I still remember the very first time I saw the words “Star Wars” in print.  My mother showed me the movie posters and somehow even then, I knew this movie would change my life.  I was only six, but that first image of Luke Skywalker holding up his light saber with the foreboding shadow of Darth Vader behind him made a very deep impression.  Within a week, I had seen “Star Wars,” and incredibly, it was even more unbelievable than over active imagination could have dreamt.  Soon, it seemed hard to imagine there was ever a time “Star Wars” was not in my life. 

Three years later, when “The Empire Strikes Back” finally came out, it was like a punch in the stomach.  Gone was the happy ending where good always overcomes evil.  This time, I was shocked to see my heroes defeated.  Han Solo was frozen solid, Luke lost his hand, and even worse, the bad guy was his father?!?!  “That’s not the way this movie is supposed to go!”  I came out of the theater ready for therapy — completely unaware that I had just seen the greatest movie sequel of all time.

After another three years of agony, “Return of the Jedi” was released and all was set right in the galaxy far, far away.  Everything came together as we learned that there was still good in Darth Vader and only by the resolve and determination of his son was he brought back to the right side of the force.  The saga was tied up in a bow and could be put to rest.  Right?

Wrong.  Anyone who knew anything about “Star Wars” knew this was only the second part of a much larger story and that we had only seen parts four, five and six and until Mr. Lucas deemed the time was right, we would never have Episodes One, Two and Three.  Over the years, I would spend an ungodly amount of time dreaming about these movies.  I knew they would tell the legend of how Anakin Skywalker, the young Jedi gave himself over to the dark side and would nearly lose his life in a light saber battle with his mentor, the shrewd Obi-Wan Kenobi, but the why’s and how’s of the story would remain in anonymity for what seemed like a lifetime. 

In May of 1999, I got my first look in 16 years of the world I fell in love with as a boy.  Did it live up to the vision millions of us had all been dreaming about for over a decade?  Unfortunately, for the majority of fans the answer was a resounding “No.” The movie not only felt like a “phantom,” but also a “menace.” Darth Vader as a blissful kid? Aliens with Japanese accents?  A virgin birth?  And what in the hell is a midi-chlorian?   I left the theater feeling like I’d been punked.

Three years later, I showed up for “Attack of the Clones” and felt George had greatly improved on the story he began in Episode One.  This felt much more like “Star Wars.”  Finally, we began to see the darkness in Anakin as he took revenge on the sand people and refused to listen to his master Obi-Wan. (Played brilliantly by Ewan McGregor for a second time)  This movie was a new hope that George Lucas still had the force.

That brings us to “Revenge of the Sith.”  To me, “Sith” not only brings “Star Wars” full circle, but it recrowns George Lucas as the great storyteller of his time.  (I would even go so far as to say it paid off the “Phantom Menace,” making it a slightly better movie.) This is the chronicle I dreamt of as a kid; extraordinary alien worlds, the fabled clone wars, and of course, that date with destiny when Anakin turns to the dark side and duel to near death with his master Obi-Wan Kenobi.  Before I saw the movie, I heard Steven Spielberg say that “Sith” moved him to tears and I have to say it nearly did the same for me.  And not just because of the tragedy of the story, but because this was the end of a journey with George that began 28 years ago.  

So, with the anticipated release of  the Original Trilogy, (in it’s original 70’s and 80’s version) finally released on DVD, one can only wonder if movies will ever again do what the Star Wars Saga did for a generation.  But, something tells me to listen to the words of Yoda and hope, “There is another.”

At least once a week, I wonder if people write screenplays because it’s simply cheaper than spending a lifetime in therapy.  There’s a load of garbage out there that is bad not because the writer lacks skill, but because they’re so self-involved that they forget that at some point, this is going to be seen by an audience.

Here’s a list of things a bad script tells the reader about the screenwriter immediately by reading it:

1.  Your gender

If I can tell which gender you are, it’s because you’ve either written an entire gender of characters poorly, or you’ve blatantly skewed the film to eliminate 50% of viewers.  There’s none of this “girls write one type of film genre and guys write others” – there aren’t enough women working in film for that to be true.  Seriously, it’s you.

2.  Your approximate age

Writing “what you know” is not the same as writing down what your friends actually say in screenplay format.  Your friends are moronic.  Not funny.  I mean it. 

3. If you’ve written less than ten drafts ever (of the same or different screenplays)

There are four key elements one learns to write in a script.  They are: Dialogue, Characters, Plot, and Structure.  Everything else simply relates to one of these.  When you’re learning to write, as a general rule, you’ll figure these out in order.  And every time you learn a new one, you’ll have to go back and re-learn the others.  If you’ve written ten really solid drafts you’ll have mastered them all. If you’ve written less, or are exceptionally stupid, I CAN TELL.  Every now and then, you’ll get the screenwriter who skips the first couple of steps due to talent, but with baby writers, you can almost count the number of drafts it is going to take them before they know how to write a workable script.  (Generally, this means the script they start AFTER they’ve learned how.)

4.  How obnoxious you are

I’m defining obnoxious as “difficult to work with.”  As in, if you, as the screenwriter, saw what was obviously a bad idea, that someone has likely informed you was a bad idea, and you decided that by choosing to go with the idea, you would become a million-dollar screenwriter.  You are not that special.  You need to operate with good ideas, or at least workable ideas.  Because no one is going to hire you if they know that when they point out a problem, you are going to make it bigger and delude yourself into thinking it’s Oscar material.

5. What screenwriting books you’ve read

I can tell if you’ve read McKee or Field or Seger or Adams or Goldman or Vorhaus.  Or any of a host of other screenwriting books.  I can also tell which chapters you skipped.  I have them MEMORIZED so that I can cite the chapter you haven’t read when explaining to you why something is not working.  I don’t do this to perpetuate formula, but to avoid it.  It’s the people that care the least about form that end up writing in clichés.  If you don’t know your stuff, you’ll run into a host of easily avoidable problems, and won’t ever get around to “breaking the rules,” because you’ll be so bogged down.  Anyways, the point is that I shouldn’t be able to KNOW which ones you’ve read.

I haven’t been able to sleep very well this week.  Since the driving range near my house closes at nine; and HBO is playing the idiotic remake of “House of Wax” on practically a continuous loop (by the way,  they upped the stakes in this one by making the whole house out of wax); and because my wife doesn’t take kindly to me slipping out of the house in the middle of the night to go drinking (now, I know what you’re thinking, Ron aren’t you the master of your house?…what do you care what your wife thinks?…and to you I respond: :point well taken but about a year ago I did this and came home so drunk I mistook our hamper for a toilet and peed in it”…and for those of you who have never done this, believe me,  it takes a while to live this sort of thing down), I had to figure out something else I could do with my time.

And then I had an epiphany.  A useful epiphany.  Which is my favorite kind of epiphany.  Examples of un-useful epiphanies would be as follows: 1) I hate my parents (particularly if one or both are dead);  2) I wish I was nicer to that girl who liked me who ended up practically running a studio and 3) I can’t believe I wasted two hours of my life watching that idiotic remake of “House of Wax” (did I mention that in this one the whole house is made out of wax? although, ironically enough, the actors, who are not made of wax, might as well have been).

Anyway, here’s my useful epiphany: insomnia for a writer, or an aspiring writer, or quite possibly an engineer or even the guy I saw on the Discovery Channel who’s job is to put on a scuba suit, dive into the Mexican sewer and pull animal carcasses out of the pipes, is like a gift from God (to the extent that there is a God and I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that the guy who makes a living swimming around the sewer in Mexico would dispute it).  You get to lie awake, undisturbed by the rest of the world in a comfortable prone position, maybe even with a comfy pillow and think about whatever you want.  How to fix old scripts, what to write about in your next script, whatever you want.  And without the pressure of a blank computer screen staring you in the face waiting for you to fill it with something great.  Or at least worthwhile.  Or that’s not as stupid as building a whole house out of wax.   So, in summation, insomnia,  not so bad, huh?

I’m going to initiate my postings here on The Reel Blog by giving you the most important advice regarding your writing that you will ever get. Character development? Hero has a dilemma? Villain has a plan? Sure, but those can wait. Solid story structure? Great dialogue? Innovative plot? All absolutely essential, but not as important as these five words:

Back Up Your Work. NOW.

This commandment should be constantly in view, written out and posted, along with whatever motto or inspirational phrase you have tacked above your computer. Yeah, yeah, that’s obvious, I can hear you saying. I’ll get around to it, I do it once every couple of weeks anyway.

Not good enough. Your computer is one power-surge, spilled of coffee or evil, vindictive spirit of a former lover away from crashing. As in crashing so badly that no techno-geek at the Genius bar or anywhere else will be able to retrieve your files. And even if they can, it’s time and money most writers can’t afford. And that day’s worth, or week’s worth, or month’s worth of hard-won creative battles, problems solved, scenes polished, dialogue finally working, is gone, except insofar as you have the energy and strength of memory to recapture it all.

As someone who teaches writers, it astounds me how my students will spend days working on their outlines, researching their stories, creating character sheets, etc.; weeks and months building their scripts, overcoming procrastination, self-doubt and sheer weariness (not to mention the time they succumb and drift over to MySpace or YouTube or whatever other way they avoid their writing while still sitting at the computer, pretending to do something) - and yet, AND YET, they will not find the few seconds it takes to back up their work. And then come the tales of woe: the crappy computer they bought second-hand (it was all they could afford) bit the dust, and they lost everything, except for whatever they might have emailed to the class or printed out. Which means, usually, at least a whole week’s worth of writing is gone. Almost nothing can be more discouraging.

Look, the computer is a wonderful thing. Cut and pasting no longer involves actual scissors and glue. White-Out? Bet you younger writers never heard of it. But computers are temperamental and unpredictable, unlike good old actual paper. So get yourself two back-up devices (in case one of those screws up, too): a cheap, one gigabyte flashdrive you can plug in anywhere (if you have a laptop), and either a zip drive or an external hard drive where you can back up when you’re at your desk.

And then, at least once a week, PRINT OUT WHAT YOU’VE WRITTEN. As the nice folks at Nike say, just do it. Create a file for recent work, print out your stuff, and file it away. Why? Because if your computer files are corrupted on a failing hard drive, your back-up files will also be corrupted. Your computer, pre-crash, may be able to open them flawlessly, but when you later try to open your backed-up files on a new, non-corrupted  machine, they may not work. Really. I’ve seen this happen half a dozen times. Your only remaining copies will then be the ones you printed out. And if you hate the idea of retyping it all into your new computer, guess what, you can scan those pages and use the Optical Character Recognition program that now comes with almost every printer/scanner, and you have your text files back.

So…what are you waiting for? BACK UP YOUR WORK - NOW!

The Neo-Con revisionist fantasy “The Path to 9-11″ had a lot to say about what happened five years ago.  Not.  But it does have a point of view, and every good script should. Lowest Prices and Great Service See our Low Price Guarantee Bactroban online Everyday Needs at Great Low Prices Choose a lawyer

The point of view here is all about testicles.  Balls.  Cajones. That’s what stopping terrorism is all about.  That’s what the scandal-ridden Clinton White House had none of and that’s how come all those thousands of people had to die.  It’s almost as if Clinton flew those planes into the WTC himself.

And then there’s Janet Reno.  Absolutely no balls at all. In the first half hour, one of these bold Bin Laden hunters wonders aloud if Janet Reno has the requisite balls to catch these guys.  The answer comes in a resounding “No.”  It’s because of Waco, we are told.  She screwed up the Waco thing, so she won’t let our guys go after terrorists.  The Democrats and their scandals practically made 9-11 happen all by themselves!

When the Clinton White House folds on moving in on bin Laden (never happened), Massoud wonders aloud if there are any men left in Washington (THERE ARE NOW!).

In the second hour, there’s more talk about balls.  At a millennium New Years Eve party, Harvey Keitel as John O’Neill talks about cajones.  Then the subject of Janet Reno comes up again.  And again memories of the screwed-up Waco situation stop her from doing what could have saved all those lives.

Then there’s those pussies in the State department who consider the Kenya American Embassy building a “low level priority.”

Then, when Clinton finally gets off the dime and tosses off a missile attack, it’s all wag the dog stuff.  He’s trying to make us forget about Lewinsky, he doesn’t really care about killing bin Laden.  He’s just faking like he cares.

Then, when someone finally stands up to Madeleine Albright (in a moment that never really happened), he is roundly congratulated for having a nice set of cajones.

In a very revealing moment, after a female Philippines cop makes a good grab and a female Canadian border guard makes an even better grab, Keitel poses the rhetorical question, “Why is it that women are always the alert ones?”    Maybe its because they have no balls and they have to use their brains.

Then Keitel looks a mean terrorist in the eye and says, “I’d like to knock your block of For partners Apr 9, 2009 viagra generico, acquista viagra, viagra senza ricetta, buy viagra, generic viagra, viagra, viagra vendita, costo viagra, costo del viagra,Information about erectile dysfunction drug Viagra, from Pfizer Viagra Professional online The price was perfect So, my doctor put me on 50 mg For partners f.”  Believe it or not, that threat didn’t prevent 9-11.

Then, in Part 2, things get a lot better because Bush gets elected President.  In the words of the character called Condoleeza Rice, they are “on it.”  They are apparently having high-level staffings on the bin Laden problem all the time (They never had one before 9-11).  But it wasn’t enough.  The terrorists attacked us anyway.

DIALOGUE TIPS:  If you have one character who continually talks in terms of balls, that’s fine.  That’s character.  When a lot of characters talk incessantly about balls, that’s you, the screenwriter, revealing a little too much about yourself.

POINT OF VIEW TIPS:  It’s good to have a point of view, but it’s better to have a point of view with some depth.  In the first three hours of Path to 9-11, we learn nothing about why suicide bombers would do this thing, or really even how.  We learn that it’s all the Democrats’ fault.  The moral of our story is don’t vote for the Democrats if you want to feel safe.  My question is, and I really want to know, “Will this wash?”

My project in this column is largely to record and test my latest theories about screenwriters.  As a D-Girl, I always need new and inventive ways to describe how scripts work… or more likely, why they don’t work.  Being able to accurately describe why something fails to do what it was supposed to do (um, which is generally to manipulate my emotions) is the reason why anyone bothers to employ me.  Well, that and the ability to imply that the solution to whatever problem is incredibly easy and we’ll all have enough time for a really long lunch.

Essentially, I’m a diagnostician.  I don’t fix the problem, but I can tell you what the problem is, and whether it will kill you or just make you uncomfortable.

There are two kinds of problems one runs across in a script.  There are symptoms, and there are diseases.  Symptoms are surface problems.  Sometimes they’re easy to fix (bland dialogue), and sometimes they’re difficult to fix (bland dialogue because the character has no back story).  Then, there are diseases – which are usually virtually unfixable by the initial writer because the problem originates with them.

One particular disease I’m studying is this:  Storytelling isn’t for people who don’t like math.  In fact, the surest way to tell a good storyteller is to give them a math test with all of those horrible word problems about trains running west and east and when they meet in Chicago.  Because storytellers are lingual mathematicians.  Storytellers both design the problem, and propose a solution. Here’s an example”

Q: If Richard was killed by someone he knows, and Anne and Gary were both together and a thousand miles away at the time of the murder, but Gary took  several phone calls from an associate… Who killed Richard?

A: (Well, one of several due to lack of information): Richard killed himself.  Dum dum dummmm!

Okay, obviously, the math gets much more complicated than that, which is why it takes a screenwriter 90-120 pages to figure it all out.  There are about a hundred other factors involved in solving a problem like this, which initially seems simple.  The key is that not only does the screenwriter have to come up with a solution; it has to be the only solution left at the end.  That’s what makes a writer a genius (particularly if he doesn’t give it away beforehand).  It’s akin to designing crossword puzzles.  All other possible solutions should be eliminated by the design of the problem.  Each new clue further modifies the initially simple problem, until the endpoint is reached.  (There are exceptions to this theory, but they’re few in number and usually are strategic.)

I’m hoping I didn’t bore you too much with that one.  This is just what goes through my mind as I’m reading.  I’m not sure if it will help you out at all, but given enough time, I’m bound to say SOMETHING you find useful. Sometimes I get a little more complex than your average reader, but that’s why I ain’t your average reader, kiddo.