Why Movies Need Editors

I recently watched This Means War. First let me say I’m falling a little in love with Christopher Pine. My crush started in the new Star Trek and is consistently growing. Soon he might make boyfriend potential.


And I thought this movie was good. But as it ended I thought, it could have been great as a romantic comedy. But this movie needed my editor Wanda.

It spent too much time on the “action” and not quite enough time on the character development. Essentially it’s a romantic comedy/action film with a love triangle (a real triangle in this case and not V as the two men were in fact friends). As the movie progressed though it became way more romance than action film.

And I truly wondered what was going to happen. Who would she chose and how would the two love interests’ friendship survive. And as the movie went along it became obvious to me who the choice was going to be – I won’t spoil it for you. But when I got to the end and learned I was right – I saw all the little things they could have done to have made her decision more clear.

The whole time in my head I could hear Wanda saying… you need more here. You need to develop this earlier. We need to see more of her reaction/his reaction earlier on.

Let’s face it – sometimes when we write a story we know way more about what happens in it when we get to the end. It’s our job and our editor’s job to then fix the first part so that it leads us to that conclusion successfully.

I feel like this movie figured out in the last act who the “winner” was. But what they needed to do was go back and give us all those little delicious clues as to why she made the choice that she did.

They were there…. They needed more... just like Wanda is always telling me.