Mindd Kidzag Talks.

I'm a fan editor on YouTube and I speak the truth. 'IGHT?!

[minddkidzag]

HOLY CRAP!!!  

A few days ago, I was asking myself whatever happened to that Cloverfield follow-up. If the film didn’t get made in 2018, ten years after the original, then what’s the point (by a studio and marketing standpoint). Especially, if this sequel was just the same New York Cloverfield attack, but from someone else’s point of view (via camera phone, etc.).

I’ve heard the director of Cloverfield (Matt Reeves) was going to return, but working on the new “Planet of the Apes” films would put those sequel plans on hold. 

But J.J. Abrams and his production company, Bad Robot, kept this secret under our noses without anyone noticing. Can’t wait for this!

[minddkidzag]

Deadpool: The Merc For Hire (Cancelled Fan Film Screenplay)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3rgLegRhie0am93Yi10cU9tZUk/view?usp=sharing

In 2009/2010, a fan film based on the "Merc with a Mouth" was planned. The script was being written by me, until a unnamed director left the project due to budget funding reasons. Leaving the script unfinished before reaching its final pages...until now.

To celebrate the long awaited Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool movie, the script was completed and shown for your enjoyment. There have been revisions to the script after returning for several years. While the previous version was written to fit in with the project's budget and now revisiting it to feel more satisfying as a writer without the limitations.

[minddkidzag]

This sketch I’ve done severed as inspiration for my fan-edited crossover trailer for “Daredevil/Ninja Turtles: From Hand to Foot”. The drawing started out as a quick sketch before inking and detailing. Influenced by Frank Miller (Daredevil), Kevin Eastman & Peter Laird (TMNT). 

[minddkidzag]

The problem with “Gotham”:

This show felt like somebody read a description of something off the back of a book/DVD or a producer’s nephew described the world of Batman. Unlike Marvel’s Daredevil, this show doesn't give sincerely and faith on the comic source material. But it’s also trying to be a Batman show without Batman.

I have no idea why this isn’t just a straight-up crime show with Batman. But they surely like villains to be set-up already or just appear (pre-Batman), it’s like randomly bumping into somebody who would become (or already) part of the “Rogue Galley”. Mr. Freeze, in costume and as a adult, already made an appearance, years before Wayne dons the cowl. In the comics, Batman and most of his villains are mostly the same age, and never met before. It’s kinda like having young Han Solo meeting baby Luke and Leia in the Star Wars prequels. Harvey Dent and others would be likely be too old when Batman shows up. 

Plus, “Gotham” kinda contradicts the whole “would costumed villains appear because of Batman?” question.

I really don’t know what’s up with Alfred in “Gotham”, he would rather slap Bruce on the side of the head than give him encouraging advice and being a likable character from the previous incarnations. I hate the “bodyguard” approach they did, similar to Batman: Earth-1 and Beware the Batman series.

[minddkidzag]

It would have been interesting if Fox’s Fantastic Four reboot was originally set in the '60s, within the same universe of the First Class or post-Days of Future Past (in the ‘70s or ‘80s) X-men. 

That's how they can make the Fantastic Four/X-Men crossover, while getting away with more comic-accurate elements and tone in the Kennedy/Space Race era.

[minddkidzag]

Here’s how I would have "fixed" Spider-Man 3: 

- After Spider-Man 2, Harry continues to see visions of his father telling him to kill Parker. Harry wants revenge and uses Norman's unused advanced "goblin formula". The goblin formula causes him to lose his mind, like Norman, but also it's lethal to Harry’s body. Harry isn't aware it's slowly killing him, that causes his death in the end. Peter doesn't want to fight him, until the symbiote bonds with him and causes Peter has a negative change of heart. Turning a situation from bad to worse.

- Removing “Gwen Stacy” from the story, she serves other no purpose other than love-triangle drama to keep Peter/MJ’s relationship interesting.

- The facility Flint Marko breaks in and causes him to turn into the super-powered Sandman, is OsCorp property. It doesn't go unnoticed, Harry finds info on Flint and why he went to prison: stealing money to help raise a cure for his daughter. He plans to use the Sandman as “the muscle” while Harry’s health is deteriorating. They secretly team-up and strike a bargain: If Sandman kills Spider-Man, Harry uses his wealth to help cure Marko's daughter. 

- The symbiote bonds with Parker, makes him into a major a**hole. Slowly becoming a whole different and darker person, the host is now a puppet of the black suit. Damaging people's lives emotionally and physically. Handles criminals more brutally as the “black suit” Spider-Man. Almost killed Harry, distance himself from Mary Jane, gets Eddie Brock (should been played by Thomas Haden Church) fired due to Parker. 

 - The symbiote makes Peter act like a drug-addict and doesn't want to remove the black suit, until the real Parker snaps out of it when he hurts Mary Jane. Causing him to remove the black suit once and for all. 

- If this story became two-parter movies (due to the sub-plots), the part one should have ended when Brock becomes Venom. 

- In part two, Brock/Venom seeks revenge (Cape Fear-style) for the damage Peter caused him, without Eddie knowing the black suit was responsible. 

- The Sandman stops fighting Spider-Man when his daughter tells him she couldn't be cured and Flint decides not to become a villain. 

- Harry redeems himself and forgives Peter before the goblin formula takes his life.

[lifeascaty]

Screenwriters read screenplays - Superhero edition (mini)

I actually have a much longer superhero post but I wanted to post these two before I forgot about them.

Here’s a 2010 draft of Deadpool.

And here’s the unproduced 2006 Joss Whedon Wonder Woman script.

Scripts courtesy of LA Screenwriter!

See the rest of my screenplay collection here.

[minddkidzag]

In the context from the newest Batman v. Superman “general audience” trailer, I’m getting a vibe that Wonder Woman is just an extended (and exploited marketing) cameo that would appear for a few minutes total. 

Betting Diana Prince just walks around in background as a small supporting role for the most part, until her true-self shows up in the climax for a movie where its just a commercial for the Justice League movie, instead of focusing on its own story.

Just like in Iron Man 2 with Black Widow and the movie being a commercial for Marvel’s The Avengers. Or the Rhino (and friends) in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 for Sinister Six.

[jordanimiola]

10 Biggest Mistakes I See in Early Drafts

[screenwritinginspiration]

Joss Whedon’s Top 10 Writing Tips

Found here

1. FINISH IT Actually finishing it is what I’m gonna put in as step one. You may laugh at this, but it’s true. I have so many friends who have written two-thirds of a screenplay, and then re-written it for about three years. Finishing a screenplay is first of all truly difficult, and secondly really liberating. Even if it’s not perfect, even if you know you’re gonna have to go back into it, type to the end. You have to have a little closure.

2. STRUCTURE Structure means knowing where you’re going; making sure you don’t meander about. Some great films have been made by meandering people, like Terrence Malick and Robert Altman, but it’s not as well done today and I don’t recommend it. I’m a structure nut. I actually make charts. Where are the jokes? The thrills? The romance? Who knows what, and when? You need these things to happen at the right times, and that’s what you build your structure around: the way you want your audience to feel. Charts, graphs, coloured pens, anything that means you don’t go in blind is useful.

3. HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY This really should be number one. Even if you’re writing a Die Hard rip-off, have something to say about Die Hard rip-offs. The number of movies that are not about what they purport to be about is staggering. It’s rare, especially in genres, to find a movie with an idea and not just, ‘This’ll lead to many fine set-pieces’. The Island evolves into a car-chase movie, and the moments of joy are when they have clone moments and you say, ‘What does it feel like to be those guys?’

4. EVERYBODY HAS A REASON TO LIVE Everybody has a perspective. Everybody in your scene, including the thug flanking your bad guy, has a reason. They have their own voice, their own identity, their own history. If anyone speaks in such a way that they’re just setting up the next person’s lines, then you don’t get dialogue: you get soundbites. Not everybody has to be funny; not everybody has to be cute; not everybody has to be delightful, and not everybody has to speak, but if you don’t know who everybody is and why they’re there, why they’re feeling what they’re feeling and why they’re doing what they’re doing, then you’re in trouble.

5. CUT WHAT YOU LOVE Here’s one trick that I learned early on. If something isn’t working, if you have a story that you’ve built and it’s blocked and you can’t figure it out, take your favourite scene, or your very best idea or set-piece, and cut it. It’s brutal, but sometimes inevitable. That thing may find its way back in, but cutting it is usually an enormously freeing exercise.

6. LISTEN When I’ve been hired as a script doctor, it’s usually because someone else can’t get it through to the next level. It’s true that writers are replaced when executives don’t know what else to do, and that’s terrible, but the fact of the matter is that for most of the screenplays I’ve worked on, I’ve been needed, whether or not I’ve been allowed to do anything good. Often someone’s just got locked, they’ve ossified, they’re so stuck in their heads that they can’t see the people around them. It’s very important to know when to stick to your guns, but it’s also very important to listen to absolutely everybody. The stupidest person in the room might have the best idea.

7. TRACK THE AUDIENCE MOOD You have one goal: to connect with your audience. Therefore, you must track what your audience is feeling at all times. One of the biggest problems I face when watching other people’s movies is I’ll say, ‘This part confuses me’, or whatever, and they’ll say, ‘What I’m intending to say is this’, and they’ll go on about their intentions. None of this has anything to do with my experience as an audience member. Think in terms of what audiences think. They go to the theatre, and they either notice that their butts are numb, or they don’t. If you’re doing your job right, they don’t. People think of studio test screenings as terrible, and that’s because a lot of studios are pretty stupid about it. They panic and re-shoot, or they go, ‘Gee, Brazil can’t have an unhappy ending,’ and that’s the horror story. But it can make a lot of sense.

8. WRITE LIKE A MOVIE Write the movie as much as you can. If something is lush and extensive, you can describe it glowingly; if something isn’t that important, just get past it tersely. Let the read feel like the movie; it does a lot of the work for you, for the director, and for the executives who go, ‘What will this be like when we put it on its feet?’

9. DON’T LISTEN Having given the advice about listening, I have to give the opposite advice, because ultimately the best work comes when somebody’s fucked the system; done the unexpected and let their own personal voice into the machine that is moviemaking. Choose your battles. You wouldn’t get Paul Thomas Anderson, or Wes Anderson, or any of these guys if all moviemaking was completely cookie-cutter. But the process drives you in that direction; it’s a homogenising process, and you have to fight that a bit. There was a point while we were making Firefly when I asked the network not to pick it up: they’d started talking about a different show.

10. DON’T SELL OUT The first penny I ever earned, I saved. Then I made sure that I never had to take a job just because I needed to. I still needed jobs of course, but I was able to take ones that I loved. When I say that includes Waterworld, people scratch their heads, but it’s a wonderful idea for a movie. Anything can be good. Even Last Action Hero could’ve been good. There’s an idea somewhere in almost any movie: if you can find something that you love, then you can do it. If you can’t, it doesn’t matter how skilful you are: that’s called whoring.

[awriterwriting]

So I wrote a script for Jaws 19. You know, that movie that’s playing in the 2015 of Back to the Future II around Halloween time. 

So that exists now.

The script is a good feature-length romp with love to both Jaws and Back to the Future lore, complete with tension, horror, blood, humour, and the best four words to describe the sort of shark in this film ever.

https://awriterforhire.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/8-jaws-193.pdf

[theoldchris-deactivated20170408]

@whothehellismrrobot

[theoldchris-deactivated20170408]

ICYMI….I wrote Jaws 19. And you can read it!

[minddkidzag]

From Best to Worst: Marvel & DC Superhero/Comic Book (Ongoing) Shows

In my opinion, here’s my current list of Marvel & DC Superhero/Comic Book (Ongoing) shows from best to worst (or least-favorite):

1.) Daredevil

2.) Jessica Jones

3.) iZombie 

4.) Agent Carter

5.) Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

6.) The Flash

7.) Arrow

8.) Supergirl

9.) Gotham

Btw, if Constantine wasn’t cancelled, it would be under Agent Carter.

[minddkidzag]

From Best to Worst: MCU Movies

In my opinion, here’s my current list of the “Marvel Cinematic Universe” movies from best to worst (or least-favorite):

1.) Captain America: The Winter Soldier

2.) Marvel’s The Avengers

3.) Guardians of the Galaxy

4.) Avengers: Age of Ultron

5.) Iron Man 

6.) Ant-Man 

7.) Captain America: The First Avenger 

8.) Thor 

9.) Iron Man 3

10.) The Incredible Hulk 

11.) Thor: The Dark World

12.) Iron Man 2 

[minddkidzag]

“Pacific Rim” Review

*sigh* I gotta get this off my chest. Jesus, where do I start?! 

2013 was a disappointing year for movies (until Oscar Season saved it) like Star Trek Into Darkness, Man of Steel, Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, Gravity, and this...

Pacific Rim for me was the straw that broke the camel’s back on watching Guillermo del Toro's films. I honestly think he's a really nice man with a great artistic vision (but kinda of a cheese ball). But, for some reason I can't get into del Toro's films besides Pan's Labyrinth and few moments from Hellboy II (not counting “Hellboy vs. the locker doors” scene).

This movie seems to be the "Fast & Furious of Monster movies", it’s a guilty pleasure for the “geek culture”. Just like a porno with a story, but you're only there just to see the action.

But before seeing this film, I was hoping to experience “the definitive monster movie” everyone deserved like Jaws or Jurassic Park.

Hoping to have a film with awe-inspiring, well-executed fight scenes and have some more with invested, likable, relatable characters and story that isn’t secondary to a movie about “robots fighting monsters”. 

I’m not calling giant monsters “Kaiju” like others did after seeing this movie. I know Kaiju means “monster” in Japanese, but it’s like people (I’m not talking about the characters) saying “walkers” for zombies recently after AMC’s The Walking Dead came out.

After watching this movie, it was the complete opposite of my expectations. Pacific Rim should have belonged on the top of the box office in the early 2000’s. 

This could be compared to a Roland Emmerich movie. All of the bland, cliché, and artificial elements I've hated in movies are put into the story and characters. If this movie’s tone was self-aware, not taken too seriously, or a satire; this would have help and added more strength to this film by just getting to the action and having heightened-realistic characters…with common sense (take that, Prometheus).

Some people would say "it's style over substance, get over it" or "just a popcorn movie, turn off your brain and enjoy the awesomeness."

I would TOTALLY agree with the visual action and be on your side (#TEAMKAIJU #LOLZ), but the one problem is most of the film is devoted to the characters and the drama was paint-by number. I have no problem with character-driven dramas like The Shawshank Redemption (a personal favorite) or meaningful conversations between two people. If people are complaining about Pacific Rim’s character development, then why most of the movie’s run time we’re stuck with these characters?! 

Even if a movie is good or bad, the one thing you don’t want it to be is boring.

Why waste 2/3rd of the film telling a purposely uninteresting story and stuck with these boring characters if it's basically only about robots fighting monsters?!

Once again, it’s like a porno with a story no one cares about and what's the point of putting a committed story plot if the creators of Pacific Rim don't care too. Just put the story in the back burner and get to the fight scenes. Unless, if it is build-up for the craving of action or just filler for the movie’s 2 hour and 12 minute running time.

Plus, the bland/mediocre acting doesn't help. I like these actors in other projects who really do a good job, but for some reason it falls flat here. Maybe its the direction the actors were given. Like actor Bryan Cranston, amazing in most projects, but for some reason not in the Sony’s Total Recall forgettable, cash-in remake. Or Rooney Mara in Michael Bay’s A Nightmare in Elm Street for example too. 

For the fight scenes in this movie, you get to see robots fighting monsters (exclusively in the rain)...meh. That's it for me, the fighting was uninspired and didn’t leave an impact like in movies from director Matthew Vaughn (Kingsman, Kick-Ass) or Edger Wright (Scott Pilgrim, The World’s End) for example. For that reason, it makes the movie seem longer for me.

Expect for the only good part for me was Mako’s moment with the sword ("For my family"). At least the action isn't just parts scrambled on screen like in Bay’s Transformers movies. Another good moment was with Mako’s flashback as a child, running away from one of the monsters, shot from a street-level point of view.

It actually amazes me that most movie critics, mostly from YouTube, who reviewed this film kinda feel like hypocrites after bashing Man of Steel (FYI: MOS was okay in my opinion), a film that came out a few months before Pacific Rim.

Where most of Man of Steel has all of the action scenes are in the foreground and the story development was pushed back in almost every scene, making the audience seem bored of the action.

Some YouTube “critics” are just praising it for not being another film based on an existing franchise or not "dark and brooding." 

Oh, shaddap!

I don’t care if a film is a remake, sequel, an original story or whatever; all I care about is the quality of that film’s story, characters, and etc.

In which makes every logical problem or complaint Man of Steel gets, makes every Pacific Rim problem overlooked. Geez, it’s like getting into an argument with a Star Wars prequel fan. It makes it out to be when you defend MOS problems with someone, they seemed to fight over it till the end of time. If you turn the tables and do it with Pacific Rim, they would probably say "brush off da haters.”

I’m not defending Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, I’m just pointing out the facts.

This is all simply put in people's taste in things. This is a guilty pleasure for people. If people like or love Pacific Rim for being a "good bad movie" or have something that would make you re-watch it again (probably on YouTube) just for the good parts (Example: Rocky V’s final fight, Daft Punk music for Tron Legacy).

Let it be, if it's you like...fine. If you hate it...fine. Whatever if you got what you paid for, that's wonderful. I don’t care if it’s your favorite movie, just don’t shove it down people’s throat to love it or trying to be nominated for “best picture of the century”. 

But, if you hated it for not being “logical” about people building giant robots, why are you watching this then?!

The main problem for me out of all of this was expecting more from “acclaimed director” Guillermo del Toro while watching this. Everybody has flaws, not everybody is perfect, but people will love you for trying.

4.5/10

[minddkidzag]

“The Force Awakens” Review (Non-Spoilers...kinda)

The Force Awakens was fine. I was kinda disappointing story wise, felt like Abrams was playing it safe, and have familiar beats from Episode IV. They blew up another Death Star for the 3rd time, really?! It didn't offer anything new too much besides the "passing the torch" trope (of course) and I've predicted most of the Abrams' "shocking" secrets. 

And of course there are nostalgia pandering and callbacks. Not too much to get distracted from the plot, but enough to make fans feel wet...because of crying (get your mind out of the gutter). Unlike "A New Hope" and (glup) "The Phantom Menace", this didn't feel like a completed story. We know there are more sequels ahead, but was hoping more for a "beginning, middle, and end" structure without the "wait and find out in the next movie" again. 

Wished John Williams' music in Force Awakens left more of an impression and offered something new that will stick, other than repeating familiar tunes from the original trilogy or maybe its my theater's speakers causing the movie's sound to overlay Williams' music tracks. But overall it was fun (Abrams knows how to handle that), liked the cast, and also kick-starting Star Wars (post-prequels) in a positive light once again. 

7/10