Spartacus
MemberOvomorphMay-11-2012 9:09 PM@Deckard_B26354
[quote]Anyone read Spaihts' Shadow 19 script? I printed a copy yesterday. Apparently it's one of two sci-fi scripts that brought him to Ridley's attention. Supposed to be amazing. You can read it if you search "Spaihts Shadow 19 script" on google there's a link.[/quote]
thanks for that, not sure if I actually read it or not gonna check now.
dallas!dallas!
MemberOvomorphMay-11-2012 9:06 PMYes, read it after reading an interview with him. This guy is in the right place heart and head wise about sci-fi. It's what led me to this thread actually.
dallas!dallas!
MemberOvomorphMay-11-2012 9:08 PMI've even acted out a few of the scenes in class. I guess we can consider Alien American Literature right? At least the screenplay.
Spartacus
MemberOvomorphMay-11-2012 9:05 PMawesome, feed it to them feed it to them show it in class! teach Them About Art!
dallas!dallas!
MemberOvomorphMay-11-2012 9:03 PMI am even making sure all the kids I teach are going to see this (don't worry, they are all 17 years old).
I've even gotten a few to watch Alien. This is going to make mega bucks I hope.
Deckard_B26354
MemberOvomorphMay-11-2012 9:04 PMAnyone read Spaihts' Shadow 19 script? I printed a copy yesterday. Apparently it's one of two sci-fi scripts that brought him to Ridley's attention. Supposed to be amazing. You can read it if you search "Spaihts Shadow 19 script" on google there's a link.
Spartacus
MemberOvomorphMay-11-2012 9:12 PM[quote]I've even acted out a few of the scenes in class. I guess we can consider Alien American Literature right? At least the screenplay.[/quote]
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can't believe what I Just read, I really admire people who can do that. I think I am one of them as well...
and after all, Is their a more nobler profession than commanding the attention of and teaching children?
Deckard_B26354
MemberOvomorphMay-11-2012 9:13 PM@dallas!dallas! Cool.
Why the hell was The Darkest Hour so bad? He wrote that. Now, I haven't seen it because of how terrible I hear it is. Maybe I should give it a chance.
Spahits has also written the script for something else close to my heart which is World War Robot. Now people don't know a lot about the creator, Ashley Wood but imo, he is right now who George Lucas was in his prime. He creates awesome characters his art is fantastic, his work blows me away. He's got a major cult following that should blow up into something more. I was dissapointed when I heard that Brukheimer bought the rights to WWR but I just have to hope for the best. At least 2 other Asley Wood properties are being developed that have a better chance of getting close to Wood's actual, genius vision. Popbot and Lore.
Anyway, check Ashley Wood out. Now, back to Spaihts.
craigamore
MemberOvomorphMay-11-2012 9:15 PMThis from the article in this thread....
"This was Jon Spaihts original draft of Prometheus? [interviewer]
[Lindelof] Yes. And I thought it was really cool. It was not at all what I expected it to be. But obviously they were giving it to me for a reason. And this is one of those situations where you’re given no advance sense of what they like, what they don’t like, you just have to walk out on the plank and say, Here is my fundamental reaction to this thing. So when I finished it I went into my office and I wrote an email to Ridley and his producing partners. And this response was basically my job interview. I wrote maybe a four or five paragraph email saying here are all the things I love about it, I think there are some incredible set pieces here, I love the fundamental idea behind the movie, I feel like it’s a cool think piece. BUT I think it’s relying a bit too heavily on the Alien stuff that we’ve seen now five or six times in different movies. Chest-bursting and face-hugging and xenomorphs and I just feel that your idea is so strong and the characters can be made so strong that we don’t need any of that stuff. We can present iterations of that stuff in different ways. That isn’t to say that this isn’t a movie that should be set in that universe, but I look at it more like a story that is running parallel to the original Alien, so that if there was a sequel to this movie, it would not be Alien, it would be Prometheus 2. And then Prometheus 2 is parallel to Aliens. And here’s how we could do that. And so I sent off that email and I got into my bed. I didn’t sleep at all. And at 10 a.m. the next morning, my agent called me and said, ‘Whatever it is you did, they liked it. Can you go in and meet now?’
Did Ridley tell you at any point why he chose you? Was he fan of Lost?
He was definitely aware of Lost. Ridley is not the kind of guy who watches a television series. He will watch 20 minutes of a show here and an episode there. He was aware of it, he knew what it was, he knew what I did. He had seen the show, but he was not trying to present to me, like, Oh my God, I’m a huge Lostie! John Locke is my favorite character! As much as a writer can have a specific skill set or a brand, he was very interested that my brand seemed to be in mystery and ambiguity. And that’s what’s so cool about the original Alien — Hey, here’s this distress call, we just went down there, we see this weird massive alien creature sitting in a chair and there’s eggs everywhere and there’s nobody there to explain what happened. It’s just the situation they’re in. And I think the idea for this movie was, well, let’s have characters who are a little more interested in answering those questions before the s— hits the fan. They don’t just happen upon the haunted house, they’re actually looking for it. They just don’t realize it’s haunted till they get there. We talked a lot about mystery. That was my only hint of why he sought me out.
Did you have any reluctance about working on someone else’s script? Not being the guy who was there from go?
Yeah! Definitely! Especially since I felt like Jon had done a really good job of executing his drafts. I sent him an email as soon as I was formally hired saying, ‘Hey, you’re gonna read about this — that I’ve been hired to do this thing and I want you to know that whatever gets said, I’m going to try to retain as much of what you did as possible because I thought it was great. And then the story came out: Lindelof comes in and pitches this radical new take on this movie that used to be a prequel and is now transforming into its own original thing. I reached out to Jon again to say that’s not at all what happened. Ridley had a very specific idea of the story he wanted to tell. And sometimes you have to look at different versions of it to know what it is you want and what you don’t want. Whatever it is, I didn’t get the sense that there was any bad blood with Jon. They were just looking for someone to say to them, Hey, we don’t need the Alien stuff in here. It shouldn’t be about that. It can be a part of this movie, but it shouldn’t be what it’s about.
So how did you flesh out your version of the script with Ridley?
What happened was, I sat in a room with Ridley Scott for five days a week for three- or four-hour sessions and asked him a series of questions like an investigative journalist in an attempt to understand what exactly the movie he wanted to make was, what he wanted it to be about, what he wanted the characters to be looking for, what did he want to get out of the set pieces, is it going to be heady or scary or both? Who did he see being the audience proxy? And when I finished that project, I went off and wrote. You just listen to what they say and you write it down. That’s the way it is in movies, especially with visionary directors like Ridley.
And then how long did you sit down and write?
We met all through July and into the beginning of August. And then I turned in my first draft in mid-September. So it took me four or five weeks to write my first draft.
So the original script was more of an Alien prequel than yours?
Yes. The job that I was hired to do was to scale back the familiar tropes or symbology of what we think of when we think of an Alien movie. When I say Alien to you, you think face-hugger, chest-burster, eggs, acid blood, queen — the concentration of those things was much higher in Jon’s script than they are in Prometheus.
dallas!dallas!
MemberOvomorphMay-11-2012 8:54 PMOr maybe Black Christmas. The Original. Only better. Way better.
aka Nate
MemberOvomorphMay-11-2012 8:50 PMThe R-rating has been official for a little while now.....it's even in the TV commercials
craigamore
MemberOvomorphMay-11-2012 8:52 PMBy all accounts dallas!dallas!, Spaihts' script, the over all arc, story and plot are intact...I believe I've heard that Lindelof came in just to polish scenes, dialogue, etc...unify things a bit more......
And it's a confirmed R rating by the way.....
Spartacus
MemberOvomorphMay-11-2012 8:55 PMDamn do i ever LOVE both of "dem" [b]Points[/b] I even loved the fake Spaiths script !
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v234/LT.HIGHTIMES/DrkCat.jpg[/img]
dallas!dallas!
MemberOvomorphMay-11-2012 8:53 PMNow I feel like a kid before Christmas, or 27 days before Christmas.
Deckard_B26354
MemberOvomorphMay-12-2012 10:22 AMThanks for the info, ubik333!
ubik333
MemberOvomorphMay-12-2012 3:20 AMIIRC, Jon Spaihts was hired to rewrite the draft for The Darkest Hour, so he wasn't the original writer. The original writers were M.T. Ahern and Leslie Bohem. Spaihts changed the draft a bit, I read somewhere that some critics said that out of these drafts, Sapihts' 2009 draft was better.
dallas!dallas!
MemberOvomorphMay-11-2012 9:33 PMDeckard_B26534
I think it was his freshman effort. But now he has Scott at the helm. This could be huge for him and sci-fi.
Spartacus,
Awesome. Although, with all these cuts it is harder and harder to teach. But that is another thread in an entirely different realm.
Thanks Craigamore. Mr. L seems to be a decent guy. Not my favorite writer but a decent guy.