Chronicles of Riddick Lost in the Dark
Paul Tenny
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I'll never be able to find a link for this because his website is nearly impossible to navigate, but Bill Martell had written one of his "script tip" articles which are far more than just tips, and this one was a literal dissection of The Chronicles of Riddick. 
When I read it, I hadn't yet seen the movie, and I thought going in that Bill might have been a little too harsh on the film. Pitch Black is one of my favorite movies even though it really wasn't all that great, it did something a lot of movies don't tend to do: it pissed me off.
If you can elicit an emotional response in the audience, you're doing your job. That is unless you piss them off. Now that's one of life's half-truths. I was pissed off, and so it inspired me enough to complain about it, and that's a success of sorts because at least I am actually talking about it, as opposed to forgetting that it ever exited.
Pitch Black -- which was written and directed by David Twohy with a co-writing credit for Jim and Ken Wheat -- got under my skin by letting me identify with a character only to seem him turn into a complete scum and subsequently die. It was a necessary part of the story in order for the perceived bad-guy to "turn face" and become the good guy, we can all understand that, but you can't do that while letting the audience (even just a few of them) identify with the person who will go from looks-good-to-bad.
Despite this, I enjoyed the film overall. It was well directed, visually pleasing, and well scored. There was just enough story to let me get lost to the point where I didn't try to predict what was going to happen next, so that film gets kudos from me.
I liked it.
For the sequel, Twohy threw off his co-writers and took it upon himself to write the script by himself, which was obviously a mistake. With half of the film under my belt, I should understand everything by this point and we should be smack dab in the middle of the main struggle, or the middle act of the movie.
When I read it, I hadn't yet seen the movie, and I thought going in that Bill might have been a little too harsh on the film. Pitch Black is one of my favorite movies even though it really wasn't all that great, it did something a lot of movies don't tend to do: it pissed me off.
If you can elicit an emotional response in the audience, you're doing your job. That is unless you piss them off. Now that's one of life's half-truths. I was pissed off, and so it inspired me enough to complain about it, and that's a success of sorts because at least I am actually talking about it, as opposed to forgetting that it ever exited.
Pitch Black -- which was written and directed by David Twohy with a co-writing credit for Jim and Ken Wheat -- got under my skin by letting me identify with a character only to seem him turn into a complete scum and subsequently die. It was a necessary part of the story in order for the perceived bad-guy to "turn face" and become the good guy, we can all understand that, but you can't do that while letting the audience (even just a few of them) identify with the person who will go from looks-good-to-bad.
Despite this, I enjoyed the film overall. It was well directed, visually pleasing, and well scored. There was just enough story to let me get lost to the point where I didn't try to predict what was going to happen next, so that film gets kudos from me.
I liked it.
For the sequel, Twohy threw off his co-writers and took it upon himself to write the script by himself, which was obviously a mistake. With half of the film under my belt, I should understand everything by this point and we should be smack dab in the middle of the main struggle, or the middle act of the movie.