Genre: Period
Premise: A look at the regiment led by Colonel Custer in the days leading up to the disastrous fight at Little Bighorn against Sitting Bull.
About: This script finished high on last year’s Black List, snagging 18 votes. Reiss Clauson-Wolf and Julian Silver went to school together at Wesleyan University. Julian originally came out to LA to be an actor, and has appeared in numerous TV shows. The two would eventually team up to write on CBS’s Seal Team. This is their first big break in the feature script world.
Writers: Reiss Clauson-Wolf and Julian Silver
Details: 115 pages
I’m often taken to task here for my lack of history knowledge (no idea what Dunkirk was before Nolan’s movie) and geography (where’s Tonga again?). So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that while I’ve heard of Custer’s Last Stand, I don’t know what actually happened during it. Lucky for me, the script starts with a title card that answers all my questions. Here’s what it said….
In 1876, the government of the recently reunified United States sends word to the Lakota Sioux Nation, demanding the Sioux retreat to the agreed-upon reservation boundaries.
The Sioux never respond.
The Seventh Cavalry regiment of the United States Army is discharged to the Dakota territories to ensure the Sioux comply with the order.
The Seventh is led by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, a brilliant officer with 215 elite soldiers under his direct command. These men had never lost a battle.
On the banks of the Little Bighorn River, every single one of these men will die, in a battle that will be remembered as “Custer’s Last Stand.” Their final months on the plains are shrouded in mystery.
All we are left with is the evidence — that one of the most renowned battlefield commanders of his time led his men into one of the worst military defeats in history.
…So what happened?
That’s a good question. What did happen? And if the whole battle was lost to history, how do these writers know what happened? That’s the real mystery.
While The Seventh teases a mini-biopic about Colonel Custer, it turns out he’s barely in the script. The Seventh instead focuses on all the men in his regiment, the most prominent of whom is William Harrow, a company man determined to do Custer’s bidding, even though Custer’s bending his orders in the most uncool of ways (he’s supposed to make sure the Sioux have retreated to the agreed upon land. Instead he’s slaughtering them).
Things get interesting when Captain Michael Vincent Sheridan shows up with orders from his famous brother, General Phillip Sheridan. Everyone is to get on their horses and come home. But Custer tosses the orders in the fire. He’s determined to take down the legendary Sitting Bull. That isn’t going to be easy, with every one of the men in the Seventh Regiment reluctant to be here. Will Custer’s ego get them all killed? Uh, yeah. It says so in the opening title card. But how will Custer himself die? The answer, according to the writers, will shock you.
Let me start this analysis by saying there is no wrong way to tell a story. None of the issues I’m about to mention are script-killers in their own right. For every problem I’m about to highlight, cinephiles can point to another movie that worked in spite of that problem. HOWEVER. Each of these issues are handicaps that saddle your screenplay, making it harder for the story to work. Again, it doesn’t mean it won’t work. Only that you’re making things harder on yourself.
Problem number one is that this is a “sitting around” narrative. The characters spend the entirety of the script sitting around waiting. And that’s the true bad word here. “Waiting.” The majority of our cinematic heroes GO AFTER things. Whether it’s John Cho’s character going after his daughter in Searching or the Avengers going after Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War (or Alex Honnold climbing El Cap in Free Solo!!!). We like people who are active and on the move. The second you sit your characters down and make them wait, you are writing a passive movie. And it’s hard to make passive movies entertaining.
Problem number two is that none of the characters want to be here. Well, Custer does. But he’s barely in the script. Nobody else wants to be here. And while there’s something to be said for conflict within your character (these characters don’t want to fight but they have to), movies don’t work well when the characters aren’t interested in accomplishing the goal. One of the reasons Searching and Avengers were so strong was because the characters wanted to achieve their goal more than anything. Everyone in Custer’s Last Stand wants to leave.
The final big problem is that there isn’t a main character in the script. I was hoping Custer would be our main character. He seems the most interesting. But instead we’re given a protagonist-by-committee situation. It’s up to us to figure out who’s driving the narrative. Harrow has enough scenes that we figure he’s as close to a hero as we’re going to get. But then Sheridan comes in and he gets a lot of time too. So take your pick on which one is the hero. Again, there’s no rule that says you need a lone protagonist. It just makes writing the script easier. The advantage to having a lone hero is that their objective can drive the story. That makes it easy to understand what’s going on. An unclear hero means an unclear objective means it’s harder to keep up with what’s going on.
So does that mean The Seventh sucks?
No.
The writers are good at one of the most important tools in the writer’s arsenal – conflict. There’s conflict in virtually every scene here. Either Harrow doesn’t agree with Sheridan. Or Custer doesn’t believe in Harrow. Or Lord must defend secretly nursing a Sioux woman back to health. Or several men desert the regiment to sneak home (and later get caught). There’s so much consternation about being here that every scene contains tons of conflict.
The question then becomes, is that enough for the reader? Can they overlook the “waiting around” narrative, the unmotivated characters, and the lack of a true hero, as long as they get a healthy dose of conflict in each scene? For me, it wasn’t enough. For you, it might be.
The one other thing the script has going for it is its famous ending. I could see the readers who voted for this making the argument that the story doesn’t need a big goal. It doesn’t matter if characters are waiting around. When you have a third act as famous as Custer’s last stand, the reader’s going to keep reading no matter what. And that’s true. I did want to get to the end to see what happened.
I’ll finish up by reminding everyone that your script takes on the personality of your setup. If it’s a sitting around script, the story will feel lazy, stuck in neutral. You have to decide if the rest of your script has enough going on to offset this issue, or whatever big issue is hampering your narrative. No script is perfect. So you’ll always have to make sacrifices. But, personally, I wouldn’t write a movie with characters waiting around this much.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Character reminders. Custer’s Last Stand gave us another tip for bulk introductions. If you bulk intro characters, consider REMINDING us who they are later on. Here’s what Reiss Clauson-Wolf and Julian Silver do when four characters we haven’t seen for awhile are reintroduced: “We come onto a game of poker being played between Porter (”injured” leg), Patton (trumpeter), Schmidt (thirsty horse), Dorman (translator).” I immediately remembered who these characters were because of those reminders.
