Ten points for "shrimpy bits." The rest of the humour was hit and miss for me.

Reads like fan fic, but nothing wrong with that. I just wanted to know more about Man, starting with a name. The more we understand him, the better that end will be.

It'd be a fun ten post-apocalyptic minutes as it stands now. But it needs some character depth to put it over the top, in my opinion.

Fun read though, and smooth.

Writer,

Hey, I gave this six pages to try and get me, but I couldn't last. After that, I skimmed, read the end. This script is filled with a lot of unnecessary dialogue, and locations I can't quite picture, partly because I was taken out of the script by several spelling miscues and oddly phrased passages. It just didn't flow well, and that was the main reason I bailed, which I really try to never do. But based on the first six pages, I kinda knew what the next six would hold. Sorry, writer, decent effort for the time allowed, but this needs a lot of work.

Steve

I made it to the end and it was entertaining. Like others before me: Not sure why MAN didn't have a name; Why Nero had to have so many lame smart ass comebacks/remarks; Scalpers? Just buy a damned ticket and they'll go away! Scalpers could do with a bit of history maybe? I remember seeing the lead scalper pull out the shank but I must've missed him actually sticking MAN. Good stuff, maybe a revision or two to nail it.

A formatting niggle... you have MAN with dialogue before you introduce him in the text... I'd switch that round.

But the rest of it, nice, snappy and great pace, really rocketed along.

I not some people are comparing this to Fallout... no idea what that is but I could see this scripts produced as it's nice and visual and action packed.

Good job!

I got what the Man is up for only when they started talking about the girl. I simply insist you move that to the first pages. Otherwise I loose attention and in this case I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.
It would have been a great short - very nice post-apocalyptic mood, Nero is a great character. The Man has pretty cool lines and great aim.
She says I'm Alice at the end and it feels like she means something by it. He saves all good, right? That's how I understood it.
If yes then a short is not enough. This could be developed into a feature. But you know that. Nice job, writer

I haven't really bene noticing these not-quite-centered titles, but this one ever-so-slightly skews to the right.

A comma issues ion the first page --

Quoted Text With hot[,] heavy breaths

Quoted Text No! Not that left! Your other left!

The Alt-Left? How left? Obama? Hillary? Bernie?

You misspelled Usain Whatshisname.

I just noticed (V.O) -- It should be (V.O.)

Watch out for those orphans; they can add up and inflate the page count.

Quoted Text The world ran out of good ideas years ago.

The world ran out of good ideas November 8, 2016.

"heavily teched[-]up brute" In fact, "teched" isn't even a real word, but TechEd is.

"Run[,] you mooks." A teacher of mine in high school used to call people "mooks" all the time. Mooks and "shmoes." (sp?)

"full[-]on sprint."

You seem to be having comma issues.

Top of P6 and not really sure what's going on. Writing overall isn't terrible, but certainly needs fixing up. Story isn't clear or engaging at this point. I'm gonna see how much more I can endure.

You never describe who/what Nero is. Is he a narrator?

You just now indicated that Nero is a watch.

Quoted Text Apparently, this used to be an Asian market.

That's what the slug says, so it must be true.

There hasn't been that much shrimp in one scene since Forrest Gump! Do you know Bubba?

Kilometers? British? Aussie?

"Shooty"??

Route Sixty-Six is a proper noun, and must be capitalized.

Quoted Text I’ve lost track of her location.

I've lost track of the plot.

Fire up that loud
Another round of shots
Fire up that loud
Another round of shots
Fire up that loud
Another round of shots, shots, shots...

Turn up for what!!

Alice?

If I hadn't been too far ahead, I would have bailed. Not my favorite. Writing somewhat good. Story confusing.

There’s this overwritten five lines of action at the very first. I started skimming about half way through it. And I missed the part that tells me that Nero is the computerized wristband.
Then I begin wondering if Nero is going to be V.O. through the entire script and when are we gonna see him? Darn, if I’d just read that entire paragraph I’d have known. Did figure it out a couple pages later.
I have to agree that naming the characters would be nice. Heck, the computerized wristband has a name but the main character doesn’t?
Still. This is a good piece. Solid writing. Flows nicely. Tension is good.
I would like to know where MAN went.

Love your logline. Just eh on your title. But intriguing logline for sure!

know would we ...should be now I think

incompelte (SP)

Instead of the SUPERS I would've loved to see Nero navigating him. It drives me crazy when my navigation keeps saying the same things or make a u turn etc.

cannibalized wristbands. What is that?

You take me out of the tension when I realize it's a new day! What? Man slept with all that going on?? Needs to move fast paced or at least once the story starts escalating, it needs to progressively escalate  IMO.

Ok I was really kinda liking this but what happened to the main character? Even though I'm happy that the girl has Nero now... I do not understand where the main character went... or why the Nero began charging on the girl's wrist. I really do like the simplicity though of a man and his device being all that is left on the earth. The dogs... and the scalpers... neither were really focused enough ..what they were doing.. why the guys were after the chip so much? I have a lot of questions but I love the concept of this story.

Good job writer.

The Bad:

Lot of spelling errors and descriptions need work.

Starting with the very first block:

With hot heavy breaths that pierce the cold night like
daggers, a MAN (41) runs hard through the abandoned city.
His dirty face illuminated by a projected hologram screen of
a night vision in front of his view eminated by NERO, his
computerized wristband that he raises on his right arm.

So there's a physical holographic screen floating in front of his face that's displaying a night vision view of the surroundings? He's got his arm up as he runs and is sort of casting this thing in front of him so he can see in the dark? I think that's the image you're going for. Not sure. Gotta make this more clear.

I'd give all the descriptions another good pass. I think you can tweak and clean up a lot of it.


The Good:

Pretty much everything else. Good story, pace, tension, and banter/dynamic between Nero and Man. They have that natural camaraderie where you can tell they've been through thick and thin together.

I especially liked this line although I couldn't tell you why exactly:

MAN
The world ran out of good ideas
years ago.

And, I think, although I'm not positive, that Nero is draining Man's life essence? Cuz he says that line about them needing each other, and when the girl puts on Nero it starts automatically recharging. If that's the case, that adds a whole other level to this whole thing.


Only other little nitpick I had is with some unnecessary dialogue. I'll point out a few. Just my opinion, but these lines don't add anything and/or are redundant with the action so I'd cut them:

pg. 3 --

MAN
So close, yet so far. Can we jump?

**Just show Man gauging the jump. If we can tell he's thinking it, Nero can tell, and he can just go into his next line without man specifically asking if he can jump.

pg. 6 --

NERO (V.O)
Apparently, this used to be an
Asian market.

**It's really obvious they're in an abandoned Asian market once they walk into it. No real need to state that.

pg. 7 --

MAN
Scalpers. Christ! What's a girl
that young even doing around here?

**This is more debatable, I guess. Just don't think he'd bring this up. It never gets answered anyways so I don't see the point. You can just show Man turning back, which you already show, and then Nero goes into "Uh, the relay tower is the other way".

Overall, very nice. Kept me interested all the way through which is the important part.

Nero - Apocalypse, Action, Adventure - A survivor and his AI companion navigate the dilapidated ruins of an abandoned city overrun by aggressive technology scavengers and disease.

Rating: 1
Thoughts: Needs more specificity and conflict.  I'm imagining two people walking and talking about stuff, which doesn't sound interesting. 


TITLE: Nero

STORY

Concept is fresh/and or original - 4

Theme is well executed/interweaved - 3

Stakes are clear/conflict is strong and or compelling - 3

Story - 2

Ending - 3

CHARACTER/DIALOGUE

Protagonist(s) is (are) likable and/or compelling - 2

Dialogue reads naturally/believable within this story - 2

Dialogue reveals character -  2

READABILITY

Action text "shows" instead of "tells" - 3

Overall readability - 3

Total: 2.7

Thanks again for all the great feedback. It's much appreciated.

As always, I apologize for the typos. I submitted about an hour before deadline and spent about two evenings on this so it could have used an extra bit of spit and polish.

I wasn't going to enter the contest because of time constraints unless I had a really sweet idea. When I think of apocalypse my mind goes to a world already destroyed. But so much of that is generic or played out that I didn't want to rehash anything that's been done.

I thought about what an apocalypse today would look like if humanity was wiped out. People would be gone, but a lot of our technology and infrastructure might remain. Robots, AI, the internet. That's where the idea for Nero came from. An advanced AI still connected to the internet in a world that's seen humanity wiped out. Basically, all the combined knowledge of humanity in a bracelet without humans. The catch is, Nero is like an Eco-Watch in that his power comes from a person's bio electric field. He needs a wearer to stay alive and in turn his owner needs him to survive the weedy wasteland I created.

That's the jist and the way I wrote it, Nero was supposed to be the main character. Kinda like a mix of Cortana (Halo) and K-2SO (Rogue One) with a smart phone. This is also why the Man was never named, I didn't want the audience to associate with him too much but this seems to have irked a lot of readers. I may or may not change that if I rewrite and submit. When the script ends we have Nero in Alice's possession and now it's up to the two of them to survive and endure this world as Nero guides her to the Tower. And yes, the Man dies. Was surprised to see so many people ask about him.

The scalpers are a but generic but were supposed to be Mad Max style raiders who hunger for tech instead of fuel.

In this world humanity was wiped out by a pandemic virus called K9V that is like bird flu that moved to dogs. That's why the dogs scare everybody but with a 12 page limit it was hard to fit that in clearly.

The Tower is just a MacGuffin and has no real purpose which I'm glad a lot of readers seemed to pick up on. Maybe Nero needs to connect to it to access satellites above or some encrypted database. I dunno.

I'm really proud of this as I think it turned out well, and glad so many readers had great things to say. It was fun to build the world and try and do a unique spin on the apocalypse. Thanks again for all the reads!

I do like this one, one of my favs for sure. I'm glad you enjoyed creating this dystopian future and would encourage you to develop it more. Well done!

-Mark

Me too. I didn't have too many VG's and Excellents and this was one of them. I did have questions, but I liked it a lot still.