Mission Accomplished: A 60’s TV series that glorified government coups and 4th Amendment violations has become one of the biggest action franchises in Hollywood history.
A while ago, on a mission I had accepted to introduce a modicum of critical thinking into the appreciation of audio-visual media by inquiring teenage minds, an invited guest to our classroom came pretty darn close to ruining everything for everybody.
She was a script writer and, judging by the cut of her tweed, a successful one – she had a mitt full of scripts in the hands of as many studios for which she was receiving payment “on spec”, essentially rent paid for them while the studios tried to convince Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling to do lunch. She was also in possession of several screenplays for which she had been hired to rewrite.
She was with us for ninety minutes wherein she outlined the importance of archetypes, the limited quantity of theme and plot and the ultimate formula for a camera-ready script. The genre she chose for the class presentation was the romantic comedy but the principle applies to all the other categories of Hollywood commodity:
Each page represents one minute of screen time – a ninety minute film (the standard at the time) has a book ninety pages thick. I forget the actual pagination but the idea goes that a producer will open the script to a particular page and expect to find a specific plot element in evidence there. Page 10, for example has the first encounter between the star-crossed lovers, Page 25 would reveal the impossibility that they were meant for each other, page 78 has all hope lost, page 83 a chance encounter by moonlight – you get the drift.
The drift also applies to Tom Cruise’s stock in trade. Character types appear on the appropriately numbered sheet: the hero, the villain, the grumpy commander, the doomed sidekick, the feminine eye candy (Hitchcock referred to them as “jiggling props”) for the fourteen-year-old-boys – pardon me while I stifle a yawn – and let’s not forget the usual cast of two-dimensional stereotypes who occupy their marks with that slick Hollywood professionalism that contributes to the consummate cliché of “the franchise.”
I love that term, “the franchise”, because it states shamelessly the motive for the fat cats who want to get fatter faster and easier; MacDonald’s is a franchise, Taco Bell is a franchise, Tim Horton’s is a franchise. They are to the culinary arts what Mission Impossible is to the art of film. Fine, I guess, if it’s junk food you want.
Nothing bold to be found in Mission Impossible (perhaps more appropriately named Mission Inevitable), nothing thought-provoking, nothing remotely offensive – its audience filtered by ersatz patriotism and an actor’s adoring fan base. It has the requisite prescription of gunfire, cunning stunts, (admittedly inventive) chase scenes, and big expensive explosions – all without a hint of consequence or any adherence to the laws of physics. Victims are relegated to the background as collateral damage, sacrificed for the simulation of blithe mayhem, left as a quick fading impression on the trail of mindless momentum. No lesson to be had, no epiphany, no desperately needed insight into the human condition. Pabulum for profit, it is to drama what WWF is to Olympic sport.
The franchise is dizzyingly entertaining if one agrees to stop thinking – a winning formula – but it is of little more value than DC or Marvel. It’s box office receipts, the big bucks, and that, my dears, is the end of it.
Thanks for reading. Volumes have been written on the political, social, and cultural impact of the espionage genre—from the McGuffins of Hitchcock to the Cold War and post-Cold War eras of Bond, Bourne, and Bauer. So it’s not really accurate to describe these films as “nothing bold or thought provoking”, as they often offend those who’d prefer their politics more red than dead.
As for entertainment, no one can seriously doubt that aspect. As Samuel Goldwyn once said to self-important screenwriter, “If you want to send a message, use Western Union.”
A while ago, on a mission I had accepted to introduce a modicum of critical thinking into the appreciation of audio-visual media by inquiring teenage minds, an invited guest to our classroom came pretty darn close to ruining everything for everybody.
She was a script writer and, judging by the cut of her tweed, a successful one – she had a mitt full of scripts in the hands of as many studios for which she was receiving payment “on spec”, essentially rent paid for them while the studios tried to convince Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling to do lunch. She was also in possession of several screenplays for which she had been hired to rewrite.
She was with us for ninety minutes wherein she outlined the importance of archetypes, the limited quantity of theme and plot and the ultimate formula for a camera-ready script. The genre she chose for the class presentation was the romantic comedy but the principle applies to all the other categories of Hollywood commodity:
Each page represents one minute of screen time – a ninety minute film (the standard at the time) has a book ninety pages thick. I forget the actual pagination but the idea goes that a producer will open the script to a particular page and expect to find a specific plot element in evidence there. Page 10, for example has the first encounter between the star-crossed lovers, Page 25 would reveal the impossibility that they were meant for each other, page 78 has all hope lost, page 83 a chance encounter by moonlight – you get the drift.
The drift also applies to Tom Cruise’s stock in trade. Character types appear on the appropriately numbered sheet: the hero, the villain, the grumpy commander, the doomed sidekick, the feminine eye candy (Hitchcock referred to them as “jiggling props”) for the fourteen-year-old-boys – pardon me while I stifle a yawn – and let’s not forget the usual cast of two-dimensional stereotypes who occupy their marks with that slick Hollywood professionalism that contributes to the consummate cliché of “the franchise.”
I love that term, “the franchise”, because it states shamelessly the motive for the fat cats who want to get fatter faster and easier; MacDonald’s is a franchise, Taco Bell is a franchise, Tim Horton’s is a franchise. They are to the culinary arts what Mission Impossible is to the art of film. Fine, I guess, if it’s junk food you want.
Nothing bold to be found in Mission Impossible (perhaps more appropriately named Mission Inevitable), nothing thought-provoking, nothing remotely offensive – its audience filtered by ersatz patriotism and an actor’s adoring fan base. It has the requisite prescription of gunfire, cunning stunts, (admittedly inventive) chase scenes, and big expensive explosions – all without a hint of consequence or any adherence to the laws of physics. Victims are relegated to the background as collateral damage, sacrificed for the simulation of blithe mayhem, left as a quick fading impression on the trail of mindless momentum. No lesson to be had, no epiphany, no desperately needed insight into the human condition. Pabulum for profit, it is to drama what WWF is to Olympic sport.
The franchise is dizzyingly entertaining if one agrees to stop thinking – a winning formula – but it is of little more value than DC or Marvel. It’s box office receipts, the big bucks, and that, my dears, is the end of it.
Thanks for reading. Volumes have been written on the political, social, and cultural impact of the espionage genre—from the McGuffins of Hitchcock to the Cold War and post-Cold War eras of Bond, Bourne, and Bauer. So it’s not really accurate to describe these films as “nothing bold or thought provoking”, as they often offend those who’d prefer their politics more red than dead.
As for entertainment, no one can seriously doubt that aspect. As Samuel Goldwyn once said to self-important screenwriter, “If you want to send a message, use Western Union.”