Your movie's story needs to be consistent.

When it comes to the craft of storytelling, it's not exactly a secret that writing good screenplays isn't easy. Writing a story that makes sense and works from start to finish isn't something that can be done if you don't take your craft seriously.

After all, there are so many mistakes that you can make with your screenplays. If you don't manage to keep your script plausible and consistent, you won't be able to come up with a story that keeps your audience entertained throughout its length.

So when it comes to an actual movie that has a lot of these consistency problems, let's look at Roland Emmerich's film 'White House Down'. This is a movie (released in 2013) that has a lot of  problems when it comes to its focus and plausibility.

In essence, the movie is about U.S Capitol Police Officer (Channing Tatum) and his daughter (Joey King). These two find themselves in the middle of a hostage situation when terrorists manage to invade and take control of the White House.

So when it comes to the story in the film, it has to be said that the first act of the movie (first 35 minutes or so) is actually rather well written. This is when the story feels plausible and you're interested in what's going on.

By that I mean that the movie - for once - doesn't rush things and takes its time in introducing us to the characters. The divorced cop (an underdog) and his smart-ass daughter are in a situation that most of us are able to relate to.

So when things finally escalate in the story, you feel that the movie has potential to be something solid. When a bomb goes off at the capitol hill and the white house gets invaded - the main protagonists are there on a tour - the movie makes sense.

However, the big problems in the film begin when it becomes apparent that the story is not that much about our protagonists. At roughly 40 minute mark, the focus of the film changes pretty drastically - and not in a good way.

After all, this is when it's revealed that this is not a simple hostage movie. It is revealed that the evil 'mastermind' of the movie is not the head of the terrorist group - but the head of the secret service detail (James Woods).

Unfortunately, from that moment on, the movie gets increasingly more convoluted and more implausible. It keeps introducing tons of new - fairly ridiculous - characters to the story that aren't needed and that make the film lose its focus.

Especially when it comes to the hacker (villain), the innocent wife of the mastermind (who agrees with the plot!) and the speaker of the house (part of the plot too), the movie falls apart. It loses its focus and isn't about the father and the girl anymore.

In that sense, when you think about this movie and screenwriting in general, it's clear that quality writing is not about making your script too convoluted. It's not a good idea to write stuff that is all over the place and that doesn't know what it's about.

After all, if you decide to come up with stupid ideas like adding completely implausible plot twists - like the convoluted plot concerning the speaker of the house - things won't work. There are clearly limits to what you're allowed to do in your scripts.

In the end, that was the reason that 'White House Down' didn't work. The writers - as unfortunate as it is - didn't trust their premise or characters and kept adding stuff that didn't make sense and that didn't raise the stakes believably.

After all, instead of the movie concentrating on the father / daughter relationship and keeping the script tighter, it did the total opposite. The film more or less went from a solid, tight movie to a ridiculous 'nukem all' mess.

In that sense, it's really unfortunate that 'White House Down' didn't have a better script. It's too bad that its script was that bad, because had the writers paid more attention to the basics, this could actually have been a fairly solid movie.

I managed to watch some movies again.

Over the last few weeks, me and my friend have managed to watch some movies together again. We managed to watch some of the recently released films that we were hoping would turn out to be worth our time and worth watching.

After all, we didn't really have that high expectations for most of these movies. We were just hoping that some of these films would keep us entertained and that they would not be completely awful and horrible as movies.

In any case, below are my short reviews and opinions on the three films that we watched. We managed to see 'Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom', an action/sci-fi 'B'-movie called 'Upgrade' and 'Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation'.

So the first film that we managed to watch is 'Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom'. This is a movie that we decided to watch, even though we didn't have our hopes up - since we had already seen the first one (Jurassic World).

After all, 'Jurassic World' (2015), in all honesty, was a horribly weak and unnecessary remake itself. It had none of the good qualities that had made the original 'Jurassic Park' (1993) watchable and a well made movie.

Not surprisingly, even though we had tiny hopes that this new movie would be even remotely watchable or entertaining, it wasn't that. This sequel did not offer anything that would have made it better than the first remake.

On the contrary, 'Fallen Kingdom's' story was so awful that every aspect of the story reeked of desperation and the writers running out of ideas. There was nothing original or plausible in the story that was completely ridiculous.

Especially when it came to the 'plot' of the film (stealing & black market selling the dinos), I was only able to shake my head and wonder how idiotic the writers and the producers were. The movie really made no sense at all.

The second movie that we watched is 'Upgrade', a sci-fi movie about a paralyzed man who gets his life back when a microchip is inserted to his body. This microchip contains a program (and a 'master') that allows the protagonist to use his limbs again. 

When it comes to this movie, I have to say that 'Upgrade' wasn't actually a bad film per se. There are certainly positive aspects of the film that make it fairly interesting and watchable (my friend liked it a bit more than I did). 

For example, there's no question that the film has an interesting premise. The movie is well acted, its action scenes are pretty well made - considering the movie's low budget - and parts of the film even managed to be humorous. 

At the same time, 'Upgrade' suffers from a screenplay that isn't that well thought out. Especially when it comes to the movie's third act and finale, the story gets entirely too convoluted and doesn't have a clear point of view.

By that I mean that once the 'artificial intelligence' takes control of the protagonist, that stuff pretty much comes out of nowhere. The stuff doesn't fit in with the rest of the movie and I felt like I was watching an episode of 'The Outer Limits' instead.

Still, that doesn't mean that for those who like action films, this is a no-go movie. Even though the screenplay for the film isn't 'A'-grade and the movie is probably too violent, 'Upgrade' is still a film that you likely should watch at some point.

The third and final movie that we watched is the animated film 'Hotel Transylvania 3'. The series is about a Vampire family (father, daughter and her human husband) that keeps a hotel in Transylvania for its numerous guests.

The reason that we watched the film is because we had enjoyed the first two instalment of the series. The first two movies were pretty well made and you couldn't help but to like the characters and the uplifting tone that they had.

When it comes to the third 'Hotel Transylvania', it has to be said that the story in the third one is not as good as in the previous two instalments. The premise of the 'whole gang going on a holiday on a love boat' isn't that strong.

At the same time, just because the story is a bit laggy, that doesn't mean that I wasn't able to enjoy the film as a whole. I'm not saying that the weak parts (weak catalyst etc.) were able to outweigh the good parts in it.

On the contrary, especially when it comes to the dance scenes in the third act and the film's 'love' angle in the latter half of the second act, those parts made the movie. They were well executed and made me feel pretty happy.

In that sense, even though 'Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation' could have been a better film, it's still a solid movie. It's a solid movie that you should watch, even though its screenplay could have been more plausible and better written.

Why are most screenwriting books so bad?

Over the last ten or so years, I've spent a lot of time trying to learn movie writing. I've spent countless hours reading and re-reading books that are supposed to give you insight on the basics of storytelling and how to become a better screenwriter.

After all, since writing screenplays is fairly difficult, I thought that it wouldn't hurt to get these books and read them. I thought that there was a good chance that reading these books would help me and would make it easier to write a screenplay om my own.

Unfortunately, having now read almost all of the popular 'how-to' books that are out there, it has to be said that almost all of them are horrible. Almost all of these books are awful and are written by authors who don't know much about movie writing.

In order to show why most of the screenwriting books are so useless, let's look at Robert McKee's 'Story'. This is a screenwriting book that supposedly teaches you 'Award-Winning' methods about the craft and is one of the best 'how-to' guides out there.

So when it comes to this book, the biggest problem with 'Story' is that its advice isn't simple to understand at all. Instead of the book giving you practical advice that you could use, the author is much more interested in confusing the reader as much as possible.

For example, when it comes to those fundamental aspects of storytelling like story beats and story structure, there's very little useful material in the book. I just couldn't get a clear picture of what was going on, no matter how many times I read it.

In hindsight, the reason that the book is so confusing is that before it starts to talk about crucial stuff like the premise or the film's protagonist, we're already one third into the book. This is not good at all and in most cases will turn the reader off.

In reality, the story always starts with the premise of the film and what your main character(s) is going to be like. This is the most important part of the story, yet the author doesn't bring it up before we've reached page one hundred in the book.

Still, the most confusing thing about 'Story' has to do with its diagrams that are supposed to illustrate story structure. These illustrations (see below) that look like electrical circuit diagrams, are confusing and even contain 'false' information.

For example, even though McKee keeps repeating throughout the book how important it is that your scenes alternate between positive and negative (emotionally speaking), as a writer I have never paid any attention to this supposed 'fact'.

On the contrary, I'm pretty sure that paying attention to these ups and downs is redundant and will only make your scripts worse. I just don't see why anyone should worry about this stuff that seems to have 'voodoo science' written all over it.

That same way, I would also be cautious about (again the pic above) overanalysing the characters' desires or their conflicts. I don't see why one should get too obsessed with these different levels of conflicts, because storytelling isn't really that complicated.

After all, even though you obviously need to have characters that are interesting, them having  direction, energy and purpose (a goal) is what counts the most. Writing movies is not about creating characters that are too complicated and too confused.

In that sense, when I think about books like Robert McKee's 'Story', it's clear that reading them is likely going to make you feel confused about the craft. These are not books for those who want to learn the fundamentals of storytelling and story structure.

After all, paying too much attention to books like McKee's (& John Truby's etc.) will only make you less confident. Worrying about stuff like those diagrams will only make you postpone your own projects and make you think that you don't have it in you as a writer.

In the end, I can only be grateful that in my case - after first reading the bad books - I found stuff that was actually helpful and easy to understand. Solid books like Blake Snyder's 'Save The Cat' series gave me hope and helped me to write my own screenplay.

After all, unlike those other books, 'Save The Cat' didn't try to make the process any harder than it is. Instead of confusing the reader, it gave me a simple 'story formula' that felt natural and wasn't too restrictive in its approach to story structure.

In that sense, if you want to become a screenwriter, you should read those good books instead of the bad ones. You should read the good ones, because they are the ones that can help you and that can give you the chance to understand what storytelling really is about.