Controversial idea of a script.

The thing is that there is so much censorship going on that if it is even a tad controversial it would never see the light of day.


America is so polarized right now that controversy-and truth- are taboo.

I don't really see how it would be. Terrorism is more and more a thing of our world. Its like saying intercity gangs are taboo because they have encrouched upon our daily lives. No, they are very much a feature of many films and books because of it.

Now a subject that would be very controversial here in the US and most of the world actually is if you took the side of the terrorist and emulated the cause and made it out to be glorious to kill innocent women and children in the name of what?

JMO

GonnaBeFamous said:

No mine is going to be a regular film, its just the waythe plot would go might be too overwhelming of a plot for a post 9/11.

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Overwhelming would be Farenheit 9/11 If you haven't watched it, do and then decide if your plot is milder than that. If it is I am sure you will be fine.

Yeah and in my opinion it sucked, but hey. It was still a film and still was very controversial, so if there is room for that film, I am sure there would be room for yours.

on tv

for 3 seasons now - 24 has been a big hit on Fox and it's major storylines have all been about terrorism

and soon out (this month) are 2 flicks about terror on a plane: one stars jodie foster - the other, i'm not sure of the title but a woman is pursued by a terrorist after her father and using her as hostage leverage or something like that

I'm pretty bored with the whole Hollywood sanitized "terrorist" thing.

The label is overused and often misused in any case, reducing focus on the story and its characters. Seems like any murdering thug who waves a gun around or threatens to explode a bomb is a "terrorist" these days.

Not that I'm voting to give real terrorists the publicity they crave. Screw that idea and screw them.

If you think you have a great idea for a script, go ahead and write it. All I'm saying is, any time I see the label in a logline or synopsis, I look for something more interesting to read instead.

-Derek
Derek's Web Page - stories, screenplays, novels, insanity.

i think it would be a commercial disaster to take the terrorist viewpoint, but it might be interesting to see how a child grows up and how he becomes involved in something like that. done in a realistic manner, it could work as long as you leave out the CIA agent chasing him down as a main character. regardless of how you did it, though, people would protest without even seeing it, i bet. nevermind that your script wouldn't be seeking sympathy, doing it as unapologetically and even contritely (which would be the wrong way to go, i feel) would still land it in a bad place.

is it me or does how someone, ah, 'degenerates', for lack of a better word, into terrorism fascinate anyone else in the same way how a normal german man would succumb to nazi-ism?

i started writing a story years ago that i thought would be better as a script. i had plenty of ideas for it, did some research, and wrote several scenes, albeit in novel form, which just didn't fit. i ran the overall idea through several people and they liked it except for the part where the main character was a bullfighter (set in 1700's spain). most everyone agreed that if i removed the bull fighting aspect, to go ahead and write it. even though i made sure they knew the setting was several hundred centuries ago in a different culture, it didn't make any difference. they treated that one aspect as were i advocating the murder of all first born males.

the idea wasn't about killing bulls. it was what added the excitement to the story and the impetus for most of the male characters. and what a great set of characters you can derive from that world... all pisssed away because some bleeding hearts get weepy over a CG bull getting killed. i don't advocate cruelty to animals more than anyone else, but i realized that no matter how i presented my synopsis to people i couldn't impress upon them the fact that it wasn't meant to be cruel to animals... but nor was it a part of the animals defense, either.

on imagining what the commercials would look like, i didn't see much reason to continue. i could envision PETA protesting already. despite the fact my MC was to be killed by a bull in the end i didn't see as redeeming enough. there actually is a long history to killing bulls, one that even if people knew about they wouldn't be able to play along with for a couple of hours. bullfighters kill bulls: no way around that.

is it controversial? it probably would be, but mostly erroneously so. i mean, it's difficult to make safari hunters seem like heroes to a modern person's sensibilities, particularly in this over-sensitive society. even james bond's womanizing was turned off for a movie or so in deference to modern day moralizing.

is terrorism controversial? no, but it can be in bad taste, that's why that arnold schwarzenegger movie was delayed after 9/11. is your terrorist script controversial? probably not so much as you might think. i find it highly unlikely that there's not a pile of 'em sitting in the corner of every producer's office, most of which the writers might think stand a chance *because* they're 'controversial.' to be honest, i don't see how your story can be controversial without looking at the terrorist point of view. what story elements are there that makes it potentially taboo? if by 'extreme' you mean terrorists manage to poison a million people through the waterlines or something along those lines (alternately, setting off a nuclear bomb in l.a.), i wouldn't worry about upsetting anyone.

preyer said:

it might be interesting to see how a child grows up and how he becomes involved in something like that. done in a realistic manner, it could work as long as you leave out the CIA agent chasing him down as a main character. regardless of how you did it, though, people would protest without even seeing it, i bet. nevermind that your script wouldn't be seeking sympathy, doing it as unapologetically and even contritely (which would be the wrong way to go, i feel) would still land it in a bad place. ....


is terrorism controversial? no, but it can be in bad taste, that's why that arnold schwarzenegger movie was delayed after 9/11.

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The latest Star Wars movie (Episode 3) is exactly that... a study on how someone moves into "the dark side." Actually, the first three Star Wars episodes depict the entire transformation, but it's really punctuated in the last installment. Darth was nothing more than an intergalactic type of terrorist; some would call him more a despot but his actions were terrorist-like. And a lot of us actually felt sorry for him in some distant way, while simulataneously loathing him.

Now could you get away with that exact story, only instead of space opera it was a contemporary piece where the young boy is Middleastern and becomes something akin to UBL? I don't know. I have no desire to explore that territory, but I'm sure someone is.

And your point about Arnie's movie... within days of 9/11 some struggling female singer had written a song about it and was singing it on one of the morning shows. I also heard, but can't confirm, that there was a ton of 9/11 related stories that hit either Hollywood or the publishing world in the months following the event.

'And your point about Arnie's movie... within days of 9/11 some struggling female singer had written a song about it and was singing it on one of the morning shows. I also heard, but can't confirm, that there was a ton of 9/11 related stories that hit either Hollywood or the publishing world in the months following the event.' oh, sure, no doubt that stories weren't instantly being drawn up that very day. the movie, though, was in the can and set to be released when it happened and was pushed back. a sympathetic song commemorating the actual events (likely for charity) is on a completely different level. i think the studios made the right decision. there's a big difference between capitalizing on the event to exploit it for money and doing what amounts to inspiration stories, eh? there's enough distance now to use terrorists as an element in a movie just to entertain an audience.

you know, one could view the rebels in SW as terrorists. the revolutionaries in revolutionary war were terrorists of a kind. it all amounts to who the victors are sometimes, lol. the victors write the history books, or something like that.

i have another idea for a movie that would definitely be controversial, involving the old idea that the holy grail isn't an object, rather the prodigy of Jesus. in my story, the young man is spoiled and profane, yet has to be revered merely because of who he is. when the templars are beset by the king of france's soldiers, they choose their most devout man to spirit the boy away. it's not meant as an indictment of anyone, just that whenever you broach religion, people get antsy and sometimes downright defensive often without much cause.

sometimes it doesn't have as much to do with their religious beliefs as much as a perception that their hero is being slurred. remember how the greeks got so irate over 'alexander', showing how he had sex with men? nevermind any historical veracity, they just didn't like it. the dumbest things can be controversial.

for instance, years ago there was a big ado about the 'birthplace of flight' title. north carolina thought they deserved it. being a dayton, ohio native, i thought ohio deserved it. well, we won, rightfully so, and now NC says 'first in flight.' but, it was a big deal around here, one which i'm sure few others thought warranted a second thought any more than i think there's any real controversy surrounding displaying the confederate flag in the south.

i foresee pisssing a lot of people off in my career over nothing, lol.