Wednesday, March 16, 2022

Roller Blade Seven: The Never-Ending Story - Scott Shaw - Zen Filmmaking

 

By Scott Shaw

As I say way too often, “It doesn’t seem like a week ever goes by when I am not asked some question about The Roller Blade Seven, am insulted as per it’s creation, or someone gives me some nonsense about something involving RB7.” I certainly never expected that when Don Jackson and I were creating the movie. And, to be truthful, I really don’t want it now. Why it has held whatever place it has in the Cult Film Hierarchy, is beyond me. When I started out on the film, I thought we were going to make an action-adventure flick. Wrong! I would have far preferred that it would have just been forgotten and maybe when I’m ninety years old someone found it on some old video tape as they were tracking through the elements of history and then came and interviewed me, asking, "WTF?"

Roller Blade Seven was distributed across the globe. It has been set in many languages. And, as I have written in numerous places, I never got any of that money. And it made a lot of money. I’m not going to go into the whole Hollywood world of rip offs here, and who did what and why, but I will state an interesting point, (and I have also mentioned this fact in some of the pieces I have written about my interaction with the creation of this film in the past), I never signed any release(s) for the rights to any of my creative contributions. In fact, nor did the publishers of my books because they would have had to release their rights, as well. Thus, no one and no company who ever distributed the film had the right to do so; at least not in using my image, my music, the words from my books that make up much of the dialogue of the film, and all the other etc. I did. Thus, they all were guilty of copyright infringement. The fact is, I was promised to be paid, I never was. Moreover, it was sold to so many countries and changed hands through various distributors, who could I sue? Plus, all that’s very expensive and, as I’ve talked about in the past, when we finished the film, I had worked for free, and with getting none of the back-end money I was promised, I was dead broke.

Now, this all may sound like a, "Woe is me," piece, but it is not. It’s just putting some facts out there. It’s just stating some facts about the Hollywood Game. I mean, here I am, thirty years later—thirty years after the creation of that film, and some people still use it as a definition of me. But, is it? Was it ever? No. Plus, DGJ passed-away long ago, so I am the only one they seek out.

And, the fact is, I have made so many other films that were better representations of my creative vision, but few people speak to me about those. They want to talk about a bad movie and its sequel and somehow use those features as the definition of my life.

I am under no illusion about what The Roller Blade Seven and Return of the Roller Blade Seven actually are. You’re not going to get an argument from me about how bad they are. The only difference is, I was there. I was one of the two creative forces that produced those pieces of Zen Cinema. So, for me, it’s all an inside joke as I was there all the way through; from begin, to end, to today.

I believe this is something you really need to think about as you cast your definitions onto other people. The fact of the fact is, if you weren’t there, you cannot know the inside truth. You don’t know the true truth about the person. You don’t know the true truth about the how and the why and the what happened because of the what happened. So, who are you to think anything about anybody? Don’t you think it’s just better to focus on your own development and not to lose yourself in apprising the life and becoming obsessed about what someone else has created? Because, the fact of the fact is, you can never truly understand someone else’s reason why.

For those of you who want to check out this bizarre piece of Zen Filmmaking history, you can view it on YouTube: Legend of the Roller Blade Seven.

 

The Roller Blade Seven @ Scott Shaw.com

Scott Shaw Zen Filmmaking

 

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