Chris Gore, Founder/Owner of FilmThreat/Author/Filmmaker: My concern
is that most movies being written today movies and television are written by a generation
that is influenced by other movies.
Film Courage: Is writing weaker today than it used to be?
Chris: I would say absolutely writing is weaker today and I've looked at this and
I think the disappointment I have about it is that one we live in a time where media is so accessible
in two clicks you can see anything including movies that just opened in theaters
right like whether it's available on a streaming service or whether there are other means so much
content and I despise that word but I'll use it so much is available to us that what I fear is the
current generation of writers are not influenced by life they're not influenced by great novels
that they've read they're not influenced by classic films they're not influenced by
travel where they've traveled the world they're not influenced by
loves that they've had great loves they've had or loves they've lost they're not influenced by
parenting experiences that they might have had or experiences with family or experiences
real world real life experiences my concern is that most movies being written today movies and
television are written by a generation that is influenced by other movies so there's this
snake eating its tale of writers influenced by other things they've seen rather than life
experiences when you look at the very first Star Wars movie George Lucas I know I bring it up a lot
but Star Wars was influenced by many things you know serials from the 1930s
from things like flash gordon and buck rogers I mean George Lucas famously just wanted to make
flash gordon but had trouble with getting the rights it was influenced by marvel comics it was
influenced by a tragic event where he almost died in a car accident and was
in the hospital for a long period of time and that near-death experience changed George Lucas
much of his influence was from also his father
in his life who was a successful business person who he looked up to
a lot of his experience was growing up in Modesto people you know the obsession over car culture
and hot rods and you see that in the character of Han Solo you know it's kind of a guy who's
into hot rods the millennium falcon is a hot rod but so much of the influences that George
had both from life and so much classic literature and storytelling were kind of thrown in a blender
and now you've got every Star Wars movie is just influenced by the last Star Wars movie
or the last Star Wars tv show or what they call this horrible term member berries which
is we're going to sort of throw out these member berries remember that remember that character
remember this character remember that and what it does is it takes it completely takes the mystery
half of the fun of some of these characters from the star the world of Star Wars is the fact that
we didn't know anything about them that we could use our imagination so what's happening is the
wha what you're doing in it is you've got this generation of writers that are weaker because
they're just influenced by the previous work right and then secondarily you're taking
your you're dumbing down the audience and making them lazier because
they're they're not able to even make up something in their head about a character that was once
mysterious and had two or three minutes of total screen time in a film series Boba Fett now you've
expanded on him to the point where okay we get it we know everything about this character right like
and I find that disconcerting you know I don't know I think that there's something to be said
from work that comes from older writers who have had some life experience
I can always spot just because i've had kids and raised kids who are now off on their own and pay
their own bills which is awesome but having been through that experience I can always see
how false a parenting relationship is when I see whether it's a filmmaker writer director who
has never had children in their lives and I see and there's like oh a dad would never do that
or no way would a mother act that way towards a child I just I kind of see that and I think it
just there's a falseness that just comes from my personal experience that now does it completely
ruin the movie not necessarily not necessarily but I think that writers would benefit from
having the time to experience much of life first and then bringing that to their writing not in the
way of like necessarily a self-insert but at least being able to what is it like to lose a loved one
and happen you know have it happen right in front of you know what I mean that
that kind of experience if you've ever been in the room where someone close to you has passed away
a very difficult experience to go through and part of the therapy dealing with that is
through creativity and writing so I do think that our current generation of writers is
is weak because they haven't taken the time to have those experiences
sure there's the age thing do you think the internet plays a lot into that because
let's say Gen Xers we didn't have access to that and maybe baby boomers and beyond
that we couldn't just easily go on Rotten Tomatoes or IMDB and look something up
right and in some ways that's wonderful but in some ways maybe it's a disservice to creativity
so yeah I think access to too much information can can hamper creativity you know when you're
bombarded by too much I think I think that that can hurt I think going on a writing sabbatical is
good with no computer you know again bring your notebook they're portable they go anywhere they
never run out of power although your pen might run out of ink but you know yeah I do think that
life experience is incredibly important and when you look at the stories of how
some great works were written the stories behind those whether it's a film or a novel or whatnot
there's always more to the story there's always more to the story of the primary creative person
involved what about the type of life and the type of of experiences this person has
had because you know there could be some people that they maybe had more of a sheltered existence
so they're only going to have a certain frame of reference for writing a story
whereas i've known some people that they've gone to Europe didn't tell their family had
just the clothes on their back and learned to survive there for a month somehow
and came back unscathed but that would that's a different life experience than your parents
driving you to college and getting you set up in your dorm room well I think I think the reason
that we live in such a bizarrely divided time where people are fighting over in my opinion
some of the stupidest arguments i've ever heard and I think part of it is that we need
struggle and we need adversity because I believe that struggle when it comes to us as a human self
is and the way of overcoming a struggle is this is gonna sound strange is puzzle solving
it's overcoming that is you know in a video game it's leveling up right but
I think part of the struggle is okay here you know you're you're not making ends meet with
your bills you're gonna keep having that problem until you do something different
you know your relationship's not working out well it's probably not the people that you're dating it
might be you and the choices that you're making solve that problem and I feel like we live at
a time where people are kind of manufacturing problems to experience adversity that they're
really not able to experience in their real lives which explains to so much of the nonsense
that you see online with people battling each other each other over things that are pointless
I try to not get involved in those kinds of discussions I find them
a waste of time and you know time is limited I want to focus on the things that matter right and
choose to use my time in a way that's wise where I end up with a result I can look back and go okay
I sacrifice not arguing with people on twitter six hours a day but look what I was able to do or
rather than writing thousand five hundred word thousand word facebook posts arguing how right
I am about a thing I wrote a thousand words a day and in two months I had enough for a book enough
material for a book which is technically what you would have if you wrote a thousand words a day
for two months you'd have enough material for a book so I think that as humans
you know we we seek out as a way to kind of level up or or improve our situation we need
that because and this is why this is going to sound like even more of a weird rabbit hole you
can go down and research this even is puzzles are so popular puzzles gaming video gaming you know
puzzle solving checkers chess I mean look at the history of gaming through humanity right
there's a reason video games are more popular than movies video games make more money than movies
and the fun of a video game is solving a problem and I think we need that we need that our human
we need to puzzle solve solve issues we we need we need adversity to fight against to level up I
think it's it's your self-awareness you know plays a lot into are you gonna keep going down that road
and making that same mistake and spending all that time on social media arguing with people you've
never met or maybe like divert that energy into something more useful so that would be my advice
there but go down the rabbit hole of puzzles through human history and you'll find that it's
something that that humans have kind of always had around in addition I would I would research
and look into how children learn do children learn through memorization
they can yeah memorization is a great technique for kids to learn
more effective is turning things into games or puzzles kids love it and they gravitate towards
it what if we're not designed to be totally harmonious and what if groups need a scapegoat
because it makes them closer so the group can bond if they have an enemy yeah that's a scary
thought that you just expressed and I and I and I see that when it comes to our current climate
I think that that's something as a human species that we need to overcome I think we have to
overcome the the inclination to do that to vilify someone as a way to feel superior as a way to
other them and vilify whatever it happens to be about we must learn to resist that urge
to do that and to have some empathy for someone who may not think the way that you do who
who may live a life that you don't 100 approve of now if that person isn't
doing anything that hurts anybody else I don't know why that that would bother you
for some people it does and I think that that we have not as a species reached that point yet
I like to think that in the Gene Roddenberry future that he envisioned for star trek
in the original series and next generation they talk about having overcome those types of things
and a more elevated existence were certain types of things well as a human race we got
over that right well we certainly haven't in our present day and I hope that we learn too.