Genre: Drama
Premise: After a young man opens a burger joint, he gets into a war with a salesman who wants to steal his business.
About: “Dededoop dededoop.” Did you hear that? Listen again. “Dededoop dededoop.” Hear it that time? No?? Okay, try imagining a DeLorean. A DeLorean that prefers to go 88 miles per hour. Let’s go a third time: “Dededoop dededoop.” Hear it now? Yup! It’s the ubiquitous sound cue from Back to the Future. Why am I including sound cues from Back to the Future? Because today’s review is an unproduced screenplay from the co-writer of Back to the Future, Bob Gale! Ah, now I have your attention. Not much is known about Jimbo’s Stand other than it hung around for potential development for as long as it could before disappearing forever. Until now!
Writer: Bob Gale
Details: 117 pages (written some time in the 1980s)

This was one of the stranger reading experiences I’ve ever had. I started out thinking, “This probably didn’t get made because Bob Gale is the lesser of the two talents in the Back to the Future team-up and isn’t a very good writer on his own.” Then, 30 pages into the script, I was thinking, “This is one of the best scripts I’ve read all year!” It’s unique, it crackles, it’s full of heart. Then, 60 pages into the script, I realized this was a thinly veiled re-telling of the McDonald’s story. All of the originality went out the room and I was left with what was, essentially, a reverse version of The Founder. Instead of telling the story through Ray Croc’s point-of-view, however, we tell it through the point-of-view of the original creators (or, in this case, creator).

That makes this an interesting case study in that a compelling question can be asked: All else being equal, whose point-of-view makes for the better McDonald’s story? Ray Kroc’s or the original McDonald? The answer is the original McDonald. As we see here, he’s far and away the more sympathetic character. So why tell the story of Ray Kroc instead, as they did in The Founder? Because he’s more famous, of course. You don’t make a biopic about Genghis Khan’s masseuse. You make a biopic about Genghis Khan.

This is something all writers must consider when they come up with an idea. Whose point-of-view should I tell the story from? If you were to write about The Battle of Gettysburg, for example, the story would be drastically different depending on if you told it through the eyes of Union General George Meade or Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Or if you told the story through an individual soldier’s point-of-view. Or an individual nurse. Or a journalist. The options are unlimited and it’s your job as a writer to consider them all before breaking ground.

As for today’s script, it’s told through the eyes of Jimmy “Jimbo” Boatman who’s returning to Springfield after the Korean War. Jimbo already lost his future wife while away, as she’s run off with some salesman to California. But he’s also told that he no longer has his job as a short order cook at his local diner. That’s okay, though. Jimbo decides he’s going to travel west and find his own diner to flip burgers in.

Jimbo drives all the way to San Bernardino, California, where he convinces the owner of a tiny diner called “Eat,” to let him work there for a week. “If I don’t double your profits during that week. You don’t have to pay me a penny.” The owner can’t say no to that. And that’s when we see why Jimbo is so confident. He isn’t just a short order cook. He’s the Tom Cruise in Cocktail of short order cooks. He’ll not only serve you up the best burger you’ve ever tasted. He’ll entertain you in the process.

It isn’t long before the owner sells Jimbo the place and Jimbo turns that “Eat” sign into a “Jimbo’s.” The diner becomes the hottest food joint in town. And Jimbo’s never been happier. That is until Mike Burns shows up, a traveling salesman who’s on the lookout for the next big thing. When he sees Jimbo’s, he knows this is it. Oh, and Mike’s arrival comes with a twist. In the coincidence of all coincidences, this is the man who married Jimbo’s old girlfriend, Carol Anne! Of course, Mike doesn’t know that yet.

Mike offers Jimbo a deal he can’t refuse. He’s going to franchise “Jimbo’s” all across the country and all Jimbo has to do every month is collect a check. Jimbo tells him to fuck off, which infuriates Mike. So Mike does something unthinkable. He goes off and starts the franchise anyway! And he doesn’t stop there. He trademarks “Jimbo’s,” so that not only is it impossible for Jimbo to sue him. But, if he wants, Mike can sue Jimbo!

While Jimbo does win Carol Anne back, Mike’s growing company becomes a nightmare for Jimmy. When franchised “Jimbo’s” start sprouting up in San Bernardino, the two can’t avoid each other any longer. There’s going to be a showdown. That showdown will determine whether Mike or Jimbo will be the one flipping dollar bills for the rest of their lives.

Jimbo’s Stand reminded me that a “tiny” character goal still resonates as long as your hero is passionate about it. This is a movie about a guy who wants to be a short order cook. That’s it! He doesn’t want to win the heavyweight championship of the world. He doesn’t want to become the world’s greatest artist or be the first man on Mars. He wants to be a short order cook.

You’d think that in this day and age, that’d feel small. But Gale does an amazing job selling Jimbo’s zest for the profession. There are numerous scenes where we see how much he loves this job and that’s something a lot of younger writers wouldn’t have included. They’d have one scene to show how much the character loves cooking and that’s it. In Jimbo’s Stand, there isn’t any one scene. The character EMBODIES a cook. It’s who he is. Not what he does.

Gale also has a clear love for this subject matter. That’s another thing writers overlook. You can’t teach a writer to love something he doesn’t. And the difference is whenever you love the subject matter you’re writing about, you go the extra mile to give life to that world. I’ll give you an example.

When we first get to 1953 San Bernardino, a writer who’s writing this script as a job might describe it as, “It’s a desert city on the rise, the future of California.” Instead, here’s how Gale describes it:

And Bernardino in 1953 is a post-war boom town where the car is king… a prototype of suburban sprawl. It’s a town of car lots, gas stations, shopping centers and drive-is, all with ample parking lots. Rows of garish store signs compete for attention and dollars. And everywhere something is under construction.

On another street, Jimbo passes “BOWL-A-RAMA, 32 LANES.” He smiles. He turns a corner, drives along a strip past a TG&Y, a Speed Queen Laundromat, a Car Lot, a Drug Store… Then he slams on his brakes.

You only write with that much detail because you love what you’re writing about. Bob Gale clearly wants to live in this time and place. You can’t fake that.

And that specificity extends to the characters as well. Check out how we detail Mike Burns’ introduction…

The Man is MIKE BURNS. His clothing, like his car, is a little loud and garish, but accomplishes a purpose: people who meet Mike Burns rarely forget him. And, he has a passion for cleanliness. His clothes are cleaned and he looks like he’s just stepped out of the shower.

If that’s not enough, we get even FURTHER clarification on who this character is via Mike’s first character action…

As Burns heads in, he circles wide to avoid passing close to a woman with a 5 YEAR OLD BOY. He reacts to the child with mild uneasiness.

These days writers might describe Mike Burns this way: “He’s a slick-suited hustler with an attitude.” I’m not saying a good short description doesn’t work if you can pull it off. But if it takes a little longer to describe someone perfectly, do it. Because in the end, all that matters is that the reader can imagine the character. If you’re too vague, you run the risk of the character feeling fuzzy, which is the case with 90% of the characters I read in amateur scripts.

Where Jimbo’s Stand goes wrong is in its final 40 pages. This was a script that was most comfortable when it was building Jimbo’s life up, not tearing it down. Once we get to the tear, the story starts feeling manufactured. Each page brings about a Mike with a longer mustache that can more easily be twirled. And the ending, which was clearly inspired by old Frank Capra movies, was so over-the-top it bordered on parody. Which was too bad, because this script really could’ve been great.

Having said that, I’m going to include a script link and encourage you to check it out. The writing itself is awesome. And the setup for the story is flawless. Those things alone are worth learning from. So enjoy!

Script Link: Jimbo’s Stand

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

What I learned: When your character’s goal in life is small compared to what we usually see in movies, you need to romanticize that goal for the audience so they can see it the way the character does. There are numerous scenes, such as Jimbo explaining to another character how he fell in love with the job, that romanticize what would otherwise seem like a tiny dream.

As the smooth-piping vocals of Michael Buble once uttered, “It’s a new dawn. It’s a new day. It’s a new Amateur Offerings!” And thank goodness. Cause there sure aren’t any movies worth leaving the house for this weekend. But we only have to wait so long. Soon we’ll have Ready Player One, Avengers Infinity War, Deadpool, Solo. This has the potential to be the biggest summer at the box office EVER. Can’t wait. But in the meantime, let’s help find the writer who’s going to be breaking box-office records in 2020!

If you’re new to Amateur Offerings, the rules are simple. Read as much as you can from each script and vote for your favorite in the comments section. The winner gets a review on the site next Friday.

If you believe you have a screenplay that will light the world on fire, submit it for a future Amateur Offerings! Send me a PDF of your script, along with the title, genre, logline, and why you think people should read it (your chance to pitch your story). All submissions should be sent to Carsonreeves3@gmail.com.

Title: BREAKING SILENCE
Genre: Murder Twistery
Logline: A personally conflicted London detective hunts a serial-killer targeting child-abusers.
Why You Should Read: Quite simply I think this is a thrilling thriller. It has a dark theme but it ain’t SLEEPERS. There is no on-screen abuse of children. The graphic torment is reserved for their abusers. It’s inspired by a real-life scandal in the UK. After a politician uncovered a pedophile ring with prominent members – his report was ‘lost’, his house broken into and he became silent on the subject. This film supposes someone breaks that silence. And it happens to use every one of Carson’s recently written Screenplay Hacks. — One last note: I’m here to answer any questions/comments so please do me the favor (or favour) of reading this – my second ever script. And if you didn’t realize (or realise); American English and English English sometimes differs. As this one is set in London, I used the latter. I would DIE if ANYONE mistook this for sloppy writing. Thanks!

Title: Real Girls
Genre: Comedy
Logline: An aspiring teenage artist unwittingly discovers the identity of a Banksy-esque artist, and blackmails them into giving her art lessons.
Why You Should Read: I’ve advanced in the Nicholl, Austin, and the Bluecat contests, so I feel (hope?) I’m heading in the right direction. It’s also only 99 pages and has brief descriptions, so if it sucks, it’ll be the screenwriting equivalent of an unsatisfying quickie. Lastly, I thought the idea of Banksy actually being a little woman who drinks/smokes too much and is terrified of her mother to be funny, so that’s why I wrote this. To be clear, the character isn’t Banksy. It’s just inspired by her :)

Title: On the Sparrow
Genre: Western
Logline: When his wife is murdered and baby taken, a young Preacher in 1880’s Colorado forsakes his calling to become a bounty hunter and get his son back.
Why You Should Read: This script is a cross between Taken and the Dark Knight but set in the old west. Authentic to its time period, it has a grittiness that is prevalent with this genre. Westerns are glorious to look at on the big screen, with sweeping panoramas and intimate close-ups. The stories are personal but feel larger than life. At its heart, On the Sparrow is a tale of two pathways. The story of a father desperate to get his baby boy back and fighting the darkness that descends on him and the villainous couple that ripped his family apart and seeks to settle down and live a good life resulting from the fruits of their wickedness. In the end the pathways must cross.

Title: The Chamberlain
Genre: Sci-fi/Post-apocalyptic
Logline: After most of the population has been eradicated, a steward android must fulfill the last order of his deceased owners and find a worthy human that can take care of the little girl they left behind.
Why You Should Read: If you ever wondered what Ex-Machina and Mad Max would look like together, then look no further. I love this site and have learned so much from it. Not only the articles, but the comments sections too. I’m hoping all you kind souls will share your wonderful notes and help me make this script amazing!

Title: LONG STORIES SHORT
Genre: Survival
Logline: A compilation of six short stories based on true accounts of survival from all corners of the globe.
Why You Should Read: I know how hard it is to write an anthology script. But after watching the amazing Argentinian movie WILD TALES, I couldn’t stop myself from rising to the challenge. It’s incredible the amount of hard-to-believe survival stories in our history and I can’t help but feel so inspired by all of them. I think it gives us hope we can endure the unimaginable. I’ve been frequenting this site for many years now and it would be an honor to be thrown into the mix. If I get picked, thank you in advance to anyone willing to give this crazy project a read.

I’m always on the lookout for the next big thing.

What’s coming around the corner that has the potential to be a new outlet for screenwriters?

Lots of people have been talking about virtual reality as the next big thing. I think that’s – pardon the language, but – bullshit. We’re 25 years out from those first rudimentary VR demonstrations and many of the same problems exist.

Here’s what I think the next potential REALISTIC avenue for screenwriters is: PODCASTS

I’m not talking about podcasts ABOUT screenwriting. I’m talking about using podcasts as a fictional storytelling medium. Because here’s the biggest problem facing screenwriters as I see it: IT’S HARD TO GET NOTICED. You somehow have to convince somebody that your words on a page – WORDS ON A PAGE! – are good enough to buy, to invest tens of millions of dollars in, to spend the next five years of your life with. This is why everyone chooses intellectual property over words on a page. Seeing that something has worked in a previous medium is a nice insurance package in a business which is, at its heart, a gamble.

This is why I tell screenwriters that if you’re at all interested in directing, direct your own script. It is, bar none, the fastest way to establish yourself in this business. You don’t have to wait for person after person to approve your script until it gets to the last guy on the chain, two years after you started sending it out in the first place, to get that, “Sure, yeah, okay.”

Instead, you become your own personal greenlight. No yeses required.

Unfortunately, the barrier for entry in filmmaking is high. It’s expensive as hell to make a film. Even if you wanted to direct your own stuff, you’d have to raise the money to do so. Seeing stories like this guy’s doesn’t exactly instill confidence in the process.

That’s what I like about this podcasting idea. The barrier for entry is INSANELY LOW. All you need is a script, a microphone, a few actors, and you’re in.

But what I really like about podcasting is that nobody has cracked the fiction space yet. There hasn’t been a “Serial.” And Serial should be great motivation. While everyone else in the podcast space was interviewing D-list celebrities, Serial came up with something that wasn’t just unique, it inspired an entire genre on the format. You can’t kick a stone these days without hitting a true crime podcast.

This means that whoever cracks fictional podcasting first? Becomes a sensation. You get all the press. All the adulation. Everyone loves the pioneer, the guy or gal who managed to open the pickle jar. And because of this, I guarantee. GUARANTEE. That whoever creates that first breakout hit, gets a movie deal out of it. That’s something to keep in mind. Everyone in Hollywood wants stuff based on IP.

Well, once you produce your podcast, you’ve got your IP.

Don’t get me wrong, there have been some attempts at fictional podcasts. High profile even. Believe it or not, there’s a fictional podcast out there with Oscar Isaac playing one of the leads. It’s called Homecoming. Unfortunately, it’s bad. And I’m not surprised. This is a new medium, which means there are going to have to be some stumbles before somebody learns how to sprint. But to show you how desperate people are for this medium to produce something, even that show managed to get an Amazon order for its next season.

The question then becomes, how do you write for a fictional podcast? Well, I think we can look at the failure of Homecoming to see how NOT to write one. Homecoming is billed as a “conspiracy thriller” and formats itself similar to a TV show you might find on AMC. And therein lies the problem. Podcasts are not TV. Whenever you’re writing for a medium, you have to ask, “What are the strengths and weaknesses of this medium?” In writing a play, for example, you have a limited number of characters and a limited number of locations. So a lot of emphasis is placed on dialogue. In film, however, which is a more visual medium, you try and convey things through what the audience can see as opposed to hear.

Since nobody’s written a great fictional podcast show yet, we don’t know the answer to what works and what doesn’t. But that’s the exciting part. You can be creative. You can try things. You can, for example, set up a “faux interview-type podcast” that, on the surface, feels like every other podcast out there, then spin it into a horror film when something goes wrong during a recording session. Ironically, your best bet may be to go back to the old radio days to find inspiration. Remember that one of the most famous figures in Hollywood history, Orson Welles, became famous for his radio telecast of the War of the Worlds. And that was just a guy talking.

By the way, I’m not saying you can’t tell a traditional story on a podcast. Good stories will work on any medium. I’m just thinking that to get that media buzz, the first breakthrough fictional podcast will need to be inventive in some way. Maybe each podcast is a series of interviews from old tapes found in a psychiatric ward. No context given. Each conversation gets progressively freakier. That’s off the top of my head and probably too obvious of an idea. But hopefully it gets the creative juices flowing.

My point is that you could have something WRITTEN and PRODUCED for the world to experience in… less than a week. That’s how low the barrier for entry is here. So, if this interests you, start kicking around some ideas in the comments section. Brainstorm. Maybe a few of you can work together to create something awesome. I’d rather it be a Scriptshadow reader who makes the big podcast breakthrough than some rando. Let’s get to it!

Genre: Drama
Premise: A former Navy SEAL and his retired combat dog attempt to return to civilization after a catastrophic accident deep in the Alaskan wilderness.
About: Today’s script comes from Cameron Alexander. It finished on last year’s Black List with 9 votes. The script sold to the producer of Beasts of No Nation, who, I guess, is cornering the market on scripts with ‘beast’ in the title. This is not Alexander’s first sale. He also sold a sci-fi spec back in 2013 called Omega Point. Alexander used to hang out on these boards before his success. Great motivation for those of you wondering when your shot is coming. :)
Writer: Cameron Alexander
Details: 100 pages

If you’re having trouble keeping your writing lean, stop what you’re doing right now and read this script. It’s a great example of lean to-the-point writing that isn’t SO lean that it lacks substance.

One of you brought up in the comments section the other day that producers only wanted to read super-lean screenplays, scripts they could shoot through in 30 minutes. I don’t think that’s true. One look at the Black List and you’ll see that there’s all sorts of writing.

Also, a good writer can make a dense story read lightning fast while a bad writer can make a balls-to-the-wall thriller read like molasses. In the end, it’s the writer’s skill that matters most.

With that said, when it comes to screenwriting, you should always err on the side of less, not more. And today’s script is perfect for getting you into that mindset. Let’s take a look.

James is a former Navy SEAL who’s had such a rough go of it that all he wants to do is get away. So he straps his combat dog, Odin, into his Cessna, and flies off to the last place in America totally free of people – Alaska.

These two frazzled vets can’t knock the military out of them. They still look around every corner as if it’s a potential threat. But, for the most part, they’re happy. They catch a couple of salmon, drink a couple of beers (well, James does anyway) and celebrate the last great frontier.

The next morning, after they hop in the Cessna and lift off, James starts feeling a pain in his arm. The pain gets more intense until he realizes what it is – A HEART ATTACK. James does his best to fight through it before falling on the yoke, sending the plane down.

The plane crashes into a lake, Odin is thrown into the forest, and James only barely makes it out alive. Convinced Odin is dead, James is ecstatic to find that he’s hanging on. James knows that he must quickly build shelter from the cold or the two will die, a task complicated by the fact that if he works too intensely, he’ll have another heart attack.

The two make it through the night. But now the real shit begins. James looks at his Alaska map to find that they’re 50+ miles from the nearest highway. They will need to traverse difficult terrain on limited rations, both in sub-optimal health, if they’re going to see anything other than pine trees and mountain tops again. Let the journey begin.

As a writer, I’m terrified of these premises. When all you have is one person and a basic survival story, there aren’t a whole lot of things to draw from that the average audience member hasn’t seen before. In Cast Away, you had the added hook of a deserted island and the help of the FedEx boxes. In The Martian, you had Mars. Here, you have trees and bears. Not to mention, you’re competing against movies with 50 superheroes in them.

So how do you combat that? Well, you start by asking what you can give the audience that movies like The Avengers can’t. You don’t have gimmicks. But you do have universal themes. Love. Survival. Never giving up. So you lean into those. There’s never going to be a moment as heartfelt in Avengers: Infinity War, for example, as the moment James realizes Odin is still alive after the plane crash.

Here’s a screenwriting trick that everyone should keep in the back of their mind. We’re always going to root more for somebody if there’s another character who loves them. The reason for this is that we see the character through that second character’s eyes. So we don’t just see James. We see James through the eyes of this dog who loves him more than anything. And vice versa. If either one of these two die, it’s not that we ourselves will be sad. We’ve only known these characters for 80 minutes. It’s that we’ll be sad for the character who lost them, since they’ve known them their whole life.

With that said, as I was reading through Heart of the Beast, I kept saying to myself, “This isn’t enough. This isn’t enough.” Audiences these days have so many options. How is a movie about a guy and a dog walking through Alaska going to compete?

And then I read the ending.

Holy. Shit.

Wow. Right after I read it, I knew: OHHHHH! THIS is why this sold.

It was no longer even a question.

If you’re interested in what that ending is, I beg of you not to jump right to it. It’s NOT a fancy twist ending. It’s just an intense one. And it only works if you’ve read the script all the way through. Which isn’t a chore at all. This script is one of the faster reads you’ll read this year.

Check it out and share your thoughts in the comments.

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

What I learned: In any sort of survival story, you want to CONSTANTLY THROW OBSTACLES in your hero’s way and CONTINUALLY REINFORCE THAT THE JOURNEY IS IMPOSSIBLE. If you nail those two things, we’ll stay riveted.

Genre: TV Pilot – Period
Premise: At the beginning of the 17th century, an English sailor washes up on the shores of Japan, which is on the verge of civil war.
About: Shogun was written in 1970 and was turned into a mini-series in 1980. A new version of the show has been off and on in development since 2010. More recently, after the success of Game of Thrones, FX has decided to take a crack at it. Today’s screenwriter, Ronan Bennett, has a bit of a controversial past. He’s endured two stints in prison for participating in a Republican Army bank robbery, although it was ultimately decided that he was wrongly convicted.
Writer: Ronan Bennett (based on the novel by James Clavell)
Details: 60 pages, April 26, 2017 draft

I’ve tried to read this book several times as it’s one of the highest rated books ever on Amazon. All in all, I’ve foraged through about 200 pages. It’s hard to give those pages a rating. The book’s biggest strength is also its biggest weakness: its obsession with detail.

A good story makes you believe you’re in that time and place, and the level of detail here achieves that, providing a richness and authenticity that even the best historical fiction writers would struggle to match. But the more detail you add, the slower your plot moves, and that was why I could never finish the book. I needed more to happen.

With that said, it’s fertile ground for a TV adaptation. The focus on detail as opposed to plot gives any writer wanting to tackle the material an endless trove of information to build a story around.

And while the lack of fantasy elements may prevent FX from creating what they really want out of Shogun, which is their own Game of Thrones, there are still some cool toys to play with. I mean, who doesn’t like samurais?

So I’m hopeful that a show can be cobbled together out of this. Let’s see if I’m right.

The year is 1600. Englishman John Blackthorne, the pilot of a trade ship, has just washed up on a mysterious foreign shore. Clinging to life, he’s rescued by the locals, who nurse him back to health at a nearby village. When he wakes up, he learns where he is: The Japans.

Blackthorne is shocked. You see, the 1600s were some really rudimentary times in the seafaring trade. Deep sea navigation was near impossible unless you were traveling popular routes like England to France. The Japans were like Atlantis to European sailors. Only a few had ever found it. And even those who had were unconvinced they could find it again.

As soon as Blackthorne can get up, he sets out to find his crew, but learns that this strange land has a set of customs unlike any in Europe. The psychotic leader of the village, Omi, beheads one of his own men right in front of Blackthorne for not bowing low enough. Hmmm, maybe Blackthorne should play it cool until he figures this place out.

Meanwhile, we jump inland where the emperor of Japan, or “The Taiko,” is dying. There are 5 main provinces in Japan at the time, all led by different men. It’s well-known that the Taiko’s death will provoke a war between these provinces to become the next Taiko, so the Taiko invites all these leaders together in the hopes of finding a leader before that happens.

Back at the village, Blackthorne demands to see his crew, who he learns are being held captive in a pit. When he rejoins them, he’s told by the locals that one of them will be killed tonight, and that the group must decide who that’s going to be. There seems to be a complicated past between Blackthorne and his crew built upon this most recent mission. So that conversation is far from a happy one.

While at first we’re rooting for Blackthorne and his crew to escape these strange savage people, we begin to sense that they’re not exactly angels themselves. This leaves us wondering who we should align ourselves with. And where, exactly, all of this is headed.

For bigger pilots, the Shogun formula is a good one. Part of the pilot should focus on the smaller picture and part of it the big picture. There are two main storylines here. The first is Blackthorne and his crew. He’s got to get his crew and get the hell out of this place. The second is the impending death of the Taiko. This entire country is on the verge of war.

Without the bigger picture (the Taiko), you don’t feel like the smaller picture matters as much. Not only that, but the big picture lets us know there’s tons of ground to cover, that this is an actual SHOW. I read too many pilots so small in scope that you wonder how they’re going to get past episode 5. I mean, we meet the leaders of all five provinces in Shogun. The places we can potentially go and people we can potentially meet in those provinces is endless.

Shogun also institutes another popular format for shows like these. A leader is about to die. Who’s going to take his place? This is the perfect starting point for a TV show for a number of reasons, the most obvious of which is that we know “shit is about to get ugly.” And since human beings can’t look away from ugly, you’re probably going to get lots of people tuning back in to see the ugly. And this isn’t limited to period pieces. This is what they did with Fox’s Empire.

So what about the nuts and bolts? What’s good here?

I liked the uncertainty of how dangerous this culture was. It added an extra level of tension to every scene. Once Blackthorne sees that you can be killed on the spot for something as trivial as an improper bow, he knows that every interaction going forward will be a tightrope walk. And that’s a dream scenario for a screenwriter. You’re always looking to infuse scenes with tension and conflict beyond the obvious. And that’s exactly what this does.

I also liked the mystery behind Blackthorne’s crew. I don’t remember how they handled this in the book. But here they set it up that Blackthorne presents himself as a trader, but the truth is he may be a pirate. We get these quick flashbacks where his crew is pillaging a wedding. This makes us wonder who these guys really are. And you need a few big questions like that leaving the pilot. If we feel like we’ve already got all our answers, why do we need to tune in for more?

This is the big difference between feature and TV writing. You need to leave threads open and those threads need to be wrapped in mysteries that are actually intriguing.

What Shogun will have to fight against is its incredibly complex mythology. I didn’t count, but I think there were something like 40 people introduced in this pilot. That’s a little less than 1 character per page. Ouch. And while I did my best to summarize the Taiko situation above, the truth is it was so complicated that I could only bastardize the summary. Will audiences be patient enough to sit through all that? Or will they find it to be too specific?

As producer-ish as this note sounds, I’d focus more on samurais and violence, at least early on. Pull people in AND THEN hit them with the intricacies of your mythology. Bore then early and often and they may not stick around for the good stuff.

I liked this pilot. It’s slow. But you can tell there’s many avenues to explore. With that said, I’m wondering if it has the WOW-factor. There are plenty of shows that succeed without the WOW-factor. But it sure makes things easier when you’ve got it. And I’m not convinced Shogun does. We’ll have to see.

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

What I learned: The “choose who dies” scene. This scene ALWAYS WORKS. Always. Every time. You put your characters in a situation where they have to choose between themselves which of them must die and it’s always interesting. In this case, the crew must choose someone to be handed to the Japanese for sacrifice.