Genre: Sci-fi
Premise: A reluctant boy genius finds out his step-father, who’s building the world’s first artificially intelligent computer, has been keeping a terrifying secret from him.
About: Gary Whitta sold his spec script Book of Eli five years ago. He went on to script After Earth for Will Smith. He’s since been tabbed as the scribe on one of the Star Wars spin-off movies. This is one of his earliest scripts (written even before Book of Eli). The script is based on an 8-bit Infocom story adventure from the 80s. A Mind Forever Voyaging is thought of as the pinnacle of the adventure stories that came out in that era. Whitta took the unique step of writing the adaptation without the rights, hoping to use the finished product to acquire the rights formally. But apparently Activision, who owns the Infocom universe, has zero interest in adapting their products to film, which is bizarre when you think about all the money that could be made. Anyway, Whitta kindly put the version of his script online for everyone to see. He still hopes to get it made one day.
Writer: Gary Whitta (based on the story by Steve Meretzky)
Details: 117 pages (2002 draft)
If you’re like me, you became a lot more interested in Gary Whitta once it was announced that he’d be scripting a Star Wars film. I know a little about his history (he used to work in video games before moving over to screenwriting), but all I have to go on is Book of Eli and After Earth. I’ve stated before that I thought Book of Eli was a solid spec and that After Earth was a much better screenplay than it was a movie.
Still, two scripts wasn’t enough to go on. You needed a tiebreaker.
Enter “A Mind Forever Voyaging.” I’d heard of “Mind” before and while I’d never played those 8 bit adventure stories, there was something exotic about them that I always found appealing. The artwork on this one, in particular, implies a vast and rich story. It’s time to finally find out what that story’s about.
Professor Abraham Perelman, 55, is working on the first ever artificially intelligent computer. It’s a giant unseemly thing consisting of so many computers and components that it needs to be kept in an underground warehouse.
Perelman is eventually approached by a senator who’s heard about his research. Perelman explains to the senator that in 12 years, the computer will be so sophisticated that it’ll be able to predict the future. 12 years is right on track for when the senator plans to run for president. Which means, with the aid of this computer, he’ll be the first president who can actually guarantee his promises.
Meanwhile, Perelman enjoys time with his two step-sons, Jason, and Perry. In short, Perelman lost his previous family to murder. And this family lost their father to jail. So they sort of clicked together like the depressing version of The Brady Bunch.
While Jason rejects Perelman as his step-father, Perry makes a real connection with him. Even when Perry shows tremendous mathematical prowess, Perelman, a math buff himself, supports his choice to be a writer instead.
Time passes and we watch Perry grow from 8 to 11 to 16, to 20. As he grows up, the Senator keeps moving up the political ladder. Finally, Perelman drops the big bombshell on Perry. The reason he’s a math superstar? That he can solve any equation in the universe? He IS the computer Perelman’s been building. Apparently the only way to make that computer truly AI was to make it believe that it was real. Perry is the manifestation of that experiment.
Also, since the Senator is finally running for president, Perelman needs Perry to look forward in time for him and find out what the world’s going to be like in five years. When Perry does this, he sees a world where the Senator has unified all states into one. He’s also restricted most freedoms in order to keep America “safe.”
When Perry tells Perelman this, he can’t believe that his step-father is actually on board with it. From that point on, Perry decides to take things into his own hands. Since he IS the computer, he’ll write his OWN program. And he’s going to change everything to the way HE thinks it needs to be changed.
A Mind Forever Voyaging is one of the stranger scripts I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing. You see, it has one giant problem inherent in it. But that problem might also be necessary for the script to work. Talk about a conundrum.
Let me explain. The hook of this screenplay – a kid (or young man) learns that he’s actually the living brain of a computer – doesn’t arrive until page 80! That’s SUPER LATE to get to your hook.
Explaining why this is a problem is tricky because it depends on what you consider to be your story. Is your story the aftermath of a kid who finds out he’s a computer? Or is your story everything that leads up to that point? To me, the far more interesting story is a kid who finds out he’s a computer (and the subsequent aftermath). For that reason, that twist needs to show up WAY EARLIER, preferably around page 30 (the end of the first act).
For comparison’s sake, look at a movie like The Matrix, where Neo learns he’s living in a computer. Neo finds that out on page 30. Would The Matrix have worked had Neo figured that out on page 80? My guess is no.
The catch with “A Mind Forever Voyaging,” however, is we don’t start with a grown man. We start with a boy. And it’s because we watch this boy grow up through the years that the shocking twist of him not being real hits us so hard. That doesn’t hit us nearly as hard if we reveal it on page 30.
This is a classic example of one of those big screenwriting problems that doesn’t have a perfect answer. If you move the “boy is a computer” reveal to the end of the first act, it doesn’t have the same weight. But if you keep the reveal at page 80, you’re making the audience wait way too long before anything happens.
When faced with this problem, I always err on the side of “get to the story faster” and I’ll tell you why. Because when someone is reading your script or watching your movie, it always feels slower to them than it does to you. You might think, “Oh! Page 30!? No way! That’s way too early!” But in the reader’s reality, things are taking a lot longer.
Think about it. When’s the last time you read a script or watched a movie and said, “MAN! This is going by WAY too fast!” 99 times out of 100, a script is moving too slow, right? So you want to assume that with your own writing as well.
But, if you absolutely REFUSE to meet the Page 30 deadline, a last resort is to push your plot point to page 45. It’s still early enough to keep the story moving, but late enough to give the proper amount of “time passing” before the event occurs. Also, that way, you still have 70 pages left to play out your unique world post-reveal.
Despite these criticisms, I still want to see this movie. Once we DO get to that reveal, things start to get pretty trippy. Like we’re jumping back and forth in time, there’s a struggle for control of the computer, there’s a little Inception thrown in for good measure, a little 2001. And then there’s this creepy sci-fi atmosphere that’s present throughout. To that end, Whitta really captured that eerie empty feeling you get as a story unravels before you in MS-DOS green-on-black text. I definitely felt that here. And along with some complex characters and an unexpected storyline, I don’t see why a studio wouldn’t at least try to develop this.
Oh, and you can read the script yourself here!
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Avoid “turn-based” dialogue. One of the tricks to keeping dialogue natural is to make sure the characters are listening to each other. That way, they’re responding to one another as opposed to saying what the writer wants them to say. I found a fair bit of turn-based dialogue here. For example, here’s an exchange…
FULLERTON
You’re seriously making the argument that an artificial intelligence has rights?
RANDU
While PRISM’s consciousness may in the strictest sense be artificial compared to our own, its evolution has advanced to the point that there’s no longer any meaningful dissimilarity between the two.
The character of Randu did not hear a single word the character of Fullerton just said. Instead, a very formal well-written answer – something you can tell was crafted and perfected ahead of time – was given instead. To fix this, put yourself in Randu’s shoes. LISTEN to what Fullerton is saying. The response, then, would probably be more reactive…
RANDU
Why wouldn’t it? While the system’s consciousness may be artificial, it’s advanced to the point where the similarities between the two are negligible.
Obviously, how you write the sentence itself will depend on character and your own voice. But the point is, you want dialogue to have that natural rhythm that comes with people listening, thinking, and responding. In real-life dialogue, you never have the perfect response waiting.
