Get Your Script Reviewed On Scriptshadow!: To submit your script for an Amateur Review, send in a PDF of your script, along with the title, genre, logline, and finally, something interesting about yourself and/or your script that you’d like us to post along with the script if reviewed. Use my submission address please: Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Remember that your script 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: Period Fantasy/Adventure
Premise (from writer): After years of work, noted alchemist Isaac Newton has finally discovered a working formula for the legendary Philosopher’s Stone. But when it’s stolen by a secret society with nefarious intent, he’ll have to team with his arch-rival Robert Hooke to take it back and prevent a plot that would change the course of England’s history.
Why You Should Read (from writer): I’ve been lurking here for some time, reading your articles and the Amateur Friday submissions, and I figure it’s finally time to get in on this thing. My script puts many of your favorite elements front and center: a creative twist on a public domain figure, a clear goal, and high stakes that are tied directly to the main character’s hopes, dreams, and flaws. — Isaac Newton spent at least as much time on alchemy as he did on the work we remember him for, and this script lays out a “What If” scenario: what if Isaac Newton succeeded in his obsessive quest for the Philosopher’s Stone? I did my research and, using Newton’s actual beliefs and the urban legends of some of the smartest men who have ever lived, I’ve attempted to craft a big, fun romp of a movie. I want to know if I’ve succeeded.
Writer: Jake Disch
Details: 118 pages
One of the biggest mistakes I run into when I read these public domain-driven screenplays, is the writer resting too heavily on the shock factor of a well-known literary celebrity doing something unexpected. So, for example, someone will write a script where Huckleberry Finn is a werewolf. Or Cinderella is a robot in space. And they believe that just because they did that cool unexpected thing, that their job is done. Like, “We’re geniuses, we can go home now.”
In that sense, a public domain script is no different from a flashy concept. The flash of the concept always wears out quickly (usually within 15 pages). Once that shock honeymoon period is over, are you able to actually tell a story? And by that I mean something with a compelling goal, something with multiple strong characters, something that keeps you guessing, something with mystery and suspense and intrigue.
Today’s script is the first time I’ve seen someone write a fully fleshed-out public domain script as opposed to just shocking us with Pinocchio as a zombie and then phoning it in for the final 90 pages.
As the logline informed us, The Last Alchemist follows 28 year-old college professor Isaac Newton, who, in this story, is an obsessive alchemist. He purposefully bores his students to death so they won’t show up for class, so he can spend more time on his alchemy.
And that extra time pays off. Using the power of elemental mish-mash (that’s what I call it, at least), Newton’s created the elusive Philosopher’s Stone, which is said to have many different powers, one of which includes bringing the dead back to life.
No sooner does he create this stone, than a naughty thug of a gentleman steals it from him. And if that’s not bad enough, he takes Isaac’s best friend, John Wickins, too! This forces Newton to do what he hates most, interact with the world, and he teams up with Wickins’ girlfriend, Martha Clarke, to go and find his friend and creation.
Also tagging along is fellow professor and Newton’s nemesis, Robert Hooke. The three head off to some noted alchemists to see what the alchemy underground is rumor-mongering about. This leads them to something called the Royal Society, where we finally meet our villain, Dee.
Dee loves him some philosopher’s stone because it will allow him to animate an army of automatons. And when you have an army of automatons at your fingertips, you can do anything you want. Even win Powerball (You just get all the automatons to buy ten tickets each). But when Dee loses the stone, he’ll have to get chummy with Newton to make another one. And while Newton may be an introverted dorkimus, he can be a handful when you get up in his stones.
I always encourage you guys to take chances. And Jake takes a big one. Early on, we learn that Newton and his friend Wickins are lovers. Placing a gay character at the center of your summer-tent-pole screenplay is a huge gamble. And that gamble really paid off.
Just as I was saying that public domain mash-ups can’t be shock-value only, the risky story choices you make can’t solely be for shock value either. It smells of desperation and never resonates. (spoiler) Wickins and Newton’s relationship isn’t just there to shock you. Their relationship plays into one of the bigger twists in the movie. And that’s what I really liked about Jake. He didn’t just make tough choices, he expanded on them.
Another thing I loved was the unique make-up of our team. Usually in movies, your team consists of the selfish guy, the strong-willed woman, and you writing a bunch of squabbling between them with major sexual tension underneath. When I see that, I know I’m either dealing with a newbie writer or a boring writer.
The Last Alchemist has a totally different make-up for its team. The man our heroes are trying to save, John Wickens, is someone they’re both in love with. That one change created a different vibe than I’m used to when reading these types of scripts. But then Jake took it a step further, pulling Newton’s dickhead nemesis in to provide an EXTRA layer of conflict. I’m always amazed when a writer can discover new avenues inside old formulas, and Jake clearly does that.
He’s also good at making all of his characters unique. I was just explaining to a newbie writer recently that his two main characters acted and sounded exactly the same. They were both white males, both businessmen, both confident, both ladies’ men. So I couldn’t tell them apart when they spoke.
There are a lot of ways to avoid that, but one of the easiest ways is to make them speak differently. Give them different speech patterns, different vocabulary, different subjects they key in on, different philosophies. What’s great about this script is when Newton speaks, you know it’s Newton. You don’t need his character name to tell you. He’s always stopping in the middle of his sentences. He adds an annoying “erm” a lot, whenever he’s stuck. He takes a little longer to get to his point. He FEELS DIFFERENT. And if you want to be taken seriously as a screenwriter, that’s something you want to pay attention to and get good at. Cause it makes a big difference.
My one issue with the script is that it starts to feel like it’s on rails, meaning we get into a pattern and become too comfortable as observers. Go to Person A, he tells us to go to Person B. Go to Person B, he tells us to go to Person C. And so on and so forth. Sometimes you have to throw a curve ball at your plot. Instead of letting your characters easily go from one section to the next, have them get to a section and it’s not there. Or something stops them from getting there in the first place. The classic example of this is in the original Star Wars when Luke, Han, and Obi-Wan try to get to Alderran, and when they get there, it’s blown to bits.
But it goes to show how strong the character work was here. Cause usually that mistake will doom a script for me. But since I liked these characters so much, I was more forgiving of the predictable plot. This is a great way to start the year. Nice job, Jake!
Screenplay link: The Last Alchemist
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Not all verbs create the same image in a reader’s head. If your character stabs someone, and you follow that with, “Blood blooms from the wound,” you need to know that that looks and feels different in the reader’s head than, “Blood gushes from the wound.” Put some thought into which verb best describes the image you want in your reader’s head and go with that verb.
Here are ten screenwriting tips to get you going for 2016!!!
1) Beware of Auto-Piloting – “Auto-piloting” is no different from when you’re going through your morning routine. You’re not thinking because you don’t have to. In screenwriting, auto-piloting leads to cliché choices and lines from other films. The most famous version of this is: “Am I clear!?” “Crystal.” Never auto-pilot. Always think about and challenge your choices.
2) Dead Dialogue – Dead Dialogue is dialogue that doesn’t push the story forward, doesn’t reveal anything about the character, and doesn’t entertain. If your dialogue isn’t doing any of these things, it’s dead. A character talking about a best friend he used to have that has nothing to do with the story? Dead dialogue. Live dialogue is dialogue that does all three of these things.
3) Storytelling is a series of drawing things out – Tell us about something, then wait to reveal it. Hannibal Lecter is boring if you say, “Hannibal Lecter is dangerous” and one second later we meet Hannibal Lecter. He’s way more fascinating if we mention him, then draw out his entrance. Same thing with plot threads. Draw. Them. Out.
4) If it’s easy, it’s boring – If anything is easy for your characters, we’re probably bored watching them.
5) Never write a script that needs directing to complete the vision – If you have to explain that the script is going to be “so much better” because of the cinematography and the music, it means you’re not telling a good story. Tell a good story on the page. Don’t depend on future directing to fix problems. Writers of esoteric indie movies – PLEASE HEED THIS ADVICE.
6) Don’t outpunt your sentence coverage – Don’t walk yourself into sentences you can’t get out of easily. We readers know when you’ve found yourself in a sentence maze and it’s never pretty watching you try to get out. Just rewrite the simplest version of the sentence. If you want to add a bell or a whistle afterwards, that’s fine. But remember that it’s way more important to be clear than to nail a triple-axel super-sentence that doesn’t really make sense in the first place.
7) A character should dictate the story, the story should not dictate the character – There are exceptions to this, but for the most part, the main character should be charging through, creating the story we’re watching. If he’s letting the story happen to him and trying to get out of the way of it, he’s probably not a very interesting character.
8) The more your character talks about something, the less clear it becomes – Some writers think that they can explain something complicated by having their character talk about it for two pages. In most of these scenarios, I find myself more confused than before the character opened his mouth. In general, the less a character speaks about something, the clearer he is. Keep it simple and to the point unless there are story or character reasons to be complex.
9) If your characters are ever talking for the sake of the audience rather than to the other character in the scene, rewrite the scene until the characters are only talking to each other – I understand that exposition is hard. But your job, even when you’re disseminating information, is to make it feel like two people are really talking to each other in real life. Don’t give up on a scene until you get to that point.
10) A story only begins once there’s a problem – The bigger the problem, the bigger the story.
Feel free to add your 2016 screenwriting tips in the comments!
A mysterious writer makes the Black List without any managers or agents!
Genre: Drama/Thriller
Premise: A New York publicist’s life starts to unravel when he’s suspected of killing his co-worker.
About: It took my scrolling through three dozen loglines, but I FINALLY found a script on the Black List that didn’t start with the words, “Based on a true story…” or “The real life story of…” But here’s what really caught my eye about today’s script. All the other scripts on the Black List have two managers listed, two agents, a couple of producers, a production company, and sometimes a studio. This script? It just had a small production company listed. No representation. That’s an indication that a script REALLY DID build its reputation on quality alone (and not, ahem, campaigning). I’m smelling a good one here, guys.
Writer: Topher Rhys-Lawrence
Details: 100 pages
Was talking to a writer yesterday who’d read a terrible screenplay that had sold and he was pissed off that all these “bad” writers were breaking in while he was still a “nobody.” “If these guys are getting in with these shitty scripts, why am I still stuck on the bottom?”
Look, guys, you can’t control what scripts sell. There are a hundred different reasons sales happen, a lot of them a mystery to us. But even if that weren’t the case, comparing your progress to someone else’s is always a no-win scenario. Think of screenwriting like golf. Your only opponent is yourself.
And the way golfers get better is through discipline. Going out and hitting thousands of balls. That’s what you have to do. Sit down and write thousands of sentences. Discipline is your way into the industry.
I have no doubt it’s discipline that got Topher onto the Black List. This script shows the kind of craftsmanship you only get through a lot of practice. Let’s take a look.
Reade McCarthy is 32 years old and so close to his goal. He’s the second best publicist at his firm and the founder is retiring in a year, setting him up to take her place. The only one in his way is Valerie, a volumptuous strategist who wants to be the big cahuna just as badly as Reade does.
Meanwhile, Reade is doing his best American Psycho impression, tending to his body and look with the kind of attention even an OCD disorder would find disturbing. Maybe if he took a little of that attention and spent it on his stunning fiancé, Tasha, she wouldn’t be having doubts abour their relationship.
Doubts which are well-founded, since Reade is secretly fucking Nicolette, a bombshell blonde who’s batshit bonkers. Nicolette is Reade’s dirty little secret, the one thing he can’t control and therefore his one source of excitement.
But that area of Reade’s life is about to get a lot more complicated. After eviscerating his nemesis, Valerie, at a party, he finds out the next day that she was murdered. And, of course, since everyone saw Reade screaming at her, he’s the prime suspect.
If that weren’t bad enough, Reade starts seeing a man around New York who looks exactly like him, albeit disheveled and homeless. As he does his best to manage these issues, the firm hires Valerie’s replacement, Sebastian Ryan, basically the same person as Reade, but better at everything. Reade’s biggest nightmare.
Like a strange combination of American Psycho, Fight Club, and Mr. Robot, USP watches New York’s preeminent control-freak struggle helplessly as he loses control over everything.
Character pieces are the scripts most likely to fall apart due to the fact that they don’t have traditional goals to guide the story. Colin Trevorrow’s script “Stealing Time,” may not have been very good. But it had a clear goal – find the pieces of the device before the bad guys did.
With USP, there isn’t a goal. So you have to find other ways to push the reader through the story. One of those ways is to “lead.” Again, leading is implying something important is going to happen later in the story, which in turn entices the reader to stick around until that moment happens. You’re basically dangling a carrot.
For example, after Valerie dies, this Sebastian guy comes in. And after a couple of dick-measuring scenes, Reade says he wants to invite Sebastian out, get to know him better. With Sebastian now Reade’s main competition, this is a meet-up we’re curious to see. So from now until that scene, we’ll stick around.
In addition to this, good character pieces need things to be in disarray. Shit must be falling apart so that the reader will want to stick around to see if it gets fixed or not. Take Reade’s girlfriend, for example, Tasha. She’s starting to pull away from him as he becomes more and more unraveled. That’s an area of “disarray” we’re curious about. We’ll stick around to see if Reade can fix that problem.
But I’ll tell you the moment in USP when I knew I was dealing with a legitimate screenwriter. It’s a scene that comes up in the middle of the story. Reade’s life is crumbling. And he’s out with Tasha when he runs into Nicollete, the crazy unpredictable woman he’s having an affair with. Tasha watches from afar as Nicollete approaches Reade. It’s clear from Tasha’s point of view that there’s something going on between these two.
Not wanting to make a scene, she waits for their conversation to end, approaches Reade, and asks to leave, so she can question him about this without creating a spectacle. Nicollete, still nearby, overhears this and turns around, getting her long overdue opportunity to interact with the woman Reade chose over her.
Now, I’m going to ask you to visualize the scene the way you would write it. How would this “confrontation” go down in your book? I encourage you to go as far as writing out the dialogue. Once you’re done, come back here and read the below. This is what happens next…
NICOLETTE: I’m so sorry! I must have given you the wrong impression but we’re just old friends. We haven’t seen each other in years and wanted to catch up. He was talking me through a guy problem. Hope you don’t mind.
TASHA: Reade, it’s getting late.
NICOLETTE: Problem Guy and I didn’t end well. I carried his baby for four months, and, well, you probably don’t know the toll it takes on a gal when you’re asked to get rid of it. And then he got rid of me as soon as he realized that I didn’t fit into the press release of his life he’d been writing for himself.
A rigid beat between the three.
NICOLETTE (CONT’D): It was a girl. Problem Guy asked me never to tell him. But I guess I’m just not that big of a person.
For those who’ve been trying to crack this craft for awhile, they know exactly why this scene is good. Beginners, on the other hand, might wonder what the big deal is. Here’s the big deal. 90% of writers would’ve written an on-the-nose confrontation between these two women. One of them would’ve accused the other of doing something bad. The other girl yells back. Maybe things get physical.
The genius of this moment is that Nicollete tells Tasha her and Reade’s entire story under the pretense of it being someone else. It’s indirect. And it’s not only a subtle way to approach the confrontation, but as a character choice, it’s much more devious and clever. Even if Tasha were to say something, Nicollete could shrug her shoulders and reply, “I don’t know what you mean. This is something that happened with my old boyfriend.” Way more interesting than, “I know you’re fucking my fiancé.”
I say this as someone who has read SO MUCH ON-THE-NOSE dialogue over the past month in the contest. I rarely encounter a scene as clever as this one. If you’re going to become a good screenwriter, this is a skill you need to learn. Figuring out creative ways to explore conversations that we’ve seen a million times before is a pay-worthy skill. You’re not going to be able to do it all the time. But if you can do it during a few key scenes, you’ll be well on your way to cracking the screenplay code.
Untitled Sociopath Project is the kind of script that the Black List used to celebrate before Sgt. Biopic and Colonel True Story’s army stormed Screenplay Island. It’s voicy, it’s unique, it’s got an offbeat main character. And most importantly, it’s well-executed. This is a trippy surprise you’re going to want to read if you get a chance.
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Some of you may remember how I hated The Libertine. And you might be asking, “Wait a minute, Carson. How is it you gave today’s asshole main character a pass when you eviscerated The Libertine’s asshole main character??” I’ll tell you exactly why. If you’re going to write an asshole character, he has to suffer for his asshole-ness. That’s this entire script. Reade’s life is falling apart because of what a terrible person he is. My issue with The Libertine is that that guy was a dickhead the entire movie and didn’t have to pay a dime for it. And worst of all, his big problem (raping someone) was solved at the end without him having to do anything! So if you’re going to write a terrible person, make sure they pay the price for being a terrible person.
Ryan Murphy’s new show is the buzziest project in town. Does the script live up to that buzz??
Genre: TV Pilot – Drama – True Story
Premise: American Crime Story is a series that, each season, will chronicle a real-life crime. This first season will take on the O.J. Simpson murder case.
About: With long-form non-fiction crime the hot new thing in Hollywood, American Crime Story is showing up at just the right time. Executive produced by American Horror Story producer, Ryan Murphy, the show is currently THE buzziest project in town. Set to appear on FX this February, the script is said to be great. It stars Cuba Gooding Jr. as OJ, David Schwimmer as Robert Kardashian, John Travolta as Robert Shapiro, and Selma Blair as Kris Jenner. Creators Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski have credits that run all over the map. They wrote The People vs. Larry Flynt, Man on The Moon, and also 1408 and Agent Cody Banks.
Writers: Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (based on The Run of His Life by Jeffrey Toobin)
Details: 60 pages
When it comes to dramatizing the O.J. Simpson case, I have the same reaction I had last year when an O.J. Simpson script appeared on the Black List – How can you possibly make something any more entertaining than what really happened? I still remember that day with the white bronco driving down the highway and, for whatever reason, no cops trying to stop it. Then, of course, there was the circus that was the trial and all the things that came with it. I mean, a fictionalized version of that mess? How could it compare?
I’ll tell you, then, the only reason I’m reading this. Because the backstory is TV titan Ryan Murphy saying, send me the best fucking script you got. He didn’t care what it was about. He just wanted the best script. And they (whoever “they” are – I still haven’t tracked that information down) sent him this. And he loved it. And I find it really hard to turn down anything that claims to be the best script someone’s read. So my fight to champion original ideas will have to wait another day while I take on the most notorious case in history.
The pilot for The People vs. O.J. Simpson breaks its pilot up into segments, each of which introduces us to the major characters. We start off seeing O.J. himself acting squirrely as a limo picks him up at night to take him to the airport.
When a dog walker discovers the dead bodies of Ronald Goldman and Nicole Simpson (O.J.’s ex-wife), the cops are called in, who then alert O.J., who’s now in Chicago. This is when the first element of suspicion arises. O.J. is devastated by his ex-wife’s death, yet doesn’t ask how she actually died.
We move to prosecutor Marcia Clark, the only person who seems to have her shit together. Upon learning that there were repeated domestic violence calls to Nicole’s residence over the past decade, she knows that O.J. is likely the murderer.
In come the defense attorneys. Robert Kardashian, the ex-husband of current reality TV maven Kris Jenner, is a close friend to O.J., and an excellent lawyer to boot. But it quickly becomes clear that “excellent” isn’t going to cut it. The Juice needs the best in the world. Enter the slimy Robert Shapiro, who may or may not (read: HE IS) see this as an opportunity to grow his brand.
And then of course there’s the charismatic Johnny Cochran, who’s on his way to Neverland to help Michael Jackson deal with yet another legal snafu (he realizes he can’t wear lime green because the color freaks Michael out), when he hears about O.J.’s impending arrest. In Cochran’s opinion, Shapiro is a poser who always looks for the easy way out. Cochran pronounces that O.J. needs someone who’s going to go all the way to the finish line with him.
The first episode ends awkwardly in the Kardashian household, with O.J., upon hearing that he must go to jail, holing himself up in Kim Kardashian’s bedroom (yes, you heard that right – although thankfully (unthankfully?) she’s not there), threatening to blow his brains out. As the chaos escalates, O.J. sneaks out the back door and into the famed white Bronco. Where is he going? We’ll have to wait until episode 2 to find out. But I have a feeling it’s a highway. Call it a sixth sense.
The People vs. O.J. Simpson has all the elements of a good story, of course. We have celebrity, entitlement, racism, money, murder, weird personalities. I mean I get why they’re making this. And yet I don’t. It’s just all so… Wikipedia. Like I could’ve read the equivalent of this script, which took 50 minutes, in 5 minutes had I gone to the O.J. Simpson Wikipedia murder page.
But here’s the real problem I have with this series. When you chronicle a famous murder case, there has to be something left to discover. The O.J. Simpson murder case is in its own category. There’s no murder case that has ever been covered more extensively. And so if we’ve already seen everything, what exactly is there left to learn?
When you think about why the current TV sensation, Making a Murderer, is a phenomenon, it’s because none of us had ever heard about it! Every episode revealed something new, exciting, or interesting.
You can extrapolate that to the success of Dateline. The reason the non-fiction murder format has been so popular for so long is because they take a case that we’ve read about in the papers or the internet, and gave us fresh details that helped us see the case in a new and compelling light.
What is left to show us in the O.J. Simpson murder? Going off of this pilot, not a whole lot. And that’s another problem. As writers, you knew that would be the issue going in. That it’s already been documented extensively. So the one thing you have to make sure you do is research the fuck out of everything to find the nuggets that are going to bring new insight into the case. That’s why Making a Murderer is so compelling. They did 10 years of investigating and taped hundreds of hours of interviews to give us the juicy details of that story.
As far as I can tell, American Crime Story doesn’t look like it’s done any more research than those guys who wrote the unauthorized Saved By The Bell movie. And I can say that with confidence because everything everybody said here was something I already knew, if not directly then indirectly.
The few tiny exceptions became the highlights of the script. Watching Johnny Cochran get dressed and discussing why he chooses to wear what he wears felt like keen insight into a master manipulator and showman. Or the awkward moment where a big shot like Robert Kardashian must learn to play backup when an even bigger-shot (Robert Shapiro) enters the room.
Actually, the one mildly surprising element here is how intertwined the Kardashians were in this mess, and that’s only interesting through the prism of knowing who they are today. I mean could you imagine how this would’ve played out had it happened now? Do you think they would’ve featured this on the show? At one point, O.J. Simpson is about to blow his brains out in Kim Kardashian’s room. I think they would have. And gotten boffo ratings for the season finale. Unfortunately, that was the only part of my brain that got charged up during this history recap.
Here’s the thing. And after I say this, I’ll be one. I equate this kind of thing with those Lifetime movies. The overly cheesy fictional recaps of real-life crimes. Mommy Dearest or whatever they’re called. And I don’t know what they’re giving me here that’s supposed to make me think of this as anything better than those movies. I suppose the actors are a little bigger (sorta?). But otherwise this is standard Wikipedia-driven non-fiction screenwriting and to that end, it deserves to be played on Lifetime at 9pm. I can’t figure out why this is supposed to be a big deal other than Ryan Murphy vouching for it.
I’d be curious to hear from you guys. Is anyone interested in seeing this? If so, let me know why. Because I really want to understand the appeal of this show and why it’s become such a big deal.
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: There’s no lesson here other than true life crime stories are trending right now. Especially long-form stuff (television, web?). So if you’re into this world, Hollywood just became your playground. But if you’re more into learning something cool, take 20 minutes out of your day and check out this interview/article with the newest studio head in town. There’s some great stuff in there about how studio heads assess projects before greenlighting them.
Genre: Sci-fi
Premise: A bitter truce has been reached after an alien invasion. Fueled by suspicions of an alien spy in their ranks, the United Nations entrusts an agent with finding the mole.
About: This one finished Top 20 on the 2015 Black List and comes from a British writer who recently wrote a film for Paul Verhoeven to direct, titled, “Elle.” It follows the CEO of a gaming software company who is attacked in her home by an unknown assailant.
Writer: David Birke
Details: 117 pages – February 2015 draft
After coming out of yet another meeting last week where it was stressed to me the need for more biopics and true stories, I’m at my wits end. I’m trying not to sour on the format. But I’m just so sick of it! How many lives do we have to watch before somebody gives us an original idea with original execution????
With that said, I had one of those a-ha moments on the drive home about why biopics have become such a huge deal. About 7-8 years ago, the ultra-franchise was born, bringing with it, if not the extinction of the star-driven film, then at least the destruction of its infrastructure.
In this new world, stars were going to have to find a new way to survive. I mean, shit, we’re in a world where a Will Smith movie is now lucky to bring in 30 million bucks. Enter the biopic. It is the genre that studios still need big actors for, as those actors are the only way to sell the movie. I mean let’s be honest. No one’s going to see Joy if it stars, say, Selena Gomez.
Actors realized quickly that this was their ticket to keep being stars and to get paaaaaa-aaaid. And so the 50 biopics a year era was born.
Am I mad about this? No. I can’t be. I have too many places asking me for the next great biopic screenplay and/or true story. So I will have to keep reading them. But when I don’t have to read them, I will fight the good fight. Read scripts that contain some element of being born inside an imagination. And when I read the logline for today’s script, that’s exactly what I saw. The only question is whether the execution would match it. Let’s find out.
The year is 2037. A War of the Worlds-like alien attack has occurred and the planet has somehow neutralized the alien threat, although now we have a bunch of aliens lingering around, still pushing their agenda. The only difference is that instead of doing so through giant ships that shoot lasers, they’re doing it through espionage, developing human-alien hybrids that look and act exactly like humans, then using them as spies.
This is where our hero, Martin Webber, comes into play. Webber works for the world equivalent of the CIA or MI-6, and is an agent dedicated to neutralizing the alien presence. His job has gotten a lot tougher, though, as word’s come down that one of these secret alien-humans has infiltrated the agency. Webber, due to his no-nonsense approach, is chosen to smoke this person out, a guy or gal who goes by the code name, “Morningstar.”
Strangely enough, Webber doesn’t seem to be in that much of a hurry. He likes to hang out with his hot neighbor, Mia, and get to those pesky job requirements whenever he’s feeling up to it. This results in a very relaxed investigation that begins to indicate our mole is a lot closer to Webber than he may have thought. In the end, we find that the truce between us and these aliens is a lot more complicated than we could’ve imagined.
As I’ve said plenty of times before, if you’re going to write a sci-fi movie, particularly an alien invasion sci-fi movie, you want to look for a fresh way to tell the story. It’s why I liked Story of Your Life. It’s why I liked District 9. And that tradition continues with today’s script, Morningstar.
It’s no easy challenge though. The reason people do it the easy way isn’t because that’s the way it’s always been done, but because that’s the way that includes the most dramatic tension. The act of aliens invading offers all sorts of dramatic possibilities. If you’re coming into the mix after that, you’re going to have a hard time finding a story as cool. I mean, what’s more high-stakes than an alien invasion?
A good example of this problem played out in the development of World War Z. That film was based on a book that took place after the zombie outbreak was over. The story was more about the political machinations involved in figuring out what went wrong and who was responsible.
They wrote a few drafts with that approach – one of which I reviewed on the site – and there was a big problem. It wasn’t that interesting. So in the end, they caved and moved the story back into the actual zombie outbreak, resulting in a much more dramatically compelling film.
Suffice it to say, Morningstar hasn’t figured out how to solve this problem either. But that’s just the beginning of the script’s problems. Everything here is over-described, with 8-10 line description paragraphs being the norm. Goals aren’t highlighted properly, leaving us to go 20 pages at a time not really sure what the characters are trying to do. And there’s a whole lot of talking instead of doing, which is one of the worst mistakes you can make writing a screenplay. The whole script has the distinctive feel of being that person at the party who will talk for 30 minutes and after you walk away you realize he didn’t actually say anything.
A lot of this could’ve been solved by instituting a more focused lens. And focus starts with your action description. A lot of writers hear that you’re supposed to keep your paragraphs to 4 lines or less in a screenplay and don’t see what the big deal is. I mean, is it really that difficult to read 8 lines instead of 4?
If it’s good writing, it’s certainly not as big of a deal. But the main reason that writing sparsely is so important, is because it forces you to think about what you want to say. If you have unlimited lines, you’ll babble til you get to the point. But if you have three, it’s a lot like a tweet. You have to think about what it is you want to say and be concise about it. And when you do that, your sentences are always more impactful.
If Birke could’ve done that and then extrapolated that approach to his entire writing process, giving the script more focus and thrust (honestly, there was ZERO URGENCY in this story), I’m sure I would’ve enjoyed it more. But right now, it’s too vague, not enough happens, characters talk about insignificant things for far too long, and, worst of all, it’s not fun. This is an alien movie and there isn’t a single bit of fun in it. Even the grandfather of serious sci-fi, Blade Runner, had fun.
So I was really bummed out about this one. It was a cool premise with a lot of opportunity but it’s just not there yet.
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: I know this relates more to my intro than it does the script, but it’s worth noting that if you’re going to write a biopic, the number of entries into that genre has skyrocketed, which means the only way you’re going to stand out is if you do something unique. Cradle-to-grave biopics should be your last option. Think like Sorkin and what he did with Jobs. Try something different. As someone who’s been reading a lot of biopics for my contest, most of them are boring simply because they’re the exact same thing over and over again. Good luck!
