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RebelFire nightmare

During my nice, mundane days, I’ve begun a mega-tidying. Not a Marie Kondo-type tidying, mind you. I wouldn’t tuck my purses inside my purses, even if I owned purses, which for many years I have not (see the “head in the clouds” subhead at that link if you wonder what the heck I’m talking about).

I am, among other things, tidying my computer files and finding the best places to tuck various guns, knives, and power tools. Serious tidying, that.

Along the way, I found the backup files of both the job culture book (which I knew I had somewhere) and RebelFire (which I didn’t know I had). I foresee Kindle-izing in my future.

In the directory with the not-quite-final RF book files I found yet another forgotten piece of the history of Jeremy, Cedra, and the band RebelFire. A movie script.

Yeah. I wrote a movie script. Ten years ago. Finished it up in February Ought-Six. Co-creator Aaron Zelman and I put it on a site where Hollywood people supposedly come looking for undiscovered wonders (yeah, riiiight). Went nowhere.

During my tidying I also found, in a box of old JPFO merchandise and lore, a copy of RF labled (I will not use the person’s real name, for reasons which will shortly become apparent) “Joe’s script mark-up copy.”

And that reminded me of another movie script that I didn’t write. One that also went nowhere — and for which failure I thank my luckiest stars.

Here’s the story.*

A couple of years after RF was published and I wrote my script, Aaron hired another writer — the aforesaid Joe — who claimed to have Hollywood contacts, to write a different RebelFire script. Since I co-owned RF, they had to get my permission, which I happily gave.

Then I saw Joe’s script. And oh my feakin’ unholy gods of the underworld.

In some ways, it was a masterful adaptation. Joe made excellent choices about what to leave in, what to omit, and what to change. With one exception. Where suddenly, and repeatedly, I was dealing with a script written by a lunatic.

That exception was the female characters. The guys — fine. Jeremy, Rey, Fish, Erik — all real, multi-dimensional people. All very true to their book-selves.

But the women. I. Could. Not. Believe. To say that Joe had turned them into cardboard characters would have been giving way too much credit to cardboard. To say he objectified them would have been to make inert objects glorious by comparison.

In the book Jeremy’s mother is an unpleasant parent, but she’s in only a few opening chapters and her main purpose is to drive her beleaguered teenage son batty and help inspire him to escape.

In Joe’s script … she’s omnipresent and whenever we see her she’s (OMG) on her knees coldly offering sex acts in exchange for political favors. Whut??? (And in a young adult story, yet!)

Then Cedra. In the novel, she’s the slightly older, infinitely more street-smart, painfully neurotic, highly attitudinal street rat who helps Jeremy survive his encounter with the city but who treats him like a PITA she must endure against her will.

In Joe’s script? Would you believe we first glimpse her on horseback? On the beach? Where she artfully flips her long, lustrous, lovely hair over her gorgeous model-beautiful face while eying Jeremy with unbridled anticipation?

I am NOT FREAKIN’ KIDDING. I think she even lustfully licks her full, sensuously parted, glistening, cherry-red lips. Heck, she may even be riding the horse naked. Been a while. I don’t recall every detail. I just know that script-Cedra bore no resemblance not only to novel-Cedra, but to any actual human-woman-person outside of a commercial for feminine hygiene products.

Got worse from there, too. I won’t go into detail, but it was bad. Sometimes you’d think this was a story about Jeremy defying a murderous harpy (with a vagina dentata!) rather than the all-seeing state.

Yes, movies objectify women. This is no big surprise and after all these decades is a trope that appears here to stay.

But this was sick stuff. Woman as man-killing harlot. Woman as seductress and sexual plotter. The end. Nothing more. Females are not human beings. They don’t have actual personalities. They are just the sums (and artful users) of their lady parts. How Joe got any of that out of the source material he otherwise obviously respected, I cannot imagine.

Seriously warped view of half the human race.

I’ve never been a stay-up-all-night person. Even when I was young and wild and on heavy stimulant drugs, I’d crash sometime before dawn. But the evening I read Joe’s script, I stayed up all night — didn’t go to bed until the next evening — writing a long critique and pleading — pleading — with Aaron and Joe not to do anything so sick and stupid. I pleaded that these characters were not human and not appropriate. I pleaded that young women liked RF, too, and that they deserved a Cedra they could identify with or at least like and admire. I pleaded that this was suicidally wrong in every way.

I had to plead because I realized, too late, that though I had review rights to Joe’s script I failed to negotiate veto rights.

But in the end, Joe’s script died as thoroughly as mine did. And after getting over the horrors (OMG, what if this guy really does have Hollywood contacts?), I never thought about it again until I found that marked up copy of RF in that box.

Aaron and Joe are both gone from the scene. Joe’s script is probably still in the files of one of my defunct computers. But I don’t think I want to look it up again. The memory is bad enough without any reminder.

—–

* If you’ve never read RebelFire or read it so long ago that you don’t even remember who the characters are, sorry. You can still buy personally autographed copies of RF via The Zelman Partisans for $15 or get one free (along with other goodies) with a three-year membership.

10 Comments

  1. Bill St. Clair
    Bill St. Clair March 2, 2016 5:15 am

    RebelFire on Kindle? Sign me up. I don’t have an actual Kindle, but I read in the Kindle app on my iPhone whenever possible.

  2. MamaLiberty
    MamaLiberty March 2, 2016 6:21 am

    I love “RebelFire” so much that I’ve sent copies to all of my grandchildren. The very idea of “Joe’s” movie version is absolutely horrifying, and I’m glad it died.

  3. mark
    mark March 2, 2016 7:46 am

    Cardboard cutout women how …charming. Hollywood does prefer simple characters and sight-gags of various sorts. 2d people for a 2d medium and it’s easier to pander to the shallow end.

  4. jans
    jans March 2, 2016 3:01 pm

    Kindle-ize please. I mostly listen to books these days, but have no patience to sit with a paper copy on my lap anymore. Reading from a screen is much easier, and I can adjust the typeface, size and background.

  5. Thomas L. Knapp
    Thomas L. Knapp March 2, 2016 3:59 pm

    It would indeed be lovely to see RebelFire in active circulation again!

    The second script does sound like a horror story. For the screenplay YOU wrote, you should consider shopping it around. The ability to make films has broadened so much in the last decade that its chances might be better. Perhaps as an animated feature rather than live action?

  6. Pat
    Pat March 2, 2016 4:50 pm

    “Perhaps as an animated feature rather than live action?”

    That’s an excellent idea. The themes of personal responsibility, a free society, and anti-authoritarianism might be more acceptable in an animated film. It wasn’t easy getting “Atlas Shrugged” in theaters (not to mention they weren’t blockbusters), but “RebelFire,” geared to a younger audience as it is anyway, might bring on a surge of fandom, especially with more understanding of technology today. And that technology is sure to be easier implemented, and a heck of a lot cheaper, through animation.

  7. Ragnar
    Ragnar March 2, 2016 8:07 pm

    The world still needs a RebelFire movie. Probably now more than ever… there’s always something impressive about being ahead of your time.
    I’ve yet to pick up the graphic novel habit, but that would sure be fun.
    I’d think the blended feel of Neal Stephenson and Cory Doctorow* that I got from the book would be a great next step beyond the Hunger Games and Divergent.
    Side note: I’m kicking myself now for not wearing my RebelFire shirt to the Iron Maiden concert last Friday. It’s the closest thing to concert tee that I still own!

    *I hadn’t heard of Doctorow when I first read RF… but after reading “Little Brother” I guess it fit in my little mind’s eye. I had to search the vagina dentata term… seems like Stephenson’s heroine in Snow Crash had a less harsh version of that.

  8. MamaLiberty
    MamaLiberty March 3, 2016 5:12 am

    RebelFire Tshirts? Where? I missed that somehow. I’d love to get one for each of the youngest grandkids. The older girls wouldn’t care for them, but the boys probably would. Are they still available?

    If you make the movie, that would be a good marketing deal to reintroduce them. I can just see this completely wrecking your hermit thing, however. 🙂

  9. capn
    capn March 3, 2016 4:44 pm

    I do so wish that I could afford to to join TZP and receive the RebelFire book for my grand children (and their parents my children) as a premium but alas my finances do not allow me to do so.
    Please look for a note about ordering a copy solo at TZP?

    Stay safe,

  10. Eric Oppen
    Eric Oppen March 5, 2016 10:02 pm

    I haven’t read Rebelfire in a longish time, but I have a copy around here somewhere. I’ll have to go dig it up.

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