SALT kicks ass (might be mild spoilers - though I tried not)

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  • Re: SALT kicks ass (might be mild spoilers - though I tried not)

    Originally posted by cshel View Post
    Maybe it just had too much SALT?
    Haha. I'd like to add that normally I'd agree with Bill, if he'd posted his thoughts in a thread to a movie I enjoyed.
    Looking to take the "Bono" off my screenname.

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    • Re: SALT kicks ass (might be mild spoilers - though I tried not)

      Originally posted by wcmartell View Post
      No - I'm saying that when you have a stew, and despite your best efforts, one (or more) of the ingedients isn't of the best quality, the other ingredients may taste so good that nobody notices. That doesn't mean you *try* to make bad stew, or cut corners by buying month old meat, or whatever - just that you can't lose sight that the stew is not a single ingredient.
      I understand your point, but it's a horrible analogy for going from the page to the screen.

      The script is the stew that the writer slaves over and spend countless hours making sure it's as good as it can be. Then he gives it to other people who distribute stews to the general public, and instead of simply giving people this great stew, they all take turns crapping in the pot. Then they give the public their "new and improved" stew.

      Everyone says Salt was a better script than a film. Source Code was a better script, etc.

      This begs the question...why were certain changes made knowing that it would result in a lesser-quality story?

      If I read something that's basically all good, and you give me only some of that good with some added crap, don't tell me to look at the stuff that wasn't changed and be happy, because I won't be if there is not one good reason why the film could not be as good as the script that was ravaged and turned into an inferior product intentionally.

      Why not just film the script that sold and everyone liked in the first place? To inflate some suit's ego? Or his wallet? No, that's bullshit, and I find it shocking that so many people are not infuriated by it.

      Give me the best story possible. Not excuses.

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      • Re: SALT kicks ass (might be mild spoilers - though I tried not)

        There are two possible answers, Bio.

        1. The specs are really not as good as people say. I have counted two posters since I came into this thread who did not like the Salt spec at all.

        2. And this is the more likely one: if Salt the movie sells, despite being full of holes, there is no impetus to change. It's a bottom line business, and it's a business first and foremost. It's like pundits telling Cubs fans not to go to games because this is the only way the owners will recognize they need to change their approach. There's no reason for management to try harder to produce a better team if tickets sell no matter what the quality of the team.

        Now, the mass psychology question: why have audiences in the past 10-15 years become more willing to accept movies with glaring story problems?
        Quato Lives!

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        • Re: E. SALT vs. SALT

          Originally posted by Biohazard View Post
          Why not just film the script that sold and everyone liked in the first place?
          You know I agree with this - I have asked that same question on my blog before too many times.

          But every script is a stew, and there will always be some element that isn't the best (we have these leftover carrots from Thursday, put 'em in the stew) and there are also things that are not to some people's tastes.

          In this thread are a couple of people who liked the movie more than the script, and others who thought they were different and liked both. SALT went through a major change - dude became a chick. Things that work for a dude didn't work for a chick...

          And also, the script has some stuff that works on the page but probably would be tough to pull off on screen. The first 25 pages are interrogating the Russian... and the next 15 pages are interrogating Salt! So you have 40 pages of two people sitting across a desk from each other. The dialogue is great twisty stuff - but it's still 2 people sitting and talking for 40 pages. Works on the page, not so much on the screen. So the decision was made to make it more chase thriller from the start while they were doing penis removal rewrites.

          There are many things that seem to work on the page but don't work on the screen, and part of reading any script is to see past the paper to the movie - does the *movie* work?

          You try to put only the best things in the stew, but Thursday's carrots may end up in there, or you put in too many onions or not enough garlic or whatever. Now, maybe it's a taste thing - you *hate* garlic, so you don't put much in, but everyone else at the table loves garlic. Stew tastes great to you, but not to everyone else.

          - Bill (my mom once made a huge batch of spaghetti sauce and accidentally used cinnamon instead of oregano - we were poor and had to eat it for a week)
          Free Script Tips:
          http://www.scriptsecrets.net

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          • Re: SALT kicks ass (might be mild spoilers - though I tried not)

            Originally posted by EddieCoyle View Post
            Now, the mass psychology question: why have audiences in the past 10-15 years become more willing to accept movies with glaring story problems?
            People are morons, plain and simple. Lazy, ignorant morons.

            But in addition to that...what can we do? We don't know a movie is good or not until after we see it, and we pay to see movies before viewing them. What can we do? Ask for our money back because the movie sucked? Of course not. That money is already fattening H-wood's wallets, and there's not a god damn thing anyone in the audience can do about it. Not one thing.

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            • Re: SALT kicks ass (might be mild spoilers - though I tried not)

              Originally posted by Biohazard View Post
              People are morons, plain and simple. Lazy, ignorant morons.
              I don't necessarily agree with that. But as a cynic, I also have a weird optimistic streak.

              I think the answer lies more in that in the last fifteen years the business end of the industry has more aggressively courted the teen/young adult demographic. To the point of shunning anything that might alienate that (admittedly) unsophisticated demographic.

              That, and everyone with a say wants/needs to be a part of the creative process. Even though they may be players, they're not artists.

              Generally.
              "Forget it, Jake. It's Hollywood."

              My YouTube channel.

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              • Re: SALT kicks ass (might be mild spoilers - though I tried not)

                Originally posted by Biohazard View Post
                Why not just film the script that sold and everyone liked in the first place? To inflate some suit's ego? Or his wallet? No, that's bullshit, and I find it shocking that so many people are not infuriated by it.

                Give me the best story possible. Not excuses.
                Then do something about it, Bio. If Hollywood sucks so badly, write the most awesome of awesomest scripts and then watch it go into development.

                It is what it is my friend. It's a business. Painting it all as some big conspiracy proves nothing. If a studio can potentially make another two billion doing a sequel to Avatar, then why not?

                And despite many chefs in the kitchen, I can assure you nobody sets out to take a great script with the intention of shaping it into a turd. Studio heads included. You've made films, you know it's a highly collaborative field, and sometimes despite everyone's best efforts and best intentions, they just plop out that way.

                Probably not the best analogy, but you get the idea.
                @TerranceMulloy

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                • Re: SALT kicks ass (might be mild spoilers - though I tried not)

                  Originally posted by Terrance Mulloy View Post
                  It is what it is my friend. Despite all the chefs in the kitchen, I can assure you nobody sets out to take a great script with the intention of shaping it into a turd. You've made films, you know it's a highly collaborative field, and sometimes, despite everyone's best efforts and best intentions, they just plop out that way.
                  As the old saying goes...nobody wants to make a bad movie, but many bad filmmakers want to make movies.

                  If it is what it is, "it" blows.

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                  • Re: SALT kicks ass (might be mild spoilers - though I tried not)

                    Originally posted by Signal30 View Post
                    I think the answer lies more in that in the last fifteen years the business end of the industry has more aggressively courted the teen/young adult demographic. To the point of shunning anything that might alienate that (admittedly) unsophisticated demographic.
                    That's true. It's a different industry these days - catering to a completely different target audience. Look at Peter Weir - a brilliant director who's not interested in vampires, comic books, vid games or superheroes in the slightest. And because of that, it was almost impossible to get his last film made, despite having a great line-up of actors wanting to work with him.
                    @TerranceMulloy

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                    • Re: SALT kicks ass (might be mild spoilers - though I tried not)

                      Bio, I'm curious, are you pursuing a more independent route career-wise?

                      Personally everyone I know wants to get a couple legit credits under their belt, then open their own prodco and do their movies outside, ultimately coming to Hollywood only for distribution. It feels like a growing sentiment, though I could be totally wrong on this. Could just be my friends.

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                      • Re: SALT kicks ass (might be mild spoilers - though I tried not)

                        Originally posted by EddieCoyle View Post
                        Now, the mass psychology question: why have audiences in the past 10-15 years become more willing to accept movies with glaring story problems?
                        Video games? You Tube? If you're being entertained by stories that are just segments or game levels that have zilch to do with characters that ends up being what the audience think story is and that's what they want to see. So you end up with a scattershot story that is more a rollercoaster of semi-connected set pieces than a traditional story. And that seems to be where things are going. More focus on the set pieces... less focus on the story that connects them.

                        Though, I've been watching a bunch of John Wayne westerns from the 30s lately - and they're a bunch of horse chases and shoot outs and stunts tied together by some flimsy plot - so maybe nothing has changed.

                        I try to tell the story with the set pieces.

                        - Bill
                        Free Script Tips:
                        http://www.scriptsecrets.net

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                        • Re: SALT kicks ass (might be mild spoilers - though I tried not)

                          Originally posted by wcmartell View Post
                          Though, I've been watching a bunch of John Wayne westerns from the 30s lately - and they're a bunch of horse chases and shoot outs and stunts tied together by some flimsy plot - so maybe nothing has changed.
                          Yeah, I tend to agree. I had my own problems with Salt, and I didn't like it as much as Bill or some others, but there are plenty of movies that are victim to the same problems as Salt. And they all haven't appeared in the last 15 years, either.

                          HH

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                          • Re: SALT kicks ass (might be mild spoilers - though I tried not)

                            Originally posted by wcmartell View Post
                            Video games? You Tube? If you're being entertained by stories that are just segments or game levels that have zilch to do with characters that ends up being what the audience think story is and that's what they want to see. So you end up with a scattershot story that is more a rollercoaster of semi-connected set pieces than a traditional story. And that seems to be where things are going. More focus on the set pieces... less focus on the story that connects them.

                            Though, I've been watching a bunch of John Wayne westerns from the 30s lately - and they're a bunch of horse chases and shoot outs and stunts tied together by some flimsy plot - so maybe nothing has changed.

                            I try to tell the story with the set pieces.

                            - Bill
                            I think that's unfair to shitt on video games like that. If you look at alot of these big video games with Role Playing elements(Mass Effect, Dragon's Age, Oblivion, Fallout, etc.) you're going to definitely find way more intricate stories than any movie could possibly even have time to go into.

                            If you ask me I think alot of it has to do with computers making things way too easy for people. I feel like there's alot more of a "we can wing-it" mentality nowadays when it comes to film making. The "we'll fix it in post" mantra. They completely breeze through pre-production and production and leave much of the serious work til post. By products of this for example would be the proliferation of green screen stages nowadays, where instead of taking the time to do all the set design and preparation before hand they leave it to post presumably so they can keep fiddling around with it until the last minute.

                            Would you have shitt like this go down like 20 years ago?:

                            "They had no script, man. They had an outline. We would show up for big scenes every day and we wouldn't know what we were going to say. We would have to go into our trailer and work on this scene and call up writers on the phone, 'You got any ideas?' Meanwhile the crew is tapping their foot on the stage waiting for us to come on."
                            Bridges, director Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr. would literally act out sequences during primitive rehearsals, Downey taking on Bridges's role and vice versa, to find and essentially improvise their way to full scenes, the actor recounts. Bridges says that the entire production was probably saved by the improv prowess of the film's director and star.
                            "You've got the suits from Marvel in the trailer with us saying, 'No, you wouldn't say that,'" Bridges continued. "You would think with a $200 million movie you'd have the **** together, but it was just the opposite. And the reason for that is because they get ahead of themselves. They have a release date before the script, ‘Oh, we'll have the script before that time,' and they don't have their **** together.
                            Ironman may be a poor example since the resulting film wasn't so bad but I'm sure you can find alot of movies like with such with half finished concepts that are rushed into development or where large portions of the script are thrown out in favor of improvisation while filming.

                            Obviously alot of good can come from improvisation and figuring things out on the spot but it seems rather odd to me how many simple mistakes are made by directors that would be simple and cheap to fix during actual production but instead are left till they become big, expensive errors in post because nobody likes to make a plan beforehand and stick to it. You can do alot with editing nowadays but when it comes down to it you can only work with what you got.

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                            • Re: SALT kicks ass (might be mild spoilers - though I tried not)

                              I think these have all been terrific answers, but I'm still puzzled why the same laissez faire attitude about what studios will put on the screen (and audiences will accept) does not always seem to translate into script reading and development. How often will a script reader say this spec doesn't make much sense and it reminds me of these other ten movies, but it will be a box office success so let's go!!!

                              I was at APA last year and an agent told me it's like rolling the dice out there with scripts, and in the same breath he told me he couldn't go out with my spec because it wasn't fresh and original enough. I wondered if he was even listening to himself. And I do like this agent, not a bad guy. But inconsistent, yes!!!

                              It's not so much that I don't understand why movies might be lacking in terms of story logic and character development these days, it's the inconsistency of those making the script option, representation, and purchase decisions that I find most annoying. But I guess writers will always be annoyed by those who make decisions about their material. That's why I see no choice but to make my own film one day.
                              Quato Lives!

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                              • Re: SALT kicks ass (might be mild spoilers - though I tried not)

                                This is the subjective nature of films and what I think what Bill is banging on about.

                                For example, you put TERMINATOR 2 in front of someone who dislikes it and (given he can articulate himself well) he'll rip it to shreds. "Hasta la vista -- baby." I mean, are you fucking serious?! I will never watch a movie where a robot says that line before pulling the trigger on his gun. But to someone who loves the movie, it's a great original moment. To James Cameron, it's a great original moment.

                                It isn't inconsistent but rather you're not on the same wavelength. I buncha people loved SALT. Some didn't. The ones that didn't obviously didn't jump on it. Hence the roll of the dice. I pitched this contained thriller about a subway car trapped underground and creatures lurking in the tunnels. It was a great pitch! And imo, the take was pretty damn original. Contained thrillers were/are massive. But the producers said to me, "Hmm, feels like there's a lot of these going around at the moment." Imo, producers/agents/managers have a better feel what's out there at the moment and what they can personally sell to their contacts.

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