John Logan

So supposedly John Logan is responsible for some of the best bits of the movie (National Gallery scene at Turner's The Fighting Temeraire, the "what makes you think this is my first time?" scene, ...).

I was under the impression his contributions to Spectre were even more substantial (I don't know if this is actually accurate).
But if it is, what happened? How do you how from writing some of the more memorable scenes in Skyfall to being responsible for utter dreck like Spectre?

Might have to agree on disagree on some of those bits.

Weird soy-Q monologuing about a painting as if he's familiar with any art outside the veedja game realm and *grumble*bloody big ship*grunt" were not highlights for me.

I guess the reason it all went to shit is you had tonally inconsistent movies. The post-QOS Bonds, with differing degrees of success, tried to start aping some of the OTT tropes while also maintaining the deep n' gritty overlay. Chuck a lead who doesn't want to be there and has but two modes (mumble and scowl) and you have a recipe for something that's going to fall apart writing-wise.

I've no evidence for this, but always just figured the museum scene was because the director wanted to shoot there, sort of like why MARATHON MAN has an opera house scene.

Then again, maybe it is a showing-off thing on the part of Logan, a TREK fan who may have seen it as an opportunity to demonstrate his education or to riff in a different universe about art the way Meyer did in TREK VI with Spock talking about having a painting depicting the expulsion from paradise in his cabin, a reminder that ll things end (which Nimoy plays with about as much subtlety as you'd expect from Shatner.)

Logan's shameless (and nonsensical to the point of total impracticality) steal of EXCALIBUR's conclusion for his TREK film NEMESIS shows the level the guy usually operates at IMO -- you riff on what you grew up with, but to greatly diminished effect.

RKO 281 is literally a cutnpaste number from various Welles anecdotes and the superior doc on the Kane/Hearst contretemps, while Logan's contribution to THE AVIATOR ended something like 6 or 7 years before the film got made, suggesting his credit is owed to being first writer on rather than main writer. GLADIATOR is a punch-up job as he was Ridley Scott's default guy for a couple of years, and I've read in a couple places that his contributions are essentially just Joachim one-liners.

I think the only thing Logan ever did that I fully enjoyed (but only watched once) was RANGO, which riffs on just about everything everybody ever saw in a westsern, and as I recall was not dripping with originality.

It'd be interesting to know if SKYFALL was a page-one rewrite or just a punch-up, as I've never known how much of my hatred for it is due to Logan (ditto for CR with the Scientology guy, though I assume all that cringe-inducing corny stuff about armor is his, putting that film almost down on a level with TOP GUN when McGillis spells out that she has 'fallen' for Maverick.)

I don't like anything about SKYFALL except the look of the skyscraper fight; not a line of dialog, not even Deakins' night cinematography, as the digital look is just wrong for Bond, as evidenced later by how bad the night stuff at the end of SPECTRE looks, where it was again employed, that time in order to save money. SKYFALL's shameless and illogical retread of TDK's 'villain deliberately allows himself to get captured to further his plotting' shtick had me grinding my teeth in the theater, but at least it prepped me for when STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS coughed up the same bit of 'smart' business a year or so later.

For me, Logan's success seems linked more to an ability to network more than any discernible talent. I do admit I haven't seen PEEKY BLINDERS, which my wife loves.

I HATE most everything that Logan has had his hands on. How he gets such high profile gigs is beyond me. What makes Nemesis (even for me as a Trek newbie) so appalling is the writing.
Gladiator is good though it borrows heavily if not directly lifts from Ben Hur, Spartacus and especially Fall of the Roman Empire.
RKO 281 is a waste of time and as said above cut and paste from documentaries.
The Aviator is just plain crap.

I haven't yet seen Penny Dreadful which I'm only interested in for the mightiness of the Lord Tim. I'll watch anything with the Lord Tim and have done so...even some of the made for tv movies he's wound up in.

Salomé wrote:

So supposedly John Logan is responsible for some of the best bits of the movie (National Gallery scene at Turner's The Fighting Temeraire, the "what makes you think this is my first time?" scene, ...).

I was under the impression his contributions to Spectre were even more substantial (I don't know if this is actually accurate).
But if it is, what happened? How do you how from writing some of the more memorable scenes in Skyfall to being responsible for utter dreck like Spectre?

IIRC Logan came in and worked off the P&W script for Skyfall. With Spectre he was the first writer, and then P&W came back to fix his stuff. That might have made all the difference.

Trev, the creator and chief writer of Peaky Blinders is a guy called Steven Wright ... have you maybe mixed it and Penny Dreadful up?

Yep, you''re right, I haven't seen either, sorry!

Penny Dreadful was very enjoyable. Certainly far better than its somewhat silly premise could have ever suggested.