Better This Way by Herbert George - Short - A simple experiment devolves into chaos when a scientist travels back in time to prevent the Holocaust. - pdf, format

The 2nd script I've read about killing Hitler and the consequences of doing so... they are eerily similar.

Again a nice read and creative story and again I'll say as I replied in the other one, it's very close to a  Twilight Zone episode "Cradle of Darkness"

Good job on entering

Mark

To take down Adolf and the Nazis is a pretty big subject for a short, and all in, I think you've done a pretty good job of condensing it.

The different variants of Cassandra's character gets to be a bit confusing (no doubt intended), but she's saying that Eli should not keep jumping in order to avoid intersecting realities, and yet she's contributing to that, presumably, by jumping and chasing him? Is that intended as an ironic logic or is it simply down to the fact she's not changing anything (unlike him) and therefore it doesn't count? That's my main question - no real suggestions because it seems pretty neat and tody as it is.

The whole first page of exposition is unneeded and a little jarring. Consider replacing it with something else.

Besides the mumbling characters and the cliched 'kill Hitler' story, this actually wasn't too bad. Enjoyable and a twist at every corner which is a nice addition to keep you reading. I liked this which is enough I suppose. Seems like a nice amount of research went into it also. Good job.

Code CASSANDRA (V.O.) It�s useful to think of time not as a straight line, but as a series of strings pulled taut. [b]Like a sort of infinite harp.[/b]

The part in bold is crap. Like a sort of? Sort of is the same as saying like. They both mean the same thing. Makes the character sound young and stupid.

Code CASSANDRA This is what we believe to be a vast array of alternate universes within our measurable range. Of course the real program is a network of constantly varying equations. So what you see here is [b]basically[/b] just a pretty picture.

Get rid of the basically. It again makes her sound stupid... when she is supposed to be the one that knows. She's giving the lecture. Make her more positive, more assured.

Code Rows of computers sit in precise uniform.

Bad sentence.

The way they time jump I saw in a film not too long ago. Just googled and I see that it was Men in Black. At this juncture, I'm also thinking what was the point in the first 3.5 pages.

Code ELI Ow! Fuck. Thought the jump would slow me down more.

This line of dialogue is unrealistic and unnecessary.


Got to page 8. Completely shocked that he could kill a small boy. Even shooting the boy is just a bad a crime as anything the German's did.


I always find it amusing when it is assumed that killing Adolf Hitler would have stopped the Holocaust, as though he were solely responsible. Hitler was merely representative of many German's feelings during that period. Indeed, Hitler himself was brainwashed by the politics of the day. The Jewish betrayal during world war one was blamed on they losing the war... and people that had lost family members all blamed it on that betrayal. If it wasn't Hitler, it would have been someone else. Hitler was not by any means a catalyst, but merely the man chosen to lead as he was charismatic and had real passion. Plenty of other men could have done the same. In many ways, Hitler was an idiot. Glad to see that you have realised an approximation of that in this story.

Written well. Probably the best so far in terms of actual writing. I think I know who this is from the drag. There's a certain drag to this writer's work that I recognise. For me it moves just a tad too slowly... but at the same time is well told. The structure on this one is good. I think this is my favourite so far. It's clear some thought has gone into this one.

As I go...

Writing is good...much better than the vast majority.

A little intricate and expositional early on, but still well set up, researched, and written.

Page 3 - a little too dialogue heavy for me, and I'm not a fan of 2 unnecessary wrylies in a row.

Page 4 - OK, the setuip is over and now we're back in time.  Pretty well done overall, but for me, both characters are way too serious, although they appear to be having a conversation between 2 peeps who do know each other.  I just don't really feel much from either, and based on all the dialogue, I think I should.

I don't like Eli talking out loud to himself, as it always comes off as cheese.

Page 5/6 - Hmmm, well, now these 2 peeps sem to have more personailty, but I'm not buying it completely, and I'm also a little confused.  But, it's still reading well and holding my interest.

Page 8 - well done with the German dialogue!  Great attention to detail.

Ballsy killing of a young Hitler.  Well done!

Page 10 - misisng "me" in Eli's dialogue

Too much expostion for me, but I guess it's necessary, based on the structure you chose.

Page 12 - getting a little over the top here with teh wig and the like, but I'm still with you.

Page 13 - missing "you" in Cassandra's dialogue.

Well, it's obviously well written, well researched, and very well thought through.  Kudos for that.

Your characters grew personality as well and I have to say I';m very impressed over all.  Did I love it?  No, but I'm not really into the time jumping stories, because for me, there's too mcuh to consider and all the rules of reality are thrown out the window.

Fantastic efort, any way you look at it.  You took a cliche topic of killing Hitler, and gave it your own spin and you succeeded in all you went after.

Loads of exposition at the beginning.. in chunks. It seems in dealing with the fantastic things us scribes sometimes feel it necessary to overexplain and overkill in dialog. Sometimes you just got to say 'roll with it'. The best time travel movies don't over explain or over complicate. As a result of the early dialog, the read...slows...down...to...a...wounded...snail...

Yes, killing young Hitler was gutsy. Now kill off Himmler...well, nobody went that far. Why not?
I couldn't get into this. Tried. Failed.
Sorry. Left early.

Really enjoyed this one. Took a very cliched idea, but went down the more hardcore, time-travelling route, with the whole multiverse/ many worlds interpretation of the concept. Solid stuff.

The only thing I didn't really get, was the whole Jewish star being placed on Eli's body after he died? I mean, what was the significance of that?

I do wish that you made the ending a little bit more ironic. Maybe you could have made Cassie inadvertently cause Hitler's hatred for Jews. Maybe Hitler could have seen her murdering Eli, whilst holding the star, then this image always haunted him, etc. and made him think that all Jews are evil, etc. Just a little thought.

But decent stuff regardless.

Below are a few page specific notes:

Page 4- Didn't like it when Eli talked to himself ("Ow! Fuck. Thought the jump would slow me down more") as it sounded really unnatural.

Page 10- Eli: "Yes. Treat like I’m in grade school." Should be "treat ME".

Page 12- Didn't really like the wig part. Came across pretty corny.


Great effort here. Congrats.

I like this idea, but feel it's too small for a short.  I suppose it wasn't bad, all things considered.

This, the titanic one, and JFK are my favorites so far.

Also, how many times do we have to cut away from a gun shot only to see a flock of birds fly from a tree?  



--Steve

It feels a bit pretentious to me.
as I read I find myself not knowing what they are talking about.
I didn't understand what Casandra wanted when she talked about being authorised to have Eli in. Then she's Melanie and she's explaining Nazi's to Eli - it's a bit much of the info.
And maybe this info doesn't grab me... I don't know.
Frankly, I'm not a fan of the big kill Hitler stories. So, you shouldn't take me seriously.
But if you rewrite I think you could scale it down in terms of dialog (it reads a bit pompous and I was imagining Casandra in red leather suit for some reason).
Once you do that, I think, it'll read much better.
I wonder if you need every scene (the ones at the beginning) - don't think they pay off at the end.

As soon as I realised this was a Kill Hitler story I groaned but to be fair you’ve done a really good job. There is too much exposition, especially at the beginning. You don’t really need to explain everything so early on, the audience can piece things together if you give them enough clues.

Eli talking to himself just reads so wrong.

However, from the point he gets back in time this is where it picks up. You put together the complexities of multi-dimensional timelines in a way I could follow, was interested in and understood. That’s not easy to convey in a script at all.

I do feel something else should happen at the end, like is suggested above if the interference in time influenced Hitler in some way that would give the ending more ‘umph’.

But yeah, the writing and the technical structure is spot on – an overall very solid and good entry for me.

Mark

I was getting into the first couple of page, but at page 4 was getting a little impatient to see something more actually happen...

...And then things started to happen. I liked your approach on time travel and how everything worked into the event you chose to change. I think this was well thought out and paced nicely.

There was a bit of exposition here and there, but it kind of needed it to fit everything into 15 pages and without leaving the reader baffled, IMO.

Don't get me wrong, parts of this did confuse me, but there was enough information given that I was happy enough with the ending.

Though, if memory serves correct (I couldn't be stuffed looking it up) but didn't Adolf hate blondes with blue eyes (I don't know much about this and have never studied it, so please excuse my ignorance) because I thought you could have used Cassandra in the end, as a blonde with blue eyes, to make her presence in Adolf's life, at his young age, a detrimental vision, kind of like a nightmare for him. Without changing the actual ending - this still would have added to it by portraying that Cassandra was in fact the one who had had the impact on the way things had originally turned out with Adolf being who he was and hence the future to come - that's the kind of stuff that thinking about it could send you bonkers - the future wouldn't have been that way if they hadn't have interfered, yet the only reason they interfered was because of the future - doing my head in already.....lol.

Anyhow...good entry, well done

Renee  

Better this way

Logline - I expected at least one to go down this route, the question is whether you can be different

I liked this but...it is a little obvious that the changing something bad, makes it worse, however that's not always an issue as in some ways that's what time travel raises as an issue, ie the suggestion that mucking around in the past is not a good idea. Also the old butterfly effect, that one change can affect another etc

I could have guessed the outcome would be to let him live before I read this, but it was well put together. Indeed, I liked the explanation for this, even if we have to be told.

The inclusion of the woman added a dimension the script needed but i suppose the challenge is to make this different to what we expect.

Decent effort.

Cheers

Best so far, based on what I've read. Echoes of Butterfly Effect in that Eli keeps on making things worse every time he improves.

Writing was stand-out, and the end, whilst I didn't see it coming (in that way) was pitched spot on, with its echoes of Adolf's demise, and Adolf's appearance.

The twists were well timed, and kept the story hungry. I liked Eli missing his landing, and I liked his humane response to killing Adolf as a child. Birds worked for me and were a simple and effective reference.

Set up was well referenced (at the end), and I think there'd need to be a strong entry to eclipse this.

Ok. Very ambitious in many ways.

You used the Cassandra effect. Cassandra knows about the future but cannot change, then finally it works, she can kill Eli. So, she existed in many strings, because existence works that way.

Cool, but that's the illogical thing here, too. If Cassandra let little Adolf live, so that Göring doesn't come to power and finally Eli can't build another radical group which kills children, then it wouldn't make sense that Cassandra still kills him. Because all the strings are another version of reality, not? All the scenarios should be there the way you explained it, on another string.

Cassandra mentioned he would destroy strings/worlds with his jumps… Maybe that's the point.
I guess it's not completely logical constructed.

There's a bit overwritten. The dialogue, the document-talk for example.  The intro feels like Cassandra talks to a group of people.

No problem, cause you really done a lot with time travelling here. That was the challenge… Very fast play, much happens. Well done

One of my favorites (or, as I'm writing these days) at least one of my top five to seven.

There wasn't anything overly surprising here - but what was done was well executed.  The interlap of the alternative jumps/universes blended well, and I cared about the characters.  Which - of course - is the hallmark of a good story.  So - kudos!  Doing a time travel piece about Hitler (sort of) has the potential to be hokey, trite and/or maudlin.  You pulled this off in a very satisfactory way.  Kudos!

--Wonka (J)

I very much like the harp image and the characters of Cassandra and Eli are interesting.  I have difficulty imagining this as an entertaining short film -- on the other hand, it could be a very good opening teaser to a work that develops the parallel and possibly intersecting stories hinted at in this work.

Not sure about prelap in a spec script. Especially on the first page. It's a nice device but works far better on screen than on the page.

Being over familiar with the show 'Only Fools and Horses' makes me associate the name Cassandra with Rodney's girlfriend. Particularly since Roger Lloyd Pack died the other day. Rest in Peace, Dave!

Erm, if you've no idea what I'm on about you are not alone. Back to the script...

This was going along quite well. Bit overwrought for me, but nevertheless one of the better ones. Ah, the Men in Black 3 style of jump.

It's an interesting premise and I quite like it. But the logic wobbles a bit, in my humble. On page six she sounds like she's taking for our benefit, rather than from her own point of view. If she's a seasoned time traveller who did the things she says she did, I think her point of view would be different. She may well be angry, but she wouldn't talk the way she did, as she knows more than he does she'd explain it differently. You may disagree.

'A serious looking boy.' That did make me laugh.

On page 8 you have a German speaker speak German. Well, that's fine and dandy for all those who do speak German but pointless for those who don't.  It's better to write it in English then clarify it's spoken German in parenthesis.

After all that moaning I must say I rather liked this. It's one of the more ambitious scripts and yes, it almost disappears up it's own bottom at times, but I think a lot of the ideas and scenes here are really good.

Here's one of my grumbles about this though. Why's it always Hitler? How about you go back and kill Woodrow Wilson? He got re-elected on the the slogan of keeping America out of the war then promptly got into the war. And we think our politicians are deceptive. If he hadn't you'd have no Treaty of Versailles and Adolf Hitler would probably be a penniless painter destined for obscurity.

Now, why didn't I think of that a couple of weeks ago.  

No FADE IN? Where's the "FADE IN" police when you need them! Other than that little mishap, which isn't a mishap really because I'm joking, this was a crisply written piece. I think there was some slug issues, a few missing words but on the whole - nice tight writing for 10 days so good job.

But let's get on to the important thing which is the story.I liked it overall, a different approach here but I had issues, or should I say observations, as in Cassandra is trying to stop Eli from jumping because it's destroying worlds but isn't she doing the same thing by chasing him? Maybe I'm just a little bit "timed" out now, but some of the plot went right over my head here.

I thought it was a bold choice to have Eli kill Hitler as a child and it was something I wish you'd played around with and how this not only effected the present world (which you did)  but also Eli personally - a missed opportunity IMO.

All grumbles aside, this was a strong premise and well executed. I do think Eli could be better worked as in his reaction to killing a child and the morals of that even in spite of his beliefs - also think the Cassandra/Eli relationship could have been better developed at the beginning, tone down on the exposition and work that angle which could make the ending stronger.

Otherwise, good work.

Congrats on completing the OWC.

Steve

I really enjoyed this. Yes, it's a clichéd story, but it's very well written and you've created two interesting and fully formed central characters.

The dialogue was good for the most part, but it felt like there was too much exposition at the beginning. This could easily be trimmed back without losing anything from the story.

I liked the ballsy approach of Eli having to kill young Hitler (kinda reminded me of Looper) and I liked that Cassandra had to turn against Eli to stop him from potentially destroying worlds. This does bring me onto one thing that bugged me:  Why has Eli jumped so many times? Cassandra tells him that so far he's jumped 286 times and he has to stop. 286 times?!? What has he been doing that's warranted him needing to jump in time 286 times?

Overall though, this was a solid script and was enjoyable to read. Well done!

I really enjoyed this. I loved your take on what could happen had someone killed Hitler before he ruled Germany. I thought you were in total control of the plot. Writing was excellent. My only nitpick is agreeing with SteveUK above me, why did Eli have to stop jumping after 286 times? And why did he have to jump so many times? Regardless, it was a fun read and one of my favs.

Congrats on completing the OWC.

Writer,

This was pretty good. It read very well, dialogue was pretty natural it seems. Yeah. Def like it. But I got lost, sorry to say. Eli jumped back and forth so many times it seems. I could not figure out what was going on it what was happening most of the time. I think this piece is just too complicated for its own good.

Not to say I didn't enjoy it. I did. But after a while I just gave up trying to figure out what was what. Perhaps I missed something. Sorry if I did.

Congrats on entering!

Steve

Thank you to everyone who read and reviewed! I’m gonna try to explain a little of what was going on here. It might take awhile  

I think the best way to address the confusing elements of this story, is to simply re-tell the story from Cassandra’s POV.

At the start, Eli jumps away from Cassandra (25). Cassandra is able to monitor his progress using a computer program. In order for this program to be able to monitor different time streams, it essentially has a POV from outside of time. When Eli jumps, it reveals two things:

1) The original timeline (the one Cassandra still resides in) has not changed at all. So when Eli “changes” things, he’s not eliminating or altering his original timeline. He is simply creating new ones and being thrust deeper into this sort of Forest of Time. Of course he doesn’t realize this, so he can’t do anything to correct it. This was important thematically, because it means Eli’s quest to ‘fix things’ is a completely quixotic mission. Basically Eli’s jumping isn’t just dangerous, it’s the only danger.

2) When seen from ‘outside of time’, everything Eli does over the course of his life while in this Forest, seems to happen instantaneously (286 jumps and counting). There is a paradox here. From one view, everything Eli has done has already happened. But from another view, his existence in the timeline represents an ongoing problem (The term ‘feedback loop’ should’ve appeared in this script somewhere, because that accurately describes what Eli’s experience represents. It’s part of the reason he can see future versions of himself). The longer this feedback is allowed to play out, the more it destabilizes all versions of reality.

Cassandra is sent in. Yes, her presence risks making things worse, but ‘do nothing’ is the only other option and that would have catastrophic consequences.

Once she enters, it’s clear that finding Eli won’t be simple. It’s not just a matter of being at the right time, you have to be in the right universe at the right time. But she can still see the effects he’s left on timelines. She can see that by the age of 65, Eli has become the Osama Bin Laden of Nazi resistance (once again, that isn’t some alternate world version of Eli, that’s the Eli). What few encounters she does have with him, reveal him to be “stubborn” and uncooperative.

Eventually (at age 25 still) Cassandra has a chance to set up the ruse depicted. She tries to shock him into some sort of realization, but it doesn’t work and she finds herself having to take a shot at him (something she never imagined she would have to do).

Between 25 and 42, Cassandra has numerous, unsuccessful encounters with Eli. She starts seeing Eli less and less as the person who jumped away from her and more and more as the horrifying terrorist he’s become after the jump.

At 42, the final straw comes when Eli physically assaults her and destroys the document she’s been carrying with her (he basically sabotages her efforts to convince an earlier version of himself). It is within 24 hours of this event that Cassandra just so happens to finally intersect Eli’s original jump point. That event plays out in the script. Because she no longer has evidence and is past trying to explain herself to this man, it is another unsuccessful encounter.

Between 42 and 68, their original timeline becomes one of the many that have collapsed.

For this reason, when a severely wounded Eli (30) just happens materialize in front of her, there is no going back. Theoretically, she could’ve just taken their devices, destroyed them, and let Eli live. However:

1)  Eli is badly injured in a farming village in 1898. If he’s coughing up his own blood, then he’ll probably drown in it without medical attention. Killing him quickly can be seen as a mercy.

2) Keeping him alive will mean having to explain to him the true extent of everything he’s done; from bombing children to destroying their original timeline. Killing him quickly can be seen as a mercy.

In Summary:

Although I was using a Hitler premise, I was trying to do as much as possible to deemphasize the Hitler aspect of it. To me the story was more about Eli and the nature of evil, than Hitler or Nazis. All evil thinks of itself as the necessary kind. When Eli kills a 9 year old it doesn’t really change the history of his old reality, but it reveals all sorts of things about himself and what he’s ultimately capable of.

I wanted Eli’s execution to parallel Hitler’s. They are both being gunned down for reasons they don’t fully comprehend, so confusion needed to be a part of that scene.

To be continued...

As for some other things:

Exposition. Lots of it. And I actually cut it in half from its original length   The one big change I wish I’d made was to deemphasize the alternate Nazi history, and play up Eli’s disturbing future since that was what the piece was really about (in all honesty I think I started drifting from the criteria). And I don’t doubt those first 4 pages could be condensed to 2 with some work.

Cassandra in the beginning was meant to come across as young, but not stupid. I probably could’ve split the difference better. For the record though, I’ve seen plenty of smart people (Neil Degrasse Tyson for instance) use very casual, conversational language when attempting to simplify complex concepts.

I haven’t seen MIB3. This just seemed liked the easiest, ‘no frills’ way to get these characters moving.

Eli talking to himself. Thought I might squeeze by on that. Clearly I didn’t  

The wig does come off as cheesy and I’m kicking myself for it now. I wanted a visual cue for when Cassandra reveals herself and that’s what I came up with. A far better solution would’ve been to keep the Star of David in play by making it a necklace. Cassandra would always be wearing it, but would hide it for the purpose of this ruse. When she revealed herself, she could’ve simply disclosed the necklace.

As far as what the Star of David meant, it was simply a physical object that represented the connection between Eli and Cassandra. I created it for the final scene to give it a sense of her ‘letting him go’ (after tracking him for 40 years, he’s kind of her white whale).

Finally, some thought I should've added a bit of a twist to the final moment between Hitler and Cassandra. As stated above, I was trying to deemphasize Hitler's importance. What I was trying to get it was not that it's better for Hitler to be alive. It was the idea that Eli had wrought a path of destruction so devastating that the fate of Hitler was unimportant by comparison.

I think that covers just about everything I’m capable of covering. To be honest, I’m still a little confused. But thank you all again for reading and reviewing! It’s been a fun, mind-blowing challenge.

Eric

Better This Way

Another interesting take on the Nazi paradox.  I thought some of the writing and descriptions were awkward or unclear at times.

"An unmarked, and unremarkable..."
"Bright red hair frames her incisive facial features."
"...with a CERN logo beside it."

I didn't believe there was enough context to justify Cassie's love for him.  When she finally put Eli down, the stakes weren't as high as they should've been.  I thought young Hitler staring at Eli's body was an interesting visual/twist.

As a whole, not a bad effort.  I couldn't follow the motives here other than Eli is Jewish, which leans on the side of cliché.

Johnny