Screenwriters deserve more Credit

When I started my Writers tag for discussion of how often Writers don't get enough credit and/or blame and Directors get too much, I always intended for it to eventually talk about more then just Anime but Anime was already becoming the main focus of this blog.

The YouTube Channel CinemaSix has some good videos on the forgotten Co-Writer of Quentin Tarantino's early films, principally Pulp Fiction.  Tarantino of course is legitimately a director whos' also a writer being a credited writer even on films he didn't direct.  I feel however feel like most of the time the Director is only also given a writing credit because of the way he changed the script on set, meaning they didn't Write anything so much as ignore what was written.  Other times the basic idea of the film may come from the director but they still needed a professional writer to actually make a script they can start shooting.

I specified Screenwriter in the title of this post because obviously when a film is an adaptation it's not at all uncommon to suggest it's enjoyable in-spite of the director rather then because of them.  Or even when not hating on the director everyone knows Mario Puzo wrote much of what makes The Godfather so quotable.  

It's writers who write specifically for Film and TV that only get respect when they also direct.

In the very Director obsessed world of YouTube Video Essays some writers will only get mentioned when it's something the Essayist doesn't like.  JustWrite argues that David S Goyer explains what AppleTV's Foundation and Man Of Steel have in common, but no one will talk about how much credit Goyer deserves for Batman Begins, how he's the one who kept Nolan's Realism fixation in check and is also why Begins has more witty dialogue then it's sequels.  If you're one of those who likes Begins the most of the Nolan Trilogy you're probably actually a fan of Goyer but simply don't know it.

And that's not the first time a Batman movie's writer was screwed over.  Sam Hamm wrote the script for Tim Burton's Batman, and every deviation Burton made from the script was for the worse.  Burton is a good director, his style is a big part of why his Batman movies work, but they could have been even better if he hadn't over estimated his ability to Write.

And on the subject of Batman writers Alan Burnette was important to Batman The Animated Series success and had before that proven his skill at writing Batman by writing The Fear an episode of the 80s Superfriends cartoon.