And the story itself just felt really small. Tim learns that that sperm bank they visited is sitting on top of a dungeon of some sort and that’s where our big climax happens. Therefore, when the finale comes, all I could imagine was a bunch of people battling each other inside a tiny 10 by 12 foot room. Like the rest of the script, it just felt too small.

And then there were a bunch of little miscellaneous missteps. For example, one of the key characters is a demon hunter, and he isn’t even called upon until the last act! So you have this major character coming in super late. We have no time to get to know him, so we never really accept him, so everything he does feels like a cheat. It was almost like…why even bother?

There were a few funny moments in the script. I really loved when they went back to their original obstetrician to get some information about Zander, and it turns out he’s gone insane, cut out his tongue, and is now housed in an insane asylum. So they go visit him and ask him a bunch of questions, which he answers, but of course he can’t speak because he doesn’t have a tongue. So the whole time he’s just conversing in awkward noises. Our characters, then, basically play a game of charades to figure out what he’s saying. That was the one scene where I genuinely laughed out loud.

But outside of that, this just didn’t feel very well formulated. It could be an early draft of course, so we need to take that into consideration. But, in my opinion, this is an example of Goldberg’s early work, and he’s since become a much better writer, which is why The Wedding shows so much more maturity.

[ ] Wait for the rewrite
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Something that isn’t talked about very often in screenwriting is conveying the size and scope of things in your script. If you undersell a key description, it could have confusing ramifications throughout the rest of the story. I was just reading this script that took place on an island and a portion of the island was separated off to withhold some dangerous creatures. But the writer never told us if the sectioned off area was as big as Manhattan or as small as a city block. So I never got a concrete idea of how big the threat actually was. A Manhattan-sized section could hold hundreds of thousands of creatures. A city block-sized section, on the other hand, might hold hundreds of creatures. That was my problem with this whole underground dungeon area in “Anti-Christ.” I had no idea how big it was so I kept imagining a tiny little dungeon room. Therefore the big climax battle in the end felt small and limited in scope. So you can see how one mis-represented description can have huge ramifications throughout the entire story.

A couple of weeks ago, you guys got to choose from ten loglines to determine which script should be reviewed for Amateur Friday. Today’s script finished in second place!

NEW Amateur Friday Submission Process: To submit your script for an Amateur Review, send in a PDF of your script, a PDF of the first ten pages of your script, your title, genre, logline, and finally, why I should read your script. Use my submission address please: Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Your script and “first ten” will be posted. If you’re nervous about the effect of a bad review, feel free to use an alias name and/or title. It’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so your submission stays near the top.

Genre: Romantic Comedy
Premise: When a burgeoning composer hits his head, he begins to hear his life’s soundtrack; a soundtrack that is prompting and pushing him back to his ex-fiance. But will he follow the guidance of the music?
About: Last week I held a mini-competition for 10 amateur Friday submissions and let you guys pick your favorite loglines. Soundtrack finished second, but when the first 10 pages of the Top 3 vote-getters were posted, Soundtrack received the best response of the bunch. Don’t worry, I’m not shafting the winner, Breathwork. I’ll be reviewing that next Friday (and I must say, it should be an interesting discussion – e-mail me if you want it). In the meantime, keep sending in those Amateur Friday entries (follow the submission process above!). With this new “Choose From 10” format I’m instituting, more of you have a chance to get your scripts seen by the world!
Writer: Nathan Shane Miller
Details: 104 pages (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

I want to say a couple of things before I start reviewing today’s script. First, my latest obsession is figuring out what makes a script “impressive” as opposed to “worth the read.” What is that special ingredient that lifts it up into that rare air?

A big part of it, I realized, was connection. You, as the reader, have to connect with the story and the characters on a personal level. If you don’t, no matter how well that story is executed, there’s going to be a divide between screenplay and reader. So the question is, how do you do that?

What I realized gave you the best chance was creating characters with depth, who are sympathetic, who are empathetic, who are relatable, and who are identifiable. If there’s something in ourselves that we see in the character, we will want to follow that character, and by association that character’s story.

But achieving that is tricky to do. You have to build a history into your character. You have to put them in situations that are relatable to others, yet still have those situations feel original and fresh. How in the world do you make something relatable yet different? I’m not sure I’ve figured that out yet. But the point of this long winded rant is that you need to be focusing on the story of your characters as opposed to the story of your story. Because your characters are what we’re going to connect with the most.

So how does Soundtrack make out in all of this? Grab your fiddle, strum a tune, and find out.

30 year old sorta-successful composer Ian is having a tough go of it. He’s got the biggest potential job of his life coming up, and he still hasn’t figured out the theme song for the main female character in the movie!

A big part of that is that he still hasn’t gotten over his ex-fiance, which is strange, because he doesn’t seem to like her all that much and he already has a new girlfriend, Tracy, who, while a little materialistic, is super supportive of his career. In fact, she’s the one who got him the meeting with the big producer who’s going to change his life.

But a few days before the meeting, Ian slips and bumps his head on the kitchen floor, and when he wakes up, well, I think you know what happens next. He starts hearing the soundtrack of his life!

No doubt, this is the best part of the screenplay. Nathan has taken the Blake Snyder “fun and games” adage and really gone to town with it. For example, when the not so nice Tracy approaches, Ian hears the “Imperial March,” Darth Vader’s theme from Star Wars.

When someone he doesn’t like approaches his door, he hears the Jaws theme. When he’s late for work, he hears an adrenaline fueled action theme. But easily my favorite moment was when he goes to see the doctor, who happens to be Asian, and inadvertently hears really racist stereotypical Asian music – not easy to explain when the doctor, in order to help him, wants to know *exactly* what he’s hearing at this moment.

But while this may be funny for us, it’s not funny for Ian, who must now pitch his idea to a producer with the soundtrack of his life pumping through his eardrums. Naturally, the pitch ends in disaster (he should have read Mike Le’s pitching interview!) but the producer decides to give him one more chance. Come up with the female lead’s theme by the end of the week and he’s hired.

However, no matter how much Ian brainstorms, he can’t figure it out. Eventually, he realizes that the only person capable of giving him the feeling he needs to complete the theme is his ex-fiance, Kaitlyn. Since Ian backed out of the wedding, though, Kaitlyn isn’t exactly rearranging her schedule to help him. In the end, Ian will need to reconcile the mistakes he made with Kaitlyn to save his career.

The reason I didn’t pick up Soundtrack earlier was simple. I’ve seen these kinds of premises before, and they almost always play out the same way. Great opening. But as soon as the charm of the concept wears out, the story collapses. In other words, after that “fun and games” section, the writer sort of realizes, “Oh shit. I have to actually write a movie now.” And while Miller lasts longer than others, Soundtrack definitely suffers from the same issue. I mean, I don’t even think there were any music cues for the last 45 pages. It was almost like the story lost confidence in itself.

But what about the characters?? Isn’t that how we started this review?

Well, let’s start with the main relationship. I thought it was pretty sloppily handled. For the majority of the script, I had no idea what the specifics of Ian and Kaitlyn’s relationship were. I didn’t know if they’d gone out for 10 weeks or 10 years. I didn’t know who broke up with whom. Heck, I didn’t even know they’d been engaged until halfway through the script. The whole relationship was so vague that I spent more time trying to figure it out than I did simply enjoying their scenes.

This lack of clarity extended to Ian’s motivation in the relationship as well. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand what he wanted out of the relationship. Did he want Kaitlyn back? Did he not want her back? Did he like her? Did he not like her? I never once got a read on his feelings, and a big part of that was how unclear their backstory was.

This vagueness was a problem in other parts of the screenplay as well. For example, I had no idea that his current girlfriend was a bad person until the musical cue of the Imperial March started playing. I was baffled. “Why is the Imperial March playing while his kick-ass girlfriend is around (who got him a great opportunity with this big producer!)?” It just didn’t make sense. Eventually I realized the girlfriend was materialistic and bad for him, but I certainly didn’t know that early on.

The moment where I officially checked out of the story though was when Ian went to Kaitlyn’s parents’ house. I had no idea why they were at the house. One second they were talking at Kaitlyn’s and the next she was like, you need to apologize to my parents! Then we spend 20-some pages at their house out of nowhere. I just didn’t know where the story was going anymore. I still wasn’t even sure if Ian liked Kaitlyn so there were absolutely no stakes to getting her parents to accept his apology.

Overall, Soundtrack was an odd duck. It started out strong. The soundtrack gimmick was great. I thought Nathan’s writing was good. He moved things along at a brisk pace. Then it hit the midpoint and started to lose steam, and by the end, I didn’t really know what we were focusing on anymore. But Miller shouldn’t be too down about this. I see good writers get stuck in this genre all the time. Maybe picking a concept with a little more meat next time will help.

[ ] Wait for the rewrite
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Like I said, this happens a lot with these high-concept ideas. The script starts out strong because the hook is fun. But when it’s time for the script to depend on the story and not the hook, it isn’t prepared to do so and falls apart. To avoid this, make sure the basics are in place. Your character goal should be strong. Your character goal should be clear (I’m still not sure what he was trying to do with Kaitlyn so it definitely wasn’t clear in this case). And make sure the central relationship is compelling enough to last an entire movie. Again, the main relationship was so muddled/undefined that when it was time for the script to rest on it, it wasn’t prepared to do so. Get those basics in place and your script has a much better chance at working.

While the world argues over whether Jennifer Lawrence was too beefy for the role of the supposedly starved Katniss, I try and rise above the sensationalistic tabloids and wonder aloud why this movie wasn’t titled “Tree Girl.”

Genre: Sci-fi
Premise: Set in a future where the Capitol selects a boy and girl from the twelve districts to fight to the death on live television, Katniss Everdeen volunteers to take her younger sister’s place for the latest match.
About: The Hunger Games is an adaptation of the best-selling book by Suzanne Collins. The movie came out this past weekend and grossed $152 million dollars domestically, giving it one of the best openings of all time. It’s a confirmation of the way Hollywood seems to be doing business these days with their tentpoles – via book adaptations. After Harry Potter there was Twilight. After Twilight, now, there’s The Hunger Games. Whether this new trend starts to phase out the old trend of superhero movies, we’ll have to see, but it looks like it’s going to be here for awhile until the next unexpected trend hits. Let’s hope that trend is original screenplays from spec screenwriters!
Writer: Suzanne Collins and Gary Ross and Billy Ray (based on the novel by Suzanne Collins)

 

Hunger Games is sweeping the nation. Which means I have no choice but to blog about it. But the truth is, I’ve been interested in this movie for a while, even if it’s geared towards a younger audience (it’s based on a young adult novel). Why? Because I’ve been saying for years they need update Lord Of The Flies. Kids being forced to fight each other for survival always felt like gold to me, so to see Hunger Games find that perfect mix of ingredients for the update was a welcome surprise.

For those of you who haven’t heard of the film, “Games” is about a post-Apocalyptic future where the land has been divided into districts. Every year, each district has to send two members under 18 (or is it 16?) to the main city where they fight to the death against the other 22 district members in a “Battle Royale” contest in the wilderness. Taking its cue from movies like “The Running Man,” the entire world watches the event on TV.

Our heroine, Katniss, is part of the poor mining town of District 12. When her younger sister – sure to be slaughtered if she’s chosen to participate – “wins” the lottery as District 12’s female representative, Katniss volunteers herself instead. She’s accompanied by Peeta, a young man obviously upset that he was named after a bread, and who has had a secret crush on Katniss forever.

The two head into the city where they are paraded around in sort of an America Idol way, then train for two weeks before the big competition. They are mentored by a number of people who critique everything from their fighting skills to their style. Some of the participants take pride in the fact that they represent their districts, while others are terrified, especially the younger kids, who have no shot at winning. As the training goes on, Katniss becomes one of the unexpected favorites to win the competition, while her partner, Peeta Bread, looks like an early exit.

Once they’re finally thrust into the game, we see just how brutal and violent the contest is. 12 of the participants are slaughtered immediately. Katniss is able to get away, however, where she quickly learns of an alliance that the stronger members have put together, specifically to take her out. Most surprising about this alliance is that her district buddy, Peeta, is helping them. Katniss will have to call upon her survival skills – specifically her kick ass bow and arrow expertise – if she’s to have any shot at winning The Hunger Games.

I started assessing the screenwriting in The Hunger Games almost immediately. One thing I’ve noticed in the past is that when you have a main character who’s stuffy or off-putting or reserved or prickly, you’re putting yourself in a huge hole, because chances are, we’re not going to want to follow that character around for 140 minutes (yes, this was one long movie!). I’ve seen so many screenplays sink like The Titanic (to reference another hit film) due to this issue.

But the Hunger Games started combatting the problem immediately. One of the very first scenes was Katniss cradling her younger sister after she’d had a nightmare, singing her back to sleep. When you see somebody love somebody – be protective of somebody – this much, it’s really hard not to like them. On top of that, when her sister gets chosen to be the representative, it’s Katniss who jumps up and volunteers herself instead. This is another device that makes it impossible to dislike a character. Your hero is sacrificing her own life for someone else’s? How can you not like that person?

The trifecta comes when, during the game, Collins gives Katniss another character to love, one of the younger girls in the competition who has no shot. The two have a nice little rapport going and it’s clear that Katniss will do anything to protect her, just like her sister. This protective quality of Katniss overshadows her bitchy/unlikable side, a huge key in getting us to root for her.

Moving forward, I noticed the first big mistake in the script. This whole movie revolves around the emerging relationship between Katniss and Peeta. So why is it we spend the opening of the movie with Katniss and Good Looking Pointless Guy? Katniss and Good Looking Pointless Guy obviously have some chemistry, but after their initial scene, we see Good Looking Pointless Guy for a total of 5 seconds for the rest of movie. Which begs the question – why not use this opening to establish the relationship between Katniss and Peeta instead??? Wouldn’t that have been a much better way to utilize the screenplay space?

And to show you how one mistake can lead to others, because they didn’t set up Katniss and Peeta in the opener, they’re forced to explain their relationship through a series of clunky flashbacks instead (showing Peeta come out of his bakery and toss bread to pigs with Katniss looking on – I think hungrily – nearby). Not only is it impossible to understand what any of these flashbacks mean, but they’re just plain clunky.

 

In fact, the flashbacks here should serve as a deterrent to any writers who want to use flashbacks in their scripts. Had they just set up Kaniss and Peeta instead of Katniss and Good Looking Pointless Guy, the movie would’ve moved along a lot smoother. (And I know somebody is going to say, “But Good Looking Pointless Guy’s really important for the next two movies!” I don’t care. I’m watching *this* movie. All I care about is *this* movie making sense.)

My next problem with the film was the most unique screenwriting problem I’ve ever dealt with. I refer to it as the, “protagonist hides in trees too much” problem. Katniss seems to literally spend tens of minutes during the movie up in trees. Not only does her Tarzaness obsession get weird, but I don’t like any scenario in an action movie where your main character is allowed a big fat “time out.” This is a battle royale!!! It shouldn’t be as easy as hopping onto the nearest Sycamore whenever you need some R&R.

The third big problem, which was almost baffling to me, was that Katniss never had to get out of any tough situations herself. She’s saved every single time by somebody else. It’s like the movie’s one long string of mini-deus-ex-machinas. Katniss will be at death’s door with a girl holding a knife to her throat when, voila, someone else will kill the girl at the last second. Even when she’s up in her favorite place, a tree, she needs to be saved by someone else.

I don’t get why writers keep doing this. Don’t they know that the audience would rather see our hero solve her own problem? Isn’t it so much more satisfying when they escape via their own doing? My theory is that writers take this lazy route simply because it’s easier. Why spend four or five days sweating out a memorable escape scene, like Hannibal slipping away in an ambulance pretending to be a massacred guard, when you can write another character saving them instead (i.e. one of the guards drops a key near the cage)? It’s my opinion that this is what separates the truly great writers from the rest – the ones who are willing to do that extra work.

But maybe I’m being a little harsh. Suzanne Collins did just write a screenplay that made more money in its opening weekend than every other film in history except for two. But if I can’t analyze a screenplay to death then what’s the point of this site? :)

And in the end, I did like this movie. I thought Collins did a tremendous job with the characters (Effie Trinket was great!). There was some clumsy stuff near the middle with the love story, but I definitely loved Katniss and wanted her to succeed. And if you really want the main character to achieve her goal, then the writer’s done her job. Combined with the cool subject matter, I was totally on board with The Hunger Games.

[ ] guaranteed death
[ ] Lousy odds
[x] odds are looking decent
[ ] odds are in your favor
[ ] guaranteed winner

What I learned: The big thing I learned here – or at least was reminded of – was how protectiveness over another individual can make an unlikable character extremely likable. This is a huge advantage when you think about it because lots of stories require you to start with a protagonist who has negative traits. So if you don’t have tools in place to offset those negative traits and make your character likable, chances are we’re going to dislike them and, by association, your story.