It’s completely beyond me why scripts get rushed out the door before they’re at the very least solid. Sure, a production company might make their money just a little bit sooner but they run a massive risk of losing all of their money making a movie that completely bombs.
It’s impossible for every script to be a masterwork, but holy crap it seems like an audience wanting a competent script is too much to ask. It’s not like there’s a shortage of aspiring writers that can take a crack at a script until it’s at least passable.
I’m sure there’s plenty of those making a mess of things, but taking time in the writing process, getting input from relevant parties, and doing as much preparation as possible cuts out a myriad of problems.
Studio got a product placement deal? Great, let’s integrate that into the story long before filming even begins so it feels natural.
Director doesn’t know if he wants plot point A to happen or not? Good thing he heard about that while the movie was just a script instead of having him decide with dozens of people on set.
I’m sure there are uncontrollable, unforeseeable problems that will come up in any production. There is no reason to exacerbate those by being willfully unprepared. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure but it seems like film studios reliably hamper the “prevention” part to shave a few weeks off on prep time and end up losing more time or huge piles of money because of it.
That’s what sticks in my craw. If I’m a studio exec who’s going to invest potentially hundreds of millions of dollars it’s beyond stupid to jeopardize that to get a payout a little faster.
It just seems stupid to put a time crunch on the most important phase of your investment. I don’t see how taking a greater risk of a project being a flop is worth getting the script a few weeks sooner.
At least for some of those there’s an excuse of needing to get the news out ASAP, but there’s no reason an in depth piece or an online article that’s been up for a few days should be butchered.
Bad writing for film and television really irks me because of how avoidable it is. I’m not talking about mediocre or lackluster writing, but the actual bad writing.
TV shows and movies are tremendously expensive to make. Every part of it costs a fortune except for one: the writing. Even if a studio or production company was paying for a whole team of writers to work full time it’s still only a fraction of the cost of paying film crews, actors, editors, and VFX artists.
Given the relatively lower expense, relative lack of time constraints, and enormous importance of the script to the overall quality of the product it absolutely boggles my mind that production companies consistently fuck up the writing process.
Regardless of genre any work of fiction should have cohesive plot and characterization. It’s not elitism to say that the new trilogy is hobbled by numerous, avoidable writing pitfalls.
The other films had writing problems as well but not nearly as many as the new films. People are free to enjoy the new trilogy but they are poorly written.
And yes, I’m aware of how fucking cringe the dialogue in the prequels was.
And to deliver this profound message of “people are inherently distrustful” they needed 20 panels.
They could have done this in one. Have each caveman holding out one hand to pass food and the other hand holding a club behind their backs.
Want to really illustrate the groundbreaking idea that people don’t trust each other? Make a second panel with knights replacing the cavemen and swords replacing clubs, then a third panel swapping in businessmen holding pistols.
If humor wasn’t the goal that’s… fine, but being long-winded in a format based on brevity undermines the message. Using 20 panels guarantees that half of the people who bother to look at the comic won’t finish it. Those that do will probably be bored or even resentful that their time was wasted, making them less receptive to the message.