Citadel :: SimplyScripts Screenwriting Discussion Board

I loves me some high concept sci-fi, so let's take a look at this...

Right away, I can tell you that yoru action passages are way too chunky. Sometimes it's through too much detail, others you're just pushing too many things together. Look for ways to either trim it down to the essentials or space and pace the action out a little more evenly.

'The Major is a strong male in his mid forties. He is a professional soldier. He is not evil.' - 'not evil'? not sure what that's all about ^_^

Your style throughout is quite stiff and formal, in both action and dialogue. I know the majority of sci-fi does tend to lean towards more serious, intellectual writing - there's a reason Firefly wa sso unique, after all - but here things are maybe a little too on the nose.

A good example is the lengthy chase sequence with Nina's jet and the police Interceptors. The thick action blocks slow down what's going on anyway - there's not much of a sense of urgency because each section takes so long to get through. I think if you cut this a little looser and play it for the action it's meant to be, you'll get a better result from it. Also, don't be afraid to show flashes of character and personality amongst the cast - everyone's very droll and formal, no matter what they're saying or doing.

The actual pacing of the chase, you see, gives you plenty of beats where you can use characters like Milo and Noguchi - use their scenes to advance the action in the chase without us having to see every manouvre. The use of the clock timer is a nice idea, but it gets in the way too often to be as effective as I'd like.

Plus, watch the tenses - write everything in present tense. There are some long passages (especially later on with the energy shockwave around the Citadel) where you keep jumping into past tense, and it just doesn't look right at all.

That sudden time jump to show the backstory of the Citadel kind of comes out of nowhere, though - exposition is often necessary in pilots, but there's a time and a place for it, and I'm not sure the way it's shoehorned in here quite works.

The main issue? It just... stops. No END OF ACT, nothing. We just cut off in the middle of a scene, when Shelby locates Nina and drops the bomb that she's from Citadel too. So get that sorted out.

Overall? An over-written script that shows flashes of some neat concepts, and the well-travelled 'someone from the future thrown back into the past' motif. However, we spend too much time in the future, bogged down in clunky exposition, to get enough of a sense of where the 'present day' side of this is going. Your characters could do with a lot more flair and sparkle in their dialogue, and your action needs a healthy edit to make the whole thing more readable. But! There's promise here. So sit down and have a nother pass at this to bring your ideas out from under the writing.