Apprentice on 13/6/2007 at 22:51

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I'd open the movie at Bafford's, a quick demonstration of Garrett's skills. Then have some flashbacks to his meeting with Artemus, Keeper training, also a brief introduction to Hammerites, references to Pagans, ect. Then he gets contacted by Viktoria and Constantine (about his remarkable work at Bafford's rather than Ramirez'), the whole Sword mission would be skipped over, just briefly show the mansion, and then have Constantine offer the cathedral job. Talisman stuff would be skipped, there could be some other clever way to get inside. The venture into Old Quarter and the cathedral should be a fairly large segment but it would need a lot more than simply getting the Eye to keep it interesting. Perhaps Artemus could tag along for some reason, not knowing about Constantine and the Eye, and help him get inside? Garrett would then go back to Constantine's place alone to collect his reward. Perhaps Artemus would later suspect this and go along with some Keepers to rescue him from the beasts. They go back to the Keeper compound to think of something, Garrett would then quickly get over to the Hammer temple and get the fake eye from the survivors. From here on he'd go out to the Maw and defeat the Trickster but this part would also need some more meat. Afterwards, Garrett gets his mechanical eye, Artemus pays a visit, warns of Metal Age, end of movie.
I'm not sure what would need to be done to make it more interesting but I think a format like this would be just about right.

Jackablade on 14/6/2007 at 01:42

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Ok, so I read your screenplay last night in two sittings. The intro was well done. I could see it being in a movie and being intriguing. However, the moment Sarah is introduced I find the script goes off into a completely wrong direction. Her character is like the anti-Thief. She doesn't fit in the world the way it is presented in the games. She feels more like a modern girl who is trapped in the past and has to teach them about walkmans, pocket fisherman, and friendship. She is just a part of the larger problem though.

The thing that made Thief great wasn't the story or the gameplay it was the atmosphere. Therefore I would hope that a screenplay based on Thief would be dripping with darkness, dread, loneliness, corruption, all of the things that made the game feel like a living fantasy world. Your screenplay, however, has very little atmosphere. It doesn't feel like Thief, it feels like a Hollywood movie, with one liners and everything ("Tomes, always a romantic").

This lack of Thief-like ambience I believe is caused by the characters. They don't talk like Thief. They talk like modern day characters. Sarah's dialog doesn't belong in Thief, it belongs in Ghost Rider. Save for the majority of Garrett's lines I think all of the dialog needs to be changed. Since when do Thief characters have so much witty banter? Garrett may have a witty line every now and then, but they are more for himself, and the other characters largely ignore them. The dialog is too modern. Lords are supposed to be pompous, the Hammers diabolically righteous, Garrett cynical, Pagans creepy, and the keepers mysterious. I think Thief needs the cliche stereotypes to portray the city's makeup quickly and understandably.

The modernness also prevents the audience from suspending their disbelief. The script makes it seem like the movie is set in the medieval times of our world. So, when the undead and magical fairy people are mentioned the audience just goes what the hell? Why did this all of a sudden turn into a fantasy film? The script should make it more clear that Thief is set in an alternate past, where ratbeasts can live alongside haunts.

In your script the city comes off as very confusing. What the hell are the keepers? Why do undead exist? Who is Victoria? What is with the hammerites? A ghost party? The hag with the scepter who is entirely forgotten? There's just too much and they are all introduced in an offhand way with little explanation. You don't need to explain everything (the game doesn't tell you why there are pagans, hammers, and keepers) you just need to present everything in a way that seems cohesive and believably real. I mean what is with the ghost party and saying yes or no. Having played the games I know what burrick breath is, but nobody else would and you go over it too quickly. Victoria, firebeasts, The builder, ratbeasts, apebeasts, haunts, mechanical eye. The whole plot line about earth, air, fire, water. There is just too much stuff with not enough screen time given to any of it. I can imagine the average person leaving the theatre wondering what they just saw. Garrett acting like he knows way more about the city than you do doesn't help either.

Going back to what Thief is and what Thief isn't. Why is there a huge battle at the end? That is just about the opposite of what Thief is supposed to feel like. Also, why did you introduce all of those pagan creatures? Harpies? Centaurs? Minotaurs? TOO MUCH. It's not that I don't believe that a giant pagan dance can exist in the Thief world I just think there is a reason those kinds of things aren't shown in the game. The city is seen from Garrett's perspective as a dangerous, cutthroat place, filled with strange happenings, and crazy people who are always wrong when Garrett is right. Your script doesn't even focus on Garrett. Why is it called Thief if he seems like more of an accessory to the plot. Ignoring the way the story is told in the games is a disservice to what Looking Glass accomplished.

Garrett's character is perhaps the best part of the screenplay, but even he is not perfect. Since when would Garrett kick a burrick in the ass, come on. That's not what he is like. I also detected perhaps a bit too much good inside of him. Bad stuff happens to Garrett and the people around him, but he doesn't save anybody else unless the risk to himself is small, or by saving them he also saves himself. At least that's the way I see the character of Garrett. Still I think his character needs little revision in your script, other than the fact that I think he should play a more important role in the plot.

Lastly, the one movie this script reminds me of is Constantine, which was an alright if very forgettable movie. Take from that what you will.

I may sound scathing in this review, but it is honestly what I think, and I give you reasons for what I think rather than just dumb criticism.

crazy jon on 15/6/2007 at 05:19

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I have explained it. I could repost the list but it'd be best if you scroll back a page or two. And I hate the Lord of the Rings films. I can't think of a worse example of fast food cinema. File them with Gladiator and Braveheart under overwrought underthunk films that show everything and accomplish nothing. And really, who still watches Braveheart?



Jackablade these posts are better sent to my email address. This thread will get really confusing if more than one or two people start posting reviews/questions/comments, especially if they warrant discussion.

The strange thing about what you've written is that I just received a review a few days ago that shared the same point of view. I disagreed with a lot of it but it is kind of weird that so many of the same issues have popped up in both.



Sarah definitely is a modern girl and that's why she doesn't fit into this world. One of the major conflicts in the film is the idea that Sarah just doesn't really belong. It's subtle but it's there. It's also the reason why the film ends with her turning down a new home; an oppourtunity to fit in. That's the real resolution. She is a bit of an anti-Thief but that's because I wanted this script to stand out from the gigantic canon of Thief fan fiction. I also wanted to take the world in a different direction; try to breathe new life into it. Sorry if it didn't work for you, I tried!



It definitely was the atmosphere. Unfortunately atmosphere is rarely transferred to paper very well. It comes in in the production and post-production stages of a film. Script readers have to imagine that kind of stuff.

There are a few one-liners, and they are an attempt to link it to the Hollywood style, but I don't think they overpower the story. I also don't think they're as common as you described. This was a major difficulty in transferring Thief to film. You don't need dialogue in video games but you do need it in films, and you're going to have it you gotta make people want to hear it. Also, please keep in mind that the dialogue in the Thief games, when it was there, definitely was witty and one-linerish, just think about all those conversations between guards, servants, etc.



I haven't seen Ghost Rider (I stay away from those kind of films) but I thought my Lords were pompous. I mean, I only had the Baffords in there and they seemed pretty snobby to me. Maybe the Hammers weren't as diabolical as I could have made them, but I prefer them that way. It's too easy to set them up as the bad guys. Let's find out what's good about them. They're humans too, you know, they're not just cardboard evildoers, so let's see the realistic side of the Hammers. Same thing for the pagans, though to be fair Tully is a pretty creepy something or other. Also I wouldn't really know how to make Garrett more cynical than I did, or Artemus and Dionus more mysterious, especially Dionus. He's just someone who shows up places with messages but no explanations. Also, remember, a lot of these personalities rely on the portrayals of the actors. I'm sure Captain Jack Sparrow looked pretty thin in the Pirates of the Caribbean script.



Maybe you're right, I might have bit off more than I could chew. One of my main goals for the screenplay when I started was to not have a good vs. evil battle. I wanted to have believably human, realistic characters with multi-layered personalities and motivations. If that meant people would have to dig a little deeper to find out why these characters do what they do, well, so be it. One thing to remember is that when you're reading it off a page it's so easy rule it off as unbelievable and when you're seeing it on a screen it's so easy to just accept it as it is. Maybe Thief needs the cliches to survive but at least I tried to break it free.



I don't really think this is true. Or at least, it might be true, but I don't think it's a concern. This world isn't supposed to be believable. It's fantasy.



I actually think the fantasy elements were introduced pretty gradually. We start with Hammers, obviously unrealistic, move to a secret training ground, see a disproportionately modern guard station, meet Marcy, see some of effects of the weird Thief tools like moss arrows, etc. and by the time we've reached the hag we've had our feet wet. Also the scene where Sarah, Garrett and Artemus convene is meant to be a turning point in (a lot of ways but also) the sense that now she is being introduced to a world that has been kept under wraps; a world of haunts and ghosts and you name it.



I think you could level the same complaint against Star Wars. "What are we doing on the desert? What happened to that spaceship and the evil black robot? Who are those guys in the those cloaks? Sand people? Sand people AND Jawas? Too many! And who are those robots and why can they talk? Everyone knows robots can't have personalities! And now there's a force? Why are they leaving the desert? We just got to know the place! A Death Star?!?! And phallic laser swords?!" But really that's the whole point. You have to be overwhelmed, it's what makes the world seem so infinite and so compelling. It makes you feel like anything can happen. This is much much much much more preferable to the opposite type of screenplay: the one where everything is so predictable. I call that the Lord of the Rings problem.

A lot of the Thief world (both my screenplay and the video games) depend on having the audience just sit back and accept it the way it is. In Raiders of the Lost Ark we don't have to have it explained why Indie needs to close his eyes to not get his face melted when the ark opens, we just understand that he does, and we only understand a couple seconds before it is opened when that whole idea is just introduced for the first time with one line of dialogue.



I know, but I wasn't going to write an action film without having some kind of battle. And admit it, deep down you really want to see a horde of pagan thugs trounce the Hammers too! At least I didn't have Garrett fight in it. True to character he avoided the whole thing and slipped through the back door.



100 % disagree. Nothing relies on these characters. Heck, you could take half of them out and the story would be the same. Really, these are options for the filmmaker. If they want to centre on a third of these creatures and have the other third only pop up in the background of a few frames it would still add variety, and the possibility would still need to be mentioned in the screenplay. I think just reading it the way it's written makes it seem like too much but once these creatures are organized and if they are integrated properly it should flow very smoothly.



Well, like I said, I wanted to take the world in a different direction, show more sides of it, expand on what's already been established. I also didn't want to retread old ground. When it comes down to it I think Looking Glass would be more interested in reading something like that more than a hacked and slashed Frankenstein of their story.

Also I don't think the idea that Garrett is always right and everyone is always wrong is very realistic. Sure, it works for a video game, but not a film, not a good one at least. If he really existed in this world he'd be an arrogant jackass; a self-absorbed scoundrel. So that's how I wrote him; I took the character that Looking Glass created and showed what he would really be.

I also don't think it's accurate to say that the screenplay doesn't focus on Garrett. Just because he's not present doesn't mean that he's not the focus. In fact, the moment when he becomes a main character (halfway through the film) is actually the moment when he ceases to be the sole focus! So why not spend the entire screenplay with Garrett? A few reasons:
1) Garrett is not the main character of Thief. The city is.
2) It's been done.
3) We've seen him from his own eyes as a protagonist in the games. This time let's take a look at him through the eyes of a cop, and a female cop at that.
4) Garrett is a limited resource. If there ever were any sequels Garrett would have to have some mystery or else we'd have exhausted his possibilities and any interest in him. This way you spread his development out across a series rather than one film, and this way he remains a focus of the Thief films rather than running out of gas early on. (Of course there are no sequels planned but only a lazy screenwriter prevents the possibility)
5) I like the idea of being gradually introduced to Garrett rather than throwing him directly at us. V for Vendetta did it and it kept the character much more interesting than if we had spent the film from V's perspective. See, if Garrett was front and centre he'd be our standard for normal; the standard by which we judge the rest of the characters. But Garrett is far from normal, he's a cynical criminal, and he's much more interesting if we use someone else (Sarah) as the standard and examine him from her standpoint.



One thing I'm finding with a lot of these reviews (not to single you out or anything) is that a lot of people aren't complaining so much that I didn't write a screenplay true to Thief but that I didn't write one true to their understanding of Thief. The game is very open-ended, the possibilities are enormous. I don't think you can make judgement calls such as saying Garrett is too serious and professional to give a burrick a good kick in the heiney. My understanding of him is that he is that type of character. We're talking about a video game character here. There's not much to go with! In transferring him to a screenplay I had to fill in a lot of the blanks and the direction I took might not have been the one you wanted me to.



He's good in my script? I didn't think so. I thought he was a jerk. An understandable, relatable jerk but still a jerk. Though he does become less of a jerk at the end (the orphan scene where he feels guilty for all his trouble-making) and this is his bit of redemption; a small resolution before the end of the story.

Also I very specifically didn't want to cut Garrett loose until the end of the film. I wanted people to wonder when he was actually going to get down to business and do some serious thiefing. We get a bit when Sarah chases him across the rooftops, but hardly enough to satisfy our appetite. It's kind of like the Matrix. Everyone spends so long talking about what Neo can do that we spend the whole film wondering when he's actually going to get down to doing it. Then when he busts into the office building the payoff is huge. I was looking for the same sort of climax with Garrett going into the Cathedral. Of course since it's Thief we want more of an anti-climax than a climax (remember, this is Thief: backwards land where spending five minutes in the shadows is far more fun and meaningful than leaping out guns blazing) so I kept it slow and quiet. Really, concentrating all that thiefing in there makes it more special and meaningful than having Garrett be front and centre throughout the whole film.



Constantine? What's that? (just kidding)
Another film I avoided.
Really though, it was a box office hit and the critics were split half and half on it so I wouldn't call it a failure, and considering this is my first time ever writing something anything close to this that comparison actually becomes quite a compliment. Sure, I wish I could have written the next Matrix but I'm a part-time amateur. Don't expect too much!



It's very very appreciated. We don't agree but that's just fine. It's still important that I know where you're coming from and what you expected from this (even though it might not be something I'm interested in delivering). The best encouragement I can offer is for someone else to take up the torch and write a screenplay of their vision of what a good Thief film would look like.

Jackablade on 15/6/2007 at 23:47

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I won't post any more (or email) until I had a little time to think about it, but here are some quick things I can respond to.



I can see your point here. I'm thinking though that if you do attempt to put so much into your script you will have a difficult time getting the balance. I mean the Star Wars prequels seem a little clumsy and confusing to me.





Nah, not really.



Yeah I see where your coming from, but I just think that adding generic fantasy creatures dilutes the creativity of the Thief world.


I'll try to add more commentary later. or email

Doc_Brown on 17/6/2007 at 00:56

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Um... thank you?