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Samson and Minerva by Richard Ashcraft (therichcraft) - Sci Fi, Parody - The Pantheon heroes battle the tacky Lovecraft menace. This script is a wild cross between Sapphire and Steel and Monty Python. Just perfect for sci-fi fans who love to drink alone. 53 pages - pdf, format
Mcornetto, I'm confused. Am I able to post Samson and Minerva on the site you gave me? Or do I just look at the ones listed there and ask them to review mine in exchange? Thanks for the info.
Read your script. Here's the detail of my review and I'll summarise at the end...
P3
KALI And risk having one of my creations be stolen by the forces of evil? Or worse yet, by a mere mortal? Perish the thought.
KALI Now be sure to use extra magic to transport them to Earth. We want the entity to sense their sorcery. Here is where they need to go.
A little clumsy. How about….Here’s where to send them.
P5
SAMSON I can put out some more magic.
There must be a better way of saying this.
In the Dialogue, I have a nagging feeling there’s always one or two too many words. Example…
MINERVA Just do one little blast. We don’t want to make it too powerful.
Does this sound better….
Just one little blast. We don’t want it too powerful.
P7
English…
She opens the door for him. He get into the car.
Not quite sure I got the blue sphere and ripples bit – how did that turn into a baddie?
Ok, the fart humour…..I’m not sure what type of humour you’re trying to generate with this script. I’m struggling big time with the Monty Python reference from the logline. Some of it is dry, some of it tries to be witty and then we’re into toilet humour. It’s not working for me at the moment. Maybe it will grow on me as the characters grow.
P13
SAMSON (V.O.) Very commendable. For someone who can wear white at his wedding.
I like that – funny.
p16
MINERVA (V.O.) Among other things.
Shouldn’t that be amongst.
Minerva’s talent is a great vehicle for gags, but I can imagine it’s going to cause complications with the story….we’ll see.
P21
MINERVA Not necessarily. Most devil worshippers are only seminecrophiliacs. They prefer to have sex with zombies. SAMSON Hmm. I guess zombies would be more animated in bed. Who else do we have?
Funny lines, but….. toilet humour, masturbation seems to be a common theme and sexual perversions.
Ok, it’s hardly subtle but got to say Morgan driving the car over potholes and zigzagging to orgasm is v.funny.
JOSEPH I’ll do CPR!
Getting funnier now I’m into it.
P29 – do you mean Quija? Shouldn’t it be Ouija?
SAMSON Whoa! He looks like one of the Joker’s murder victims! The jokes are much better now, or maybe they've just grown on me.
P52
SAMSON So we’re stuck here in Swanville, Louisiana at Abraham’s Boarding House in the room with the most semen stains because the mortals might overcome your brainwashing.
Please do something with this sentence – way too long.
Summary - Got to say I started off disliking this script. You put Monty Python in the logline, which to me (I'm a Brit) is setting a very high expectation. I just can't see any Monty Python in this script at all. I felt the writing started off a little clumsy - always one or two additional words which spoilt the pace and made the speech sound artificial. My major issue though was the humour - instead of funny, I just found it sounding annoyingly superior and crude (unfunny crude rather than Dumb and Dumber funny crude). And then it all changed!!! I started with a slight smile and then a giggle and then a laugh out loud. Even the writing got better until at the end I thought I enjoyed that and at points it's damned funny.
You might hate my next suggestion, but hey, I'm doing my best here....I think this would work best (not least due to the production costs) as an animation. I re-read it with animated characters in my head and it worked really well (I can't think of the name of the series, but its a sci-fi one with a woman with one eye in the middle of her forehead).
I'm assuming you've written this as the first 60 mins of a TV series - am I right?
Anyway, I still think it needs work - at the beginning (in retrospect, maybe it's trying to be too funny too quickly), but I can see this working.
I also noticed one of the mods suggesting an exchange. I don't mind if you don't want to, but if you have time I'd appreciate you looking at a feature I've written. Let me know.
I like your humor a lot. I love the idea of the characters. The quality of the humor needs to be standardized into something above potty humor. The heathen masses under the age of thirty aren't going to care about Greek Gods et al. The gentiles over thirty aren't going to care for the masturbating fart jokes, and I think that's the demographic the premise appeals to. unless you're shooting for the "Adult Swim" demo, in which case...
Mcornetto, I'm confused. Am I able to post Samson and Minerva on the site you gave me? Or do I just look at the ones listed there and ask them to review mine in exchange? Thanks for the info.
Ray and Thornton, thanks for the comments. I was beginning to think that no one was going to comment on this wild spoof of mine.
Maybe I should have said it was a cross between Sapphire and Steel and Benny Hill. Saw more of his shows than Monty Python's (the Dallas stations played Benny Hill daily compared to the PBS weekly MP episodes in my much younger days).
The humor is more subtle at first in that it makes fun of internet users and yuppies. Then I deliberately made it more gross because I decided to just let loose and have fun. Usually I'm a Super Friends kind of comic-book reader. But I felt that I needed to stop beng so prim and proper and just go for it.
Yeah, it's definitely more for the Adult Swim fans. Adolescent males, regardless of age, was my main audience. Of course, a few beers would help make the story all the more funnier.
Now I love Sapphire and Steel, but it always bothered me that Sapphire's revelation powers never really got into the sex lives of her subjects. And with people getting more kinky nowadays, that kind of power must make for some disgusting visions. Some magic rituals I've read up on seemed more like the Kama Sutra than anything else. So I combined sex and magic in Samson and Minerva.
Samson hurled his spheres to attract Lovecraft away from the mortals. It was a disembodied force represented as the ripples. This mimics the S and S sci-fi foes who usually appeared as weird lights or growing shadows. The ripples are represent the story getting very distorted, or maybe disorienting, at this point.
The long sentence that Samson says is meant to be said out loud really fast. I was afraid that the joke would be lost on most readers.
Maybe I will rewrite the script. I usually have trouble establishing the characters, so it wasn't as tacky in the beginning as I wanted it to be. I tried to portray Kali as being the most bored goddess in creation who cared more about her things than the fate of the world. Samson wanted a fancier car despite the fact that his super-strength would have yanked the steering wheel off. I couldn't really do anything with Thor.
Oh, well. Maybe I'll start drinking, and the jokes will come to me.
Let me know what scripts you guys wrote. I love reviewing other people's work. Thanks for the fun comments. They couldn't have come at a better time. Today really sucked!
Here's my take on the first few pages. It's not funny. Interesting, yes, because of the world you set up, but not funny.
A good example of how you write is this:
She SIGHS LOUDLY in a bored manner.
She SIGHS should be enough.
Same with materializing NEXT to....
Just materialzing is fine.
All that has to do with pacing. I feel like the initial pace should be faster, more upbeat. If the pace is to be slow, then all those words slow down the pace. But if it's supposed to be faster, then you should cut them out.
14 pages in and I'm not getting into it. At one point the gods say that they may have to kill who the evil inhabits. Right there is when I think you need to cut to the chase and show me who the target is. I was thinking that when the gods were discussing the mission up in the pantheon that when they got to the internet and said the evil was coming that you should have cut to the target right then. Some geeky kid on the internet.
This kind of story needs to take off fast because it's fantasy. Get me in the story fast or make me laugh if you don't.
I read a little more than halfway before I put this script down. I don't see how this is a sci-fi parody of anything. To me it was 29 pages of people talking on and on and on...
Are these established characters? Or did you make them up? From page one, I thought this was a story about various ancient gods coming down to save Earth. With names like Thor, Minerva, Samson and the Pantheon, how can anyone not think this?
As time went on, I got the impression that they were superheroes. They're out to fight some bads and they need to do a little recon work.
As more time went on, I get the impression that their only power as heroes is their ability to drone on without tiring.
To make maters wore, all your characters sound exactly alike. They all share the same dull personality.
Even though this is supposedly to be a parody of superheroes, or something, you have to put some action in it. Any action! At page 29, Minerva starts CPR on someone. This is the closest thing I've seen to action in this script.
The first twenty-five pages of this script could easily be condensed into five pages. Just start your story with Minerva and Samson at the hotel. This is where the story is... supposedly. You can feed the readers crumbs of background information as the story progresses. You don't even need to tell us the whole story, just enough to satisfy us.
Your jokes fell flat for me. Fart jokes. Masturbation jokes. The subject will not guarantee a laugh on their own. You have to make them funny. Read the short script Cropduster. That script was just a series of fart jokes, but the writer made it worth reading.
Well, I'm not going to rewrite Samson and Minerva. I was inspired by Cropduster to write this story. I just wanted to do an exercise in which I'm not doing the same dull super-hero stories that I usually write. I was just letting loose on this one, and I'm the first to admit that the jokes in the beginning fell flat.
I do thank you all for giving it a chance. Later, Richard
Ha. The smell still lingers on SS from that one. Rich, read the first ten. Don't have time tonight. But will finish tomorrow. Give you the best advice I can.
Rich, I think your one of the nicest guys on the boards. THats why I hate to give you bad news, but it took me days to get through this.
Your problem is that you tell everything through dialogue. That makes it on the nose IMO... i.e.
MINERVA It calls itself . . . now get this . . . Lovecraft.
SAMSON Lovecraft? What is it? Some kind of succubus?
MINERVA No. It named itself after the weirdo science-fiction writer. It came to psychic life during a sci-fi convention.
SAMSON Psychic life? It’s a composite manifestation of many people’s thoughts?
MINERVA Yes. When the sci-fi people talked about Lovecraft’s works at the convention, it somehow created this force of evil. That’s what happens when a lot of geeks are brought together.
SAMSON It’s no wonder they don’t get invited to parties. But why was there a sci-fi convention way out here?
They're telling the story here. It's bad for film. Why not show these geeks talking about Lovecraft on their PCs. Then the evil manifests. Does something. Then introduce our heroes.
Fart jokes did fall flat for me. First, again you told us of her flatulence instead of showing it. I think Jackie needs to be more of a chracter. Maybe she farts anytime she bends over or picks up something. Says "Damn brussel sprouts." each time. Dunno. just an idea.
Some of your comedy does work. Them knowing allen was just masterbating and not wanting to shake his hand is good.
The whole scene with Allen checking them in is too long. Not adding to story here.
Th farewell performance was pretty funny. Give you that.
With much excitement, Joseph lets out a long, drawn-out “Oh!” Halfway through his line, he sees the others looking at him. He then makes the “Oh!” sound very sad.
This should be more like...
JOSEPH OH! (off their looks) Ooh. That's so sad.
The necrophilia is a bit far fetched to be funny. Just my opinion. Bit hard to buy that all of these sexual deviants came together under one roof.
MINERVA (smiles knowingly) The readers can now post their nasty comments about this shitty script.
I've got a serious problem with this. I know you're just trying to do comedy for the readers here. But i won't waste my time reading anymore of your stuff if you think its a shit from the get go. Took me a good hour to read this and review it.
Overall, I didn't like it. As others have said, and I concur, It's way too talky. Long long exchanges of dialogue. This doesn't work well in film. You do have some decent comedy in here. You've also gotten some bad.
You do a good job of creating fantastical worlds. But, the ending fell a bit flat for me. The spheres entering everybodies bodies just to save them kinda felt like a cheap way out. As was Minerva's final battle with Lovecraft, a blow up doll.
I know you're not going to rewrite it, so wasting my time anyways. This should be about as half as long as it is. You don't have to explain everything. Just take us on a fun ride.
You do good in reading others, accept negative feedback well. Admirable qualities from anyone here. I would try to write some scripts under 10 pages. Would be a challenge for you because you like to go on and on with your dialogue.
Remember, The Vamp got alot of reads. try to learn how to lean your stories out like that. Every scene should add to propel the story, if it doesn't it's a waste of pages IMO.
Thanks, James, for your comments. You'll be happy to know that I am taking everyone's advice, and I'm writing my next script with less dialogue.
It's also much more subtle than my previous scripts. Because I'm trying to avoid my previous mistakes, this one most likely won't be posted on the next unproduced scripts section. I seem almost addicted to have a new script posted every time.
It's called The Zodiacs. Twelve people gain psychic powers that make them resemble the Zodiac characters. Aquarius teams up wth Gemini to find out who murdered the super-heroes Virgo and Libra. Like The Watchmen, its story is told mostly in flashback and has manyl characters.
Please keep an eye out for it. It will be for very mature audiences.