I just finished reading A Boy’s Life by Melissa Mathison and it was life-changing. Not really, but it was still quiet enjoyable. I’ve read many screenplays before, but this is probably the oldest one I’ve ever read. The screenplay is roughly twenty-seven years old, so I believe it’s a little outdated by today’s screenplay format. So I had to get used to all the camera directions, such as pull backs, inserts, close-ups, the types of shots being used, and so on. I believe that camera directions such as these should only be included in your screenplay if you are the one directing it, so it will help you out, not someone else. Not Steven Speilberg.
But after getting used to the format, it was a quick read. I haven’t seen E.T. in fourteen years, so the only details I remember is that Drew Barrymore was Gertie, and that Elliott and E.T. fly in the air on his bike at the end. So I was basically going into this screenplay blind, but I could still see the movie in my head. I only had a few brief problems with the script though. The climax seemed to be a bit rushed, and it got very hectic at the end, with characters not behaving how they would in real life. Also, Mathison’s descriptions and writing style was very flowery and sometimes purposely misleading. For example, the line “ET is dead” is written just for the shock value when he comes back alive a page and a half later. The same goes for her trying to make the Keys character appear evil, but instead he comes off as poorly written and abstract.
I don’t know if screenplays are MEANT to be read by non-professionals, but I do believe that they SHOULD be read by them. Especially if it’s a movie you really enjoy and watch over and over, by reading the screenplay, you might be able to glean even more information from it, by comparing the two and seeing how the whole process comes out. Also it is great practice to read as many screenplays as you can if that’s what you want to do in the industry. After reading enough, writing them should become second nature.
1) Did you think that Elliott and ET being able to synchronize feelings was well-establish in the script or was it was not explained well?
2) Do you enjoy the movie E.T. more or less after now reading the screenplay? Were you expecting something different?
- Jared Smith
4 comments:
I asked the same question about E.T. and Elliot's "connection." I didn't really understand what was happenning until he was meeting with the principal, well after the drunken frog escaping scene. It felt like so much was happening at once that I couldn't collect what was really happenning.
I think after reading this I DO enjoy the movie more. It's a good story, and with a little help from Speilberg, became a great story.
I think I only enjoy E.T. even more now that I realize what the actors and director did with the script material.
I understood that Elliott and E.T. were sharing feelings from the first instance. I enjoyed the way subtlety of how it was developed, almost as if we the audience were trying to figure it out with Elliott simultaneously.
Also, I think that I enjoy the movie, or at least the character E.T., much more after having read the script and the author's word choices to describe him. She made the character very likeable and "cute."
-Kyle Deason
I don't think the connection between ET and Elliott was explained good enough at all. It had been a while since I'd seen the movie, so I actually forgot about it until the principal at school suggested he was drunk. The way it was just sort of assumed that they were connected in some way kind of threw me off.
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