Been almost two months since "Prometheus"came out -- and now what do I hafta look forward to in a post-Prometheus world? Nada, nothing. You see, for me, Ridley Scott's"Prometheus" was the most anticipated movie of the year. I mean prior to its release on June 8, I scoured the Internet reading anything and everything on its build up. I was hooked. And who wouldn't be after a trailer like this:
But ultimately Ridley Scott's "Prometheus" was quite a disappointment. It was not the classic I'd hoped going in it would be. This lead me to reflect on it and other movies that have come out this year to see how the movies, overall are doing so far this year. Was 2012 a "good" year or a "bad" year for the movies? Let's see...
First off, let's tackle the notion if it's fair or not to judge 2012 when not all of it's movies have come out yet. Fair -- to a point. The thing is the "big" summer movies have all been released. And it's not until Thanksgiving - Christmas that I anticipate anymore real, legitimate shot at being a hit movies will come out. Really looking forward to seeing Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln"and Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey".
From what I've seen here's how I rank the big-hitters of 2012 movies this year:
"The Dark Knight Rises": 5 out of 10. Really didn't care for this movie. Thought Bane was a poor choice of a villain for Batman to battle. Was reminded of the movie, "The Siege" for some reason while watching this. Sure there were some things to like about this movie, but the choice for Bane to raid Batman's fortress to get the necessary arms to hold Gotham hostage wasn't very good. And why would anyone drive a city to utter chaos on a suicide mission anyway? Point: bad guys were poorly motivated.
"The Amazing Spider-man":5.3 out of 10. This re-boot was pretty much a misfire. Emma Stone isn't beautiful or captivating enough -- to me at least -- to carry this movie as Peter Parker's love interest. And the whole build-up to how Peter Parker became Spider-man wasn't done as well as the 2001 "Spiderman." Did like the re-imagining of OSCORP, but the main villain, the Lizard, was pretty stupid.
"Prometheus": 7.1 out of 10. Visually stunning, but the "great mystery" remains just that. The Engineers were a real disappointment, and I no longer am hyped about seeing a "Prometheus II".
"The Hunger Games": 7.8 out of 10. Out here in Washington you could still go to the movies and see this show 3 + months after it was originally released in March. Talk about a show with legs!! The Hunger games "world" really didn't work for me: 1800s-esque living in a post-apocalyptic word with cutting edge, state-of-the-art, wizzbang visual computer-generated stuff being made by the government-run TV people. BUT the teen angle worked, and Jennifer Lawrence did a great job as Katniss.
"The Avengers": 8 out of 10. Funny movie. Weak on plot, but the Avenger superheros almost make you forget that. Loki almost singlehandely sinks this ship. My gosh, Hollywood has got to come up with better villains than that.
"Ted": 8.8 out 10. Very funny movie. Biggest surprise of 2012 -- by far! Good love story, and the teddy bear who grows up with the boy who wished him into existence works. Kinda raunchy, not the kind of show you can take your parents to, but this was definately the best show of 2012 I've seen so far.
So what comes next? Well, George Kennedy's "Fury Road" (2013) is filming now. Mad Max 20-some-plus years after "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" -- which I wasn't too fond of. BUT I did really like 1981's "The Road Warrior" so I'll PROBABLY go see "Fury Road" when it comes out, but hearing Charlize Theron shaved her head for her role in the movie kinda throws a wet blanket on my enthusiasm for "Fury Road." Why uglifya beautiful girl? Not a proponent of that.
Gosh, I feel such cynicism building up in my heart for movies. The post-Prometheus let-down is a dangerous thing. The movies used to be such an outlet for me. A place to go to get inspiration. But right now that well looks awefully dry.
O, well. Hopefully over time my heart will heal and learn to trust again. It's just hard. And what about my beloved rom-com genre. Sigh... Not seeing enough good ones of those coming out, though one could argue that "Ted" was a rom-com in a coming-of-age buddy movie -- which I just saw for the 3rd time tonight and STILL laughed at the jokes even when I knew they were coming. My favorite: when the Ted locks his brakes then apologizes to the driver he nearly hit, "Sorry, I was sending a Tweet."
As far as my own contributions go perhaps that line from Norman Osborn in "Spiderman" 2001 best sums it up, "Back to formula? You want to take the whole line back to formula?!" My current spec. script is a bit of a mess right now. I'm over 90 pages in and off my original outline that should be the near the beginning of Act II. Not good. What I've written so far is very herky-jerky; a product of too many start and stops, with not enough consecutive, back-to-back, days of writing. Example: a bad guy I introduced at the beginning of the script gets lost for about 60 pages then comes back in the story. Don't know how keen you are about story development, but that isn't good.
"Back to formula." Means going deeper into my outline to try to refine the story down. One of my biggest problems in my own writing is that I tend to have A LOT of characters. I like people, I guess, and this is just my own warped way of showing that. I have a tendencyto really want to get into each and every character too. So what ends up happeing is that these characters are real important, than another character comes along and they become real important.
Another big problem with my writing is that I don't write strong enough protagonists. Yikes, that's not good. Why? Because protagonists are your lead actor or actresses roles. The lead protagonist is the star. The hero that the audience members are supposed to root for. And as a writer, that right up near the top of the deck of things you must have: a top-flight protagonist. But a lot of the times that's where I fail the most -- and I realize that.
One of the other developments in my life is that I'm starting to feel a sequel to "The Commune" building momentum in my heart. Unfortunately "The Commune" is dark place too, and I'm not sure if I really want to revisit that. The mind is a frustrating place. I need to find more uplifting stories to tell. The thing is, I've got one. It's an animated, animal coming-of-age movie. I rough sketched the story out to my mother when she was cooking one night, and she really like it. YES, if your mother likes something that does count. It counts for a lot.
So what comes next? Well, I continue to put one foot in front of the other. Soldier on. Try to refine the story I'm working on now. Try to hone in and center the story more on my main protagonist, and minimize the affect of the others. I think this story is going to take a bunch of drafts to really nail. Right now it's just all over the place, and definitely not ready to show. I had hoped to be wrapping up this story by the end of July, but now it looks like I'm going to have to cut myself some slack, and push out the completion date of this project.
I'm no quiter. What I start, I will finish. Not sure how the final product of his teen comedy will look, but I am committed to seeing it through. Why stress about how long it takes to write anyway? I mean I'm on no one's clock. This whole spec. script thing is a do-at-your-own-pace kind of thing anyway. No one really cares what I do, so I may as well just commit to making the best piece of art I can. Then show it to the world when I'm ready.
And don't get me wrong. There are a lot of things about the current spec. script I'm working on that do excite me. For once in my life I've written, what I think will be, a really cute, cute meet. A cute meet is beat in a romantic comedy where the audience sees the two leads interact in a romantic way for the first time. And besides that cute meet I've also got another romantic exchange later in the script that I'm genuinely happy with -- on first draft/not-yet-all-the-way polished yet.
So I soldier on into places unknown. (Well, with an outline the place is kinda known, but all the details of the map are not all filled in yet). And hopefully all the magic hasn't left my wand yet and I can still...
We'll see. Stay tuned...
- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA