A part of the reason why I started this blog was to offer a behind-the-scenes perspective on my upcoming personal projects. While much of that is still under wraps, it got me thinking about a lousy trend that has been taking root in Hollywood and elsewhere. From time to time, entertainers of every stripe seem to forget how to weave their stories with care and reason, opting instead to create a ’cause movie’ that no one really asked for. To demonstrate this point, let’s take a look at two case studies.
Green Zone, or How To Throw Away $50 Million On A Conspiracy Theory
Wow, What A Climax.
I like the combination of Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass. The two of them did a great job on the latter two Bourne films and it was exciting to see them take a look at the Iraq War. Sadly, what could have been an interesting idea about the hazy ethics of modern warfare suddenly turned into a complete and total disaster.
Why?
The entire concept was based around the initial search for WMDs in Iraq, which led to the grand twist of the movie being that there was nothing there.
We know. We’ve known that for nearly five years before the movie came out.
On top of that, we have Matt Damon playing nothing more than a mouthpiece for the screenwriter and Greg Kinnear playing a Pentagon official that is seemingly involved in deliberately falsifying the intelligence that led to the war.
No matter what your politics or position on the war, I think we can all agree that we don’t have any evidence of that.
The end result? Universal Studios lost approximately $50 million and the movie was all but forgotten. The only reason why I brought it up with this post was because it stuck out in my mind as what NOT to do when writing a story. You don’t preach through the main character and you don’t make a blatant accusation about a real-life event without evidence.
Agent Carter, or Why Ideology Can Poison A Great Idea.
Such Wasted Potential.
Like many out there on the interwebs, I am a big fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While some of the films might polarize people on their quality, the team over at Marvel did a good job of weaving everything together to build up a modern franchise where events are coordinated and continuity is treated with great respect. They have been rewarded for it to the tune of billions of dollars, so the natural followup was to move their unstoppable juggernaut to television.
Agents of SHIELD turned out to be a lot of fun and Daredevil is a great story about New York City in the aftermath of The Avengers, but I was pleased to see that we were going to get a look at the formation of SHIELD and the rise of the Cold War through Agent Carter. Hayley Atwell is a good actress as well, so it was nice to see her getting a chance to shine on screen.
That is, until you watch the first season and everything that could have been great comes crashing down in a stormy mess.
Instead of focusing on a fight against the Soviets, the story becomes bogged down in a game of chairs where everyone acts obnoxiously sexist towards Peggy… until the plot needs them not to do that. They imply that she will never get credit for any of her accomplishments and is too stupid to conduct an investigation or lead a team, which is quite odd when you consider that she worked with the Howling Commandos for the duration of the war. To add to that, it flies in the face of some of the interesting and tragic stories about women in the Second World War (Remember Their Sacrifices).
So that leads us to a question, what would we rather have? A story about a kick-ass female spy where the audience can generally like the cast and root for them as they retrieve bizarre technology before the Soviets do, or the twisted and confusing plot that we got? I know which one I’d like, and I’m guessing that you do, too, dear reader.
Those are two of many reasons why Free Eagle Studios was born, but there are many more to come.
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