“Cosmic Sunday, wake up in the late afternoon! Call Parnell, to see what he’s doin…!”
Genre: Sci-Fi/Time Loop/Comedy
Premise: A small percentage of the population is stuck in a time loop and have had to create a society that functions within the same day, repeated day in and day out. One man struggles to find himself for the first time in ages amidst a society clinging to a sense of normalcy.
About: This is MacMillan Hedges’ second time on the Black List. The first was for “The Searchers,” an exploration of John Wayne and John Ford’s unique relationship on the set of the famous film.
Writer: MacMillan Hedges
Details: 110 pages
Yesterday I announced the countdown to Sci-Fi Showdown. What better way to blast things off than with a sci-fi script? That is, of course, if you consider loop movies “science-fiction.” I know some of you out there are getting bored of loop scripts. Dare I ask you this then. Are you bored of roller coasters? Cause they have loops. And last time I checked there are plenty of them still delivering thrills and chills around the globe. “Bored of loops.” How dare you.
29 year old Bill Button wakes up in his parents’ house for Thanksgiving, walks downstairs, punches his Uncle, then goes to work, one of those stale glass office buildings with between 5-15 floors.
Co-workers tell Bill they heard all about his wild day yesterday, where he drove a bus full of children off a ledge to their fiery death. We’re not quite sure what’s going on yet but a picture is starting to form.
Bill, along with everybody else in this office, is part of a group called the AWAKES. They’ve been stuck in a time loop for 74 years. There are also people – people who live all around them – called STUCKS. The Stucks are unaware that they are also in a time loop.
I think an entire 1/12th of the world is AWAKES. More on that later.
Bill is trying to make it through each day without killing himself. Except for Sunday. Sunday, or “Cosmic Sunday” as its known to Awakes, is the day of the week where you’re encouraged to do anything you want – kind of like a “Loop Purge.” According to upper management at Bill’s work, Cosmic Sunday keeps you sane.
On a typical Sunday, for example, Bill will lace himself up with C-4 explosives, head over to the local Six Flags, stand in front of the ferris wheel, then blow himself up. Why Bill gets so much joy out of killing himself in front of children is anyone’s guess. But as he points out to a concerned upper management office worker – “What does it matter? They’re all going to forget by tomorrow.”
One day downtown Bill spots a raving madman screaming that there’s a way out of the loop. Bill can finally become a “Stuck” again. That is, assuming, that the guy is telling the truth. Which is anything but a guarantee considering everyone in this reality is going insane (if they haven’t done so already). Will Bill get out? Does he really want to get out? Or has the loop become the only way he can exist?
When they first wrote Groundhog Day, it was originally supposed to start in the middle of the loop. But after reading that version, producers decided it was too confusing and it would be better to start the loop at the same time as the main character.
Since then, audiences have become more familiar with time loop movies, a shorthand has developed, and therefore it is more acceptable for loop films to start mid-loop. We saw this most prominently with Palm Springs, where we started thousands of years into the loop.
Cosmic Sunday, however, shows you why those original Groundhog Day producers were so concerned. When you’re thrown into a loop, you’re not sure what’s going on. And if the loop ruleset is complicated, you’re REALLY not sure what’s going on. The big difference between Cosmic Sunday and Palm Springs is that Palm Springs only needed to keep track of two people. Cosmic Sunday needs to keep track of 1/12th of the world’s population.
I think.
The fact that I don’t know for sure is evidence that this script is way too complicated. I originally thought that only the people who lived in Saratoga Spring were stuck in the loop. But then I noticed there were plenty of people in Saratoga Springs who weren’t stuck in the loop.
So I thought, hmm, okay, maybe these are people who live outside Saratoga Springs but who are visiting Saratoga Springs for the day. Hence, while they’re not affected by the loop, they are around people who are. But then halfway through the script, we get this semi-vague line about how 1/12th of the world’s population is stuck in the loop. Which means about 750 million people throughout the world are having to pretend to not be stuck in a loop.
Just trying to work that out mentally hurts my head.
There’s a bigger note here about science-fiction rules that everyone planning to submit to Sci-Fi Showdown needs to keep in mind. You need the rules of your science-fiction story to be clear. If they’re not, the reader will always be reading your story through a foggy haze. They’ll only understand about 75% of what you’re putting down. And for anyone who’s watched a messy movie, you know how that feels. You *kind of* understand what’s going on. But not really.
It’s basically the difference between The Matrix (clear rules) and The Matrix Revolutions (messy rules).
Even the labels in Cosmic Sunday don’t make sense. The people who know they’re in the loop are referred to as “AWAKES” and the people who don’t know they’re in the loop are referred to as “STUCKS.” But shouldn’t it be the opposite? The people who know they’re in the loop are the ones who are “STUCK” in a loop. It just feels like we could’ve come up with a better working vocabulary.
And I still can’t wrap my head around 1/12 of the world’s population secretly hiding from the rest of the world that they’re in a loop. There seem to be laws that force you to keep the loop a secret from the Stucks. Except for on Sundays, when you can drive a bus full of children off a ledge and into a fiery death. If the non-loopers are going to forget everything tomorrow, then why not do whatever you want every day? Someone actually asks this question in the script and we get a shaky answer. Something about how loopers will stop finding meaning in life if they do that.
I guess that kinda makes sense but… again… only kinda.
This is not to say I don’t think the writer thought hard about the rules of his universe. There are plenty of examples where you can tell he has a solid understanding of what living in this bizarro universe is like. When two “AWAKES” go out on a date, for example, it isn’t a normal date. It’s the craziest date ever. In one instance, Bill and his date reenact the Honey bunny diner scene from Pulp Fiction, shooting several people dead in the process. That brazen recklessness makes sense to me considering the circumstances.
But I think Hedges bit off more than he could chew. No matter how much you try to understand the rules governing this world, there are way more questions than answers. For example, presumably, the people “STUCKS” kill on one of those dates – their families and friends move on to the next day. Therefore, those families and friends are living the rest of their lives mourning the loss of a family member to a brutal diner murder. Why is that okay for AWAKES to do then? Ditto the mothers and fathers of those kids who died on the school bus.
Hedges would’ve had an easier time if he’d limited the loop to this one town of Saratoga Springs. But I give him props for finding a loop concept that hasn’t been done before. Cosmic Sunday is definitely different from every other loop script out there and if you’re looking to read something different, check it out.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: “It’s” always equals “It is.” The only time you ever use “let’s” is when you’re saying “let us.” For everything else, use “lets.” “Who’s” equals “who is” or “who has.” For everything else, use “whose.” “You’re” always equals “You are.” For everything else, use “Your.” If the word that follows “a” starts with a vowel, you change it to “an.”
