The Storm by Andrew Herlan - Sci Fi, Fantasy - A mysterious young amnesiac, Matthew, is transported to another galaxy, with his mentor and an Earth woman named Jenny, where he discovers he himself is the center of a legendary curse and the only man who can stop a massive war that will eventually threaten Earth.  121 pages - pdf, format

Hi Andrew, I read your script and have some pointers I think would be helpful towards improving it. Overall, I quite liked your lighthearted approach to the story – some tend to take their creations too seriously.

First of all, just some technical stuff that threw me off:

-     You often refer to your characters by nouns other than their names. Matthew as “the boy”, “the kid”, “the weakened prophecy”, or Shal as “the beast”, “the killer”, “the monster”. Even “the a’hole” was used at some point. Always call them by their name or through pronouns. Scenes were often made unnecessarily confusing due to this habit.

-     Scene headings were sometimes labeled incorrectly, especially towards the end of the screenplay. I know what you mean with “Int. Forest”, but exterior would be the proper header in that situation. Think of Int. as indoors (though int. cave, for example, would be appropriate).


Now onto the good stuff…

Once we reach the alien planet and Matthew has his “force training”, we get hit with a ton of expositional backstory. Matt and David deliver lengthy monologues within a few pages of each other. It doesn’t help that both are delivered towards Jenny, while sitting in the same cave. Even changing the setting of one of the speeches would help in making the info dump more digestible.

Shal is hilarious with his over the top one liners, but it became slightly overbearing at times. That being said, he’s by far my favorite character. At one point Jenny asks if he’s the Rock’s evil brother. I couldn’t imagine him as anyone else ever since lol.

Though that joke hit the mark, for the most part I couldn’t stand Jenny’s constant quipping. I liked her at first, but by the middle of Act 2 I wished she’d just shut the hell up.

She’s an average Jane office worker who gets teleported to an alien planet, and has no reaction at all. Nothing beyond sass, at least. Having her say “I should probably be freaking out” doesn’t make it work. I understand that it’s a lighthearted adventure/comedy, but she’s pushing it way too far – she’s neither relatable nor entertaining.

You cleverly showed the reader that she became a social worker with the intent of helping people. Early on she laments that she couldn’t do more to help a single mother that sought her aid. This is good. Then things fell apart. Here’s my suggestion:

She arrives at the alien planet and is in shock and reluctant to help. They visit a small village and she sees the troubles they’re going through. She bonds with the kids and realizes that these people need her. What village is this? The same one we see again later, held captive by Shal and his men. This raises the emotional stakes of that scene for both the characters and the audience – she’ll have a chance to show real emotions and rise above stupid quipping.

On to Matthew. He’s boring and awkward. His interactions with Jenny boil down to her making jokes and him smiling at her. He needs some re-working.

There are some other minor concerns, but I’ll skip to what matter most. The final confrontation was confusing and anti-climactic. I didn’t quite understand the positioning of the different characters (for example, how Matthew managed to reach and directly confront Kellan). I won’t spoil the ending for anyone else, but the ease with which things subsided at the end felt unnatural to me.

By far the worst sin, though ... you forgot about Shal! He challenges Matt to a swordfight, we cut to another scene, and he’s never addressed again.  He deserves better.

Good luck!