Script Sages Blog

A big budget film’s script is lacking? This question came to mind recently after seeing the newest chapter in the Star Trek opus. The movie was certainly a spectacle, with great visuals and exciting action sequences. However, I found the story and the script lacking. A friend of mine in Los Angeles who works in the biz was more partial to it, and we exchanged a few emails about the merits and shortcomings of the movie.

I won’t go into what I found lacking in Star Trek. Perhaps I was expecting something more in line with the old films and the TV series. Whatever it was that did not strike me right got me to pondering the question: can we say the writer executed poorly when a big budget film does not work story wise? It’s one thing on a spec script or in an indie setting if the script is not up to snuff, but when hundreds of millions are going into a movie and the writer is being directed by producers, studio executives, a director, and so on to make many changes and go in different directions, can it be said that the writer is to blame if the script does not turn out to be gangbusters?

I guess part of it might stem from how one views the film in question, but I don’t think (and maybe this is being generous) I’m an old curmudgeon who does not like blockbuster or big action films. On the contrary, I do. I was quite fond of the first X-Men movie, and I thought WALL-E was one of the best films of 2008. These movies were high budget and worked in my opinion. So when other big budget films don’t turn out as well as those, can we fault the writer?

We might not be able to fault anyone in reality. There are so many competing forces in big budget films, and so much is at stake. From the producers to the distributors to the advertisers, perfect storms can become perfect disasters, and it can be hard to tell which link in the chain was the weakest.

Joe and I were working on an action script last year. It was not our strongest genre, but we liked the idea and the producer with whom we were working so we gave it a go. We were pretty much following orders and trying to please the producer most of the time, but we were not mindlessly regurgitating everything the producer asked for. We tried to bring our own voice and style to the script, but in the end it was the producer’s idea, and he was the one taking it to the marketplace so why not try to get it the way he wanted it? Looking back on it, I don’t think it was that great of a script, so was it our fault?

Sometimes I find a useful way to judge a film by asking: would I use the film in one of my screenwriting classes to instruct beginners in the art of story telling? So maybe ‘fault’ is the wrong word to use when any film’s script doesn’t work, and I’m hesistant to say that Star Trek doesn’t work (it’s box office receipts alone might contradict this assessment). Nevertheless, it’s an intriguing topic to explore, and we invite others’ opinions and comments.

To contact Randy Steinberg email: rsteinberg@scriptsages.com
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