the highbrow analysis funny as hell. The parents might not even know it’ s music related until the end of the scene( where it twists and everything goes wrong).
The principal was also won over too easily. Again- the scene where he uses his“ unusual teaching methods” was unbelievable- that song about math wouldn’ t fool anyone. She needs to put up more of a fight so that HE needs to put up more of a fight. Instead of being won over by a pitcher of beer and a Stevie Nicks song, he would have had to fight to succeed. Instead of the dumb math song, how about having the kids show what they have learned about math from studying music? This would have not only been amazing to the audience, it might have even amazed Jack Black a little. These kids actually learned something from playing rock and roll music.
THAT’ S A COP OUT!
The police arresting Black at Parent’ s Night allowed a cop-out as far as story was concerned. A way to by-pass the real conflict by creating a Deus Ex Machina conflict. What they should have done is made parent’ s night into a real conflict that Black must actually deal with... by using rock music to teach his kids actual lessons in math, poetry, etc that would help win over the parents. Parent’ s Night becomes the big scene... THEN twist it with the police / fraud thing- so that the concert becomes the icing on the cake- the kids love him and the parents loosen up.
If you look at the story, the big conflict is Black pretending to be a teacher, so that conflict can only be resolved by Black BECOMING a teacher and PROVING that he’ s a teacher. We already know that he’ s a musician, so the concert at the end can only resolve the“ kicked out of his own band” conflict( a minor conflict). By turning the Battle Of The Bands into the big Act 3 conflict, the main conflict in the film is completely avoided.
This type of conflict avoidance where the main conflict is swept under the rug and a secondary conflict is resolved in the end seems to be more prevalent in scripts these days: one of the big problems with the BEAVER screenplay was that the lead character’ s problem was not resolved at all, just pushed to the background in hopes that we’ d forget it when they resolved the son’ s conflict. The son gets a the big end
scene... except the script wasn’ t about him! The son is in a handful of scenes, but the focus of the story is Walter( Mel Gibson)- and he is even the first character we see. Development execs seem to not notice this fake out / cop out ending, but I think once these scripts hit film the slight of hand ending will diminish the emotional impact... and make what could have been a great film into something merely good or okay.
When the parents start rocking out at the concert at the end of SCHOOL OF ROCK, it’ s nice... but nothing to cheer about. Because it’ s emotionally based( parents accepting their kids) it still brings a tear to your eyes, but we could have had those tears AND some big cheers if he had shown what a great teacher he had become at Parent’ s Night. Just because the parents think he’ s a good teacher doesn’ t mean they’ ll let their kids play in a rock band. In fact- I think the better the kids did at Parent’ s Night the more their parents would try to prevent them from playing rock music.
SCHOOL OF ROCK is a fun film, a good film... but just as every script could use a rewrite, even good films have flaws that we can learn from. We’ ll see how well THE BEAVER does when it’ s released. Your Screenplay Checklist:
1) Stories are about characters, so make sure the * character’ s *( emotional or internal) conflict has been resolved- not just the plot conflict. People are more important than * things *.
2) Don’ t leave the main conflict unresolved unless that is the point of the story!
3) Does your story reflect your logline and title... or hide from it?
4) No“ easy outs” or“ cop outs” or other ways that problems solve themselves- that makes the * people * your story is about * unimportant *! 5) Remember: the more difficult the challenge, the more satisfaction we feel from the victory.
ORIGINAL Publisher 96 | WGSA MAG June 2013