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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What I learned: This is why you shouldn’t try and write a complicated multifaceted multi-character epic with politics and secret objectives and dozens of vastly different locations. These are the most difficult movies to write by far. And this is often the result. A bunch of muddled objectives in a muddled plot that’s desperately trying to seem important but none of that importance comes through because it’s all so sloppily executed. To me, The Phantom Menace is an argument for the power of a simple plot. Keep the character goals clear. Keep everybody’s motivations clear. Keep the story goals clear. The first two films were basically bad guys chasing good guys. Even Empire could be boiled down to that. As long as you have that simple structure in place, you can try to find the complications within it. But if you start with an overarching complex story that lacks focus, it’s likely doomed from the get-go.
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We’re back for Day 2 of Star Wars Week. To find out more, head back to yesterday’s review of The Empire Strikes Back.

Genre: Sci-fi/Fantasy
Premise: (from IMDB) After rescuing Han Solo from the palace of Jabba the Hutt, the Rebels attempt to destroy the Second Death Star, while Luke Skywalker tries to bring his father back to the Light Side of the Force.
About: Return of the Jedi had an extensive director list which started with Steven Spielberg, who had to decline the invitation because he was still part of the Directors Guild, one of the guilds Lucas had a bitter falling out with after Empire. His next choice was David Lynch, who ended up declining because he felt the movies were specifically George Lucas’s vision. All I can say is, thank God for that. Lynch would later go on to direct “Dune,” which may be one of the worst sci-fi films ever made. Unfortunately, the winner of the director’s derby wasn’t much better. Richard Marquand was chosen in part because he was not a Guild member. Unfortunately, it also meant he was inexperienced, a problem that would plague production. Many of the actors became frustrated with Marquand and that forced George Lucas – if the rumors are to be believed – to take over directing duties for much of the film.
Writers: Lawrence Kasdan and George Lucas (story by George Lucas)

Return of the Jedi starts much like Empire, with a movie before the movie. Now nothing is going to beat that stupendous Hoth sequence, but the Jabba The Hut thread is still pretty awesome. Picking up where we left off yesterday, you’ll notice a strong storytelling engine powering this storyline – Rescue Han Solo.

Now it’s important to remember that just having a goal isn’t enough. Your goal needs to have horsepower. The more horsepower you have, the longer the goal can be sustained. Saving Han Solo is a huge goal with a ton of horsepower, but for arguments sake, let’s change the goal to see how it would’ve affected the story. Let’s say Han Solo had already escaped by the time the film began and simply wanted to kill Jabba The Hut to rid himself of the headache. That storyline still would’ve had some juice to it, but notice how the absence of necessity hurts the goal. It’s not imperative that he kill Jabba The Hut, and therefore the stakes aren’t nearly as high. It is imperative that they save Han Solo, hence why that storytelling engine has so much horsepower.

Now after the Jabba The Hut sequence, we’re in almost the exact same territory as when they got off Hoth in Empire. But here’s our first example of why the screenwriting in this film isn’t as good as that one. In Empire, after a short scene where Luke tells R2-D2 that they’re going to Dagobah, we jump immediately into the Empire chasing Han Solo, then intercut that with Luke looking for and eventually training with Yoda. In Return Of The Jedi, George Lucas begins a trend of inserting scenes with no storytelling engine underneath them whatsoever.

Here in Jedi, we go back to see Yoda die. Now Yoda dying is a somewhat interesting development I guess, but George doesn’t really know what to do with it, so he uses it to dole out a whole bunch of exposition about Luke being Vader’s son – information we already know. If you’re only writing a scene to convey exposition to the audience, you are failing as a screenwriter. Exposition should always be secondary to something else going on in the scene. And that something should always be pushing the story forward. You might be able to argue that Yoda dying is pushing the story forward (I would question that since it has no bearing on the rest of the film whatsoever), and so if this were the only scene here, I might give the writers a pass.

But where Lucas really screws up is that he follows this scene with an additional scene (with Obi-Wan) giving us virtually the exact same exposition. Luke is Darth Vader’s son. We get it. Now what it seems like Lucas is doing here is a major screenwriting faux pas. He feels like he has to explain why Obi-Wan told Luke that Darth Vader had killed his father back in Star Wars. Whenever you’re using entire scenes to explain inconsistencies from other parts of your screenplay, you’re writing a bad scene. Period. Those scenes never work. But the point is, we get two long expositional scenes in a row that total 8 minutes, and neither of them push the story forward. Bad use of exposition is one of the easiest ways to identify a bad screenwriter.

Luckily, Star Wars hasn’t died yet. That won’t happen for another 15 years. After this scene, we introduce a huge storytelling engine that will drive us through the rest of the movie. That’s the new goal, to destroy the Second Death Star. This is actually the earliest a major goal has been introduced into a Star Wars movie – at the 50 minute mark. In the first Star Wars, we didn’t know the goal (destroy the Death Star) until 20 minutes left in the movie. The Empire Strikes Back never had major goal. So this is a pretty monumental moment. It’s also why, even though Lucas makes the uninspired choice of adding Ewoks, that the final hour and 20 minutes of Jedi worked so well. I don’t think you’re going to find a storytelling engine with more horsepower than destroying the Death Star.

But since we’ve discussed structure so much already, I’d like to move over to the characters, because Jedi is the first film in the Star Wars franchise where the character development is noticeably weak. Whenever you write a character into a film, the idea is to create something unresolved in that character’s life. That unresolved conflict can be something inside of him. It can also be something between him and someone else. Good writing usually has both.

In the first Star Wars film we had a lot of this going on. Luke was struggling to believe in himself. Han was selfish to a fault. Luke and Leia had an unresolved issue (a potential relationship there?) Han and Leia had unresolved issues (they hated each other). Some of the most notable unresolved conflict was between the droids. C-3PO’s flaw was that he was too cautious. R2-D2’s flaw was that he was too reckless. And of course their relationship was always striving to find balance. What this meant was that every scene had some sort of unresolved conflict going on in it, whether it be internal or external. The more of these conflicts you add to a story, the more drama you’re going to find in each scene.

In Empire, Kasdan does a really good job of redistributing these unresolved conflicts. Luke’s conflict becomes his impatience. He constantly struggles with the amount of time and effort becoming a Jedi requires. He believes he’s ready now. Because Han’s flaw of being too selfish was overcome at the end of Star Wars, Kasdan shifts the unresolved conflict over to his relationship with Leia. That unresolved conflict of “is there or isn’t there a relationship here?” was so strong, that they didn’t even need to add internal character flaws for the two.

In Return of the Jedi, all of the excellent unresolved character conflict from the previous films is eliminated except for Luke and Darth Vader. That means whenever we’re not with them, the story struggles. Lucas actually makes the critical mistake of applying a new flaw to Han’s character – jealousy. Jealousy is the least flattering character flaw there is and it almost ends up destroying one of the best characters in movie history.

We also get a neutered imitation of the Han-Leia love story from Empire. In that film, the love manifests itself with a series of ongoing arguments, all with the underlying subtext that these two love each other. In Jedi, all that subtext is gone and the characters say to each other exactly what’s on their mind – always a recipe for disaster. For example, a jealous Han will ask Leia straight to her face if she likes him or Luke. Good Lord. Talk about bad screenwriting. This is another good reminder to always scrutinize your choices. If the writers had just sat down and asked themselves, “Do we really want to take away everything that’s cool about this character and make him act like a jealous teenager?” there’s a good chance we would’ve gotten a much cooler Han in Jedi.

This leads us to one of the most critical mistakes of the franchise, and the reason why Jedi is not held up as highly as Star Wars or Empire. The Ewoks. Now there are a lot of opinions as to why the Ewoks were such a bad story choice, but it can be boiled down to a single reason. The mythology of this universe doesn’t make sense if a bunch of cute furry creatures can take down the most imposing force in the history of the galaxy. If a bunch of glorified puppies can defeat an army that is supposedly technologically superior to them in every way, then how dangerous was the Empire all this time?

Not only that, but the Ewoks demonstrate one of George Lucas’s biggest weaknesses as a screenwriter, his inability to manage tone. The Emperor is one of the scariest and darkest villains ever put to film. Once you do that, you have to create a film that stays tonally consistent with that kind of enemy. By introducing a bunch of cuddly creatures that make C-3PO a God, you jump into Saturday morning cartoon territory. It’s too sharp of a tonal shift, and it confuses the audience as to what kind of movie they’re watching. It just goes to show that one bad story choice can have catastrophic effects on the rest of the screenplay. That’s why it’s important to hold up all of your choices to the highest scrutiny and ask if they’re the right choice. I’ll remind you of some important advice that I learned a long time ago. If a choice doesn’t feel right for any reason – if something’s telling you, “this doesn’t feel right” – don’t use it. Think of something else. Because I guarantee it will never get better.

Jedi held on to just enough of what made this franchise great to still be a solid movie. But a few lousy story choices, tonal inconsistencies, and the lack of moments with a true storytelling engine are the beginning of what will be the undoing of this franchise, which I’ll begin to get into tomorrow.

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

What I learned: Avoid writing a scene if the only reason you’re writing it is for exposition. Pop in your copy of Empire and watch the back to back scenes where Yoda dies and Luke talks to Obi-Wan. Notice how both scenes talk about the past and don’t push the story forward. Now remember, not all dialogue scenes are exposition scenes. You can have two people talking in a scene if it’s pushing the story forward. When Luke talks to his aunt and uncle at dinner in Star Wars, his uncle tells him that he’s going to need him to stay on the farm, and that the droids memories will need to be erased. This information is dictating future actions (and actually adding tremendous tension – if R2-D2’s memory is erased, the Rebels hopes to defeat the Empire will be lost forever), therefore pushing the story forward. Or when Luke speaks with Obi-Wan at his place on Tantooine. Sure, we get some exposition about Luke’s father, but the point of the scene is to show Obi-Wan the message from Princess Leia and for him to ask Luke to join him, again, pushing the story forward. Lucas and Kasdan should’ve looked for more clever ways to dole out the exposition from these scenes. It admittedly would not have been easy, but nobody said screenwriting was easy.

Although it’s much more popular to bash Star Wars these days than stick up for it, I have to say I’ve always been a big Star Wars geek. So with the new Blu-ray release of the Star Wars films next week, I decided to dedicate an entire week to the Star Wars franchise, breaking down why these movies did or did not work. I already reviewed Star Wars: A New Hope about a year ago, so I’ll be starting with The Empire Strikes Back, going to Jedi, and then moving to the prequels, which should be interesting. For those of you who are big Empire fans and haven’t been on the site for very long, you’ll also want to check out my review of Leigh Brackett’s original Empire draft. It’s quite wild.

Genre: Sci-fi/Fantasy
Premise: (from IMDB) While Luke takes advanced Jedi training from Yoda, his friends are relentlessly pursued by Darth Vader as part of his plan to capture Luke.
About: Considered by many Star Wars fans to be the best in the franchise, Empire has the distinction of being the only Star Wars film not to gross more than $300 million domestically. Still, it was the highest grossing movie of 1980. Lucas bankrolled the $33 million dollar production all by himself.
Writers: Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasden (story by George Lucas)
Details: 4th draft – 169 pages (This appears to be a production or shooting draft, which may explain its length. The film is 124 minutes long)

As someone who loves breaking down screenplays, Empire always terrified me. It has such a funky structure, with its main battle happening within the first 40 minutes and the lack of any clear defining goal for its heroes. Coming back to it over the years, I’ve never been able to completely understand why it works. But recently, as I’ve strengthened my critical eye, I feel like I’m finally ready to figure out the secret to Empire. Imagine my surprise when I watched the film and realized that while it does do things differently, as long as you divide it up into segments, it’s quite easy to figure out. But I’ll get to that in a moment. First, here’s a short summary of the story.

Darth Vader is in hot pursuit of Luke Skywalker and the new hidden Rebel base, blanketing every star system in sight to find them. When he locates the Rebels on the remote ice planet of Hoth, he sends an army down to destroy them. But the Rebels are able to escape, and our heroes split into two factions. Han and Leia head out in one direction with Darth Vader hot on their trail, and Luke heads to the Dagobah System to be trained by an elusive Jedi master named Yoda. Before it’s all said and done, the groups will reunite at a city in the clouds, and Darth Vader will reveal his true connection to Luke in an epic final battle.

In order to understand how The Empire Strikes Back works, you need to understand what a storytelling engine is. A storytelling engine is any storytelling tool that pushes your story forward. If you think of each scene and each sequence and each act as its own unique car, then you’ll understand that the only way to make that car go is with an engine. In addition to that, the more horsepower your engine has, the faster that scene, that sequence, or that act will go. While The Empire Strikes Back does not have one giant storytelling engine driving the entire story like, say, Star Wars, it does have a bunch of smaller storytelling engines, and these are the key to making the movie work.

The most common storytelling engine and the one with the most horsepower is one we talk about all the time: the character goal. If a character is trying to achieve a goal, his storyline will have purpose, because we’ll want to see if he does or does not achieve that goal. But there are other storytelling engines you can call on as well, and Empire uses a few of them. So let’s look at the structure a little more closely and see how these storytelling engines come into play.

Empire starts with the Hoth sequence, where Luke gets taken by the Wampa monster, an act which requires Han to go out looking for him. That makes this (Han needing to find Luke) the first character goal (storytelling engine) of the film. After finding him, they discover an Imperial probe droid, which signifies that they’ve been spotted. This results in the next storytelling engine, or “goal,” and that’s for the rebels to get off the planet before the Empire catches them. You can even extend the storytelling engine over to the bad guys, as they have the dominant goal – to destroy the rebel base and capture the rebels. Within this battle sequence, our heroes’ tasks are divided up twofold. Han and Leia’s goal is to get off of the base, and Luke’s is to slow down the Empire’s assault. This is why this opening sequence is so exciting. Everybody has a clear and strong directive. This is also why the character goal is considered the strongest storytelling engine you can use.

Now when this sequence ends, things get a little tricky. Luke goes off to Dagobah to find Yoda, and Han and Leia are pursued by Darth Vader. It can certainly seem jumbled when you first look at it, but when you break it down, we actually have two very simple but powerful storytelling engines in play here. With Luke, we have a powerful goal – to train and become a Jedi. His entire training sequence is in service to that goal, so whenever we cut back to that storyline, things are always moving forward.

On the other end of the galaxy, we have our first non-goal storytelling engine driving a sequence, a chase. While a chase doesn’t have as much horsepower as a character goal, it’s still an extremely powerful storytelling engine because it’s so active and exciting. As long as we like the characters being chased, we’re going to be engaged because we don’t want those characters to be caught.

Now if you want to spin things around a little bit, you could turn this chase into a character goal. That’s because if you look at it from Darth Vader’s perspective, there is a goal: Capture Han Solo. Also, you can look at Han Solo’s goal as trying to escape the Empire. But that’s not the same as a true character goal. A true character goal would be like Star Wars in that they’re not just being chased, they’re trying to get the Death Star plans to the rebel base. That’s why Star Wars was such a great film. It had two storytelling engines driving the story at the same time (highly recommended if the opportunity presents itself – and don’t stop there – if you can get three storytelling engines going at the same time, all the better).

Once these two cross-cutting sequences draw to a close, the script does a funny thing. It bookends its story with another sort of mini movie, the Cloud City sequence. Just like its opening mini movie (the Hoth sequence), Cloud City is pretty long – around 40 minutes. Cloud City introduces a third storytelling engine into the mix, one we don’t talk about as much on the site, but one that’s still very powerful – the mystery.

A mystery may not be as intense as a goal or a chase, but a good mystery achieves the same thing – driving our interest forward – because we want to know the answer to that mystery. “Lost” built an entire six seasons around this storytelling engine. We kept watching because we wanted to know the answers to those questions. The mystery here is: What’s going on with Cloud City? Almost immediately we’re getting a bad vibe from this place and suspect something is up. So the storytelling engine that keeps this sequence moving forward is our desire to find an answer to that question.

It’s an odd choice because it’s so different from the rest of the movie. But it should be noted that about a third of the way through this sequence, the mystery is answered – Lando has made a deal with Darth Vader. Now the key to any story is that when a major storytelling engine stops, another must be introduced, or else your story will stall. This is really important to remember for when I get into the prequels later in the week. The new storytelling engine that fuels the rest of the story is Darth Vader’s. He’s using Han and Leia to lure Luke here so he can destroy him. This leads to a series of strong character goals for everybody else. Leia and Lando must escape. Luke must save his friends. And this is why the end of the film is so exciting, even though we don’t have that great big battle that we’re used to seeing in all the other Star Wars movies.

Empire does have a few faults. I thought the Luke training sequences got a bit repetitive. Just because you have a strong goal for your character doesn’t mean you can extend the pursuit of that goal beyond what the audience is willing to sit through. But I also get the sense that I’m in the minority on this one and that most people think the training sequences are perfect. Empire’s biggest fault is its very strange dissolve crosscutting ending between Luke and Darth Vader once the two have separated. It’s really cheesy and doesn’t work at all. What happens up on that giant fin inside of Cloud City was such a great place to end their communication, and the writers had to screw it up by adding that extra dialogue scene. And you can tell when the writing is bad because the actors don’t show any confidence in it. Mark Hamill is not a great actor by any means, but his discussion with Darth Vader on that ship is some of his worst acting in the series.

But hey? What movie is perfect? The Empire Strikes Back is one of those rare awesome sequels. It is also the end of great screenwriting in the series. As you’ll see tomorrow with Return Of The Jedi, the writing begins to get noticeably sloppier. This will seep into the prequels in a huge way. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s just celebrate for a moment when Star Wars was still awesome. :-)

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

What I learned: Although I strongly advise following the three act structure (it’s just easier to navigate through), the truth is, it doesn’t matter how funky your structure is or how many different threads are happening in your film, as long as you have a series of continuous storytelling engines pushing the story forward. Whether it’s finding Luke in the snow. Whether it’s getting the ships out before the Empire shows up. Whether it’s learning to become a Jedi. Whether it’s escaping the Empire through an asteroid field. As long as you string together a series of compelling storytelling engines, your story will be in good shape.

Genre: Romantic Comedy/comedy
Premise: (from writers) When a slacker is dumped mid-proposal at a musical version of Pride and Prejudice, he enlists the help of his best friend to go back in time and kill the one person they hold responsible for his girlfriend’s high ideals: Jane Austen.
About: Every Friday, I review a script from the readers of the site. If you’re interested in submitting your script for an Amateur Review, send it in PDF form, along with your title, genre, logline, and why I should read your script to Carsonreeves3@gmail.com. Keep in mind your script will be posted in the review (feel free to keep your identity and script title private by providing an alias and fake title). Also, it’s a good idea to resubmit every couple of weeks so that your submission stays near the top of the pile.
Writers: Howard Dorre (story by Andy Kimble and Howard Dorre)
Details: 112 pages (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about it a little buggy out there is the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

Previously on Scriptshadow: Some months ago a writer e-mailed me frustrated that a script titled “F*cking Jane Austen” had made the Black List. That’s because he and his partner had written a script with almost the exact same premise. Adding insult to injury, he read the other script and felt it wasn’t as good as his own. It was a bold claim. Writers often believe their scripts are better than the stuff that sells. So he put his money where his mouth was, issuing a challenge. Have me review both scripts and decide which was better.

So yesterday I reviewed the Black List script, F*ucking Jane Austen, which, in a nutshell was well constructed but too generic. Today I’ll be reviewing its amateur doppelgänger, Killing Jane, and deciding once and for all who owns who in the First Annual Jane Austen Back In Time Romantic Comedy Smack Down.

Much like yesterday’s script, it all starts with two twenty-something slackers. We have Pan, a Hometown Buffet Assistant Manager, and we have his best friend, Jared, who is some sort of assistant scientist.

Also much like yesterday’s script, Pan is dumped by the girl he thought he was going to spend the rest of his life with. At first the openings were so similar, and so common to this genre, that I began to question whether any writer in the romantic comedy genre aspired to be original anymore. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized this was about Jane Austen, noted for her books about love and romance. So I suppose it makes sense that the movie starts with a girl dumping our hero. Still, I would’ve preferred something a little more original.

Anyway, Pan becomes convinced that the reason his gf left him was because she, and all women for that matter, had developed unrealistic expectations of men that could all be tied back to Jane Austen and her ridiculously gooey novels about love and romance.

So Pan and Jared get to talking and realize that the best way to take care of this problem is to go back in time and kill Jane Austen! Well lucky for them, Jared has access to a time machine prototype at the lab!

So they take the time machine back where they immediately run into Thomas Lefroy. For non-Jane Austen historians, this was Jane Austen’s one significant lover. Thomas just so happens to be on his way to a ball, where he plans to court – who else but… Jane Austen! Our not-so-heroic duo joins him, and pretty soon they’re at an actual ball where the infamous Austin is socializing. Maybe this hit won’t be as difficult as they thought.

Now you have to remember, Jane hasn’t actually written any novels yet, so she’s sort of a nobody. That makes priority number one finding her. So Pan starts chatting up some hottie in a coreset bad mouthing Austen at every turn, only to find out that he’s actually talking to… Jane Austen!

Now Pan didn’t expect Jane to be hot so this is throwing off his game. Jared just wants to kill the bitch and go home but the more Pan talks to her the more he kind of likes her. Lucky for them, they’re able to cajole their way into staying the night, and that allows Pan even more access to Jane. He uses this time to share with her his “thoughts” about things that will be available in the future, and she’s so taken by his “imagination,” that she quickly falls for him.

But just when we think nobody’s getting killed, Lefroy comes along, pissed that this Pan fellow has stolen his lady, and starts devising a plan to shorten his life expectancy by about 250 years. Pan and Jared must get back to the future just to stay alive, but then what happens to Jane? Will Pan ever see her again?

If you were comparing both of these scripts just on the craft, yesterday’s script would come out on top. It’s way more polished. Take Jared being a scientist for example. Whenever you create a time travel script, how you approach sending your characters through time often tells a seasoned reader how dedicated you are to your premise. If you throw something lazy in there, that tells them that you’re not exerting 100% effort. If you come up with something inventive however, that tells us you went that extra mile and are serious about your screenplay. Jumping back in time via a DeLorean is unique. Jumping back in time via the intestines of a rhinoceros is unique (from the recently reviewed Past Imperfect).

Making the best friend character a scientist with access to a time machine is probably one of the laziest options you could come up with. Not only that. But Jared was introduced, in the flashback scene, as the “cool kid.” That means making him a scientist is not only lazy, but inconsistent with his character.Yesterday’s choice was no home run either, but this option felt particularly convenient.

This was followed by a dreaded celebrity cameo with David Hasselhoff. I’m not going to call the celebrity cameo a death knell because as we’ve seen, a lot of professionals use it. But I will tell you this. David Hasselhoff has appeared in more comedy scripts that I’ve read than I have fingers. So again, you have another unoriginal choice, giving me the impression that you’re not trying hard enough.

What I quickly realized was that while yesterday’s script was too uptight, this script was too loosey-goosey. It was almost the exact opposite in that sense. But here’s where things get interesting. Because this script wasn’t so locked down on rails like yesterday’s offering, the writers were able to take more chances. And while those chances didn’t always pay off, they made the script more interesting, less predictable, and funnier.

Maybe the humor in this one just suited my taste better but when Jared busts out “Ice Ice Baby” on the piano at the ball, I was definitely laughing. And when Pan accidentally walks in on Jared (earlier in the script) potentially masturbating to Dora the Explorer, I nearly lost it. It just seemed like these two had fun with the premise and weren’t afraid to let their hair down. I think that’s one of the challenges but necessities of comedy. Yes you have to have to structure. But if we don’t feel like you’re enjoying yourselves and having fun with it, then the comedy isn’t going to play.

But when I really decided I liked this script better was around page 75, when we jump back into the present. In yesterday’s script, I always knew exactly what was going to happen and when it was going to happen. I was shocked here then that we jumped back into the present with so much time left. I just had no idea where that would go and I’m not saying it was the most amazing choice in the world. But the fact that it was a choice I wasn’t expecting exemplified why I preferred it. Because the writers weren’t so locked down in story beats and act markers, the story unraveled in a more organic and engaging manner.

Now a huge issue that I’m sure a lot of you are going to bring up is the difference in the premises. In yesterday’s premise, the goal was to have sex with Jane Austen. In today’s script, the goal is to kill Jane Austen. I’ll tell you right now. Having your goal in a comedy be to kill someone is always a bit of a risky venture. I know they just did it in Horrible Bosses, but they really made those bosses evil and therefore almost deserve what was coming to them. This is Jane Austen we’re talking about. She hasn’t done anything to anyone. So producers are going to have a tough time with that, as they’ll be afraid your heroes will come off as unlikable from the get go.

Now personally, this kind of premise doesn’t bother me. I think it’s kind of funny actually and reminds me of the more cruel minded films of the 80s like Throw Mama From The Train. I also think that it’s part of what makes this treatment better than yesterday’s. The writers are willing to take more chances and be a little more daring. But this really bothers people for some reason so you may have to rethink that.

Despite all this praise, I still can’t recommend Killing Jane. The recklessness of the storytelling definitely leads to a lot of funny moments, but craft-wise this script is far from where it needs to be. Take Pan for instance. He spends a lot of time trying to convince Jane to be a writer, something that at this point in her life, she’s doubting she has the ability to do. But the scenes are empty because there are no stakes on Pan’s end of the conversation.

Let’s contrast that with Back To The Future. There’s a nice little scene in the middle of the movie where Marty is talking to his dad at high school and realizes he’s writing something. He asks him whathim and his dad says a science fiction novel. Marty laughs and says, get out of here. I never knew you did anything creative. He then asks if he can read it. His dad says no, because if someone else read his work and didn’t like it, he didn’t know if he could handle that kind of rejection. The scene works because Marty is also pursuing something in the arts. He wants to be a guitarist – a rock star. But he too is afraid of putting himself out there. So there’s something personal in the exchange for Marty. Not just the father.

So if I were writing Pan, I would probably give him some artistic ambition and put him at a turning point in his own life. He’s been given an opportunity to take a stable well-paying job in the “real world,” or he can keep pursuing this artistic endeavor, even though there’s no guarantee it will pay off. Now when he talks to Jane about continuing her writing, there’s something at stake for Pan because he’s going through something similar in his own life.

So I feel like these guys still have a ways to go in terms of learning the craft but I did like this better than F*cking Jane Austen and for that reason Killing Jane wins the First Annual Jane Austen Back In Time Romantic Comedy Smack Down!!! Congratulations guys. :-)

Script link: Killing Jane

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

What I learned: Your script isn’t dead if a similar idea gets purchased. The sell gets tougher, but there could always be another company out there who wants to make the same movie. Your idea really isn’t dead until that similar project goes into production. So it’s your job to monitor sites like Deadline Hollywood and IMDB Pro and pay close attention to those projects’ status. Because if you wait until the movie comes out before you find out, you might have just wasted eight months of your time working on a dead man walking script. This is why information is so crucial to every screenwriter.

Genre: Romantic Comedy
Premise: Two friends angry at Jane Austen for creating unrealistic romantic expectations among women today get sent back in time to the 19th century. The only way for them to return home is for one of them to get Jane Austen to fall in love and sleep with him.
About: This script finished with five votes on the 2010 black list. It appears that Blake has been at this for a while, at least since 2005, when he was making short films. But this is the first script he’s written that’s gotten any play.
Writer: Blake Bruns
Details: 106 pages – April 24, 2010 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

A while back a writer came to me with a sob story that, as screenwriters, I’m sure we’ve all experienced before. He had written a screenplay he thought was a totally original idea about a couple of slackers who become convinced that Jane Austen had created unrealistic expectations for men, and therefore they decided to go back in time and kill her.

I have to admit, that’s pretty original. However, the writer and his partner were stunned when that year’s Black List came out and they heard of another Jane Austen script about, well, a couple of slackers who were convinced that Jane Austen had created unrealistic expectations for men and therefore go back in time to eliminate the problem. Now this isn’t one of those stories where the writers claim that somebody stole their idea. They know that Hollywood is a big place and no matter how original your idea is, there’s a good chance somebody else out there already came up with it.

But the writer proposed a challenge to me. He said he had read the other script and was pretty confident that his script was better. If I had a penny for every time an amateur screenwriter told me his script was better than the professional screenplays out there, I’d currently be flying off to tropical islands with Richard Branson every other weekend. And the thing is? They’re always wrong. The scripts are never as good. But I thought it would be an interesting challenge. So I decided to review the two scripts back to back. Today I’ll be reviewing the professional script, the one that made the Black List, and tomorrow I’ll be reviewing the amateur version. Let’s find out which one is better.

20-something Hallmark Greeting Card employee Doug Gracy is having trouble with the ladies. In particular, his sexual escapades with his girlfriend have dissolved into her giving him manual like instructions as to how to give her an orgasm. When he’s unable to do the job, his not so better half informs him that she’s splitting the whole.

But that’s not the only person who’s breaking up with Doug. Hopper, his wily roommate and best friend, is moving out so he can take the next step with his girlfriend. This leaves the already depressed Doug with a rent budget he can no longer afford.

Somewhere around here, Doug becomes convinced that this is all Jane Austen’s fault. I have to admit I’m not sure why, and what a girl getting mad at a guy for not bringing her to orgasm has to do with Jane Austen, but then again, I’ve never actually read a Jane Austen novel.

So anyway a few nights later, Hopper convinces Doug to go out with him to a strip club so he can forget about all his worries, but after getting really drunk, Doug becomes convinced that if Jane Austen had really lousy sex with a man like him, she wouldn’t have spent the rest of her life writing about all this love gobbledygook. So when a stripper comes along and asks them what they want, Doug says he wishes he could make love to Jane Austen.

That turns out to be a mistake because when the stripper takes them back to the private room, she quickly turns into an old hairy wench and the next thing you know they’re no longer in a modern-day strip club, but a brothel back in the 1700s.

Needless to say they’re shocked and confused but they quickly become convinced that the way to get back to the future is for Doug to complete his wish and have sex with Jane Austen. So they find out where Jane lives, pose as a couple of well-to-do types, and Doug starts a courtship of Jane.

Of course, after he gets to know Jane, he begins to like her, and starts having some moral issues with going through with it all. But since the 18th century is full of things like scurvy and polio and leprosy, Doug doesn’t really have any choice. The question is, what’s going to happen with Jane when he leaves?

Structure is a screenwriter’s best friend. If the story doesn’t have structure, it’s just a random series of events that eventually spins out of control. To that end, F*cking Jane Austen is probably one of the best structured comedies I’ve read in a long time. I mean, every single beat is hit exactly when it’s supposed to be hit, and you never once believe that the writer isn’t in control of his story.

Unfortunately, that’s also the script’s biggest weakness. One of the dangers of becoming so proficient at structure is that you can write something that’s too predictable. The reader or the audience never becomes fully engaged because they always feel like they know what’s coming next, sort of like a ride at the carnival you’ve already been on.

The way to combat this problem is to throw two or three big unexpected moments into your screenplay. If you do something unexpected early on, it goes a long way towards disturbing the reader’s story radar. If you look at another romantic comedy, Notting Hill, we’re never quite sure how that story is going to play out. Julia Roberts comes in, she hangs out for a few days, she has to go back out and work, some tabloid pictures surface, she has to come back to him. Then she has a movie to film. While we understand the general direction of the story, the specifics aren’t clear, and I think that’s really important when you’re writing movies that are steeped in formula, such as romantic comedies. You have to find moments to be unpredictable.

My other big problem with the script was that the “Jane Austen reasoning” wasn’t explained enough. Not having read any Jane Austen myself, all I had to go on was what the script told me. And from what I could gather, Jane Austen’s big contribution to the world was a belief in romance and love. Presumably then, what Doug was so frustrated with, was that the modern day woman had adapted an unrealistic expectation of love and romance, and the modern-day man couldn’t live up to those expectations.

Why then, do we start off this screenplay with Doug having to mechanically follow orders from his girlfriend on how to give him an orgasm? That would seem to be the worst example of a woman who was obsessed with love and romance. Furthermore, I don’t know how Doug, after experiencing that, would come to the conclusion that women are infatuated with romance. If anything, he probably would have concluded the opposite, that women didn’t care about romance anymore.

So when you’re ramping up to your inciting incident, make sure that your main character has actually experienced something that that inciting incident relates to. For example, if the opening scene had a girl who was obsessed with making sure Doug opened every door she went through, and pulled out every chair she approached, and ordered food appropriately, and treated her like a lady, and Doug couldn’t live up to those expectations, then I would believe his theory that Jane Austen had created unrealistic expectations in women. It may be harder to find the funny in that kind of scenario, but that’s what you’re paid to do as a screenwriter. Anybody can come up with a crazy sex scene to open a film. But if that scene doesn’t relate to the theme and premise of your movie, it’s not going to make sense.

Unfortunately, those two issues so dominated my reading experience, that I could never get past them. Doug and Hopper are kind of funny and there are definitely some funny scenes (one of my favorites by far was the “pimps and hoes” party), but as I’ve stated a million times on the site before, I’m not really laughing at anything unless I’m invested in the characters and I believe the story, and because of those two issues above, that never happened.

Definitely a cool premise but, in my opinion, these things would need to be addressed to get this script cracking. But how does it compare to Friday’s similarly-premised amateur offering? Tune in tomorrow to find out.

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

What I learned: Avoid double-explaining things in a script. For example, on page 48, Doug is forced into talking about what he does for a living and starts rambling incessantly.


DOUG
I do a lot, to be honest. Some business, philosophy, engineering, pre-law. I’m kind of a Jack of all trades.
(Changing subjects)
That’s a lovely piano, by the way.


He deflects attention to the pianoforte in the corner.

The fact that Doug is referring to a piano here in his dialogue means we already know there’s a piano. So there’s no need to write an action line pointing out that there’s a piano. This is by no means a huge issue. But scripts are supposed to be lean and to the point. So you don’t want to write out anything in an action line if it’s already implied.

p.s. It’s a travel day so if your comments don’t go up right away, they will come up later.