Welcome to The Mandalorian Teleplay Chronicles. I will be reviewing every episode of The Mandalorian’s first season with an eye towards helping writers learn TV writing. Here’s a link to my review of the first episode here, a link to the second episode here, a link to episode 3, episode 4, and episode 5.
Genre: Sci-Fi Fantasy (Half-Hour Drama TV??)
Premise: This week, Mando teams up with four fellow bounty hunters to spring a prisoner from a prison ship. In the process he learns that they plan to leave him behind.
About: We are six episodes in. Before this episode, we had two good episodes and three bad ones. The good news is the Rick Famuyiwa, who directed my favorite episode of the series (Episode 2 – Jawa Adventure), is back in the director’s seat. This week, he’s also writing, which is good news if only because it means he’s taken Dave Filoni out of the mix. Famuyiwa is joined by Christopher Yost, who penned Thor Ragnarok. Heads up for Mandalorian fans. Next week’s episode comes out Wednesday. Then they’re off for a week. Then the final episode is on the Friday of the week after.
Writers: Rick Famuyiwa and Christopher Yost
Details: 40 minutes? 42 minutes? (the credits are 80 minutes long every episode so it’s hard to determine the actual run time of these things)
I’m done with this show.
I mean, I’ll watch and review the last two episodes. And I’m sure they’re going to add some cliffhanger at the end of the season (Boba Fett? Jabba the Hut’s son?) that will make me check out the first episode of Season 2. But after that, I’m done.
This is not what I was hoping for at all. I thought we were going to get an expansion of the Star Wars universe with new and fun interconnected storylines. Instead we get this cartoon format “adventure-of-the-week” b.s. Literally 99% of the people who watch this show want an interconnected story. But of course that’s not the way Lucasfilm operates. Give the fans what they want?? Hezell no, that would make sense. We’ll make the Star Wars we want to make and you’ll suffer for it.
Some of you may say that I’m just mad that they didn’t give me what I was expecting. No no no. They legit hoodwinked us. They introduced baby yoda and this mysterious cloning guy – implying that we were entering a larger season-long story. Now Baby Yoda is nothing more than a meme. His inclusion in each episode is a strain. He’s a plot point that needs a character to say “You stay here” for 30 minutes while the episode happens.
And Friday’s episode? Friday’s episode was not Star Wars. Friday’s episode was Deep Space Nine Wars. It was Star Trek, complete with bad make-up and awful acting (the devil guy and purple girl especially). That’s another thing. I never watched an episode of Game of Thrones and thought, “They skimped on money there.” Yet I was constantly annoyed by the cheap production value in this episode. They built the entire episode around a single freaking hallway! They built ONE HALLWAY and kept running around in it.
For those who didn’t see the episode, count yourselves lucky. It follows Mando as he reconnects with an old terrible actor who always seems to arrive on a show’s worst episode. I remember this actor when he appeared on Lost and screwed up a few episodes of that show. Anyway, he puts together a team for Mando to go break a prisoner out of a prison ship. The team consists of Bill Burr, Twi-Lick, Devil Man, and Zero Bot.
They infiltrate the ship, go break the guy out, and we learn that the prisoner is Man Twi-Lick, the Twi-Lick woman’s brother! Somehow Man Twi-Lick’s makeup is even worse than his sister’s. Then, wouldn’t you know it – they turn on Mandalorian! Locking him up. They *could* just leave, of course. But no, they hang around for a bit, allowing time for the Mandalorian to escape and then hunt them down one by one. The end.
Last week, in the comments, I was arguing with a reader about isolated episode TV versus storyline TV. My argument was you should write something that connects. Almost EVERY SINGLE SHOW on TV today has a through-line.
Why? Well, you have to remember why they did it differently back in the day. It was because there wasn’t a medium that allowed people to re-watch shows. The only time a show was on was when it came on TV. If you missed it, you missed it. TV execs back then were worried that if someone missed an episode and that episode was critical to understanding the show, then the next episode would be confusing, dissuading the viewer from watching future episodes. The solution was to make every episode its own isolated thing (this is why sitcoms used to be so huge – they were ideal for this format).
But then DVDs came along and people were buying entire seasons of shows and so it made sense to create more of a through-line from show to show. Then the game really changed when Lost came out. That was the first show where you had to watch every single episode to know what was going on. After that, the further advent of “watch a show whenever you want” occurred when streaming arriverd. Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones became mega-hits specifically because you had to watch every episode to find out what happened.
Long story short, making The Mandalorian an “every episode is a standalone episode” show makes no sense. ESPECIALLY because it’s Star Wars, the biggest fictional world ever created. Why are you doing this? It makes it feel like a Saturday Morning cartoon, which it ISN’T. It’s a live-action 20 million dollar an episode show. Not only that, the seasons are SHORT! You don’t have to come up with a 20 episode arc here. It’s just 8 episodes! You can’t connect 8 episodes??
It’s frustrating and it’s maddening and it’s sad. It’s sad because this show is going to die. Probably not this season. But next season for sure. It’s been exposed. Everybody who talks about it says the same thing. “Yeah it’s kind of good… um… but why aren’t the episodes longer and why isn’t the story connecting?”
And look, if every episode was actually good, we’d be having a different conversation. If you somehow made this archaic format work for the show, I’d be all for it. But this isn’t Saturday Morning Cartoons. You have a rabid fan base desperate for a Star Wars with substance and you’ve given them the opposite. I don’t get it. I don’t get how they could’ve miscalculated so badly.
But okay, let’s get at least SOME writing tips from this abomination of an episode. What you have in today’s episode is a heist plot. A group of guys go in and try to retrieve something from a place where it’s theoretically difficult to retrieve that something. So that’s what we’re critiquing. Did they do a good job of executing that story?
I’ll start by saying this. A lot of writers will tell you that heists should never be about what’s being taken. That it should be about the characters and how they go about getting the job done. This is bad advice and I think I know where it comes from. It comes from the fact that all heist plots used to be about money. And money is boring. So it would make sense to say it shouldn’t just be about the money.
But heists have evolved over time and now heists can be about retrieving anything. That’s something you should take advantage of. Cause it means you can use the object being retrieved as a means to manipulate the plot. And what I like about this setup, in theory, is that by making the heist a prisoner, you’ve got more to work with in terms of plot evolution. You can make the prisoner a surprise. The prisoner can also have their own plans, want to do their own thing that doesn’t line up with the heister’s plans. So the setup to this episode isn’t a bad one.
But one of the principles of good writing is to find something new in an old setup. So if you’re going to be the 800,000th person to write a heist show/movie, you should add a new idea to the mix. There was none of that here. The execution here was so basic — THERE WAS ONE HALLWAY! — that we were ahead of the show the entire time.
One of the ways I measure good writing versus bad writing is to ask, “Is this something the average amateur writer could’ve come up with?” And the answer with this episode is undoubtedly yes. There is literally nothing in this episode that Joe Schmoe over at the Grove Starbucks couldn’t have come up with. It follows the beats so religiously that it’s practically begging to disappear the second it’s over.
And if that isn’t bad enough, there is ZERO resistance in this plot. There is never a doubt that they’re going to be able to get the guy out. These Battlestar Galactica droids were about as menacing as a can of Raid. Now some of you may say, “Well, how difficult really was it for the characters in the original Death Star?” I remember specifically feeling like they were f&*%d in that trash compactor. There’s one shot in particular where the walls are coming so close to each other that the edge of the moving wall starts covering the frame. I was legitimately worried that they weren’t going to make it.
That never happened here. Not once.
Then, on top of that, the show is way too short for this kind of storyline! This is the whole reason why you need to be connecting your storylines. You’re trying to set up six brand new characters AND create an entire heist story in 40 minutes?? Come on. Look at yourself in the mirror. Be real. If you’ve been building up to this for two episodes, you’re golden. But squeezing it into one episode? It’s disaster sauce.
One of the clearest examples of this is when Mando gets locked in the cell. The show is so short that they didn’t have time to establish that he was stuck there before they had to write a scene of him breaking out. And the problem with that is, if you don’t first establish that he’s REALLY STUCK THERE, that it’s GOING TO BE DIFFICULT TO GET OUT — maybe he tries a few things and they don’t work — if you don’t do any of that, then it feels too easy when he gets out. We don’t feel like he’s earned it at all. It’s only happening because the plot needs it to.
In retrospect, it’s clear to me that Favreau wrote those first three episodes as a self-contained story and didn’t have a plan afterwards. And we’re seeing that play out here. Each episode is less and less connected to the previous ones. And that’s too bad because Rise of Skywalker comes out Friday and it’s looking iffy. So I was hoping this series would take the Star Wars mantel and give us the great adventures and cool stories that Star Wars fans deserve. That isn’t the case.
[x] What the hell did I just watch?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the stream
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: One of the biggest misconceptions is that the “bunch of bad guys joining together to go after something” is a slam-dunk show/movie setup. Just like any idea, you still need to do the work to make it work. You still need to create original characters that we’re interested in. You still need to make the heist itself unique in some way. You still need some genuine surprises along the way. A lot of people point to the fact that The Dirty Dozen was so great. But how many versions of that setup have been awful since? Way more than have been successful. Does anybody remember Suicide Squad? Never ever rest on your concept. You are starting from a better place than a lame idea – you’ve got that going for you. But you still have to put everything you’ve got into the story and characters if it’s going to shine.
I have to give it to you guys with these holiday entries. You came hard and you came strong. Where else is someone going to pitch you this logline – “After a great white shark eats Santa and absorbs his magic, two elves with the help of a con woman, a cop and a cranky sea captain fight to stop the shark as it embarks on a bloody holiday feast.” It’s like someone was watching Sharknado while drinking a gallon of eggnog the night before Christmas then challenged themselves to write the entire script on Christmas Day.
Or this one, titled “Red Frosting and Broken Graham Crackers,” a holiday neo-noir: “Are cookies accidentally falling in the river? Or is the truth behind these disappearances far more sinister? When his friend is listed among the missing, a miserly cookie hits the streets to search for answers in an unforgiving city of gingerbread houses and graham cracker skyscrapers.”
While I don’t quite think sharks and Christmas go together, and while I’ve never come across a noir holiday film before, we’ve got a few fun-sounding entries this weekend. One of them in particular had me pronouncing, “That right there is a movie!” By the way, that’s one of the highest compliments you can give a script. So many concepts don’t have a logline that says “movie.” So when you come across one, it sticks out. I can’t tell you which concept I’m referring to cause I don’t want to influence the voting. But I’ll let you know after voting closes.
Amateur Showdown is a bi-weekly tournament where I pick five screenplays that were submitted to me and then you, the readers of the site, read as much of each script as possible and vote for your favorite in the comments. The winner will receive a review the following Friday that could result in props from your peers, representation, a spot on one of the big end-of-the-year screenwriting lists, and in rare cases, a SALE!
The NEXT Amateur Showdown will occur on January 17th and that one will be CONTAINED THRILLER SHOWDOWN. So if you have a contained thriller, a contained horror thriller, a contained sci-fi thriller, a contained dramatic thriller, GET THAT THING READY! And if you don’t yet have one, you’ve got almost 35 days to write one (January 16th is the deadline). More details on that in the new year.
In order to participate, e-mail me at carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Include your script title, the genre, a logline, and a pitch to myself and potential readers why you believe your script deserves a shot. It could be long, short, passionate, to-the-point. Whatever you think will convince someone your script is worth opening, make your case. Just like Hollywood, the Scriptshadow readers are a fickle bunch. So be convincing!
Merry Christmas, ho ho ho and good luck to the holiday contestants this weekend!
Title: Off the Hook
Genre: Family / Animation
Logline: Set in a world where a Christmas tree’s star is actually a secret transmitter used by Santa Claus to identify all of the active Christmas homes throughout the world, a ‘by the book’ toy soldier must lead a group of Christmas tree ornaments in a desperate race against time to find their missing star so Santa doesn’t skip their house.
Why You Should Read: Because it’s Toy Story on a tree! — Off the Hook is my shot at writing a Pixar-style four-quadrant family adventure. Every Christmas tree has a story with its own endless supply of colorful characters and I’ve always thought if I could just nail down a unique plot this could be a fun world to play in. Once I (finally!) figured out the star Off the Hook found its unique plot and I was off to the writing races.
This is a fast read at 91 pages stuffed full of GSU that has done well on the contest circuit. Here is what the Tracking Board had to say when it made their top 75: — “With a unique take on a Christmas tradition that will delight both kids and their parents, the writer is able to make this story their own by providing the Christmas tree ornaments with individual personalities and keeping them active with clear goals and purpose. The banter is witty and fun and keeps the story moving even before they leave the comfort of the living room. Once the adventure starts, the high stakes escalate with every obstacle and the addition of the ticking clock, counting down to when Santa arrives, is both adorable and the perfect motivation. Ending with positive themes of family, friendship, and the holiday spirit, this script has the potential to touch generations of kids.”
It’s time to reinvent the Christmas tree ornament because in my imagination those aren’t boring stationary objects on my tree – they’re toys with hooks!
Thanks for your consideration and merry Christmas to you and the Scriptshadow community!
Title: 100 Days of Christmas
Genre: Action-Adventure
Logline: When the South Pole attacks the North Pole one hundred days before Christmas, an aging Santa Claus passes the reins of his empire to his reluctant civilian son.
Why You Should Read: Hi Carson, I’ve been a long-time follower of ScriptShadow (since 2009) and without exaggeration, one of my favorite parts of each morning is reading your script reviews. I learn from every post and love how you champion stronger, more entertaining, more original stories that aim to elevate cinema to a higher level. I hope I’ve gleaned some of these lessons and incorporated them into my own work including “100 Days of Christmas”. This is a story I’ve developed over many years as I tried to write the kind of Christmas movie I would love to see — a sweeping, modern, romantic adventure that captures the wonder, beauty, and meaning of Christmas through characters I love and worlds that interest me. I hope you have as much fun reading it as I had writing it. Most of all, I hope it leaves you with that holiday feeling we all crave as we head into the last few weeks of the year (and decade). Thanks again for what you do. Much appreciated, Paul.
Title: Tinsel
Genre: Christmas Horror
Logline: Two young siblings struggle to survive Christmas Eve after they become stranded on a massive Christmas tree farm and hunted by a supernatural, child-eating monster.
Why you should read: One of my previous scripts, an hour long pilot, was optioned to a producer in LA. After that fell into limbo, I decided to refocus on my first love of writing features. I then wrote and submitted a horror/dark comedy spec to Carson, who chose it to compete in an amateur showdown, where it finished second. It was a great experience and motivated me to continue writing.
‘Tinsel’ also falls along those lines of horror/dark comedy, but it’s also heavy on the holiday/Christmas atmosphere. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve become less and less excited about Christmas and holidays in general, but I have an unmistakable nostalgia for that time of year when I think back to my childhood, as I’m sure a lot of other people do as well. So, I wanted to take my love of horror films and combine it with that nostalgia to try and tell a fun and fast paced horror story that takes place over Christmas Eve.
I’ve generated some interest from some producers/managers with this script, and I’d be happy to hear from the scriptshadow community as well, and hopefully from Carson himself. Thanks for your time!
Title: Jingle Hell Rock
Genre: Christmas, Action, Fantasy
Logline: When his elves are kidnapped by the Devil to make planet-conquering toys for the naughty, the only way Santa Claus can save Christmas and the world is by pulling off the rescue mission from Hell.
Why You Should Read: First off – Yes, my real last name is Christmas, but that probably isn’t going to be enough to earn me a spot in this year’s Holiday Showdown. Luckily I have a killer concept to go along with my festive surname. Seriously, why isn’t this a movie already? It’s such a simple premise – the elves get kidnapped, and Santa has to rescue them. It’s Taken with a festive-fantasy twist. Surely, I couldn’t be the first person to think of this. Well, while researching Santa Claus movies, not only did I find out that nobody’s ever explored this premise, but I also discovered something shocking. Of the over 95 movies about old St. Nick, for some reason, almost all of them are told through the point of view of some entitled little brat drowning in first-world problems or one of Santa’s overly ambitious helpers who defiantly took the short-bus to toy-making school. And for some reason, it’s always one of these two knuckle-heads that end up rescuing Santa and saving Christmas. What the hell are we doing, people? After all the joy he’s brought to the world, can we not even let Santa be the hero of his own damn movie? Well, Jingle Hell Rock will fix all that and if you guys have 1/10th of the fun reading it as I did writing it, then you are all in for a very Merry Christmas. God bless us, everyone.
Title: Boy Santa
Genre: Family/Animation
Logline: Boy Santa tells the untold life story of a chimney sweep who grew up and created Christmas.
Why You Should Read: I’m a Santa expert. I could tell you about reindeer on the Mongolian steppes who get high gorging on Amanita muscaria mushrooms––those red-and-white spotted ones growing beneath pine trees on Victorian Christmas cards. I could tell you how the village shaman collected the reindeer urine––now filtered of its toxicity––and shared it in the communal yurt with the herders. Of the stories they told of flying with their reindeer while passing around a bowl of psychoactive brew. How the shaman wore a red coat with white spots in homage to the sacred fungus; how when the entrance was covered with a snow-drift he’d enter the yurt through the chimney opening. Or how those Silk Road traders brought this story back to the west to create the man in red we know today. And the lucky charm of the chimney sweep was that mushroom known as the ‘fly ageric.’
That’s the truth, and here’s the fiction.
In the flood of biopics one beloved character has been overlooked…Santa Claus. Boy Santa is an origin story that explains all the myths: the red coat, the elves, the gifts, his immortality…everything. Boy Santa is about friendship, family and giving, filled with memorable, larger-than-life characters who learn to believe in themselves when others do not. Seen through Rudolph’s eyes with a childlike sense of wonder, it’s a highly marketable IP idea with repeated seasonal revenues. I hope you enjoy the script. Thank you for your consideration. Merry Christmas to you and yours!
There are 24 hours left to get those holiday scripts in for Holiday Showdown! Hurry hurry hurry. Any holiday themed script – send it to carsonreeves3@gmail.com with your title, genre, logline, why you think it deserves a shot, and a pdf of the script. The five holiday contestants will be posted tomorrow night!
I was thinking back through some of the screenwriting lessons I learned over the years and keyed on a few that blew my mind. You know, those lessons where all of a sudden a major part of the screenwriting matrix became clear to you? Outside of writing a great scene or coming up with a kick-butt plot twist, stumbling across that game-changing screenwriting tip is the best feeling ever.
A common problem a lot of newbie screenwriters have is they only know what their hero wants. They don’t know what the love interest wants. What the comedic relief wants. What the boss wants. What the trusty assistant wants. What the best friend wants. What the daughter wants. What the dad wants. Or what anybody in any scene in the movie wants other than the hero.
When you write from this place, your script feels thin. The conversations your hero has are thin. If people don’t want anything, if they are only there to serve the machinations of your plot, like automatons waiting for instructions, your script will never rise above average.
Now you’ve heard me say that you should know as much about every character as possible. And I continue to encourage that. The more you know, the more life is breathed into every scene those characters are in. But, realistically, you can’t know everything about everyone. Well, I guess you could. But it would take a long time. And if a character is only in your script for three scenes, it might not be worth it to spend five weeks writing out their life story.
So let’s talk about an alternative to this. For purposes of reference, I’m going to call it the NOW and THEN approach. For every character in your script who has more than one scene, give them a goal for each scene they’re in (the “NOW”) and give then an overall goal for their life (the “THEN”). Let’s see how this helps improve your script.
Let’s say your hero, JAKE, gets a hot dog every day for lunch at a hot dog stand in front of his work. Whenever he’s getting a Chicago style dog from the hot dog guy, STAN, they chat. Now let’s say you don’t know anything about Stan. He’s the hot dog guy, you argue. He’s lucky I even gave him a name. Your dialogue might look something like this…
“How’s work today?” Jake asks. “Busy busy,” Stan says. “It’s tourist season so I’m making a lot of dough.” “Nice,” Jake says. “What about you?” Stan asks. “Can’t complain. Although I’m probably going to need a doctor’s check-up soon after sucking down all these dogs.” Haha. They both laugh together.
Granted I didn’t try very hard here. But it’s clear that the dialogue exists on a simplistic plane because you don’t have any complex information about the other character in the scene. So let’s see what happens when we apply the NOW and THEN approach. Stan’s “THEN” is going to be that he’s saving money to open a restaurant. He puts a little bit of his profits away each day and, if all goes all, he plans to open the restaurant in five years. Stan’s “NOW” is that he needs to call his wife to tell her to pick up their son today but he can’t find his phone. With these new details, let’s see how the scene changes.
Jake greedily accepts his hot dog. “Getting any closer to that restaurant?” Jake says. “It’d be nice if I didn’t have to stand up to eat these things all the time.” Stan disappears under the stand. He seems to be looking for something. Jake peers over. “You okay?” “I’m fine, I just… I lost my phone. It was here a second ago.” He’s flipping over boxes, checking his pockets. “I have to call my wife.” “You want to use my phone?” Jake says. “Yes! Yes, that would be great. Thank you.” Jake hands over his phone. Stan takes it, starts to dial, but freezes. “I don’t… I don’t know her number. I don’t know what my own wife’s phone number is.” “Yeah, you might not want to tell her that.” At that moment Stan’s eyes key on his boiling hot dogs. He grabs some tongs, fishes them into the water and pulls out… his cell phone. Both Jake and Stan stare at each other.
Yeah yeah, I know. Silly scene. But you have to admit that it was more interesting than the first exchange. And the reason it was more interesting was because I had more information to go on. I knew more about Stan. In scene 1, he’s a nothing. In scene 2, he’s got a life going on. And all I needed in order to find that life was two things – his NOW and his THEN.
I already know what some of you are thinking. Aren’t peripheral characters peripheral for a reason? If they become too vocal, too chatty, they may overshadow your hero. In some scenes, Carson, you want the other character to be invisible. Of course. All of this is on a case by case basis where you vary the degree to which the other character interacts.
If Jake comes into this scene after losing a major client at work, I’m dialing down Stan’s participation to make the scene more about Jake. I still know what Stan’s life goal is. I still know he needs to call his wife soon. But maybe I ditch the lost phone stuff. Instead I have him generally distracted by the fact that his wife isn’t going to like it when he asks her to pick up their son. “You alright?” Stan says. “It’s nothing. Can’t pick up the kid today is all.” And that’s the extent of their exchange. Or, in some cases, I may not have Sam mention his problem at all. I let it come through via his mood or the subtext of his actions.
The point is, when you figure out the NOW and THEN of a character, you have more ammo for your scene gun. And let’s keep in mind, we never figured out who Jake was in this movie. If I knew his situation, the conversation would be even more specific. That’s where you tend to find your best dialogue – when you know exactly what the characters in the scene want.
I implore you to try this out in your current script. I GUARANTEE YOU your scenes will get better.
Genre: Horror
Premise: When an overstressed young woman joins her best friend at a wellness retreat in the Arizona desert, she begins to suspect that the revitalizing spa treatments, serums, and macrobiotic meals are part of something closer to a dangerous cult, run by the retreat’s charismatic leader.
About: This script finished on this year’s Blood List! Co-writers Kevin Aarmento and Jaki Bradley are just getting started in their careers. Jaki directed a small film called Last Ferry this year.
Writers: Kevin Armento & Jaki Bradley
Details: 103 pages
I wondered for years why they didn’t make more horror movies about cults. Cults are freaky, man! Not to mention, there’s so much you can do with the mythology since each cult’s backstory is unique. With Midsommer coming out earlier this year and a few other cult horror scripts floating around, cult horror is becoming a thing.
And that’s not the only script similarity we’re seeing today. Remember how yesterday’s script was about a group of people brought to a remote place who are then manipulated by a psychotic antagonist? That’s the same setup for today’s script. And that’s not a bad thing. This is a format that works well in features. As long as you come up with your own unique characters with their own unique backstories as well as a unique setting, you can get a ton of mileage out of this setup.
Let us take a look at Detox’s plot.
Sam is a 30-something consumer safety officer for the FDA. Her daily existence has been boring ever since her husband killed himself. That’s why her best friend, Madison, has set up an amazing opportunity for them to go to one of the most prestigious wellness centers for women in the entire world.
The two head out to the middle of Arizona and meet up with all the rest of the participants, women of varying ages who are doing extremely well in life but who are blocked in some way by personal setbacks. Soon we learn that Sam’s personal setback is more complicated than we were told. The reason her husband killed himself is because Sam had a miscarriage and blamed her for it.
Things get weird immediately. This center is all about detoxifying and that means they only get to eat a single plant for the first 48 hours of the weeklong excursion. But, in the meantime, they’re allowed to drink juices and elixirs, most of which make them feel woozy and wacked out. Sam is constantly seeing things, like her dead husband in the corner of a room, only to wake up in her bedroom and wonder if it was just a dream.
But the visions are nothing compared to some of the practices they use here. At one point they lock Sam in a negative 300 degree cryotherapy chamber and won’t let her out until she explains in detail how losing her husband made her feel. And in another group exercise, one of the staff members “channels” Sam’s dead husband, forcing Sam to have a conversation with “him,” an exchange “her husband” ends by screaming at her, “I hate you! I hate you!”
Eventually, Sam begins to suspect that Willa, the leader, is up to something, so she sneaks into her office, steals her phone back, and starts googling the names of everyone here. What she finds is far from encouraging. Pictures of some of the staff members hanging out with some of the participants years ago. This leads Sam to realize that maybe the person who brought her here, Madison, is also in on whatever’s going on. Or is it all part of the plan to help Sam finally detoxify her past and start living again?
Look. This script was pretty good.
But here’s something I want all screenwriters to consider because I don’t think the average screenwriter considers this. There’s a very good chance that a reader or a producer or an agent read another script similar to yours recently. That’s because none of are as original as we think we are. There are only so many story situations to pull from.
For this reason, you have to ask yourself if this is the best execution of your idea that you’re capable of. Because if I just read a script yesterday with a similar setup and it’s better than yours, then all I’m going to think of your script is that it’s the “not as good” version of the two scripts in question.
This is why holding yourself to such a high standard is crucial in screenwriting. You can’t get by with “fine.” You’re constantly being compared to other scripts and other writers that readers just read last month, last week, even last Saturday. Every plot choice you make, you have to ask yourself, “Is this really the best I can do?” And if it is, great. But if there’s some doubt in your mind, try to come up with something better. You’d be surprised at how creative you can actually be when you push yourself.
I do give the writers credit, however, for two things. First, they committed to their protagonist’s makeup. What I mean by that is, they could’ve easily lip-serviced the whole miscarriage thing. Draw it onto the character to give her that “depth” screenwriting books always talk about. But they go all in with it. The exercises at the retreat force Sam to dig deep into what happened, not only with the miscarriage itself, but how it destroyed her marriage.
That’s what you want to do in these movies. You don’t want to send your character off to a scary wellness retreat and then throw a bunch of jump scares at her and call it a day. Wellness centers are about exorcising demons and facing your past so you should be marrying that situation to your character’s inner journey.
The other thing is that the second half of this script was a lot stronger than the first half. Which was nice to see since it’s usually the opposite. Writing a script is hard. It takes a lot out of you. And you often see that in the back half of a script. The writer runs out of gas, leading each scene to be less interesting than the previous scene. Your script should always be building. It should always be getting better. And where you usually find that extra gear is in rewrites.
I can tell you the exact moment in this script where it hit that higher gear. Sam sees the picture of one of the staff members hanging out on a beach with one of the participants (from two years ago). It doesn’t make any sense. And Madison, her friend, came here last year. So she’s already vouched for this place. So it wasn’t an obvious scam where they were all putting on a show because then her best friend would have to be in on it. And that didn’t make sense. That turned the second half into a compelling mystery, that so happened to make the main character a lot more active (active characters can be gear-changers all on their own – if your story feels slow in any way, consider ramping up how active your main character is).
One last thing I want to praise the writers for is that everybody in town right now is writing female lead roles. Even if it doesn’t make sense, they do it because they know that’s what studios want. As a result, you get a lot of unnatural scenarios that feel like Ghostbusters 2016. But everything about this all-female setup feels authentic. We never question why there isn’t a single male character in the movie. And that’s the way it should be. You want to create scenarios that are organic for your characters regardless of the genre.
So I say this is worth the read. It just has the unfortunate luck of coming right after The Menu.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Competitive Writing. – When you’re writing a script, imagine someone else writing a script which isn’t that different from yours. Because that’s happening. There will be many writers THIS YEAR who are writing screenplays similar to your own. For this reason, you want to recruit your competitive side. Imagine that other writer (or writers) writing the scene you’re writing next and be competitive about it. Write a scene that you believe is clearly better than any of the scenes any of those other writers could come up with. Writing is such a singular experience that we often forget how much our writing is being compared with others. As a reader, I can confirm that this comparison is going on. So call on that inner athlete of yours to out-write whoever the competition is.
What I learned 2: You get one “hero sees freaky thing then wakes up and wonders if it was a dream” moment in a script. MAYBE TWO, at most. But you should avoid these scenes if possible. The problem with them is that it allows the writer to cheat. They get to show something freaky and then not have to explain it. And the more you do that to the reader, the more they feel f$%#d with. So go crazy with one of these if you must. But please stop at one.
Don’t look now. But another script may have just landed in my Top 25! And in the final month of the year! Expect this one to be a Black List juggernaut next week.
Genre: Thriller/Satire/Comedy
Premise: A food connoisseur takes a first date to an exclusive and mysterious dining experience on an island.
About: Alexander Payne has come on to direct this and Emma Stone will be playing our food connoisseur’s date. Co-writers Seth Reiss and Will Tracy are late-night show writers. However, Tracy also wrote an episode of the greatest show on television right now, Succession. And in case anyone was wondering, this is a spec script! Yay!
Writers: Seth Reiss and Will Tracy
Details: 104 pages
Even though I love reading screenplays, if I’m given the opportunity to stop reading something in order to have time to myself, I’ll always take the time to myself. I have lots of things I enjoy outside of reading so it isn’t a difficult decision. Even the last script I gave an “impressive” to, The Traveler – if you would’ve told me, midway through it, that the following day was a holiday and I didn’t have to post a review, I would’ve stopped reading right there.
Not the case with The Menu.
If my place was on fire, I would’ve eyeballed the time I had before the fire reached me so that I could squeeze in as many pages as I could.
This script is a page-turner if there ever was one. I can’t remember a script with such an original premise and execution. The way this story unraveled was captivating. It had to be if Alexander Payne wanted to direct it. This is a guy who writes his own movies. Who’s won screenwriting Oscars. So if he falls in love with a script enough to direct it, it must be good. And The Menu is very very good.
Tyler is a well-off 30-something man who has an insatiable appetite for the culinary world. He’s spent months trying to get on this exclusive list of Chef Slowik’s mysterious restaurant, which is set on an island that the customers must be ferried over to. Tyler’s date is Margot, a beautiful 20-something woman who isn’t nearly as impressed with tonight’s impending experience as Tyler is. Margot is also a little mysterious herself.
Joining them are an older couple, a prestigious food columnist, a group of tech-bros, and Daniel Radcliffe and his assistant. Yes, Harry Potter is taking part in tonight’s festivities. Tyler geeks out when they all take the boat over to the island and nearly loses his mind at the rustic dining room set right next to an open kitchen, so they can watch the cooks prepare the food.
But as soon as Chef Slowik arrives, we realize this guy is nuts. All chefs are in love with themselves but this guy’s ego stretches all the way back to the mainland. This begins a 7 course meal, with each course becoming decidedly more weird. The second course, for example, is bread without bread. You get butter, oil, spread, all surrounding an area on the plate where the bread should be. But there’s no actual bread.
Course 4 is where things get really f$#%d though. That’s when Chef Slowik introduces his sous chef, who he tells a long sad story about, and at the end of the story, the sous chef pulls a hidden gun out of his pants and blows his own brains out. It is at this moment that everyone realizes tonight is not going to end well. One of the older customers tries to leave but gets his hand chopped off. The message is clear. Everyone stays until the end of the meal.
The only thing Chef Slowik is perplexed by is Margot. As he watches the diners, he’s consumed by her. Something is off. Late in the night, he corners her and demands to know who she is. She’s obviously not Tyler’s girlfriend.
This is where we learn that Margot is a companion. She’s only here because she was paid to be here. That presents a problem for Chef Slowik, who has personalized every single component of this meal. He can’t have someone random. It screws up his perfect menu. But there’s something worse about Margot’s presence. Of everyone here, she seems to be the only one capable of fighting back. Which means she’s the only one with a chance of getting out of the night alive.
I knew this script was going to be great within the first three pages. Take, for example, how well Tyler is set up. We know EXACTLY who this character is immediately. I read scripts ALL THE TIME where, by the end of them, I still don’t know a single character. And these writers have made Tyler crystal clear in three pages.
He’s obsessed with food. He doesn’t have respect for anyone who isn’t obsessed with food, including Margot. And that’s it. If you can create characters that readers instantly understand, that’s a skill that can make you hundreds of thousands of dollars. That’s because it’s a skill most people in Hollywood do not have. Most writers have a tendency to write muddy characters or pack them with so much going on that no single identity trait stands out.
When we get to the restaurant, the writers establish just how extensively they understand their subject matter. Every single description, every single line of dialogue, indicated that these two understand restaurants, food, and the life of a famous chef. “You’re really in for something special tonight, Margot. Chef Slowik is the shit right now. Two James Beard Awards. Number 5 on the World’s 50. The most exciting voice in New American cuisine, hands down.” “How quickly you forget Guy Fieri.” “His story’s incredible. He cut his teeth with Keller at the French Laundry and then at 25 he becomes the head development chef at the Fat Duck. He opens his own place in New York, gets two Michelin stars in his first year and then — boom.”
Bad writers don’t write stuff like this. They’re general and cliche because general and cliche don’t require research. Here’s the bad version of the above: “I’ve heard so much about this guy. He was one of the best chefs in France for an entire decade.” “Well I haven’t heard of him.” “He’s supposed to make one of the best steaks in the country.” See the difference? I see a lot more of the latter when I read scripts than the former. That’s why it sticks out when writers do the work. Because the average screenwriter doesn’t put forth the effort.
Also, I didn’t know where this story was going until the midpoint. It was exciting turning each page because I wasn’t just following the story, I was trying to figure out what kind of movie this was. And then when I figured out the rhythm – that each course was going to get more intense – my concern was, “How do they keep coming up with original courses?’ Because that’s the whole movie, is the anticipation of what the next course will be. And if any of them fall short on originality, the script doesn’t work. So it was shocking to me that every single course was original. Even with the thousands of scripts I’ve read, I still had no idea what was coming next. That’s another mark of a great writer. They’re ahead of the reader. The reader isn’t ahead of them.
And the dialogue. Wow. The key was they created a dialogue-friendly character at the center of the story in Chef Slowik. He comes out and gives a story before every course is served and they’re all weird and wonderful and psychotic. “Jeremy is talented. He’s good. But he’s not great. And quite frankly, he will never be great. He so desperately wants my job, my position, my prestige. Isn’t that right, Jeremy?” “Yes, chef.” “But Jeremy has forsaken everything to achieve that. He works here 20 hours a day. He has no time for friends. No time for family. He can’t go to the gym. Or to see a movie. He can’t even go to the bank because it’s only open when he’s working. Jeremy, when’s the last time you talked to your mother?” “I don’t remember, chef.” “His entire life is service and pressure. Pressure to put out the best food you can. Pressure to please your Chef. Pressure to please the customer. Pressure to please the critics. And even when all goes right, and the food is perfect, and the customers are happy, and the critics are too, there is no way to avoid The Mess. That is to say, The Mess you make of your life, of your body, of your health, of your sanity, by giving everything you have to pleasing people you’ll never know.”
The only aspects of the script that are questionable are one, Daniel Radcliffe. On the one hand it makes sense that a celebrity would want to participate in a prestigious secret high-priced rare restaurant experience. But throwing real-life celebrities into the mix always takes you a little bit out of the story. I’m not sure that was the best choice.
And two, there comes a moment in the script where people are either going to eagerly stay on for the rest of the ride or hop off. That moment is when the Chef makes it clear that everyone is going to die tonight. And there are still three courses left when he announces this. I know they’re on an island. But I would at least try to escape. And yet outside of a weak attempt by one of the customers, everyone else accepts their fate.
The reason I still went along with it, though, is because everything leading up to that moment was so well-written and so well-constructed that I believed in this world 100%. If the script was sloppy and weak, I probably wouldn’t have bought in. That goes to show that readers will take the plunge into tough story sells if the writing is strong. I mean this script is so tight and so meticulous. There isn’t a single wasted moment. It all matters. It all works. I’m jealous.
A lot of people ask me what the difference is between a well-written script and a badly written script under the pretense of, “Isn’t it all just subjective?” If you really want to know the difference, put aside four hours and read last Wednesday’s script, First Harvest, and then this script. Every single aspect of this script is better. Clearly defined characters, memorable characters, tight plotting, dialogue that pops, conflict, mysteries, suspense, surprises, research, specificity.
The Menu is what screenwriting is all about.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive (TOP 25!!!)
[ ] genius
What I learned: Above all, there’s an assuredness in The Menu where you know the writers have complete control over their story. Whereas, when you read First Harvest, you can sense the writer trying to figure things out on the page. It’s the opposite of assuredness. That’s a defining factor in strong screenwriters – having total control over your story.
