Genre: Sci-fi
Premise: (from IMDB) A veteran assigned to extract Earth’s remaining resources begins to question what he knows about his mission and himself.
About: While this draft was written by “The Departed” screenwriter William Monahan, Monahan didn’t seem to make the final cut when the credits were given out. The writer doing the revisions here, Karl Gajdusek, gets credit, along with Joseph Kosinski (the director) and Michael Arndt (significant since this is the only sci-fi script we have from Arndt, who is of course writing Star Wars VII). Gajdusek is probably best known for writing the 2011 thriller “Trespass” which starred past-their-prime actors Nicholas Cage and Nicole Kidman. He also created the recent TV series, “Last Resort,” about a bunch of deceived American military men forced to take over an island to defend themselves against the very country that is supposed to be protecting them. Oblivion stars Tom Cruise and Morgan Freeman, and is directed by ultra-slick Tron: Legacy director, Joseph Kosinski.
Writer: William Monahan (current revisions by Karl Gajdusek) (Based on the story by Joseph Kosinski)
Details: 109 pages (March 27, 2011 draft)

I heard good things about this script over the past year or so. But one criticism kept coming back at me – The first half was really good. The second half, not so much.

Didn’t matter. I was still interested. William Monahan isn’t known for sci-fi, so his involvement was intriguing. The guy excels at period pieces, which are great springboards for sci-fi writers, since period pieces are all about research and world-building and detail. Those same tools are what’s needed to create great sci-fi.

I also love the trailer for this. I’ve been a fan of Kosinski since Tron: Legacy. I know the plot in that film wasn’t the greatest, but boy was the direction slick. Directing-wise, Kosinski reminds me of a young Gore Verbinski, someone who understood how to make a commercial film, yet has just enough of a unique eye and temperament to make his stuff feel different. I have a feeling that this guy will be directing some of the biggest summer blockbusters in Hollywood within the next couple of years.

Oblivion begins with the mono-named Jack explaining to us (via voice-over) that aliens tried to out-war us humans and lost. The bad news is, because we had to use our nukes to beat’em, it left our planet a shit-hole. Jack is a clean-up guy of sorts. You see, there are still rogue aliens skittering across the planet, and we’ve built these droids to fly around and kill them. But sometimes the aliens shoot our droids down. Jack goes around and fixes them.

When he’s not fixing droids, Jack hangs out at his sky-home with his girlfriend and droid-repair partner, Victoria. She helps monitor the downed droids so Jack knows where to go. The two couldn’t be more different, however. Jack loves Earth, even if it’s fallen apart. Victoria can’t wait to leave so she can be one of the first humans to colonize Mars. In the meantime, the “TET,” a space station orbiting earth that houses the million or so humans remaining, keeps her abreast of their mission goals, and makes sure everything’s running smoothly between her and Jack.

But everything’s not running smoothly with Jack. He keeps having these dreams of another mysterious woman, a woman he was intimate with. That recurring dream eventually comes crashing down, literally, when an old shuttle, launched into orbit before the war, crash-lands, with the woman he’s been seeing in his dreams in one of the sleep chambers. Yikes! Even stranger, when she wakes up, she knows his name!

(MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD) Things unravel from there. When inspecting a downed droid, Jack’s attacked by a group of aliens. He’s shot down, and when he wakes up, he’s in some kind of underground cave. It turns out, the aliens? Not aliens. They’re humans dressed all funky to disguise themselves from the droids. Droids that aren’t hunting down aliens at all. But HUMANS. Why would human-controlled droids be hunting down humans? Because it’s all a lie. The humans didn’t win the war. The aliens did. The TET isn’t an American base. It’s an alien ship. Jack and Victoria have been tricked into helping the aliens exterminate the last of the humans.

But these humans have one last plan in the hopper. They’ve got their hands on a bomb. If they can somehow get someone to deliver it up to the TET, they can destroy the aliens once and for all. Jack would totally be down for this if he wasn’t having a mental breakdown. It’s not easy to learn you’ve been working for the man. Especially when “the man” is a mass murderer of your people! But eventually Jack comes around. He wants to do the right thing and kill some alien ass. But with the TET onto his plan, it very well may be too late.

I gotta say, I really liked this script. The structure was especially strong. Structure is all about setting up pillars and dangling carrots to get you from one pillar to the next. Anything you can do so that we want to make it to the next pillar is fair game. Here, it’s all the mysteries. First, who is the woman in the dreams? Then when he finds her, how does she know his name? Then, what’s on the voice recorder box from the crashed shuttle? Then, what’s in the “forbidden” areas? Monahan keeps us guessing, and therefore keeps us wanting to get to that next pillar.

This then leads us to our eventual goal (back to spoilers) – kill the aliens. But what’s so cool about “Oblivion” is that it layers these story engines. We’re trying to figure things out (what’s in the forbidden zone?) at the same time as we’re gearing up to achieve our goal – kill the aliens.

People often ask me what’s the biggest difference between an amateur and a pro script. There’s no universal answer, but something from Oblivion reminded me of the question: The complexity of the relationships. (major spoilers) Look at the relationship between the three major parties here, Jack, Victoria, and Julia (the girl from the downed shuttle). Jack turns out to be a clone of the man Julia loved. And with Victoria also being a clone, Jack’s relationship with her turns out to be nothing but a fabrication of the alien’s programming. So he’s stuck in a really weird place. He loves both of these women, despite the fact that his love for them isn’t technically “real.” This leads to a lot of gray area whenever the relationships are explored, areas that felt fresh because we’d never seen them before. Do you know how hard it is to create unique male-female relationships in a medium that’s been going on for 100 years? Monahan figured out a way to do it. And that to me is the sign of a professional.

As you know, I’m always talking about conflict. I like how Monahan injected not one element of conflict, but TWO into his main relationship (Jack and Victoria). Jack is carefree while Victoria’s by the book. Jack wants to stay on earth while Victoria’s desperate to leave. For a movie whose first half rests solely on this relationship, adding two elements of conflict instead of one becomes essential. The plot didn’t have enough going on to only house a single lane of conflict between its two main characters. Decisions like this really impressed me.

If I had to log a complaint about Oblivion, it might be how little we see of the human rebels. We basically get a couple of scenes with them and that’s it. I liked the way the script ended, but maybe these guys could’ve logged more minutes prepping Jack and getting things ready for the bomb transfer. My gut tells me that’s probably something they changed in the subsequent drafts. But we’ll see.

I don’t know what readers were talking about when they said the second half of this script wasn’t good. I thought it kept getting better all the way til the end, which is what a good script should do. I’ll be checking this out on opening weekend as I’m curious to see what they’ve changed. I’m guessing it wasn’t much. It would be foolish to mess with this script.

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

What I learned: I learned a lot of things from this script. But I think the big one is that if I were writing a sci-fi script, I’d keep a handful of mysteries in my story until the very end. One of the problems with a lot of these generic sci-fi movies today is that they show all their cards early, and the second half of the script amounts to a business-like execution of the goal. Oblivion has questions going all the way up until the end. The story then becomes more about getting these answers than it does executing the big traditional climax. So dangle those carrots all the way until the end of your story, people. Don’t let us eat’em too early.

Forrest Gump may be one of the biggest anomalies in the history of moviemaking. There’s nothing here to indicate it should’ve worked besides, maybe, Tom Hanks. As a story, it goes against pretty much every rule out there. There is no goal. There are no obstacles. There’s no urgency. No real stakes to speak of. Yet it was the highest grossing movie the year it came out. It won the Oscar for best picture, best director, best screenplay. It was widely successful on just about every level. Eric Roth (who adapted the novel) is a fascinating writer. In his 30 year career, he’s never once written a spec script (until last year, ironically, when he penned a mysterious sci-fi project). He doesn’t seem to have read or studied screenwriting on any level. His approach is very much intuitive. If you look at his body of work (Benjamin Button, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, The Insider) he appears to eschew structure. His style is more flowy, almost like he’s following the story wherever it takes him, as long as that avenue is interesting. It’s an approach that many screenwriters attempt and fail at, but for some reason it works for him. Of course, some may argue it doesn’t. Forrest Gump is one of the most polarizing movies out there. I think it’s great, but many people absolutely despise it. Either way, it’s such a unique movie that I thought I’d break it down and see if I couldn’t find some cool screenwriting tips from it. Let’s give it a shot…

1) Say it with me: UN-DER-DOG – Forrest Gump reminds us how damn likable the underdog character is. Think about it. Who doesn’t like an underdog? And Forrest is the king of the underdogs. He’s a simpleton. He’s got leg braces. Everyone makes fun of him. He wants a girl he can never have. It’s impossible not to root for this guy. And if you have an audience rooting for your character, you’ve done the majority of your work. Rootforability accounts for probably 80% of Forrest Gump’s success. We just love this character.

2) Take some risks in your screenplay – One of the constants in Forrest Gump is that it takes tons of chances, and risky ones at that. Forrest’s great grandfather started the Ku Klux Klan. His mother prostitutes herself to the principal to keep Forrest in school. These aren’t things you’d typically associate with a “feel good” movie. Therefore it’s one of the reasons Forrest Gump feels different from every other movie out there.

3) But only if you have a great character – I’m all for taking chances. Forrest Gump proves how good a movie can be when you take risks. But if you’re going to take risks, make sure you have one hell of a main character, as he’ll act as a safety net for risks gone wrong. Forrest Gump, love him or hate him, is an unforgettable character. He alone is the reason this script can buck traditional structure and still get away with it. Taking huge story risks with average characters (or even “good” characters) is probably a death wish.

4) CONFLICT ALERT – Remember that if your script lacks structure, there better be some major forms of conflict to drive the drama. Preferably, you’d like one big EXTERIOR conflict and one big INTERIOR conflict. The exterior conflict here is that Forrest loves Jenny, but she doesn’t love him back. The interior conflict is Forrest’s desire to be smart when he’s dumb. These two conflicts drive the majority of the story’s emotional component.

5) If you don’t have a goal driving your movie, make use of “The Dramatic Question” – You all know how much I like character goals. Yet there aren’t any in Forrest Gump. We’re just experiencing Forrest’s crazy life along with him. So, if you find yourself writing that kind of movie, make sure you AT LEAST have a “Dramatic Question.” That’s a question whose answer has large ramifications for your central characters. In other words, it must be DRAMATIC. Here, the question is, “Will Forrest get Jenny?” That’s the only consistent dramatic aspect driving Forrest Gump, and because we care so much about Forrest and Jenny as characters, it’s a powerful one.

6) Look to add a visual element that symbolizes your story – Forrest starts with a feather floating along in the breeze. This feather symbolizes Forrest’s journey, which floats along unpredictably as well, Ferris never knowing where he’s going to end up next. That feather became one of the bigger talking points after the film was released.

7) We despise people who complain about their shitty lot in life and do nothing to change it – We already talked about how likable the underdog character is. Yet another reason why Forrest is so likable is that he has all these disadvantages, yet never uses them as an excuse. He always pushes forward and tries to make the best out of his situation. I can’t stress how likable these people are in both real life and in the movies. If you can write this type of character into your movie, do it. We’ll instantly fall in love with them. (note – while this is true for main characters, it isn’t for secondary characters, like Lt. Dan.  Just make sure those characters change by the end of the movie)

8) The “Relationship Save The Cat” Moment – Lots of us focus on the ‘save the cat’ moment for our main character. But in a love story, I think you need a ‘save the cat’ moment for your couple as well. We need that moment that’s going to make us love them together, that’s going to make us want them to be together. To me, that moment comes when Jenny and Forrest hide from her drunken abusive father in the fields. It’s a “them against the world” moment that makes us sympathize and care for them.

9) IRONY ALERT – Irony is one of the most powerful tools in writing. Audiences LOVE IT. And it’s one of the reasons Forrest Gump is so popular. Forrest is the dumbest character in the movie, yet he’s the most successful character by far. This movie doesn’t work without that irony. For example, if Forrest was smart and he achieved all this, we’d be bored because, duh, why wouldn’t he be successful? He’s super-smart.

10) Comedy is your main weapon to combat melodrama – Forrest Gump could’ve been SUPER melodramatic. It has Forrest’s best friend dying on the battlefield, his mother dying of cancer, and the love of his life dying of AIDS. But the film places comedy at such a high premium, that it balances those moments out. Without all the comedy here, those melodramatic moments would’ve sunk this script.

Can an Evil Dead update turn what was only a cult hit into a bona fide box office success?

Genre: Horror
Premise: (from imdb) Five friends head to a remote cabin, where the discovery of a Book of the Dead leads them to unwittingly summon up demons living in the nearby woods. The evil presence possesses them until only one is left to fight for survival.
About: The original “The Evil Dead” was shot for $90,000 and ended up grossing 2.4 million dollars worldwide. Not a breakout hit by any means, but any film that grosses 25x its original investment is considered a success. It ended up putting director Sam Raimi on the map, and he subsequently made two sequels to the film. Many years later, Raimi would trade horror for family entertainment by making the Spider-Man trilogy. The Evil Dead eventually became a cult classic, with the stories of its intense production being almost as entertaining as the movie itself. The cast and crew slept in the cabin they shot in, leading to tons of tension and arguments. Many people were injured during filming but they were in such a remote area that they couldn’t get medical help. Towards the end of production, the weather had gotten so cold that they started burning furniture to stay warm. The film gained acclaim when it was screened at Cannes, out of competition, and Stephen King went bonkers over it, telling everyone he knew that it was the best horror film he’d seen in years. King’s endorsement inspired many to check out the film who otherwise wouldn’t have. – Of course, when you have a classic anything, Hollywood requires you to remake it at some point. So that’s where we are today, with the new film coming out Friday. It’s said that Raimi helped write the new version, but this draft I read lists only director Fede Alvarez and Rodo Mendez as writers. Not sure if Raimi didn’t come on afterwards and clean things up, or just go uncredited. Strangely enough, Juno scribe Diablo Cody was also brought in late to give the script a punch-up.
Writers: Fede Alvarez & Rodo Mendez (based on the movie “The Evil Dead” by Sam Raimi).
Details: 102 pages – October, 2011 draft

I’m about to lose the little geek cred I still had left with this shocking announcement, but yes, it’s true: I’ve never seen The Evil Dead. I feel a little ashamed to say that. Mainly because I watched an episode of that ABC reality show “Splash” the other day, where washed-up celebrities make fools out of themselves by attempting to dive off a 3 story platform. Which means that I’ve seen SPLASH but not THE EVIL DEAD. Ouch. However, I just watched the trailer a second ago and it looks scary! Well, 70s scary at least.

As for this new one, I don’t know how I feel yet. I watched the trailer for it as well and outside of the chick who comes out of the floor and starts singing a creepy song, it looked like your standard horror film. From what I understand, the original Evil Dead was really innovative for its time. Raimi was using Dutch angles and dollying and steadicam, things you just hadn’t seen in a horror film before. And it was ultra-gory. Moreso than any horror film before it. The film actually received an X rating, which was unheard of for a horror film.

You just can’t innovate those things these days unfortunately. We’ve seen every gross horror image known to man by this point. Tilted angles are far from fresh. Many of the things that made the original such a good film aren’t available to filmmakers anymore, which means the script is dependent entirely on its story. And unfortunately, sending 5 people out to a cabin in the woods isn’t exactly a fresh story.

I was just discussing this with a friend the other day when we were trying to figure out what JJ was going to do to make Star Wars relevant again. The thing about the original Star Wars was how innovative its effects were. We’d never experienced space like that. We’d never experienced ships and aliens like that. That’s one of the many reasons the prequels were so lame. There was nothing about them that was inventive or new. Which meant their success depended entirely on their stories. And we all know how good those stories were. Ahem.

Anyway, I don’t know how Star Wars entered into this equation, so let’s jump into the plot for the new Evil Dead before I start comparing Wedge Antilles’ flying tactics to Luke’s. 30 year old David and 20-something Natalie have recently gotten engaged. However, not everything’s peachy in Happyland. David hasn’t set a date for the wedding yet, and that’s pissing Natalie off, who’s convinced that David is afraid of commitment.

The two are heading to a – yup, you guessed it – old cabin in the middle of nowhere, where they’ll meet up with David’s little sister, 26 year old Mia. Mia, it turns out, is rail thin due to a rather large heroin habit she can’t kick. Enter this get-together. A group of friends will join her out in the middle of nowhere and help her through the 3 day detox period.

Which leads us to our final duo, the scruffy Eric and his girlfriend Olivia. Dumb Eric will play a hefty role in this trip. He discovers an old book in the basement that has all sorts of warnings written on it like “Don’t read this book,” “Put this book down.” “This book will kill you.” Etc. Etc. So what does Eric do? He reads the book!

This unleashes some sort of demon gang onto the house that immediately takes possession of Mia. The problem is, when Mia starts acting all demon-like, they just assume she’s coming down from the heroin. But that changes when Mia starts trying to kill people. That’s when they figure, “Eh, maybe this doesn’t have anything to do with the heroin afterall.”

After Eric tells David about the book and how he might have accidentally unleashed demons on them, the two read up on the solution, which breaks down to them having to kill Mia with the most horrifying death imaginable, as that’s the only way the demon will exit Mia’s body or something. Horrifying death options include setting her on fire and burying her alive. You know, the usual horrifying death stuff. But will David be able to murder his own sister? And even if he can, will he be able to escape all the other demonic activities that are taking over not just the house, but the forest around them as well?

The new Evil Dead script was kinda good. I mean, like I said, how many ways can you tell a horror story where a bunch of friends head to a remote cabin. I HAY-TED the script for Cabin In The Woods, but I have to give Whedon credit for AT LEAST trying something different. No matter which way you carved the chicken, we were still dealing with a chicken here. With that said, the execution of its tired premise was solid. What I mean by that is that the story always kept moving. The characters, while not amazing, were better than for most of these movies. Mia, especially, felt fresh.

In fact, that’s one of the things I dug most about the plot. Usually for these flicks, writers stick their characters out in that cabin without really thinking about why they’re there. All they care about is getting them there and then having crazy shit happen to them. I liked that there was a goal at the beginning of all this: get Mia sober. Help her through this detox period. I also liked how that played into the possession aspect. When she did become possessed, the others didn’t pick up on it, assuming withdrawal was hitting her hard, which gave the demon some added time to take over the house. I have no idea if this is a recent addition or was in the original or not. But it worked well here.

Speaking of characters, I was disappointed there wasn’t more going on with our lead, David. There’s this sort of weak exploration of his flaw, being that he doesn’t “commit,” which is first brought up when he hasn’t set a date with Natalie, then later when he won’t kill his sister. Besides the fact that a “doesn’t commit” flaw probably shouldn’t apply when you’re tasked with killing your own sister, the flaw itself felt half-assed.

A half-assed character flaw (and the subsequent character arc that evolves from that flaw) is often worse than not giving your character a flaw at all. That’s because you’re putting your flaw out there clear as day. It’s said multiple times that David DOESN’T COMMIT. Except I don’t remember a moment in the script where David overcomes that flaw. Shit just ends up getting crazy and there’s no time for David to think about his flaw, gain the courage to overcome it, then change it. A flaw has to be executed consistently and through action if possible. Establish your character’s flaw (i.e. he’s a coward), then throughout the script, keep putting him in situations where he can either be cowardly or brave. Have him choose to be a coward each time, but become braver and braver with each new choice. Then at the end, when the big moment comes, have him become brave. Boom, he’s overcome his flaw.

There’s nothing special here. But there’s just enough to keep you entertained. Which is sad, because if you’re going to remake something – especially if you’re one of the people involved with the original – you’d like for there to be a reason that amounts to more than a cash-grab. You’d like for there to be something today that you couldn’t have done then, that would improve your vision of the original film. Does Sam Raimi, after those 3 Spiderman movies, really need more money? I don’t think so. Which makes this remake a peculiarity, if not a reasonably executed one.

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

What I learned: If you’re not going to commit to a flaw 100%, don’t include one. Don’t just put a flaw in there to satisfy the screenwriting book rules, then mush your way through its execution for the second half of your screenplay. That kind of amateur move doesn’t slip past us. We notice. Make sure it’s seamless and natural. Make sure the flaw fits your character and your story so that it doesn’t feel forced. And commit to it. Never start something you can’t finish.

Here we go again!

This is your chance to discuss the week’s amateur scripts, offered originally in the Scriptshadow newsletter. The primary goal for this discussion is to find out which script(s) is the best candidate for a future Amateur Friday review. The secondary goal is to keep things positive in the comments with constructive criticism.

Below are the scripts up for review, along with the download links. Want to receive the scripts early? Head over to the Contact page, e-mail us, and “Opt In” to the newsletter.

Happy reading!

TITLE: Colossal
GENRE: Horror
LOGLINE: A deeply disturbed man, diagnosed with a growth disorder, hunts down the daughter of his childhood bully and must face off against the girl’s protective mother.

TITLE: Red Devils
GENRE: Thriller/Horror
LOGLINE: Two families vacationing on a yacht must survive an attack by jumbo squid while an old secret threatens to turn them against each other.

TITLE: The Turning Season
GENRE: Thriller/Drama/Horror
LOGLINE: A mother grieving the loss of her son becomes obsessed with a runaway boy who turns out to be vampire.

TITLE: Monster Mash
GENRE: R-Rated Comedy/Horror
LOGLINE: When the girl of his dreams is kidnapped by a legion of monsters and her sorceress-possessed father, a timid teen must rally his misfit friends and faithful mummy to save his crush before her sacrifice unleashes Armageddon.

Today’s writer shows us how approaching a subject matter from an angle that’s never been done before can make your script instantly interesting.

Amateur Friday Submission Process: To submit your script for an Amateur Review, send in a PDF of your script, a PDF of the first ten pages of your script, your title, genre, logline, and finally, why I should read your script. Use my submission address please: Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Your script and “first ten” will be posted. If you’re nervous about the effects of a bad review, feel free to use an alias name and/or title. It’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so your submission stays near the top.

Genre: Dark Comedy
Premise: (from writer) A demented 14 year old girl strikes up a weird relationship with a convicted sex offender. Shit gets crazy when they embark on a twisted road trip in a “rape van.”
Why you should read (from the writer): Goodbye Gene has recently been named a semi-finalist in the BlueCat Screenplay Competition. My evaluation from the readers of Scriptshadow said “it wasn’t overwritten, but still incredibly telling.” They also said some kick-ass things about my character development. PS — it’s in the BlueCat Competition as The Repairable Brightness of Gene. Not everybody gets the Milan Kundera reference, which is understandable. So I simplified it.
Writer: Derek Williams
Details: 106 pages

Chloe Moretz for Kiley?

I’d just read American Bullshit and written a review of it for today’s newsletter, so most of my energy had already been sapped. I didn’t have the attention span or the desire to read and review another script. My mind was already swimming with pre-weekend fantasies. That’s what writers forget. Your script may be the second that reader has read that day. Or the third. And if it’s a contest, it could be the fourth or the fifth. Writers need to be reminded that when a reader reads your script, it’s typically not under ideal circumstances. They aren’t recently fed. They aren’t bursting with energy. They probably want to get to their own writing or their own work. And you’re in their way. You and three others.

Now the best of the readers (like me, of course), understand that this is often a reader’s only shot. And you have to respect that by giving them your full attention. But after writing an article and playing tennis and an argument with the neighbor and reading and reviewing another script and putting together a newsletter and it’s 10:15 pm and the ladyfriend’s blasting “Say Yes To The Dress” in the background…I’m sorry but I’m just tired. The only reason I’m reading this script is because I have to review it tomorrow. If I can muster up any interest for the story, it’s going to be a mini-miracle.

And then the main character bites off the head of a hamster in chemistry class and WADDAYA KNOW, I’m WIDE AWAKE again. The power of a shocking first page. Hey, not every story is designed to start with this kind of shock. But good writers know they have to jolt those eternally exhausted readers out of their stupor. So they put something in those first few pages that wake their ass up. Kudos to Derek. I was officially awake now. But was this just a gimmick? What about his actual ability to tell a story? Would he be able to do that?

The girl in question is 14 year old Kiley Waters. To say Kiley is an outcast is a chunderstatement. That’s an understatement that’s so far under, it actually inspires vomit (I told you it was late – just go with it). Kiley bit off the hamster’s head because a) her mom died when she was a kid, b) her rich father isn’t a good daddy, and c) her fucked up friends, Joanna and Lonnie, create “Sickest Shit” contests where they lay bets down on who can do the sickest shit. Newflash, Kiley won this round.

But the Sickest Shit contests are getting boring. Kiley needs a bigger rush. Lately, her and Joanna have been crafting up a new game: try to get molested by a sex offender. Yes, this is really happening. Luckily (unluckily?), Kiley runs into Thomas Jay, a pet groomer who can’t keep a job because sooner or later his employers find out about his sex offender past. Perfect target! But Kiley soon finds out, to her utter dismay, that Thomas isn’t REALLY a sex-offender. He was a senior who had a Freshman girlfriend in high school. They had sex and the state arrested him. So he’s not a slimy “legitimate” pervy. He’s just a really horny senior who doesn’t know you’re not allowed to have sex with freshmen.

Kiley won’t have it though. She needs to get molested! So she keeps tricking Thomas (who wants nothing to do with her btw) into these meetings where she can encourage him to molest her n stuff. For example, she purchases a “rape van” for him as a present. Thomas is repeatedly annoyed but since he’s jobless and bank account-less, he has to take the little monetary scraps Kiley offers him to keep going along with these ventures.

Across town is parole officer Josh Dean. Josh is the world’s worst P.O. If someone raises their voice at him, he starts crying. It’s gotten so bad that he signs up for a Tony Robbins-like Parole Officer Seminar. It’s there where he sees Ferman T Ash speak, the coolest parole officer in the world. Ferman is so cool and confident on the podium that he inspires Josh to do a complete TLC-like makeover. So Josh buys a Dog The Bounty Hunter-type outfit and starts ending all of his sentences with “Bra.” He also renames himself “The Crocodile.”

The Crocodile becomes obsessed with taking down sex offenders. And when he gets wind that Thomas Jay is spending all this time with 14 year old Kiley, he decides to make an example out of him. And the Crocodile doesn’t play by the man’s rules anymore. The Crocodile wants to make Thomas Jay DEAD. Naturally, we believe that poor Thomas Jay, the unwitting recipient of this disturbed girl’s schemes, is going to get wrongly offed by the newly transformed The Crocodile. But there’s one thing I can promise you about Goodbye Gene. Don’t ever think you know what’s going to happen next. You will almost certainly be wrong.

Okay, I know this is a fucked up subject matter. It’s about 14 year old girls trying to get molested. But dammit, this shit was funny. And clever. Derek is a really good writer. You get the sense that this guy could make an adaptation of the Bible funny. I usually hate asides to the reader UNLESS it’s a comedy and funny. Lucky for us, Derek is hilarious. After Josh’s physical and mental transformation are complete, he insanely starts accusing one of his parolees, because he has a Chinese restaurant menu on his windshield, of building an underground sex bunker for Asian delivery boys. When his co-worker tries to calm him down, addressing him as “Josh,” Josh corrects him with, “The Crocodile. I’d appreciate it, if you could make the adjustment, and refer to me as The Crocodile from now on, bra.” Derek then writes:  We’re definitely going to make that adjustment. JOSH DEAN is now THE CROCODILE. And from that point on, his character name in all the dialogue is “THE CROCODILE.” It’s hilarious.

But probably the real reason this script succeeds is that it flips the script, so to speak. By going against audience expectations and having the young girl TRYING to get molested, everything in the story feels fresh. I mean, I’ve seen the indie movie with the pervy old guy trying to nail the young girl. Seen it a hundred times. It’s fascinating, then, how by approaching the same subject matter from the opposite angle, you encounter all these new situations you’ve never seen before. Like our 14 year old character trying to give her sex predator a rape van as a gift. Granted, the humor here is pretty edgy. Some people are going to be REALLY offended by it. But I’ll say this to the end – I’d rather you be edgy with your humor than Jay Leno with your humor.

(Spoilers!) Now I do have some issues with the script, and they revolve around the last 20 pages. First off, the twist where Thomas really was a molester was shocking. It totally got me. But here’s the thing. This is still a comedy. It’s a black comedy. A very dark black comedy. But it’s still a comedy. You can’t have Thomas rape her. You just can’t do it. It takes what was funny and makes it uncomfortable. After that moment, the script completely lost its footing. It “jumped the perv” so to speak.

I actually thought the impending collision between the newly transformed “Crocodile” and Thomas Jay was great. I was really curious what was going to happen. Was the Crocodile going to kill an innocent man? Even if you did go with the twist and had Thomas be a real molester, seeing these two meet in a giant final showdown would’ve been fun. I just feel like that’ll be way more exciting than what happens now, which is basically that Thomas anti-climactically gets caught and anti-climactically gets yelled at by The Crocodile while going to jail. So take out the actual raping. Imply the raping is GOING to happen unless the Crocodile saves Kiley. And then have the big showdown between the two.

Someone on Twitter called this script “unsellable,” and I’d probably agree with them. But man does Derek have a unique voice and a biting sense of humor. And he’s also a really good storyteller. I’d definitely snatch this guy up if I were an agent or manager. The next thing he writes, assuming it’s more marketable, is going to get made. That’s what my gut’s telling me.

Script link: Goodbye Gene

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

What I learned: There’s something from last week that bothered me. After telling Z that the ending for his script, Verona Spies, fell apart, he said, “Yeah, but if I change it, it’ll go against the entire theme I set up.” Here’s how I see it: If you have to write a “lesser” ending to stay consistent with your theme, then change your theme. I just want a good ending. I don’t leave the theater saying, “Man, that ending sucked but dammit if he didn’t nail the theme with it.” A good story should take precedence over any “under the hood” work with your script. I don’t know if that’s the case here or not, but this ending went out with a whimper instead of a roar. So please people, good endings over thematic consistency. Thank you.