I'm not digging up links but from the onset we've all known from the day this movie was announced that Emma Roberts and her ''teenage" cast were to be the real driving force behind this and that Sid, Dewey, and Gale were along for their ride. It was said from day one that PORTION of the cast would be the one continuing the franchise in 5 and 6 after this film.
And how does that equate to it NOT being a continuation of the story from Scream 1-3, especially with Sid, Gale, and Dewey being included?
You're making a HUGE unfounded presumption.
Again, I'll say that the ending of Scream 3 works well within the context of the series. Calling it contrived doesn't seem fair. In Scream 2, we had Billy's mother and her apprentice Mickey, the psycho film student. "Your mother stole my husband and you killed my son, who happened to be a mass-murdering psycho himself!" So yeah, not such a clever connection to the Prescotts, but it still worked well within the quasi-realistic setting of the movie.
Of course it was a clever connection to the Prescotts. This was a woman who was hurt by BOTH Prescott women.
Mrs Loomis: "You know what makes me SICK? I am sick to death of people saying that it's all the parents' fault. That it all starts with the family. If you want to blame someone why don't you blame your MOTHER!!! She's the one who stole my husband and broke up my family. And then you took my SON!!!!"
Mrs Loomis got screwed over twice by the Prescotts. Maureen stole her husband, and Sid killed her son. She had FAR more reason to want revenge than ANY killer in the whole trilogy.
Billy had no real reason to want to kill Sid. What did she ever do to him? Or Roman? She played no part in what her mother did. She didn't even know about it.
It's one of many reasons why I think Mrs Loomis was the best and most clever killer in the franchise.
You say it's impossible to predict that Roman was the killer, but could anyone really have guessed that reporter Debbie Salt was actually Billy's mom?
When you look at back at the movie, yes, you can see the subtle hints peppered in the movie. To start off with, the clip they show from Stab with Tori Spelling and Luke Wilson, was the scene from Scream where Billy first mentions that he had to accept that his Mom left him and his Dad.
Then you have Randy and Dewey discussing possible suspects. Randy mentions Hallie as a possibility, and Dewey points out that serial killers are typically white males. Randy then points out that it's perfect, because it sort of against the rules but not really, citing Mrs Voorhees as being a terrific serial killer.
Finally you have Debbie Salt, who tries to implicate Dewey as being a suspect, and Gale shouts her down. Debbie then says "Well it appears to me that if the killer is repeating what happened in Woodsboro, then it's possible the killer is from Woodsboro".
The subtle clues were there. With Roman, there was nothing to hint about a half brother plot device.
Also, there's somewhat of a reason that Sidney isn't connected with most of the deaths in Scream 3. Roman had been searching for Sidney because at that point, she had isolated herself from the world. He started killing people and leaving pictures at the crime scenes to draw her out. Sidney only wound up coming out of hiding because she personally felt responsible for the deaths of these completely innocent, random people that started with Cotton (all people that Roman had easy access to).
No, she didn't. Sidney came out of hiding because the killer called her on that womens helpline number she was working for, and talked to her in her mother's voice (that voice changer thing was so naff).
When she came out of hiding to the Police Station, Dewey says to her "What are you doing here? You should have stayed in hiding". And Sid says "The killer called me. He found me. I'm no more safe there than I am here. But at least here I'm not alone".
It had nothing to do with her feeling responsible for the murders. So yeah, they were all pointless killings that had no emotional impact on anyone.
I mean, by Scream 3, pretty much all of Sidney's had been murdered, so who is there to care about besides Gale and Dewey?
Her father, whom we actually saw in the movie. He would have been a far more effective kill than all of the stupid annoying Stab actor killings put together.
Another quick thought: Did you really care about Sarah Michelle Gellar's character Cece before she was thrown off the balcony in Scream 2? And were you crushed when Henry Winkler was offed in Scream 1? It's a slasher movie, and one that is essentiallty a send-up of all slaher movies; the character that don't live are pretty much always expendable or annoying, with a few exceptions along the way (Randy).
No, of course not. Not all the kills were personal. The point is in Scream 1 and 2, some of them were for Sid, or Dewey, or Gale, or all three of them.
As for not having Kevin Williamson's "classy touch", Kruger created a script based on an outline by Williamson. I'm sure that nearly all of the ideas Willaimson had for Scream 3 were translated to the screenplay and put on film.
Nope, they were not. Williamson's original script had the movie set in Woodsboro again. Kruger is the one who changed it to the Hollywood setting.
Plus, Wes Craven was still at the helm. It's not like the movie was a complete mess and in the wrong hands. There was rhyme and reason to nearly everything about the movie.
No, there wasn't. All the murders were of nobodies who nobody cared about. The kills were also bland, or OTT, like that stupid house explosion.
My only complaint is that there was a higher level of campiness to Scream 3, but that had much to do with the setting of the film, and the fact that it wasn't just a send-up of horror movies, but Hollywood as well. I like that they showed how the Stab series had grown into a franchise (just like the Scream series) and that the murders took place around the filming of Stab 3 (no coincidence that this was Scream 3).
I prefer the Scream movies to have an edge, not become a parody of themselves. If Hollywood cheese floats your boat, then it's no wonder some people in here are accusing the Scream movies of being comedies and not thrillers or horrors, because if you watch Scream 3, you could certainly be excused for thinking that.
This is where we got more down to personal opinion. You see things one way, I see them another. I don't think it devalued Billy as a villain. If anything, it was Roman who gave Billy the incentive and motive to do what he did. Billy seemed like he was a sick **** that watched tons of horror movies from the start (even Randy could tell how creepy he was), regardless of Roman's manipulation.
Of course he was creepy. He was a serial killer AFTER he'd been manipulated by Roman. Billy was given the motive, and plan to do what he did by Roman.
In what way doesn't that devalue Billy who originally was a guy who learned about his father's affair with Maureen himself and masterminded all of this? Seriously.
The fact is that Roman's involvement and the secrets from Maureen Prescott's past added a new layer to the series. I don't Scream 3 should be put down because it took what we already knew and was still able to bring something new to the table and add something to the series. I'd take that over a Scream 3 with Sidney out of college as a working woman and uh oh! More random murders by a random dude(s)!
None of the main killers have been random dudes, and I don't know what makes you think that's the way they would have gone.
It was essentially the Sandman/Uncle Ben in Spider-Man 3 scenario where they go back and change details about a murder.
And I also don't have much of a problem with the Maureen Prescott thing. The big thing you need to know about Maureen is that she made BAD DECISIONS, and the events of the Scream series stem from those. That's what Scream was all about, it played a role in Scream 2 with Billy's mother, and they went even further with it in Scream 3. It's not like they jumped the shark and brought it out of nowhere.
They changed the perception of Maureen Prescott. Originally she was a woman who was painted as amoral. She liked to sleep around on her husband. She had Cotton and Billy's father on the go. She broke up the Loomis family because of it.
Scream 3 essentially just painted her as some Hollywood actress who was gang banged at a Hollywood party, and this transformed her into a ****.
She worked much better as being an amoral woman who liked to sleep around. Sidney had to live with the fact that her mother wasn't the nice lady she thought she was. That was much more powerful.
She slept with Billy's father because she wanted to, not because she got gangbanged in Hollywood. She made bad decisions in Hollywood and did things to get ahead, which ended up with her getting ****ed all over town and giving birth to a kid, who she abandoned when she tried to start a new life. She starts a new life and, whoopdy do, she goes and ****'s Billy's dad (along with God knows who else). Roman had his own reasons for vengeance, and he exploited Billy's reason for veangeance. Roman fed Billy enough information to get him going, and things took on a life of it's own. Roman started something that turned into something more than he could have ever imagined, and in the end, he came back to finish the job and do things his way. Before he dies, Roman says, "I still got to make my movie."
Dude, you should pay attention the movie you're trying to defend here.
Roman: "What they did to her made her a ****. She never recovered from that night right here in this very room. They f**ked her three ways from Sunday. Ruined her life"
They spell it out in fifty foot high letters for you.
I still stand by what Randy says in the movie, and I really appreciate Scream 3 for what it was and what it tried to do.
"That's right, it's a rarity in the horror field but it does exist, and it is a force to be reckoned with. Because true trilogies are all about going back to the beginning and discovering something that wasn't true from the get go. Godfather, Jedi, all revealed something that we thought was true that wasn't true. So if it is a trilogy you are dealing with, here are some super trilogy rules: 1. You got a killer who's going to be super human. Stabbing him won't work. Shooting him won't work. Basically in the third one you gotta cryogenically freeze his head, decapitate him, or blow him up. 2. Anyone including the main character can die. This means you Syd. I'm sorry. It's the final chapter. It could be ****ing 'Reservoir Dogs' by the time this thing is through. Number 3. The past will come back to bite you in the ass. Whatever you think you know about the past, forget it. The past is not at rest. Any sins you think were committed in the past are about to break out and destroy you. So in closing, let me say good luck, god speed, and for some of you, I'll see you soon. 'Cause the rules say some of you ain't gonna make it. I didn't, not if you're watching this tape."
Nobody's denying they followed the trilogy rules. They just made a horrible third movie.
t:
