HOLY WAR - Sci-Fi Thriller

[Ambrose Chapel]

I thought I ought to add the logline in case people thought this was something other than a near-future sci-fi thriller. It's not a script about the terror war. And this may point out the fact that I need a new title. Anyway, here is a modified - thanks to the GITS members suggestions - logline:

In a near-future world shattered by an alien invasion, a survivor stumbles on a group of disabled military vets holding their abandoned VA Hospital and joins them as the invaders lay siege.

[echenry]

Ambrose Chapel,

I hope I don't offend you right off the bat, but this script, as it stands now, reads more like a B-grade sci-fi action/adventure movie, then something a Hollywood studio would invest big bucks in to make a tent-pole movie.

The good:
1) This script becomes more interesting AFTER the aliens start really doing things post page 67.
2) You're in familiar territory: differing groups coming together to ward off foes that threat a large group of people's existence.
3) Good opening image: trap-door spider taking a paralyzed insect to its home underground.

Big picture changes:
1) First half of the script with the two competing groups of people is fairly dull. I think you should introduce your aliens interfacing with these people MUCH earlier than you have it now.
2) Characters too thin. Ambrose Chapel, what inner character dramas do you want your audience to respond to? Early on I THOUGHT it might be Mik and Angie, but that goes nowhere in ACT II. So where is the human connection?
3) Bizarre fight scenes in ACT I with crippled people is a real credibility stretch; a hard sell. Really makes this story come across as laughable. IF you keep the "caners," and all the other cripples in future drafts I'd make them even more ridiculous. Sellout out for b-grade movie fun.

Suggestions moving forward:
1) Study screenwriting form books: David Trottier's "The Screenwriters Bible," Christopher Riley's "The Hollywood Standard," and Karl Iglesias' "Writing for Emotional Impact."

The biggest opportunity for improvement in your writing is in how to break-up master scenes and make action easier to follow by readers, such as myself or people with $$ looking to buy a script like this. Work on your craft. Study "vertical writing."

I would have like to have seen more secondary sluglines in this script. Definitely embed more IMPLIED camera directions in lines of description. Do you know what I'm talking about?

2) Change the title. on the surface, given where we are now as a society, the title "Holy War" makes me think this story has some kind of Muslim extremist accent, which it doesn't. There are battles in this script, to be sure, but there is no "holy" war. If I'm missing something, please feel free to cue me in, Ambrose Chapel.

3) Decide whether or not you want this script to be a b-grade movie, OR if you think through more drafts you can raise this up to be a big-budget sci-fi action movie. I'd go with b-grade sci-fi, but you're the author...

Writing a post-apocalyptic story takes guts. And one with aliens no less! Wish you nothing but the best moving forward, Ambrose Chapel. Thanks for posting your script!

- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA

[Ambrose Chapel]

E.C.

Thanks. This is the second script I wrote, older than I want to admit. It has had a few touch-ups, but it's essentially the same.

Yes, I understandyour "secondary slug-line" thing so that the action is broken down and clearer. It'll up the page count, though, probably 4-5 pages.

The story needs to set up the handicapped fighters as formidable prior to the appearance of the aliens so that there is a base-line from which to assess the characters' chances against the new enemy. That's why they are in the ongoing struggle against the "normals."

Also, the opening is all action playing to a fresh audience finding its bearings, so I don't think it has a chance to get boring. The aliens appear in act 1, so they are still entering inside "the legal limit." If I take out the struggle against the "normals" I see the story becoming much more likely to get laughs in the wrong places because the audience would see the handicapped characters going up against these formidable alien super-creatures, with no prior set-up as to the handicapped humans' capabilities, no "base-line" as I call it. It would be even more incredible, more of a stretch. So the opening depends on the initial action stuff in order for the later action stuff to become accepted.

I mentioned the title thing you commented on in my comments above.

I don't see this story as anything more than an action picture. But, then, other than production values, the story in ALIEN, for example, is no different: people against a monster. In fact, ALIEN is almost a direct lift of IT: THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE. Other than character and plot minutia, it is the same movie right down to the end climax, but in ALIEN's case, the idea is slicked up.

The opening battle stuff is not meant to be laughable, but the idea of using handicapped fighters is fairly "out there," so it could draw kind of a nervous ("is this kinda thing really okay?") reaction. I see it in the same vein as BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, BUCKAROO BANZAI, or DEATH PROOF - escapist entertainment. That's the basis for the outrageousness of having a cast of handicapped heroes. It's not supposed to be a totally serious and respectable alien invasion movie - is there such a thing?

It comes down to whether the audience can suspend its disbelief enough, whether it can accept such a bizarre idea as "half-men" fighting "whole men" and then, later, "men-plus," the aliens. And you seem unable to accept the idea. Maybe no one can. But I was interested in stretching the concept of the alien invasion story. Merely writing another one just like other ones was not something I wanted to do.

Thanks, again.