All screenplays on the simplyscripts.com and simplyscripts.net domain are copyrighted to their respective authors. All rights reserved. This screenplaymay not be used or reproduced for any purpose including educational purposes without the expressed written permission of the author.
Diving right in, I'll start with the good. This is most definite a reboot that tries to play a hard Tim Burton note. Dexter was the most interesting character in this, my best guess is because there's some insight into what motivates him to create. The writing was visual at times, but there wasn't really anything that anchored the story's progression. The read felt like a see-saw of WTF - one minute I'm engaged, the next...new world order.
I think the story needs context before the plummet into the lab. Also, if this show is trying to create the type of colorful, morose atmosphere that I think the writer was going for, then the lab could benefit from a sense of amazement and wonder.
There's no doubt this reboot is interesting, but the only way I can articulate it is that the entire story is on-the-nose without any understanding of what brought James and Dee Dee together.
I can't say this reboot is my thing. I do think the author put enough out there for us readers to have a creative dialogue about it, even though most of the spaghetti didn't stick.
Characters were introduced. A killing that wasn't a killing happened. What didn't happen was a narrative that would show us the type of story we could expect to see if the series was rebooted.
I got this one mixed up with Michael C. Hall's Dexter of which I was a fan of. Now that I've watched most of a sample episode of Dexter's Laboratory I can see right off the bat that DeeDee and Dex have a real Garfield and Odie relationship that generates most of the humor. He's a dead serious lab rat, she's a free spirit.
That back and forth wasn't present here, not showing Dex until almost the end. Then again, if this is meant to be the pilot of a reboot, I can totally understand all the heavy exposition about the outhouse lab, the parents car accident, Dexter never being the same again, etc. All of this being one big build up to the reveal of our main character.
What would have been fun is having DeeDee describe the lab and her brother's work with a more light hearted playfulness and aloof attitude as these horribly strange and unexplainable things continue to happen around James. That juxtaposition would have bun really funny and given us a glimpse at this brother/sister relationship.
As it is written, it feels a bit more horror with zero element of comedy. I guess I'm not sure what direction you were trying to take this.
You have a way with descriptions and I did enjoy your visuals and the lab itself but did have some trouble picturing a lot of this as I was unfamiliar with the cartoon. Glass is shattering and green liquid is pouring from various doors and got lost as to where all of this was coming from. I had to re read that sequence a couple of times to get a visual.