On the DVD for
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace there is an extended making-of feature titled "The Beginning" and in it George Lucas talked about his screenwriting process. At the tender age of twelve, when I first caught a glimpse of the film business via this featurette, I was not only enraptured in all that this world contained, but I was also struck by something the writer/director said concerning his action scenes. Lucas commented that rather than having a detailed description of the lightsaber battle he desired to create on screen it would simply say, “they fight,” on the page. This always struck me as odd considering the amount of planning that would seemingly have to go into such an involved sequence. It was too easy. I could understood Lucas’ idea of leaving the choreography and blocking to professionals who could better bring to life the style and aura of the battle he imagined, but to not even give an indication of what might have been in his brain always seemed a strange decision even if there would be countless meetings about it before the start of production. Even if it proved to be nothing more than a place to preserve those original ideas and remind himself, if no one else, of what inspired the sequence in the first place it would at least be that. This isn’t to say such an approach doesn’t work as I still believe that final lightsaber battle in
The Phantom Menace to be the best the series has ever produced, but I bring this up to say that I’m pretty sure writer and director Edgar Wright didn’t simply insert, “they drive,” when he was penning the screenplay for his latest,
Baby Driver. Rather, it would seem Wright, who is known for his ferocious energy and encouragement of innovative editing techniques, put on the paper every detail of what he wanted to happen in his action sequences as not only do they present a personality trait of the titular Baby as played by Ansel Elgort (
The Fault in Our Stars), but they too are choreographed both in direction and motion. Motion meaning they not only hit the beats of an action sequence, but the beats of the soundtrack Wright has written the film to and integrated so intricately it would be impossible not to describe how exactly they went down if he wanted anyone else outside himself to understand his vision. This is all to say that
Baby Driver is yet another unique and wholly original creative endeavor from a filmmaker who not only continues to push himself to come up with different ways to bring our similarly diverse world to the screen, but who captures an essence of cool in his work that we all aspire to have. Wright crafts the ideal out of situations that are not and
Baby Driver is no exception to the standard he holds himself, and movies in general, to.
