Indiana Jones and the Gift from the Gods by Steve Wrench - Action, Adventure - {no logline} 116 pages - pdf, format

Big script. Certainly a big title.

Do we need another one? Oh. Okay.

Maybe you're new. And you may be not.

Either way, I'll try to be nice. I may fail. Often do.

I doubt all this WGA and copyright stuff help. You gotta protect the precious things. But I wouldn't be getting carried away.

Big blocks of text. I heard that's a bit of a no no. I like to use the space and show it.

Less can be more, for sure.

I can see some prep went in this. Not enough methinks tho. Oh. yes.

Could be a great story waiting to come out. I dunno. I didn't get past the first few pages.

Can be tough round here. Mistakes, even small ones can kill your darling. Gotta be very careful. Or drunk. I try and do both. Not easy.

You putta lot work in. So, credit where due. But these days a fuck load of work is needed before Mr. Big will sit down and read the bloody thing.

Green light? By the fuck there's usually a blue moon as well.

Keep trying. I do.

R

I really like Indy, and glanced over 10 pages or so, but you do have some problems here.

The first -- as Ren alluded to in his own indomitable and marginally comprehensible fashion -- are the huge blocks of text.  Scripts are just as much about the white space on the page as they are the black space.  While the first page is particularly egregious in this respect, scrolling through the script, I found many similar pages.

1.  Work on condensing and spacing out your text.

Another problem is by page 3, you have tossed in perhaps a dozen or so characters all at once.  It is not done this way.  It is nearly impossible for your reader to keep up, and makes for a very onerous reading experience.

2.  Trim your characters.  Consider keeping only a handful up front, and introducing some of the others later.  Use only who you need, and only at that point in the story when they become indispensible.

But my biggest problem is the opening sequence.  Indy works in a very specific way, and that first 10 pages need to blow my doors off, you know?

What you have is a fairly unproblematic rescue, followed by a fairly conventional car chase through the jungle.  Sure, there are some gunshots, a bazooka blast here and there, but no obstacles that require Indy's patented brand of daring-do.

3.  If you are gonna write an Indy script, you must give him insurmountable obstacles -- one right after another -- so Indy can just knock 'em down like dominoes.

Now, if you have that rope bridge collapse while Indy's truck is on the bridge -- with a nice action set-piece where he gets out of that pickle -- then you will be on the right track.

Hope some of this helps you out.

Quoted from Bert's sig I freaking despise these demonically-influenced Soul Shadow scripts...the story turns my stomach...

I actually wanna read it now. Sounds the job.

Quoted from bert ... 3.  If you are gonna write an Indy script, you must give him insurmountable obstacles -- one right after another -- so Indy can just knock 'em down like dominoes. Now, if you have that rope bridge collapse while Indy's truck is on the bridge -- with a nice action set-piece where he gets out of that pickle -- then you will be on the right track.

I'd say that is about spot on.

I remember a big ball rolling. Some fella trying to kill him on a rope bridge over a valley. Indy walking the walk by climbing over, along and under a moving truck. He also got the lass.

And he spent time in the classroom in a suit.

Indy's a great icon. And the Spielberg Lucas films are pretty damn exciting. When they came out every fella I know got off his ass and went down to see em. And they walked out happy.

Job done.

Now, where is my wallet? Oh dear.

R

Technically - and I could be wrong - I think you wasted your time and money on registering this script with the WGA. If you own the rights to Indy this is a moo(t) point, but I'm not sure you do, so you can't really do anything with something you don't own. A lot of work went into this but you're not going to get a lot out of it, sadly.

Quoted from ABennettWriter Technically - and I could be wrong - I think you wasted your time and money on registering this script with the WGA. If you own the rights to Indy this is a moo(t) point, but I'm not sure you do, so you can't really do anything with something you don't own. A lot of work went into this but you're not going to get a lot out of it, sadly.

Even though he obviously doesn't own the right to Indy, he still owns the rights to the script itself. It's his. He wrote it. He can copyright it, register it. No problem. As far as producing goes...not a chance.

Depending on how many Indy trademarks the script depends on, he could just change the main character to Montana Jackson and market it just fine.