Spore by Anonymous20 - An Elite Brazilian Airborne Rescue Squadron and a renowned Medical Officer must team up to search for the survivors of a plane crash in the Amazon Jungle, but the jungle holds secrets that may be worse than any plane crash. - Short, Horror

Met the criteria.

Decent premise, good visuals.I think this is the first script that deals with spores that realises hand sanitisers can't kill spores. Only major problem is the amount of dialogue at the end, your Doctor basically relates the whole story. It almost goes from a film to an audio drama.

A good effort.

This was pretty good. A hell of a lot of detail and research into the army logistics and chain of command, plus elaborate naming of perps. But it didn’t detract.

When the doctor reveals his plan for world domination it was a little off kilter but still fine.
I actually laughed when he solemnly declares that ‘he is the Queen and you are my hive’. Obviously it wasn’t meant to be funny but I laughed out loud. Actually between it and the Liver script I got more laughs than most of the Rd 2 ‘comedies’.  Lol

Anyway this was good

I gave this another go, with my best acting head on, and I just wanted to say I think my initial review sounds a little harsh. There's a lot of dialogue at the end, but a good actor could definitely make it work.

I think after the comp you should add a few beats from the other team members, just to break it up a bit. But with the surroundings, the atmosphere and the people suffering, the villainy speech at the end will still work.

Figured I'd start with the spore scripts since they are causing controversy.

Good, solid work by a writer who knows his way around. Here is a writer with the skill to craft a complicated feature.

I love the first two thirds of the script. The ending could work in a much larger work, but it also feels a little too much like some of those 60s plots where an evil genius tries to take over the world. This also comes with a sudden and long-winded exposition at the end.

Obviously, I think, if this kind of plot were expanded the writer would probably choose to go another direction than the hand sanitizer. That's not a knock at all. It meets the criteria.

I love the setting and the skill at detailing it. Brazil is a mysterious place filled with story potential. I've never been to Brazil, but I do know a few people from there. Very colorful, their culture very rich in complex tradition.

Excellent work for 72 hours. I think the apt word is competent. This is a very competent writer.

Some great world-building here. Densely written, but well done. (I love the Amazon. Have read many books on the conditions within... so, I'm naturally interested from the start.)

I wouldn't think the Doctor would have to brief an elite Brazilian rescue team on conditions in the Amazon (I would assume a great portion of their training took place there)... but, that's a nit.

Page 4 dialogue dump is a handful. Consider breaking up the block with a bit of action in-between -- strictly to make it easier to read.

Done reading...

There's an excellent story here. It's well told. The main reason this will fall just a bit short, is that most of the interesting bits of the story are dumped as exposition in dialogue. Clearly, this one suffers from the page limitations.

Don't worry about that, though. I think I know who wrote this... and from your comments on the board, you're aware of the issue. Without the page limitations, I'm hoping/expecting that you would work much harder at rolling all this out in ways other than dialogue... specifically action and character.

Not great as a five-page short. Really good as a proof-of-concept for a larger script.

SPORE

So, it's Spore time Part One. Bring it on!

P4 yeah, strange Doctor was suspicious from the start ;-)
A far too long speech of him though.

Yep, his speeches are too long and don't work in a visual experience. It also makes everything a little satiric.

I had high hopes for the third act but then I was reminded of the fact that we need to involve a damn hand sanitizer. Almost forgot this during that fine jungle stroll. Just sooo hard.

The journey was fun nevertheless. It just couldn't keep its level to the end and you needed to hammer the sanitizer in. Understandable. We had to walk with what came to us. Otherwise, super clean performance. Vivid jungle atmosphere. Pretty good.

I liked this one. Great writing, interesting atmosphere and a great climax. Though bit wordy in the end but it has some vital interesting story. So no complains there.

Some very good writing here. Nice visuals. You introduced the team, built the atmosphere, and threw us in to the action effortlessly. The real problem for me is the page count not allowing you to set up the ending.

Given more space, you can establish the Dr. Radcliffe twist so it's not a complete information dump. Maybe a few moments where he interacts with the crew as they're investigating. Obviously, not in a way that gives away the ending at all. Maybe he can talk about the human suffering he's witnessed as a doctor or something like that.

A tiny bit more interaction among crew members and with the doctor will give this added punch. Like this was great...

DOCTOR RADCLIFFE
It's beautiful isn't it? A perfect
web of life, death, rebirth and
decay; every plant and animal
connected by its thread.

BARBASO
It's a fuck-hole.

You get the contrasting views, it's funny, and it separates grunt from scientist. If I may suggest another little addition that might work along those lines...

DOCTOR RADCLIFFE
The Amazon is a dangerous place.
There are toxic plants, poisonous insects,
aggressive mammals--

GOMES
He's talking about you, Barbosa.


Okay, that's enough nitpicking. Very good overall. With a little more space this will be great. Nice job!

Spore.... catchy title.

After I finished,  I felt like I didn’t have the proper clearance to read this. Your writing really impressed me.  No doubt you put a lot of time and effort into this.

The doctor was a nice surprise.  Didn’t expect that.  I think he over indulged a little on his information, but in the same breath, you had no choice because of the page limit.

The doctor doing it ,to basically save us from ourselves type attitude ,gives him a real OCPD trait about him.

I liked how you incorporate the hand san. Lol . Clever .

Well done .

Hi writer,

This was going quite well until:

Quoted Text DOCTOR RADCLIFFE The pain you are experiencing is caused by a fungal parasite attaching itself to your nervous systems. I spent years in this jungle studying parasitic lifeforms capable of controlling their hosts and I have created a parasite that can modify and control a hosts neural network, and thus control the host's behaviour. The first iteration is aggressive and fatal, but once the parasite has incubated inside a human host it combines with human genes and produces spores. Those infected by the spores, which is you, will survive but the parasite will make them subservient to the person that secretes the compound necessary to modify gene expression in the host... He wipes his brow. A hint of green on the handkerchief. DOCTOR RADCLIFFE ...Which is me. I'll rule over you, the way a Queen Bee rules the Hive.

-- and the rest of the expositional, and might I say mind-numbing, dialogue.

This idea is too big for 5 pages, way too big, and it shows. You have more than a page and a half of expositional dialogue. It really hurts the rest of your story in my opinion.

Great writing early on but that ending just sent this into a nose dive for me.

An Idea that is potentially worth expanding after the WT, but here it doesn’t work for me.

All the best.

I'm going to be pedantic, sorry.

By law, a colonel must have 22 years of service and a minimum of three years of service as a lieutenant colonel before being promoted. Unless he served in the civil War... Or maybe Brazil is different?

Sorry, at 28, your guy just seems too young, and it stuck out.
Great opening, loved the set-up..

Okay, the Colonel is a 'she'. Goodo.

A hint of Cordyceps, The Last Of Us here.
And you don't need telling again about that overly long expositionary dialogue.
Another with the 'poison in the sanitizer trick.'

Love all the jungle description, prose is top-notch, and you evoked the atmosphere and environment beautifully.

Yeah I think Francisca should be Francesca  

Yes, agreed, Stevie.
Although, it's apparently the feminine form of Francisco.

Funny spellings some people use now for standard names too. Have no idea what gender they are. I think in this case the writer did their homework, it's just not immediately apparent she is a she. Good choice though. We need more females in lead roles.  

Quoted from LC Yes, agreed, Stevie. Although, it's apparently the feminine form of Francisco. Funny spellings some people use now for standard names too. Have no idea what gender they are. I think in this case the writer did their homework, it's just not immediately apparent she is a she. Good choice though. We need more females in lead roles.

Yep I’m all for equality Lib! As long as the same number of dudes and chicks get infected by plant thingies then it’s all bonzer mate