Words, Music & Pictures
What Was I Thinking?
About Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
I watched this film once, and I was ready to write a negative review. But I‘ve so admired writer/director George Miller’s previous work in the Mad Max films that I didn’t want to criticize it unjustly. I felt, at first viewing, that I really didn’t understand a lot of what was going on in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga. Since Furiosa is the prequel to Fury Road, I watched that film again the next night, and have to say that after that viewing, Furiosa came alive for me. I couldn’t wait to watch it again, which I did. To be fair, Fury Road was released nearly ten years ago, and there are many story and character details from that film that are needed to really appreciate what's going on in Furiosa. The big problem I had with the first viewing was structure. Miller has divided the film into five chapters that seemed, at first viewing to work against an overall story structure. In reality, each of these chapters is a complete story with a beginning, middle and end, connected by Furiosa (the character's) Inner Need of revenge which is established in the first chapter and carries across all the chapters. Considering that Furiosa (the film) didn’t do well at the box office, it might be that it tried to do too much for one film. Perhaps in this era of streaming, it would have made a better five-part limited series. The manner in which George Miller tells a story is truly his own, with an imaginative environment and characters, unbelievable camera work and VFX bordering on magical. There’s one action sequence (in the third chapter) that actually outdoes those road chases we had seen from Miller in The Road Warrior, Beyond Tunderdome and Fury Road (and that’s saying something!). It’s incredibly inventive and quite spectacular with camera work that, unlike that of so many other directors never intrudes on the story, but instead amplifies it. So, my advice to anyone with a fondness for the Mad Max films is to watch Fury Road again, then watch Furiosa. It’s well worth the ride. 08.18.24
Anya Taylor-Joy as the title character in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
About Working With James Doohan
In 1998 I was between writing gigs for Star Trek: The Next Generation and Voyager (Stargate SG-1 was two years off in my future) when I got a call from Alesis, the company founded by my old friend (and former boss at MXR Innovations) Keith Barr. Alesis, Keith's company, needed a presentation for the upcoming NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) trade show in Anaheim, CA to announce their new ADAT digital recorder, and I needed a gig. Having spent many of the previous years working in advertising, this was not an unusual request, so I set to work on a video. In meetings for the assignment, Alesis kept stressing the engineering aspects of their technology, so I came up with the idea of doing a video presentation using the most famous engineer I could think of to make the announcement. That engineer was, of course, Montgomery Scott, “Scotty” from the starship Enterprise. Would James Doohan reprise his old role for this commercial gig? I figured that if I made it worth doing (something that would fit his personality and be entertaining) that he might agree. I came up with the idea that this “Famous Engineer from the future” (we obviously couldn’t call him Scotty) would time travel back to educate clueless present-day stoner musicians on the technological benefits of the new ADAT. I wrote the script, and it was enthusiastically approved by “the powers that be” at Alesis. Next was the tough part -- getting James Doohan. It had been six years since he had done “Relics” that great episode on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Was he still even working? I tracked down his agent, sent him the script, and, amazingly, in a few days, the deal was set. We flew James (“call me Jimmy” was how he introduced himself to me) down to Los Angeles from his home in Washington state and over the next few days, I had the most fun I’d ever had directing a commercial gig. I’ve written more about working with Jimmy Doohan in the Tributes section of this web site, (click here) but I will say here that he was a joy to work with and everybody on the production had a great and memorable time. The video (click here) was made to be shown in two parts, the first played on the outside of the Alesis booth on a video wall. This led to a second video (mostly tech talk) that played inside the booth auditorium. The Famous Engineer appears again at the end. This video hasn’t been shown in over twenty years. I’m happy to post it here. Enjoy! 04.11.24
James Doohan and Ron Wilkerson on the set of The Famous Engineer for Alesis ADAT Type II
About Diana, Dodi and Me
Like many writers in Hollywood, I’ve had my share of rejections. Some are more difficult to accept than others. Some are just freaky. In 1997 I wrote a screenplay for a futuristic action picture called The Metal Men, and my quick pitch was that it is Terminatormeets The Superbowl. My agent got it optioned by a by a production company I had never heard of, but he assured me that the principals had a lot of money. Cut to the other night when I was watching the final “Diana” episode of The Crown. In that episode (mild spoilers ahead) Diana rejected Dodi Fayed’s marriage proposal offer. That was no surprise, but what threw me was her line of dialogue in which she said something like “You don’t really want to marry me. Dodi, what you really want to do is go back to Los Angeles and make movies.” He nodded, implying that she was right. They then got into that limo and the rest is history. But what you probably already guessed is that the picture he would have made had their limo driver not been drunk was my project, The Metal Men. The project was in active development at Dodi’s company Allied Stars, and the rumor was that Dolph Lundgren was being cast as the lead in my film, Derek Wells. So it was certainly a surreal experience watching that episode of The Crown and feeling something like Rosencrantz or Guildenstern must have felt standing in the wings and overhearing the dialogue in Hamlet. Did that dialogue between Diana and Dodi really happen? Who knows? Needless to say, when Dodi passed, so did my project. It was definitely my strangest rejection. 01.25.24
Dodi Fayed (Khalid Abdalla) and Princess Diana (Elizabeth Debicki) in The Crown
About the WGA SAG-AFTRA Strike
It was "United We Trek" day outside the Paramount Pictures studio where writers, actors and others who had worked for Star Trek were invited to attend and protest the current state of affairs in Hollywood. I’ve never been much of a joiner, and though I have issues with both Paramount and the Writers’ Guild I decided to join the throng. No, I didn’t carry a picket sign, nor did I march the line. I mostly stayed in the shade of a friendly tree along the picket lines where I could greet others I knew from the show as well converse with some nice fans. One of my neighbors when we lived in the hills of Sherman Oaks was Harlan Ellison, who wrote one of the best episodes of the original series, “City on the Edge of Forever.” But in spite of his history as an honored writer on the show, he had no love for Star Trek (I'm not sure exactly what his issue was, but it was intense), and to say the least he wasn’t impressed when I told him I wrote for Star Trek: The Next Generation. He's gone now, but I thought of him today. I have my own issues with the show. Paramount took “Lower Decks” one of the episodes I wrote for Star Trek: The Next Generation and made a new series out of it without giving me a “created by” screen credit or even token royalties. There was an obscure paragraph in my (Writers Guild approved) contract that allowed them to do so. That’s show biz. So, I had every right to be bitter toward the show, as was Harlan Ellison. But I realized as I stood with the pickets today that many of those who had worked on Star Trek had also either been fired, or simply not rehired for the show as it moved on. They, too, had issues. And yet, there they were, marching down a hot sidewalk for the benefit of writers and actors on a show they had once loved, no matter how they themselves had been treated. I was glad to stand there with them, show my support, and at the very least honor Gene Roddenberry and the many artists and others who had followed his dream. 09.08.23
Star Trek writer Ron Wilkerson at United We Trek protest at Paramount Pictures