It didn't expand the scope of the series it all. If anything it took a step backward by revisiting Maureen Prescott's murder and adding a ridiculous contrived unneeded element to it.
Not only that, but the movie has Sidney OUT of action for half the movie, as she sits up in her house in the hills, while Gale and Dewey run around like headless chickens in Hollywood with Parker Posey.
It doesn't need to be set in Hollywood to have stereotypes or cameos.
The whole movie felt like an episode from Scooby Doo. You could real feel the severe lack of Kev Williamson's classy touch on the movie.
All the main killers had a connection to the Prescotts. The difference here being Roman's connection was entirely new, ridiculous, contrived, and unbelievable.
Second, not ONE single murder in the whole movie affects Sid personally. Or Gale or Dewey. Everyone who dies means nothing to them personally. If the main characters didn't give a damn about any of these characters, why should the audience?
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. 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?
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). 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? 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).
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. 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. 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).
We saw the ramifications of Maureen's actions in Scream 1, when we found out she was murdered because she was screwing Billy's father, which effectively drove Mrs Loomis out of town and abandon her son, which sent him off the rails.
It doesn't get more real than that. Sidney even says to her father at the start of Scream 3 "None of this would ever have happened if she hadn't....if she hadn't...".
What Scream 3 did was go and ruin that by saying Billy had his strings pulled by being shown Roman's home made movie, and then spoon fed all the details about to kill her, frame Cotton for it, and have a partner to sell out.
That just de-values Billy as a villain.
Plus Maureen Prescott worked much better as an amoral woman who simply slept around because she wanted to. Adding the whole Hollywood B-actress, who was gang banged at a Hollywood party angle was so hilariously stupid. The original concept was elegant and effective in it's simplicity.
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.
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)!
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.
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."
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."/QUOTE]
Damn it.
