VR Troopers by Shaggy - Series, Action, Sci Fi - When the consequences of a Virtual Reality game bleed into the real world, a girl and her unlikely group of friends must find a way to set things back to normal. - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

VR Troopers. - IMDB, Wiki, Video/Trailer

Vaguely familiar with the show from when I was a kid. A Power Rangers rip off so I kinda get what's supposed to be in store.

"Assume the futuristict Hong to be a common denominator throughout everything in ‘Skybase’."I have absolutely no idea what this even means. What's a Hong? What does this mean?

JB REESE (14) the computer nerd and RYAN STEELE (14) the
confident karate jock, even though that hasn‘t been a thing
since the 1980’s, are both metal-clad warriors as well,
standing in the center of the room, friends of Kaitlin's
obviously. They all exchange playful shoves while laughing as
Kaitlin makes her way to the wall-sized computer monitor.

Argh. Don't TELL me one is a computer nerd and the other is a karate jock. SHOW me!

What are these problems Mr. Hart knows? I have no idea what they could be because you haven't set them up. Is its a recent divorce? Possibly from the short phone call in the beginning but it sounded to me like a normal two household family. I don't think Kaitlin was too affected if that was mom on the phone. Is she on drugs? Sleeping pills? Pregnant? If something is up, you could leave us a few more breadcrumbs I think.

"The sounds of garage rock—imagine Arctic Monkeys, The Black Keys, Royal Blood, I prefer ‘Cold Hard Bitch’ by Jet-are quiet at first..."Again, what????

As a teacher myself, even talking to students on Facebook is a huge no no. Mr. Hart meeting up with a student alone in a glorified virtual reality chat room is bordering on pedophilia. Creepy.

MR. HART (CONT’D)
You see, in 'Skybase' I can put you
in a headlock and not get fired.

No, he'd get fired.

MR. HART
You promised we'd talk, and if I
have to hold you to that promise,
even in a headlock, I will.

Jail time.

Oh god. And now sex chat bots on the bus talking about penis enlargement next to them? Is this a kids show? I mean Kaitlin is 14 so I assume, but I'm really not sure anymore.

This is messy. I like the VR Troopers as a MMO. But it could be handled better. Are their rules in this game? As written, these players seem like walking gods of destruction, missiles, lasers, blasters everywhere. It's a bit much when everybody is going bat shit crazy in game. There also isn't any real conflict beyond Kaitlin being semi sad???? Or is the conflict Mr. Hart trying to hook up with a student online cause that's the plot that stuck out to me. Not a good idea. That whole aspect was handled poorly and if you cut it out, your story is still nearly intact so what's the point?

A few good ideas. But I wouldn't pick this up as a show.

That was pretty awesome. Really good pace and flow from start to finish. Great job, writer. This is one where I wish you took advantage of the whole 24 page limit. I'd really be interested to see what you do with this.


You know your stuff. Nicely done.

Hello writer,

Another one I'm not familiar with, but after the Branded stuff up i did the wiki research and it appears that this is a reboot of an original.

Okay, one major issue I've got with it is the huge amounts of descriptions. Not being experienced professionally speaking with this sort of Power Rangery thing, I would have assumed that massive action sequences are taken out of the script and choreographed as part of a separate process. I think I counted at least 3 pages, maybe 4, of descriptions of fighting or computer game vr scenes. It ain't easy reading as they are all quite long, and rather than being short and punchy to generate a change in tempo, they are lengthy and a bit too descriptive.

At the heart of it was quite a nice little story, with exception to the teacher on the internet thing, hanging out with kids, that ain't cricket.

It was overly written and this damaged it somewhat for myself, but it was okay and enjoyable in parts.

All the best,

Cam

VR scribe,

If I'd known VR Troopers was what I know now, probably would've been super excited seeing this in the queue. Point is, I didn't have a clue until I searched it on YouTube and came across the intro sequence - oh man did that trigger my nostalgia. But come to find out I've forgotten the show completely, except for that catchy ass theme song.

There's a lot I liked about the script, some other stuff not so much. Off jump, the writing was clunky but managed to smooth itself out once the Matrix-like video game started. Kinda reverted back later on, but there's enough here that it's probably not worth a nitpick.

I felt as though Mr. Hart being so forthcoming about his involvement in Skybase ruined the surprise, and I think it's worth exploring him as their sensei if expanded. Mr. Hart's lack of concern for Kaitlin's academics was odd, he related on her though gaming which stood out to me.

Given this is VR Troopers, the reader needs to let go of reality too, but with this script that doesn't come naturally. This story has good elements, but far from something complete - and maybe cut out the sex ad stuff. I think a show like this could definitely be rebooted, potential to work on an animated platform or even something like a Nickelodeon sitcom like Henry Danger.

I notice the title isn't in ALL CAPS.

I guess chasing monsters who turn out to be Old Man Jenkins isn't paying the bills? Tell Scooby I said, "Zoinks." Or are you the "Angel"/"It Wasn't Me" Shaggy?

I never watched VR Troopers until just recently. I might have seen a tiny bit of Superhuman Samurai Cyber Squad, but don't quote me on that. Wasn't that the one with the son from Mrs. Doubtfire? Matthew Lawrence? Anyway, I was more of a Power Rangers, Masked Rider, and Beetleborgs guy.

Let's dig in. Trooper Transform!

V.R. Troopers had a character named Chris, but he was some bullied kid. Here, Chris Star is Kaitlyn's father. Also, you made Kaitlyn black instead of a blonde chick.

By the way, is Chris supposed to be a Zordon Professor Hart easter egg?

Quoted Text Chris is more focused on keeping a lookout for his daughter KAITLIN STAR (14)[,] walking into the kitchen[,] than he is to the voice on the other end of the phone.

CONT'D is almost never necessary.

I'm sure karate's gonna come in handy.

Quoted Text shake his head 'no'

Redundant. If you shake your head, it's understood to be no. If you nod your head, it's understood to be yes. You can't nod you head no or shake your head yes. It's like when people say they COULD care less.

Why not just call SUBURBAN HOME "STAR RESIDENCE"? Especially since she's a main character.

Quoted Text The room is an all-in-white design of a mad scientist[']s lab...of the future.

Quoted Text Assume the futuristic t Hong to be a common denominator throughout everything in ‘Skybase’.

Hong? Who's Hong? Or are you referring to "a commercial establishment or house of foreign trade in China"? What does this sentence even mean?

Quoted Text It's nearly empty aside from the wall[-]to[-]wall computers.

Quoted Text JB REESE (14), the computer nerd, and RYAN STEELE (14), the confident karate jock, even though that hasn‘t been a thing since the 1980’s, are both metal-clad warriors as well, standing in the center of the room, friends of Kaitlin's obviously. [  ] They all exchange playful shoves while laughing as Kaitlin makes her way to the wall-sized computer monitor.

Very long winded paragraph! Too much going on in one paragraph. Break it up into two paragraphs.

Quoted Text CUT TO:

Almost never necessary these days. Every scene is understood to be "CUT TO:".

Quoted Text SUNSET

Nope. DAY or NIGHT. Rarely DUSK or DAWN. Never SUNSET. Pick one.

Quoted Text The bustling city is neon and glowing as the sun sets. Flying cars, holographic advertisements, androids and vibrant[-]skinned aliens.

Quoted Text In Kaitlin’s display[,] view a small square infrared patch analyzer bounces around the screen at short intervals.

You're having a few comma issues.

Skugs, by the way, are those ugly Putty-looking things.

Quoted Text Oh yeah! Skugs hiding in the buildings, gon’ be a good one[,] boys.

Always offset with commas.

Define "pathetic." Sad? Stupid? Sorry? Poor? Mediocre? Low-budget? Cheap? Lousy? Depressed/depressing? Neutral?

I like how to divided the scene into little "fight shots." Nice and clean.

Quoted Text -JB is in an expensive looking building lobby giving a Skug a noogie to the point where it’s robotic head explodes.

WTF? I gotta see this! :D

"Cheesy." I like it. Grin and bear it. Embrace the cheese. I think I know who wrote this.

Quoted Text There is a knock at the door. It's a gentle knock. Kaitlin rips off the headset and dives into her bed. The door is cracked open just enough for Chris to fit his head in.

Damn, that was quick! Quicker than the ten-second sex in Halloween.

Quoted Text (cupping his hands around his mouth as he yells)

Too long to be a parenthetical. Plus, it's pushes the dialogue to the top of the next page (the only time one should ever use MORE and cont'd in a spec). Change it to an action line instead.

Quoted Text Hello, JB[. H]ello, Ryan[. Y]ou boys should really get some sleep, like Kaitlin is.

Quoted Text Kaitlin hops out of bed to turn the computer off before her Dad can be any[ ]more embarrassing.

https://writingexplained.org/anymore-vs-any-more-difference

Quoted Text Without any more effort[,] footsteps can be heard walking away from the door and down the hall.

This is the last time I'm gonna point out commas. You have a lot of them to take care of.

You changed Zordon Professor Hart into a teacher... and several years younger. Refreshing.

Quoted Text If I'm going to the office anyways, can't I at least get some sleep first[?]

Might be perceived as a genuine question, rather than rhetorical.

Quoted Text INT. CLASSROOM - END OF CLASS - CONTINUOUS - DAY

CONTINUOUS is almost never necessary. END OF CLASS is certainly not necessary. Just tell us Kaitlyn and Mr. Hart are alone in the classroom. That's all you need to tell us.

Quoted Text Kaitlin gave [gives] the fakest, widest smile she could muster before standing up.

I thought I could guess who wrote this, because he relishes B-movies and such. But he would certainly have a better grasp on grammar and punctuation.

In dialogue, spell out abbreviations. Why is there a space before the period?

Quoted Text School policy also says standardized tests should determine a student[']s future.

Craig and Duncan appear to be new characters. Jim, too. How old is Jim, anyway?

Did Kaitlyn turn into Chuck Norris? Ha ha!

Quoted Text INT[.] KAITLIN’S HOME - LIVING ROOM - NIGHT

Quoted Text Chris is sitting on the couch with Kaitlin. They sit at opposite ends of the couch, and Kaitlin is squeezing herself into the corner, as far away from her dad as possible.

I know how Kaitlyn feels.

Quoted Text What the hell, Kaitlin?

Our first sign that this is a more grown-up VR Troopers.

Quoted Text -Of coarse [course] they did, but this is the real world, Kaitlin. You can’t go around beating up bad guys.

Coarse = Rough, crude, vulgar.

"two[-]week vacation"

"out[-]punch"

Why not use proper headphones? The hi-fi experience? Especially for the musical selections you've chosen?

Never heard of Royal Blood. Cold hard bitch! Just a kiss on the lips, and I was on my knees!

"Surplexes." Also, Surplex is a proper noun anbd must be capitalized.

Quoted Text She literally shoves other players to ground, what a jerk.

Quoted Text She turns back around and doubles her speed. JB and Ryan don't follow anymore[;] they let Kaitlin get lost in the thick crowd.

You seemed to imply that Kaitlyn's parents were divorced. And now, you're throwing in puberty and suggestive humor? They grow up so fast. :)

Quoted Text Kaitlin stands to

Huh?

Quoted Text I'm serious, I'm about to go crazy on you.

Cra-aaazy on you! Cray-ay-yaaaaaazy on yoooouuuu! Let me go crazy, crazy on youuuuuuuuu, ohhhhhh, ohhhhhhh. :D

Usually dialogue is for SPOKEN dialogue. And Italics are usually forbidden.

Quoted Text real scary motherf--

Shut yo mouth!

*Shaft wah guitar riff* :D

"Way out of [extra space] view."

"Kaitlyn's hand glow..." I'd break this up into three or four paragraphs.

Quoted Text I swear I could feel it in real life.

Freddy-ish. I like it.

Wow. Technical-wise, needs some work. Story-wise, great. I picture the virtual world being blue a la The Matrix's green.

When I watched the pilot, I pictured Ziktor (whom you didn't use) as a Trump/Koopa type.

Solid entry, story-wise. Just a little cleanup, and it'll be perfect.

There was a good story building, but since it wasn't finished, I don't know if it would have been good enough for someone to consider redoing this series.

Would of been nice to get a full episode out of this, but seeing as this is a Power Rangers rip off I can assume the last five minutes are dedicated to some sort of slapstick, warm and fuzzy ending?

There is a tool on the internet known as grammarly, it might help you out to iron things out with your writing.

As far as the story goes...I love a good pointless action plot, but it seems like there MIGHT be something going on in the character’s story arcs? It’s hard to tell. I can’t tell if sometimes you’re introducing an important part of the story, or if you’re just describing a pointless detail. Like, what’s with the phone call in the beginning?

Anywho, I had fun reading this, so thanks for that.

I read it and went through the comments. Surprisingly there's no enough praise for this. This is awesome in my opinion. Just expand a bit, have a pilot. And after you expand it to an episode length you have a pilot!
But this is the best of the bunch for me, and I read 9.

Hey writer,

p2 futuristic Hong? What's that… do you mean Hong Kong?

It's certainly a bit overwritten in places, although not in an absolutely annoying amount.

P6/7 the socio-cultural conflict of her spending too much time in VR, addressed by teacher Hart, is very interesting. This "educational" side aspect is what a children series must have imo. You click a lot of such kind of boxes so far, very consistent concept for a youth/children series.

Even as an ESL speaker I want to give my two cents on your usage of language: Although I like and enjoy that notable innocence in your writing, it's partly a bit clumsy; a good example is p9 first paragraph of EXT. MOUNTAINTOP scene: there you use the word mountain four times. Partly it's repetitive (f.i. "Chris is sitting on the couch with Kaitlin. They sit at opposite ends of the couch"); and there are also too many "to be" forms (progressive tense writing) in places. However, I generally like your style very much though, it's easy language and perfectly mirrors the well-minded plot. So, I wouldn't change your style by any means, just don't read too "simple" because people might underestimate your range and skill, which again, I found is very pleasing.

P10 great dialogue, especially the longer one from Kaitlin

P12/13 spam bot concept is a pretty original element

Some visuals of the VR world could be better explained. I'm not sure if I understood the rules of that place entirely. Perhaps you could give it a little more structure and let us learn step by step what possibilities there are.

You created a very refreshing and fanciful story. I like to be with her and the whole tone of the episode is consistent. Very interesting stuff. As a kid I probably would have loved to see your show, would possibly even today enjoy it, yes. What an interesting and modern plot in comparison to the trash the kids have to watch today. This material is both, intelligent and entertaining. Two thumbs up, writer

Beating a dead horse here, but here goes...

This is a pretty cool story that is unfortunately held back by the writing. It's distracting how over written this was. Seriously slowed down the read for me, which is a shame. Remember, you're writing a script, not a novel. Show, don't tell. And PLEASE break up those chunky action lines. Put some white on these pages!

Good effort though.

~Zack~

For what it’s worth, this is a huge upgrade over the original, which was hokey and cloying. This seems more like a reboot of Ready Player One. More adult themed, almost creepy with the teacher student relationship.

The writing here is decent.  A fair bit of overwriting but it’s not bad. I came in expecting much much less because of the show choice and came away surprised. I think you do need to fill in some blank spots, like why the mom is absent. That might lead to why she’s so dependent on living her life through this game.

The ending was abrupt — like you ran out of time and just tacked it on so you could submit. Needs a little smoothing out of the rough edges and you’ll perhaps have something noteworthy.

Best of luck,
Gary

When I looked at the original episode, I was stunned. Bold choice remaking this. But then I thought with modern VR this could be a really cool remake.

What goes on in your VR world doesn't disappoint. It is like Ready Player One and Otherworld and similar persistent VR worlds. More time should be spent describing the world, but my knowledge of those other properties let me fill in the many blanks so I wasn't lost.

The problem for me is the lack of story. There's no conflict for the first few pages, and all that time is spent merely introducing us to Kaitlin. There's no real sense of who Ryan and JB are, they're almost like NPCs following Kaitlin. Chris the dad is a non-entity. And the Kaitlin you've introduced us to isn't very likeable.

Where things get cool is with the teacher. Hart is set up okay, but it's obvious and on the nose. The payoff is excellent though, and I enjoyed watching smug Kaitlin get pwned by him. The suspense of the new patch pays off too with real-world ghost sensations, suggesting trouble in VR land.

Too bad you didn't get to finish it. With the weak start, this really needed to keep the momentum going to deliver something enjoyable. As it is, it has potential but needs work.

Still, 16 pages of decent writing is great, even if it is overwritten and a little too casual. It has a unique voice to it and that counts for a lot.

Writer,

Pretty impressive the way you navigated through worlds/characters and I wasn't confused for a second. Good work. Only thing is you left off on a cliffhanger, which might be what you were going for, but you didn't tie anything up even remotely for all us readers who aren't in the loop on this show. That would have been nice. Still, you managed to put some humanity and a backstory into this virtual world/real world setting, and that's very good. Just wish there was more here to complete the picture. It feels like an episode that only a die hard reader would get, some 10 shows in. However, great work here!

Steve

I really liked this one and I see that a few others think it's great as well. You should finish it and let us read it! I'm crazy curious to see the rest of it.

Khamana thank you so much for that last post! I mean, the mug is cool, but to have someone really enjoy your script is the whole point of writing, and I’m really glad it interested you so much! I’ll make sure to finish up the last bit for you, I didn’t have enough time during the challenge, but I did have an ending in mind! I’ll let you know when it’s finished. Thanks again.

Quoted from Alex This material is both, intelligent and entertaining. Two thumbs up, writer

Very good script