Alien Cell by Stefan V.S. Gibson (svsg1982) - Action, Adventure, Comedy - The invasion has been long under way.  Alien Cell Phones have taken control of our minds.  Jason Blake, a Psyche Ward Doctor and a Insane Asylum Escapee are the only hope standing between the Alien Cell Army and world domination. 118 pages - pdf, format

Interesting idea, I think the title would be better of just shortened to 'cell'.  

Need to fill out that title page.

Is that just a floating TV?  Need to start with a slug.  just move the airport slug up, then describe whats on the tv, then describe jason watching it, and readers will get the picture.

If the obese man is talking on the phone I think you should include his dialogue, or at least say ad lib.  wouldnt be hard just to have  Obese man:  hey whatsup, yea just getting ready to take off...  etc

Up until the air marshal says "air marshal"  how do we know he's an air marshal?
And just one L is marshal

Don't plane doors open inwards?

Jasons 20s?  still living at home?  you might want to at least clarify early twenties.  I was picturing an older dude til I got to the parents and maxim posters.

typo, cubicle misspelled right after jason asks for one.

So far I like the tone, kinda ominous but still with a bit of black humor.  

p7  isnt it wifi?

I dont think u need to put establishing shot.  just describe what u want the viewer to see.

fml?  im assuming you mean fuck my life, so y not just say that?  

'I'm david strausser I hate technology'  seems pretty forced.  just have him take the cell phone and eat it, that keeps us wondering without awkward dialogue.  and of course where the hell did he get a revolver?  maybe a kitchen knife or another syringe would make more sense.

So strausser was expecting jason specifically?  you're losing alot of believability around here.  I'm down with the secret lair and aliens and what not, but how does strausser even know who jason was?

Who says beau?  but I guess who says amazerful too

p28  one am, should be one AM

p32 stile alive should be still

read up to about p36.  fairly interesting so far.  well written aside from a few typos.

like I said I don't have a problem with the aliens, jumpermen, planes crashing or any of that.  What I do have trouble getting into is the knowing the future, the magic scribble book, and anyone giving a damn about jason, the regular guy who just so happens to be the only one who can save the world as predicted by a magic coloring book or something.

Like it takes a certain suspension of disbelief to get into the aliens thing, but that's fine since the reader expects that going in to the story.  But rather than continue at that level, you then up the level of fantasy by going into predicting the future, which is a whole new level.  I think it would be hard for an audience to buy into that.

obviously I havent read the whole thing, so I dont know what the end game is, but what I might suggest is at least have jasons involvement be accidental.  Like hes out doing his drive, hits straussman.  straussmen grabs his id or something, sees the headlights coming and knows its the jumpermen.  he dives out, accidentally leaving the book.  jason confused, stashes the book in his trumpet case, wondering what the f just happened, then hit by jumpermen etc.  

later believes it was all a dream til he finds the book in his case.  stares at it wondering.  eventually realizes its predicting or at least about the plane crashes.  maybe have the tail numbers worked into the scribbles, and he recognizes the tail number of the plane he was on that was supposed to crash.  meanwhile strauss tracks him down wanting his book back, but by that time jason realizes somethings special with the book and wants to know what's going on.

I know it's kinda annoying to suggest a major rewrite like that, but I think keeping the believability level as close to your premise as possible is key in this kind of thing.

Other than that the writing was good, jason is pretty likable, and the story is plenty intriguing.  I'll keep reading if you're active on the boards.

Thanks for the read!  And poking at the logic of my story a bit.  Its hard to look at things objectively when I being the writer has to be the reader as well.  Yes, where David Strausser gets the gun was something that bugged me.  In the rewrite it will be a fake cap gun he stole from some place.  I explain (later in the story) that the coloring book is how Strausser finds out about Jason and thats how he knows where Jason is going to be. Again thanks for the read and even if your the only one I'm glad its someone that really questioned the story.  I'll be sure to read yours as well.

Starting at p36...

The mother brain lair color effects sound a bit cheesy.  Kinda 80 scifi vibe.

I was very confused by the whole scene in jasons house as the plane crashes.  Im guessing thats kinda the point, but i wasn't the good kinda intrigued confused, but just having trouble picturing what was going on and the abrupt changes in scene.  Might smooth it out while still maintaining whatever vibe you're looking for.

Is the french scientist speaking english?  if not need subtitles.  which I have no idea how to format, but someone here would.

The jumpermen are a pretty cool idea.  each of them different zombified humans with matching jumpsuits.  especially their penchant for eating electronics.  nice and creepy.

p47 "I punched my dad several times in the crotch, that was fun."  Not sure if it matches the mood you're going for but I think "I punched my dad several times in the crotch.  I think I'm going to be an only child"  would be funny.

I think if cindy is going to be a big part of this script she needs to be introduced sooner.  Also her scenes up til now seem a bit forced, like they were added in purely to add a girlfriend character.  Which might be necessary, but should become a little more natural.

Whats with the fetish for conversion vans.  Pretty confusing who's where.

He throws smoke grenades out the window while theyre moving?  they would just drive away from the smoke.  Maybe tosses them in back of the van so they leak smoke out?

Also this whole chase sequence is pretty confusing.  Jason and Cynthia were having their moment, then the arrive at the cabin, which is on fire and suddenly theres a car chase?  and the almighty bad guys stabbed a dude?  they cant mind control themselves a gun?

p53 pretty sure you still need to slug 'space' properly.  as in EXT.  SPACE - orbitting above earth   or something like that.

The whole Cindy thing is kinda killing my buzz.  Kinda stereotyped, yea shes a rebel and shes dating a rich douche.  It just seems hard to buy that she would put herself in that situation.  You notice in most movies like this they would have her bf actually be pretty likable.  That way it makes sense shes with him, and its a bigger deal for her to leave him.  With yours every scene makes it totally obvious what the ending will be.

And that's up to p62ish, and I'm off to bed.  Still intriguing, but some of the twists and turns are a bit sudden.  Also the action writing seems to be your weak point, with a lot of stuff going on it gets confusing pretty quick.

I'll look into the action writing.  And I'll see what I think when I read Cindy's scenes again.  I'm letting the script breath right now so that when I read it in a week or two I can see it with a fresher take.  Thanks for the read.

Also I think I introduce Cindy in the first 15 minutes.  Was that too late?

Maybe a little too late, but mostly the first couple scenes with her just seem a bit disconnected from the rest of the story.  Just reading it kinda feels like the stories progressing and then theres a pause, 'insert female love interest here' kinda.  Not that bad, just a little smoother or more integrated might be nice.  

As I go:

Title page.  C’mon now.

Page 1:  “…most terrifying epidemic in American history.”  This seems like a pretty outrageous overstatement.  What about polio?
Yeah, it really is a hell of a thing to show in an airport.  I have a feeling that this wouldn’t happen.  They tend to be pretty careful about that stuff…they don’t even show movies where bad things happen to/on planes.  Maybe he should be watching it on a portable device or something (not that that’s nearly as good an image)?

Page 2:  Hahah awesome.  I like this.  The one thing I will say is that if something this big is going to happen, I feel like we should have established Jason’s character a tiny bit more before he was thrown into such an intense situation.  If the conversation with the tourist were extended a bit it would give us more time to settle in and get used to Jason before things get crazy.

Page 4:  Just a personal preference thing here.  Obviously Mr. Blake’s a jerk but I really just don’t think the word “retarded” should be used…ever, basically, at least not in a light script like this.  Of course a lot of people would disagree with me and a lot of people would laugh.  Just letting you know my personal opinion.

Page 7:  For what it’s worth, I don’t really feel like my sympathy for Jason is building; much the opposite, actually.  He’s obviously been freeloading off his parents (who presumably just bought him a plane ticket home), he got kicked out of music school, he’s got a room filled with expensive stuff, he can’t handle one day of work, and he doesn’t even quit to Matson’s face after Matson is completely forthcoming with him about the job.  We’re given no particular clue as to why Jason might have trouble supporting himself, no evidence of what flaw might be troubling him in life.  The script just seems to assume that we recognize that the “real world” sucks, and that we should all be fed up with it.  Well, we are, but none of us are useless like Jason.  I’m sure there’s a good reason why he was kicked out of music school, for instance, but we’ve had our first big sequence with the main character and I don’t really feel like there’s any particular reason to like him.

Page 8:  I like the Mr/Mrs Blake relationship.

Page 11:  I dunno, Mr. Blake comes off kinda too soft all of a sudden in this argument.  He just doesn’t strike me so far as the kind of guy to be so open with his wife on this kinda topic.  Also, he’s not being particularly hard on Jason.  He just lent him his car for gosh sake.  

Page 15:  Why did Strausser choose Jason?  What did he see in him?  He can’t have too many copies of that book, so to give it someone is a big deal.  He’s obviously still free so he probably could have given it to a lot of different people by now.  I feel like Strausser knows something specific about Jason but we didn’t see that moment of recognition in their scene together.

Page 17:  We’re a romantic comedy all of a second?  This stuff should have happened before Jason met Strausser.

Page 20:  Cindy’s nice.  I just don’t really see how Jason is supposed to engage us.  He’s quick-witted enough, but he is absolutely most definitely a loser, and unlike the great loser characters, he just doesn’t appear to have any aspirations whatsoever.  Why was he in music school?  Does he want to be a musician?  The first act should establish what’s wrong in our protagonist’s universe, what we are going to want to see him or her change or fix over the course of the film.  Just “being a loser” isn’t enough…we should understand why he’s a loser, and what he wants to one day do.  Without this information, it’s not too exciting to watch his story (although the sci-fi plot, for what it’s worth, is quite well handled), and it’s definitely not exciting to watch Cindy romantically pursue him when he doesn’t appear to have any attractive traits.

Page 22: “That’s your kid.”  See?  That’s Mr. Blake.  He would never have been so soft with his wife in the earlier argument.

Page 27:  The woman in the wood-chipper seems uncharacteristically brutal.  I think it’s outside the tone.  Maybe if it were a dude instead…

Stopped around 36.  Done with this draft.  I really like the story of this script, really a lot.  I love conspiracy stuff and I hate technology.  But I just can’t really get on board with the characters.  Jason still hasn’t shown me anything interesting, and Strausser doesn’t really have any flavour to him.  The Jason/Cindy/Ellen thing…well, I’m sure we all know how that’s going to turn out (Ellen was funny though).  It looks to me like you’ve put a lot of work into your premise and story but I don’t think the characters are quite there yet and without them, the story isn’t going to engage anybody.  Strausser’s been fighting a long, lonely battle, and now he finally has someone to talk to; what’s he like?  What does he find funny, what annoys him, what’s he good at, what are his flaws?  Jason’s a loser; why is he a loser?  Cindy’s had her best friend (who clearly likes her) leave, and she’s trying to continue in life with a guy she knows isn’t right for her; isn’t she pretty mad at Jason?  Or does she know feel like she’s outgrown him?  Why is Ellen attracted to her, of all people?

In the end, if the characters don’t work, the script doesn’t work, and these characters don’t work for me.  Your writing is pretty tight…I don’t think the shot-list style writing (So-and so, doing blah blah blah.) is always working for you, and the use of “Meet” in character introductions is a little excessive.  Still, you’ve got a slick, fast-paced read here, and it progresses well, except for Cindy, who absolutely should be introduced before Strausser.

Thanks for the enjoyable read and I’ll happily check out a new draft if one goes up!

Thanks.  This is definitely not the final draft.  I'll be working on a new draft(s) in next the next month and through the summer and try to address some things to tighten up the story.  

Yeah the wood chipper scene is brutal.  Its from an earlier draft with a lot more gore but its still there.  I'm kinda into gore.

Lastly, I didn't create a title page because I really wasn't concerned about it.  I just wanted people to read the story.  I didn't think it would be as off putting as it is.  I'll do it next time.

Thanks for the input.  Truly appreciated.