If I were to write it...Lost Boys 2

Hello, and welcome to a new segment on this blog called "if I were to write it...". What I will do is take an upcoming movie/book/game/etc (generally a sequel) and discuss how I would have handled it if I were to write it. I can't be the only person in this world who is often surprised by the amount of SHIT coming out of the creative industry. I mean, I know its not easy to make a great film but it can't be that hard to realize when your making an awful one. So, to kick this off, lets start with the soon to be released Lost Boys sequel, "Lost Boys 2: The Tribe".

For starters, if you have not already done so, you MUST check out the trailer for this flick here:



Okay, everyone do their homework? Good. So basically the trailer looks pretty terrible, altho I did love the re-introduction of Edgar Frog of the infamous Frog Brothers. Basically it looks like they are making the same movie with the following changes:

1) Replaced 2 brothers dealing with vampires to a brother and sister dealing with vampires.
2) Replaced the motorcycle gang with a group of surfer dudes.
3) Replaced the insane but fucking cool grandfather with an Aunt
4) Moved to a new city in California

Did I miss anything? So it looks like a sub-par wanna-be Lost Boys that just happens to have one of the frog brothers in it, therefore allowing them to call it Lost Boys 2. So, how would I have handled this movie? A whole hellofa lot differently, and heres my "pitch":

At the end of the first movie we know a few things:
(1) The Frog brothers actually CAN kick ass.
(2) By killing the head vampire, you can cure anyone who has been bitten.
(3) Cory Haim can rock a multi-patch trench coat unlike any other.
(4) Grandpa kicks ass, and seems to know a lot more about vampires then he ever let on.
(5) That no 2 vampires die the same way.

In this sequel, we start at present day (about 20 years after the original) and catch up with our major characters from the first film right off the bat. Sam and Michael (of the first movie) are more than content to forget about the past and pretend it never happened. Michael and Star are happily married, and want nothing to do with vampires or vampire hunting. Sam owns his own comic book shop and provides the Frog Brothers limited intel, but is not willing to offer much more than that, he just wants to live a peaceful life and promised his mother (now dead) that he would never discuss what happened again. The Frog brothers are doing anything they can to get the word out about vampires but are unfortunately falling on deaf ears. Over the last 20 years, the Frog brothers have created a book, called "The Frog Brothers Guide to Defying and Prevailing Over all things Evil...Especially Bloodsuckers!", which contains information on all their vampire hunts. They show this book to anyone who will listen, but unfortunately due to their eclectic ways it comes off as a joke and they are not taken seriously. Not sure what to do, they provide a video of them killing a vampire to a local news channel, but the network turns them into the police and they are now wanted men. On the run from the law and not being taken seriously, they decide to go back to where it all started (for them) and see if they can find proof to convince the world of the threat at hand and finally be understood (in addition to proving their innocence).

Cut to Santa Carla, the same town from the first film, the beach side amusement park is quite worn down, but the town remains a haven for hippies and odd people. New to this town are Richard and David, 2 friends who tried their hand at running a technology company (selling high tech weapons to the government), but ultimately failed. They have decided to take a sabbatical in the town of Santa Carla to help them refocus and to deal with the loss of their business. Their friendship is also on the rocks due to Richard feeling like David sabotaged their company with his stubbornness and flagrant attitude. Their 2nd night in the town they meet a beautiful woman who convinces David to come with her to the beach for some fun. Richard thinks it best they go home, but David decides to go with the girl for some goodtimes. The girl turns out to be a vampire (of course) but before she can kill David the Frog Brothers come to his rescue and dispatch of the evil woman. Unfortunately for David he has been bitten, so they tell him they can help and take him back to the house he and Richard are staying at. What follows is the tale of the Frog Brothers working with Richard and David (and their high-tech weapon know how) to find the vampire leader and kill him before its to late for David and to clear the Frog Brothers name.

What do you think? To me, the core of Lost Boys is really two things. First, its all about a person dealing with their transition into a vampire and how they cope with that. Second, its about some crazy ass characters coming together to fight a common threat. I guess based on the title you could say its a tale of eternal youth through eternal life (ala "the lost boys" from peter pan), but I think what made the first movie work so well was all the crazy characters kicking ass in fun and creative ways. This movie has to capture that spirit, not just replace a gang of motorcycling kids with surfer kids. How would you have handled a lost boys sequel? Let me know in the comments!

My first short: Grave of the Girl

As promised, here is my first short for you all to critique. Looking forward to it. This is just the very beginning, but I wanted to get something up to keep this moving. It's titled "Grave of the Girl", and here it is for your reading pleasure:

Grave of the Girl

Rachel didn't want to be there. In fact, she wanted to be at home watching MTV and eating some of her mom's rice crispy treats that had been made fresh that morning. But, Rachel knew that coming might impress Josh, and at the fragile age of 16, impressing Josh was number one on her list of priorities. It was cold out, and she hated the cold. The ground was wet from the fresh rain that afternoon, and while it provided a sense of calm, it added to the somber tone of the place and made it that much more unbearable. She noticed that on this night, the glow of the moon seemed particularly bright, maybe because it was a full moon, but even so it seemed to shine more than normal. The air was stiff and while everyone else was laughing and having fun, Rachel just wanted to get somewhere inside with a heater. But she endured. Every so often he would speak to her, and this was more than enough to make it worthwhile. Somewhere, in the back of her mind she knew this wasn't her thing but she kept telling herself, "shut up, you'll be fine".

She first heard about it on Friday afternoon, right after that douche bag Mr.Everding's physics class. She always wanted to ask why he had one lazy eye, but "when is the appropriate time to bring that up in class? or even outside of class?" she would often tell herself. As the bell rang and she was on her normal 5 minute jaunt to her locker and then on to AP history, she felt something grab her shoulder from behind. "RACHEL!" screamed Barb, with a look on her face that was a mix of extreme excitment and a retarded child learning to eat by themselves for the first time. "We are IN! They said we can come, I told them we are there for sure because I know you know who I know is going to be there!". The "who" Barb was referring to was none other than Josh Hackerson, the typical "I'm an indie kid with problems" at any given high school in America, and also the object of Rachels current desires. Barb didn't have to use his name, for they more or less talked about either Josh or Craig 90% of their conversations together. Without even knowing what or where they were "in" for, Rachel was already elated. She had kept an ongoing list in her notebook of the last 7 times she had been lucky enough to spend time outside of school with Josh and was always excited to make an update. "Sweet" said Rachel, trying to contain her enthusiasm and seem more relaxed than she felt inside. "When, where, and how much?" Barb looked at her watch, "Fuck! I'm going to miss chemistry. Saturday night, Hampton Cemetery. They go up there an play tag or something - sounds kind of stupid, but screw it, might be fun". And with that, Barb was off and Rachel was left to think about her new weekend plans.

Hampton Cemetery was probably the biggest near Rachels suburb. It wasn't particularly scary and surprisingly didn't have any urban legends associated with it. What it did have was that undeniable draw for the local teens, they couldn't leave it alone. Even with all the measures the owners had taken for security (and there were many), it was just to irresistible for the kids to leave it alone. They would go there for parties, they would go there to scare each other, whatever it was, you could generally plan on finding a group of kids there on any given weekend.

The group of kids on this cold Saturday night just happened to be the group that Rachel and Barb were invited to tag along with. Officer Chris Brown knew all to well that he'd find some kids up there, and at this point in his career, he wasn't even sure if he cared enough anymore to ask them to leave. Tonight, he decided to park his car in the darkness and just watch them for awhile. To remember what it was like when he used to break into the cemetary gorunds with his friends, before meeting his future wife, before having 3 children, and before talking about this goddamn divorce anymore. "God she is such a bitch!" officer Brown thought to himself, "Why does everything have to be a soap opera".

So, how will this work?

Okay - so we got the opening post out of the way, now lets plan out how this is going to work. The way I see it, I will start writing things, all kinds of things, and just post them. That will give you the opportunity to tell me what you think (i.e. - is it good? is it shit?). As we go along, I'll also be updating my trials and tribulations of becoming a screenwriter as they happen. I'm hoping this will be interesting to read, and if not, then we'll figure something out. So, up first I am going to post the beginning of a short story. I think I'll put that up tomorrow for you to start disecting. I will say that not everything I put up will be finished, not everything will be great, but everything will be focused on 1 goal - that of making me write more. How's that sound? Good? Good. If you have any thoughts leave them in the comments section, otherwise I look forward to some feedback on my first short story I post.

So, I want to write. Quit talking about it fucker and get busy then!

Why to write? This is a great question, and one that really does need to be answered. However, before I can answer that, I think it should be addressed as to why this question came up in the first place. More or less, Chronic (my friend) and myself have had visions of writing in some capacity for quite awhile. We want to have our creative voices heard, but as it turns out they are only heard by one another 99% of the time. On top of that, we share a creative vision on many things, so it would only make sense we’d be optimal writing partners. So, after saying “I should write movies” or “I should write a book” for several years, I’ve decided its time to get off my fat ass (yes, I am a large man) and make it happen. My problem is dedication, so if I’m going to do this I need to make sure I am really and truly 100% committed to it. To do that, I decided it makes a lot of sense to write a piece on why I want to write. This is my little love letter to myself, to show myself how witty I am, how great my writing style can be, and more importantly to have it in paper that (1) I am dedicated and (2) I have real reasons for pursuing this. Maybe one day I can put this in a “special edition” of on my books, or some bullshit like that. Maybe not. We’ll see. So, back to the question – why to write? My reasons, as we’ve just read, include wanting to make movies and maybe even some fucking novels – assuming I ever get off my lazy ass. Here are some other reasons, in no particular order. At the moment I think it would be a lot more fun then programming on a computer all day. Maybe I’m wrong, but it sure sounds a lot more fun. Programming is starting to feel stale to me or something, don’t get me wrong, I still dig it, I’m just not “loving” what I do at this point. Second, I think I have a lot to say. Not on some high-end meaningful level, I’m not that fucking proud of myself, but I just mean I have a lot of things to tell people – stories, thoughts, quips, hell I dunno…all kinds of things. Third, there isn’t a lot out there right now that I love to read, and I think that maybe if I write stuff I like I’d want to read it, so maybe there are people out there like me right now. For example, I love the opening scene to a movie I wrote, where this old lady gets the shit kicked out of her (don’t worry, she was an evil demon so its cool), but I just don’t read or see enough stuff like that. Which to me means its time I put it out there.

Okay, we covered the reasons (I thought I had a lot more, but I guess I was wrong…that sucks). So now lets talk logistics. Can I make money being a writer? Well, in my mind I sure as heck can! My thought is this, if I can write movie scripts (for example) I can make money that way. If I write books, that could also be a source of income. If I start a blog, maybe I can be like Perez Hilton and make money from advertisements. However, if I ever become like Perez Hilton someone please kill me, because I would be a piece of shit. Speaking of blogs, what kind of blog do people really want to read right now? Celebrity gossip? Not my thang. Movie news? I think that fat fuck harry has it covered. Maybe just a blog about my process of becoming a writer? Actually that’s not a terrible idea – Okay, I’m going to make a blog about becoming a writer. Done. And this is my first post, how sweet is that! So much for my “putting this in a special edition of my novel” idea, but who was I kidding up there – that is probably not going to happen. So, welcome to my blog about a typical computer nerd becoming a writer, I hope you dig it!