We love Peggy cuz, like our mom, she’s always right:
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Good writing is simple writing. I don’t mean dumbed down, I mean basic and clear. I think most experienced writers and readers will agree. Readers from the viewpoint of story flow and involvement and writers from virtually the same viewpoint.
There’s nothing like overthinking THE AVENGERS and THE DARK KNIGHT RISES to bring sunshine to our day:
The summer of 2012 saw the premiere of two major superhero movies: The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises. Of course, both being superhero movies it’s only logical that they would have a certain number of things in common – tropes of the genre that make it what it is instead of, you know, something else. There were plenty of extra-diegetic similarities as well: both were directed and co-written by well-respected auteurs (Joss Whedon and Christopher Nolan respectively), both were the culmination of film series that had led up to these as their climax (in DKR’s case it was the final volume in Nolan’s trilogy that started with 2005’s Batman Begins; with Avengers it was the ultimate assembly of characters and plotlines that had been being pieced together since Iron Man in 2008).
I was glad to see that the new Battlestar Galactica movie, based during the first Cylon war and starring the young and enthusiastic Bill Adama, later to be the older and wearier Admiral Adama of the other SyFy series, was not a jingoistic rah rah war movie. It was more in the tradition of Vietnam War movies in which the reasons for the war are unclear and the motives of the leaders who order young people into battle are murky.
And yet, this movie is a jingoistic rah rah war movie, because as someone said, you can’t make an anti-war movie. War is exciting, and addicting. It is more interesting than getting a job and having a family. For many people, once they have experienced it, they want to go back to it. You can call it meaningless and question why it happens all you want, but just showing it is attractive to many people.
This movie takes place after the Cylons, robots created as warriors, then used as servants, have rebelled against the humans of the Colonies. (Ask colonies from where, and you get into the never-explained backstory of the original 1980’s Battlestar Galactica. They seem to be colonies from Earth, but when did they leave Earth? In the original show, the viper pilots had helmets that looked Egyptian. Did ancient Egypt have space flight? The show never said. Oh, and the Cylons were an alien race in the original show, they weren’t created by the colonies.)
For all practical purposes, the Guild has come to the same conclusions we posted here yesterday. But, especially considering how far behind the technology/market/New Media curve the Guild has been in the past, the WGAw perspective is well worth sharing.
So, direct from the WGAw’s latest e-mailing:
New Buyers in Town
by Team TVWriter™ Press Service (in other words, it’s a press release)There was considerable media hoopla last week around the premiere of House of Cards, Netflix’s first original series. Written by Guild member Beau Willimon (The Ides of March), directed by David Fincher and starring Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright, the high-profile series reportedly cost $100 million for two 13-episode seasons and was a shining example of web TV at its flashiest.
…But, fortunately, produced and directed and acted by humans.