Reading screenplays - the lows

My screenplay reading got off to kind of a bad start. Reading Dear White People was good, and something I'd been meaning to do anyway, but then the next two made it really difficult.

The second was Interstellar. Again, I know that what I read was not necessarily what made it on the screen. For one thing, Murphy was a boy in the script, but the credits show Jessica Chastain and Ellen Burstyn among her portrayers, so I'm just going to assume they changed that. Maybe they also changed how boring it was.

It just felt like it went on forever. I know there were long time periods involved, but they were supposed to be moving fast enough that it wouldn't have felt that long, right? Like my new name for the movie is Interminable.

It felt like it should have been interesting, with science and new life forms and modes of travel, but the most amazing thing to me was that I had no desire to see how the concepts were executed. About two weeks later I read Logan's Run, and the way they described things I wanted to see that. I actually looked up some video clips before I finished reading it.

That's another interesting point, because I thought part of my problem with Interstellar was how it was not new and innovative. Of course the guy who has been preparing for the mission all along is the one who freaks out and messes up, and not the last minute addition. Of course the woman initially appears all tough and competent, but she does need to get rescued and she does inevitably fall for him. How could it be any other way? But by that same token, I'm not sure that the characters in Logan's Run really broke the mold either.

I may someday see Interstellar just to see if they did get something more interesting out of it. A lot of people liked the movie. I can't rule out that it became something better after reading the screenplay for The Muppets. It was horrible.

I shouldn't have been completely surprised. I read an interview with Jason Segel where he said that the initial draft was too negative, and they were told that the Muppets don't tear each other down like that. Still, I had no idea how horrible it could be.

Miss Piggy got a bunch of fat jokes, and a stupid bunch of jokes about hating green while she was mad at Kermit. The Muppets compete with each other. They blame each other. They separated because they were all mad at Kermit for seemingly declaring himself the best Muppet, but really it was a misunderstanding due to his tiny bladder, leading to a short burst of pee gags. There is a tedious running joke with people addressing Walter as a washcloth or a badger. If you don't think it sounds horrible, I guess I'm not doing it justice, because it stinks.

Here's the thing. It still became a good movie. I think Muppet's Most Wanted is better, but The Muppets is pretty good, and you wouldn't know it could be from reading that first draft.

And it's really not all that surprising. People working in film today have a strong tendency toward bathroom humor and put-down humor, so that is not a surprising result. However, they didn't have to bring in other writers either. The names on the draft, Jason Segel and Nicholas Stoller, are the same names on the film credits. They were capable of doing better with some guidance. I think there are some lessons there.

So those were the two worst reading experiences, and I got them out of the way early. Otherwise they were mostly pleasant but with two exceptions.

I hated Goodfellas. It wasn't the writing; just too many loathsome characters that I could not stand. I don't really like gangster movies in general for that very reason.

I was very excited to see a screenplay for Big Trouble in Little China 2. I knew I had to read it. I was wrong.

Now, the movie was never made, and probably when they saw how little there was that they could do without getting the main characters back (the only common character is Egg Shen), there probably were no rewrites and smoothing out. I am sure that they would have been able to go back and fix the poorly written characters, the stilted dialogue, and the uneven flow of action.

There still would have been no point.