Left to Rust :: SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board

A spec script isn't supposed to have scene numbers. But since they're there, I think you should start with the SUPER and skip the scene numbered 1.

There are some "we see" stuff that sends some people around here into cardiac arrest, but the biggest writing style sin I see here is that so much is written in the passive voice and slightly out of sequence. The script describes things in an active voice as they happen on screen.

INSERT: Grammar lesson

Active voice - Charlie falls silent.
Passive voice - There is a silence.

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Active sentences read faster. I find it impossible to write in 100% active voice, but it should be possible to tune up a lot of what's in this story.

This scripts jumps back and forth between past and present so much, the audience is going to need help keeping track. A clever way to do that would be to have a little cluster of data at the bottom corner of the screen that shows the time and date of that scene, with a red flag like "REPLAY" for things in the past.

This is the only way I can think of to legitimately start a movie in a flashback. Then you can use the time/date in the slug lines as shorthand, complete with "REPLAY" to keep things clear to the reader.

I find the villain's self-indulgent whims disturbing realistic, which could make this film difficult to produce among the current era of superhero movies.

I find the "hero" utterly boring, basically just an observer. Of course, that's what the villain wants, but the villain isn't paying to see the movie... the audience is. Charlie is the audience's avatar in this world, doubly so because the entire movie is from his POV, so he needs to do more than make obvious decisions of ultimately zero consequence.

Though there's no need to stick to a standard "hero's journey" format, at least one character needs to develop during the story, preferably the hero and the villain. I thought we were getting somewhere when the villain started talking about what he wanted to do, but he can't change the past. Nothing came of it.

As for the contingency plan, dynamite can't explode twice. I'd describe it as "a new organ, whose only function is to shred your heart to pieces." Then later he can comment, “How many of these remotes did they make?”

The dialogue has lots of on-the-noseness to it, but that's to be expected in an early draft. In particular, the corporate kingpin isn't going to recite the whole deal to someone who already knows it. It can be shortened to to he "gets to be a hero" but one who does what he's told.

The scene with the villain's memory should probably be an INSERT (we're watching a screen through our normal POV's eyes), which allows you to have our POV look over at the current-time villain when he makes comments.

Overall, I think the pace of revealing the backstory is fine; the problem is the frontstory.

The joke at the end did not work for me in the slightest, seems more like something the villain would do than the hero, and many people might not get the reference.

As for the villain's ongoing humor, I don't think anyone in 2033 is going to get the joke about Michael Jackson, and I would advise a different list of "scum" like "ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, whores and politicians... but I repeat myself... thieves and lawyers... there I go repeating myself again..." which sticks to professions rather than kinds of people. See it's okay for the villain to be a racist homophobic ass, but you don't want to give the impression that the author is.

There are also some proofreading issues like spelling the city name DIC and DEEC at different points. Not sure why its set in a fictional city anyway... the story isn't set that far in the future.