The Hollywood Formula and Aliens

[Rob Farquhar]

In the name of improving my storytelling craft, I'm seeing how a particular pattern of successful storytelling - the Hollywood Formula - applies to one of my favourite movies. I have the feeling this is going to be a four-parter, so I'll add links in new posts as I go.

Here's Part One, though:
www.robf.com.au/2011/11/29/bug-hunt-hollywood-method-part-1

What do you think?

[marquis01]

Great page Rob, I posted a reply. Very informative and lots of links. Well Done.

[Rob Farquhar]

Thanks, Carol!

Here's part 2 - and this is starting to look like a six-part series!

www.robf.com.au/2011/12/01/bug-hunt-hollywood-method-part-2/

[Rob Farquhar]

Part 3 is now up, and we finally get to the mid-point twist!
www.robf.com.au/2011/12/04/bug-hunt-hollywood-method-part-3/

[Sally McDonald]

Rob, I started off reading your 'bug' series, and then spent the evening reading all of your blogs. And I mean ALL of them. I am in awe of your writing ability; you are a complete natural - what I call a 'true' writer, with a unique voice that makes the reader smile and nod and feel like they are having a private conversation with a good friend. I love your writing style. The bug series is an absolutely incredible piece of work - I hope you can get someone to buy it - your analysis of Alien is brilliant using this 'hollywood method'. (Do more informed readers know what this method is?) I have a feeling about you - I really think you are going to be one of those writers who 'makes it' You have a great style and voice; you make it look so easy and of course it isn't. It is damn hard work to make writing look 'conversational', witty, sarcastic and warm all at the same time. Yet somehow you do it and do it consistently. I'd love to see you writing a daily or weekly column; something like Susan Maushart or William McInnes. Of course, having Slamdance on the best seller list would be nice too. Keep writing. You'll get there.

[marquis01]

I agree Sally,
Just read part three. Fantastic Rob. Keep it up.

[tborella]

I'll third what they said, Rob - your dissection of the movie is fascinating, and I really like your style of writing.

I think 'Aliens' is such a great movie on a lot of levels - I'd put it among my all-time favourites. What a shame the subsequent ones didn't live up to very high standards of the first two. I was looking forward to the third one like a kid waiting for Christmas, only to come out feeling as if the presents had all been whisked away...bah humbug.

Anyway, thanks for your hard work, and keep it up!

[Rob Farquhar]

Thank you, everyone! I'd write a longer response but it's gone 11:30 here and I need to crash after writing Part 4:
www.robf.com.au/2011/12/08/bug-hunt-hollywood-method-part-4/

[Rob Farquhar]

Dec 5, 2011 7:49:48 GMT -5 @Sally McDonald said:

Rob, I started off reading your 'bug' series, and then spent the evening reading all of your blogs. And I mean ALL of them. I am in awe of your writing ability; you are a complete natural - what I call a 'true' writer, with a unique voice that makes the reader smile and nod and feel like they are having a private conversation with a good friend. I love your writing style. The bug series is an absolutely incredible piece of work - I hope you can get someone to buy it - your analysis of Alien is brilliant using this 'hollywood method'. (Do more informed readers know what this method is?) I have a feeling about you - I really think you are going to be one of those writers who 'makes it' You have a great style and voice; you make it look so easy and of course it isn't. It is damn hard work to make writing look 'conversational', witty, sarcastic and warm all at the same time. Yet somehow you do it and do it consistently. I'd love to see you writing a daily or weekly column; something like Susan Maushart or William McInnes. Of course, having Slamdance on the best seller list would be nice too. Keep writing. You'll get there.

Thank you very much, Sally! I start each post with a link to Nathan Russell's summary of the Formula, so hopefully anyone who doesn't know what I'm on about can go check it out.

As to writing regularly - well, there are a couple of things on the horizon that I hope will pan out soonish! In the meantime I'm still noodling with Slamdance and another project that relates directly back to this analysis. I don't expect to put it on sale (it impinges on others' IP too much), but I think it'll give people a good taste of my writing style and maybe build some enthusiasm for Slamdance when it comes out.

Getting someone to buy the analysis? Hmm. That I hadn't thought of. Seems like something that a writing or SF zine might be interested in. I'll have to make a list of candidates!

Would you have any suggestions?

[Rob Farquhar]

Dec 6, 2011 1:39:36 GMT -5 tborella said:

I'll third what they said, Rob - your dissection of the movie is fascinating, and I really like your style of writing.

I think 'Aliens' is such a great movie on a lot of levels - I'd put it among my all-time favourites. What a shame the subsequent ones didn't live up to very high standards of the first two. I was looking forward to the third one like a kid waiting for Christmas, only to come out feeling as if the presents had all been whisked away...bah humbug.

Anyway, thanks for your hard work, and keep it up!

Thanks! I know the feeling about the sequels. I get the feeling that both Alien and Aliens were, in their way, pretty conventional films, at least from a process perspective; they kind of set an expectation with their audiences. Plus, I think all the gun porn had a lot of folks expecting that there'd be more ass-kickery in the third film.

Then David Fincher, who's certainly an unconventional guy, came on board for the third film, which Sigourney wanted gun-free. That was probably Alien3's only real sin; it wasn't the film that the series' fans (okay, maybe the Aliens fans) were expecting. Okay, and that it killed off Hicks and then Ripley (I think Newt wound up being one of those characters nerds love to mock) and under-utilised Lance Henriksen.

Unfortunately, Alien: Resurrection got handed to Jean-Pierre Jeunet, whom I'm given to understand makes brilliant off-the-wall films (I still remember folks at uni raving about The City of Lost Children) but couldn't seem to nail the tone. I know a lot of people are forgiving of Joss Whedon's script, given that he wrote a good chunk of Buffy and Firefly / Serenity, but I can't help but wonder if his writing - which plays with language in light-hearted fashion - didn't have something to do with it.

Ahh, well. At least the nerd in me has Aliens: Colonial Marines to look forward to next year.

[tborella]

To tell you the truth, I hardly remember the plots of the 3rd and 4th movies, they made that little of an impression.

I remember being particularly turned off by things like some cartoonish gravelly-voiced prisoner character, and there seemed to be a real lack of direction and inventiveness to the action. It was as if they'd just thrown some people and props together, added scary aliens and hoped for the best.

It wasn't the guns and explosions I liked about the first two, it was the inventiveness, tension, likeable (and dislikeable!)characters, enjoyable scripts, great sets - all of it, basically. The subsequent films seemed like cardboard cutouts in comparison.

Of course, the first two were very different from one another, but both were special in their own way.

Still, once Ripley had been through two versions of great danger and victory through extreme difficulty, it's a bit hard to imagine how they might have made the magic happen once again. Maybe you've got some ideas on that score, Rob?

Or perhaps they could have had her, Hicks and Newt making it safely to Earth and living happily ever after in a sitcom!

[Rob Farquhar]

Oh god - With the Queen and some of her kids as the annoying neighbours next door! Can't you just see it? Newt going all teen-age and "You're not my real mother!" and Hicks going, "Honey, put the pulse rifle down; I'm sure it was just a harmless kiss!"

But you're very right; inf there was one thing Aliens didn't need, it was a sequel. There was no more to Ripley's story that needed to be told, and really, Alien and Aliens were Ripley's story.

Ideas? Well, I dunno. While I'm not a continuity wonk nowadays, I still... Look, you know how, when people start bitching about an un-popular (or maybe poorly-executed) idea in a sequel or some treatment of what they were looking forward to, they start wanting someone to reboot it or at least forget it ever happened? When that happens, I find myself thinking, "Okay, it sucks. But you know what? It's out there and people who don't give as much of a toss have probably swallowed it. So let's take it on board and find something interesting to do with it."

Take midichlorians. I was as much "I beg your freaking pardon, Mister Lucas?" as anyone when Qui-Gonn introduced them in Phantom Menace. But I see what he was trying to do - find some way of showing that nine-year-old Anakin Skywalker was strong in the Force without having to rely on one Jedi's word.

Rather than ignore them, I would have loved to have seen a big reveal at Luke and Leia's birth when Obi-Wan tested their blood and found they either had none or a very average volume - but both he and Yoda could sense the kids' presence in the Force anyway. It would have been a great, "Holy fuck! What else have we been wrong about?" moment AND it would have shut the whingers up.

So any ideas I'd have, I'd be more likely to take Alien3 and Resurrection as written and work onward based on them. At the moment... well, for the sheer, silly fun of it I'm working on a mashup of Aliens and another popular franchise, seeing if I can write it well enough that readers get past the WTF? and start enjoying it on its own strengths. As it's thoroughly coyright infringing, I want to write it, edit it and put it up for free as a sample of my abilities.

And yes, I'm bringing back one character from the dead.

[Rob Farquhar]

Part 5!
www.robf.com.au/2011/12/10/bug-hunt-hollywood-method-part-5/

[Rob Farquhar]

And now, the conclusion!
www.robf.com.au/2011/12/14/bug-hunt-hollywood-method-part-6/

[Rob Farquhar]

Next: Taking what I learned and applying it.
www.robf.com.au/2011/12/21/protagonist-act-two/