Genre: Thriller
Premise: An inexperienced Coast Guard Captain is put to the test when a simple submarine drug bust nets her one of the most notorious drug lords in the world.
About: This script finished low on last year’s Black List and comes from newbie writer Alex Sohn, who adapted the story from a Men’s Journal article titled, “DRUG WAR ON THE HIGH SEAS: BEHIND THE COAST GUARD’S BILLION-DOLLAR BUSTS.”
Writers: Alex Sohn (based on the aforementioned article by Hunter Atkins)
Details: 116 pages

Meghan Markle for Andi? Are duchesses still allowed to act?

Hey, look at me. Look at me. I am the captain now.

Three cheers to any script that inspires you to say that out loud to your nearby confused pet. What’s happening right now? Are we really going to get two IMPRESSIVES in a row? What is this, 2010, when I loved anything that had time travel or a talking animal in it? Okay, I still love time travel and talking animals (has there ever been a script with time travel AND talking animals??). But usually when you get down to the Black List basement, you find a bunch of clingers (“clingers” – adjective – definition: screenplays desperately holding onto the bottom of the Black List despite displaying no inherent skill other than knowing how to use Final Draft).

I knew right away that this script had a chance from its logline: “An inexperienced Coast Guard Captain…”. Had the word “inexperienced” not been here, I wouldn’t have opened the script. Why? Because that’s the whole movie right there. That’s where you get your main source of conflict. And identifying a source of conflict that’s going to last you an entire movie is one of the keys to writing a great script. If this is just a regular captain who gets stuck in this situation – or worse, a well-equipped captain – well then we’re pretty confident that they’re going to figure it out. People watch movies to find out what happens next. If you already know what happens next, there’s no reason to watch the movie.

26 year old Andi Mitchell is an Operations Commander on a Coast Guard ship. After the ship picks up four members of a drug boat carrying 400 kilos of cocaine, Andi’s captain delivers her some bad news. A hurricane is coming down the pike and all Coast Guard ships will be needed for rescue. However, they can’t rescue anyone with 4 drug dealers on their boat. So they’re shipping in a first generation iPhone type Coast Guard ship to hold the passengers until they clear extradition.

In other words, while the Coast Guard gets to go off into the hurricane and be all heroic, Andi has to babysit a bunch of tired drug runners. So Andi is given a ragtag B-crew of 10 men and told to hang tight. Not long after the Coast Guard leaves, however, Andi spots a pipe sticking out of the water. It’s a narco sub. Once the sub surfaces, her and her men board it and capture a mysterious man who just happens to be carrying a million dollars with him.

Not long after they bring the man onboard, their radar picks up a dot. A boat coming towards them. Then a second dot. Then five dots. Then ten. Then twenty. Then thirty. Andi decides very quickly that THEY NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE. They redline the ancient boat but the drug boats are gaining. After a chat with the Coast Guard, Andi learns what all the hubbub’s about. They’ve just picked up Salvador Morales, the biggest drug lord in Guatemala.

Out of nowhere, their boat shuts off. It’s too old to handle this Miami Vice sh&%. And with it goes the radio. Not only are they cornered, but they’ve got no way to tell anyone that they’re cornered. Andi charges down to Morales to find out what’s going on. He informs her that these men are not his friends. They’re his enemies. And they’re going to do anything to capture him alive. And if that fails? They’ll just blow up the ship. It will be up to the inexperienced Andi to make sure that doesn’t happen.

When I read a script, I have to have at least one scene I know is going to play like gangbusters in the trailer, and one unforgettable set piece that’s going to play like gangbusters in the movie. “Coast Guard” aces this test. The trailer moment is when the dots start appearing on the radar. One, two, five, ten, twenty, thirty. I love that THAT’S when we realize who they just picked up. They’re not told at first. It’s those dots appearing. That’s when we know this is serious.

The set piece is when they realize they’re going to die unless they can call for help. And Andi gets the idea to swim to a small boat that they’ve managed to take out. Everyone on that ship is dead and they have a radio. So she swims there without being seen, gets on the boat, realizes one of the men is still barely alive, calls for help on the radio, only for the boat to be boarded while she’s on it, forcing her to hide under one of the bodies, and somehow, some way, gets off of the boat alive. A great tense 10 minute set piece.

There’s some fun character work as well. I’m all for big hidden character secrets that are revealed late. But if it’s a random secret, it won’t land. It has to connect with the story in some way. For example, if it turns out Andi accidentally killed her kid in a car crash a year ago – dead child reveal is a VERY COMMON reveal I read in scripts – that can be in any script because of how non-specific it is, and therefore it lands with a thud. But what we learn here is that Andi used to be a major drug addict and gang member. It works because the whole movie is her angrily wanting to take down every single drug runner. So when that reveal comes, we finally understand why.

KYSM. Know Your Subject Matter. I knew I was in good hands right away after reading this line. “They have to stay in international waters until their extradition clears. That could be days. Or weeks.” It might seem like a nothing-line to the casual reader. But I’ve read all the lazy writers who would write a script about the Coast Guard and have no idea what extradition is or how it works. That line gave me the confidence that the writer was on top of this world.

And guys, research isn’t just to placate readers like me. The more you know, the more plot avenues are available to you. Extradition creates a very unique plot situation here, which ends up getting them into trouble. They can’t leave international waters until the extradition clears. So they’re stuck here. Had the writer not known about extradition, then Andi can bring the criminals back to the U.S. and the movie’s over.

And finally, can I just say how great water is for a movie? It traps your characters, infusing your script with drama before you’ve even written anything. You just have to make sure when you write something on water that the execution is great, like it is here, since it’s really hard to shoot on water. There are men and women in Hollywood still scarred by the productions of Waterworld and Titanic. So make sure your script is killer.

[ ] What the hell did I just watch?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the price of admission
[x] impressive
[ ] genius


What I learned: Whenever your script hits a lull (you can feel it as you’re reading it back to yourself), introduce a NEW TICKING TIME BOMB. This will create the script equivalent of a double shot of espresso. Here, we’d been in this standoff with the drug ships for 30-40 pages. It wasn’t getting boring. But the script definitely needed a spark. So what they did was they had one of the boat hands realize that the drug runners were waiting for the cover of nighttime. That’s when they were going to strike. This created an entirely new sense of urgency since they now needed to execute a plan before nightfall.

Might we have another highly reviewed amateur script on Scriptshadow? Read today’s review to find out!

Genre: Thriller
Premise: Trapped in a secluded cabin, a hunter and his daughter fend off attacks from a relentless grizzly bear hell-bent on vengeance for the death of its cub at their hands.
Why You Should Read: I vividly remember the sensation of being stalked by a black bear during one summer visit to the Sierras… Well, stalked is a bit strong – it passed me within grabbing distance. Still, the feeling of power in its gait, the potential explosion of ferocity if it so pleased was unsettling and stuck with me ever since.
Writer: Walon Costello
Details: 84 pages (just to be clear, that this is an UPDATED draft from last week. Walon addressed some of your notes)

I’ve got one question.

Did Walon write this script in one day?

Because Wednesday I reviewed a nature thriller and all I talked about was how a lack of character development hurt the script. I read a nature thriller today and… IT’S ALL CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT. So either Walon read my complaints and wrote this in a day, or he has the ability to freeze time so that he can take as long as he wants to write a script.

I bet you’re wondering what all that character development did. Would it prove that I was right? Or would it turn out that all character development does is slow down a script to an unbearable crawl? Read on to find out!

Our teaser opens with a deer being chased through the woods by something unseen. Then, just as it makes it to a clearing, it’s SMASHED INTO by a car, which goes careening off the road. The driver, a man, is instantly killed. The woman in the passenger seat is going to wish her death was that quick. Because seconds later, a little bear cub comes in and starts nibbling on her dead boyfriend. Then, seconds after that, a much bigger mama bear arrives. And this woman turns into her lunch.

Cut to a week later and Hank (40) along with his daughter, Zoe (20), are driving through those same woods. They make it to an old gas station, where the car from the teaser is being kept until someone can come along and trash it. It’s here where we learn that that car and the people who were in it are the reason Hank and Zoe are here. The woman is Hank’s drug addict ex-wife, and Zoe’s mother. Since she wasn’t found in the wreckage, they’ve come up here to look for her.

The two head up to the family’s cabin which the mom was staying at. This once regal camping fortress is now a barely standing rotted-out piece of garbage. Hank and Zoe use it as a home base to go out and look for mom. They arm themselves just in case, and after a long search, Zoe notices something coming at her out of the corner of her eye, turns and shoots. She’s horrified to see that she’s killed a baby cub.

They get back to the cabin late and decide to stay for the night. But almost immediately, they hear something outside. It’s Mama bear (“Mama”). She’s come to get revenge. At first, Hank doesn’t give her any credit. She’s a freaking bear. Not John Wick. And even if she was the bear version of John Wick, she can’t break into a house. Well, that may be true. But remember, this isn’t exactly Fort Knox. And Mama starts prying for ways in.

Having left the only guns in the car, the two are forced to move around the cabin to stay clear of Mama, who has the added advantage of being a black bear in total darkness. We’re never quite sure where she’s going to pop up next. Finally, she’s able to get into the house. Zoe moves to the bathroom while the injured Hank finds another spot to hide. I don’t want to spoil anything but let me put it this way. Not everyone is getting out of this house alive.

First thoughts?

Overwritten first page!

I kept having to go back and read it over and over again. Walon was trying to be too cute with the wording. It may sound weird but he was TOO DESCRIPTIVE. And in trying to paint a picture, he painted a Picasso. It was angular and tilted and hard to make out what you were looking at.

So things didn’t start well.

However, once we get to Hank and Zoe, the script gets a lot better. Like I said, Wednesday we had no character development. Here, we have a lot. There’s a ton going on with these two. For starters, their wife/mother left them, became a drug addict/prostitute, and now drives around and robs people to feed her habit, along with whatever co-conspirator she can find.

This makes their search party complicated. Lesser writers would’ve had the mom be the perfect mother – her life robbed by the randomness of some angry animal. By making her a drug addict who’d abandoned her family, their connection with her is much messier. The reason why this tends to work better is because it mirrors real life. Real life is rarely drawn with straight lines. The lines are squiggly. And the color between them is gray. Just that choice alone made this feel authentic.

Also, Zoe is newly pregnant. And one of the ongoing themes here is the idea of, should Hank and his wife have had Zoe? They were way too young. They weren’t ready to be adults. And it turns out that maybe it was a mistake. Mom eventually prioritized getting high over parenting. We also learn that it was Hank who initially wanted the abortion. And now Zoe’s in the exact same spot they were, weighing whether she’s ready to be a mom, and using her own less-than-wonderful time on earth to decide if she wants her own kid to go through that hell.

In other words, THERE’S A LOT GOING ON HERE. And Walon is really clever in how he thematically connects their family troubles to the threat. Here these people are, weighing whether it’s right for their children to even be born, while Mother Bear will stop at nothing to avenge the death of her own child.

Another thing I liked that Walon did was he OPENED UP a portion of the CONTAINED THRILLER. I think that when we write contained thrillers, we get this idea that they have to be contained from start to finish, if only to convey to producers that it will be cheap to make. However, I like when contained thriller writers start their scripts OPENED UP so as to create the illusion of a bigger story. Between the teaser and seeing these two drive in and the gas station scene – it made the movie feel bigger than it was. Had Walon started this script with the two of them showing up at the cabin, I’m not sure I would’ve felt the same way about the script.

There were a couple of things I didn’t love. The script does get a little repetitive at times inside the cabin. There are only so many ways to stay away from a window. But the biggest issue was that dad and daughter don’t have anything unresolved with one another. Despite all of the intense stuff with mom, Hank and Zoe seem to be good. And I kept wondering if that could’ve been improved somehow. In fact, a couple of times I thought, “I wonder if this would be better if Zoe was trapped in here with her drug-addict mom who’d abandoned her?” You can imagine how much more tense those conversations would be.

Despite that, I thought this was a good spec. The best Amateur Friday script this year behind Cop Cam. I could easily see this pitched as “Jaws with a bear.” The problem with all the Jaws clones over the years is that they’re too similar to Jaws. This feels just enough like its own thing that you don’t find yourself constantly comparing it to that movie, which is the last thing you want to happen as a writer. You want your script to be your own, not some lesser version of a better movie.

I battled back and forth on this as far as whether to give it a single or double ‘worth the read,’ and I’m going to settle on a single because dad and daughter didn’t have anything to resolve with one another. And it wasn’t just that. It was that Walon was trying to make it seem like they were butting heads despite the fact that there wasn’t any reason to. For example, she kept calling him “Hank” instead of “Dad.” And all I thought was, “Wait, she likes her dad. Why avoid that title when addressing him?” If future drafts would address that, I could easily see bumping up the score.

But this was solid writing. Good job, Walon.

Script link (new draft): Grisly

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Regarding the first page. Remember, all writers overwrite. But the good ones don’t make it LOOK like they overwrote.

A big complaint I had with yesterday’s script was that the character writing was too thin. The extent of the character work was that the main character was grieving the loss of their father. On the surface that sounds like a deep issue to explore. A family death is a tragic experience for most people. But that’s only if you actually explore it. If it’s something mentioned at the beginning of the script and then it never comes into play again, that’s not good character development. To be clear: If nothing “develops” then it’s not character “development.”

I received an interesting response in the comments section pointing out that in these quick thriller and action scripts, you don’t have time to develop characters. I’ve heard this argument quite a bit. And the people who use it actually go one step further. It’s not just that you don’t have time, they argue, but the audience isn’t interested in character development in movies like this. They just want to see volcanoes impale people. Or John Wick throw ninja stars at the bad guys. I understand what they’re saying because it’s partly true. People go to dramas to see character exploration. They go to action movies to see action.

But what they’re forgetting is that the degree to which your audience connects to your characters is the same degree to which they care during the action scenes. Have you ever watched the most amazing big budget action scene ever and yet been totally bored? Chances are, it’s because you felt nothing for the characters involved. Have you ever watched a garden variety action scene and been riveted? Chances are you felt a closeness to the characters akin to the way you feel around your best friends. The only difference between those two scenarios is character development. The writer is doing something with the characters that’s making you feel a greater connection to them.

So where did this “no country for character development in action” rumor begin? I suspect it comes from franchises like Mission Impossible, James Bond, and Fast and Furious. Because, yeah, there isn’t a lot of character development in those films. But that’s because those characters stopped changing a long time ago. These days they’re more like old friends who come around every once in awhile to catch up. This creates the false impression that, well, those characters aren’t changing, so mine don’t need to change either.

And they don’t. There’s no rule that says your character HAS TO DEVELOP. But if you want to create more of a connection between your audience and your story, character development is the bridge that’s going to take you there.

But what is character development? Why do people have such a tough time boiling it down? I don’t know and I don’t care. Because what I’m about to do is tell you the secret to great character development. Are you ready? Here it is: There are two stories going on. The story in your movie and the story in your character. In other words, your character IS A STORY UNTO HIMSELF. Once you internalize that, your character writing is going to increase a hundred-fold.

That’s because you’re not just trying to move your plot from point A to point Z. You’re moving the story within your character from point A to point Z as well. So let’s take a very simplistic view of this and use yesterday’s script as an example. The main character’s dad had recently died. That’s why our hero was going on this trip. Well, how do you build a story WITHIN THE CHARACTER about that? The most obvious way is that they haven’t been able to move past their father’s death yet. So point A is that they’re still consumed by the death of their father. Point Z, then, is that they’ve finally found peace with their father’s death. And there you go. That’s a character’s inner story right there.

Still confused? Go watch the Pixar movie, “Up,” where this exact same inner journey is explored. In that script, the writers explored the hero’s issue through his refusal to connect with others. He’s been so hurt by his wife’s death that he doesn’t let anyone else in. So what happens? A little kid keeps trying to get in and get in and get in, until our hero’s defenses finally break down. By accepting this new friend into his life, he has finally gotten over his wife’s passing. Was this harder to write then simply having an old guy and a kid go on an adventure together? Of course. Which is why most people write that version. But if you want to affect people, you have to write the version that has inner character stories as well. It will take you longer but I promise it will be worth it.

And the great thing about a character’s inner story is that it doesn’t have to be one thing. It can be about moving past something. It can be about a deep set flaw that’s holding someone back. It can be about one’s struggle with an addiction. As long as you explore it in an honest way and that there’s some level of CHANGE in the character (they go from point A to point Z by the end of the script) then you’re writing something better than the average bear.

But how do you find these things, Carson? What kind of inner struggles are going to work in a movie about running from killer robots or hunting down Russian gangsters who killed your cat? The universal kind. The kind all of us go through at various points in our lives. Start with yourself. What are the major flaws holding you back in life? Do you constantly doubt yourself and therefore never take chances? Are you afraid to get close to people so you put up a wall? Do you put your work over your family? If you can’t find anything in yourself that works for your hero, move to friends and family. It’s easier for us to see our friends’ flaws than it is our own. Does someone not stand up for themselves enough? Is someone too close-minded? Does someone spend all their time planning for the future as opposed to living in the present?

Once you understand what a person’s flaw is (Point A) you understand where you need to take them (Point Z). You just have to make sure you check in on the inner story throughout the outer story. If a character only thinks about the future, you’re going to add 7-8 scenes (think of these as “Check In Scenes”) throughout the script where they’re given opportunities to enjoy the present and argue with other characters about why their way is the right way. I’m making it sound easy even though it’s not. You have to do all of this in a way that’s seamlessly integrated into the plot. The conversations can’t be on the nose. They have to seem spontaneous and organic to the place and time. But I’m telling you, your script is going to be better for it. Think of it this way: When you include a character’s inner story, the audience is getting two stories for the price of one.

And I’ll finish this by reiterating something it took a long time to learn: Hollywood has a million people who can put together a plot. But there are only around 100 who can create compelling characters. Which is why those writers are the most coveted. Do with that info what you will! :)

Genre: Nature Thriller
Premise: (from Hit List) A young woman grieving the death of her father, along with several other strangers, must survive the Cascade Mountains in the aftermath of a catastrophic natural disaster…only to realize that their greatest threat isn’t nature itself, but someone within their group. Inspired by the true violent history of the famed Cascade Mountain Range.
About: This script made last year’s Hit List with 17 votes, putting it near the middle of the list. It hasn’t yet sold.
Writer: Larry Lasky
Details: 93 pages

Rising star Sarah Snook for Hannah?

The nature thriller is a legit genre.

Get a few characters (or even one character), throw them into an ugly nature-centric debacle, then let the drama unfold!

However, what I’ve found with these scripts, is that they often feel like the little cousin of the more fantastical “people in peril” scripts. How can trying to survive a hike compete with a bunch of huge dudes being hunted down in a forest by an alien predator, you know?

So Lasky’s decision to explore a “go-between” version of these two worlds was a clever one. This isn’t, “a group of hikers get lost and run out of water then must find their way back to society.” There’s giant toxic smoke clouds chasing them in one direction and slithering pools of lava coming at them from the other.

And Lasky knows how to get you pumped for it. If you don’t want to read this script after reading the first page, you’re one stingy reader. That snazzy opening gives you a quick rundown of the Cascadia Subduction Zone, the 700 miles that connect the Pacific seabed with the Pacific Northwest. While we’ve been freaking out about the San Andreas faultline this whole time, it was recently determined that Cascadia is much worse.

20-something Hannah Rhodes is heading up to the Cascade Mountains to do the group hike she used to do with her dad all the time. Ever since her father died, Hannah’s been having issues with her mother to the point where they’re not talking. So she’s got a lot of emotions going on when she shows up for the trek.

She meets the rest of the hikers: Ryan, a cute guy her age, Nico and Gwen the couple who can’t stop making out, Javi, the cool motorcycle guy, Philip and Mei, a Chinese couple, and Walt, the old timer. After they exchange pleasantries, their guide, 30-something way-too-intense Shane Decker, shows up. Decker’s like, “Let’s roll” and off they go.

Mere hours after they begin their trek, an earthquake hits. Decker says not to worry. This is a high-frequency earthquake zone. But later on, another one hits. And this one is HUGE. How huge? They watch a mountain in the distance crumble like an anthill. A few minutes later, Philip is swallowed by a sinkhole turning his wife into an #instantwidow. And if shattering mountains and giant sinkholes aren’t bad enough, an inactive volcano explodes, sending mucho lava their way.

This turns Bad Boy Decker into Hannibal Lecter for some reason. He’s ready to kill Hannah until she reveals a secret: her mother is a Senator! Decker believes that if they can find an area with reception, Hannah can call her mom and get them on the Priority Rescue Express. So he begrudgingly decides to work with everyone to escape the mountain.

After a determined wall of toxic smoke and a very hungry mountain lion, we find out that Decker isn’t Decker. He’s some guy named Loeb who’s smuggling diamonds that he may have killed someone to get. Once the cat’s out of the bag, Loeb starts killing people. Hannah and the others try to escape but Loeb hunts them down. Eventually they realize the only way they’re going to ditch this psycho is to kill him. Who’s going to come out on top – the hikers, the killer, or the mountain?

Here’s the thing with Tremble.

It’s not a bad script.

But it’s too predictable.

One of the ways I judge a script is I say, is this a script that any screenwriter could’ve written?

Remember that your duty as a screenwriter isn’t to write the version of the story that anyone could write. It’s to write the one that’s a step beyond what everyone would write. Or else why do we need you? If we can hire 99 other screenwriters who would give us the exact same thing, why do we need you?

Let me give you an example. You’re writing an action movie. There’s going to be a car chase somewhere in your movie. The average screenwriter writes a truck chasing a car down a highway. The EXCEPTIONAL screenwriter has a truck chasing a motorcycle down a viaduct. Aka, Terminator 2.

We even get the ubiquitous shot in Tremble of a giant wave crashing into a city. When I see that? I know I’m dealing with a writer who isn’t digging deep enough. You’ve got to think beyond the image that’s been in every single destruction movie trailer for the last 20 years.

And, unfortunately, this predictability extended into the characters. Decker shows up and the first thing he does is tells everyone to eff off because the tour’s canceled. In other words: Instant Villain. If you were someone who just killed someone to steal a bunch of diamonds, wouldn’t the better plan be to act nice and inconspicuous? Not only that, but imagine how much more appealing the role is to an actor if the character starts off nice and helpful, then midway through becomes angry and psychotic? That increases the value of that role by 1000%.

The secret sauce that makes these scripts thrive (as opposed to dive) is the character work. Because even if Lasky had come up with a couple of great original set pieces here, ensembles require intricate character work that goes deeper than snap surprises. Hannah’s mom being a Senator. Decker being able to speak Mandarin. These are surface level secrets that affect the movie for less than 3 seconds. To connect with the audience, the exploration needs to go deeper.

Take a book like “Wild,” which was also about hiking and overcoming a parent’s death. What made that book this monster bestseller was that the main character was fighting an overwhelming sense of fear and doubt. She didn’t even think she could make it through the first leg, much less the entire West Coast. Watching her slowly believe in herself and overcoming that deep set flaw is what made the book so emotionally satisfying.

Look, I get that we’re not all Hemingway. And even Hemingway wrote some bad novels. But the one thing I require when I read a script is that the writer give their all. If I recognize two or three major situations from other popular movies or TV shows, I know the writer isn’t digging deep. For example, the Asian couple where one of them couldn’t speak English. That was a major plot thread in Lost. Again, I don’t think this was bad. I just feel like Lasky could’ve done more with it.

[ ] What the hell did I just read?
[x] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: Here’s a line from the script: “Far off, an ENTIRE MOUNTAIN CRUMBLES, SHATTERED LIKE GLASS.” When you’re writing something as enormous as an entire mountain crumbling, you need more than one line to describe it. When HUGE EVENTS happen, you want to EXPAND THE AMOUNT OF SPACE THEY’RE GIVEN ON THE PAGE, not send them off to the corner for a screenplay time-out.

We’re sticking with Star Wars, folks, since that was our theme for the Scriptshadow Newsletter. If you didn’t receive the newsletter, go here to find out how. Now I’m well aware that today’s topic is a contentious one. I never thought a screenwriting term would become synonymous with the destruction of one of the biggest franchises of all time. Yet Rian Johnson’s brazen decision to zag at every plot point we thought The Last Jedi was going to zig on, introduced the term, “subverting expectations” to the general public.

What expectations am I talking about? Instead of Luke accepting the lightsaber, he throws it away. Instead of the main villain thriving and growing stronger, he’s killed in the middle of the movie. Instead of Rey’s parents being relevant to the mythology, she’s a nobody. Instead of Luke using his massive knowledge of the Force to battle Kylo and defeat the First Order, he’s a hologram who was never really there.

While some moviegoers found these choices exciting, most fans had a problem with some or all of them. Which is too bad. Because you know what? Subverting expectations is one of the single most important tools in a screenwriter’s arsenal. If you don’t know how to subvert expectations, you shouldn’t be writing movies. The opposite of a subverted expectation? Is a met expectation. And if you meet expectations over and over again in any script, you are boring your audience. These people didn’t come to your movie to see exactly what they expected. They came to be surprised on some level. That’s the exciting part of moviegoing. It’s, “Luke, I am your father.” It’s “I see dead people.” It’s Thanos gets killed within the first 20 minutes of the movie.

So the question becomes, why is it that Rian Johnson’s expectation subverting failed so badly yet there are many instances in film where subverted expectations not only worked, but created iconic moments? And how can you effectively use subverted expectations in your own screenwriting?

The first problem here is something you won’t have to deal with until later on in your careers when you become a 7-figure quote screenwriter. Rian was playing with a beloved world and characters. Therefore, he was subverting expectations based not just on this movie, but on many that came before it. I don’t think Rian respected that as much as he could’ve. He seemed to be more into doing what he wanted rather than what was right for the franchise.

However, one of his early choices is something that is relevant to any writer. And that is never prioritizing a surprise over character. Luke throwing the lightsaber away in a comical manner isn’t something Luke Skywalker would do. Now Rian would probably argue that it’s something HIS version of Luke Skywalker would do. But it’s clear at this point that he fundamentally didn’t understand the character. The actor who played Luke publicly contested this over 30 times. My feeling is that Rian wanted Luke to throw that lightsaber over his back so badly that he created that moment then retroactively built his Luke around that choice. The lesson here is to get into your character’s head and be honest with what he would do in that moment. If you choose to subvert expectations in a way that is inconsistent with that person, the audience won’t buy it.

The next big lesson with expectation subverting is that you don’t want to do it too much. Because if you do, two things happen. One, we start to EXPECT the subvert, which defeats the whole purpose of it. And two, we become AWARE OF THE WRITER. A subverted expectation is a heightened moment that draws attention itself. Do it over and over and the audience starts thinking about the person doing it rather than characters experiencing it, which breaks the suspension of disbelief. The very nature of subverting expectations requires that you carefully pick and choose the moments when you do so. Rian relied on subverting so often that each successive surprise lost impact.

To expand on that, you need to meet the expectation to subvert the expectation. Stories are a dance. And most dances follow a set sequence of steps. This is why it’s okay to write 30 pages of screenplay that follow a traditional storytelling pattern. You’re luring the audience into a sense of comfort. But there are times when you’re dancing that you improvise or break into freestyle. And the same goes for storytelling. Every once in awhile, you throw something at the audience that they don’t see coming. Let the audience be right about a bunch of things so that when you do subvert an expectation, it’s a surprise. Rian was so set on making some arthouse Star Wars masterpiece that he forgot the basics. And the basics dictate that, for most of your screenplay, you are following a structure.

This next decision by Johnson is probably the biggest because it implied a disregard for the well-being of the Star Wars brand. And that was killing Snoke in the middle of the movie. Clearly, this was going to be Rian’s defining moment, the thing that pushed Last Jedi into ‘classic’ territory. But by destroying the ultimate villain, he drastically lowered the stakes. If the puppet master stops pulling the strings, there’s no more puppet show. Which is why YOU DON’T WANT TO SUBVERT AN EXPECTATION IF IT LEAVES YOU STRANDED ON AN ISLAND LATER ON. Sure, it would be shocking to kill John Wick in the middle of John Wick 3 and have Halle Berry’s character take over the protagonist role. But is that in the story’s best interest? Make sure to project where your subverted expectation takes you before you write it. Because, if you’re not careful, you could kill your movie right then and there.

Finally, we have what Rian was accused most of, and that’s subverting expectations for the sake of subverting expectations. What does that mean? It means that the act of subverting the audience’s expectation is more important to the writer than writing what is best for the story. It means going into a scene and saying, “I need to do the opposite of what the audience thinks I’m going to do. I’ll try to have it make sense but even if it doesn’t, I’m doing it.” For a movie to work, the choices need to feel organic to the story. The characters need to act in a way that’s consistent with how they’ve been acting. Once you start messing with that cause you want to jolt the audience, you’re playing with fire.

Now that does’t mean there aren’t shades of gray here. Sometimes you know your script needs a jolt and maybe that jolt doesn’t entirely jibe with what your characters would do, but you go back and add a few set-ups that make it, if not believable, plausible. But if you get sloppy, you get the Charlize Theron Is A Superhero Too twist in Hancock. I don’t know if Rian set out to subvert expectations just to do so, but if this were a court case, there sure is a lot of evidence to support that claim.

Okay, let’s wrap this up. Screenwriters everywhere – YOU SHOULD BE SUBVERTING EXPECTATIONS IN YOUR SCREENPLAYS. To what degree will depend on the genre, the type of movie you’re writing, and how good you are at the practice. Just like some writers are better at dialogue than others, some writers are better at subverting expectations than others. They effortlessly do it in a way that’s both invisible and believable. Just remember that, above all else, a subverted expectation must feel organic. As long as the choice is a natural extension of the story, we’ll love it. Now go subvert away!

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