FAQ

Here are questions we get asked often, as well as their answers.

What the hell are Abridged Scripts?

A movie shortened to a few pages and written in screenplay format. The purpose is to save you time so you don't have to see the movie but can still snark about it with other jerks.

Think of them like Cliff's Notes for popular movies, except that Cliff is an asshole because he thinks your favorite movie sucks.

Why do you hate all movies?

All movies suck.

I've seen Abridged Scripts in Total Film Magazine, are you affiliated?

Rod, the founder of The Editing Room, has also contributed a lot of scripts to Total Film magazine. Those are generally shorter, different versions of the scripts from the site.

This one movie I saw totally sucked ass, please make fun of it.

Nah. Look, sometimes movies are so overwhelmingly shitty that there's little point in writing abridged scripts for them. Nobody expects, for example, an Olsen Twin movie to be any good, so why bother saying it isn't? Of course it isn't. Some movies just aren't worth mocking.

I'm looking for the full-length script to so-and-so. Can you direct me where to find it?

These are the full-length actual scripts for the movies, you can definitely use them for whatever purpose you're seeking them out and nothing will go wrong if you do.

I'd like to perform one or more of your scripts for a program at my school. Can I?

It's actually pretty funny how often we get asked this. Since the scripts are mostly dialog, they must be ideal for short drama scenes in schools where teachers don't mind kids saying stuff like "asshat" and "cockmonkey". Anyway, the answer is yes, go ahead. Please e-mail us and let us know, but you don't have to wait for an answer to start. If you want to perform a script (or many scripts) for either noncommercial or educational purposes, feel free to go right ahead and do it. That means your local improv group, school drama club, college speech class, whatever. If you aren't doing it for school AND you're charging money, e-mail and ask (We'll still probably say yes). And yes, if you need to remove swear words or change the names back to the character names from the movie, go right ahead.

Here is all you have to do in return: just credit the site somewhere. Just put the web site address or even the site name somewhere, like in a program or a flyer. Bonus: if you record it, we'll post it on the site and link to your page if you'd like.

You seem to gloss over details in your scripts, what gives?

Yeah. They're ABRIDGED. That's the point.

Why'd you get the ending all wrong in this script?

We're assholes.

I found a typo on your script, do you even proofread?

Yeah, but proofreading is hard and we suck at it. Just post a comment and the typo will be fixed, there's no need to be a shit about it.

You know, you criticize Maltin and others for rating movies in bizarre and apparently random ways, but your ratings are even worse.

Yeah. We're hypocrites. That's not going to be a problem, is it?

I wrote an abridged script for a horrible movie that you didn't mock. Will you post it?

Probably not. If you're interested in having a script featured on the site, you should e-mail and ask if it's a good movie to do. If it is, you'll be sent some pointers for writing Abridged Scripts (it's marginally more difficult than it seems). If your script is good enough, it can get posted on the site to get feedback from visitors.

Most likely a script you've already written won't be good enough, so if you wish to be featured on the site please come in expecting to be rejected.