OK, so you agree with what I'm saying then, right?

If that's the case, then we have to understand that everything in the script, up to the final scene is actually Kobal's movie, and all the characters in it, are simply his own creations.  So when George says he doesn't like the editing scenes, because they really don't make sense, he's actually saying he doesn't like how Kobal decided to shoot those scenes, and thinks that Kobal made some mistakes with his Earthly knowledge about editing and the like.

Does this make sense?

I guess 3 of us were all posting at the same time!

Pia, I agree with you very much.  These are the reasons why I also like this script...it's very deep and multi layered, although on the surface, it's just a cheesy, campy whacky movie within a movie.  It's actually so much more though, and it is defintely one of those that need to be watched again and again to get the entire gist of what's going on and maybe why.

George, I agree with what you said also about teh snigers from teh bar, etc.  At first I was totally confused as to why or how they'd be anywhere else but in that bar.  But, because everything is just a movie, anything can happen...and does!

My point about the cutting was not so much the scenes themselves, but the principal behind the phrase "cut the scene." That says to me, remove this scene from the film, and yet the scene remained. How is this accomplished? In this context, it would mean Kobal doesn't know how to make a movie although he is making one.

Does that make sense?

I took it as only the portion with Kobal was cut. Not the entire scenes deleted.

I took it the same way, Pia.  But then again, the cutting of the scenes was merely a way for Kobal's characters to mistakingly think they had a way to cut him out of the film, and thus restore sanity to their world.  But their world was simply that of Kobal's imagination, and basically, a way to move his story/plot forward, and show how hapless and maybe even stupid humans are.  I think that was part of the humor Kobal was after in his movie.

The way I understood it is that Felicity needed to go into the movie and clean up the scenes that Kobal had corrupted. Once the scenes had been cleaned, they would cut them from the movie in order to back Kobal into one end of the film and not allow him to move back to the beginning through the previous scenes. That told me that the scenes had a line drawn somehow that did not permit him to move back through them, but maintained the original scene in the movie. I was trying to wrap my head around how they could cut the scene once cleaned and still retain it in the final product.

And even if their cutting was a figment of their imagination, it still has to be believable.

Michael is probably laughing at us as we type, too...

But the reality of the situation (I think, at least) is that KObal never corrupted anything, because there was nothing to corrupt.  The entire script is his movie about him corrupting Howard's movie, thus, a movie within a movie, within a movie.

So the movie within a movie within a movie would work from that perspective. However, that should probably be taken from the perspective of it being a semi-autobiographical account of his corrupting the movie, so we're still dealing with the internal storyline itself.

What else do we have from the story angle. Clearly, we like it, but are there other plot issues that warrant some discussion. We had brought up that the villain wasn't brought in early enough, but from a story perspective, what else do we think this one needs?

The more I think about it, I am coming to the conclusion that maybe what doesn't work about this script, is that it is a movie within a movie, within a move!  I think the last scene most likely doesn't work because based on what it says and shows, it becomes quite clear that everything we thought we were watching wasn't real, and had nothing to do with anything.

Are Kobal and his minions the antags?  Are Howard and the other people in the movie the protags?  Where do Gee and the other characters in Howard's movie fit in in terms of antags and protags, etc.?  What about Felicity?  Who are we cheering for?  Who do we dislike?  Who could we give a flying fuck about?

I think these are some of the issues we should try and discuss, in terms of plot/story.  I know I've thrown out alot of characters, and we aren't discussing characters yet, but I feel that to discuss plot and structure, we need to understand our characters, and I'm not sure we really do yet.

There are definitely some character weaknesses, but with the story side, what gives the ending its love/hate angle is definitely the notion that "it's all a dream" or similar to that anyway. There's a niche for the "it's hopeless" kind of story, but I'm really no fan of those types of stories. Some people like them because they feel like they're "more real" than the happy ending types of tales, but personally, I need to feel like the characters accomplished something (good or bad) within the story, and the current ending does fly in the face of everything they accomplished (or tried to), and I feel like the bad taste comes from the pointlessness of the whole thing. You reach the end and it turns out to be all a game? Kobol never lost at all, so it's all for naught? I did get that Kobol invaded the credits and he basically "paid off" Harvey to leave him in (or maybe put him in) the credits.

A down ending is fine. In fact, there's lots of precedent for it. I recall one movie who had a down ending that was changed after it was shot. The movie version of Little Shop of Horrors originally had an ending where the plants invaded the world. It worked, because it was originally written that way. It's the notorious "everybody dies" ending. They recut the last 45 minutes of that movie into a happy ending because everybody hated the down ending, but the happy ending wasn't entirely satisfying because it let Seymour off the hook. He had killed several people to feed his plant, and the down ending where he lost everything was the justice for what he'd done. The happy ending showed that he could get away with murder.

So what is the point of Kobol winning? What did these people do to deserve that? Even if it is Kobol's movie, we still have to spend a couple hours with these people, and it is not only Dreamscale's "why do we care" that's important, but what journey are they taking and what did they do to lose it all in the end? We have to want them to lose before they can actually lose. It's not a twist if it isn't set up. The main characters didn't always win at the end of Saw, but we accepted it within the boundaries of the story and genre. It's something to seriously consider here.

Basically, it's a matter of not cheating the audience.

At first I felt the ending wasn't that satifying, but then it grew on me.

To me the main character was Cameron... I thought he had most going on. A girl and he goes inside the movie in order to cut Kobal out. He fights hard in the end too. So IMHO, he was our protag. Harvey and Howard were secondary, even if close to Cameron.

I thought Cameron and Felicity worked well. I'm still confused about where Felicity came from though.

I think you're on to something now George.  The end does play like the old "it was all a dream" BS ending that most hate, because again, we get the feeling that this was all a bunch of nothing that we sat through.

I have no problem with movies that do not have happy endings but again, they have to have some sort of reason for being.  In certain genres, I actually like when we're left with a less than happy ending because I do feel that it is more real, but here, that's not the case.

What did the characters accomplish?  Well, Kobal made his movie, and then went into some sort of rant about the plight of the imps...uhh...hmmm...I'm not sure what anyone else accomplished, or even did.

Maybe I'm (we're) reading too much into this, but I honestly feel like it's the kind of script that requires this kind of thought.  It's purposely very deep and multi layered, so I guess this sort of discussion and critique is what it needs and craves.

We'll see.

It's actually a good idea for any movie to have a lot of thought go into it and come out of it. We have to ask ourselves what the point was because no one likes to sit through a pointless movie. So why did it end the way it did? Is there a reason we can nail down?

I think that it ended the way it did because it was a far out, whacky script and the ending was definitely far out and whacky!  I wish it didn't end the way it did, but with any script, movie, or even idea, there are countless possibilities for where it could go.

As I said earlier, the last 30 pages or so, for me, were the weakest part of the script.  I wanted more Master Choreographer, Prima, and even Rudolf.  I wanted our supposed "heroes" to save the day, right what Kobal had made so wrong, and wrap things up so that we knew what was going to become of everyone. I was hoping that Cameron was going to live happily ever after with Felicity, or at least learn from his experience with her that he could find someone to love.  Just anything that we typically get in a movie wrapup.

But again, based on the premise of this script, I should have known better, and shouldn't have been surprised, or unhappy with where it went.  Whether or not I or anyone else likes how things ended, I think we have to take it for what it is and then decide whether or not it worked as written, and concieved.

For me, most scripts and movies are very easy to break down and decide what works, what doesn't, and how to make teh changes that are necessary (if there's something at heart that's worth "fixing").  This is a different animal completely though.  I do think thre are alot of great aspects to this script/idea.  The problem for me though is that there aren't really any easy fixes, adn even trying to figure out what needs fixing is difficult at best.

Having thought about this for a moment now, I actually think the ending suits this script. I think making it a happy wrap it all up neat and tidy would go against the very flavor of this script. Including taking the dark humor away...