blinding light weapon so that nobody could shoot them down. I’ ve never seen that before. And the Cerberus storyline( which amounted to taking all American nuclear missiles off-line) was slightly ….. er … differentish than many of the plans I’ ve seen in these movies.
And there were a few other things that told me I was reading a professional script here. Early on, as Banning is getting ready for work, he gets a phone call from a friend, and the resulting conversation tells us some things about his character. At the same time this is happening, Banning is watching the news, where reporters are telling us about the current North / South Korean situation. In other words, the scene is achieving TWO THINGS at once – exposition about Banning and exposition about the Koreas. Amateur writers would’ ve typically separated these scenes. Pros are always looking to combine scenes so that they’ re doing two / three things at once.
It’ s also important to make the central plan in your action movie believable. You have to ask yourself,“ How would this really happen?” and go from there. The more convincing you can be, the more you’ re going to pull your audience in. I see too many amateur scripts where the writers don’ t even consider this and as a result the reader is taken out of the story immediately. Within the context of the movie, the plan here was pretty believable. I had some reservations about the U. S. letting a C-130 cargo plane fly up to the White House( they do stop it but not before it’ s able to help enact the plan), but the stuff on the ground was sound.
The big problem with Olympus Has Fallen – and I’ m kinda shocked writers with ten years of experience made this mistake – is that its main character is sooooooo boring. Or maybe“ boring” isn’ t the word.“ Standard” may be better. I’ m actually not surprised that Gerard Butler plays the role of Banning because he’ s the real-world equivalent of“ standard” and“ boring.” Despite Banning being the hero here, he doesn’ t say or do much! I mean, he’ s running around in the underground tunnels and running around in the White House, but I never really felt like I knew the guy because he didn’ t say anything, ever!
It’ s interesting, the White House Down spec( the competing White House hijack project that’ s coming out this summer) took another approach. It paired its hero with the president, allowing for conversation between
the two so we could get to know him. Then, of course, Die Hard has McClane talking to the cop( via radio) down below so we could get to know him. Banning doesn’ t say much because he’ s got nobody to talk to, poor guy. And in a movie market where we’ ve seen a million agent-types before, you’ re going to need any opportunity possible to get us into the head of your agent so you can differentiate him from everyone else. Of course, this was the sale draft I read. They may have changed it in the film. But it was a real issue in the script.
So the lead-up to the White House takeover was fun. But Olympus falters due to its bland hero and cliché second half. Which leaves a lot of you asking,“ Well wait, I thought this was supposed to be an example of how to do it right.” That’ s the scary thing – it’ s actually better than most action specs. While it may not have been original, it was very competent, and 99 % of the action specs I read aren’ t even that. Those professional touches like having double-duty scenes, combined with a perfect execution of the three-act structure are things I don’ t see in amateur screenplays. I’ m still waiting for that kick ass modern-day Die Hard spec to give today’ s audiences their first action classic, but scripts like Olympus Has Fallen will have to do in the meantime.
[ ] what the hell did I just read? [ x ] wasn’ t for me [ ] worth the read [ ] impressive [ ] genius
What I learned: This is a great reminder that these are the people you’ re competing against as a screenwriter – people who have been honing their craft for over a decade, people who have won the Nicholl competition 10 years ago, people who have seen and experienced every kind of writing obstacle one can encounter and figuring out how to overcome it. Chances are, if you’ re not throwing everything you can into your own writing, you won’ t be able to compete with these guys. writersguildsa. org | 85