Ask Steve Perry

[SM]

In SW's: SOTE, one of the villain's names was "Xizor." I had a malfuntioning computer-operated form-chair address him out loud and slur the name, "Lord Sheeezorr ..." so people would know that the "Xi" was pronounced as "Sh." (Not my name, by the way -- somebody else came up with it, it's from, I think, Portuguese, that Xi combo.)

See that actually confused me at the time.  I think I heard before reading the book that it was 'She-zor', then the chair was mispronoucing it "Sheeezorr" and I was left with - how IS it pronouned then?

[Xenomrph]

I've always heard it as "shee-zorr". I think Steve Perry's point was that the chair was "mispronouncing" it by slurring the name and making the "eee" and "orrrr" longer.

[Nobody]

i hate to sound like a star wars nerd though i am,It's pronounced like Shiizor I believe.LucasArts may have gone with THIS pronounciation, for they use it in many of their game(IE Forces of Coruption has a brief apparance of him where it's pronounced 'Sheezor')

[SM]

I think Steve Perry's point was that the chair was "mispronouncing" it by slurring the name and making the "eee" and "orrrr" longer.

I get that now - I didn't at the time.

[Alienseseses]

Questions, of course:

1. You've said earlier that AVP's will continue to be made as long as they make money. Do you believe that the studio has decided to shift to Predator from AVP?

2. You also said you didn't like the story of AVP-R. If a different script writer came along, do you think the Strause Brothers can make a good AVP?

[steveperry]

Questions, of course:

1. You've said earlier that AVP's will continue to be made as long as they make money. Do you believe that the studio has decided to shift to Predator from AVP?

2. You also said you didn't like the story of AVP-R. If a different script writer came along, do you think the Strause Brothers can make a good AVP?

No idea what the studios think -- they follow the money, generally. Since there have been four A's and only two AvP's, they might think that franchise has more life left in it. I would have thought so, but the most recent one didn't help.

An old joke in Hollywood is the T-shirt: "But I really want to direct."

Colin and Greg Strause came out of visual EFX and they have done good work there. AvP:R was their first big directing project. It shows.

In Hollywood, if you write a couple hit movies, you will usually be offered a promotion; and that also happens to guys behind the camera, or doing stunt coordinating, art direction, or EFX, and actors, too. The promotion is to director. You get to run the show.

Not everybody can direct -- it is a different skill than writing or acting. Some make the transition better than others. Clint Eastwood is a better director than actor. Stephen King directed a movie early on, based on one of his stories, and he also wrote the script for it, Maximum Overdrive. As a director, he's a good writer. It wasn't a great movie.

It is possible that the Strause bros. will sharpen their skills. You would expect a third or fourth movie to be better than the first, assuming they are learning and applying what they know as they go. But the story in AvP:R wasn't there, and a good director has to have a good sense of story. They have to be able to read a script and visualize how it will look on-screen.

You can start with a good script and ruin it -- lot of hands touch it, and any of them can screw it up. Bad acting, directing, post-producting work, sound, editing, music, one rotten apple can spoil the barrel. You can also start with a so-so script, and if everybody else connected to the movie is brilliant, you can make it look better than it is -- but that's the harder route. Take a great script and mess around with it, it can still be good.

I haven't seen the script for AvP: R, so I dunno how much the bros. mucked around with it once it was turned it. I know that an ironclad rule in LaLaLand is that you can put kids in peril, but you don't kill then in messy ways onscreen. Remember the scene in Batman when Two-Face threatens Jim Gordon's kid? If he had killed that boy, the audience would have stormed the projection booth and lynched the guy running the projectorl

How long was it before we got the kid chestburster in AvP:R? Five minutes?

Stupid. I was done right there.

The movie was full of stuff like that. The bros. wanted it to Look Cool and they wanted it to be Over the Top. It did look cool in a couple spots, and it was over the top -- too far -- even hardcore fans I know said "Ick!"

How gross can we make it? is not the question you want to be asking yourself here. How do I make the audience care about these people? is.

If the bros. can address that question and get it? They can make a good movie. But they have to take off their fanboy hats and put on the storyteller caps.

[War Wager]

Were there any scenes in AvPR that you felt worked well with the creatures? I mean did you feel the atmosphere or mood was good in some places?

Also what did you think of the PredAlien breeding among the maternity ward patients?

[steveperry]

Okay, for me, discussing AvP:R in detail is kind of like dealing with the problems after the Titanic hit the iceberg by re-arranging the deck chairs. Looking for bright spots in the gloom is -- for me -- a waste of time. The movie didn't work as a whole, it didn't work big-time. That there might be a few grains of gold buried under the murk isn't enough to spend any energy looking for it.

Wish it into the cornfield and be done with it ...

[War Wager]

Fair enough.

I know the movie sucks, I was just asking for an opinion as all.

[Alienseseses]

In that case, here's a question about creative writing.

I am writing an AVP script, and I know you can't read it, and I know that Fox won't even think about looking at it. When I finish, what should I do with it?

[Cetanu]

Here's a random one...what's silat?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silat

I read that already, but I wanted to hear from a practitioner. What does it mean to him? Not to someone writing an informational article.

But thanks

[steveperry]

In that case, here's a question about creative writing.

I am writing an AVP script, and I know you can't read it, and I know that Fox won't even think about looking at it. When I finish, what should I do with it?

Put it in a drawer, or on a flashmem stick and write something else. The practice is good for you, and if you do a good script and ever get in a position where you might get a shot at writing some kind of science fiction action movie, you can use it as a sample of what you can do.

A friend and I wrote a novel once, and decided to do a script based on it. We did, had our agent send it out. Got a Hollywood meeting. We went in, they loved it, it was wonderful, terrific -- but they couldn't do it, too expensive. What else, they asked, did we have?

The script got us in the door. We blue-skied a pitch, they liked that, and we did a treatment and go another book out of it, though nobody ever picked up the idea for a movie.

There's no market for a spec AvP script. A lot of guys who have credits in the universe, book writers and comic book writers (including me) would have gladly taken a shot at the script for AvP or AvP:R, but they didn't ask us, they went with people who had screen or TV credits. Unless you have some of those to wave, nobody is going to consider it. Trust me here. Unless, of course, you come up with enough money to finance it and get the rights from Fox.

[steveperry]

Here's a random one...what's silat?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silat

I read that already, but I wanted to hear from a practitioner. What does it mean to him? Not to someone writing an informational article.

But thanks

The wiki nails it down pretty well -- happens I know the guy who wrote it, and he's a player in the art.

Essentially, silat is a blade-based fighting system from SE Asia. Our version comes from west Java, and its an old-style MMA -- striking, grappling, standup and groundwork, knees, elbows, kicking, all like that, with or without weapons.

The idea is that you are going to face a guy who is bigger, stronger, faster, well-trained, armed, and probably with a buddy or two, and you want to be able to deal with all that. Not easy, but it's something to work for ...

[Alienseseses]

In that case, here's a question about creative writing.

I am writing an AVP script, and I know you can't read it, and I know that Fox won't even think about looking at it. When I finish, what should I do with it?

Put it in a drawer, or on a flashmem stick and write something else. The practice is good for you, and if you do a good script and ever get in a position where you might get a shot at writing some kind of science fiction action movie, you can use it as a sample of what you can do.

A friend and I wrote a novel once, and decided to do a script based on it. We did, had our agent send it out. Got a Hollywood meeting. We went in, they loved it, it was wonderful, terrific -- but they couldn't do it, too expensive. What else, they asked, did we have?

The script got us in the door. We blue-skied a pitch, they liked that, and we did a treatment and go another book out of it, though nobody ever picked up the idea for a movie.

There's no market for a spec AvP script. A lot of guys who have credits in the universe, book writers and comic book writers (including me) would have gladly taken a shot at the script for AvP or AvP:R, but they didn't ask us, they went with people who had screen or TV credits. Unless you have some of those to wave, nobody is going to consider it. Trust me here. Unless, of course, you come up with enough money to finance it and get the rights from Fox.

Thanks. I do have a spec script that's unrelated to anything else... Well, that's a lie. It's a re imagining of a public domain movie. But I have it.

On the record, I just wanted to thank you for spending the time on sites like these. It must be annoying to be caught in an eternal interview, but you have no idea how helpful this is to us.

[Cetanu]

Here's a random one...what's silat?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silat

I read that already, but I wanted to hear from a practitioner. What does it mean to him? Not to someone writing an informational article.

But thanks

The wiki nails it down pretty well -- happens I know the guy who wrote it, and he's a player in the art.

Essentially, silat is a blade-based fighting system from SE Asia. Our version comes from west Java, and its an old-style MMA -- striking, grappling, standup and groundwork, knees, elbows, kicking, all like that, with or without weapons.

The idea is that you are going to face a guy who is bigger, stronger, faster, well-trained, armed, and probably with a buddy or two, and you want to be able to deal with all that. Not easy, but it's something to work for ...

Okay, thanks. I was just curious because in Turnabout you threw a shout-out at them
It sounds nice, and the wiki article is nice. But I like more of the Japanese stuff.
Thanks again.