no link :(

Genre: Action?/Drama?/Comedy?/Family?
Premise: An 8 year old girl’s wish for her parents to get back together results in the island of Manhattan, where her father lives, detaching and sailing across the ocean to Spain, where she and her mother live.
About: So the trades are reporting all these weird details about the script that have a little girl living in England making a wish via lighthouse candles to see her father again. But those reports were made back in April, and the draft I have is dated June, 2009. So it seems like a lot of those details have changed. If this is the official new direction they’re taking or if they’re planning on changing it even more, I’m not sure. What I do know is this: Will Smith has signed on to play the lead character in The City That Sailed. He’ll be teaming up once again with his go-to New York director, Francis Lawrence (I Am Legend). I mean, they brought New York into the future. Why not bring it to Europe? Now supposedly this is Will Smith’s next project. But if you go to Smith’s IMDB page, you’ll see that he has 25 projects in development. So I’ll believe it when I see the first production photos. Smith will also be producing the picture with Overbrook Entertainment partner James Lassiter.
Writer: The Wibberleys (previous draft by Andrew Niccol)
Details: 130 pages (June 9, 2009 draft)

I guess we’re all driven by the concept, right? We try to put up this façade like we’re better than that. That it’s what’s inside that matters. And don’t get me wrong. The inside *definitely* matters. But there’s nothing that sparks the imagination quite like a cool concept. So when I heard there was a script about Manhattan detaching and floating off into the ocean, I just thought that was the coolest sounding thing ever. I didn’t know how it detached. I didn’t know why. But I wanted to find out.

Imagine my surprise when I learned the reason Manhattan detached was because a little girl wishes for it to. A little girl wishes it? A little girl wishes it!!??? That’s what I got all excited over?? I thought this was going to be a cool sci-fi destruction movie! An action film! A terrorist plot! But an 8 year old girl making a wish while holding a snow globe?? That’s definitely not what I had in mind. All my enthusiasm went right out the window by page 10. What the hell am I reading? Liar Liar?? I was so pissed that for the next 20 pages, I barely paid attention.

And then a funny thing happened. I found myself slowly getting roped back in. I couldn’t believe it at first. I had so given up on this story. Yet somehow I was looking forward to the next page. And then the next page after that. How did this happen? Well, I think it’s because “City That Sailed” is unlike any script I’ve ever read before. It’s just…odd. I bitched about Henry’s Crime not having a genre but “City” crosses into more genres than a student thesis film. It lives by its own rules and has its own agenda and as a result is a completely unique experience.

Greta Cooper is an 8 year old girl who lives in Spain with her mother, Anna. Greta’s father (Anna’s ex-husband) is Elliot. Elliot still lives back in Manhattan, where he operates as the director of Homeland Security for New York. When Greta finds out that her mom plans to marry Javier, star of the Spanish soccer team (in one of the more ridiculous choices for a character I’ve seen in awhile – but hey, this is The City That Sailed, where logic is thrown out the window), she makes a wish that her mother and father will get back together while holding a magical snow globe (note to all writers: There is no such thing as a non-magical snow globe in movies. So if you use one, make sure it’s magical).

We truck over to Manhattan where it’s just another average day in New Yawk when WHAM, a huge jolt rocks the island. And then another. And then another. Bridges start SNAPPING off their grids. Remember that crack in the earth that comes during the earthquake in the original Superman? Child’s play compared to the one rocking 5th avenue. Buildings are swaying. People are freaking. It’s absolute chaos. And the next thing you know, Manhattan is floating down the Hudson River!

Elliot is quickly on a direct line with the president trying to figure out what the hell is going on. The top two choices are a terrorist attack and some kind of unique earthquake. But the more information they collect, the less each of those causes makes sense. In the meantime, scientists start calculating the destination of the island, and it looks like the island is heading directly towards…Spain!

When Greta hears this information on TV, she announces to her mom that her wish worked. When Anna asks what she’s talking about, Greta explains the whole snow globe fiasco. Of course Anna thinks she’s crazy but then again…SO IS MANHATTAN FLOATING ACROSS THE OCEAN!

Things only get weirder from there. The media finds out that Elliot and Anna are divorced, Anna is now getting married to Javier, and the island is scheduled to arrive at Spain on the day of the wedding. As a result, they run with the story that he’s coming to break up the wedding. The paparazzi and internet are going crazy. David Letterman (still broadcasting from New York mind you) is cracking nightly jokes about their predicament. Everyone’s dancing in the streets. People are water skiing off the back of the island. It’s…bananas.

And somehow, it actually works. I’m still not sure how, but I was definitely entertained. When writing a movie, the list of priorities usually goes: story, character, dialogue, etc. But City That Sailed doesn’t excel in any of these areas. It excels in the area that’s supposed to have the least affect on the emotions of the audience: Spectacle. This movie is one giant spectacle and the images described are so wild, so breathtaking, so fucking back-breakingly loopy, that they’re the main engine driving the island, err—the story forward.

The sequence of Manhattan plowing through the Hudson River alone will be worth the price of admission. The shots from underneath the ocean looking up at the underside of the Island, its car tunnels and its cracked off subways…it’s just something that we’ve never seen on film before. When New York sails past the Pico Islands, considered to be one of the most beautiful places on earth…you can’t help but smile imagining it.

But if I’m being fair, I do have some problems with the story. Because as a story, The City That Sailed is more like a rented sunfish than a world renowned cruiseliner. Anna and Elliot’s failed marriage boils down to the old “He worked too much.” The problem here is that Elliot has the best excuse in the world for working too much. He’s saving human lives! He’s protecting America! For that reason, we don’t see his choices as selfish, and actually sympathize with his situation. In addition, Javier the soccer player feels like such a joke, such a cartoon of a character, that he’s never a true threat. Without a true threat, we’re never worried that Elliot and Anna won’t end up together. And finally, the entire relationship between Elliot and Anna has to be done over the phone (the nature of this story unfortunately) and therefore we never get a true sense that the couple is making progress. Since the relationship is *supposedly* driving this story, that’s a big deal.

But who needs all that nonsense to work when you have New York floating through the ocean!!?? This isn’t so much a movie as it is the ultimate vacation. Smith and his boys are betting that they can throw this thing up at Christmas and nab every single demographic in the country. And the truth is, they just might. Because of the mechanics of the story, I don’t know how much more it can be improved (besides getting rid of Javier. Please, for the love of God, get rid of Javier) but that’s okay. The script embraces what it is and what it is is a giant spectacle.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] barely kept my interest
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: The City That Sailed suffers from the main characters (Anna and Elliot) not being in close proximity to one another. No method of communication is as good as putting your two main characters face to face. Phone, e-mail, text messages, even video chat. You can get as creative as you want interchanging these things, but your story will always feel like it’s missing something if the characters aren’t in front of one another. I’m not saying some stories don’t warrant it (this one obviously does). Just know that when you choose to write these stories, you’re never going to get the romantic aspect to feel just right. And that’s why.

So I’m introducing a new script reviewer today because he’s a great writer and passionate about the craft (and he writes me weekly e-mails telling me how awesome Scriptshadow is). He kept raving to me about this awesome script he read that he just had to tell the world about. I tried to explain to him that I already had a backlog of script reviews in queue. He ignored me and sent the review anyway. Once I saw how passionate he was, I knew I had to post it. So I’d like to introduce everyone to… Michael Stark.

Random observations before I give Michael the reigns. Strange that the script title is also the name of Freeman’s most famous character? And what the hell happened to Bruce Willis??? When did he become a cranky old man?? It’s sad. I’ll still see anything he’s in. But after this interview, I won’t ever look at him the same way again.

Genre: Action/comedy
Premise: A retired Black-Ops Agent must reassemble his old team to fight the new generation of high-tech assassins hunting him down.
About: Bruce Willis and Morgan Freeman already attached to this comic book flick. ‘Nuff said.
Writers: The Brothers Erich and Jon Hoeber adapting a Sir Warren Ellis Graphic Novel
Details: 120 pages (November 14, 2008 first draft, revised)

First off, I’m old school. Not just kind of old school, but real old school. I’m typewriters and rotary dial phones and vinyl records and staples-in-the-navels of centerfolds kind of old school. So, I just can’t get into reading scripts as pdfs. Can’t stand it. I loved the fact that they had to pulp some thousand-year-old Sequoia just so I could read your fucking work of genius. Screenwriting is an art. It requires sacrifice. Trees must die! Toner cartridges must get depleted. There might even be papercuts.

I know the industry is trending green these days, but I swear on the life of your vegan girlfriend’s pound-rescued crack puppy that I promise to recycle all the paper you send me. I’ll fold every page of your fucking work of genius into assortments of barnyard origami to leave at crime scenes. I’ll wrap my kid’s peanut-free school-bound sandwiches with your untroubled third act. Hell, I’ll chew on every page of your sparkling dialogue till I can spit out a fine paste that’ll turn your high concept into reprocessed, adult diapers for June Allison.

Just gimme your words on paper. I need to have you in my hands. I gotta feel the true heft of your tome. I wanna get blisters on my fingers from turning the pages so goddamn fast. I want to take you in the can with me cause I just can’t put your magnum opus down. I want to jot down notes you’ll never read in the margins. I want to spill coffee all over your script at the Farmer’s Market and play keep away with it from Andre De Toth, whose depth perception has been kinda off these days. And, of course, for my troubles, I’m gonna steal your 1.5 inch brads when I’m finished, cause I’m not only old school, but I haven’t worked in like fucking forever and I gotta scrimp and scrounge and steal wherest I can.

This is just how it’s supposed to be done. Call me old fashioned, but screenplays are made to be read in one sitting. You wanna know why spec scripts aren’t selling right now? It ain’t the economy, stupid. It’s cause you listened to that liar, Al Gore, and you’re now dutifully sending them all out as pdf files! Producers and executives and movie stars and their assistants already have the attention spans of retarded, sugar-smacked hummingbirds. You think they’re gonna really read anybody’s script on their computers with all them fine distractions already loaded on their desktops like tournament canasta and barely legal porn?

Honestly, how many of you have actually read an entire screenplay on your computer in one sitting? Don’t tell me you didn’t check your facebook 18 times after you opened up the file. How often did you tweet before the second act rolled around? How many hands of solitaire did you play? Bet you already IMDBed the key grip of this flick while you’ve been skimming my opening rant.

Believe me, I’m equally guilty. I haven’t been able to do a single one-shot read through on my laptop of anything since this techno geek takeover. Nope, not once. Not till someone sent me Red.

That’s how engrossing this script was. Even the most ADHD of you fan boys will soar through this without once checking your emails or twiddling out a text. It’s just that absorbing.

Okay, maybe I’m overselling it a wee bit. The thing isn’t a great work of art. But, it is a great work of craft that’s worth studying. So, if you have a hankering to write an action film, you’ll learn a lot about plotting, pacing and narrative drive from reading Red.

Let me impart some wisdom on all you young scribes out there. I’m not advocating you forego the usual study of Chinatown, The Untouchables and the complete works of Joseph Campbell. But, if this script got both Bruce and Morgan so hot and bothered, I’d download it while you still can and scrutinize the shit out of it. Reread the mother till it becomes your mantra. When you get your next draft of “My Catalogue of Cool Shots” into something this tight, I guarantee it will get sold. Yup, even if you sent it off as a fucking pdf file.

So, why am I so impressed by yet another adaptation of yet another graphic novel? Well, for one, the source material is from Warren Ellis, the Godfather of funny paper scribblers. The screenwriting brothers in charge of distilling this comic into cinema are Erich and John Hoeber. They might not have made movie alchemy with their recent “Whiteout”, but the boys definitely spin yarn into gold this time around.

Now, I must warn you. You’ve seen this plot before. You’ve seen it many times before. Nothing new under the sun here – especially if you’ve ever seen a Jason Bourne flick or read any David Baldacci or Lee Child potboilers. Did the Brothers take all the genre conventions and spin them on their heads Electric Boogaloo style? Not exactly, it’sbstill pretty much standard fare. You have the same stock, way-high-up-in-the-Washington-food-chain villains and side switching patriotic uber-thugs revealed at the end. And, the Bruce Willis character is pretty much a Bruce Willis character only a little bit older — and, apparently, gonna actually be played by a little bit older Bruce Willis.

So, Mr. Hype Meister, why should I read this damned thing? For the pace, baby, for the pace. This thing leaps out of the gate and keeps building and escalating with a rare economy of action. Meaning, there are no superfluous scenes or even extraneous lines of dialogue. Every single set up has a payoff!!! They didn’t throw in a car chase barreling through the unfinished Panama Canal during an asteroid storm just for the sake of getting your attention. This is a lean cornbeef sandwich without an inch of fat kind of storytelling. Hell, even the crusts of the rye bread have been trimmed off.

This is one lean, mean fighting machine of a screenplay!

So, what it’s all about? Frank Moses is a retired Black-Ops agent. He hasn’t pulled a Burn Notice and isn’t scrambling to get back in the show by helping a new troubled civilian every episode. Frank basically keeps himself under the radar, adjusting to his AARP status by keeping fit with early morning sit-ups, trying his hand unsuccessfully at gardening and listening to his classic collection of 50s vinyl. His only contact with the outside world is with Sarah, the operator of the government office whose pension checks he accidentally-on-purpose keeps losing to perpetuate their little chats.

Their burgeoning friendship doesn’t seem forced at all. It’s funny, sweet and real. The writers allow us a little downtime to develop this. When we open, Frank just seems like an average Joe struggling with the boredom of retirement. You get the hint that he might be ex-military cause of his regimented morning routines. But, there’s no hint of the two-fisted events to follow. Maybe I was sent a sweet romantic comedy for the Angela Lansbury set.

We don’t know anything about Frank or his mercenary past till page 8 when a crack team of government killers suddenly turn up to his abode to take the old dude out. His ex-spy status has just turned from “Green” to “Red”. “Red” as in when someone uptown wants you seriously dead “Red”. And, we’re kinda amazed to see our rose gardening retiree so effortlessly, single-handedly take out their whole unit. He’s old, but not Bucket List or Bubba Ho-Tep old. Ain’t no Death Panel for our Frank Moses.

See, Frank is like me, old school. He listens to Vinyl, not MP3s. He does sit-ups, not crunches. He slowly courts a woman over the telephone, not going after her all balls-out like some Apatow/Smith scripted lothario. He’s a gentleman. He’s also a former one-gentleman killing machine that some big muckety-muck just stupidly forced back into the game. And, he’ll show the young turks assigned to euthanize him just how it was done back in the good old days.

He doesn’t need any real cool, high tech weaponry from the Cheney Foundation to annihilate you. He’s a Q-less, Luddite who doesn’t know gun fu or parkour, but can still take down the entire CIA with a paper clip, a long expired bottle of High Karate and a little bare-knuckled help from his Cold-War era friends.

But, first, Frank has to rescue the gal whom might be the only leverage his ex-agency has on him. She doesn’t go quietly. It exacts some smooth talking and duct tape on Frank’s part to get her out of harms way. Yes, you’ve seen this before in Three Days Of The Condor, but, didn’t I mention somewhere this was also a comedy? It’s Grumpy Old Men vs the entire Central Intelligence Agency. It’s John McClane action hero Willis morphed with the wisecracking Moonlighting David Addison Willis with some gray haired, Danny Glover Murtough “I’m too old for this kinda shit” thrown in for good measure. And, Casting Directors, the gal, should most definitely be played by a certain repartee-ready Gilmore Girl.

Now Frank is just as in the dark as we are as to why he’s suddenly chased by the best assassins our tax dollars can still buy. The rest of the first act and a good chunk of the second is him reaching out to the few industry contacts he has left – Joe, his 90-year-old-dying-of-liver-cancer mentor; Marvin (Freeman) a completely paranoid ex-compadre: Ivan, a Russian ex-spy denigrated now to desk duty at the Ruskie Embassy and Victoria, a B&B owning femme fatale who has been juggling her retirement with a little wet work here and there for the extra pocket scratch or maybe just for the kicks.

The guy running this raid on Entebbe is Cooper, the agency’s most efficient and loyal killer. Of course, he’d been trained by someone Frank had trained way back when Coop was just a young pup of a pitbull. He’s also quite the devout family man, getting a honey-do list from his wife while he restages his latest hit to look more like a convincing suicide.

So, what ensues is the old guard versus the better-armed, physically fitter, mentally sharper army of new kids.

Unlike the norm for this genre, there aren’t any red herrings, false leads or wrong turns. Remember that I told you this was an exceptionally lean and mean script. The narrative drive goes from Point A to Point Z seamlessly and without any pit stops. Each action beat gets either Frank a new team member, another obstacle placed in the way or a bit more intel on why he’s suddenly a hunted man. And, once he gets the why, our guy quickly goes on the offensive to payback the who.

The writers also chose not to bog us down with the usual detective work seen in most procedurals. Frank doesn’t have to leap through a lot of hoops to find out why he’s on the hit list. He basically has Joe run the thumb print off the thumb he ginzued off of one of his attackers and – BAM — we go from there. This was a wise choice cause it gives us far more time on Frank’s elaborate (and pleasurable) acts of table turning.

The sure to be scene stealing character is Frank’s old buddy, Marvin. He doesn’t just spout paranoid conspiracy theories, he practically foams at the mouth with them. He’s delusional and perhaps dangerous, but a total riot nonetheless. His choice as an asset is what’s so fun about this script. The audience is kept guessing if Marvin’s brain has finally been fried forever, making him a potentially huge liability (He was the agency’s main lab rat in their LSD experiments back in the 70s) or if he’s really still that super perceptive at the spy game.

Marvin gets many magnificent melt-down moments. He is suspicious of everyone and everything and it would be unwise to make any sudden movements or whip out your cellphone in his presence. While our rag tag team tries to quietly cross the Mexican border, he suddenly pulls a gun on a woman tourist, a middle-aged realtor, weaving her into his psychotic pastiche of black helicopters, satellite surveillance and the Patriot Act. I don’t want to spoil the scene, but this script adheres to strict Newtonian laws. To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction.

All the characters here are blessed with snappy dialogue, intriguing back-stories and sheer likeability. Except for Frank, all of the supporting players sprang solely out of the imaginations of the screenwriters. Ellis’ three-issue miniseries was really just a cocktail napkin of carnage for the Hoebers to build off of.

Now, the sheer likeability factor is what will have the true Ellis disciples shouting “Heresy!” The comic’s consequent bloodbath has pretty much been excised. We may live in the age of Dexter, but the producers wanted to keep this caper strictly PG. And who really wants to see John McClane play a monster? The very thought is just so un-American.

Frank and Ivan share a John le Carré inspired cloak and dagger past. They reminisce about the Golden Age of the Cold War when spies were real spies. When it was considered bad form to even think about touching your target’s family. Cooper, representing the new breed, has the combined ethics of a rattlesnake, a used car salesman, and the entire Bush cabinet (minus Colin Powell of course). He’ll do anything necessary to serve Frank’s head on a platter to his bosses.

Perhaps that’s what stayed with me so long after reading Red. It’s really a throwback to an earlier era/age/style of screenwriting. It has action, but it doesn’t call attention to itself like today’s product. The sequences moves at a nice clip, but it’s totally devoid of any look-at-me-as-I-cleverly-off-someone-with-a-bednob-or-a-broomstick-or-something-else-you’ve-never-seen-before. We’re totally invested in these characters and I found myself getting gleeful as they miraculously pull their mission impossible off.

Red is different because it’s so refreshingly underwritten. You won’t get a jolt or a rush or a headache after putting it down. There’s an old showbiz axiom that admonishes to “Always leave them wanting more.” The Brothers Hoeber have deftly pulled that off. When I closed the file, I was already looking forward to Frank’s next adventure.

Even if I have to read that next adventure as a fucking pdf!

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] barely kept my interest
[] worth the read
[X ] impressive
[ ] genius

I’m sure the discussions that follow will accuse me of being overly generous, throwing off the Shadow’s strict script grading curve. I think it’s a great script to learn the craft from. The teacher inside me stands firmly by this high mark.

What I learned: Surely you don’t think an old dog like me can pick up any new tricks? Yes, I learned something. And, this is why I’m making Red required reading for all the young scriptors I’m tutoring. Most screenplays remind me of all the damned, superfluous notes Mariah Carrey squeezes into every fucking song she sings. Your scripts don’t need superfluous diva shit. Not every scene has to be an extravagant road trip tangent or an over the top set piece. Stop trying to light a fart or a building or a whole country on fire just to get my attention. You have my attention. So, just tell me a story.

Hard science fiction is one of the biggest gambles you can take as a writer. It’s easy to assume that everyone will wait patiently while you explain the setting, the time period, the sides, the politics, the alien races, and everything else they need to know to understand your universe. But the reality is, the information is probably so overwhelming that they’ve checked out before you’ve made it to the second act. I love hard sci-fi as much as the next nerd but if you’re spending a majority of your screenplay telling us that The Hawfner Alliance is about to annihilate the Crimson Factor and that General Eekou, of the half-alien half-human sub-race, the Qualars, is hoping to halt it with the Leviathan Treaty, which he just found in the Baristone constellation, let me let you in on a little secret: Your reader isn’t reading anymore. That’s not to say hard sci-fi can’t be done, just that it requires a very skilled writer. On a spec, you’re much better off following James Cameron’s lead, who created the best action sci-fi film of all time. There are aliens. Marines are going to kill them. That’s your movie. Speaking of the Alien franchise, Roger Balfour wants to know whether it’s in good hands. So he’s reviewing a script from Jon Spaihts, the man tapped to reboot/remake/prequelize Alien.

Genre: Science Fiction, Action-Adventure, Horror
Premise: Captain Conrad Vance, of the Offworld Marine Corps, is selected by the Special Science Agency to travel to a hostile planet to repair a super-intelligent machine.
About: Twentieth Century Fox hired Jon Spaihts to pen the Alien prequel for director, Ridley Scott. Why? What the hell did this dude pitch to Scott and the studio? And based upon his outer space thrillers, Passengers and Shadow 19, is this the right man for the job? Shadow 19 was originally purchased by Warner Brothers some years back with Keanu in mind to star. But that project fell apart and Keanu tapped Spaihts to write his Isolation space opera idea, Passengers (not the one in my Top 25 but a script that is very highly praised). That’s still a possibility but it’s looking like Shadow 19 may be dead. I do like the first half of the title though.
Writer: Jon Spaihts

This script had me at man in mechanized death suit. Ever since Ripley fought the Queen femme contre femme in the power loader in James Cameron’s Aliens, I’ve been hooked on stories that have moments where humans climb into armored exoskeletons and become war machines. From the tortured kids in Neon Genesis Evangelion to Wikus van der Merwe in District 9, there’s something cathartic about watching a protagonist go all giant robot and fuck shit up, Stark-style. So it was a stroke of brilliance for Jon Spaihts to introduce the hero of Shadow 19, Captain Conrad Vance of the Offworld Marine Corp, on page 1 of the script already suited up in his Heinlesque armored space suit.

There’s no fucking around here. He’s not climbing into the armored power suit. He’s already inside. He already looks like a superhero, in his half-ton war machine, holding his cannon-sized rifle. He’s aboard a battleship that’s approaching Dione, one of Saturn’s moons. A Colonel tells Vance and eleven other marines that they are the only defense the Dione Colony has against the Hegemony. The situation in our world is this: The Earth is split into two factions, The Allied States and The Hegemony. Overpopulation has stretched the world’s resources to the point where the supply of basic necessities like food and water cannot keep up with the demand. The growth rate of humanity has rendered our world unsustainable. Half of the Allied States’ federal budget is classified and the existence of these “black funds” has come under serious scrutiny by world leaders.

As they say, shit done got rough.

In a riveting sequence that makes both the D-Day assault into Normandy and cinema vérité seem inconsequential, Vance and his squad are ejected into space via drop capsules and they rocket towards the surface of Dione, through the cross-fire of four, three-story high D-Class Tanks and salvos of missiles from their battleship. They crash land, hop out of the impact-craters, and engage the tanks. And it’s fucking awesome. We really get a taste of how cool these suits are, and we meet the OS of Vance’s suit, Athena. She’s so user-friendly she could almost be sentient. But things get hairy and marines start to die when a moving fortress designated the Colossus arrives over the ridge.

And in a battle that made me cum in my pants, Vance takes the offensive. He rips a turret off the thing, enters the Colossus, and starts to kill every living thing inside like a goddamn bull in a China shop. Of course, the look on all of the officer’s faces is pretty fucking priceless when Vance uses his jump-jets to blast through a ladder-well, collide into the ceiling of the bridge, fall, land, and proceed to slaughter the Hegemony scum ED-209 style. Kudos to you, Mr. Spaihts. I never had multiple orgasms while reading the first ten pages of a screenplay until Shadow 19 (and I’ve read a lot of scripts).

If we didn’t know it already, we learn that Vance has survived more missions than any other marine in the Offworld Marine Corps. It’s sort of a big deal, because there’s one-hundred thousand of these guys. He has the fastest reflexes, the lowest resting pulse rate.

He’s the man that always comes home.

After his victory, the battleship receives orders to return Vance back to earth. Why would it (what accounts to be a military aircraft carrier) be diverted for just one man? The State Science Agency needs Vance for special duty. He’s whisked to New Washington where he signs a writ of secrecy, where the penalty for violation of said secrecy is execution. This is some heavy shit. He’s deposited in the Science Agency’s underground complex, where he is introduced to the Scientists. The Scientists are cyberpunk company men (The Stars My Destination. Check.) whose influence may even jeopardize the power of the traditional-nation state (Neuromancer. Check. Dune. Check.)

They are organized by rank. Novices. Apprentices. Masters.

A Master-level Scientist surgically receives a cybernetic crown. This level-up is called the coronation. Scientists who have been coronated absorb information faster, calculate faster, and have total recall. Most importantly, they can control the Agency’s devices by mere thought alone, sort of turning them into cyberpunk wizards who can telekinetically control the tech they build. Receiving your crown is a Devil’s bargain. The Agency owns you and always knows where you are. Treason against the Agency once you have your crown is the equivalent of instant execution.

Director Marbeck, the top Master of the Science Agency, has taken it upon himself to search the heavens for another world, with the intention of safeguarding humanity’s future. He’s spent all of his career spearheading the construction of Prometheus, a massive ship and the greatest secret ever kept (construction period took 30 years and was concealed on an orbital path around Jupiter). Marbeck has gone to extraordinary (and possibly murderous) measures to keep this baby a secret, as the identity and whereabouts of the men and women that comprised the construction crew are classified.

Prometheus is basically a super-intelligent terraforming machine designed to transform a planet twenty-light years away, named Erix, into a new Earth. Once Prometheus landed on Erix, it divided into six mobile sections called Crawlers. These Crawlers spread over the surface of the planet, sowing the seeds to make this alien planet habitable. The problem is, one of these Crawlers has broken down.

Prometheus’ main spire also contains one-half of a device called The Lang Transporter.

Vance’s mission is to travel to Erix instantaneously by Lang Transporter (very important, I’ll get to this in a second), trek one-hundred kilometers to the Crawler, and repair it. Sounds simple, right? Not at all. Erix is richer in heavy elements than Earth. Tungsten, chromium, titanium. Living things on Erix incorporate these metals into their physiognomy, and on a planet with twice the background radiation than on Earth, we essentially have a celestial body whose flora and fauna is the equivalent of military hardware (a detail that perhaps piqued Ridley Scott’s interest). Alien, metallic, nightmarish demons. But doesn’t Vance have a bad-ass battle-suit?

Doesn’t stop him from being killed within seconds of reaching Erix.

Yeah, Vance dies after he is teleported from the Lang Transporter Earth-side to the Lang Transporter Erix-side. It’s scary shit. But wait, how do you have a feature-length script where the protagonist dies on page 38? I’ll tell you. The Lang Transporter is not really a teleportation device. It creates copies. When Vance walks into the Lang chamber, it creates a copy of him on Erix. Bottom line: The Lang Transporter allows Vance to stand on earth and cast his shadow on another world. Which is going to be useful because problem-solving and strategizing a way to make it to the Crawler might take a shit-load of extra lives to figure out. Vance might as well be fighting his way through Hell and all of its armies to accomplish his mission. Now, I’ve summarized this plot point, but experiencing how it unfolds is one of the many joys of this screenplay.

The 2nd act is devoted to Vance, the military strategist, cracking the riddle of surviving on Erix. He develops an intimate relationship with an Apprentice, Ada. Their relationship jeopardizes their sense of identity and loyalty (corporate and personal) to their different employers. Vance is a military man. Ada is a Scientist. She feels guilty that the Agency is basically using Vance as a lab-rat Theseus, and Vance empathizes with Ada’s doubts concerning her career path, her inevitable sacrifice and coronation to the Agency. If there’s a weakness in the script, perhaps it’s the repetitive nature of the scenes. Trying to dramatize the scientific method is a hard gamble. But the drama is compelling, nonetheless. Vance’s adventures and deaths on the hostile planet are wisely kept to short, nightmarish glimpses (wisely focusing on Vance’s story Earth-side). Each segment is enough to whet your appetite, but leave you wanting more more more.

There’s a sequence where Vance demands access to all the cutting edge armor and weapons technology available on Earth. Top-secret experimental weapons of war that he’s ultimately allowed to take with him to Erix. Rail guns, antimatter grenade launchers, massive machetes and the best, shiniest battle-suit executive clearance can get you. It’s a giddy moment, and if you’ve ever been on drunk on a first-person shooter, then you’ll grin like an idiot while you read this.

Stakes are raised when a Scientist is jettisoned by Director Marbeck for discovering information that may or may not pertain to an intelligent civilization that exists on Erix. Not only is this character jettisoned, he may have been executed for his discovery. A Senator challenges Marbeck and demands to know what all this secret spending is being poured into. And with the disappearance of the Scientist, Ada is chosen as his replacement. Her coronation is to commence, against her will.

The 3rd act of this script is probably genius. The jury is still out. I’m still too busy fanboyin’ the fuck out about it. If it’s ever filmed (if a studio won’t fund it, maybe Bill Gates will, they can use Peter Jackson’s line producer), this is the kind of movie that Starcraft-playing Koreans who have been up for 72 hours straight at the local net-cafe and are only awake because of stimulants will have heart-attacks over once in the theatre. It’s a riveting resolution that intercuts between Shadow 19’s adventure on Erix and Vance’s conflict on Earth.

When the iris fully opens on Erix, it’s an action-adventure enthusiast’s wet dream. There are moments of sheer terror and sadness that had me glued to the script even though I had been up for over 20 hours. As Shadow 19 ignores Athena’s advice (which he has programmed to mimic Ada’s voice, a touching detail) and injects himself with stimulants to stay alive, I felt how weary, how desperate Vance’s copy was as he single-handedly destroys most of a planet with his personalized weapons-of-mass destruction and his burning need to accomplish his mission. It’s Ridley Scott, James Cameron, Peter Jackson caliber story-telling that does not disappoint. The Earth conflict is just as desperate and emotional as Vance tries to save Ada from her coronation. And when both worlds collide, it’s the type of splendid screenplay moment that’s both cerebral and visceral.

This script deftly uses the language found in videogames to punctuate the story-telling elements. Something we’ve seen before in Danny Boyle’s The Beach (with mixed results, although it works in Garland’s novel) and will see again in Edgar Wright’s adaptation of Brian Lee O’Malley’s Scott Pilgrim. It’s an idiom that’s hard to avoid in an age where the gaming industry competes with the movie industry and publishing industry for dominance over the market of story. It’s part of our perspective, our shorthand, our inside jokes. And if you agree with Drew McWeeny over at HitFix, videogame stories will never be as good in the cinematic medium as they are in their medium of origin. But can cinematic stories that use conventions found in videogames be successful? If Shadow 19 is any indication, then yes, they can be.

Shadow 19 is a gunmetal paean to id Software and cyberpunk. A hymn to boys (and girls, are you out there?) who spent many a night playing Doom, or any videogame, really, and you were so engrossed in the virtual world the next time you looked out the window it was already dawn. It is a love letter to fans of smart and ambitious science fiction. Not sci-fi. Yes, I say “sci-fi” pejoratively, because to use the parlance of Harlan Ellison, there is a difference. And it is a felony against all people who care about story to not know the difference.

This is science fiction done right. And I dare say it…I dare say it. The Alien prequel is in good hands. If Ridley Scott is willing to believe, then so am I.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] barely kept my interest
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius

What I Learned: Don’t sacrifice story for scene. If you do, chances are that’s the point where your script derailed. I’ve read enough scripts where the writers blow their wad in the first 10 pages, or in a single scene that not only sacrifices story for scene, but also spectacle. If Spaihts had chosen to show us too much of the Shadows doing battle on Erix early on, he would have run out of steam by the 3rd act. He would have focused on the wrong elements. Spielberg didn’t reveal Jaws until sixty minutes into the movie; Cameron didn’t reveal the Alien hive until sixty or so pages into the script. Follow their lead. Like Spaihts, you might create an atmosphere of sustained suspense so tangible it threatens to suffocate you before you reach the end.

Genre: Drama
Premise: When a dog is the only witness to a woman’s death, her husband tries to teach the dog how to talk so he can find out what happened to her.
About: Mandate Pictures (Juno) optioned Carolyn Parkhurst’s novel. John Crowley (Intermission) will direct. David Heyman of Heyday Films, and Corey May and Dooma Wendschuh of Sekretagent Productions will produce. Nathan Kahane and Tiffany Daniel will executive produce. Overseeing the project for Mandate will be Nicole Brown and Tendo Nagenda. Funny enough, Todd Phillips was once attached to the project. It’s unclear whether he wanted to veer out of comedy or not. I know that turning this into a comedy would pretty much destroy everything that’s great about it. So I’m glad that experiment is over.
Writer: Jamie Linden (We Are Marshall)
Details: 122 pages (Nov. 2006 draft)

I really loved this script. I mean, it’s not perfect. The ending gets a little…abstract. And there’s an odd tonal shift late in the second act. But there’s so much to love here. And the storytelling is top notch. Dogs Of Babel tells the tale of Paul Ransome, a man who comes home to find his wife dead. She apparently fell from the apple tree in the back yard and cracked her neck. All signs point to it being an accident. But Paul’s not so sure. There’s something not quite right about the evidence. What in the world was his wife doing up in the apple tree anyway? And how do you fall and crack your neck from an apple tree? Break your legs maybe. But break your neck?

It so happens that the only witness to this “accident” is Lexy’s dog Lorlelei, a dog, it should be noted, Paul doesn’t care much for. In fact, the dog spent more time getting in the way of their relationship than complementing it. And because Lorlelei pretty much feels the same way about Paul, life after Lexy’s death turns into a tough learning experience for both. Not only are they both extremely depressed, but Lorelei’s desired routine coupled with Paul’s ignorance regarding pet responsibility turns into a clumsy frustrating dance that neither can get quite right.

After awhile, Paul becomes fascinated by Lorelei’s ability to understand simple words like, “stay” and “lay down,” etc. He wonders, “If she can understand these words, why can’t she understand others? And if I can communicate with her, why can’t she communicate with me?” And thus Paul sets out on a journey to do something that makes no logical sense whatsoever: Teach Lorelei how to speak so she can tell him what happened to Lexi that day.

I like premises that border on the absurd because I’m fascinated to see if the writer can actually pull them off. 9 times out of 10, they’re not up to the task. But this is that one time where they get it right. What drives this story and our emotions and our hope is Paul’s devastation over his wife’s death. We want so badly for him to find out what happened to her, that we become just as illogical as he is. We actually believe that if he can just find enough time, if he can just come across the right piece of research, he’ll find a way to do it.

Dogs Of Babel is a script that takes a lot of chances and pulls most of them off. In addition to the main storyline, Linden offers us a glimpse into Paul and Lexy’s life through a series of flashbacks. Now normally I hate flashbacks. But here, they’re presented intermittently and at designated times, therefore making them feel like a natural part of the story instead of an interruption of it. They also acheive a couple of things. They introduce us to Lexy, which allows us to care more for her, ultimately driving up our emotional involvement in Paul’s search for the truth. And it furthers the mystery of her death, as all signs point to them having a perfectly healthy relationship.

The next thing Linden does is highlight a history of canine intelligence through a series of voiceovers dictated by Paul’s research. All of the stories are 100% true. And after each one, we feel a little bit closer to the ultimate goal of getting Lorlelei to communicate. For example, one of the stories involves a woman who decided to teach her dog how to type. She made a specialized keyboard that would release a treat upon tapping of the correct letter. She’d call out a letter, and if the dog got it right, he’d receive a treat. The dog got so good at typing she’d have him type out her Christmas cards every winter (via her transcribing each letter of course). There’s a haunting quality to each story. Because while each one seems to give us hope, there’s a part of it that feels desperate. The stories are magnificent in their own right, but none of them point to that Holy Grail – actually getting a dog to talk to you. Is Paul grasping at straws? Has he gone insane? Is any of this really worth it? The fact that we’re not sure is what compels us to turn the pages.

As I mentioned before, the script isn’t perfect. There’s a particularly strange choice in the second act where Paul visits a man who’s done research into canine communication. But it plays out in a creepy way that feels more like a scene out of a horror film than that of a drama. It was definitely a memorable scene, but I’m not sure it belonged here. As we get to the climax, Linden also makes some odd choices, as real-life is kind of blurred into the subconscious and deluged with flashbacks. It was hard to tell what was going on and I was terrified that the ending would be explained away in a big copout. But thank God it comes together nicely and we get the answers we’re looking for.

Had the ending been a little cleaner, this might’ve shot into my Top 10. As it stands, it still breaks into my Top 25. A great story indeed.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] barely kept my interest
[ ] worth the read
[x] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Flashbacks are more effective if they’re a part of a larger pattern. If they’re simply there to fill in some hole you couldn’t figure out how to integrate into your story, they’ll stick out like a sore thumb. But if there’s a rhythm and consistency to them, they’ll feel like a natural extension of the story.

Genre: Dramedy
Premise: Blockhead explores what it would it be like if the real-world Peanuts Gang grew up and lived together in New York City.
About: This script got a ton of recognition about ten years ago. Just about everyone who read it loved it. For obvious copyright reasons, it never got purchased. But it ended up getting the writer, Emily Fox, a lot of buzz and started her writing career.
Writer: Emily Fox

I can’t say I’m the biggest fan of the Peanuts characters but there’s definitely a certain familiarity and nostalgia they bring to the table. Who doesn’t watch The Charlie Brown Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas specials? And with the rewarding experience I had with “The Muppet Man,” I thought another unique exploration of a childhood franchise could be fun. But man, it wasn’t until I went back and watched a few episodes of Charlie Brown on Youtube that I realized just how negative it was. Everybody’s upset or depressed about something. Nothing ever goes right. Lucy berates Charlie Brown so relentlessly, she’d probably go to jail for assault if she tried the same thing today. It’s like dissecting one disaster after another.

Fox makes one thing clear right off the bat. This isn’t your Grandmother’s Charlie Brown. No. I think I figured that out on page one when we’re introduced to Lucy getting ram-rodded by some dude from behind. Okay okay. It’s not nearly that graphic (although to say I was shocked was an understatement). But Lucy’s declaration of war on the world at such an early age has definitely had its effects on her psyche. Now 28 years old, she’s unaware that her current boyfriend, Schroeder (you may remember him playing the piano for Lucy and repeatedly fighting off her advances), is probably gay. She’s also cheating on him with her 43 year old married with children boss. She thinks she’s pregnant. And she lives with Linus, now a stockbroker, and still as cautious and pragmatic as ever (and still a virgin).

But what really blows her lid is that Charlie Brown and Snoopy are moving in with them! Lucy still can’t stand Charlie Brown and lets him know right away that she does not agree with these arrangements. Charlie Brown has made his way here to pursue being a writer – any sort of writer – and because he’s been a bit of a failure in life so far, he hasn’t a penny to his name. Eventually Charlie’s model younger sister, Sally, moves in as well, driving Linus all sorts of crazy, and the four of these childhood “friends” try their best to coexist in New York City 18 years after we last saw them.

The whole vibe is very “When Harry Met Sally.” The reason it ends up working is that the sexual tension between Charlie Brown and Lucy that’s existed since all the way back in the original cartoon, is finally explored. But not in the way you think it will be. Lucy is like a Velociraptor, tenacious and relentless in her belittling of anything that gets in her way. It’s actually fascinating you care about her so much because she’s such a raging bitch. But “Blockhead” benefits from this weird nostalgic curiosity that coats every scene. It may not be the most compelling drama. But you’re just so shocked that you get to see what happens to the Peanuts gang all grown up. Lucy getting banged was definitely the topper, but at one point the crew sits around smoking weed. It’s like if you somehow weaseled your way into The Jonas Brothers’ apartment and found them snorting coke off strippers. This stuff is not supposed to happen! (not that I’d want to sneak into the Jonas Brothers’ apartment. I’m purely using that as an analogy. I don’t own any of the Jonas Brothers’ music).

There are little nods to the comic sprinkled throughout. Linus will be at work with his boss giving a speech and when he drifts off, the boss’s words devolve into a repetitive “wah wah wah wahhhh wah wah wah wah.” All the catch phrases are used at least once. And there are probably a million references that I didn’t even catch because I don’t remember the cartoon that well. But the script does end on Christmas with Charlie buying a tiny little $15 Christmas tree and Lucy freaking out about it. I mean how can you not love that?

My one complaint was that Snoopy wasn’t used enough. Granted, you’re not doing Garfield or Scooby Doo with an animated dog, but Snoopy was the most memorable character in that show after Charlie Brown. You needed to find a way to use him!

This was such a trippy journey that I have to recommend you read it for yourself. Even though I know it would never happen in a million years, God would I like someone to make this film. I have no doubt it would be an instant cult classic.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] barely kept my interest
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: This is probably obvious, but just know that you can only sell a script based on someone else’s material to the company that owns that material. So if you write a Matrix movie, you can only sell it to Warner Brothers. And chances are, they don’t want your script because if they want to write another Matrix movie, they’ll do it themselves. In the case of this script, Emily Fox is basically damaging the brand name of the Peanuts characters (having sex, getting high) so not only will you have a hard time selling this for copyright reasons, but the estate that owns the rights to the Peanuts characters would never allow something like this to be made. I’m assuming Fox knew that going in. So it’s important for you to know the same thing. Selling one of these novelty scripts isn’t going to happen. But it might open a few doors.