Official WGA Writers Strike thread.

[CharlieDontSurf]

The writing on most tv shows, the vast majority in fact, is unoriginal, cliche, boring, repetitive, stupid, unfunny, superficial and facile; the people who write it are not good writers.

The Magician
2 Stupid Dogs
Batman (the animated series)
Cover Me
Swat Kats
Hack
The In-Laws
Baby Blues
American Gothic
DiResti
The New Flipper
The Naked Truth
Living in Captivity
Sister Sister
The Secret Squirrel Show.

Those are the shows the writers of the Sopranos worked on.
So you arguing that writers who work on a show that has what KneeCo considers bad writing are obv not good writers.

So then I guess the writers of the Sopranos were bad writers up until they started writing for The Sopranos..then they magically became good writers given KneeCo thinks Sopranos is good writing but if KneeCo thought Sopranos was bad writing then obv they would be bad writers.

lol

[golfnutt]

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Like I said..there is a lot more to being a succesful tv writer than simply good writing.

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Yeah, it helps to have gone to USC/UCLA/NYU film school for networking, be a youngish white male, have the look and talk of a writer, and hook up a good agent.

Just like most jobs in the world, it ain't a meritocracy.

[CharlieDontSurf]

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Like I said..there is a lot more to being a succesful tv writer than simply good writing.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, it helps to have gone to USC/UCLA/NYU film school for networking, be a youngish white male, have the look and talk of a writer, and hook up a good agent.

Just like most jobs in the world, it ain't a meritocracy.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes to that one no to the rest and the last one will be a result of your good writing.

[golfnutt]

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Studios should be able to hire whomever they want. If a good script comes in from a kid in Canada or Illinois or Romania, so be it.

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Dude,

It's not about justice. It's about fighting. The bosses are fighting for their piece of the pie, and the workers are fighting for theirs. Don't act like a union free america is somehow "normal" and union industries are somehow abnormal and bad. Both are just different results of the class struggle.
If you wanna say you love bosses, and that bosses should be able to have their own associations, but workers shouldn't be able to have their associations, then say it. Clouding your anti-union viewpoints in "free market" rhetoric is BS though, and I gotta call you on it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Call me on whatever you want. Unions in general protect a small group to the exclusion of others and drive up overall costs.

As an article in the LA Times about the Teamsters (another of the fine unions) one driver said "I don't get residuals, why should the writers?".

What is wrong with the studio paying a flat-fee for a script and owning it in perpetuity if that is what the writer is willing to give up? Maybe one writer can negotiate for 10 cents of every DVD sales. All power to them.

[CharlieDontSurf]

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[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Studios should be able to hire whomever they want. If a good script comes in from a kid in Canada or Illinois or Romania, so be it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Dude,

It's not about justice. It's about fighting. The bosses are fighting for their piece of the pie, and the workers are fighting for theirs. Don't act like a union free america is somehow "normal" and union industries are somehow abnormal and bad. Both are just different results of the class struggle.
If you wanna say you love bosses, and that bosses should be able to have their own associations, but workers shouldn't be able to have their associations, then say it. Clouding your anti-union viewpoints in "free market" rhetoric is BS though, and I gotta call you on it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Call me on whatever you want. Unions in general protect a small group to the exclusion of others and drive up overall costs.

As an article in the LA Times about the Teamsters (another of the fine unions) one driver said "I don't get residuals, why should the writers?".

What is wrong with the studio paying a flat-fee for a script and owning it in perpetuity if that is what the writer is willing to give up? Maybe one writer can negotiate for 10 cents of every DVD sales. All power to them.

[/ QUOTE ]

ughh read the [censored] thread already.

THERE IS A VERY SPECIFIC REASON WRITERS ARE PAID RESIDUALS.

there is also a reason they are called residuals and not royalties.

[AlexM]

You need to stop dissing Batman the Animated Series.

[Yeti]

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Whether you like a TV show or think a TV show sucks has no bearing on whether the show has good or bad writing.


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i'm glad we started this strike thread in oot, especially considering the intelligent discussion it's created.

[CharlieDontSurf]

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You need to stop dissing Batman the Animated Series.

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Actually Alex, KneeCo just told me he likes Batman the Animated Series and thinks it is really good...thus we can assume the staff for the show is full of good writers.

[KneeCo]

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So then I guess the writers of the Sopranos were bad writers up until they started writing for The Sopranos

[/ QUOTE ]

If everything they did before sucked (I'm not saying it did)? Yes.

If you are a writer, and you write [censored] for the next 10 years, and then in 2018 you write something amazing, in the end you're judged based on your whole body of work (what else could there be to judge you on?? There's no better measure, not even close, and the one you suggested, how many Americans are worse, is stupid).

Now, let's say in an alternate reality, you get hit by a car and die in 2017. Unlucky as it is, because you died having written nothing but [censored], when people look back on your life (which they wouldn't, but let's pretend), and ask 'was he a good writer?', the answer is no.

Anything else is an argument akin to:
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Im sure there are lots of amazing novelists who will never break in because they don't want to go through the hassle of writing a novel.

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Which someone else posted in the thread and I think you agreed with me was a stupid thing to say.

As for my supposed ego in saying I decide what's good tv and what's not, you're the one who has been listing shows as either good writing or bad writing, not me. The only value judgment I've made of TV writing in this thread is that the best of it is brilliant but most of it is crap; and I think that's not a controversial statement in the slightest, in fact I would guess most people would agree and of those who don't the majority would think the statement is too generous to TV writers, not too harsh.

[The Yugoslavian]

OP,

Is your information on The Office based on official news? I assumed that the writers who are also actors can continue to act and thus they can shoot however many scripts they have already written (which I assumed was > 1). Are the writers refusing to act? Seems the actors guild would be pissed if that's the case. Or does the show really not write more than 1 episode ahead of time?

Yugoslav