Country Prize 2: Journal of Confidential Information

Yesterday I spent the day inside, and read the script for Independence Day, and the script for Raiders of the Lost Ark. What surprised me the most, I think, is that the script for Independence Day blows my nuts, almost to Terminator Salvation levels (although at least the script for Independence Day isn't offensively bad). However, it's plain and not very well written-- My excuse for that, though, is that they probably sold the idea to Fox, since that's what Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich usually do, and then their script wasn't as important since they knew visually what they were going to do and just had to establish the order and the dialogue. It reads more like an outline than a script, anyway. And I don't really care: The movie is fucking bitchin', and that's all that matters.

Raiders, on the other hand, is incredible. Every little detail, every single punch and gun shot, is written out implicitly, and it's extremely well written. It's cool, too, because it's an early draft, and there's a lot of stuff in it that isn't in the movie (like a sequence in Shang Hai that was never even filmed but is both awesome and hilarious, if not slightly unnecessary). Both of these scripts are available on imsdb.com, if anyone cares to check them out.

Today we had class at 10, though I went a bit early to ask my teacher if it would be cool to pitch a National Treasure TV show in class, since one of the girls offered to buy anyone dinner if they'd do it. He said it was cool and he'd play along, so after we finished writing a comedy in class, I pitched "Country Prize," where Genjamin Bates is searching for a fabled prize which the Establishing Parents of our Country left transparent clues to on the back of the Bill of Rights (at "Genjamin Bates," Michael actually spit water he was sipping from out of his mouth, which is one of the funniest things I've ever seen). My idea for the second season was Country Prize 2: Journal of Confidential Information, which would follow more Genjamin Bates adventures.

I spent the rest of the day writing an outline for Sibling Rivalry, my 30 minute sitcom idea, which I finished. It still needs work, but I'll present it in class tomorrow, I guess.