Deep Space Nine's wartime morality plays show that good writing is timeless

Pretty much since its inception back in the mid-sixties, Star Trek has often told stories within its far-future setting that are an allegory on events in our own time.  It was Gene Roddenberry's way of telling provocative (and in the context of the time, perhaps subversive) stories under the guise of being simple science-fiction.  In one of the more infamous examples, he tackled the idiocy of racism by showing a race of people with two classes.  Both classes had faces that were white on one profile and black on the other, though those whose right profiles were black despised those who were their mirror images.  Likewise, those whose faces were white on the right side were equally devoted to destroying their alternate cousins.  It's a conflict that comes at a terrible cost.



Of course to the viewer, this war would have seemed stupid.  "Both these aliens have half-black and half-white faces, why would they fight over such a thing?"  Hopefully, that's the point where the light bulb goes off and the viewer realizes "So why exactly should whites and blacks on Earth be at odds."  A trifle clunky, I admit, but it was the sixties.  Throughout its history, Trek has made use of even defter metaphors.

With that in mind, what if I pitched you a Star Trek story like this:  The Federation is facing an enemy that might have infiltrated them at the highest levels.  They've got hidden agents on the Federation's homeworld - Earth.  They can blend into the population and they've recently pulled off an attack on a diplomatic conference on Earth that left psychological damage at least as bad as physical.  With tensions high, Starfleet security demands more authority to implement stricter, more invasive security measures.  The Federation President is reluctant to give the military that authority, but when the planet's entire power grid is taken out - leaving Earth defenseless - he has little choice but to give the Starfleet admiral the authority he wants.

But soon we learn that the destruction of the power grid was actually engineered by the corrupt admiral, intent on manufacturing a crisis so that he could seize power.  Essentially, this admiral will have used the paranoia to pull off an overreach of authority.

I have a feeling that if this episode were produced today - and especially if it had been made during the Bush Administration - there would be a lot of voices on the right decrying liberal Hollywood for such a pointed attack on George W. Bush.  But here's the kicker - that's actually the plot of an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine that aired in early 1996!  It was a two-parter contained in the episodes "Homeland" and "Paradise Lost," written by Ira Steven Behr & Robert Hewitt Wolfe.

(If you're so inclined, these episodes are available on Netflix Instant, in the 4th season.)

The enemy at that point were the shape-shifting Changlings, aliens with the ability to look like anyone.  They had declared their intent to infiltrate the Federation and had already used their powers to lure the Romulans and the Cardassian fleets into a horrible defeat.  Starfleet had never faced an enemy so able to slip within their own ranks. 

"Homeland" focused on the aftermath of the attack on the conference, with Captain Sisko recalled to Earth to help develop new security measures against the Changlings.  In a sneaky bit of plotting, the viewer is actually made to sympathize with Sisko and Admiral Leyton as their proposals are met with resistance from the Federation President.  Because we - the viewers - have seen just how dangerous the Changelings are, we're frustrated when the President pushes back against tests that only seem reasonable.

The President isn't the only opposition.  Captain Sisko's own father is greatly offended and resistant when he's told that as a relative of a Starfleet officer, he must consent to a blood-screening (purportedly the only way to expose a Changling imposter.)  Of course, his refusal to take the test only makes him look suspicious.  After all, why should an innocent man have any reason to oppose this sort of compulsory search-and-seizure?  Surely if he resists, he must have something to hide and be viewed with suspicsion, right?  As it turns out, he isn't an infiltrator - though he offers one of the episodes more resonant lines: "There's no test a smart man can't find his way around." 

The first episode ends with the President finally giving in in the face of a planet-wide power outage.  In fact, it's Captain Sisko who delivers the critical line: "Give us the authority we need, Mr. President, and we will take care of the rest."  It's a line that feels far more chilling than in 1996, just like Mr. Sisko's warning about tests. And yet, it was written in a world where a trip to the airport didn't necessitate full-body scans and invasive searches and pat-downs; A world where the Patriot Act sounded more like something from the mind of George Orwell than anything that would could ever become real.

With a cliffhanger that featured martial law being imposed, most viewers expected that Part II would be a tense action-packed hour of our heroes taking on the Changelings.  But that's not what Trekkers got, as we will explore tomorrow.

Part II

Tuesday Talkback: Worst Product Placement

Upcoming Universal Pictures release The Lorax has over 70 product tie-ins, including the EPA and Whole Foods.  That's pretty impressive and what I can only assume is a bid to exhaust ultra-conservative nutjobs whose paranoid fantasies lead them to attack even childrens' movies for fostering "liberal propeganda."  After all, these attention-seeking publicity whores have a tendency to express their displeasure by calling for boycotts against sponsors of such material.  With 70 partners, that's a hell of a huge writing campaign.

Not that I have a problem with publicity whores - I just prefer it be done to stimulate capitalism rather than stifle it.  It should be done in the name of raising product awareness - not watchdog group awareness.  You know what I'm talking about - the blatant product placement that ensures that when Marty McFly orders a drink, he makes sure we know it's Pepsi.  The sort of product integration that let's us know that when the future becomes a near utopia, all restaurants will become Taco Bell.  We need this sort of jarring, in-film advertisment to remind us now and then "this whole thing is a fantasy, so don't waste valuable brain matter trying to puzzle out the internal logic in a 90s Stallone film.

The more obtrusive a product placement is, the closer it comes to achieving a pure state of the Brechtian alienation effect.  I admit, I don't remember enough of my college film courses to explain what that means, but it sounds pretentious enough to make me seem I know what I'm talking about. Though I can appreciate the irony that Brecht was a Marxist - which means that if he were alive today, he'd be writing me an angry letter for associating him with behavior like this:



So with that in mind - what would you consider to be the worst/most awkward example of product placement in a film?  Bonus points if you can think of a better way to execute it.

"Which coverage service can get my material into the hands of producers?"

A reader named Mike sent me a question that I've gotten in one form or another over the last few months:


Of all the script coverage services, which would you recommend that would include a referral to producers, after of course receiving positive coverage. I've read of a few but which do you recommend?

As I've said before, there are some perfectly good reasons to pay a consultant to do coverage on your script.  However, I don't really have enough experience with those services that I feel comfortable saying, "Yes, give all your money to Company ______."

If it was me, I'd look at the referral as a bonus - nothing more.  Some of those services tout all their many connections, but the proof, as they say, is in the pudding.  Most of those sites should have some kind of "Success Story" section.  A quick glance at ScriptPimp's site reveals that they have had a few six-figure sales and a couple produced projects, in addition to the usual boasting about finding their clients representation.  In looking at ScriptShark's site, there are several listings from the past year alone about their clients finding representation, though I don't see any recent sales.

But here's where your own instincts have to come in.  I wouldn't look to these companies to get you a sale.  Look at the agents, managers and producers they seem to be associated with, and then do your own due diligence on those people.  Are the producers the kind of people who would respond to your material?  What can you find out about those reps?  Are they strong sellers or are they small-time?

Remember, getting representation is a step, but it's only the beginning of the journey.  Even a great agent can only do so much.  They can open doors, but your material has to be strong enough to advance further.  Plenty of people get an agent or a manager and then spend years trying to get a sale.

The consulting services primarily exist to give feedback.  Anything beyond that is gravy and I think that's the attitude you have to take when evaluating them.  We all want to sell our material, looking to these services from the perspective of "which one will make that sale happen?" is a little like wondering which type of canvas you should buy so your painting ends up in the Louvre.

Short Film Showcase: Nate Golon's Briefcase

You might remember Nate Golon from my posts ages ago about the webseries Workshop.  Recently, Nate released a new short film called Briefcase.



I have to admit, I sometimes think I'm even more critical of short films than I am of scripts.  This probably owes to the fact that I've seen a lot of bad shorts and I'm always convinced that I would have avoided making such glaring mistakes.  Each of my own shorts made me a better filmmaker and so naturally, my gut reaction is to nitpick shorts that perhaps fall short of what I consider to be my ability.

That why I was surprised when Nate's film held my interest all the way through.  As I told him in an email, I can't claim to completely understand the ending, but the pacing, editing and overall execution was smooth enough to keep my attention until the end.  Nate avoids a trap so many short film directors fall into - over-directing.  Some guys are so determined to show off their "eye" that their composition and editing becomes a liability rather than an asset.  Nate gets some good angles, here, but he's practices restraint.

If you're so inclined, here's the Facebook page for Briefcase.

Oscar films fail to get box office bump

Patrick Goldstein has an interesting article about this year's box office trends.  Revenues are on the rise this year... so long as you're not up for an Oscar.

This year’s box office is booming, except, gulp, for Oscar movies. The 2012 grosses have been surprisingly strong, up nearly 18% year to date compared with 2011. But if you think any of that is thanks to people rushing out to see the best picture contenders ahead of Sunday’s Academy Awards show, think again.


[...] It’s hard to make a strong case that many of the nominated films were helped in any significant way by the Oscar nominations. Even “The Descendants,” which has continued to have a strong showing at the box office, had its biggest grossing weekend at Thanksgiving, not after the nominations were announced. The only films you can argue that have really benefited from Oscar-related box office are “The Artist” and “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close,” though both films have spent a healthy chunk of their box office gains in nonstop Oscar advertising.

You might recall I recently did a comparative analysis of how this year's nominees performed at the box office versus the films nominated for 1991's Academy Awards.  As we saw, it wasn't a favorable comparison.

Let's throw this down right now - I don't want to see any "Strawman" arguments that accuse me of saying that box office always equals quality.  It doesn't.  However, it is a good way to get a sense of how many eyes have seen a film.  In studying the long-term trends on the Oscar movies and comparing them to the other releases, we can also see there's an enthusiasm gap.  Even after the nominations raised awareness and acted as a public advertisement of these films' critical acclaim, audiences still haven't rushed to the multiplex.

So what's going on here?  What are Safe House, Chronicle and The Vow doing right that the Oscar films are doing wrong?  Safe House and The Vow both only dropped less than 36% at the box office last weekend.  That's a pretty good hold that suggests not only did the marketing and the concept put assess in the seats, but the word-of-mouth was good enough to draw in a big Week 2 audience as well.

Basically, the studios seem to be releasing a good percentage of films that are not only appealing to audiences, but are also leaving them satisfied.

So why is it that when it comes to the nine Best Picture nominees, the raw numbers make Hollywood look like Gretchen Wiener determined to make "fetch" happen?  You could point to polarizing reviews on Extremely Loud, or some of the backlash of War Horse deflating those returns.  The Help had a healthy run earlier.  Midnight in Paris also performed extremely well for a Woody Allen film prior to the nominations, though it's surprising that it didn't get much of a second wind after the nominees.

But why hasn't Moneyball been a smash despite strong reviews, nominations, Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill?  Why is The Descendants still lagging?  Is it simply that seeing these films is akin to "eating one's vegetables?"  Are there simply too many nominees?  Or is it as simple as the fact that the bigger hits this year are largely escapist in nature and audiences are looking to feel good rather than endure drama?

I ask because anyone looking to make a career out of writing needs to know the kind of market that their material exists in.  I rather liked The Descendants and Moneyball.  In particular, I thought the latter was an impressive achievement in taking a concept that could have been dry and non-visual and finding a way into the material through the characters.  So if you were to play in that same screenwriting ballpark, how could you assure a buyer that your script would have more commercial appeal?

If you haven't seen Moneyball, what's stopping you?  It's not silent or in black-and-white.  It's not about death.  It's not by a controversial director.  It's not from a director who's gotten attacked for not making movies as good as he used to.  And it's not a period piece either.  I've run through every cliched excuse that would keep a mainstream audience from a critically acclaimed film and I can't find any reason why Moneyball shouldn't be doing better.  If any of the nominees should have gotten an easy box office bump, it would have been this one.

Or is the problem just that these acclaimed films are speaking to a smaller and smaller percentage of society?  Are they movies for people who don't go to the movies?

Last year's spec market was huge and the start of this year looks promising as well.  A lot of material will probably sell this year - so how will this box office trend dictate what the studios are looking to buy?  I harp on box office from time to time because if you want to be a working writer, you can't pretend that your art exists in a vacuum.  You should study the business as well as the craft, and statistics like this are exactly the sort of thing that a smart writer should be able to find a way to capitalize on.

And the Best Picture Oscar goes to... "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol"

I've complained before about the relatively unexciting list of Oscar nominees for Best Picture, and going along with that, there's been a clear enthusiasm gap associated with this year's awards.  Surely, every year there are complaints that the Academy has gotten too arty or too snobby.  In fact, most pundits trot out a couple common examples of the Oscars "getting it wrong" in the past, presumably as a way of urging the audience not to get too bent out of shape.

At the top of that list is Annie Hall and Woody Allen beating out Star Wars and George Lucas for "Best Picture" and "Best Director" in 1977.  I know there's going to be a temptation to take a cheap shot at Lucas based on post-prequel hatred, but you have to remember that in the context of 1977, what he did was incredibly revolutionary.  Star Wars changed the face of film and cast a much longer shadow than Annie Hall.  Seemingly the Academy valued intimacy over scope.

And yet, in 1982, E.T. lost to Gandhi.  An epic bio-pic trumped what was then the most popular movie of all time.  E.T. was emotional, it was accepted by a wide audience and it had heart. Gandhi was... "important."  When was the last time you got the urge to watch Gandhi?  How many of you even own it on DVD?

Here's what really irks me about this film snobbery - it values a few aspects of filmmaking while completely discounting the artistry of the others.  It's not "Best Picture due to Most Emotional Performances," "Best Picture that Tackles a Social Issue and Reduces It to a Simplistic, Insulting Thesis or Solution," or "Best Picture due to Most Character Driven Screenplay."  It's "Best Picture." Period.  But I guess if you can make an audience cry or make them feel something "deep" like, "Wow, that was really bold to say that 'racism is bad and hurtful,'" it's enough to negate hours of blood and sweat spent elsewhere.

Popcorn movies.  That's what they call films that never will get Oscars simply because they dared to be popular.  True, often these films have serious deficiencies in story and acting.  (Paging Michael Bay.)  But what about the films that are grand adventures, that take action to new heights, propelled by a structurally strong script?  The performances might not contain some overwrought emotional catharsis, but you know what, sometimes it's just as difficult to keep characters consistent and compelling even without the crutch of letting the actor play a dibilitating mental disease or have to come to terms with the loss of a loved one.

Because it's really hard to cry on cue.  Like hard.

You know what else is hard? Dangling a mile high in the air, tethered to a building while a helicopter swoops above you to get vertigo inducing shots.  If that's so easy, you run down the outside of a mile-high glass building - WITHOUT the aid of a stunt double.  Oh, and you have to stay in character completely which in this case means not losing your shit because "HOLY FUCK I'M A MILE ABOVE THE GROUND!"



Yeah, that's just as easy as acting befuddled or drawing on a memory of a childhood pet's death so you can shed a tear.

What Tom Cruise gives in Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol is a performance no less consistent than Meryl Steep in the Acclaimed Movie I Didn't See or what Gary Oldman did in The Movie I Saw And Thought Was Okay But Probably Never Will Need to See Again.  Cruise says his lines, he stays in character and he makes us believe Ethan Hunt is real.  He does what the script asks of him and he brings some of his own persona to it.  Ditto for all of the supporting cast.

Now you can argue that Cruise didn't deserve a Best Actor nomination.  I admit, it was a very competitive field this year.  Then again, I don't see Christopher Plummer and Max Von Sydow doing this...

That should have been a full-page ad in Variety with the caption "For Your Consideration, Motherfucker."

But enough about Cruise, let's talk about the movie itself.  It's visually stunning, both in the angles and in the staging of action - so that point goes to the director, Brad Bird.  Oh, and did I mention this was his first live-action picture?  Not bad for a neophyte, eh?

The story moves well, due to the solid structure that motivates the characters and the action scenes.  It's also really well-paced, - credit to the writers and the editors there.

Also with the "visually-stunning" point - the visual and special effects are virtually flawless.  Kudos to all the technical teams involved.

And acting-wise, was there anyone who wasn't convincing in their role?  Down to the last man, they embodied their parts and did what was asked of them.

I look at everything that goes into making a film - particularly a film of this genre - and I struggle to see any glaring flaws.  You might say, "Well, the characters just weren't as deep as The Descendants."  Okay, fair enough...

But The Descendants had far less complex stunt/action scenes.  The story had far fewer turns it had to sell.  So should it get a pass simply because it was technically less ambitions that M:I - GP?  Why can't Ghost Protocol get the same pass for its character arcs being less ambitious?

"Best Picture" means the whole picture - everything.  And if more popcorn films got nominated, I wouldn't bitch about this because, hey, luck of the draw.  This year we gave greater weight to the emotional than the technical.  But that's not how it works.  It seems you can entirely reinvent filmmaking on a technical level, attempt spectacle that's never been seen before, hold an audience at the edge of their seat for 2+ hours and in the end, all some ABC Family actress has to do is cry underwater to make all of that irrelevant.

Are The Artist and The Descendants really the best and most impressive examples of filmmaking this year? Or are they the "safe" choices that one can laud without fearing the loss of some kind of manufactured credibility?  Brad Bird and Tom Cruise delivered a roller-coaster ride of filmmaking where the story was propelled by some solid lead characters and a really strong cast.

No gold statue will ever convince me that is any less of an achievement than any of the nine nominees for Best Picture.

Tuesday Talkback: Oscar Fever

I'm hearing a fair amount of talk in the Hollywood bubble about how people just aren't enthusiastic at all about this year's Oscars.  There's a fear that this will translate to lower ratings.  The theory is that if "insiders" are apathetic about the Oscar nominees this year, the "average Joes" must be even less invested.

So I'll put it to you - how much DO you care about the Oscars this year?  Is anyone having Oscar parties?

And what's everyone think about having Billy Crystal back this year?  Are you eager to see what he does, or is his routine too familiar after so many visits?  Heck, does the host make that much of a difference for you as a viewer?

So sound off.  I'd love to hear where everyone stands.