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.

Genre: Horror/Family/Comedy
Premise: A recently downsized father moves his family into a dying town, only to find out that it’s infested with killer mutated insects.
About: This script made the lower third of the 2009 black list. It sold to Paramount earlier that year. The writer, Marc Haimes, used to be an executive at DreamWorks. He also produced The Legend of Zorro and Hotel for Dogs.
Writer: Marc Haimes
Details: 103 pages – October 2009 draft (This is an early draft of the script. The situations, characters, and plot may change significantly by the time the film is released. This is not a definitive statement about the project, but rather an analysis of this unique draft as it pertains to the craft of screenwriting).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Genre: Horror/Thriller
Premise: A man slowly comes to discover his girlfriend is literally working for the devil and has to find a way to escape.
About: Underling finished in the lower third of the 2009 Black List. I believe this is the writing team’s first screenplay together. One of the writers, Ben Shiffrin, is currently working with another partner bringing the animated comic “Dirty Pair” to life. Shiffin also wrote a spec script a couple of years back called Heartstopper with another writer that made some noise but ultimately didn’t sell.
Writers: Dave Stoller and Ben Shiffrin
Details: 110 pages – undated (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).

I have to admit that I made a huge mistake when I picked this one up. I thought the logline was, “A man slowly comes to discover his girlfriend is the devil and has to find a way to escape.” Now I don’t know about you, but that’s a movie I would love to see. Had I read the logline a little more closely and realized it was about the girlfriend’s boss being the devil, I never would’ve read it. Mainly because I’ve already seen that movie (The Devil’s Advocate).

So as the story unfolded and I began to realize that the girlfriend wasn’t the devil, I was kinda disappointed. Still, I tried to refocus and give the script a shot. What I found was a strange screenplay with a vacillating tone and a subject matter that was probably more ambitious than the writers realized.

22-year-old East coaster Tamara Stevens has just gotten a kick ass music management job in Los Angeles. She’s going to be working for one of the best managers in the business, the ultra-intimidating Kyle Barrington, described as “Bruce Wayne meets Gordon Gekko.”

Somewhat reluctantly dragged along is Tamara’s boyfriend and our main character, 22-year-old shaggy haired Alex Jacobs. Alex doesn’t really have a lot to do in Los Angeles but he’s a very supportive boyfriend and if his better half is moving across the country for her career, he’s going to be her number one cheerleader.

They get to Los Angeles and Tamara immediately gets to work. But on one of the first nights out at a club, Alex thinks he sees a man kill a woman in the bathroom. The cloaked-in-shadows man must have seen Terminator 2 too many times because he chases them in their car in almost the exact same manner as the T 1000.

Later on, Alex finds some evidence to suggest that the man he saw is his girlfriend’s boss. When he finally gets the courage to tell her, she of course thinks he’s crazy. So he does a little digging, and that turns out to be a lousy idea. Kyle finds out and he sicks a bunch of his deadly assistant minions on Alex to warn him off.

In the meantime, Tamara is working later and later at work and she’s acting a lot stranger back home. If he didn’t know any better, he’d think she’s under Kyle’s spell.

Eventually, Alex is able to turn one of Kyle’s minions against him, and she’s able to educate him about his weaknesses. So Alex must channel up his strength and try to save his girlfriend from the clutches of a man who very well may be the devil himself.

This was one of the odder reading experiences I’ve had in a while. Despite my misinterpretation of the logline, I still think this script needs to be re-examined. There’s something here, but I’m not sure the writers respect the complexity of the subject matter they’ve chosen.

Let’s start with the main character. I always get nervous when the main character isn’t the most active character in the screenplay. The reason for this is simply because audiences like active characters. They like it when their heroes are the ones making the decisions and pushing the story forward.

The person making all the decisions and being the most active in this story is Tamara. She’s the one driving off to LA for a job. She’s the one who’s working 16 hours a day. Our main character is essentially this slacker being dragged along for the ride. As a result, he feels weak and unimportant.

This inactive follower mentality continues throughout the story. Alex doesn’t even have a job as far as I can tell. His only actions revolve around checking up on his girlfriend. And that gets old quickly. This is exactly why The Devil’s Advocate worked so much better, because our main character wasn’t some secondary hanger-on. He was Tamara’s character, the one in the trenches who had the actual job dealing with the antagonist.

It’s also why I liked my initial “mistake premise” better (A man finds out that his girlfriend is the devil) because, again, our main character is directly interacting with the antagonist. Wherever there’s danger in your story, you want to put your main character as close to it as possible, and that doesn’t happen here. There’s this detached quality to the narrative because we’re always experiencing the danger second hand. By far, this is the biggest problem with the script. You need to have your main character be more active and in direct contact with the dangerous situation. Keeping Alex so far away from the meat of the problem is killing this script.

Now this next opinion is going to ruffle some feathers so I want to make sure I convey it delicately. Whenever all of the characters in the story are really young – in this case around 22 – it’s easy to conclude that the writers are also young. Now this doesn’t matter if you’re writing something that takes place in a younger universe (“Friends With Benefits” “Friday the 13th”). But if you’re trying to tackle subject matter or a storyline that requires a little more sophistication, it can often feel like a couple of teenagers who read about war in their history books trying to write Apocalypse Now. It just doesn’t feel like they’re up to the task.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. Because the screenwriters are so young (or at least, I’m assuming they are), they make the main characters boyfriend and girlfriend. Why? Because that’s all they know. That’s the current world they live in. However, while that relationship might work fine in the movies I listed above, when you’re trying to tackle something with more gravitas, boyfriends and girlfriends are too lightweight. Most relationships at the age of 22 have what? A four month lifespan? At best? If these characters were older and married however, there would be so much more at stake. Alex wouldn’t just be trying to save some girlfriend he’s probably going to break up with in two months anyway. He’d be trying to save the love of his life. (Remember people: stakes!)

I’m not saying you’re a doomed screenwriter until you turn 28. But I am saying that in order to mask your lack of life experience when dealing with sophisticated subject matter, you should match the ages of your characters to the situation they’re in and not just make them 22 because you’re 22. Then you have to do the research and make sure those older characters act like they’re older. That might mean giving your script to a 35-year-old and asking them, “Does this character really act like a 35-year-old?” If you look at Kyle, for example, he doesn’t act like a 35-year-old at all. He’s petulant and immature and thinks the world revolves around him. This character is supposed to be one of the oldest entities in all of time, and he never acts older than 23 years old. If all of this sounds too complicated, then just write characters and subject matter that you’re extensively familiar with and you should be fine.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that readers expect young writers to be sloppy. So if you give them clues that you’re a young writer, and they pick up on some sloppiness, they’re going to make a connection between the two and dismiss you because of it, however unfair that is. So mix up the ages in your screenplay and then do your homework on the older characters to make them honest. You have parents and uncles and aunts. Ask them questions. Ask them if they’d really react the way the older characters in your screenplay reacts. It’s your job as a writer to create the most honest believable world possible, no matter how extraordinary the story you’re telling is.

Anyway, I’m rambling and I’m making this sound like a terrible screenplay, which it really isn’t. It’s just too unfocused and shoots further than what the writers are willing to commit to. I’m not saying they aren’t capable of getting there. But I would’ve loved more depth to this story. It was too all over the place for my taste.

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

What I learned: One of the easier ways to spot a young writer is tone. Whether we’re talking about humor that’s too broad for the subject matter or repeatedly jumping between genres or inconsistent characters, it can be confusing for a reader trying to grasp what kind of story you’re trying to tell if the writer is jumping all over the place. For example, if you read the first 10 pages of this script, you’d probably think it was a romantic comedy. If you read the last 20 pages, you’d think it was torture-porn in the vein of Hostel. You can’t just jump back and forth between those kinds of extremes and expect the reader to stay with you unless your name is Quentin Tarantino. And unfortunately, there’s only one Quentin Tarantino.