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.
It's like reading a news article and seeing horribly constructed sentences and typos. Like, this is your main job! I know there are a lot of English majors out there who would love to find work.
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.
Really though writing should be the least important part of a journalists job, digging through stories and finding the truth or understanding the complex strands of the story should be and that often involves going back and editing, restructuring, reediting, reworking and adding to it over and over again.
It gets really hard to see your writing with fresh eyes once you've got it so perfectly constructed in your head, it's super easy to miss awkward mistakes that have crept in - this is why editors were a thing but newspapers rarely bother anymore or the editor is too focused on political and social acceptable to notice grammar or word choice errors
I've been building a list called "The Micro or Low Budget Sci-fi" https://letterboxd.com/mattcoady/list/the-micro-or-low-budget-sci-fi/
Basically movies that cost almost nothing to make and use great writing to build up the world. Our minds are really good and fleshing out the rest as long as their given good writing as a foundation. Productions could save a lot of money with good writing. It blows my mind you could sink $200 million dollars into a project and not have an absolutely flawless script.
Hey, thanks for sharing!
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.
It's crazy cause if you hear writers in tv talk about it, they'll get contracted like a month or two before they have to finish the first batch of scripts. Writing in Hollywood is as much about learning quick writing shortcuts/tropes to move the plot along to get the product out on time as it is being able to develop a plot.
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.
My pet theory is that this is because of the assembly line way of thinking of studios. Script -> Casting -> Shooting -> VFX -> Editing -> Profit.
It takes time to develop a good idea and script. If you force a writer to adhere to a strict schedule you'll get a rush job and bad writing. As long as money keeps flowing in, their assembly line theory is validated.
i wouldn’t be surprised if a big part of it is that the higher ups don’t know much about what good writing actually is, or they’re too focused on ratings and they don’t dare deviate from “what works”. it also wouldn’t surprise me if writers weren’t allowed to make “major” changes to scripts after seeing how the writing looks after scenes have been recorded, because it might be “too expensive to change”.
Because writing doesn't really work like that, the reason we get bland writing is because they keep adding extra chefs.
Thay get these professional writers that learned formula in school and apply it to sections of someone else's work and wonder why the result is an ugly tapestry of formulaic rubbish.
All the things people love are written by people with passion for the project, then they get a budget increase and professional industry writers get brought in and it's all shitty generic snappy dialog and dramatic posing that feels uncomfortable and awkward in the scene.
Yeah but taking advantage of that would require executive ghouls to be capable of appreciating art or even be willing to read drafts.
Maybe it's studio meddling or director indecision? Lots of changes at the last minute make the writers fly by the seat of their pants?
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.
"Somehow, Palpatine return." -Poe-
Palpatine coming back wasn't even an interesting premise though.
It really did fail on all ends.
Palpatine = Fascism.
Palpatine returned = Fascism returned.
The word Fascism was coined be Mussolini because it was a reference to the Roman Empire. Fascism is often about restoring past Empires.
Luke tried (and succeeded) to bring his father back from the dark side.
Rey does not attempt to ring her grandfather back from the dark side. Why not? because he's dead. You can redeem your family but you can't redeem your ancestors because they're dead. You also can't confront your ancestors, but science fiction allows characters to do things that aren't possible to do in the real world.
Rey confronts her evil ancestor and rejects him. Takes on a different name, She understands her ancestor doesn't define who she is.
Children in school right now learning about what their evil ancestors did, what should they do? Take their side? Or realize like Rey did that they don't have to identify with what their ancestors did. You can identify with the good people from the past even if you aren't related to them.
Fascism relies on wanting the things that your ancestors had. Reject that idea and you reject fascism.
Also if you've ever seen a statue of some evil dude being removed, you will see a reproduction of an evil person that died a long time ago being moved around on a crane.
The problem with RoS isn't that it didn't do anything interesting, it's just it didn't tell you that it was doing interesting things. So people would know what to post on twitter immediately after watching the movie.
TLJ has the appearance of an interesting movie but actually did nothing. RoS tried to appear like a dumb action movie while actually doing interesting things.
And I didn't even go into the layer about the grieving process, but that's obvious isn't it? Movie starts with a guy literally denying death and ends on Chewie inheriting Hans's medal and Rey burying the lightsabers. The Sequel Trilogy was about death after all, so it's obvious the last movie had a layer about the grieving process... right? RIGHT?
The look on Oscar Isaac's face as he delivers that line is something else.
It's the face of a man who has been back and forth with the scriptwriter and director all day, and is resigned to the fact that this is the best they can come up with.
Poe doesn't know or care why fascism returned, he just knows he's going to fight against it.
The hot take internet culture rejected the movie simply because people don't have the capability of understanding the layers and interpreting anything. It's a shame really it's the most interesting of all the Star Wars movies (though not the best, the editing was janky as hell). But people are more interested in consuming nitpicky memes about Star Wars than watching an actual Star Wars movie.
But it's a movie that provided petty nitpicky assholes on the internet many hours of entertainment repeating the same false memes that only indicate that they didn't actually watch the movie. You got what you wanted, so you should appreciate JJ Abrams for satisfying your cynical and petty nature with all the negative memes you're still repeating over four years later.
I'll just be over here enjoying a Star Wars movie that has layers about the relationship between our connection to our ancestors and fascist movements, the grieving process, and still isn't so overly serious to not have a layer with the Emperor blasting lightning bolts at X-Wings.
Enjoy your memes!
I'm still salty about League of Extraordinary Gentleman. Literary Avengers is such an awesome concept, but what we got was so fucking bad Connery walked away from acting forever.
But it did give us one of the most beautiful movie cars ever which, you know, is nice.
Read the comic. It does so much better with the concept. Goddammit, can we get at least one good Alan Moore adaptation?! Look at the mans run of Swamp Thing! It'd do well as an animated movie, at the very least!
The swamp thing TV show for kinda close
I thought the little bit we got with that marvel mini-movie thing was nice. The main character and plot were a little cliche, but the acting was good and the execution hit well.
Just like Sandman, it could only be good if the man himself was at the helm, but he hates comics now.
I really don't think we can and I'm fed up of them trying, why don't they let old things be old and comics be comics?
You want to make a good film in the twenty twenties then write a film to be a film in the twenty twenties.
Sean Connerys last movie, too. He did not deserve that.
TV show with really interesting premise that is well written, well acted, with great sets:
Streaming service cancels it after the first season and doesn't renew it.
RIP 'Night Sky' with JK Simmons. What could have been.
I was enjoying the heck out of The Peripheral. RIP.
I was just thinking about that show last night and wondering if/when season 2 was coming out, as it had good reviews, great cast, a good plot, and the dialogue was pretty good too.
Went to the Wikipedia page and found out Amazon cancelled it two months after it's debut. Two months! They didn't even give it a chance.
Well that really sucks. I don't even have a guess to what's going on with that ending.
RIP Carnival Row. I thought it was a pretty damn good show, with excellent actors and good character building.
It hasn't been "officially" cancelled, but it may as well be at this point.
Me when they say the name of the movie in the movie:
Superman: The only way for me to solve this crisis is to be Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.
Peter: Oh, that's why they called it that.
"Ah boy, I'm just so tired of all these star wars."
"And the world will always remember the Backdoor Sluts 7: Anal Apocalypse."
"After all, there's a reason we call ourselves Backdoor Sluts 7: Anal Apocalypse"
Lumberjack Larry: "Darlin', I've carved the grandest totem, but it's too tall for the town square!"
Lucy, the Lumberjill: "And here I am, trying to fit this massive log through our cabin door. It's a tight squeeze!"
Lumberjack Larry: "Looks like we're both in a pickle with 'My Big Stick Doesn't Fit: The Log Jam Love Story.'"
Lucy, the Lumberjill: "Time to put our heads together and chop this problem down to size, honey!"
They said the thing!!
[Ding] Roll Credits!
I like shows like Andor which have a mildly interesting premise but rely on phenomenal writing and execution to really shine.
Why do Star Wars fans always forget the / in And/or?
You get my upvote, but it's an angry Andor unwillingly one.
Funnily enough, I have a playlist with the Andor score and some nice medley / covers which I have called "And/or"
Yeah I hesitantly tried out Andor as somebody who isnt the biggest Star Wars junkie, and it quickly flew to being my favourite Star Wars content by a mile. Really excellent writing imo
Foundation. Such awesome design, great acting... but such awful writing.
Maybe its because i'm not a fan of the books, but I really like Foundation, it has weak points, but overall I'm enjoying it.
I went into it expecting it to have nothing to do with the books. I found all the characters' behaviors irrational and frustrating, with the exception of the emperor.
And I'm getting really sick of incompetent protagonists and impossibly flawless antagonists. I think that's just a reflection of the zeitgeist of the world's masses, but that's another discussion. Suffice to say I'm tired of it being the only trope used in SciFi TV anymore.
I love the show. The best part of the show, far and away, is the part that isn’t in the books — the Genetic Dynasty.
My conspiracy theory is that the writers had an idea for their own show, but execs made them slap on the Foundation label for notoriety. Because the parts that aren't in the books, like the Genetic Dynasty, are great -- probably the best parts. It feels like that was the actual story here, then everything else had to be put in after the fact to justify the universe they put it in.
I stopped watching after season 1 because the "special powers held by individuals" angle felt like a slap in the face to the theme of the books. Apparently season 2 is better but I'm still a lil bitter so I don't think I can do it lol
This is brilliant, and it would explain so much! And I agree that the most interesting story arch is the one that has nothing to do with the novels (and the entire show shared very little with the novels, outside of some names).
I said that I liked few of the characters; I don't know if that improves after the first season, but like you, I'm traumatized enough by S1 to be uninterested in watcing S2. I realized I'd spent the last 3 episodes literally shouting at the TV because of characters being so unreasonably stupid, and if there's a literary sin I can't forgive it's characters doing stupid things as a plot device. "We need tension in this scene, so we'll have this character refuse to get in the escape pod until the last minute, for some trivial reason." It is infuriating, sloppy, weak writing, and I refuse to watch it.
I knew I wasn't crazy. I just can't get into that series.
Somehow Palpatine returned
I feel like this is personally attacking Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter and that movie deserves nothing but accolades.
To be fair, it does what it says on the tin.
You know I've seen every other mainline Star Wars and several of the one-offs and TV shows but I never got around to this one and I haven't really felt like I missed out.
Same. I read about it in memes mostly and at some point I was like 'alright that's enough of that'.
You're right.
This thing again. Palpatine is in a room full of cloning tanks talking about having unnatural powers. Next scene characters mention cloning and dark powers. It's just Poe doesn't know how it happened (he's not omniscient) and doesn't much care. Fascism returned and he's going to fight against it, that's all he needs to know.
It's explained but the hot take internet reactions missed it. And then memes were created to brag about being to stupid to understand something that happened in a Star Wars movie that a child could understand.
Somehow you don't understand what things mean in a Star Wars movie. Congratulations!
Somehow all efforts from episode 4-6 were in vain and Anakin wasn't the chosen one again because throwing Palpatine into the death star core didn't have any impact on anything. Somehow they made everything Luke, Leia und Han achived pointless. Somehow cloning was easily achievable with some dark powers and somehow Palpatine cloned himself and chilled for a few dozen years. Somehow Palpatine was a father and somehow Rei was his granddaughter.
This first Suicide Squad was hot garbage, the second was awesome.
The second one should have just been called something else.
Every DC fan I knew had such a bad taste in their mouth for that Will Smith Suicide Squad.
That's the beauty of the Suicide Squad, they die or escape or there are other teams, so they can wipe out the whole cast without hesitation because it fits into the plot constraints.
The Extended Cut version of the first movie is actually an okay time. It boggles the mind anyone would think it's a good idea to pull every bit of backstory and subplot and give us the mess of a theatrical version we got.
This was Once Upon A Time on ABC. Could’ve been a really good show, but it was basically fanfiction written by a middle schooler.
How many times can you use amnesia in a show with seven seasons? How many times can you reveal that Character A is secretly related to Character B? How many times can someone get killed but then miraculously get better? How many times can you introduce absolutely world-breaking plot devices, only to forget about them immediately?
The answer for all of the above, for Once Upon a Time, is THERE'S NO FUCKING UPPER LIMIT.
It did have this absolutely fantastic exchange though...
Grumpy: We're all going to go hang out with Happy.
Snow White: Didn't he get turned into a tree?
Grumpy: Yeah, but we fixed that months ago! We do things when you're not around!
...for which I'll almost forgive all the rest.
'Fables' was a comic book that was the first to use the idea of characters from fairy tales living in the modern era. When people realized that everything was already public domaine we got two shows, neither as good as the comic.
Wolf among Us was great though
Two shows?
After seeing all the weird ads in malls and on random food, I decided to read the wiki about this show. Sounds like a really really good premise!
But the moment I watched a random trailer... Yikes. Bad execution.
It was created by some of the same people who made Lost. Both shows relied heavily on flashbacks to make the shows seem more planned out. Both relied on inconsistent mythologies to fake worldbuilding.
Witcher :(
And I'm not talking about the casting or other stuff. Just the general writing and conversion from books to screen sucked ass
From what I've heard it would have been multitudes worse if Cavill wasn't so passionate about the source, too.
Yeah I never read the books or played the games. So when I watched it I thought it was kinda janky because they were trying a little to hard trying to stay true to the books.
Then I later found out it wasn't true to the books. Sure sometimes you need to change things to make a story work better for a new medium. But why is it so jank then?
If they made changes but it worked really well as a TV show because of those changes I can understand. And if the show is janky because they tried to stay too close to the books, I can understand. But they made a janky show that's not true to the books. I don't understand!
Some of the jank is because of the first book for sure. Doing three different converging timelines isn't easy.
I've heard even that books aren't that good, basically being medieval James Bond, but somehow even more misogynistic.
It was like a teenager wrote the dialogue.
The Dark Tower movie adaptation, I am a huge fan of the books and I was so looking forward to a 3 movie arc. Turned out 🤮
Recently this was Hazbin Hotel for me. Thought I would give it a shot but it's written like a kid's show instead of an edgy adult comedy about demons.
Aw man, I was hoping it'd be better. I will still see and hope for the best.
How is it compared to Helluva Boss?
Much less clever and subtle. I would call that a pretty low bar, honestly. Helluva Boss also has a lot of poorly-written content IMO, but in Hazbin it's nonstop bad writing until there's a small glimpse of something competent. I would recommend Helluva Boss to anyone who likes shitposts and sitcoms, but I wouldn't recommend Hazbin to anyone right now.
I liked the hazbin hotel pilot, but very much felt how you do about the helluva boss pilot. I thought hazbin was fun and quirky and I liked it a fair bit, helluva boss cranked up the edginess and immaturity but didn't bring anything else that made up for it. Maybe the actual series is better Idk
They have to have bad writing because otherwise it will be canceled 2 seasons in to a 3 season story arc
Spelling error in a meme poking fun at bad writing. Hilarious.
rong righting
The movie "In Time" and the movie "Upside Down (2012)" are both great examples
Yeah in time showed great promise but the execution was crap Maybe they'll do it as a series
That leaves for an interesting question: why is most writing these days so god awful? There are great writers out there. Hollywood isn't stupid (is it?) and wants money. Why do they put shit writers on so many projects that then flop like the shit that it is?
Hollywood is stupid and they didn't want to pay writers after the first draft is written. It may not be so much the writer is shit (they came up with some good ideas after all) it's that they don't have time to make additional drafts to fix plotholes, improve the dialog, etc.
Writing isn't just banging out something on a typewriter and it's pure genius the moment is written. It's a process that usually involves multiple drafts.
You gotta admit a lot of things feel like a first draft, and it's probably because it is. Hopefully these issues were sorted out with the writer's strike.
Because it's targeting the lowest common denominator.
It's generalizing the writing so that it generally appeals to generally everyone to increase engagement. This means that the show loses its specific attractions and it just becomes another generic TV show based in a different world.
Executives chasing profits with data they don't understand, or the show just sticks around too long.
it's not a simple answer but due to technology and environment, it's just the way things are. basically less care is taken to get each minute of output simply because it's possible. so many things. you don't have to log heavy reels around, you don't have to use a typewriter. each step is so much easier. before, there was a lot more care taken per step.
Most of everything is shit, you just remember the few good ones, you don't remember the no name awful series that were airing together with Lost.
And even then Lost was also written with shit crayons. Especially the later stuff
With streaming, it's become about volume not quality. Before there were only so many movie screens and straight to video made next to nothing.
Now straight to streaming can make a LOT of money. Plus streaming services are trying to pump their selection and in-house productions cost nothing once produced. So even average or just good enough content can be profitable.
What are your opinions on The Magicians?
The show where they have to sex each other in super sexy horny sex to cast some spell. Yeah sex magic wooo!! And what does the spell do? It just creates a column of light that some guy can use as a beacon to navigate.
My eyes rolled so hard I saw the back of my own skull.
I did not like the constant tonal shifts between silly magic frat boys and depressing magical apocalypse.
Cheesey as hell but still loveable.
Never watched enough to get a feel. I could not stand the whiney main character kid. He was like nails on a chalk board annoying...
Haha, have you read the books? It is a million times worse / more pretentious. The show was camp, which was at least kinda fun. Definitely an improvement anyway
But I've heard the follow-up to Suicide Squad, "Birds of Prey (and some clown woman)" had great writing, so... does that even out?
And you would know, Margot Robbie! Good work!
Thank you!
Also, that's esteemed Academy Award nominated character actress Margot Robbie to you!
I haven't seen Birds of Prey, but "The Suicide Squad" (not to be confused with "Suicide Squad", which I also didn't watch) was very good.
Edit I may be stupid,
Indeed, that movie is also pretty good.
Preacher, the series adaption. Could have used the comic, but no, Seth Rogen had to butcher it.
Seth Rogen has proved he is the reverse Midas
Mierdas, everything touched turns to shit
Mr Robot the writing was so bad I genuinely spent several episodes thinking it was a parody of how bad Hollywood script writing had got.
Like someone was trying to make M Night Shyamalan's Fight Club: Now with More Daddy Issues.
I was watching with two friends and I thought they didn't like it because I was the only one laughing.
Mr. Robot is genuinely my favorite show and I was shocked to see it brought up in this thread. Different strokes for different folks I guess.
I liked the first season of that show and some of the second, but after that it fell off real hard.
M Night Shyamalan’s Fight Club: Now with More Daddy Issues.
Best take 🏆
Thank you! I have to admit I was pretty pleased with that one.
I completely agree, I don't know why everyone sucks that show's dick so hard every time it's brought up. It's good for TV, but a lot of it is just hard to watch because of how stupid the writing can be.
They put the emo chick in and there's a lot of drugs so it's deep and cool can't you see.
At least the programming terms check out.
I haven't watched all of them but the animated Suicide Squad movies have been pretty good.
DC's direct to video animation department consistently puts out absolute bangers, so that's not surprising. It's the live action stuff where they continuously drop the ball.
So Snyder?
While usually true, I can't help but look at War World and wonder what the hell they were trying to do with that
Ironic grammatical error
Darling in the franxx, I was really interested in the world building and was on the minority of people that liked the episodes that had no mecha fights and they were just exploring the current city and how weird it was.
But trigger couldn't contain themselves and had to do their asspulls and sudden massive power escalation that worked on Gurren Lagann because it wasn't a grounded take on post-apocalyptic future with a few mechas that defend humanity!
Sliders.. Had two great seasons then they started chasing trends and it jumped off a cliff.
Almost every Netflix movie. Disappointed almost every time.
know to man
Maybe proof-read your writing. Maybe once.
This gets me every time!
God, the first season of Revenge was so good. Quite a nosedive after season 2.
Welcome to America.
Breaking Bad's second season. Fuck that bullshit about airplane crash. Especially the black and white teases throughout the episode.
