Today’s script will hopefully answer the age-old question, how is he the “lone” ranger if he has a partner?
Genre: Action-Adventure/Western
Premise: When a corrupt sheriff takes over a hidden silver mine, a lone Texas Ranger and a local Indian named Tonto must team up to stop him.
About: Okay, this is not the draft that you’ll see in theaters. This is actually the draft that was written in 2009, when The Lone Ranger was set to be a really big movie. But then Disney got scared and canceled the movie, only allowing it back once the script was rewritten to drastically reduce the budget. So that’s what the writers did. And maybe this is why those trailers look so generic. They likely had to get rid of a couple of really big set pieces to get the price down. As a result, The Lone Ranger comes into 2013 as one of the summer’s more questionable entries. It just doesn’t feel like one of those “must see” films. Of course, as one astute Scriptshadow commenter mentioned, you can never count out “The Depp Factor.” We’ll see if Johnny Miracle can save this film from being one of summer’s big underachievers when it’s released tomorrow.
Writers: Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio (based on the radio series created by George W. Trendle and Fran Striker)
Details: March 29, 2009 draft – 125 pages
I’ve always looked up to Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio. They were a huge inspiration when it came to writing about screenwriting. Their Wordplayer Blog, at one point, was the only real place to find quality articles on screenwriting. They’re also incredibly wealthy and successful screenwriters who came to Hollywood with a 5 year plan, made their first sale way ahead of schedule, and have been kicking ass ever since (well, except for Treasure Planet, of course).
With that said, I’ve always been a little disappointed in them. They spend so much time working on these Disney movies that I’m not sure I know what a Ted Elliot and Teddy Rossio screenplay looks like. These guys have been such cogs in the Disney machine that they’ve never written anything for themselves. After reading John Favreau’s, “Chef” (which I reviewed in my newsletter), which was basically about Favreau realizing he needed to write for himself again, it seems insane that we’ve never seen a film from these guys that they created on their own.
Easy for me to say, right? It ain’t hard to call out safe screenwriting when you’re not the one making 5 million a film. I guess I have to remember that everyone successful in Hollywood is operating out of fear, fear that one day they’ll stop being asked to write or direct or act for millions of dollars. When those jobs dry up, THAT’S when you take your chances. Because that’s when you NEED to take chances. But until then? Why wouldn’t you take the money? Which leads us to The Lone Ranger, a script (or a draft of the script) that is every bit the prototype for safe screenwriting.
Texas Ranger John Reid has just stumbled onto one hell of a crime scene. An entire train full of people has been killed. So he takes a team of fellow rangers and heads to a nearby town, the only town that our murderer (or murderers) could’ve run off to. Once there, he finds a semi ghost town, with a few suspicious characters manning the local shops.
This leads him to the town’s half-crazy Sheriff, Latham Cole, a man so bizarre he’s placed a full-on locomotive in the middle of town (he figures by doing so, the tracks will have to come to him). We can’t tell if Latham Cole is good or bad but it doesn’t really matter because after their meeting, the murderer of all those train passengers, Butch Cavendish, pops out and kills all the Rangers except for Reid, leaving him to die.
But he doesn’t die! That’s because his mysterious soon-to-be-partner, Tonto, shows up and nurses him back to health. Tonto mostly spits out vague “wisdom,” which annoys Reid, but he can’t really get mad at the guy who saved his life. And actually, Tonto wants to help him get back at this Cavendish guy, but on one condition: Reid help him kill Latham Cole (who Tonto’s convinced is currently being possessed by an evil spirit). Reid agrees, in part because Cavendish has kidnapped his sister-in-law and nephew.
Soon After, Cavendish and Latham join forces and head to an old silver mine that Latham had been prepping, and begin readying it for operation again. Which means, of course, that Reid (now The Lone Ranger) and Tonto, must stop it! The End.
Man, what a disappointing script this was. Here’s the biggest lesson I’d take away from it. Don’t update something that can’t be updated – something that’s old news. I mean let’s be real. The Lone Ranger and Tonto are boring. They were created for a different time. Heck, they were born on radio! Neither of these two characters are relevant today and you feel it in every single page.
There’s a reason you didn’t see any classic Johnny Depp zingers in The Lone Ranger trailer. There are none. Tonto is a stereotypical Native American Indian that offers sage wisdom. That’s all he does. The whole movie. That’s the extent of his character is the sage-wisdom-offering guy. Naturally, with neither of the two lead characters being interesting, this movie was dead from the get-go.
But then you have the plot. And here’s my issue with Rossio and Elliot. These guys LOVE changing goals during their scripts. They’re never going to give you a clean narrative like Raiders Of The Lost Ark (i.e. “Get the Ark”). It’s going to start off as a murder mystery, then someone wants revenge, then someone’s sister-in-law is kidnapped, so they’re after her, and then there’s a spirit in one of the bad guys, so they’re after him, and then they get the sister-in-law back, and then there’s this mine they have to stop. And that’s the problem. When you keep changing the goals in your story, at some point, the audience stops remembering why the characters are doing what they’re doing. This was one of the big complaints leveled against Rossio and Elliott with the Pirates movies, the difference being that the characters in that film were actually interesting.
In addition to this, I couldn’t figure out why we needed two villains here (Cavendish and Latham). It was never clear which one was the “real” bad guy, leaving me constantly confused. And I never understood what their relationship was with one another. At one point, for example, Latham is going to have Cavendish executed. But a tribe of Indians interrupt the execution, forcing the two to work together to fight them off. After that, they start working together for good. Cavendish seemed to forget the fact that, oh yeah, earlier, two hours earlier you wanted to kill me! And I’m not saying the explanation wasn’t in there somewhere. But when you’re throwing so many plot changes at us, it becomes hard to keep up. This script would’ve been so much easier to follow with just one bad guy and a manageable amount of goal-changes.
I’m also unclear why this draft resulted in such a high budget. It looks to have even less action sequences than the movie I’m seeing in the trailer. There was a scene where Reid had to fight off a hundred coyotes, as well as a few sorta-big gunfights. But for the most part, there was a lot of talking here and not a lot of action.
Truth is, I’m afraid Rossio and Elliot took on an idea that was impossible to breathe life into. These characters feel ancient. Their interactions are dull. Tonto is stereotypical and boring (I can’t believe Johnny Depp was interested in this role when he has scripts like Desperate Hours at his production company). Reid is just…there. I don’t even know why he wears a mask. It’s not like it matters if anyone knows he’s John Reid or not. Even if the current draft is way different, I have a feeling this movie just won’t work. There’s something about this world that feels stale. A great film for 1956. Not for 2013.
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Remember, motivation is what makes audiences CARE about whether the protagonists achieve their goal or not. A weak motivation could destroy an otherwise good script. So you HAVE to get it right. The character motivation here was weak. The Lone Ranger was trying to save his sister-in-law? A woman he didn’t even like?? We’re supposed to care about that??? Contrast that with the motivation in an almost identical film, Django Unchained. Django’s WIFE, who was taken from him, is being held by a slave owner. Now THAT’S motivation! It’s personal. It’s heartbreaking. It’s intense. An audience will care if Django gets his wife back. I don’t see a single person going to The Lone Ranger and caring whether Reid gets his sister-in-law back.
