If I'm starting a movie, with a scene from another movie as a dream sequence, would I have to introduce all of the characters again as if we're just meeting them? or how would I handle that properly?

The best example I could give of this are the Rocky sequels, and how they use the fight from the previous movie to transition into the new movie, you know?

If you're talking about somthing along the lines of a sequel, you can have our dream sequence, but you'll want to introduce the characters as they are now, rather than allowing us to assume they are as they were then. But that really depends on the type of sequel.

Generally speaking, I would write the script as if the audience has no knowledge of the other film but rather use the other film(s) as a backstory to the current occurrence. I did something of this sort in my only fanfic script, Nightmare on Elm Street 5.5. I opened it with the final battle scene of Nightmare 5 and proceeded from there. I still intoduced every character (even though there were characters from nearly every other film) as if they had a backstory but we'd never met them before.

I usually do something to that effect in the Fempiror scripts as well, though I admit it is not to that extent, and after the first script, I presume the audience has a knowledge of the universe created.

Thanks George. I was thinking of going down the route of just pretending the audience has no knowledge of the other script, just wanted to make sure I was doing it right or if there was another way.

The actual story takes place ten years later, but uses the last two pages of the first as the opening of the second. So I guess I'll just introduce everything twice, even though it's a pain.

That's one thing I hate about modern sequels, the filmmakers presume that the audience already knows the characters and their backstories and that they don't need to introduce them again. I think that's why some sequels haven't done as well as their predecessors have, because the characters are just thrown in without any proper explanation as to their nature and history. It kind of shows how big-headed modern filmmakers are when they do sequels this way. They presume that, just because their first film was so good that they can now do a sequel, the vast majority of the worldwide audience has actually SEEN the first film and already know the characters, and so they don't need to retell their backstories because the characters are so good that you can't possibly forget them! When in actual fact, there are A LOT of people out there who thought the first film looked so cr*p that they didn't even bother to go to see it! What are you going to do about them when you bring yet another one out?

Sorry if I'm rambling on about this, but this is yet another thing that is bugging me about today's film industry. Not enough creativity or ORIGINALITY! But I'm sure your sequel will be done right, sryknows. I think nowadays, the aspiring writer and filmmaker has more sense than the established!  

I understand what you're saying Ghostwriter, I feel the same way. The story was actually intended to be a two parter, it was just too long to fit it all into one. I've already got a 199 page script, I don't think I need a 200+ pager on my resume as well. Both are basically coming from two completely different concepts and combining them together. Showing both the build up to a tramatic event, and then the aftermath, showing the complete journey of the main character on his road to find himself basically. I'm trying my best to make it followable, even if you haven't read the first one, even though it's finishing up the same story, which is pretty diffcult.

But yeah. Im in the process of writing it now, and am finding that I am needing to make more references to the first one then I thought I would have. I'm actually using the first one to tell the second one.

I particularly hate it when a first film is successful, then they just throw on a bunch of sequels to capitalize on it. I would never do that. I have two sequels in mind for two of my stories, but it's because I already had the sequels in mind before hand. I would never do a sequel unless I had more of the story to tell, or had the sequel's story already all planned out.

And since I havn't mentioned it yet, maybe I should. The sequel I'm working on now is ".therapY" completing the story started in my "The Atheist's Guide to Something Better" screenplay. And I'm 16 pages into it so far, and it's coming along quite nicely I think. (if anyone's even curious that is )