Really good/lean/efficient screenplays

[SavageHedgehog]

I think a lot of that first wave of Blockbusters, after Jaws and Star Wars, are generally quite lean and well structured, I suppose part of the renewed focus on crowd-pleasing after the more idiosyncratic auteurist bent of New Hollywood. After the far sloppier Bruckheimer/Simpson approach caught on others started to follow suit.

[Dr Rock]

With emphasis on lean and restraint, both No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood are brilliant films with no unnecessary dialogue that I can think of.

Both Build My Gallows High/Out Of The Past and The Third Man have more dialogue, but it's all perfect. A lot of the best Noirs have screenplays with a lot of dialogue, but it's so well crafted that you wouldn't change a line.

[notjosh]

On Die Hard, I agree with the idea that you could easily cut out the FBI agents and reporters. The movie could be about half an hour shorter but much more concise and tight, with every scene focused only on either Mr. Die Hard or Team Gruber. But Die Hard 2 is my favourite Die Hard so I'm objectively wrong about anything related to the series.

Die Hard 2 is one of the all-time great action films. The final sequence is a brilliant piece of writing, which not only contrives to give John McClane two fistfights on the wing of a moving plane, but then has him blow it up in the coolest way possible while saying his best line, and then reveals that this act has created a runway light which will allow all the planes hanging perilously in the air to land safely. It gives me chills every time I see it and Finlandia starts up. I'd like to hear of a single action movie this century that has a climax as thrilling. It certainly runs rings around yer modern flying robots throwing pixels at each other.

Plus the reveal of the army unit double cross is a great twist and the landing of 'Windsor 114' is a model in how to do action movie tragedy where you actually give a shit about the dead people ("we're like British rail love" "PULL UUUPPPP"). Brilliant film.

[Twit 2]

No Country is a good call. Telly O'Mally's Badlands is tight as fuck too, though he quickly deviated from that style, obviously.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Although some of the original cast are a bit peripheral, Serenity  is otherwise a model of efficient writing. The opening nested flashback  sequence manages to relay the backstory from the telly show in about five minutes. Even the Universal logo is incorporated into the exposition.

Raiders is the one for me, the perfect script backed with perfect direction. Not a moment or line wasted, everything is there to propel the story forward.

Jones is pretty much a passive observer throughout though, which is odd.

[biggytitbo]

I think a lot of that first wave of Blockbusters, after Jaws and Star Wars, are generally quite lean and well structured, I suppose part of the renewed focus on crowd-pleasing after the more idiosyncratic auteurist bent of New Hollywood. After the far sloppier Bruckheimer/Simpson approach caught on others started to follow suit.

I actually think  you can directly link the decline of the super lean action blockbuster to the rise of cgi in the mid 90s. Gave them free reign to be lazy and just chuck everything gib to the mix.

[notjosh]

I actually think  you can directly link the decline of the super lean action blockbuster to the rise of cgi in the mid 90s. Gave them free reign to be lazy and just chuck everything gib to the mix.

Digital shooting and non-linear editing systems also played a part for the same reason. Why do something in one shot when you can do it in fifteen?

[popcorn]

Die Hard does have this in it:

"And when Alexander saw the breadth
of his domain, he wept. For there
were no more worlds to conquer."
The benefits of a classical education.

Don't need the bolded line. We can tell you had a classical education because of your classical-sounding quote.

(TRIVIA: the quote, or this version of it, was invented for the film, apparently.)

[Steven]

Don't need the bolded line. We can tell you had a classical education because of your classical-sounding quote.

Character development, it displays how narcissistic, pompous and self-indulgent Gruber is.

Which reminds me, I've heard people say how left-field the whole Mike Yanagita scene in Fargo is. In that it's superfluous to the story and just doesn't need to be there. Firstly, it does have a point as Margie is out of her depth investigating a murder but is trusting and believes Yanagita's story, finding out he was lying to her makes her question whether Jerry Lundergaard may have been lying too. And secondly, it's just a wonderfully scripted and acted scene and would deserve to be there for that alone in my estimation, even if it didn't advance the plot.

[Dr Rock]

Although some of the original cast are a bit peripheral, Serenity  is otherwise a model of efficient writing. The opening nested flashback  sequence manages to relay the backstory from the telly show in about five minutes. Even the Universal logo is incorporated into the exposition.
Jones is pretty much a passive observer throughout though, which is odd.

It's become a debated topic now, but if he had not intervened, the Ark would either have been undiscovered (best for all), or delivered to Hitler, who would have opened it and been melted, or the Nazis would have done it and they would have been melted as they are in the film. At the end it is delivered to a big warehouse and will supposedly be lost for good that way. But how does Jones know that's the plan? He could've delivered it to his side, who would have opened it and had their faces melted off. Unless they closed their eyes of course, which saves you. I wonder if any of the Nazis had thought of doing this they would've been ok.

[popcorn]

Character development, it displays how narcissistic, pompous and self-indulgent Gruber is.

Aye, I get that, but I still think it's overkill. The quote alone does that job, especially with the performance.

[phantom_power]

Groundhog Day is a pretty spectacular screenplay.

The first Guardians of the Galaxy film manages to do a lot of heavy lifting without it feeling like it

Robocop doesn't have a lot of chaffe in it, or Terminator

[itsfredtitmus]

what's an example of a non-lean screenplay

[Twit 2]

Any blockbuster from the last quarter of a century or so.

[notjosh]

what's an example of a non-lean screenplay

How about Tarantino's later efforts? The Hateful Eight springs to mind.

[Phoenix Lazarus]

The Thing-John Carpenter version.

[Shit Good Nose]

How about Tarantino's later efforts? The Hateful Eight springs to mind.

Yes, I was going to say Tarantino.  Like the Hanzo sword, do you?  Well here's 400 pages of dialogue just about that sword.  Does it have anything to do with the rest of the film?  Of course it fucking doesn't.


I'd also suggest both Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049, but as examples of GOOD non-efficient screenplays, in that they're very very heavily layered with a lot of contextual stuff built into them.

[phantom_power]

Yeah films don't have to be efficient. Terrence Malick has made a career out of it. And Richard Linklater, Werner Herzog and others

[Monsieur Verdoux]

The script for Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid is languid, meandering and amazing

[billtheburger]

Who Framed Roger Rabbit is the correct answer to the title.

[Dr Rock]

John Landis's brilliant run - Animal House, Blues Brothers, An American Werewolf in London - all benefited from flawless screenplays. I don't think Trading Places is on quite the same level, but I haven't seen it for decades.

[Shit Good Nose]

You forgot Coming To America.

And his Twilight Zone the Movie segment.  ......oh, wait.....

[Dr Rock]

You forgot Coming To America.

And his Twilight Zone the Movie segment.  ......oh, wait.....

Nah, wasn't keen on Coming To America, and can't remember if, even so, was the screenplay as lean and perfect as the ones I mentioned? I think it may not have been.

[Shit Good Nose]

Nah, wasn't keen on Coming To America, and can't remember if, even so, was the screenplay as lean and perfect as the ones I mentioned? I think it may not have been.

No, but I was coming more from a "Coming to America is a good John Landis film" point of view, rather than being screenplay specific.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Midnight Run, which I rewatched over Christmas, is a good example. Despite the action spanning the whole US mainland, the script remains tightly focussed - starting with a simple premise and adding in just enough complications to keep things moving at a brisk pace without seeming contrived. If it was just Walsh running the mafia gauntlet it would get monotonous and defy belief, but he also has to contend with the feds and Marvin, who can act as obstacles or allies depending on the situation.

Blues Brothers, on the other hand, is pretty much the opposite of a lean script, isn't it? It's pure '80s excess, adding more and more cartoonish incidents and characters until they literally crash into each other. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

[Dr Rock]

Midnight Run, which I rewatched over Christmas, is a good example. Despite the action spanning the whole US mainland, the script remains tightly focussed - starting with a simple premise and adding in just enough complications to keep things moving at a brisk pace without seeming contrived. If it was just Walsh running the mafia gauntlet it would get monotonous and defy belief, but he also has to contend with the feds and Marvin, who can act as obstacles or allies depending on the situation.

Blues Brothers, on the other hand, is pretty much the opposite of a lean script, isn't it? It's pure '80s excess, adding more and more cartoonish incidents and characters until they literally crash into each other. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Good call on Midnight Run. As for the Landis films, I wasn't really saying they excelled at the lean part, as much as they are finely tuned, and there isn't a wrong word in any of the screenplays (that I can recall).

[The Culture Bunker]

Don't need the bolded line. We can tell you had a classical education because of your classical-sounding quote.

(TRIVIA: the quote, or this version of it, was invented for the film, apparently.)

I thought Sid Waddell said pretty much the same thing prior to Die Hard, before comparing ol' Alex to Eric Bristow. May be one of those urban myths, though.

[Blinder Data]

Two ones that came to mind are Toy Story and Stanley Kubrick's The Killing, but perhaps I'm just saying them because they're so short.

For long films, I'll nominate Goodfellas. Michael Powell agrees (mostly) and you can't argue with him - though the film's efficiency is largely down to Scorsese's faultless execution:

[Andy147]

I thought Sid Waddell said pretty much the same thing prior to Die Hard, before comparing ol' Alex to Eric Bristow. May be one of those urban myths, though.

Robert Hayman, in Quodlibets Book II, 95 (1628). "Great Alexander wept, and made sad mone, because there was but one world to be wonne."

Sid Waddell: "When Alexander of Macedonia was 33, he cried salt tears because there were no more worlds to conquer....Bristow's only 27."

To be fair, you don't really want Hans Gruber saying "And when Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept. For there were no more worlds to conquer. Or so that Geordie bloke said on the darts last night."

[popcorn]

Aye, as I said in my original post: "the quote, or this version of it, was invented for the film, apparently", which I got from Wikiquote.