Writing/Scripts

A movie can be only as good as its script. A well written script can be made into a bad movie, but a bad written script will never create a good movie. There are a few things one might need to take into context when writing a script, for example, characters need to seem realistic and not to far fetched. There needs to be a protagonist who comes in contact with some sort of conflict. A movie will never make it if it is just some guy hanging around doing nothing: we can watch reality TV for that. As a writer you have unlimited possibilities with what you can do. You can bring alien worlds to life, or have historical events unfold right before our eyes or even something as simple as making two strangers fall in love.

The characters must be in context. Let's take two opposite ends of the spectrum when taking character development. First we will look at one of the classical movie characters in the Star Wars Trilogy: Darth Vader. This character is the epitome of evil; one could see this character without ever seeing the movie and people will know he is the ultimate evil. He is big, dark and intimidating the perfect blend of subtleties that create the ultimate villain. Over the course of the three movies -- Star Wars IV, Star Wars V, Star wars VI—we find out more and more about the character and what drives him to act the way he does. We find in Star Wars IV he is basically wants to take control of the republic, and will destroy any rebel that gets in his way. Star Wars V we find that he is more than just a soulless evil hell bent on expanding his empire. He, Darth Vader, is a human that is the main character luke's actual father. Finally Star Wars VI we find there is still good in him as he helps his son, Luke, destroy the Sith and help take down the empire. These three story lines take place fluently over the course of the three films: revealing piece by piece the characteristics of a man corrupted but eventually turning from protagonist into antagonist.

On the opposite end of the spectrum we have Vanilla Ice in Cool as Ice. This movie was trying to capitalize on his only hit “Ice Ice Baby” of the early 90’s. In this movie the character John Van Owen is a “rebel” who plays by his own rules. Kathy Winslow is a cold hearted woman who won’t let anyone into her heart. In one scene we have John Van Owen showing up to a biker bar and starting a fight with the whole bar and of course knocking out everyone without a scratch. He eventually wins over the heart of Kathy and they celebrate with a rap number at the end to show John Van Owen’s rebel success as a rapper. There is no character development all we know by the end of the movie is that Vanilla Ice is a white rapper: seems to have been a stretch for Mr. Ice. The point is a movie can only be as good as it’s script, and with these two extreme ends of the gamut we can see writing at its finest and at its worse.