Before I get to today’s blog…

Thinking about doing more with your writing? Why not join me in Paris June 2-7 for my Masterclass in Screenwriting? Come be part of a dynamic community of writers and literary agents to learn, to write, to network, to energize your literary goals—and just to have fun in the City of Light!

The Paris Writers Workshop is the longest running literary program of its kind. This program offers 6 masterclasses by renowned authors, each a specialist in their field—and I’ll be teaching the Screenwriting Masterclass—in English, of course.

The workshop will be held at Columbia University’s beautiful Reid Hall campus in the heart of literary Paris—Montparnasse.

Registration is now open: https://wice-paris.org/paris-writers- workshop

We’ll have a great time getting your story ideas off the ground!!

ROGUE ONE

So I dragged my husband, kicking and screaming, to Rogue One this week after reading some pretty decent reviews and seeing that people were flocking to it in the U.S. We happen to be in France at the moment and there were just 11 people in our theatre, so I guess it’s not making as big of a splash here. Why did I insist he come? I think I expected him to grudgingly admit that, hey, these Star Wars movies can be fun, can have a compelling story, can be suspenseful, can have some meaning, can be a real movie.

He didn’t admit any of those points—and neither did I.

We were bored. It was like a video game on the big screen, you know? So what? Been there, done that.

If a movie doesn’t surprise me, doesn’t challenge me in some way, doesn’t have characters who seem real [even if they’re from other planets], characters who aren’t just stock types, then all the hardware in the world won’t do it. For me, predictability is the kiss of death for a film and there wasn’t a surprise in the entire over-long event [I bristle at actually calling it a movie].

Contrast this with the Star Trek franchise—which in its 2009 reboot created a film that was full of action AND had great characters…and even a few surprises.

I don’t think it’s just about Star Wars vs. Star Trek, I think it comes down to character and surprise. Watch the first 10 minutes of Star Trek [2009] and you’re thrown directly into the action, directly into an intense emotional situation, and the movie tells the story of James T. Kirk’s childhood in superb flashes that reveal his inner character through his actions. And the dialogue is superb—it’s real, it’s like people actually speak, it’s not stilted and glistening with its own self-righteousness the way the dialogue in Rogue One is.

What makes a film work for one person and not for another? As we left the theatre there were five guys in the back row who seemed to be talking about the film as if they’d been totally into it. So good for them. But my opinion? The film industry has been lowering the bar systematically over the last several years so that most people don’t really know what a good movie is. I fear audiences see the glistening robots and big action set pieces and that’s enough for them.

So shame on us. Shame on us for not giving the audience something better than this. Shame on writers who just look at what’s done well in the past to determine what they’ll write in the future. Can’t we writers look out into space and see the new possibilities? Can’t we explore worlds in surprising ways? Can’t we create characters who aren’t just marvels of make-up?

Take a few minutes and think about a ‘space’ movie you could write. What would it be like? What could you do that we haven’t already seen done ad infinitum? Who would your main character be? What more could you bring to the screen that would rivet, delight, and maybe even inspire an audience? Where could you take us that we haven’t been before? Know what I mean???

BONUS BLOG POST: To see my blog post To Be a Writer, written this month for Emerson College, click here: http://careerbuzz.emerson.edu/blog/2016/12/06/to-be-a-writer/

Copyright © Diane Lake

18Dec16

Email Diane a question to Diane@DianeLake.com