Useless Characters, Lousy Writing

Bad writing in Hollywood....

Why would any film include a character who adds nothing to the plot, who could be booted from the story without loss, and worst of all, who sucks valuable time and focus away from the characters who should matter? It seems an obvious mistake, one to catch early in the writing of a script, and yet, three recent films have been crippled by this easily-avoidable miscalculation.

ROGUE ONE: What purpose did Forrest Whitaker play in this film? His entire digression did nothing but take up time that could have been spent on developing the other characters, in answering questions that would have strengthened the plot (such as why Riz Ahmed chose to defect in the first place -- he must have had a reason, but the film never bothers to show it).

THOR BARBARELLAROK: You watched this film to see Skurge, right? Skurge was the most important character, the one person who absolutely had to be in this pile of puke, right? Wrong? You had no idea who he was, or why he mattered? Neither did I. Yet there he is, wasting valuable screen time with Cate Blanchett. Why not toss him out of the script, and have Cate match wits with someone central to the story?

BLACK PANTHER: Why is Andy Serkis here? Why do people waste half the film to capture him, when he does nothing and adds nothing? His entire sub-plot could have been avoided by having Killmonger walk up to the border of Wakanda to show off a lip tattoo. All of the story time wasted on Serkis could have been used to develop Wakandan society, which desperately needed to make sense for the plot to make sense. No such luck.

Why does it happen? Are characters chosen by committee, and actors hired, before the scripts have been completed? This would be a wasteful and clumsy way to make a movie, but here we have three of them caught in the same bizarre trap -- a trap that could have been avoided by one press of a writer's DELETE key.