Genre: Sci-fi/Thriller
Premise: In the future, crime-fighting has been taken to the next level with “Vision,” a government project that allows specially trained agents to watch everything we do – and it’s all totally legal.
About: “Vision” went out a month ago and while it hasn’t sold yet, it probably will. Writer-director brothers Alex and David Pastor already have a big writing project coming out, Self/Less, which stars Ryan Reynolds as a body-hopper. I think with Vision they plan to direct it as well, which should push it through the system a lot faster (a naked spec takes forever to move through development – if you have directors attached, that eliminates half the battle). The Pastors first broke on the scene with their 2009 horror film, Carriers, which starred Chris Pine and followed four friends fleeing a viral pandemic.
Writers: Alex & David Pastor
Details: 108 pages (revised draft – 4/29/15)
So the other day I wrote an article about “spec-friendly” screenplays, the type of screenplays that do well on the spec market. These scripts are fast, fun, and easy to grasp.
Which stands in stark contrast to scripts built off of book adaptations, or assignments that come through the studio and prodco systems. In those environments, you’re working with people who are guiding you. They are therefore more patient and open to complicated story developments (and actually might encourage them).
Vision plays in the Sci-fi and Thriller genres (two genres that sell a lot of scripts), it’s really fast (you’ll struggle to find any paragraph over 3 lines), the script is built on a clear strong goal, it’s got loads of urgency, it doesn’t require a ton of concentration to keep up with – in that sense it’s about as “spec-friendly” as a script can get.
So then why didn’t it work for me? Well, it turns out that all spec-friendly screenplays have one giant weakness – a pitfall that’s easier to fall into than a never-used gym membership. What is that pitfall? Let’s discuss Vision’s plot first and then we’ll work on saving you from imaginary workouts.
The year is 2034 and the Snowden sub-culture that scared the bejeezus out of the average American in 2015 has morphed into something far freakier. Back in 2024, there was a nuclear attack on Chicago that killed a million people. After that, people were willing to give up a little freedom if it meant plutonium-free trips to the park.
And hence the Vision Project was born. Vision allows specially trained agents to watch over every single camera in the city to identify crimes before, during, or right after they happen – allowing cops to catch criminals instantaneously.
Our Vision controller protagonist is Leo Kruczynzki, a 35 year old guy who believes in the cause. And he’s good at what he does. The opening sequence shows Leo tracking down a murderer using a number of visual and aural monitors throughout the city (he locates a gun shot by triangulating the sound through three separate pedestrian recordings). In conjunction with his ground agents (every Vision Jockey needs’em), Leo’s pretty much unstoppable.
But everything changes when Leo spots Amanda, his former wife who disappeared on him one day. The red-headed Amanda has just been involved in a cop shooting. She makes a run for it and Leo must decide whether to use his fancy-schmancy Vision tools to capture or aid her.
Using some Vision magic, he gets Amanda on the phone, where he learns she’s part of a resistance and she’s found evidence of some major government plan – evidence the government will do anything to destroy.
So Leo has to make a choice – ditch his superiors and join the resistance – or do what’s “right” and protect the American people.
So what’s that big danger when writing a “spec-friendly” script? Simple.
GPS (GENERIC PLOT SYNDROME)
When your story moves spec-quickly, when your description is limited, when you’re playing to the impatient crowd, there’s not a lot of room for character exploration. Character development is mostly relegated to character choice, character action, and character reaction. And while you can still do a lot of cool stuff with those options, you’ll never have that scene in American Beauty where a character breaks down while watching a video of a bag flying in place.
And “Vision” falls victim to that in a big way. My biggest fear when opening this was that it was going to be Eagle Eye 2. And while we’re approaching those themes from a slightly different angle, that’s basically what it is. A lot of running around with very little plot and almost no ingenuity.
When you’re writing that spec thriller, I think the one area where you can stand out is in your plot choices – in the ways you twist and turn and evolve your plot. Because, as we’ve established, it’s hard to do much of anything anywhere else. So I was hoping for more exciting twists and turns here, plot developments I hadn’t seen before. Instead I got the standard:
1) Someone knows a secret about the government.
2) There’s a flash drive that contains this information.
3) They have to find the flash drive.
4) The flash drive says the government is going to attack the people.
5) Our protagonist has to prevent the attack.
The story beats here were just too “Screenplay 101 3-Act Thriller.”
I know some people didn’t like the Source Code film, but Source Code the spec was one of the best specs ever written. And a big reason for that was that they played with the plot more. They developed rules (the mission resets every 8 minutes – our main character stuck in a mystery bay) you weren’t used to, which allowed them to go places that kept surprising you.
Vision was the opposite. It was set up as a standard thriller from the get-go and it never tried to be anything more than that. Which was frustrating. I think one of your duties as a writer is to anticipate what the reader/viewer is expecting and then GIVE THEM SOMETHING ELSE. I’ve seen Tarantino mention this approach in a number of his interviews. I just wish more writers would challenge themselves to do the same.
With that said, this script is still a better read than your average amateur thriller. We may know what’s going to happen, but the writing is slick. The beats come at you when they’re supposed to. There’s an urgency here (the entire thing is basically happening in real time) that makes the story move. It feels like a screenplay, and more importantly, a movie. So there is something to learn as a writer.
But it’s one thing to write a screenplay that looks and feels like a professional screenplay. It’s quite another to write a screenplay that surprises, moves, and wows people. I wish the Pastor brothers took a bit more time and tried to make this the latter.
[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius
What I learned: Every thriller needs that “there’s no going back moment.” You need to add that scene where your protagonist does something where going back to his normal life is now impossible. That way, we know he’s fucked and that he has to commit to the cause. This raises the stakes considerably. Here in Vision, one of Leo’s co-workers walks in and sees that he’s working against the company. Leo makes a quick decision to kill his co-worker. There’s definitely no turning back after that.
