Should Back to the Future Sequels be Done Back to Back?

[Spykes]

Originally Posted by guitarsareboring

Twilight (2008)
New Moon (2009)
Eclipse (2010)
Breaking Dawn pt 1 (2011)
Breaking Dawn pt 2 (2012)

Those movies are easy as hell to shoot though. The script is basically already written for them save for a few edits to make them work as a movie, so there's absolutely no idea creating. It's mostly all dialog and what little CG they have is TV-Grade at best. So it's pretty easy for them to pump that garbage out like water.

[Farlander]

Originally Posted by Spykes

Those movies are easy as hell to shoot though. The script is basically already written for them save for a few edits to make them work as a movie, so there's absolutely no idea creating. It's mostly all dialog and what little CG they have is TV-Grade at best. So it's pretty easy for them to pump that garbage out like water.

No offense, but do you have an how hard it is to transform a work from one artistic medium to another and how everything works? To put it simply: IT'S HARD. And it's very easy to mess everything up. Books, movies, video games, they're very different mediums, and let's not forget about the paradox that, sometimes, to keep things closer to the source, you have to deviate from it.

What you've said it's like saying that to make a good video game out of a movie, let's say, it's enough to just take every scene from the movie and make it interactive. A very easy, winning formula, right? (considering that games tend to be action-packed, and most movies the games are based on are, well, action-packed; like a book being basically a script, right?) Yet lots of movie-games (which kind of tend to follow this pattern) are crap. Wonder why? Because it's not a winning formula, - it's not nearly enough to make a good transformation.

What I'm trying to say, is that it's hard to make a good book out of a movie/game, it's hard to make a good movie out of a book/game, it's hard to make a good game out of a movie/book, not to mention all other artistic mediums I have left out of this post, like theatrical plays, musicals, comics (graphic novels, if someone insists) and other stuff. If you, by chance, will strongly disagree and, let's say, insist to get deeper into this (very interesting, by the way) subject - I suggest either PM'ing or creating another thread, since this would be a bit off-topic, I think.

PS. I'm not defending neither Twilight movie or book, by the way (I dare not to read or watch them, so obviously I have no opinion of them).

[Spykes]

Originally Posted by Farlander

No offense, but do you have an how hard it is to transform a work from one artistic medium to another and how everything works? To put it simply: IT'S HARD. And it's very easy to mess everything up. Books, movies, video games, they're very different mediums, and let's not forget about the paradox that, sometimes, to keep things closer to the source, you have to deviate from it.

What you've said it's like saying that to make a good video game out of a movie, let's say, it's enough to just take every scene from the movie and make it interactive. A very easy, winning formula, right? (considering that games tend to be action-packed, and most movies the games are based on are, well, action-packed; like a book being basically a script, right?) Yet lots of movie-games (which kind of tend to follow this pattern) are crap. Wonder why? Because it's not a winning formula, - it's not nearly enough to make a good transformation.

What I'm trying to say, is that it's hard to make a good book out of a movie/game, it's hard to make a good movie out of a book/game, it's hard to make a good game out of a movie/book, not to mention all other artistic mediums I have left out of this post, like theatrical plays, musicals, comics (graphic novels, if someone insists) and other stuff. If you, by chance, will strongly disagree and, let's say, insist to get deeper into this (very interesting, by the way) subject - I suggest either PM'ing or creating another thread, since this would be a bit off-topic, I think.

PS. I'm not defending neither Twilight movie or book, by the way (I dare not to read or watch them, so obviously I have no opinion of them).

I wasn't generalizing every book to movie adaptation, I was talking specifically about the Twilight movies. Those books have amateurish writing, little to no action scenes and very heavy in dialog. Hence, they aren't THAT hard to push out in a years time. That's a simple fact that can be deduced by just looking at how quick of a turnaround there is for the Twilight Saga films.

Now obviously ALL movie projects are difficult to complete. It's silly to suggest that that's what I was trying to say. However, in the world of movie making, movies like Twilight are on the very easy end of the spectrum.

[Farlander]

Originally Posted by Spykes

I wasn't generalizing every book to movie adaptation, I was talking specifically about the Twilight movies. Those books have amateurish writing, little to no action scenes and very heavy in dialog. Hence, they aren't THAT hard to push out in a years time. That's a simple fact that can be deduced by just looking at how quick of a turnaround there is for the Twilight Saga films.

Now obviously ALL movie projects are difficult to complete. It's silly to suggest that that's what I was trying to say. However, in the world of movie making, movies like Twilight are on the very easy end of the spectrum.

I admit that I misunderstood the generalization aspect of your post, but you have misunderstood mine, so we're even in this matter.

Anyway. Heavy on dialogue + little action does not equal easy transferring stage (and I'm not talking about the whole project, I'm talking about the transformation from one medium to another, which is a part of pre-production). In some aspects it's even harder. Alright, I may go into the generalization aspect again. But, you did say "The script is basically already written for them save for a few edits to make them work as a movie, so there's absolutely no idea creating." which is wrong regardless on how much dialogue or what kind of writing there is in the book. Because, as I said, to make it work in another medium is a very difficult artistic challenge, which, as I said in this post, relies mostly on planning everything out (more than that, thinking that a book, especially if there's many dialogue, is as good as an unedited script - that would be the biggest mistake one would make in the transformation stage I've mentioned). I never said a thing about shooting the movie itself, or making the props, or, basically, the production itself. They're quite essential (since every work is a combination of things and it IS silly to make importance only out of one aspect) but it wasn't what I was talking about.

Anyway, the Twilight thing may be crappy books and movies. But you CAN pump good stuff every year, you just have to know what you're doing. You can even pump some good stuff based on bad stuff - same thing. The reason the Twilight movies suck is because... well, they do. I don't know, I haven't watched them, but most people say that, so in this matter I go with the crowd. I don't always go with the crowd without seeing something myself, but I'm ready to in this case.

Well, I don't know if I've made my point clear. I'm pretty sick for the past four or five days, so it's a bit hard for me right now to clearly state my thoughts even if I'm sure in my mind what thoughts they are. But, I want to end my another very heavy post (most likely with lots of unnecessary words) with the fact that I've never meant any disrespect (if some of my sentence formulations may seem to cause one).

[doggans]

Originally Posted by Farlander

But, you did say "The script is basically already written for them save for a few edits to make them work as a movie, so there's absolutely no idea creating." which is wrong regardless on how much dialogue or what kind of writing there is in the book. Because, as I said, to make it work in another medium is a very difficult artistic challenge

With any other adaptation I'd agree with you, but the Twilight producers put very little effort into the screenplays, because they know that it doesn't matter; the slavish fangirls will see the movie anyway. Adapting a Twilight book to screen IS pretty much just a matter of abridging, because in the case of this series, the studio doesn't care what works in different mediums so long as the middle school cheerleaders with the Team Edward/Jacob temporary tattoos hand over the box office dollars.

Now, the producer and director still have to plan out shots and make them work visually, but that's a different part of preproduction than the script writing, which is what we're talking about. And obviously there are screenwriters who work on the series, but I'd be very surprised if they spent more than a month per screenplay. Compared to other film adaptations, there's absolutely no idea creating on a script level.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I haven't actually read the books, but I've seen the first two movies with RiffTrax, and I'm going off of the claims of my friends who have read the books.)

And on topic...The BTTF trilogy is perfect as is, so I wouldn't want another movie to be made. But if it was, I'd see it anyway because I'm a slavish fanboy.