*
Sharks. Time
travel. The Asylum. The Syfy Channel. Ostensibly, this is a movie.
Starring Ian
Ziering, Tara Reid, Cassie Scerbo, Judah Friedlander, Vivica A Fox
Written by Scotty
Mullen
Produced by David
Michael Latt
Duration 86
minutes
Hi Mom,
Well, your boy has
finally made it. Yes, it might be a SyFy original; yes, it might be from The Asylum, a studio below even Troma in
terms of reputation. But it's still a movie and I'm still now a credited screenwriter!
But don't get too
excited, ma. I'm not exactly proud of my work. In fact, I'm sorry to say it,
but no sooner have I reached my dream that I've decided I'm going to pack it in
and come back home. Hollywood broke me, ma. It broke me and the name it used
was THE LAST SHARKNADO: IT'S ABOUT TIME.
I know, I know, I can't be blamed for everything about the movie my script produced. I can't be blamed for the choppy editing that tries to create excitement through incoherence. I can't be blamed for the non-existent acting ability of the no-name cast, or for how much the established actors were phoning it in. I can't be blamed for the PlayStation 2-standard special effects.
And I certainly can't be blamed for
having to carry the weight of the five previous entries in the SHARKNADO
franchise – although I guess I could have sat down and watched them all before
I fired up Final Draft. But if I had done that prep, I doubt I would have
had much of a brain left to even open up my Macbook.
I knew I was in
trouble right from the start, ma, right from the very first scene. They made me
put two references to BACK TO THE FUTURE in the opening five pages. They
insisted that we cheaply reference one of the most beloved time-travel comedies
of all time – the highest grossing movie of 1985, $400m in mid-80's money.
Twice in the first five minutes, ma! I don't think all of The Asylum's
pictures have grossed $400m combined!
And then, they
made me have the main guy take instructions from a hologram, done exactly like
Princess Leia at the start of STAR WARS. Gosh-darned STAR WARS! And when
this protagonist fellow later turns around to find a T-Rex looming over him, of course he has to glibly tell the man-eating beast, "Oh ...
hi there!" Like, simply the worst kind of sub-Josh Whedon banter.
These monsters from
the studio even forced me to put the most famous line from JAWS in, too; again,
twice, just in case any of the dumbasses they think will be watching were too busy
scrolling their phones to notice the first one. It's not enough that they're gonna
need a bigger chainsaw, they're also gonna need a bigger explosion. I swear,
ma, I know you don't approve of drinking, but I'm beginning to understand why Fitzgerald started reaching for the bottle after he went to Hollywood.
Look, ma. I understand that it's supposed to be bad. It's supposed to be over the top. And that if alcohol is optional for the writer, it definitely isn't for the viewer. But you remember when me and Booby-Joe and Stevie-Dean and all the other guys from the neighbouhood used to run around with Dad's camcorder making our little amateur movies? How we used crack each other up and wink at the camera, telling each other how stupid this all was?
That was funny because we were kids and it was
cute, and you guys would lap it up when we screened them because you were our
parents. We weren't actual grown-ups doing this for a job, expecting people to pay good money to sit through it!
If I can stomach it, I'll now spend a little bit of this letter telling you about the plot of this trashterpiece I spent months putting my so-called skills into.
So, our gang of quip-happy adventurers have travelled back in time to kill the first ever sharknado (sharks that can fly, of course) and in doing so eliminate the whole species from ever existing. Like the plot of THE TERMINATOR, I guess. After first trying this in the Jurassic era, they skip ahead to Camelot in the Middle Ages, where they fight alongside the castle-dwellers.
It's here in the finished movie that THE LAST SHARKNADO trades on the kind of stunt casting that you expect from The Asylum. Councillor Troy from Star Trek: The Next Generation; Neil deGrasse Tyson as a scientist guy; one of the contestants from RuPaul's Drag Race as a gender-flipped Merlin. And let me tell you, 'drag' is the right word – and I don’t mean when a guy dresses up in girls' clothing.
But wait, ma. You
remember all those screenwriting lessons I took? One thing they drummed into us
was pacing. To give your story room to develop, including plot points and
character growth. And I was really looking forward to flexing these skills
in my first feature screenplay. But my bosses at The Asylum were having none of
that. The notes I kept getting were saying things like "Faster! Keep the
characters moving! Never stop and give the audience a chance to think!"
Was this because the movie is going to be shown on TV, so they're worried about people channel-hopping? Is
this the same thing people who write for streaming are being told – which, let's
face it, is the place most wannabe screenwriters like me end up
these days?
Anyway, all of this feedback to hurry things along meant that the ancient olden-times couldn’t be the backdrop for long. After the bare-minimum of exposition, the team jump forward to the Declaration of Independence, where of course they meet George Washington and Alexander Hamilton (and yes, I did have to put a joke in about the musical). Then before long, they're in the Old West, with Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.
Later, it's a
1950's beach party, then a stop-off in the late-90's San Francisco ... It ends
up resembling a witless version of BILL AND TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE – which,
as I'm sure you'll remember, was one of my favorite movies growing up and one
of the reasons I wanted to write for the screen in the first place.
I think I'm gonna
cry now, Mom.
Oh, and here's
another studio note I got: "We need even more BACK TO THE FUTURE references.
Put another one in after 30 pages – or you're fired!"
I'm gonna go online
now and look for flights home. Hope you haven't rented out my room yet.
Love to Dad,
Your son
One star out of
five.
Valid use of the
word ‘last’? No one ever thought there could be two of
these things, let alone six. So, anything's still possible.
What would a movie called THE FIRST SHARKNADO be like? It is within all our capabilities to watch the first one in the series and find out. And it's in all our best interests to never do that.
Previously: THE LAST MOVIE STAR
Next time: LAST SEEN ALIVE
Check out my
books: Jonathanlastauthor.com
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