Genre: Comedy
Premise: When a young woman with #metoo anger-related issues hits her head and believes she’s a pirate queen, she acts out on a group of hapless guys in an attempt to even the score.
About: This script began life as Let’s Be Famous, which was featured on Scriptshadow in August of 2017. It was basically a story which started as one idea and then veered into another and SS notes reflected that there was a disconnect. The feedback was spot on and made me realize my main character had gone off the rails after the midpoint without a proper set-up for her behavior. — The odd behavior of my character in the back half became the most interesting aspect of the story to me, so, I embraced it and discovered there was a #metoo component already present, which only needed to be developed. The revision resulted in Captain Susan: Pirate Queen, a story about an angry young women who acts out on a somewhat innocuous group of guys. I’ve tried to tackle the #metoo movement in an unexpected way and rather than have men be the bad guys, show how we all need to recognize when we act badly and try to remedy those behaviors. I also wanted to write something a tad darker than my usual fare and although no one dies in this story many, many spankings are given. — Susan was a tricky character to write, she might not be entirely sympathetic, but hopefully I’ve made her compelling enough for an audience to want to follow. — I hope you enjoy this new version and a big thank you to Carson and others who gave me notes on Lets Be Famous. I guarantee you’ll see evidence that I was listening.
Writer: Stephanie Jones
Details: 90 pages
Page 1 rewrites are never easy decisions.
You’ve written a draft. You’ve decided (or been told) it doesn’t work. Now you have to figure out whether to cut bait and write something new, or go at it all over again.
There’s no magic formula for how to make this choice, but the main factor you want to pay attention to is, how did people respond to the earlier draft? Were readers saying it had potential? Or were the compliments few and far between? If a lot of people liked the idea but not the execution, it could be a candidate for a page 1 rewrite.
A secondary factor is passion. If you absolutely love the idea, that should play into your decision. You’re more likely to get something right if you’re passionate about it as opposed to if you’re writing marketable material because it has a better chance at selling.
One thing’s for sure though. If the second iteration doesn’t get a markedly better response, it might be time to shelve the concept and work on something new. Let’s see where the new iteration of Captain Susan docks.
25 year-old Susan Lucre is a typical millennial who’s obsessed with becoming internet famous. Her and her boyfriend, Fred, who has a cat vlog, are kicking around ideas one day and Susan comes up with a whopper. Go sail the high seas without any cell phones or navigation equipment and vlog about it!
After deciding such an activity may be above their pay grade, Susan comes up with an alternative. They PRETEND to sail off in a boat, then go hang out at a hotel for a couple of weeks, and fake vlog their adventures on the high seas.
They find a man, Captain Caboose, who’s a member of a mid-life crisis group who pretend to be pirates, and rent a boat from him. After having their big bon voyage party, Susan, Fred, and Fred’s cat attempt to sail away safely to a nearby port, but instead get caught in a storm and have to ditch the boat, escaping on a life raft.
Susan, who bumped her head and passed out during the escape, wakes up believing she’s a pirate. “Susan? Are you sure you’re okay?” “Well. Me still have the hunger, but I no longer thirst.”
Lucky for them, Captain Caboose catches up to them on another boat and saves them. Fred then watches in confusion as pirate-like Susan exchanges pirate-banter with Captain Caboose, and the two head down to the Captain’s quarters where we can only assume very strange things are about to happen.
Fred takes his cat and jumps ship, heading to a nearby island, where he meets a weird shipwrecked French woman. Back on Captain Bottom’s boat, Susan’s gone full bonkers, becoming some sort of pirate-dominatrix hybrid, tying Captain Bottom up and either sexually pleasing or torturing him. It’s unclear which.
Eventually, Captain Susan decides to save Fred from the island, but first tricks Captain Bottom into luring his entire fat middle-aged wanna be pirate crew onto the boat, and turning them into her slaves. Off they go to the island to reunite with Fred and the cat and, hopefully, sanity.
Let me start off by saying this is a much cleaner draft than the first draft I read. A lot more care has been put into the setup. I remember reading that first draft and thinking, “This is soooooo sloppy.” Nothing made sense. In this new draft, I understood why we were doing this and what the plan was.
With that said, there are issues that remain.
For starters, I’m unconvinced that a character who acts like a pirate should be the centerpiece of a movie. This is the kind of character that’s funnier in the background – someone we get in small doses.
Remember how Zach Galiafianakis had the perfect amount of screen time in The Hangover as this semi-background character who only popped in to say something weird or funny? But then when they made him the main character in Hangover 3, he wasn’t funny anymore? That’s how I feel about this pirate thing.
Not only that but I found it strange that we already had a character who erroneously believed he was a pirate in Captain Bottoms. So when Susan turns into a similar character, it’s redundant. He kinda took the wind out of her sails.
Another big issue is Fred. I didn’t believe for a second that these two were a couple. They didn’t show any affection towards one another. He seemed more like the gay best friend.
The reason this is relevant is because later in the story, finding and saving Fred becomes the main engine driving the narrative. If we were never convinced that they were a couple or that they cared for each other in the first place, why would we care whether she saved him or not?
You could make the argument that they were never meant for each other in the first place, which we see play out in the end (Susan ends up with Captain Bottom). But that’s a tough plank to walk. I’m reluctant to use any payoff in a script that weakens the earlier narrative.
One thing I believe Stephanie needs to work on is contrast in character pairings. If you’re going to have characters sharing lots of screentime together, you want there to be contrast between them. The more contrast, the more conflict. The more conflict, the more fun a scene is.
When we begin, Susan and Fred have a lot of scenes together, yet there’s little contrast between them. They’re both whiny losers who bemoan their boring lives. Hence, little conflict. It isn’t surprising, then, that their scenes don’t have a lot of pop.
Then, when Susan becomes a fake pirate and finally does have contrast with Fred, we move her over so that she’s sharing scenes with Captain Bottom, who’s also a fake pirate. Therefore, once again, we have two characters sharing screentime who are more similar than different.
But if I’m being honest, I think the problems here run deeper. Like I said, I’m not sure the pirate-talking character can be the hero. It’s a great comedic setup for a background character. But can it sustain an entire feature? My gut tells me no.
I do think this draft is better. And I like how there’s no extra fat. I just had a hard time buying into the premise. Without that suspension of disbelief, it’s almost impossible for me to get invested in a story.
Script link: Captain Susan
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Figure out the three sets of characters who share the most screentime in your script and make sure there’s an adequate amount of contrast between each pairing. That will result in conflict, which will in turn up the entertainment value of those scenes.
