The Muppet Man BioPic

[Drtooth]

As Sonic the Hedgehog would say:

Kids, there's nothing cooler than a screenplay about someone you like. But if they write anything in a way or a place that makes you feel uncomfortable, that's NO GOOD! It's your hero! No one has the right to artistic license if no one wants them too. So what do you do? First, you say NO! Then you get outta there. Most importantly talk to someone you can trust like The Walt Disney Company, Sesame Workshop or The Jim Henson Company.

 

[terrimonster]

This certainly raises concerns, but I'm reminded what Frank Oz said in an intervew:

(asked about Internet leaks)
"Yeah. I think that's really ******. It's like saying to a writer, 'Okay, I want to see your first draft,' and then criticizing the first draft when you have 18 more drafts go. It's ********.

"I think it's unfortunate because the Internet has become so powerful...and is becoming even more powerful...that it has a bearing on how the film is marketed, how much money is put into a movie, and it has a bearing on how the executives feel and how the actors feel.

"I think it's really ****** that people make judgements on a movie that's not finished. For crying out loud, wait until we're ready to present it to you! That's all. Unfortunately, for some reason, people feel that they're able to comment on movies before they're finished. It's crazy. You've got to give the artist the opportunity to finish his ******* work. You can't all of a sudden say to a painter who's just drawn the pencil sketch, 'I don't like that. There's not enough color.' Well, I haven't put the color in yet!

"It's really ******. These people have no idea what the post-production process can do to a movie."
​

With all of the typos, misspellings (I hope Big Bird isn't a perineal six-year-old), and other sloppy errors, this is obviously a very early draft. Now that it's in the hands of Henson and Disney, we can be very certain that we'll be getting a better final product.

 

[MrBloogarFoobly]

This certainly raises concerns, but I'm reminded what Frank Oz said in an intervew:

(asked about Internet leaks)
"Yeah. I think that's really ******. It's like saying to a writer, 'Okay, I want to see your first draft,' and then criticizing the first draft when you have 18 more drafts go. It's ********.

"I think it's unfortunate because the Internet has become so powerful...and is becoming even more powerful...that it has a bearing on how the film is marketed, how much money is put into a movie, and it has a bearing on how the executives feel and how the actors feel.

"I think it's really ****** that people make judgements on a movie that's not finished. For crying out loud, wait until we're ready to present it to you! That's all. Unfortunately, for some reason, people feel that they're able to comment on movies before they're finished. It's crazy. You've got to give the artist the opportunity to finish his ******* work. You can't all of a sudden say to a painter who's just drawn the pencil sketch, 'I don't like that. There's not enough color.' Well, I haven't put the color in yet!

"It's really ******. These people have no idea what the post-production process can do to a movie."
​

With all of the typos, misspellings (I hope Big Bird isn't a perineal six-year-old), and other sloppy errors, this is obviously a very early draft. Now that it's in the hands of Henson and Disney, we can be very certain that we'll be getting a better final product.

Very good point. And an excellent quote from Mr. Oz...

 

[Drtooth]

I'd tend to agree exactly with something like that... but not when we're talking about a biopic that's not really that accurate. Hypothetically, if I added to Jim's wikipedia page that he liked raisins, then the script would have him either eating raisins for a large part of the film OR there would be a shot of a box of raisins in every scene. I'm sure there's a better draft, and JHC and Disney will rewrite the heck out of it to make it a LOT more positive (the ending of Old Yeller and the scene where Bambi's Mom got shot are more positive than this screenplay so far). But all and all, we wanna see a GOOD movie. Not a tear soaked script that says that sadness is the ONLY thing important to drama.

And of course, the hallucination scenes are ludicrous. But we've had several pages of that already.

 

[Kiki]

^ *Agrees with pretty much everything Drtooth has said so far*.

I'm only up to page 16 (yeah, I'm an ultra-slow reader, and I've also been trying to multi-task with homework and whatnot) and I *know* it's only early days but I haven't warmed to it just yet. The line between artistry (the surreal Muppety bits) and reality is too blurred if you ask me. =/

 

[Drtooth]

Yeah, I mean... I understand artistic license, and I understand the need to be creative. It's just... when you're telling someone's life story you can only be so creative. It's like rewriting history, and no one wants that.

From what I've read (not all that much cuz I got partway through and just couldn't read anymore) and what everyone's saying, I just don't see the lovers, the dreamers and me... I see sometimes the applause is crueler than the jeers. And that's not Jim Henson.

I feel I should bring up a PBS documentary I once saw about Charles Schulz. It wasn't the happy, smiley, "Happy Birthday Charlie Brown" type retrospective. You got into dark parts of his personal life and personality, and it was done to get perspective on why certain things were the way they were... like (if memory serves me) a period in the 70's when he was having marital problems, that's the era where you saw the most of Snoopy's wacky escapist adventures. I even saw one about the guy who created Tin Tin (Hergie, right) that talked about the dark origins of the comic (it was published in a newspaper or magazine that was published by a Nazi sympathizer).

I don't wanna see a happy, smiley, hugs and kisses version of Jim, nor do I wanna see him played like Edgar Allen Poe. And While I'm sick of complaining of the script's direction, all I can give is advice. Find the Muppeteers who knew Jim personally. Ask them to tell weird little stories, positive and negative (above all weird and not what we normally see in retrospectives)... have his family and friends as consultants. Just punch up the draft to make it more the story of Jim, and less someone's interpretation of Jim. And above all, fact check. And balance the happy stuff and dramatic stuff.

 

[Beauregard]

(The ending of Old Yeller and the scene where Bambi's Mom got shot are more positive than this screenplay so far).

*applause*

 

[terrimonster]

I agree that the script is wildly inaccurate, but it's a rough draft was written as a spec. The purpose of the script was to serve as a resume rather than to actually be the final script for a film. Writing something like this shows producers the different directions you can take a script, and different ways you can flesh out a story. I don't think even Weekes would want this script put directly on film.

Producers often take a script not for what it is, but what it could be. I have a very early draft of Anchorman that's worlds away from the film, and a draft of Bruce Almighty that barely resembles the final product. I imagine the idea behind picking up the script was, "I like your idea for blending Jim's final days with his life and career. Now let's get some actual facts and make him look less delusional."

 

[ferrell]

here's what I would do IF I was writing the script/movie..
I would title the movie "It's not easy being green-the Jim henson story",that way people know exactly what it's about and the title would have more meaning and sentement,I would not go back and forth from his early years up to his death ,in fact his death would only be mentioned briefly at the end,no sweating and coughing up blood,no hallutionating or seeing muppets that aren't there,I would start off the movie with Henson in the Disney office getting ready to make a deal with them then I would flashback to when he was a kid,the rest of the movie would be in chronilogical order,the movie would end with the Henson announcing the disney deal to the public,I would have the Hensons involded with every aspect of the script that way it's accurate and have them approve of it before I would even turn in a script to the producer...

 

[MrBloogarFoobly]

here's what I would do IF I was writing the script/movie..
I would title the movie "It's not easy being green-the Jim henson story",that way people know exactly what it's about and the title would have more meaning and sentement,I would not go back and forth from his early years up to his death ,in fact his death would only be mentioned briefly at the end,no sweating and coughing up blood,no hallutionating or seeing muppets that aren't there,I would start off the movie with Henson in the Disney office getting ready to make a deal with them then I would flashback to when he was a kid,the rest of the movie would be in chronilogical order,the movie would end with the Henson announcing the disney deal to the public,I would have the Hensons involded with every aspect of the script that way it's accurate and have them approve of it before I would even turn in a script to the producer...

I'm not against the death being in there. But, it does NOT have to be so graphic. It was dramatic enough in real life without an over-weight Kermit singing "I'm Going To Go Back There Someday."