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Top Movie-Making Blunders
1. Switching out actors: I was watching some period mini-series a few years ago—I can’t recall which one (it’s probably not worth being recalled)—and at the start of a new episode, I was startled to find the set populated with different actors. I think I dropped the series within minutes of that realization, as my motivation to stick with the story had disappeared. I know that the writers wanted to convey the passing of time, but couldn’t they have found some way other than swapping out characters I had come to care for, even a little? Did they think viewers wouldn’t notice?
2. Sloppy old people makeup jobs: Although switching actors is a no-go, movies trying to get by with bad makeup jobs is also a bad option. With all the technology available, why do some flicks try to pass off a hunched figure caked with high school stage makeup as the character we know and love?
3. Lazy script writing: By lazy, I mean dirty, full of innuendoes, double entendres, and outright crude jokes. I’ve had to abandon movies with great appeal in terms of time period, story, actors, and costumes because the writers will hit us right off with a clumsy bedroom scene, wink-wink-nod-nod situations, and cliched sexually-charged scenes. Becoming Jane, Shakespeare in Love, and the wildly popular Sanditon all made my no-watch list because of this bottom-shelf script-writing technique. I get all primed for a beautifully shot story and then am subjected once again to a scene with a prim lady scoping out a guy going for a swim. So original—actually, so easy to write—the script almost creates itself. I have experienced many of these disappointments.
4. Thoughtless story: A script doesn’t have to be dirty to be bland and cheap. Viewers are canny about obvious signs that writers were rushing to meet deadlines and satisfy demanding audiences by pushing out productions. With thoughtless writing, you have superficial action where characters seem to be listlessly working out a lame plot in lush settings. You have anachronisms and stories stuck in the wrong century. Stock characters do their thing, as if the writers felt they could wind them up and let them go while attending to more important things. I’m looking at you, Downton Abbey, especially in season openers. I’ll never forget when the lady of the house, during a mundane discussion about upcoming events, told the lord in her hard, curving ‘r’s: “Don’t forget—Thursday’s our anniversary!” That was likely the beginning of the end for me. I won’t get started on Sanditon. We’d be here all night.
5. Ultra-sad plots: I don’t watch movies to get depressed. I watch to escape, to revel in beautiful scenery, to enjoy good stories well told, to get the satisfaction of catching subtleties the skillful creators put there for us. This doesn’t mean that there can’t be some unhappy circumstances in movies. Sad aspects in endings are fine, too, as long as a hopeful note of truth is sounded. But I generally avoid the nihilistic, the despairing, the unrelentingly dark stories. I don’t have time for those.
What other blunders should movie writers, producers, and directors avoid?
Published in Entertainment
Sometimes I figure it’s more or less accidental, maybe a result of conflicting schedules etc. Sometimes it’s because someone who was in an earlier part now thinks they are too famous for that role. That last is apparently what happened with Jeffrey Hunter after the first Star Trek pilot. Or at least, it was his wife who wanted him to do movies rather than TV.
The most personally upsetting example I’ve encountered recently – although I don’t watch as many movies as a lot of people do – was the “Atlas Shrugged” movie trilogy. I thought Taylor Schilling was an excellent choice as Dagny Taggart in the first movie. I’ve heard that Schilling also thought she should be a big movie star instead, and so either simply declined to do Part 2 or maybe demanded so much money that it would have been ridiculous to hire her.
Samantha Mathis as Dagny in Part 2 was… a disappointment.
By the time they got to Laura Regan as Dagny in Part 3, who looked tiny at 5′ 6″ although Taylor Schilling isn’t much taller at 5′ 9″, and freakin’ Kristoffer Polaha as John Galt, who is 6′ 3″ but doesn’t give off any kind of “manly” vibe as far as I’m concerned, it seemed like they were trying to make the Mad Magazine parody version or something.
I’m not sure if I saw this before Shrugged part 3, but it’s possible. Either way, this show is proof that this, not John Galt, is about the ideal role for Kristoffer Polaha.
And I’ve always liked Shiri Appleby, including here.
I don’t like modern music in period movies, for example, rap music in a black western.
I like it sometimes. A Knight’s Tale, for example.
The Message
To cite the most obvious example, I just realized it was an extraordinary testament to Samantha’s powers in Bewitched that she replaced one husband with another and was able to cloud everyone’s mind so well that no one noticed. That must have taken tremendous concentration.
Who was looking at Darren with Samantha in the room?
I was 100% aware of the switch. Indifferent, but aware.
Then you must have loved Alternating Beckys on “Roseanne.”
Just this morning I watched the movie “Gold Diggers of 1935” that I had DVR’d off of TCM some months ago. One of the stars was a 25-year-old Gloria Stewart (who played “old Rose” in Titanic). She looked NOTHING like Kate Winslett.
My friend brought a cheesy VHS of a William Devane movie (“The Mutilator”), but when the tape started rolling, the title came up as “The Multitator.”
Massive spoilers in the trailer.
Ditto. Especially number 3.
Obvious? Back to the Future 2 was obvious.
Crispin Glover was replaced by Jeffery Weissman as George McFly? Or that Claudia Wells was replaced by Elisabeth Shue as Jennifer Parker?
I think its ok to switch out actors, but what they did to Crispin Glover was pretty under handed, and they deserved to get sued.
When I was brainstorming for this post, this was going to be one of my points, but I forgot all about it. I’m actually ambivalent about modern music in period movies.
I think it could work sometimes, if done well. I didn’t know whether or not I liked in in Marie Antoinette. In the masquerade dancing scene, I think I would have way preferred the music of the era. The raucous modern music was discombobulating. It gave the impression of a packed night club.
Switches are discombobulating. In Last Man Standing, the Tim Allen comedy, a new actress replaced the oldest daughter and it wasn’t the same at all. Not that I loved the show or the actress, but I knew it enough to question the replacement. Maybe it was time to stop churning out episodes, rather than creak forward with part of your caste missing.
But at least as it came out, his character had very little to do. Indeed it would have been very easy, and probably audience-consequence-free, to write him out entirely. So Glover may have simply priced himself out of the market. Something which actors seem to do regularly. That, and he seemed to have “creative differences,” such as with how the first movie ended.
Claudia Wells had other reasons.
I remember years ago watching a detailed trailer for Double Jeopardy and wondering why we needed to waste theater tickets on an experience that would just have us wading through a protracted version of that same plot.
I think sometimes they end up doing that just because a movie has so few interesting points, if they didn’t, the trailer would be so uninteresting that people wouldn’t want to see the movie. For the most part, having used up all the important plot points isn’t discovered until people actually see the movie. By which time they’ve already paid. :-)
Last Man Standing was a special case because the show ended and then came back a year or two later, and the actress in question was unavailable. Agree that the replacement lacked the “sparkle” of her predecessor.
If I recall correctly, don’t Roseanne swap out an actress, and then bring her back a year or two later?
There are also cases of trailers that include scenes that don’t make it into the final cut of the film.
Contrast that with an earlier elegant and probably historically accurate ballroom scene–far more palatable viewing of the sumptuous French court. Perhaps the creators purposely juxtaposed to scenes to bring out the tradition and elegance in one versus the atmosphere of partying and debauchery in the second.
I think you have the best solution for the Crispin Glover situation.
People are available or not all the time, I have no problems with different people picking up the roles from project to project…. It’ll be ok. …
Its funny but James Bond carries on from actor to actor, but super hero movies reboot each time there is a new actor … Meaning that they remake the same origin story movie over and over again… Christopher Reeve and Orson Wells did the Superman origin story … Did Henry Cavill need to redo it?
They went back and forth a few times. Sometimes just for a couple episodes if the original actress was unavailable for some reason. Hence my “Alternating Beckys” in #9.
And they had both actresses back, at the same time, for the “revival.” The “substitute” actress played a different character.
Lecy Goranson was the original, and Sarah Chalke was the “sub.” Chalke also did a few shows of her own as a main character, such as “Scrubs.”
I think there have actually been more “Spiderman” reboots than “Superman.” But I don’t watch any of them, so I can’t say for sure.
No, I think you’re right about that. Spiderman has had more reboots than any franchise I can think of. But its more complicated because Sony has the rights to Spiderman – but Disney has the rest of the Marvel Characters. So there might be contractual obligations why Spiderman movies don’t radically change over time.
If Sony has just the one Marvel character, that could explain it. Since they wouldn’t be able to do things like the “multiverse” stuff with the other characters. So they just keep re-inventing the wheel, over and over.
Going back to the OG post:
Anyhow just to get back on track.
The movie “Space Cowboys” is an example of combining these, where the younger actors used to portray the Clint Eastwood and Tommy Lee Jones characters in their earlier lives, had their speaking parts re-dubbed by Eastwood and Jones.