Today’s script won 25,000 dollars. But will it win the hearts of the Scriptshadow readers??

Amateur Friday Submission Process: To submit your script for an Amateur Review, send in a PDF of your script, a PDF of the first ten pages of your script, your title, genre, logline, and finally, why I should read your script. Use my submission address please: Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Your script and “first ten” will be posted. If you’re nervous about the effects of a bad review, feel free to use an alias name and/or title. It’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so your submission stays near the top.

Genre: Faith/Drama
Premise: (from writer) In the Mid-Twentieth Century a mysterious boy with Christ-like healing powers must bring together a racially charged town before the vindictive Mayor’s son murders him.
About: This is the script that generated the most discussion from last weekend’s Amateur Offerings. It recently won the $25,000.00 GRAND PRIZE at KairosPrize Screenplay Competition sponsored by www.movieguide.org.
Writer: R. W. Hahn
Details: 117 pages

I wasn’t too excited about the way the Amateur Offerings Weekend went two weeks ago, particularly in response to this script. I find that whenever a script wins a contest, it also hops inside a piñata. A piñata at a party attended by every screenwriter in the world. And they’re not leaving until they bash that thing to pieces. Why this is, I don’t know. I think there’s some frustration there that THEIR script didn’t win a contest. And that taking this other script down will somehow alleviate that pain.

But then I found out this was a Christian-themed script (“Faith based” I think you’d call it?) and that it won a Christian-themed contest. I don’t think you could put a bigger target on your back. Contest winner AND faith-based?? People have such strong opinions about religion. Get two opinionated people with conflicting beliefs in the same room and it isn’t going to end well.

And I understand the reaction. You read something you don’t believe in AT ALL and it gets you riled up. You want to scream, “Do you really believe in this???” And the same can be said of the person/people writing the script. “How could you NOT believe in this?” So to bring that kind of script into the mainstream is one hell of a risky move. I give R.W. major props for taking that chance.

Truthfully, though, I don’t care about any of that stuff. All I care about when I sit down and read a script is being entertained. I don’t care if you write a screenplay about bathtubs. If it’s a damn good bathtub story, I’ll be happy. So with that established, it’s time to see if Gideon is any good.

60-something African-American preacher Leon Swanson’s just run out of gas in a small town. He pulls up to a tiny gas station, but is frustrated to find that it’s closed. However, a sign has been left, “Open After Service.” So Preacher Leon, who you’d think would be understanding of this type of delay, trudges over to the local church to look for the gas station attendant. However, when he walks inside, he’s greeted by a church member who tells him they’ve been waiting for him! Their previous Preacher died, and God told them a new one was coming. Leon appears to be that someone.

Even though Leon isn’t interested in leading someone else’s congregation, he gets the feeling that they’re not letting him go anywhere until he gives them something. So he goes up to the pulpit and tells a story.

Cut back to the year 1939, where we meet 35 year-old Jenny. Jenny’s a maid at the local town motel and seems to live a pretty sad life. Even though she resides in the biggest house in town, everybody hates her. We don’t know why, but when Jenny walks into a store, everyone turns the other way.

Lucky for Jenny, as she’s cleaning out a room one day, she finds a baby! Naturally, she snatches that little ball of drool up and takes it home, not telling anyone about it. The baby, whom she names Gideon, starts to grow up, and it’s clear right away that he’s different. As in when he touches animals that die, they come back to life. THAT kind of different.

Back in town, we meet a group of young friends. There’s Young Leon (the old man telling the story), overweight Leftover, stump-legged Petey, bucktoothed Weasel, and skinny Skeeter. This group of misfits also includes the town bully, Josey, Petey’s older brother. Why you’d allow the town bully to be a part of your group, I don’t know. But that’s the case here.

Getting back to Jenny, we eventually learn why she was shunned. Her grandfather built the first colored church in town, and the white folks didn’t like that. So of course when he died, they shifted their anger over to Jenny.

But things have started to get better for Jenny. When her boss dies, Gideon puts his hand on him and he rises from the dead! Now it isn’t just animals Gideon’s healing, it’s people! And more and more people get wind of this and want in. Pretty soon, if you have a hangnail, you’re marching up the mountain to get a little Gideon love.

As you’d suspect, Josey isn’t keen on someone other than him being a local celebrity. So as the town gathers for some mass miracle-making, Josey prepares to end this Miracle Party once and for all. What happens next will test the faith of the town, not only in God, but in themselves.

Before I get into any deep analysis, I want to point out a couple of things. First, I can see why this did well in a competition. The writing is borderline impeccable. R.W. should consider writing novels. The dialogue also felt really authentic, which isn’t easy to do when writing 1939.

With that said, this story didn’t capture me, and I’ll try to explain why. I always tell you guys that the best engine to drive your story is a goal – a character going after something. The second best engine is a mystery. Set up a good mystery and we’ll stick around to find out what’s behind it. If you’re not using one of those two things to drive your story, it gets exponentially harder to keep a reader’s attention.

The only mystery really keeping my attention here was why everyone hated Jenny. That mystery deepened when we found out she lived in a mansion. However, once we know it’s because her grandfather built a “colored” church, there really wasn’t anything left driving the story for me. I didn’t understand why I was supposed to stay interested.

Gideon is a mystery in himself, but there are a couple of things wrong with him. One, we don’t learn anything about Gideon the person. We know Petey lives every day under the threat of his evil brother. We know Josey’s jealous and full of rage. But what do we know about Gideon? Nothing.

And he’s potentially the most interesting character in the script. He has a special power. He can heal people. He can create miracles. Imagine what kind of burden that is on a young child. How much pressure comes with it. But we never see any of that. We just see Gideon when he’s healing and happy.

Another thing that bothered me about Gideon was how repetitive his storyline got. He would heal someone. They’d be happy. Then someone else would come along. He’d heal them. They’d be happy. Then someone else. Heal, happy. Then someone else. Heal, happy. I began to roll my eyes because I always knew what would happen next: Gideon’s going to heal someone and they’re going to be happy.

How come nothing unexpected ever happened with Gideon? How come someone didn’t come along that he couldn’t heal? Or why not have an evil character kidnap Gideon and use him and his powers for his own nefarious purposes?

What this script needed was a good mid-point shift. It needed something to make the second half of the story different from the first. Cause that was a huge problem. Once Gideon starts growing up, nothing surprising happens. I’m not saying that my kidnapping idea is a great one, but do you see how, if it happened, it would make the second half of the story totally different? We wouldn’t just be repeating what’s already happened over and over again.

There were some story/structural choices that confused me as well. This movie starts off about Leon, then becomes about Jenny, and then, out of nowhere, jumps into this group of kids. I didn’t understand how we got to these kids or why we were all of a sudden following them. I eventually got used to it, but I never felt like they were a natural extension of the story. I thought this was Jenny and Gideon’s story.

That’s not to mention Young Leon. He’s our preacher. He’s the one telling the story. Yet of all the kids we follow, he’s the least significant. Shouldn’t he be the most significant? As the person telling the story, shouldn’t Young Leon be the main character? There’s even a moment towards the end (spoiler) after Gideon is killed when Leon says something about him being his best friend. His best friend?? I never saw the two talk to each other once.

Yet I thought that would’ve been a much more interesting story. You have Jenny on one side, who’s been shunned from the town because her father built a black church. After years of turmoil, she’s finally starting to make headway with the town. They’re starting to accept her again. Then her white son, Gideon, becomes best friends with Leon, a black kid, and the scrutinizing begins all over again. Jenny has to make a choice. Does she pull her son away from that friendship to make her life easier, even though she knows it’s the wrong thing to do, or does she allow them to continue their friendship, even though it’ll make her life miserable again?

However, this leads to another problem I had, which is I didn’t think the race storyline was well integrated into the story at all. It was a problem for Jenny’s grandfather, but outside of one scene where Young Leon gets picked on for being black, race isn’t really a central part of these characters’ problems. To be honest, the race stuff feels like one of those things that’s been painted on or left over from an old draft. It doesn’t feel INTEGRATED. If this is going to be about race, then MAKE THE STORY ABOUT RACE ALL THE WAY THROUGH. Not just at the beginning and the end.

For me, this story became too predictable and too straight-forward. It didn’t surprise. It needed more twists and turns. It needed to take more chances and go to more unexpected places. As it stands, the quality of writing is really high, but the story itself needs an engine. I thank R.W. for submitting it and going through the always torturous experience of getting critiqued in front of the world. As tough as it is, there hasn’t been a single Amateur Friday writer who hasn’t gotten better from it. So I know he will too. ☺

Script link: Gideon

[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: These days, there’s usually a specific contest out there for your kind of script. While Gideon might have struggled in a traditional contest, it was perfect for a Christian-themed one. Heck, China just opened a screenwriting contest for scripts that center around its cities. So find the competition that fits your kind of script and you’ll have a much better chance of winning that top prize.

Genre: Police Drama/Thriller
Synopsis: (from the trades) When a disgraced young cop is assigned a routine civilian ride along, he quickly learns that his passenger is not what he seems and that he has just entered into a brutal battle with a killer who will stop at nothing to achieve his goal.
About: This script is developing a lot of heat and is out to buyers. David Greathouse Productions (David Greathouse & Geoff Alexander) attached to produce.
Writer: Chris Billet

Training Day was one of those movies that just came out of nowhere and knocked you in the face. Right from the get-go it established a tone and an atmosphere that was unlike any cop movie I had ever seen. I think what resonated with me the most was Denzel’s character. He reminded me of one of those guys we all cross paths with at some point in our lives. The ones that’ll smile at you one second and punch you in the face the next. That’s what makes the character so terrifying. Is you don’t know when they’re going to stop laughing and start punching.

So Gideon’s Law had a tall order. Cause any time you base your movie around two people in a cop car, I’m going to compare you to Training Day. That said, Gideon’s Law is structurally quite different from that film. Where as that movie didn’t reveal its cards until late in the second act, Gideon lets you know 30 minutes in who your bad guy is.

The script is about a young cop named Shane Gideon who’s forced to do a “ride-along” with a local author, RICHARD, who’s doing research for his next book. But when Richard deftly saves Gideon’s life, we begin to suspect there’s something more going on with him. As it turns out, there is. Richard is actually holding Gideon’s girlfriend hostage at another location. He doesn’t get her back until he’s helped him retrieve a piece of evidence that could possibly incriminate him. What follows for the next 90 minutes is the ride-along from hell.

The script is frantic and a bit out of control at times, but fun. Unfortunately it violates a key Scriptshadow Law that I’ve pointed out before. If the point of your movie is to have your main character try and rescue someone, make sure we the audience know and love the person they’re trying to rescue. Cause if we don’t know or care about that person, then we have no interest in the outcome of the story. But Gideon’s Law is no Rockaway. Billet is a good writer and at least makes the choice for a reason. Instead of introducing us to Gideon’s wife in the beginning, he uses her identity as a twist later on when we realize that a random female character who was kidnapped was actually Gideon’s wife. I understand that choice but would have rather known her better.

My other problem with the script is that it needed more twists in Richard’s storyline. This script was prime real estate for twist fever yet Richard’s whole story and motivation were pretty straight forward. In future drafts, I would like to see that change.

I think Gideon’s Law is a concept with a lot of potential and if it addresses these issues it could be great. It’s not quite ready for primetime though. But you know who is ready for primetime? Our first ever Guest mini-reviewer! Biohazard’s taken a bite out of Gideon and he’s here to spit it out…

I enjoyed it. It’s not a perfect script by any means, but it’s quick, reads well, and most importantly, has a pretty good hook. It’s Collateral, but with a police ride-along instead of a taxi. Yeah, it has its faults. Some minor (I wanted to get to know the girl a bit so I’d have a reason to fear for her safety), others major (the third act is a mess). The important thing to realize is that all these problems can be fixed since there is a good concept at it’s core that bears the possibility of a strong, cinematic story. It’ll take some rewriting, but I can see this flawed script becoming a good film.

So Bio and I agree I think. With a little more creativity behind Richard’s storyline, the messy third act can be solved. I wish these guys the best. They have a great concept here.

[ ] trash
[ ] barely readable
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Really simple. Don’t forget to add enough twists to your story. But not only that. Make sure they’re original. If they feel like something you’ve seen in other movies before, think deeper.

Genre: Comedy
Premise: An action comedy wherein Benji Stone, a lovable but deeply unpopular sixteen year old, is pulled into an international assassination plot by his uncle, a retired undercover assassin charged with babysitting Benji for the weekend.
About: This script finished with 8 votes on this past Black List. The writer, Gabe Delahaye, has written a little bit for TV. Despite having a few feature scripts in development, he doesn’t have a feature credit yet.
Writer: Gabe Delahaye
Details: 115 pages

Ewan McGregor for Uncle Wick?

Err, remember when I said go write a John Wick comedy? I guess I wasn’t paying attention. Somebody already did that. And here it is!

Benji Stone is just a 16 year old Northern suburbs of Chicago dork who likes robotics. The guy’s sole objective is to get into MIT. Well, that’s his sole objective initially. Objectives are about to radically change for Benji in about 24 hours. But, meanwhile, he and his best friend, the super popular Lakshmi, need to decide if they’re going to a party tonight.

That decision is made for Benji, though, since his mom is going out of town and his uncle, Gideon, will be staying for the week, babysitting him. It turns out Gideon is kind of a nightmare. His questionable fashion choices (he wears a baby blue “Frozen” hat) are usurped only by his complete lack of humanity. The guy has the social graces of a Buckingham Palace guard.

Gideon makes Benji take him out to eat (Benji picks Denny’s) and that’s Benji’s first clue that something isn’t right here. Gideon drives a $300,000 McLaren. It is at Denny’s where some random guy comes up to their table, tells Gideon he looks like an old friend, and takes a picture of him. This odd moment is followed by Gideon walking into the parking lot and BEATING THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF THE GUY UNTIL HE’S DEAD!

Gideon comes clean to Benji. He’s an international assassin. A retired one. He’s been hiding out for years to convince the world that he’s dead. This was his first step towards trying to live a normal life. And now he’s back on “the board.” And, oh yeah, now that all the assassins know of Benji’s existence, it means that he’s on “the board” as well.

There are not many 16 year olds who can handle being told there’s a million dollar payday on their head and Benji sure isn’t one of them. He begins freaking out. But Gideon assures him that with a little training, he can make him a killer too. Uhhh, Benji says. I DON’T WANT TO BE A KILLER. But it’s too late for that.

Benji tries his best to ignore this horrifying new reality and goes back to school, starting with his driver’s ed test, a test that Gideon insists on joining. It’s a good thing he does. Cause in the middle of it, a group of motorcycle assassins attack them! Gideon leaps into the front seat but is forced to only control the gas and brake while Benji steers their way to a dozen near death crashes.

Benji remains in denial, going to school the next day. But he regrets it when their new “substitute teacher” has quite the strong Eastern European accent. Yes, she’s a killer too! And she attacks Benji! Gideon shows up just in time to take her out. But he informs Benji that the situation is dire. The woman he just killed is the sister of a major crime boss. If she showed up, he won’t be far behind. And this guy is the kind of killer that makes all these other killers look like mannequins. Both Gideon and Benji will be pushed to their limit!

Question #1: Does this pass the comedy concept test?

It does. The comedy concept test is, when you hear the idea, do you automatically think of a bunch of funny scenarios. “Uncle Wick” immediately makes you think of a bunch of funny scenarios. So, right off the bat, it’s looking good.

Question #2: Does this pass the comedy trailer test?

This is kind of like question 1 but it helps you get a better sense of if this is a movie or if it’s just a funny script. Try to imagine the trailer. Does it have a bunch of funny scenarios that will look great in a trailer? This does. The ‘John Wick joins the driver’s test” set piece was genius. Killing your nephew’s substitute teacher in the middle of school is also funny.

Question #3: Is the dialogue funny?

On this one, Uncle Wick is hit or miss. The dialogue is okay. But I would’ve preferred laughing out loud a lot more. A lot of the dialogue humor is built off of the relationship between Benji and his uncle. It’s Benji going crazy and his Uncle, who’s used to doing this stuff all the time, responding with dozens of variations of “What’s the big deal?” And these moments *are* funny. But I was hoping for some more wordplay. Funnier phrasing. Some more clever back-and-forth. It kind of kept hitting that same beat the whole time.

The script’s biggest weakness is that all the focus is put on Ben and the Uncle’s storyline – which is where the focus should be. That’s the concept. But it’s clear that Delahaye didn’t put nearly as much thought into Ben’s life. For example, Ben is described as the biggest nerd in school. Then, two pages later, we introduce his best friend, a girl who is the most popular girl in school.

Uhhhh, what????

We’re just expected to go with that? Um, no. That’s the kind of friendship that needs more explanation. And this continued throughout the school stuff. It was all rather thin. The bully had the lamest bully lines ever. Ben was trying to get the hottest girl in school to go to the dance with him.

It’s not that these things shouldn’t be used. They are high school movie staples. But they only work when you twist them slightly. So they feel a little unique. That uniqueness is what sets your high school script apart from everyone else’s.

Another issue with the script is the structure. Typically, in these movies, you go out on an adventure. A good example is The Spy Who Dumped Me. That movie sends its protagonists off on an adventure. And whenever your characters are on the move, it’s easier to structure, because the objectives are always destinations, and you can double those destinations up as major plot beats.

Here, they stay in town. And that presents challenges, which we see rearing their ugly head later in the script. For example, once we’ve established that there’s a million dollar price tag on Benji’s head, why is he going to school?

Clearly, the reason he’s going to school is so the writer can get in his Substitute Teacher Fight Set Piece. Which is great for them, but lazy for the storytelling. We needed a clearer time frame and goal for our heroes. Otherwise, you get your heroes waiting around for the bad guys to show up, and EVERYONE HERE knows how much I hate ‘waiting around’ plots. They cause way more trouble than they’re worth. You want your heroes to be active and driving the plot, not the other way around.

In the end, there’s enough juice in this comedy bottle to make it worth drinking. It’s not perfect but it was a welcome upgrade from the script that I started to read for today’s review – Black Mitzvah. Oy vey. Do NOT read that if you want to laugh.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: DRESSING UP DIALOGUE – You are writing a comedy, correct? So it doesn’t make sense for your characters to say things in a straightforward manner (unless that’s the kind of character they are). Early in the script, Benji’s friend knows something about Benji’s crush that can help him get her. So she tells him that. Now before I give you the sentence she uses to convey that, I want you to write your own version of what she says. Because, what you’re trying not to do is something like this: “Hey, I heard something about Heather that can help you.” That line is fine in a drama. But this is a comedy. So how can you dress that line up? Here’s what the friend actually says to Benji: “Speaking of something weighing on your conscience, if I give you a piece of Heather intel, promise not to let the police know I helped you plan her murder?” So much more creative. It’s not laugh out loud funny. But it gets a giggle. And that’s how you want to be thinking when you write your comedy dialogue lines. Dress them up.

Originally, I was going to do a “Mank” script-to-screen review but after spending an hour with the film and realizing Fincher hadn’t changed a word from the disastrous screenplay, that the review would’ve been a bloodletting and sent everyone into the week feeling miserable.

Conversely, my weekly Friday night whipping boy, The Mandalorian, had one of its best episodes. Which set up an interesting question. How is it that someone who is so good can make something so bad, while something so bad can manage an episode so good?

Let’s start with Mank.

I mean… I’m just going to say it. This movie was a disaster.

Now you may say, “But Carson! Look at the Rotten Tomato score! It’s high!” A couple of things. Critics love David Fincher. And rightly so. He’s one of our best directors, hands down. But for that reason, their default setting for every Fincher film is a thumbs up. I’m not sure they’d be able to give Fincher a negative review if they tried. Also, what critics are scoring here is not the movie as a whole. They’re scoring the direction. They love how Fincher has recreated a 1940s film to chronicle what is, arguably, the best movie ever made

But as a story?

AS A STORY!????

This is one of the worst scripts of the year.

With almost every bad script, lack of focus is a problem. And that’s exactly what I’m seeing here.

A good movie has a focused narrative. Somewhere in the first act – preferably as soon as possible – you explain to the audience what the problem is, which necessitates that your protagonist solve that problem. This creates the hero’s goal and the rest of the movie follows his struggle to achieve that goal.

In the recent hit film, The Invisible Man, the problem is that the heroine’s evil dead husband has found a way to come back to life and torture her. The goal, then, is to prove that this is happening then defeat him. You can break almost every good movie down into this formula.

The thing about Mank is that it PRETENDS to incorporate a problem, but it’s a sham. A lie. A misdirect. The movie starts with Mankiewicz being placed in a hotel room and told by a studio suit that he has 90 days to write the screenplay for Citizen Kane.

Except the movie then proceeds to COMPLETELY ABANDON THIS SETUP. The next 50 on-screen minutes contain scenes that literally have nothing to do with Mank’s pursuit of this goal. They are, rather, flashbacks of him hanging out on movie sets and in studios. And whenever we do manage to get back to that room, we get conversations between him and his typist that – how do I put this nicely – have nothing to do with fucking anything.

It takes until HALFWAY THROUGH THE MOVIE before we get a scene of our suit returning to Mank’s drab hotel and saying, “You only have 10 days left! And you haven’t even finished the first act!” Normally, an escalation like this would pump life into the movie. But everybody in Mank treats the goal with such a lack of importance that we don’t feel anything.

You’re only ever as good as a) your concept and b) your execution. If either of those things is weak, you cannot recover. I would argue that Mank is weak in both areas. I don’t even understand what the concept of Mank is! Mank needs to write Citizen Kane, which is followed by a movie that has nothing to do with Mank writing Citizen Kane? Anyway, this is how a great filmmaker can make a bad movie. Latch onto a concept that wasn’t any good in the first place and then abandon all pretense of a hero resolving a problem.

I mean the scenes in Mank are so aggressively disconnected from one another you must draw on an insane amount of concentration to keep track of what’s going on.

There was this scene where Mank and Marion are walking around the Hearst Castle babbling about the most inane things, and I thought to myself, “What is this scene about? How is it pushing the story forward? Where is the conflict? Why is it important that this scene exists?” It seems like all but a few scenes fail to answer these questions.

I remember one good scene in the entire first half. It’s the scene where Mank and his brother come to MGM and studio head Louis B. Mayer a) gives them a tour while explaining to them the rules that dictate MGM before b) making a speech to the entire MGM staff that he’s cutting their salaries by half.

Why does this scene work while all the others don’t? Because it incorporates the only two scenarios in the movie that we actually understand. We understand when someone gives someone else a tour of their domain and explains the rules of the house. We understand the concept of a man standing in front of his employees and having to give them bad news. For once in the movie, it was actually CLEAR what was going on.

I don’t have any clarity on why Mank and Marion are stumbling around Hearst’s house mumbling about shit that doesn’t have anything to do with the story.

The failure of Mank comes down to the ignorance of one simple reality – Decide what your movie is about or face the consequences.

Meanwhile, in a galaxy far far away, a certain show has decided that it actually wants to become entertaining again.

The problem with the Mandalorian is that it had eased into this relaxed storytelling style by which Mando was assigned some directive which he then had all the time in the world to achieve and, even if it didn’t work out, it wasn’t a big deal. In other words, each episode had a goal. But both the stakes and urgency regarding that goal were low.

This is why the latest episode of Baby Yoda, err, I mean Mandalorian, was so good. Directed by Robert Rodriquez, we got our first full GSU episode in Mandalorian history.

Goal – Protect Baby Yoda while he sits on the sacred rock to see if a Jedi teacher arrives.

Stakes – Losing Baby Yoda (Darth Gideon has arrived to kidnap him)

Urgency – The onslaught of storm troopers to retrieve Baby Yoda starts and never stops the whole episode.

That’s what stood out to me most about the episode. It contained an urgency that no other episode up until this point had. Remember, that’s what made the original two Star Wars movies so good. Urgency. Darth Vader relentlessly pursuing Luke Skywalker and the rest of the gang from the start of the movies to the finish.

It’s something I felt, before the show even began, it would struggle with. Could Star Wars sit inside those slow moments? It’s been able to every once in a while. I like the little scenes with Mando and Baby Yoda hanging out in his ship together. But mostly these moments have been a dud. In order for slow moments to work, the character writing must be exceptional. That’s because if we like a character, we don’t need the plot to be “go go go.” And, unfortunately, Mandalorian has had a lot of dud characters.

But the last two episodes are changing that. This Ashoka Jedi chick is pretty badass. And Boba Fett (who arrived this week) is VERY badass. I get a little weak in the knees imagining all three of them teaming up together, Avengers style (let’s not forget that Jon Favreau began the Avengers universe with Iron Man – so he knows a thing or two about team-ups).

But the bigger takeaway from these last two weeks of Mandalorian is that the show works better when the plot is ramped up. There seemed to be more purpose in both of these episodes – from Mando needing to find Ashoka to Boba Fett needing his armor and the Empire trying to kidnap Baby Yoda – and that’s what’s been missing in the Mandalorian so far.

A lot of this harkens back to an age-old screenwriting problem, which is that the idea you originally conceive isn’t always the idea you should go with. My guess is that Favreau originally conceived of this show as a straight Western. That’s why it was so slow. He liked the idea of his character lazily strolling into a new town, hanging out, chatting, building up a little suspense, then resolving whatever villain-of-the-weak problem the town/planet had.

But I think the Star Wars DNA requires importance and urgency. We see that in these last two episodes. Last week was the importance of finding a Jedi to take Baby Yoda. And this week’s episode was all about the urgent nature of holding off the Empire as they tried to kidnap Baby Yoda.

So if I could tell Favreau anything, it would be that you’re good with the G(oal). But you need to embrace the S and the U. The S(takes) and the U(urgency) are what made these last two episodes of the show two of the best.

Many years ago I went to one of those Screenwriting Expos.

I think that’s what it was called, actually – “The Screenwriting Expo.”

This was back in the day when the word “e-mail” was as buzzy as saying “TikTok.” “You’ve got mail” was as addictive a sound as the “ding” you hear when you get a new text. It was the original dopamine hit. In other words, it was a simpler time. And a world where the only screenwriting information you could get was from books and expos. So I was excited to be there.

However, the more I walked around the place, the more I realized it was nothing more than a giant excuse for bottom feeder industry types to hawk their wares and get you to sign up for classes or mentorships or newsletters you didn’t want to sign up for. I went from top of the world to ‘lost all faith in humanity’ in 60 minutes.

However, there was one teacher from the Expo I still remember. I don’t remember his name (for the purposes of this article, I’ll call him Jason). But what I do remember is that he was passionate, a stark contrast to the 200 other tricksters who leered at everyone as if they were giant walking wallets.

After everyone who’d signed up for the class arrived, Jason popped in a DVD of “Stand By Me,” and proceeded to pause it every so often to explain the screenwriting mechanisms that were going on underneath the surface.

It was instructional, effective, and fun, due to his outsized passion for the movie. I mean, I dug Stand By Me. But this guy really REALLY liked Stand By Me.

The part that he liked the most still sticks with me to this day. Jason went bonkers over Gordie’s midpoint story to his friends about a pie-eating contest. If you haven’t seen the film or don’t remember it, it’s about four 12-year-old friends who travel across the state to see a rumored dead body in the woods.

The scene in question occurs as the friends are taking a break and they ask Gordie (this is based on a Stephen King story so, of course, there has to be one writer in the mix) to tell them a story. We then cut out of the kids story and for EIGHT ENTIRE MINUTES we get a story THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING ELSE IN THE MOVIE. I capitalize that because that’s what this teacher kept emphasizing.

“EIGHT MINUTES! EIGHT MINUTES THE STORY WENT ON! AND IT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING ELSE IN THE MOVIE!”

The story Gordie tells is funny. It’s about an overweight kid who enters a pie-eating contest and the experience is so overwhelming that, at the end of it, he throws up. That leads to the other contestants throwing up. Which then leads to the audience throwing up. Soon everybody is throwing up.

Jason kept hitting on the fact that you just “don’t do this.” You don’t stop your movie for eight minutes to introduce brand new characters and a brand new story that has nothing to do with anything else in the movie. If these characters were related to our heroes, you could justify it. If these characters somehow came back into the story later on, you could justify it. But none of that happens. It’s its own self-contained movie within a movie.

Jason was so obsessed with this little scene that, over the years, I’d find myself recalling the famed sequence and wondering why he’d gotten so worked up about it. His point seemed to be contradictory. He both loved the scene but was baffled that they’d included it. I couldn’t resolve what his message was.

Flash-forward to 2020. I’m reading a script just a few days ago from a very talented writer. He’d written a road trip movie and, during the script, one of the main characters tells a story that we flash back to. The story, like Stand By Me, was eight pages long. The story, like Stand By Me, wasn’t directly connected to anything else in the plot.

The flashback was pretty good, mainly because the writer was good. But as I weighed the flashback’s impact, I couldn’t help but realize it took up a full 10% of the screenplay. 1/10th of the script was dedicated to a story that wasn’t connected to the plot. What I mean by “not connected” is if you were to eliminate the flashback, nothing else in the script would have to be rewritten. That’s the easiest way to identify if something is necessary in your script or not. If you can get rid of it and you don’t need to make a single other change anywhere? It probably wasn’t a necessary scene.

Analyzing this sequence brought me back to Jason’s Stand By Me class. Because I finally understood what he meant. If a scene is not moving the story forward, it’s either a) pausing it, or b) moving it backwards. As a screenwriter, you want to avoid both of those things. Pausing and going backwards are antithetical to keeping an audience invested. Therefore, you should avoid them.

What Jason was saying was that the screenwriters for Stand By Me, Bruce Evans and Raynold Gideon, knew this. They understood that each scene must push the story forward. And that this pie eating story tangent wouldn’t do that. However, they decided that the scene was still worth it anyway. I suspect they felt it helped viewers understand Gordie better, since it showed how talented a storyteller he was and gave us some insight into him as a person (since you can get a feel for a person by the kind of stories they gravitate to).

As screenwriters, making sure every scene moves the story forward is one of the most important pieces of advice we can follow. The scripts that derail the quickest are the ones where too many scenes aren’t pushing the story forward. Think of it like a car ride. As long as you’re moving forward, you’re happy. But the second you get stopped in traffic. Or the second you get stuck behind a long stoplight, you start feeling anxiety. You didn’t get in the car to stop. You got in it to continually move forward until you got to your destination. A script read works the same way. If there’s too much stopping (scenes that don’t push the story forward), the reader gets anxious. And, at a certain point, that anxiety hits a breaking point. We’re out.

Of course, that doesn’t mean you can never write a scene/sequence that doesn’t move the story forward. Like the pie-eating contest. As long as you recognize that it’s a gamble and that, therefore, the scene has to be amazing, you should be okay. Just don’t make a habit out of including these scenes. Jason was quick to point out that every other scene in the movie pushed the story forward.