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Paul (Script) – Review

Paul (Script) – Review

I read the script last night for the über-secret science-fiction comedy Paul. The film is being directed by Superbad/Adventureland’s Greg Mottola and was written by Simon Pegg & Nick Frost.
Albeit long (120 pages), the story was so immersive I read it all in one go.

Check out this incredible Paul cast:


1st row: Nick Frost, Simon Pegg, Kristen Wiig
2nd row: Bill Hader, Jane lynch, Jason Bateman
3rd row: John Carroll Lynch, David Koechner, Jesse Plemons, Joe Lo Truglio
Not pictured: Blythe Danner, Jeffrey Tambor, Sigourney Weaver
Here’s the movie in a nutshell:
Alien (Paul) escapes from Secret Service.
Geeks (Clive and Graham) meet Alien.
Geeks and Alien go on the run from Secret Service Agents (Zoil, Haggard and O’Reilly).
Geeks and Alien kidnap on their way a religious freak (Ruth).
Geeks and Alien go on the run from said religious freak’s father (Moses).

The movie is not part of Pegg and Frost’s “Blood and Ice Cream” trilogy (comprised up til now of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz).
Actually, Paul reverses the standard dynamic between the two by putting Frost as the lead and Pegg as the sidekick.

As usual though, they play the two main characters, respectively Clive Gollings and Graham Willy, two (sorta) stereotypical nerds. Clive authored Jelva, Alien Queen of the Varvak, a not-so-popular sci-fi book.
As they leave Comic-Con to visit Nevada’s Extraterrestrial Highway (and Area 51), they encounter, you guessed it, Paul the alien. Seth Rogen will “MoCap” the character.


The Paul alien character would probably be best described as a cross between American Dad’s Roger and the “Take Me to Your Dealer” alien (the poster is actually referenced in the movie).
The former for his intellect and pop-culture knowledge, the latter for his physical appearance…and because he smokes pot.
I guess that’s why they chose Seth Rogen (ha, ha, ha).

Wiig will portray Ruth, a Bible thumper that is both smart (!) and knowledgeable (!!). She gets (somewhat) inadvertently kidnapped by the group. John Carroll Lynch will be her dad, neither smart nor knowledgeable.
Jason Bateman plays the main Secret Service Agent, Lorenzo Zoil. He is followed by two other agents, Haggard and O’Reilly (Bill Hader and Joe Lo Truglio). Jeffrey Tambor is their boss, nicknamed “The Voice.”
David Koechner and Jesse Plemons play Gus and Jake, two stupid meatheads while Jane Lynch depicts Pat, a waitress at the (real) Little A’Le’Inn.

As for Sigourney Weaver and Blythe Danner, I’m having a problem pointing out their role. While IMDb lists Weaver as playing Tara (the woman that pulled Paul out of his Roswell wreckage some 60-odd years ago), it seemed to me like it would fit more Danner (hell, Weaver wasn’t even born in 1947).
That said, I have no clue what the extra character is.

There’s also in the movie a cameo by a famous director (you might guess which), and as well a few scenes at Comic-Con.
At one point, Michael Biehn even makes an appearance (Clive is hoping to ask him if he feels that “the killing of Hicks and Newt in Alien 3, invalidates Ripley’s struggle at the closed of the previous installment.”).
Which makes you wonder what’s going on in the movie since Weaver (aka Ripley) has a role (not as herself), and there are no meta-joke about that either.

Anyways, now that you know the story and the characters, time to talk about the movie itself.
What’s interesting to note is how atypical some of the things in the script are.

First, regarding the obligatory references.
Pegg and Frost know their way around pop culture, so it’s obvious they’re having a blast when they write those nods at many SF movies/TV shows.
What is funny however is that those nods aren’t blatant at all.

For instance, there is at one point a Heroes reference (yes, that one).
Only, this is not a “Hiro/Claire” type of reference, it’s more, let’s just say, obscure.

CLIVE
She called her dog Paul?

PAUL
Least it wasn’t Mr. Muggles.

Yup, they just talked about the Bennet family dog, Mr. Muggles (dare I say a detail on Heroes).

The same can be said about every other nod in Paul (regarding their subtlely).
There are Battlestar Galactica, Star Trek, and Back to the Future allusions, but they do not involve jokes around Cylons, Spock/Kirk or Hoverboards.
There’s even a Pokémon that gets mentioned (and no, not Pikachu or Mudkip)!
Other “tip of the hat” include (among many, many other movies/shows) The X-Files, V, E.T., and Encounter of the Third Kind .
By “tip of the hat” I’m not talking about reenactments (with one notable exception), rather verbal winks like above.
Some other references are even more subtle, and even more random.
Case in point with Jason Bateman’s character. He’s named Lorenzo Zoil, an obvious hommage to the 1992 film Lorenzo’s Oil.
I have no clue why they chose this particular movie though.

The characters from the movie are also (for the most part) actually smart. Even Ruth the Evangelical is, like I pointed out before, knowledgeable!
Obviously, she doesn’t believe in science, but at least she knows about it, and probably knows more about geography than our two hero nerds combined.

This leads me to my final point, and I know I’m burying the lead here, but Paul is a smart comedy.
Actually, it’s way smarter than it might appear at first glance.

If anything, it tackles really well the whole Religion vs. Science debate, mixing both comical dialogues with sensible arguments.
Here is just one of the numerous examples contained in the Paul movie:

RUTH
How can he be from another world? There is only one world. Our world, created by God the Father.

PAUL sits down next to GRAHAM. RUTH whimpers.

PAUL
Look, if it makes you feel any better, my existence only disproves the notion of the Abrahamic, Judeo-Christian God, as well as all single earth theologies. Science still hasn’t categorically rule out the notion of divinity, even though evolutionary biology suggest the non-existence of a creator by probability alone.

RUTH
How could that possibly make me feel any better?

PAUL
Jesus Christ, I was just trying to be nice!

Hopefully, all those dialogues won’t lose their “serious” edge once they’re done by Seth Rogen.

Nevertheless, Paul has what many comedies do not have: both heart and brain (and the funnies). Here is an example of a good, funny, and smart, R-rated comedy (unlike that other one).
The incredible script coupled with, yet again, a great cast, makes me think this will probably be Pegg and Frost’s best movie to date.
As for its precise date of release, there is none yet, though it should come out in 2010. In the meantime, check out the many video blogs left on the official website.

Why mythological shows are often idolized

Why mythological shows are often idolized

I’ve been recently thinking about why some people seem to love Battlestar Galactica’s latter two seasons even though they’re tragically awful. I dare say the same thing about Lost’s latest season.
I’ll be here mostly using those two series as primary examples because they’re so popular, and are still held to very high standards.

Fans have widely criticized Lost’s fifth season. However, if you’ve just very recently watched for the first time the first four seasons, you probably disagree, or, if you agree, you’re probably not seeing how big of a slap the season is towards everything that came before it.

I should point out now, since this will come into play later, that I’ve found the common link (save for some flukes) between the people who like BSG’s third (possibly fourth) season, and Lost’s fifth.They were peeps who, in the span of days, or weeks, saw the whole show for the first time from A to Z in a few sittings only (or at least are not the people who have been following the shows since the first or second season).Why is this important? Well marathon-like screenings do not really allow the spectator to “think things through” so to speak.

Mythological shows such as Lost and Battlestar Galactica have overarching storylines, supposedly thought-out, complex, and well-developed. In the case of BSG for instance, that would mainly be the twelve Cylon plotline. Now, I’ve already exposed in previous posts to what extent both Lost and Battlestar Galactica have had more than disappointing revelations exposing their poorly-planned mythologies, so I’m not going to talk about that again.This post is more about the way their mythology is being perceived and how in the long run, more often than not, such shows are idolized with all flaws removed.

In marathon-like screenings, the mind is somewhat submissive to the story told and the episode. The brain is passive, not active. You don’t have time to really think about the many twists and turns since you’re watching them unfold. You’re “eating” away the episodes, not “digesting” them. Everything will probably seem to blend into a unified storyline instead of finite stories broadcast every week or so with hiatus lasting months in-between seasons. Watching the first three seasons of Battlestar back-to-back won’t be the same thing as having been there since 2003.

For one thing, you didn’t theorize during Season One or Season Two. That might not seem all that important, but not being able to think for several months or years (or even only days in the case of a marathon) about who the twelve Cylons are won’t make you aware of how preposterous the introduction of the Final Five during the show’s third Season is. If you care a little bit about a show, you’ll surely think about it, start asking yourself questions. Let’s be honest, we all have way too much time on our hands and we love to theorize. Shows such as BSG or Lost work because you can theorize about them all day long… Until you can’t due to a faulty mythology.Turns out, when watching episodes back-to-back you don’t have months to think about “what’s in the Hatch” or anything else that deserves theorizing. You’re not expecting special answers either, so you rarely end up disappointed either.The poor planning of Lost’s mytho was shown with such glaring plot holes and atrocious revelations (or rather pseudo-revelations out of the blue) as featured in its fifth season finale. Despite this, to what extent it nullifies the preceding four seasons would be hard to tell without hindsight, an asset nonexistent with a marathon since there’s no time to look at the big picture.
You’re also head first in the story itself, not what goes on outside the series. By that I mean that at the end of, let’s say, watching Battlestar’s first season, you’re not going to look for news article dating back 5 years. The same goes for Lost with Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse’s various contradictory interviews between when the show started (2004) and now (2009), especially regarding questions/mythological plot points that would get answered (or not). You’d be surprised at how antinomic some of their remarks are (same goes for Ronald D. Moore). They’re also very hard to track down.

The bottom line here is that, in the end, you need to be able to take a step back. You need to have time to think things through to really enjoy in a more objective fashion a show and its mythology.
It will be interesting to see how all of this will play out with FlashForward, given that not only has the “FF date” been stopped (April 20th), but flash-forwards are already being shown in the pilot.
The X-Files is considered to be a great mytho show. Ironically, it only has a fourth of such episodes. And, if you really take a look at them, you’ll see how many plot holes there are. Despite those, The X-Files is idolized and remembered as one of the greatest mythological show in TV history.Battlestar Galactica is already branded as the greatest sci-fi show ever.In five-year time, Lost will probably join the ranks of such cult show as Twin Peaks, regardless of its “objective” lack of mythological planning.

But, hey, it’s the thought that counts, not its execution. Right?