Let me start by saying that when I asked you to read this screenplay, I wasn’t looking for you to pick it apart. I was looking for you to recognize it for what it is: a bold, dark, and emotionally compelling narrative.
Friends should always have each other’s backs. Sometimes that means helping your buddy move into a new apartment. Other times it means not saying, “If the only two things playing at the movie theater were ‘Detective Tarantula: Web of Conspiracy,’ or a video of my doctor addressing the camera and saying that my gross naked body disgusted him so much that he left his medical practice altogether, looped continuously for two hours and screened before an audience of all my friends and family, I’d rather watch the latter.” This was oddly specific and served to do nothing other than hurt my feelings.
Also, that doctor movie you described doesn’t have adventure, romance, or comedy, all of which “Detective Tarantula” has in spades.
Ummmmm dude, it’s called a twist. Don’t be mad that you didn’t see it coming.
I want to first address your criticism of the titular character’s name, which you called, “Fucking stupid.” Actually, this is wrong. It is not “fucking stupid,” but rather, really cool.
Further, your dismissal of the subtitle is yet another example of how big a dunce you are. The subtitle is not extraneous; it is there to SET UP future films in the Tarantulverse (the shared cinematic universe of Detective Tarantula and the other mysterious characters that populate his world, like Dr. Punchandkick, Professor Loveletters, and Admiral Tim).
Anyway, the Detective Tarantula name makes perfect sense when you consider the 22-page flashback opening, in which a 10-year-old Jack Matthews solves the case of his class pet, a TARANTULA, going missing. As you’ll recall, it was the janitor who kidnapped the creature because his wife needed it to make a witchcraft spell that would create a soap powerful enough to keep the floors of the school clean forever.
And witchcraft? That’s not just scary, it’s badass.
So after 10-year-old Jack impales the janitor with his own broom and rescues the tarantula, he declares, “I want to become a detective and I will call myself ‘Detective Tarantula,’ in honor of this, my first case that I solved (which involved a tarantula).” Then, obviously, we flash forward 35 years to see that little Jack Matthews has become Detective Tarantula at large. The fact that you still think this is a dumb name leads me to believe you didn’t understand the script, thus making all future criticisms suspect.
Regardless, I want to discuss your next complaint; you thought the twist ending, in which the woman who Detective Tarantula has taken as his lover turns out to be a bunch of tarantulas in a trench coat, “didn’t make sense.” Ummmmm dude, it’s called a twist. Don’t be mad that you didn’t see it coming.
And it actually makes sense because I established witchcraft is in this universe, so maybe it was a witch that made hundreds of tarantulas stacked on top of each other appear as a lady with whom the protagonist falls in love. Ever think of that? It’s also a metaphor for how nobody can be trusted in the hard-boiled world in which Detective Tarantula lives. Sorry you just want to watch dumb movies like transforming robots punching each other rather than cinema that makes you THINK.
I have watched a lot of movies. This month alone, I’ve seen four. So, I know what makes a good film. And that’s one of the reasons why I know the conspiracy at the heart of this script is gripping and intense, and not, as you put it, “dog shit.”
After a man pays Detective Tarantula to investigate who is dropping garbage on his lawn, Detective Tarantula gets tangled up in a plot far bigger than he could have ever imagined. The sanitation department, the ones responsible for picking up the trash and cleaning, is actually throwing trash everywhere in an attempt to pollute the Earth and speed up the global warming process.
“Why do they want to speed up the global warming process?” Because they’re trying to destroy the world, obviously. They’re the bad guys. It also gives the story a cool environmentalist message, perhaps best exemplified in the “Takin’ Out the Trash (Metaphorically and Literally)” dance number that occurs on page 184 to 193.
Anyway, now that I’ve explained to you why your criticisms are wrong, I would appreciate it if you went ahead and passed the script along to your agent. It would really help me out and I think we all know Hollywood needs some new ideas. (Who do you see playing Detective Tarantula? I know he’s not really known for acting, but I was thinking Bruce Springsteen.)
Thanks.