Genre: Horror/Thriller
Premise: A single mother on her last financial leg meets a rich charming man with a dark secret.
About: This is a spec script that was purchased a couple of years back. Haimes is the same writer who wrote the recently reviewed Jitters and since I enjoyed that script, I decided to read this one as well, even though it’s in a genre I don’t typically enjoy.
Writer: Marc Haimes
Details: 110 pages – January 2009 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

Now some of you have pointed out in the past that when I don’t like a genre, I can become biased towards a story and not give it a proper chance. Well I’m here to tell you that you be wrong sucka. Because if there’s any screenplay I’m destined not to like, it’s a vampire screenplay. I think vampires are cliché. I think they’re silly. I sometimes daydream about buying up all of the Twilight books and hurling them onto the moon like Superman did in Superman IV. So when I heard rumors that today’s script was about vampires, I was so prepared to hate it.

But!

Like I always say. It doesn’t matter what the reader’s mindset is going into your script. If you write something good, you can win them over.

28-year-old Jennifer is a struggling single mom with two daughters, a five year old and a two year old. Jennifer is barely squeaking by as a party entertainer. She dresses up as someone known as “The Purple Princess,” and performs at really rich kids’ parties. Lately, however, money has gotten so tight that she’s had to bring her own daughters to these parties, making for an awkward experience.

Things get so bad, in fact, that Jennifer has to beg her employers for any work, Purple Princess or not. One of those employers begrudgingly sets her up with a catering job at a nearby tech company . While on the job, Jennifer finds a money clip underneath a couch with thousands of dollars in it. As she’s just about to pocket it, a man spots her, claiming the money to be his. As he backs her into a corner and is presumably about to harm her, another handsome man charges in just in time to save her. His name is Ray.

Jennifer and Ray hit it off immediately, and pretty soon she’s going over to his place and hanging out with him and making love to him and just like that we have a full-fledged romance. Jennifer’s shining knight in armor has finally shown up to save her.

Buuuuuuuuuuuut… Not so fast.

Ray cuts off communication almost as suddenly as he started it, citing some mysterious but secret danger. Jennifer is a cross between skeptical and concerned so she starts stalking Ray from afar, and in the process learns that there’s a lot more going on to Ray’s company than he first let on. You see, Ray works for a company of vampires. And as we all know, vampires are hungry little buggers who like to feast on folks, particularly young women. So Ray does his best job to distance himself from Jennifer to save her. The question is, is it too late?

What we saw with Jitters was a script Haimes was working on with producers and therefore an unfinished product. With this script, we have the spec draft that sold, and you can tell the difference. Every scene has been honed. Every story choice has been thought through. Every unimportant thread has been eliminated. This reads very much like the kind of spec script that sells in the industry. It’s a high concept idea that’s been executed to perfection.

Now I want to highlight a couple of things here. Two weeks ago I reviewed a script, Underling, where our main character was never actually around the threat. It was his girlfriend who was around the threat and therefore *he* was removed from the central danger in the story. As a result, we never really felt that scared because we were never around the person who posed the most danger to us. Some other character who we barely knew was.

Elevator Men does this the correct way. The person we’re highlighting, Jennifer, is directly involved with the danger. Jennifer is dating Ray, who is the mysterious man who may or may not be trying to kill her. That’s how you want to do it. Whatever the danger is in your story, you want to put your character as close to it as possible. The further removed they are, the less scary your script is going to be.

I’d also like to highlight a key scene in the movie because last week we spent so much time talking about “scenes of death” and I need to point out that there are ways to write scenes of death and still make them work.

The truth is that you’re always going to have scenes where you have to convey backstory or exposition, and while it’s preferable that you hide all of that stuff within existing scenes that push the story forward, sometimes, depending on how plot heavy your script is, you’ll need entire scenes dedicated to getting that stuff out of the way.

The trick is, recognizing that scene of death, and looking for a way to keep it interesting. The scene in question has Jennifer over at Ray’s house to basically talk about their pasts. Uh-oh. Talking about your pasts is definitely a scene of death. Now it’s important to note that their pasts specifically set up plot points later in the story. So these aren’t just random backstory elements to help us know the characters. They have a dual purpose. Still, we don’t know that yet, so the scene still has the potential to be boring.

Anyway, Haimes adds two elements to make the scene more exciting. The first is dramatic irony. We know by this point that Ray is peculiar and probably dangerous. Except Jennifer doesn’t know that yet. So every moment that Jennifer is alone with Ray is a potential moment she could be harmed, making us scared for her, which creates anticipation, since we want Jennifer to get out of this alive.

The other element is gimmicky but it still works. Throughout the script, the vampires make a loud screeching noise. During this scene, we first hear that loud screeching noise from a distance. As the two continue to talk, the noise gets closer. And closer. In other words, we have sort of an aural ticking time bomb. We know the vampires are getting closer, which means danger for our hero. So again, a typical “scene of death” actually becomes an exciting scene with danger on two separate fronts.

The only real complaints I have were complaints I realized in retrospect. For example, I’m not sure the casino stuff really goes with the story. And the more I think about a mom breaking into a company in the middle of the night with her two kids, the more I question if that’s really happening. I mean, it was an exciting scene, especially when the daughters got lost. But I mean, come on – is an audience really going to buy that? It’s only one step removed from the babysitter who goes upstairs to check on a noise.

But hey, like I said, I only thought of that stuff after the script was over. While I was reading the script, it was all pretty awesome.

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

What I learned: I used to think that using money as a character motivation was a lazy choice. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that even though it’s a cliché, it’s a cliché that works. One of the most relatable situations in the world is a lack of money. Not being able to pay the bills. Not being able to pay the rent. Not being able to pay the mortgage. We’ve all been there. So creating characters that need to do questionable things because they’re desperate for money is probably going to work. I was just watching Warrior yesterday (a good movie btw) and the physics teacher’s need to fight is driven by the fact that he can’t pay the mortgage. Yes I’ve seen that a million times before. But I also know that it happens a million times a day in the real world. So it’s just one of those clichés that works.

Genre: Thriller/Drama
Premise: A young woman comes to live with her estranged sister who is married to a mysterious and dangerous man.
About: Jamaica Inn was a best selling novel back in the 1930s which was eventually made into a film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The script appeared on last year’s Brit List, which is the British equivalent of the Black List. Rebecca Hall, the actress who played Ben Affleck’s girlfriend in The Town, is said to be circling the lead role. Daphne du Maurier, the author of the book in which the screenplay is based on, also wrote the novel “Rebecca,” which was turned into the movie that won an Oscar in 1940, and the short story, “The Birds,” which of course Alfred Hitchcock went on to direct as a film.
Writer: Michael Thomas (based on the novel by Daphne du Maurier)
Details: January 1, 2010 draft – 124 pages (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

Whenever you read a script where the main font is something other than Courier, a bevy of red flags pop up and usually means one of three things. You’re reading a script by the Coen Brothers. You’re reading a script by a novelist who is writing their first screenplay. You’re reading a script by someone who’s never written a screenplay before. Now if it’s option number one, you’re still in good shape. If it’s option number two, chances are you’re going to get a lot of extensive prose accompanying a story that takes way too long to get going. And if it’s option number three, you’re in for a long afternoon my friend.

My guess is that we’re dealing with door number two. Thomas definitely has a way with words. When he described a room or a setting or a person, I could feel myself being transported into the story. But the prose was such a priority that the actual storytelling suffered. Transitions between scenes were confusing, setups of scenes were muddled, and I wasn’t always sure what was going on within the scenes.

For example, I didn’t know until I went over to Wikipedia that one of the main characters, Joss, was a ship marauder who, along with his band of hoodlums, would kill everyone on a ship and steal the loot. When I was reading the actual script, we’d just all of a sudden inexplicably be on a ship with a bunch of people throwing a bunch of other people off, and I honestly had no idea where any of it was coming from. I eventually chalked it up to one of the characters having some recurring nightmare, as that’s the only logical conclusion I could come up with at the time. Again, this was due to the way that scenes just sort of bled into each other without any defining purpose or structure.

Now I suppose it’s fair to ask if this is my fault or the screenwriter’s fault. Here’s what I’d say to that. When you write in a non-industry-standard font, the reader doesn’t trust you, because they assume you don’t know what you’re doing. So when those weird moments happen, the reader is less likely to chalk it up as their fault and more likely to chalk it up as yours. If the formatting is correct – had the presentation been consistent with industry standards – then the reader is more likely to go back and reread something to figure out what they missed. Because of the presentation, I wasn’t willing to do that. And that’s usually the case with most readers. They just don’t have time to dick around.

Having said that, it’s important to note a couple of things. This script appears to be developed in-house, which means it’s being written for only the producers. Also, I admit I’ve seen quite a few screenplays off The Brit List using a font other than Courier. So I’m wondering if they don’t use Courier as a standard font over in the UK? Maybe somebody from across the pond can clear that up for me.

Anyway, it’s time to tell you the plot. I’m guessing the story begins back in the 1930s, though I couldn’t tell you for sure because no date is given in the script. I’m just going off when the novel was written. As those of you who read the site know, not giving the date of your story is a huge pet peeve of mine, but I’ve ranted about it before so I’m not going to do it again. A young down on her luck woman, Mary, has come to the city to live with her sister, Patience, at the Inn that her husband owns. When she gets there, she learns that said husband, Joss, is an alcoholic evil brood of a man.

Her sister is also a shell of her former self. Once beautiful, she is now shriveled and thin and haggard, the result of years of constant abuse. As Mary tries to reconnect with her sister, she encourages her to see what she’s become and to think about leaving her husband. But what Mary will soon find out is that Joss is not an easy person to run away from.

He begins treating Mary much like he treats his wife, but Mary is not as easily scared, and does her best to stand up to Joss. However, her bravery starts to dissipate when she sees Joss kill a man. On top of that, Mary realizes that nobody ever actually checks in to the Jamaica Inn. Which brings up the question, how the heck does Joss make any money?

Of course, through the help of Wikipedia, we learn that Joss and his band of buddies rob incoming cargo ships and that’s how he makes his dough. If all of this wasn’t enough to handle, Mary finds herself sexually attracted to Joss, a temptation she must constantly battle but one in which she has little control over. I guess that’s one way to go about proving to your sister that her husband isn’t right for her. The Jerry Springer approach.

So again, my big problem with Jamaica Inn was that I was never quite sure what was going on. The emphasis seemed to be on the prose and not on the storytelling. I can’t emphasize this enough for young writers. Readers don’t care how well you can describe what a tree looks like in the morning mist. They care about how you craft your story. They care about how you create drama. They care about how you create conflict. They care that you can tell your story in a clear and concise way. I’m not going to say that the way you choose your words isn’t important. If I were writing the beach scene in Saving Private Ryan, I would use descriptive visually arresting words and phrases. But as far as everything else, just tell the story. Don’t describe to me the sound Private Vin’s pants make when they rub against each other. Save that stuff for your novel.

I think there’s some good things about the script. Rebecca Hall is a hot actress at the moment and has her pick of the litter. So her interest in this is telling. Both of these female lead roles are juicy and the kind of stuff upper echelon actresses don’t get a chance to play very often. I also thought the relationship between Mary and Joss was interesting. On the one hand she was terrified of him and on the other she was attracted to him. I’m not sure it totally made sense but there was definitely an intriguing chemistry between the two whenever they had a scene together.

The thing that will either make or break this movie is clarity. On the page, I wasn’t exactly clear what was going on with all of the ship stuff. But I think onscreen, when we see the faces and the people involved it’s going to be much easier to follow. Still, I’m hoping that they addressed the confusion surrounding that whole storyline and that they don’t make it feel like a dream sequence, which is how I interpreted it in this draft.

The truth is, I was really hoping this was going to be a ghost story. When you have an Inn that nobody comes to, I think you’re hoping for a bigger payoff than that the owner goes off and loots ships. Or at least that’s how I felt. So with the payoff being disappointing and the writing being too confusing, I can’t say I would recommend this. But I will say that the idea has potential.

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

What I learned: Remember, whenever you have a slow build to your story – and what I mean by “slow build” is that no real goal emerges in the story for a long time – you have to use other storytelling methods to hook the reader in the meantime. Slow builds are really dangerous because readers are impatient people. So you want to think long and hard about how else you plan to keep them interested. Here, there are two things. There’s the mystery of what’s going on at the Jamaica Inn, and there’s the unique conflict between Joss and Mary (Do they hate each other? Do they like each other?). Now whether those are enough to keep one’s interest is up to the individual reader. But the point is, you need something there to keep the reader interested until the real story kicks in.

We’re back for Day 4 of Star Wars Week. To find out more, head back to Monday’s review of The Empire Strikes Back.

Genre: Sci-fi/Fantasy
Premise: (from IMDB) Anakin Skywalker shares a forbidden romance with Padmé Amidala while his teacher, Obi-Wan Kenobi, makes an investigation of a separatist assassination attempt on Padmé which leads to the discovery of a secret Republican clone army.
About: Lucas was a little shaken by the response to his screenplay for The Phantom Menace, so was reluctant to write Attack Of The Clones. He ended up writing a couple of drafts and then gave off the final draft to Jonathan Hales, a writer on Young Indiana Jones, who had little experience writing theatrical films. Hales finished his draft a week before production began.
Writers: George Lucas and Jonathan Hales (story by George Lucas)

Of the three prequels, Attack Of The Clones probably had the best chance of becoming a real movie. There’s definitely a lot more going on here than in Menace. You have an assassination attempt. You have a much more interesting dynamic in your Jedi pairing. The set pieces are more interesting. But much like The Phantom Menace, there’s too much junk you have to sift through to find the gems. By far, the biggest fault of the screenplay is its treatment of its love story. If you ever plan to write a love story, watch this movie to see how not to do it. Lucas has referenced numerous times how this storyline was his “Titanic.” And that’s a great place to start because I want to show you just how inferior this love story is to Titanic.

Probably more important than what happens during the love story, is how you set up that love story. Your job as a screenwriter is to set up a situation that mines the most drama out of the relationship. In Titanic, we have a poor drifter falling for one of the richest women on the ship, who also happens to be engaged – and oh, they’re on a ship that will eventually sink and kill most of the people on it. I can safely say that’s a situation that will bring out a lot of drama. Now let’s look at Attack Of The Clones. Anakin and Amidala are told to go hide out on her planet.

I want you to think about that for a second. Hiding out on a planet. There is no goal here. There’s no engine driving the story thread. There’s nobody after these two. There is no urgency. There are no stakes. You’re simply putting two characters in an isolated location and asking them to sit and wait. Is there any drama to mine from that situation? No. This means that before our characters have a single conversation, their love story is doomed. There is no way for it to be interesting. Contrast this with The Empire Strikes Back, where the entire love story takes place on the run with our characters constantly in danger. That’s how you want your love story unraveling.

Next up is the dialogue. This is a huge mistake that a lot of amateur screenwriters make. They believe that if the characters are telling each other that they love each other, that the audience will by association feel that love. Wrong. Actually, the opposite is true. We feel love through actions. We feel love through subtext. The time when we least feel love is when two characters are professing it to each other (unless we’re at the end of the movie and you’ve earned that moment).

One of the best ways to convey love is through subtext. Characters are saying one thing but they really mean something else. The best example of this is in The Empire Strikes Back. During that movie, Han and Leia are arguing with each other nonstop. Yet we can feel the desire each has for the other in every argument. Even when Han is directly trying to make a move on Leia, he does it by challenging her. He’s constantly telling her that she likes him, which is far more interesting than if he would’ve sat her down and professed his love for her, which is exactly how all of the love scenes happen in Clones.

Another thing you need with any good love story is conflict. You need things constantly trying to tear your leads apart. Whether it be something between them, an outside force, a battle from within the individual. The more things you can use to tear your lovers away from each other, the more those characters have to fight to be with each other, and those actions will translate over to the audience as love. So look at all the things keeping Jack and Rose apart on Titanic. First they’re from different classes. A poor kid like Jack just can’t be with a rich woman like Rose. It doesn’t happen today and it definitely never happened back then. Also, Rose is engaged. Even if the class thing weren’t an issue, she’s getting married. Also important to note is how much is at stake with that marriage. Rose’s mom needs her to marry to save their financially crumbling family. The two are also constantly being chased by her fiancé’s Henchman. And on top of all that, they’re on a doomed ship, a ship that will sink and likely kill one of the people in the relationship. I mean if you want to talk about things that are trying to rip a couple apart, all you have to do is watch this movie.

Let’s compare that to all the things keeping Anakin and Amidala apart in Attack Of The Clones.

(insert long silence here).

I mean I guess if you were to push me on it, I could argue that there’s something about how Jedi’s are not allowed to love. That, to me, is the only element of conflict keeping these two apart. But the thing is, there are no explained consequences to this conflict. It’s never explored in anything other than words. And Lucas never commits to it. As we’ll see in the next film, their “secret romance” has Anakin sleeping over at her apartment every night. Yeah, they’re trying really hard to keep this a secret. This leaves us with absolutely zero conflict in any of their scenes, putting all the heavy lifting on the dialogue, and since the dialogue is mostly Anakin professing his love for Amidala, this storyline turns out to be one of the worst love stories ever put to film.

This also highlights something I brought up yesterday – the scene of death. Every single scene on Naboo between these two characters is a scene of death. The characters are either talking about their feelings or talking about politics. You will never be able to make those scenes interesting because, again, there’s nothing else going on in the scene and none of these scenes are pushing the story forward.

These scenes of death are everywhere if you look for them. Remember, when you’re writing a story and trying to convey any sort of character development, you want to show and not tell. Now George does a pretty poor job of this in an early scene with Obi-Wan and Anakin, but he does do it. After Obi-Wan and Anakin chase an alien into a bar, the two get into a series of disagreements on how to handle the matter. It’s sloppy and it’s on the nose, but at least we’re showing their problems and not telling the audience their problems.

However, a few scenes later, we’re up with Amidala in her apartment and the entire scene is dedicated to Anakin telling Amidala how he feels about Obi-Wan. This scene of death (two people talking about another person) is violating three screenwriting rules at the same time. First of all, it’s not pushing the story forward at all and therefore is unnecessary. Second, it’s telling us and not showing us. And third, it’s repeating information we already know. Lucas has given us a few scenes now that have shown us that Anakin has a problem with Obi-Wan’s authority. This is the kind of mistake a screenwriter who is writing their first screenplay would make. It’s that bad.

As for the structure of the screenplay, all you need to do is compare it to Empire to see why it fails so spectacularly. Remember how in that movie, we were cutting back and forth between Han being chased and Luke training to become a Jedi? In this movie, the two threads we’re cutting back and forth between are a love story on a planet where there’s no urgency whatsoever, and a procedural where Obi-Wan plays detective, a sequence that also has little urgency. That means instead of two threads with high horsepower story engines, we have one thread with just a tiny bit of horsepower. No wonder the movie feels so slow.

The funny thing is, there’s only a single interesting scene from a screenwriting perspective in the entire movie. And the reason for this is probably that Lucas ran into it by accident. Good screenwriters deliberately structure their screenplays to create these scenes. Bad screenwriters stumble upon them luckily every once in a while, wondering why they’re the only scenes that feel right in their script. The scene in question is when Obi-Wan meets Jango Fett in his apartment. This scene is a good one because there’s so much subtext at play – one of the few times in the prequels that we actually have subtext. Obi-Wan suspects that Jango Fett is the one who tried to assassinate Amidala. Jango Fett knows that Obi-Wan is on to him but must act aloof. This is what creates the subtext. The two are having a somewhat normal conversation, but both are hiding some critical pieces of information that they know about the other.

The only things that actually work in the film are things that were born out of the original films. We’re excited to see Yoda fight for the first time. We’re excited to see a bunch of Jedi’s take on another Army. We’re excited to see Obi-Wan battle Jango Fett. But none of those things are generated through the dramatic components of this particular story. We enjoy them based on nostalgia. Attack Of The Clones is a little better than The Phantom Menace but not enough to garner a better rating.

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

What I learned: What I’m realizing with these prequels, especially after yesterday, is that there’s no urgency to them whatsoever. I mean look at this stretch of four scenes early in the movie. We have a scene of the Jedi Council telling our characters what to do. We have a scene where Sam Jackson and Obi-Wan and Yoda discuss how Jedi’s have become arrogant (scene of death). We have that scene where Anakin and Amidala talk about how Obi-Wan is mean (scene of death). And we have a goodbye scene at the ship station with Obi-Wan and Amidala (scene of death). That’s four scenes in a row where the only thing that happens is the Jedis order Anakin to protect Amidala. There are no story engines driving these scenes whatsoever. Everything just sits there. Go watch the first act of Empire. After the 15 minute “Luke kidnapped by Wampa” sequence, we get a fun little scene where the crew jokes around about what happened, and then the very next scene they find out the Empire has spotted them, beginning the next sequence where they have to escape the planet. If Lucas would’ve wrote that sequence? He probably would have added three or four scenes with Han and Leia talking to each other, with Han and Luke talking to each other, and God knows who else talking to each other. When people say to keep your story moving, this is what they mean. They mean don’t write all these unnecessary scenes that you don’t need.

We’re back for Day 3 of Star Wars Week. To find out more, head back to Monday’s review of The Empire Strikes Back.

Genre: Sci-fi/Fantasy
Premise: (from IMDB) Two Jedi knights uncover a wider conflict when they are sent as emissaries to the blockaded planet of Naboo.
About: It is said that Lawrence Kasdan was approached to write the script for The Phantom Menace but that Kasdan felt Empire and Jedi were a step away from Lucas’s vision and believed that Lucas should write and direct the prequels so that they would remain in his voice. Hmmm, that personally sounds like a clever brushoff to me. Other rumors include Frank Darabont and Carrie Fisher being approached to write the script. But in the end, we got George Lucas. Hooray.
Writer: George Lucas

The Phantom Menace is such a poorly told story that as I started compiling the screenwriting mistakes to highlight in this review, I realized there were too many to choose from.

I guess we’ll start at the top. The first problem is the backstory. In the backstory for the original films, rebels were trying to defeat the Empire. It’s simple. It’s powerful. It’s focused. In this movie, we get the taxation of trade routes. In other words, it’s complicated. It’s confusing. It’s unfocused. Now complicated can be good if you have a screenwriter who knows how to navigate complications and who’s dedicated to the extra work required to write something of this magnitude. But George Lucas is neither. He’s openly stated that’s he doesn’t like writing. And since writing even a simple story can take 20-30 drafts to get right, you can only imagine how much effort and how many drafts something complicated would take. And if you’re not committed to all that extra effort, your screenplay’s going to suffer. And this is the main reason the prequels are so bad. Everything here is a first draft idea that was never developed.

Something feels wrong about The Phantom Menace right from the start. We’ve talked about storytelling engines all week and there is an engine here. But unfortunately that engine lacks horsepower. The goal is for two Jedi’s to convince the trade Federation to leave Naboo. In the opening of Star Wars, Darth Vader storms a rebel ship in search of the stolen Death Star plans. In the opening of Empire, Luke Skywalker is kidnapped by a monster and must be rescued. These are both strong and clear engines. Removing a trade blockade from a planet? Borrrrrrrr-ing.

Now to Phantom’s credit, there is one point in the film where things get kind of interesting, and that’s when Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon discover an invasion army. This creates mystery. And it gives our characters purpose. They must now get down to the planet and figure out what’s up. When they get there, they realize the Naboo people are going to be attacked and therefore have to save the Queen. Okay, we actually have a little bit of story going on here. Saving queens is exciting. Right?

Unfortunately, once they escape, they get marooned on Tantooine and things start falling apart quickly. They do actually have a goal on Tantooine, and that’s to get off the planet. But you’ll notice there’s something missing from this sequence that’s been present in every single Star Wars movie up to this point. Urgency. Star Wars added it by making sure the bad guys were always on our tail. Empire did the same, with the Empire always right behind Han. Nothing is chasing them here. We feel like they could be here for months and there would be no consequences.

The thing is, George has a ticking time bomb for the Tantooine sequence – they need to get to the Senate to tell them what’s going on on Naboo before it’s too late. But he doesn’t do a very good job of reminding us of this urgency and the goal itself is so muddled and confusing, that even if he did, we still wouldn’t feel the importance of it. I mean, hasn’t the Trade Federation already taken over Naboo? What does it matter if they get there now or two years from now?

But The Phantom Menace truly dies when our characters arrive on Coruscant (the city planet). This is where I’ll be introducing a new term on Scriptshadow: Scene Of Death.

The Scene Of Death is any scene that exists only to…

a) Convey exposition.
b) Have characters talk to each other about their feelings.
c) Have two people talk about another person.
d) Have two people talk about their views or opinions on things.

Now let me be clear. You can have all of these conversations in your movie. But you have to have them during scenes where the story is being pushed forward. If the only reason the scene exists is to show one of these four things, that scene will draw your story to a complete stop. Now if you’ve had an incredibly intense stretch of really solid storytelling, you can sometimes get away with one of these scenes. But I wouldn’t recommend it. I think there’s always a way to get this stuff in while the story is being pushed forward.

Now your screenplay is in trouble if you write just one of these scenes. But imagine if half the scenes you wrote were scenes of death. Welcome to The Phantom Menace.

This is what happens on Coruscant. The main characters convene in a room and talk about the upcoming discussion they’re going to have with the Senate. Then we go to the Jedi Council where Qui-Gon Jinn says they need to teach Anakin. Then Anakin goes to tell Amidala that he’s saying goodbye. Then we have a boring Senate meeting. Then they go to the Senate committee to ask permission for something. Then Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon Jinn talk. Then Anakin gets tested by the Jedi Council. Then Amidala talks to Jar-Jar about their planet. Then Amidala talks to the Emperor about going back to her planet. Then Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon and Anakin talk to the Jedi Council yet again. Then Qui-Gon Jinn explains what the force is to Anakin. I might nominate this as the worst stretch of scenes in a big-budget movie ever. Out of these 11 scenes, maybe half are scenes of death and the other half so barely move the story forward or are so muddled in their execution, that they destroy any bit of momentum the movie had left. There is no engine underneath this sequence driving the story forward. And there is definitely no GSU. I mean what happened to the storytelling of the first two films?? If somebody wanted something in Star Wars, they went after it themselves. They didn’t go to a Senate committee. Choices George. You have to make interesting choices. Debating anything in a Senate is not an interesting choice.

And the scariest thing? That’s not even the worst part of the screenplay. The worst part of the screenplay is the characters. Even if Lucas had cleaned all this plot stuff up and made each sequence as tight and focused as Star Wars and Empire, it wouldn’t have mattered because we don’t like the characters. Let’s take a look at the six key characters and why they suck.

Qui-Gon Jinn – The mentor character is rarely flashy, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be interesting. I’ll admit that the Obi-Wan Kenobi from the first films wasn’t exactly the coolest character ever. He didn’t do anything outrageous or shocking. But he had this intriguing mystical quality about him and he was very warm. Qui-Gon Jinn is as cold and as boring a character as you’ll find. Part of this is the way Lucas set up the Jedi. He implied in the original films that Jedis were sophisticated and ordered and honorable. Unfortunately, those are all traits that make a character boring. I would probably want Qui-Gon Jinn mentoring me in real life. But I definitely don’t want to put him in my movie if my goal is to entertain people.

Obi-Wan Kenobi – Much like Qui-Gon Jinn, there’s very little going on with Obi-Wan Kenobi. He doesn’t seem to have any character flaws. He listens to and attentively follows everything his mentor tells him to do without argument. And that’s where this dynamic falters. Whenever you pair two people together for an entire movie, you need there to be some sort of unresolved conflict between them. Without conflict, the characters aren’t struggling to find balance. If the relationship is already balanced, then there’s nothing for the characters to fight. That’s going to equal a lot of boring scenes. So you have two characters, both of them with no internal struggles, and no conflict between them. How the hell are you going to make that interesting?

Amidala – Queen Amidala is the worst character in this movie and may be the worst character Lucas has ever created. George tries to create this whole disguise storyline where Queen Amidala disguises herself as a handmaiden. The problem is, there’s absolutely no point to it whatsoever. Had she never disguised herself, absolutely nothing would have changed. This goes back to the use of stakes. If you’re going to disguise someone, ask yourself, what are the stakes to them getting caught? If there are no stakes, then there’s no point in disguising them. If it any point Amidala is discovered when, say, they’re hanging out on Tantooine, what happens? Maybe Qui-Gon Jinn smiles slightly and says, “Wow, you got me.” And that would be it. Look at a movie like Pretty Woman. Watch the scenes where Julia Roberts goes out with Richard Gere to a high-class dinner or a polo match. In those scenes, Roberts is masquerading as one of them. If she gets caught, and somebody realizes that Richard Gere is with a hooker, there are real consequences to that. Maybe the other businessmen don’t deal with Gere. Maybe his reputation takes a shot. Julia Roberts will be humiliated. The fact that George doesn’t realize the importance of stakes in this situation shows how little he understands storytelling.

Anakin – Anakin is a tough character to dissect. Much of our thoughts regarding Anakin have to do with our knowledge of what’s going to happen to him in the future (dramatic irony). Lucas is hoping that just seeing this young happy kid who we know will later become one of the most sinister dictators in the galaxy is going to stir up enough emotions that we’ll be interested in him. And the truth is, Anakin does have some stuff going on. He’s a slave. He ends up having to leave his mother. The seeds are here for a good character. Unfortunately, Lucas really botched the casting. The kid who played Anakin wasn’t a good actor and therefore we just never believed him. I do think that a better casting choice would’ve helped this film tremendously. But it’s also a reminder of a screenwriting tip I’ve mentioned before. It’s probably best not to include a major character under 10 in your script. Finding a good actor who can play a major role at that age is the equivalent of trying to win the lottery.

Jar-Jar – This is going to shock you. Jar-Jar is actually the deepest character in the story. Or I should say, the character whom George Lucas intended to be the deepest. He’s the only character in the group who has a flaw. He doesn’t take life seriously enough. And he doesn’t believe in his worth. That’s what’s led to all of the problems with his people, and why he was ultimately kicked out of the clan. So when you’re talking about unresolved conflict, there’s actually a lot of unresolved conflict going on with this character. Unfortunately, George undercut this with such a goofy annoying character that it didn’t matter. We’re not going to care if a character is able to overcome anything if we don’t like him. So remember, just adding a character flaw isn’t enough. You still have to make that character someone we’ll root for.

Darth Maul – A huge critical mistake that George Lucas made was not including a dominant villain. Not every movie needs a villain. However, if you’re going to write a sci-fi movie, you need a villain. And Lucas actually created a really cool villain here, but ended up portraying him as a nuisance more than a genuine threat to the Republic. The guy barely spoke. He didn’t do anything unless he was told to. He was a weak villain. And if you don’t have someone to point to as the ultimate threat in this kind of movie, then you’re never really scared for the characters. Lucas really should have made Darth Maul a major character with a lot more power. It would’ve helped this movie a lot.

Like I said, I could go on forever with this movie. I didn’t even get to the ending where the bad guys were destroyed by a baffling series of lucky coincidences. I’m just shocked at how much time and effort and money was put into something that was so poorly constructed. If there’s any lesson to come out of this, it’s that this is what happens when you don’t commit to rewriting your script until it’s great. As I struggled to figure out a rating for this film, I realized I couldn’t recall a single moment in the script that worked. For that reason, I have no choice but to give it the lowest rating.

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

What I learned: This is why you shouldn’t try and write a complicated multifaceted multi-character epic with politics and secret objectives and dozens of vastly different locations. These are the most difficult movies to write by far. And this is often the result. A bunch of muddled objectives in a muddled plot that’s desperately trying to seem important but none of that importance comes through because it’s all so sloppily executed. To me, The Phantom Menace is an argument for the power of a simple plot. Keep the character goals clear. Keep everybody’s motivations clear. Keep the story goals clear. The first two films were basically bad guys chasing good guys. Even Empire could be boiled down to that. As long as you have that simple structure in place, you can try to find the complications within it. But if you start with an overarching complex story that lacks focus, it’s likely doomed from the get-go.
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Genre: Horror/Family/Comedy
Premise: A recently downsized father moves his family into a dying town, only to find out that it’s infested with killer mutated insects.
About: This script made the lower third of the 2009 black list. It sold to Paramount earlier that year. The writer, Marc Haimes, used to be an executive at DreamWorks. He also produced The Legend of Zorro and Hotel for Dogs.
Writer: Marc Haimes
Details: 103 pages – October 2009 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

Get ready as I plan to fully contradict myself, only to make excuses as to why I’m fully justified in doing so. You see, one of the elements I’ve been trumpeting nonstop on the site – urgency – is a huge part of this screenplay. However, the excessive reliance on this tool brings up an important question. Is it possible to add too much urgency to your script? It’s a strange question because so rarely is it actually a problem. 99.9% of the time, when there’s a pacing issue, it’s that the script is too slow. But the answer is yes, you can push things along too quickly, and Jitters is an example of that. I’ll explain in a second but let’s find out what this is about first.

Off in Nowheresville, USA, some scientist-types have been working on breeding genetically modified bugs. At first it’s just to help some nearby plant life. But the results prove that the potential for these bugs is much bigger. In fact, it becomes clear that some of these insects could be constructed for…duh duh duhhhhhh, military purposes. So they invite some government dudes in to show them (we have moths that can camouflage themselves, tarantulas that can fly, ladybugs that can…think?) and let’s just say a few of the insects get out of their cages and bug these men to death.

A couple of weeks later Walt Hatcher and his family ride into town ready to start their new lives. Besides the wife and baby, Walt has a 13-year-old daughter Kate, who believes every passed minute is a minute you could have been spending saving the world, and a 15-year-old son Jackson, a selfish smart-alec whose number one priority is to make his sister miserable.

As soon as they roll in, they notice that this isn’t going to be like life in the burbs. You see, Walt had a nice job and a nice life but all that went to hell with the economy. Unfortunately, the only jobs left were in the middle of crappy dying towns like this one.

Well, maybe “dying” is a strong word. The insect population around here seems to be doing just fine. In fact, the bug problem is so intense that the entire bug spray shelf at the local hardware store has been cleaned out.

Almost as soon as they get to the house, everybody is off to do their own thing – mainly explore this crapola “town.” Kate runs off to spy on a couple of nerdy kids who build remote control mini-robots and Jackson goes after the hot girl who lives next door. But when Walt realizes that the insects are out for blood (courtesy of the town’s lone homeless man who has uncovered the giant insect conspiracy) he must round up his family and get them the hell out of here before they all become bug food.

I have to give it to Jitters. I was laughing a lot more than I expected to. All the characters here are really funny, especially Jackson. There’s a line he gives early on that perfectly encapsulates his character. A mosquito is caught in the car and everybody’s bickering about whether to kill it or not. Kate, of course, is begging to save it while Jackson nonchalantly offers, “We must kill it. It’s the only way it will learn.”

It’s actually a perfect early scene and one of the classic ways to introduce characters. You present a problem to a group of people and use everybody’s differing reactions to tell us what kind of characters they are. So it’s in this scene that we learn that Katie is the “all life is precious” save the world girl, and that Jackson could care less about anyone.

There’s also a funny scene right afterwards where Jackson follows a hot girl in a white tank top to the freezer section of a convenience store, trying to discreetly tape her on his camera phone while pretending to talk to someone. It’s juvenile and silly and yet it’s something I totally would’ve done when I was 14 so I loved it. In fact, all the character stuff here in the first act is top notch.

Where Jitters runs into trouble is that it moves at the speed of some of these flying insects. I’m not sure what the time frame is, but I think the whole thing takes place inside of 12 hours. Now you know me. I’m Mr. Urgency. So why didn’t this work for me? Well, it’s quite simple. If your whole movie is going to take place in a town, it’s important that we get to know that town. And we never get to know or understand or feel the character of this place because we’re off and running before we’ve even settled in.

For example, we meet the hot girl neighbor and geeky robot building twins, but since we’ve only known them for a few hours, when they find themselves in danger, we don’t care. Had we gone to school with them for a few days or had more than one scene to get to know them, I’m sure we would’ve found ourselves rooting for them because they’re actually solid characters.

I also thought the theme of trying to keep the family together could’ve been better executed. There are times when you’re reading a script and you get to that final act and all of a sudden the characters start spouting out universal themes that up until this point have never even sniffed the story (i.e. “Seize the day.” “It’s better to have loved and lost than never loved at all.”) And you’re asking yourself, “Where is this coming from?” It’s coming from the writer feeling the need to make up for the fact that he hasn’t tried to say anything with his story so far. So he has no choice but to wrap everything up in a bow before it all ends.

I feel a lot of that going on here. When Walt starts talking about how family is the most important thing in the world and that’s why he needs to save the day, I’m sitting there going, when exactly did this become important? I never got the impression that Walt didn’t care about his family at all. And I think the reason for that is, we never spend any time settling into the town. Had we settled into the town, we could’ve showed Walt being more obsessed with work than he was with his family. But since things move so fast, we never get that opportunity.

On the plus side, you don’t really have time to think about all that stuff. The urgency masks a lot of the deficiencies and you find yourself simply trying to keep up with the pace. On top of that, this script is just packed with fun moments. One of my favorites was when the hot girl neighbor tricked Jackson into believing he was being attacked by a giant spider. After she leaves, a real giant spider arrives, and Jackson “isn’t buying it this time” and begins messing with the “fake” giant spider, going into this whole routine of petting it and taunting it. Needless to say, it doesn’t end well.

That’s the true strength of this script. It has this fun lighthearted vibe to it that reminds you of movies like Tremors and Gremlins. It never quite reaches the heights of those films but I can still see this being a really fun silly time at the movies.

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

What I learned: I’m going to take a few steps back here. While I’ve been touting the importance of urgency a lot lately, this script reminded me that you first need to build up to that urgency. For thrillers like Buried and Source Code, yeah, you want to sprint right out of the gate. But certain stories, such as this one, require that set up time to pull the audience in. Only then do you want to start upping the urgency with ticking time bombs and chases. Jitters never took the time to settle its characters in and I think that’s why the script feels too fast for its own good.