Okay so I'm watching Surrogates because.... I don't know why, really. I knew it would be terrible, and it was. Maybe I watched it because I thought I'd fall asleep and I didn't want to miss something I cared about. I didn't fall asleep, though. I watched the whole thing. It was really really bad.
Periodically during the movie the Beefcake and I began naming other movies Bruce Willis was in that were better than this one. "Hi, I'm Bruce Willis. I was in Hudson Hawk." Like that.
Anyway, that's not my question.
So I'm watching this movie and although I don't like the stuff that's happening, I'm following. I buy the world of people using robots to conduct their day-to-day activities, I buy the science of it, I buy a gun that blasts through robots and fries the eyes of the people behind them. Here's what I don't buy. At one point a cop who is a robot jumps over a couple of cars and lands right on her high heel encased feet.
She jumps super high and lands on a tiny little heel and it doesn't break. And at that moment I threw up my hands. That is just ridiculous. I don't care if they're Clarks or Manolos, there is not a heel on Earth that can take that kind of punishment. Maybe if it's made of adamantium.
So here's my question. Why do you think that is? How is it that I, and no doubt many others, can accept the most ludicrous plot points only to get hung up on petty details? We do it all the time. Why?
"hung up on petty details"... Here's my movie favorite -- those guys or girls that can dangle forever from ladder rungs, building ledges, ropes, etc. with someone else hanging on to them for dear life.
ReplyDeleteExamples: Alien 3, Deep Blue Sea, and so many more.
Me personally? I have trouble holding on to the chin-up bar for more than fifteen seconds. ;-)
I guess we accept implausibility when there's enough suspense to distract us from it.
ReplyDeleteIf things get silly when the characters are no longer in jeopardy, we ask questions.
Hitchcock's crop duster sequence is the best example I can think of.
BTW: Funny you mention Hudson Hawk. I mentioned that one to a friend today, because it's one of the movies I remember from my record-movie-day (8 movies in cinema, from 10am until 2am). Lucky we also had Point Break that day to make up for Hudson Hawk.
1. Good on you for giving a little love to the (almost great/hot mess) of Hudson Hawk.
ReplyDelete2. Two bonus points for your adamantium suggestion.
I think the reason we get hung up on the small details is the same reason we get irritated by a deus ex machina resolution. I'm happy if some insanity occurs to set up the conditions for the movie, but once it's started, I expect the laws of physics - at least as understood in the universe of the story - to be obeyed.
High heels break. There was no amazing innovation that revolutionized the cobbling world in the universe of Surrogates. This isn't a movie about the secret formula for never-breaking heels that our intrepid hero has to deliver to the Birkenstock resistance before the Italian shoe mafia kills him. It's about robot surrogates.
We're allowed to change the rules however we want to create our universes; we need to be consistent with them after their birth.
Hi Emily,
ReplyDeleteLiking your blog, here, so much to read, this is one of the most prolific and popularly entertaining blog,forum I have seen so far.
Just wondering, if you had contest how to make the Surrogates into a winner, what would this script look like. Or maybe you can have a contest here and ask readers to post their version of a new synopsis for SURROGATES.
I swear, SURROGATES is one of WORST MOVIES of worst movie ever.
SURROGATES IS REALLY A BAD MOVIE. WHO MADE THIS MOVIE AND WHO WROTE THIS SCRIPT AND WHO THE HELL THOUGHT THIS SCRIPT WOULD MAKE A GOOD GOOD MOVIE x0x0
I WANT ANSWERS.
Best,
Good thoughts. Eventually we'll get to the bottom of this.
ReplyDeleteAnd Second Anonymous (Please use names, guys!) - I think the idea for this film is sound, but the potential was underused. The idea of people hiding from themselves could have been really developed as a theme, but it was just sort of used as a gimmick. I didn't buy ANY of the relationships, and the big speech when Bruce Willis is giving it his emotional all had zero impact because I didn't care. Everything in this story is surface. It needed some depth.
Disney paid a lot of money for the rights to the graphic novel which sort of puzzled everyone. The source material so isn't Disney.
ReplyDeleteThe original concept was that two actors would play the Willis character. Basically you start with a Channing Tatum and then Willis rolls out of his pod with his receding hairline and smoker's lungs. I believe vanity didn't let that happen.
As far as the high heels my guess is that in the future the infrastructure has collapsed so much the streets are really soft.
I believe it was Hitchcock who said that audiences were more likely to accept the impossible than the implausible and that's precisely the scenario you describe in your post.
ReplyDeleteHow's the agent treating you?
ReplyDeleteSorry, i meant manager.
ReplyDeleteGood quote, Bitter.
ReplyDeleteAnon #3: The manager is waiting on my next script. Please use a name when you post. Thanks!
Emily, I think those anonymous posters don't have a blog account so it won't post a name for them? They are just writing fans who want to chime in...
ReplyDeleteI get that, but I just wish people would put
ReplyDelete-Name
at the end of their posts so we can all be on a first name basis and I don't have to call everybody Anonymous 1 2 and 3.
HA MOVIEQUILL,
ReplyDeleteFinally you came out of your shell?
Where have you been hiding?
You man, are the Batman of Forums.
I think you are UNK.
Emily, do you get tons of pro coverage from SCRIPSHARK before you rewrite?
Have you used the Andrew of Script Mechanic?
Could you post some sample of your work here or on Two Adverbs, it's my fav of favs forums in the world?
All the Best,
Danny
I've never paid for notes, so I can only give recommendations for the people who've given me free notes. Script Doctor Eric and Scott the Reader have both given me good advice in the past and they're both low cost.
ReplyDeleteYeah Moviequill comes out of the shadows only so often, like a groundhog. It's always nice to see him.
I've posted work here on occasion, but when I do I get lots of notes on why the page-and-a-half I posted is just not working as a screenplay, and since I only post them because people ask me to post them, that just doesn't seem worth it.