Genre: Fantasy
Premise: Before Dorothy, the great Oz himself had to get to Oz. This is his story.
About: Directed by Spiderman director Sam Raimi and starring his villain in that film, James Franco, as Oz, this film debuted its trailer a few weeks back. This draft made it on the 2010 Black List, although I think it was fairly low. Screenwriter Kapner was an interesting choice for the material. His most previous credit was 2009’s “Into The Blue 2,” although he’s probably best known for his 2000 screenplay, “The Whole Nine Yards.”
Writer: Mitchell Kapner (based on the books of L. Frank Baum)
Details: 4/08/10 draft
You know, moving to LA last week, I kinda felt like Dorothy. I rode a tornado of sorts (my car) from a state right next to Kansas. I crash-landed on a witch (Oklahoma City). I had to follow a yellow brick road the rest of the way to a magical land. I met some strange characters along the way (Oklahoma City Hotel Guy – which you’d know if you were following me on Twitter – for the record, I usually update my Twitter followers on when I’m going to post. So on the days I’m late, that’s a good resource to know when the post is coming). And now I’m finally here. Trying to find the man behind the curtain.
Which is probably where we should start today’s review. You see, everybody knows the story of Dorothy. But how many people know the story of the man Dorothy goes looking for? How did *he* get here? And once he got here, how come he never went back? And how did he go from a guy who looked like James Franco to a guy who looked like Sam Kinison?
It might be fun to find out. Or just plain stupid. Just because you can look back at a well-known fictional character’s life doesn’t mean you should. A big part of the reason some characters are so memorable is because the writer showed us just the right amount of them. No more, no less. So I have to be honest. I’m curious why it’s so important that we learn Oz’s origin story.
Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkle Emmanuel Abroise Diggs (or “Oz” for short) is an illusionist, which in the early 1900s held some entertainment weight. Without countless Youtube videos to waste their time on, people needed something to pass the time. And these illusionist dudes did just that.
But not unlike today’s entertainment industry, unless you were one of the top dogs in your profession, you needed something else to pay the bills. For Oz, it’s booze. So after his show (from which no one seemed to enjoy) he busts out his very own homemade moonshine and sells it to the audience, who we realize only ever came here for the booze in the first place (in a really cheesy choice, the acronym for the liquor is “H.O.M.E.”).
Afterwards, Oz unwisely hooks up with one of his audience members, the irresistible Mrs. Hamilton, only to be found by Mr. Hamilton! Oz is chased through the circus, leaps onto a hot air balloon, thinks he’s safe, until he spots the biggest storm in Kansas history. I think we know where this is going. Yup. The next thing Oz knows, he’s awaken in Oz.
And boy, you thought Oz was wild before. That doesn’t even come close to what’s going on in this dysfunctional countryside this time around. Besides the munchkins, there’s the Hammerheads, the Dainty China army, Whimsies, Gnomes, Growleywogs and Mist Maidens.
But the biggest presence here in pre-Dorothy Oz? Deceit! Everyone’s lying! So it’s hard to figure out who to trust. At first Oz befriends a witch named Theodora, who seems like a cool chick. Theodora tells him they’ve been waiting for his arrival, that he’s here to save Oz. Which means he has to follow her to Emerald City to meet her sister, Evanora, so they can plan out how they’re going to kill the Wicked Witch Of The South!
But when they get there, Evanora is convinced that Theodora sent Oz to kill her! So she wants Oz to kill Theodora! If that isn’t confusing enough, one of the flying monkeys, Kala, wisps Oz off to the “Wicked” Witch Of The South, Glinda, who you may remember as Bubble Witch from the original Wizard Of Oz. She tells Oz the “real” story, which is that Theodora and Evanora are the wicked witches, and Glinda is a good witch!
Not really knowing who to trust, Oz goes with his instincts and gets behind Glinda. But if it were only that simple. Theodora and Evanora are putting together an army to squash them. Glinda, as well as the people of Oz, turn to Oz for direction. He is, in their minds, their savior. So Oz will have to piece together an army of creatures that were never meant to fight, to take over Oz and save it, once and for all, from the evil witches.
When you think about it, Wizard of Oz is one of the most f*cked up stories ever. It’s weird. It’s odd. It’s actually kinda creepy. Those flying monkeys? Wuddup with that?? However, in that classic first film, everything just seemed to magically come together. It’s rare that you make that many unique choices and they all fit. The only other movie I can think of that did it (off the top of my head) is Star Wars. So to try and replicate that weirdness and hope lightning strikes twice…that’s asking for trouble.
And we see that trouble all over the place here. I mean, there’s a lot of weird shit happening, but none of it gels together in the same way that original did.
I think the biggest problem is Oz himself. He’s just not very interesting. And it all started with his introduction. I couldn’t tell *who* Oz was supposed to be. Was he the terrible illusionist blind to his lack of ability, or was he genuinely good at what he did? It was never clear. One second he’s doing a cool trick and the next a lame one.
If your main character is wishy-washy, your script is dead. I’m sorry but it’s dead. If we don’t know the main character’s exact problem, then he’s just confusing the whole way through. And we won’t care about him.
What I’m trying to say is that in a script like this, you need to identify Oz’s fatal flaw, since this is a story ABOUT HIM and therefore you’re writing a character piece. Maybe his flaw is that he doesn’t believe in his own abilities. Or maybe you go in the opposite direction and it’s that he overestimates his abilities. From there, you throw tests at the hero that challenge that flaw. If he doesn’t believe in his abilities, for example, then you write a scene where he must prove his worthiness for the Queen. Everybody’s looking at him. He must perform. But he buckles under the pressure because DEEP DOWN he doesn’t believe in himself yet. Then, in the end, when it finally matters, he’s able to push past those insecurities and prove his worth. That’s how you create a character arc.
Here, it was just…I don’t know. Oz would do a magic trick every once in awhile, and some people would believe he was a wizard and some wouldn’t. It was just never clear.
The idea of a war in Oz with all these weird creatures is a tantalizing one, especially for a director, who gets millions of dollars to show audiences something they’ve never seen before. So I could see the climax being fun. The problem is, none of the characters – and I mean not a single one – was unique or interesting or compelling in any way. Which was strange since this is such a unique interesting compelling world. With that being the case, the final battle comes up empty. We don’t really care who wins. It’s just eye candy, without the candy since it’s still in the script stage.
Oz was never able to wrangle in all of its strange parts. I’m sticking with the original.
What I Learned: The power of a good character arc is the most influential emotional component you can add to your screenplay. Audiences like to see characters learn and change for the better. It makes them feel good inside. The original Oz film based its entire story on that. You had a scarecrow who didn’t think he was smart enough, a lion who wasn’t brave enough, and a tin man incapable of feeling love. The changes (“arcs”) those characters went through is what was so memorable about that film. With that aspect never defined here for any character – especially Oz – there was zero emotional attachment to the story.
Picking this script up again, I immediately remembered why I advanced it. It starts off with a cute cuddly scene – a father and daughter joking around in a car – and when we least expect it, a truck comes out of nowhere and obliterates the driver’s side, instantly killing the father.
I thought, “This writer knows how to grab a reader’s attention,” which is important. Believe it or not, there are tons of writers out there who still write a very soft first 10 pages, reasoning that their script “takes time to get into,” and “needs to breathe before it gets going.” You wanna talk about breathing? Well those long steady breaths you’re hearing in the distance? That’s your reader falling asleep.
I’m not saying every First 10 needs to have a car crash, or a bar fight, or a fridge nuked. But something needs to happen in there to catch our interest. You’ve already taken care of the hard part – coming up with a logline that’s gotten us to actually OPEN the script. Don’t blow your chances by writing a boring First 10.
I became a little concerned after the car crash when I realized it was just our main character’s dream. The girl woke up from the nightmare, and was now really going to get in the car with her father. She thinks her dream is a premonition, tries to stop him, but away they go anyway. Cut to funeral.
I don’t know…..something about it just didn’t feel right. I can’t pinpoint what it was but I thought, “That could’ve gone smoother.”
We then jump forward 18 years to present day and our little girl, Angela Pruitt, is now a successful sales rep at a pharmaceutical company. She’s actually going to a big conference this weekend where she’ll be promoting a new drug her company is selling.
Little does she know, a self-made reporter/blogger named David (“handsome in an unkempt way”) goes around specifically debunking these b.s. pills and has tasked himself with exposing the company’s scam. So he shows up to the conference under an alias, “Dr. Tom,” and prepares to take them down.
But little does David know, Angela is specifically on the lookout for any doctors named Tom. As we learned in the opening sequence, whatever Angela dreams comes true. And her whole life she’s dreamed that she’s going to marry a “Dr. Tom.” Conveniently for the story (ahem), she never sees the FACE of this man in her dreams. She only knows that she’s at the altar marrying someone named “Dr. Tom.”
Naturally then, Angela comes on to Dave…err Tom…hard. And he’s not complaining. This girl’s hot! They spend the evening together, and it’s clear that these two were meant for each other. They ooze that disgusting couple perfection that the rest of the world’s hopeless romantics would die to feel for just one second.
That is until Angela finds out Dave is lying, and that he’s really, well, “Dave.” Dave admits he was bad, but is surprised at just how upset Angela is. It’s then when he learns about the premonition stuff, and that his lying wasn’t just about the lying, but that his name doesn’t match up with the man she’s supposed to spend the rest of her life with.
Dave, who doesn’t believe in any of this nonsense, suggests an idea. In order to prove that her dreams don’t hold any merit, he’ll go interview all of the people in her life to, um…hmmm, well I’m not sure – I think figure out where this dream obsession came from and show that it’s not real?
The problem is, while Dave does his Sherlock Holmes routine, Angela ends up shacking up with a REAL Dr. Tom, and becomes convinced that he’s the one she’s supposed to marry. If Dave wants to win this battle, he’s not only going to have to prove to Angela that she loves him, but that everything she’s ever believed is a lie.
Okay….hmmm. Well, I don’t think this script suffers from the same problems as some the other Twit-Pitch scripts, which was mainly lack of effort. But I’m not sure this story ever had a leg to stand on. The foundation of this building was so flimsy, that it was hard to move around without the entire floor shaking.
I guess I never really got past the name thing. It just seemed silly to build an entire movie around a guy who lied about his name. I don’t know what I was expecting after reading the logline, but definitely something more sophisticated than that.
When you combine that with this super-convenient plot device that Angela knows the NAME of her future husband and the JOB TITLE of her future husband, but not what he looks like? It just felt like the writer was taking too many liberties, constructing a scenario for his screenplay to work, but not one that would hold up in reality, however skewed that pretend reality was.
Once you’re not on board with the setup, it’s basically impossible to win back the reader. Everything they read has them coming back to that setup. When Angela finds another Dr. Tom to date, all I could think was, “Really? She knows the name but not the face of the guy? Plot Convenience 101.”
But even if I hadn’t had that problem, the plot itself doesn’t develop in an interesting way. This whole thing with Dave going out and interviewing family and friends…? I’m not even sure what that’s supposed to accomplish. This is somehow going to help him prove to her that her dreams aren’t true? It felt like one of those situations where a writer looked at the vast amount of space ahead of him after he finished his first act and went, “What the hell am I going to do for the next 60 pages??” and figured investigating, while not ideal, would at least take up some time.
And you NEVER want to do that when writing a screenplay. You NEVER want to bide time in your script. Every storyline should be imperative. Every story decision should have high stakes. As Dave was interviewing the best friend here, I thought, “What happens if this goes badly?” Or “What happens if this goes well?” I couldn’t determine how the scene had any effect on the movie. In other words, the stakes were unclear.
Take a scene in the recent spec script turned film, “Crazy, Stupid, Love.” Recently separated Cal and Emily, who we’re hoping will get back together, are forced to come together for a parent teacher conference. After a nice talk in the hallway, they walk inside the classroom and Cal sees that a woman he slept with recently is his son’s teacher! All of a sudden, there are real stakes to the scene. Cal and Emily just made some major strides in the hallway, but now Cal must get through this meeting without the clearly upset teacher revealing their history. The stakes are high. 20 years of marriage and a reconciliation are on the line. I just never got the feeling that anything was on the line during that whole “investigation” subplot in Man Of Your Dreams.
Also, on top of this, as I try to tell everyone who writes romantic comedies, the dialogue has to be CRACKLING. And when I say “crackling,” I mean fun quotable lines in every conversation the two have. I don’t think I ever said to myself, “This dialogue is bad.” But I never thought it stood out either. And if you want any chance in the world of selling your romantic comedy script, I GUARANTEE you, your dialogue has to stand out.
If that’s not a strength of yours, you the writer have to decide whether romantic comedies are really your genre, or if you’re putting as much effort into your dialogue as you can.
Romantic Comedies are hard. And this script unfortunately fell into a lot of the traps amateurs fall into when tackling the genre. Man Of Your Dreams felt like a car with all the standard settings. When you write a script, you need to give us the car with all the upgrades.
(Thursday review up early since I’m on the road to LA baby!!!)
Genre: Action
I’m not sure it’s ever a good sign when a contest entry comes with the e-mail, “Sorry for any typos. I ran out of time.”
………..
You hear that?
That’s the sound of my chin hitting my chest accompanied by a long slow wheezing sound. I suppose I should be used to it by now – the lack of effort put into these Twit-Pitches. But yesterday gave me hope! It made me a believer in Twit-Pitch again! I had fallen down the Twit-Pitch mountain but I had gotten back up and I climbed, oh how I climbed, to the top of that mountain again and I said to the people in the valley, “HALLELUJAH!”
Only to get shot in the back and tumble off the cliff once more.
Now we’re not talking about a “Cut Copy Paste” reunion here. The writing was competent. And ironically, I only saw a couple of typos. But this script confused me. The first five pages were some of the strongest of the competition – with a group of 1901 terrorists breaking into a tower and stealing blueprints to the White House. But for some reason – maybe from the logline? – I thought this script was going to be an action comedy. But that’s not the case. It’s a straight action film. Which definitely took some getting used to (I think I gave up looking for laughs around page 30). But even once I realized it was a straight action movie, I was frustrated by how little freaking happened! I mean, there’s a TON of action in this script. More than a night in the Jersey Shore house. But there’s zero story. It’s as if Matt bought himself a case of Mountain Dew and wrote one giant 110 page action sequence all weekend. I’ll get more into that in a second.
Like I said, The Last Rough Rider begins in 1901 with a group of Columbians stealing the White House blueprints. The scene creates intrigue. It creates suspense. It sets up a mystery. What are they stealing the blueprints for? Whatever are they planning to do?
We then meet Theodore Roosevelt and his 12 year old son, Kermit, hunting. Teddy is big, tough and manly, whereas Kermit is weak, squeamish, and uncomfortable. He’s only here to impress his father but it’s clear he’d rather be reading books or playing ches—HOLY F*CK! OUT OF NOWHERE A BEAR LEAPS AT THEM! Teddy and Kermit roll out of the way. Now whereas most people would run AWAY from a thousand pound bear, Teddy Roosevelt runs AT the bear. And wrestles it. And kills it!
Yes, Teddy Roosevelt IS the last true rough rider. And to drive this point home, he hauls the bear carcass into a cabinet meeting and starts gutting it (strangely, this is the only comedic scene in the movie). Oh yeah, Mr. Roosevelt isn’t president yet. He’s only vice-president. And apparently he gets on a lot of people’s nerves, to the point where no one thinks he’s presidential material. He’s just not very…sensitive.
Anyway, while the cabinet bickers about a dead bear in the middle of the Oval Office, our evil Columbian terrorists sneak through the gate and take over the White House Hans Gruber style! You gotta remember this was pre 9/11….by 100 years, so security wasn’t very tight.
They hold everybody hostage in the Oval Office except for Teddy, who they send off to a remote room. Teddy isn’t there for long, as taking out two guards is the difficulty equivalent of eating a stack of pancakes for him. And from that point on….well…Teddy runs around the White House trying to save the good guys and kill the bad guys. That’s….about it. There’s nothing else that really happens in the story. Which makes it kinda boring.
Now you may be saying, “Well isn’t that exactly what Die Hard did?” Yeah, but here’s the difference. Die Hard had plot developments. Things were happening. They were trying to open the 7 layers of the safe. The media showed up. McClane befriended the cop. The power was cut.
Nothing happens in this story. It’s the most under-plotted script I’ve read all year. It’s just Roosevelt running around aimlessly. There’s no form to it. There’s no structure. It’s just the same scene over and over again. I know this because when I read these scripts, I take notes on all the major and minor plot developments that happen so I can write a summary of the story in the review. I went 80 pages here and didn’t write a single thing because there wasn’t a single development.
The only plot element driving the story was the admittedly cool X-Ray machine that the Columbian scientist was using to see what was inside the White House walls. This is apparently what they came here for. The problem is, we see this happen at the beginning of the takeover, and then we don’t hear about it again for another 90 PAGES! So the only interesting thing about the story was barely in the story!
It’s your job as a writer to make something happen every 10-15 pages. Give us a twist. Introduce an unexpected element. If the same thing keeps happening over and over again, we’re going to get bored. And that’s why this feels like it was written in a weekend. There just didn’t seem to be any thought put into the plot. It was just, “Let’s have Teddy Roosevelt run around.”
This is the kind of script that would’ve benefited greatly from clear “mini-goals.” Instead of only having a giant vague goal of “saving the White House,” which leaves open the possibility of too much general-ness, lay out specific tasks Roosevelt needs to accomplish one after another to GET to the point where he saves the White House. These mini-goals are the key to focus.
For example, John McClane’s first goal is to contact the police. Then it’s to stop the police from mucking up the situation. Then it’s to evade the terrorists Hans sends after him. Once you break your action movie down into these little chunks, giving your hero sequences to conquer instead of entire movies to conquer, the story becomes much more manageable.
To make matters worse, the only plot point in the movie (the x-rayed wall plot) didn’t even pay off in an interesting way. In fact, I don’t even know if it made sense. The Columbians were basically looking for the blueprints to the Panama Canal so they could…control it? Or something? How would blueprints allow you to control the canal? And why did blueprints to the Panama Canal need to be hidden inside the White House walls? And my history is shaky. Had the Panama Canal been built yet? Were they trying to control something that was already there or control something that would be there in the future? No idea. And why do we need an x-ray machine to check inside the wall to see if something is there or not? Why not – oh I don’t know – KNOCK DOWN THE WALL!?? Seems like it would be a lot cheaper and a lot faster.
I’m going to take a wild guess here and say this was written AFTER Twit-Pitch. Once again, I’ll remind you: We readers know when a script has been rushed. You’re not going to trick us. The choices are generic. The plot is basic. The characters are plain. To get that stuff right takes time and a lot of rewriting. So as much as you’d like to think you’ll be the exception, you’re not fooling anybody. If you don’t put in the work, it always shows.
This is sad because I was thinking Rough Rider would be a dark horse in the competition. Instead it’s a dead horse. :(
Genre: Dark Comedy
Hey, what do you know? More serial killers! These delightful little rascals are dark comedy gold, which is why they never stray too far from a slugline.
Problem is most writers think that their character being a serial killer is enough. As if that alone will capture our imagination. Nope. Fraid not. Just like any subject matter, serial killers need a fresh take. And today we get that fresh take. Sealed up in a giant zip-lock bag. Along with kittens. And anal fisting (more on that in a bit).
Yesterday I complained that serial killer spec “Crimson Road” made too many safe choices, taking what should’ve been an exciting premise and boiling it down to a generic version of Scream. If you’re going to tackle something as ubiquitous as serial killers, you need to give us more than that. You need to treat the idea in a unique way. When I pointed that out, I told everyone to tune into today’s review to see what I meant.
Fatties will offend a great portion of the people who read it. But one thing you can’t say about Fatties is that it’s predictable. Or obvious. Or generic. Imagine reading the same stories over and over and over again. That’s my life. So when a writer has the balls to try something different, it ALWAYS stands out. And I’m happy to have finally found a Twit-Pitch script that stands out.
Kathy and Linda are large and in-charge lesbian lovers. Actually, Kathy’s the one who’s in charge. She’s the one tipping the scales at 400, and she uses every one of those ounces to get what she wants. Poor Linda, who’s a comparatively slight 300, basically spends her days making Kathy happy any way she can – usually sexually. If the image of 700 pounds of naked flesh rolling around in a bed accompanied by phrases such as, “Yeah, that’s how momma likes it” terrifies you, you probably don’t want to read Fatties. Because there’s plenty of that. Way too plenty!
Oh yeah, Kathy and Linda are also serial killers. When we meet them, they have a cheerleader tied up in the basement. As you’d expect, this is mainly Kathy’s idea. Linda goes along with it because she’s terrified of making Kathy angry. She remembers what it was like before Kathy came along – how lonely she was – and if she has to support her lover’s little killing habit to keep her happy, well, it’s a small price to pay.
Unfortunately, Linda’s kindness allows the cheerleader to escape. But before she can get very far, Kathy pops out of nowhere and chops the bitch’s head off. The killing happens way sooner than Kathy would’ve wanted, and that means finding a new piece of meat to torture. Kathy turns to the Craig’s List personals where she finds a man in search of a large woman.
Enter Gary – the single nicest guy in the world. Gary’s skinny, wiry, and has a lot of the same problems these women have – mainly that he’s an outcast. Nobody pays attention to him. Nobody gives a shit about him. If he can just find someone – anyone – to talk to, he’ll be happy. So when he puts up a personals ad looking for a large woman (to cuddle with – Gary loves cuddling), he’s thrilled to get an e-mail back from a COUPLE. Two big and beautifuls for the price of one. Jackpot!
Gary heads over to meet the couple and is instantly smitten. Of course, Gary would be smitten with a wireless router if it showed interest but still. He really likes these chicks. Which is a bit of surprise to them since nobody likes them. But while Gary is looking for something more…emotional, Kathy is looking for something more… sexual.
She takes Gary home that night and completely degrades him, first by sitting on his face and second by…sitting on his face some more. She has no interest in giving Gary any pleasure in return. She just wants to treat him like the trash she believes he is. The problem is…Gary likes it. In fact, he LOVES it. This infuriates Kathy so much that she starts slapping Gary while forcing him into repeated acts of sexual depravity. But Gary likes it. So she starts beating the crap out of him. But Gary likes it. Gary is like the Life Cereal Mikey of subservient sex. No matter how many shades of gray Kathy throws at him, Gary likes it.
She finally stuffs him in their basement of torture, tells him he’s going to be their slave, and that at some point in the near future, they’re going to kill him. But Gary likes it. Humph. Kathy is at a loss as to what to do. She’s not used to any of her victims liking anything she does.
Now during these slave sessions, it’s Linda’s job to come down and feed the captors. Normally, Kathy’s able to control Linda – reminding her that these aren’t really people but rather playthings for their amusement. But Gary is just so darn earnest that Linda starts to like him. She begins to realize that the real enemy here is Kathy, who’s taken advantage of her loneliness all these years to essentially make her a “slave with benefits.” Once Linda gets this in her head, she starts planning an escape with Gary. Except Kathy’s no dummy. She figures it out and her plan to kill Gary turns into a plan to kill Gary AND Linda. Will Linda figure this out in time? Will her and Gary be able to escape? And how will Gary fend Kathy off with only one arm (more on that in a sec)? Fatties offers all these wonderful answers and more. Much MUCH more.
Did Fatties make me sick? Yeah. Did Fatties make me want to hurl several times? Yeah. But did Fatties make me want to keep reading? Yeah. And in the end, that’s all that matters. If the reader wants to keep reading, you’re doing your job.
But the reason this script stands above all the other Twit-Pitch entries (so far) is that it makes unique choices. Focusing the script around a large lesbian couple? Never seen that before. Making them serial killers and having them keep a wiry mustached chubby chaser as a sex slave? Never seen that before. A killer amputating a character’s arm and then using it to anally fist him, all shown lovingly via a shadow on the wall? Never seen that before.
But if this script were ONLY about the shock value, I wouldn’t have given a shit. What Matt does here is he actually creates characters. He actually incorporates theme! This script is about loneliness, and the depths humans will go to to avoid it. For some it’s being with a person they hate, if only because it’s someone to lay their head down next to at the end of the day. For others it’s allowing yourself to be murdered, if only so you don’t have to die alone. I mean, it’s freaking sad but you *do* sympathize with these characters because they’re experiencing real-life relatable problems. You feel their pain and care for them. Which is why, even though they’re being anally fisted with their own decapitated arms, you still want to see what happens next.
If I have a complaint about Fatties, it’s that Kathy was a wee bit over-the-top. And when I say “wee bit” I mean Mach 50 completely out of control batshit Gorilla-scary insane. I mean at one point when her and Linda need money, they pop by an ATM and Kathy stabs a dude to death and steals his cash. I know this isn’t reality, but come on. She’d be a little more careful than that seeing as she regularly keeps future murder victims in her basement. Matt did such a good job bringing out the humanity in Linda and Gary. Maybe a pass focusing on Kathy’s past and her own humanity will add some depth to the character so she’s not so dependent on shocking actions.
This script is weird. This script is disturbing. But I’d rather have weird and disturbing over “predictable” any day.
