Genre: Whimsical Dramedy
Premise: A young man makes the all important second round of a mission to Mars contest, and begins his training, despite the fact that everyone in town thinks the contest is a scam.
About: This script snuck onto the 2016 Black List, grabbing 6 votes. The project, written by Rebecca Banner, got some initial heat, attaching newbie director Sam Boyd (In A Relationship), but struggled to get money in that all-important financing stage. Contrary to popular belief, Rebecca Banner is not the mother of Marvel cinematic hero, Bruce Banner.
Writer: Rebecca Banner
Details: 106 pages
Ah, the Delusional Adventurist sub-genre. One of the most beloved by writers, yet one of the hardest to execute.
From The Fisher King to Field of Dreams to Nebraska to K-Pax to Safety Not Guaranteed, the temptation of writing these movies is their adult fairy tale nature. We may have outgrown our knights and princesses saving the day. But boy would we like to write about a guy who puts an ad in the paper asking for a partner to go back in time with him.
I wrote a Delusional Adventurist script back in the day about a guy who believed he could use the junk in his dead father’s junk yard to build a satellite receiver that would allow him to talk to his father again. Yeah, um, that script didn’t go anywhere. But boy did I love writing it. This genre really allows you to use your imagination and have fun. And isn’t that what writing movies is all about?
27 year-old Alex lives in a small town in the middle of nowhere and has recently learned that he’s made the all-important second round of the Mission Mars Space Program Contest, which will put him in a ship with a group of fellow astronauts to fly to Mars where they’ll live the rest of their lives. Alex takes the mission very seriously and starts preparing immediately, even though they don’t leave for another 10 years.
Alex’s sister, Liz, considers Alex’s obsession with this Mars mission embarrassing. Everyone knows that the company is a scam. They’ll never be able to put this thing together. So Alex prancing around town telling anyone who will listen that he’s a Mars astronaut is not only making him look bad, but the rest of the family as well.
Alex decides that because a Mars trip is dangerous, he should probably take out a life insurance policy, so he heads into the local insurance office where he meets Daisy, who just moved into town. When Alex tells Daisy he’s going to Mars, she can’t stop laughing, until she realizes he’s serious. Um, okay, she says, I guess we’ll write up a policy for you.
Daisy takes a liking to Alex, but Alex makes it clear that they can’t get too close. He must put all of his focus into training. Even though, based on what’s in the script, Alex’s training amounts to walking around town aimlessly. Eventually, we learn that Alex and Liz had a brother, Christopher, who died last year, and that maybe this is playing into Alex’s Mars’ obsession. When you need a little extra drama, why not throw in a dead family member backstory, right? Will Alex finally face reality and be with this amazing girl? Or is he stuck living in a fantasy world the rest of his life?
So how do you make the Delusional Adventurist genre work? Well, for starters, you have to figure out if your hero is smart or dumb. For example, Ray (Kevin Costner) in Field of Dreams is smart. Kenneth, in Safety Not Guaranteed, is not smart. The story is completely different depending on which route you take. And this was Space Oddity’s biggest misstep. I had no idea who Alex was. At first I thought he was dumb. Then I thought he may have been on the spectrum. Then I thought he was of average intelligence but just in a daze since his brother died.
Let me make something clear to all writers out there. If the reader doesn’t understand who your hero is, you’re screwed. Nothing else you do in the screenplay will matter because we don’t have a handle on the person who’s taking us on the journey. This is why I PLEAD with screenwriters to spend more time on your hero’s introductory scene than any other scene in the script. I don’t care if it takes you THREE MONTHS, as long as, once you’ve figured out that scene, the audience is crystal clear on who your hero is.
Yes, there are times where you’ll obscure your hero for mystery purposes. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the 95% of screenplays where you introduce a hero and we know immediately who they are.
For that reason, it took me a good 60 pages until I had a reasonable feel for who Alex was. By that point, with half the script gone, there was only so much of myself I could invest. Truth be told, there were a number of newbie mistakes in the script. It’s a script based around dialogue but the dialogue is predictable and safe. It’s never bad. But it’s never good either. And if you’re writing a script where the dialogue is one of the main focuses, then the dialogue has to be exceptional.
I knew the script was in trouble when Daisy’s job had absolutely nothing to do with the story. Literally the only reason she holds this position is so Alex can walk into an insurance store and there’s a girl there he can start a relationship with. I can’t remember insurance coming up at all after that scene. Not only that, but the act of getting insurance didn’t make sense for the story! The one thing we know about Alex is that he only cares about going to Mars. He’s selfish. So why would he open a life insurance policy? Who does he care about after he dies? Nobody.
This is the kind of stuff that bothers because it’s an indication that the writer isn’t thinking through what they’re writing. They get an idea – “I know. I’ll have him fall in love with an insurance saleswoman.” But then they don’t think about what that means or why the character would hold that position or why that choice is best for the story. They think the initial inspiration is enough to justify the choice. And that is enough to justify the choice in a first draft. But then you have to challenge those choices and decide if they’re the right choices. In almost every case, they can be improved upon.
The original time machine in Back to the Future was a refrigerator. Had Zemeckis and Gale kept that idea, that movie would’ve been a hell of a lot less exciting.
Unfortunately I was too caught up in all the rookie mistakes to think about the bigger question here, which is how do you write a great Delusional Adventurist script? And I think the answer to that question is a boring one. Or, at least, not the one you’d expect. It’s to make the characters interesting regardless of the storyline. In other words, in the end, it doesn’t matter if the mission is real, if the field is real, if time travel is real. What matters is having a catch with your father. And that payoff only works if you’ve done the hard work on the characters. Like I said, I couldn’t tell you if Alex’s IQ was 90 or 160. That’s how clueless I was about this character. So of course I cared very little about his relationship with Daisy.
With all that said, I’m a sucker for a good Delusional Adventurist script so here’s hoping that the next one gets a worth the read.
[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: “A means to a monologue.” Too many writers treat dead family member backstories as a means to a final act monologue and nothing more. They don’t truly explore grief. They don’t truly explore pain. They don’t know who those characters were before and after their brother died. They merely see plot beats as chess pieces to move around until they can give that final monologue. Look, I get it. It’s a character piece. There’s probably going to be a big monologue at the end. But it needs to be earned! You actually have to feel the things the characters are feeling in order for it to land. Jason Bateman says that the only way he can cry on cue is if he imagines that his kids are dead. I know that’s drastic but who said the arts were easy? If you’re not feeling it when you write it, we’re not feeling it either.
