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The Tides of Caeus by Lee Cordner (Leegion) - Short, Action/Adventure, Fantasy - Two brothers venture to a mystical island in a desperate attempt to gain a powerful amulet and thwart a Demon's plans to plunge the world into eternal shadow. 31 pages - pdf, format
I'm getting a Conan vibe from this from the start.
Lose the action line about your hero struggling to get his "sorry ass" onto the broken bridge.
I'm not digging Johan's extreme VO prose. Its ok at the beginning but this guy is starting to spout nonsense as the script goes on. He some kind of warrior poet?
"Johan ignores the warning and books a left." Same as sorry ass above. This isn't matching up with your story. Why is there what sounds like street slang in this kind of story?
Still more V.O. from Johan. This is just massive amounts of backstory jammed in here for no reason other than to have it. I'd rather he just keep quiet. For being the strong silent type in the action shown he sure is a chatterbox here.
Why is Urhmier killing his own men? Does he not know what the amulet does? The pirate decays a 1,000 years in a second. Breaking rope bridges, skulls everywhere. I take it back, this is half Conan, half Indiana Jones, half Pirates of the Caribbean. (I'm picturing Captain Hooky pirates for some reason here. Ruffles, big boots, shiny belt buckles, Arrrrgh pirates. Would be a cool aesthetic if so)
Now its half Pinocchio as Johan is inside a giant shark, lol. But you describe Johan slashing away at cells inside its stomach. CELLS? How big is that damn shark??????
At the end you wrote, "Johan EXPLODES out of Caeus's rear." I'm sure this is supposed to be serious but I couldn't help but chuckle a bit.
Obviously this is nowhere near low budget. This script tries to sound epic but fell flat for me. Not my cup of tea but some may like it.
This does read like Hercules or Conan. It's rare they do anything interesting with these movies. But I do love Ray Harryhausen and all that Jason and the Argonauts type stuff. Maybe this will follow the latter. We live in hope.
This bewildered me -
Quoted from TTOC
Johan drags his sorry ass onto the bridge.
A strange way to describe the hero. Or maybe you're having a laugh.
At the end I was thinking a couple of things.
Firstly, you can write. You have imagination and the ability to plot a story.
Secondly - I don't like Dungeons and Dragons. Got this feeling you do. I can watch LOTR and the Hobbit and the like, and enjoy it, but not half as much as others do.
Thirdly - this fitted the challenge, just. But it felt like that device John Cleese and Les Dawson used to use when they had a speech to make at a big occasion. They would start by talking, in some detail, about a historic event that happened on that day. Just as the audience was at the point wondering what all this could possiby have to do with today they would say 'but all that has nothing to do with today, as we're here to celebrate...
Fourthly - It felt a chore to read. The stakes were low for me. Hopefully others will feel diferent. Best of luck with it.
Repetitive voice over and writing, not a good start.
And then that aside on page 2 pops up out of nowhere. We're taking about demon kings and then you write that? Totally ruined the mood.
Another script with VO that's just lost on me. He's there to find an amulet? That should be obvious once he actually starts looking for it. What a waste of two pages.
And the voice over is still going? WTF?
Pirate's introduction is pisser territory sorry to say. Be subtle with it, don't just tell us he's a pirate and be so cliche about it. It gives off this comical vibe which is amplified when you say he has a pissed off look.
Uh, that was a strange fight scene but okay.
Cliche as can be with the traps. The whole thing lacks originality.
Too much voice over that's filled with jargon that I could care less about.
Easy on the characters, mate, dead people count as peeps too. A component of the challenge was only 4.
King pirate sure has very proper and formal English for a uhh, pirate.
"No. I will not." lol
"BOOM. Johan EXPLODES out of Caeus’ rear." WTF? Did he just come out of his arse?
Well, let's be honest, you could tell the same story in around 3 pages if you really wanted to. Guy wants an amulet, guy gets an amulet. I'm not sure about that other stuff happening since it didn't make much sense but it seemed like filler more than anything. I think you had too much invested in the reader, no possible way anybody understood all that backstory. And really, because of that I felt nothing. The action was stale, the protag was bland as all hell, even king pirate was lacking any originality. Not a fan unfortunately.
Just stopped by to pay homage to someone who digs the literal interpretation of an allegory. You're probably going, huh? But then again, maybe you're not. For this story almost follows a ritual that was scribed in the Popul Vuh, the sacred book of the Quichi Indians.
I was thinking you were using the bases of the Chymical Marriage, or perhaps the Rite of Memphis, but when Johan hit the 'Cave of Bats' I figured I had to read it through to see how you interpreted the rest of the ritual, if that's indeed what you were up to. I will say I like the imagination at work here.
Johan's emergence from the beast was somewhat strange, however, and probably could have worked better from a different angle, literally. The concept of a mythological beast as a Shark is something I never considered either, so kudos to that.
Anyways, quite a few people ripping you a new one about the formatting, so I'm not even going to go there. Just wanted to say that I think you invested some thought into this, and it shows in my opinion.
Not sure why all the dead pirates are capped on into. They are dead and have no lines. One of them is ID's with age but his face is crushed, if I read that right.
Overall, I think this was an inbteresting idea. I'm with it to a point - and that point is simply that the VO is overkill. Once tone is established, it's fine. But after a page or so, it becomes clear that the scenes work far better without it. Hit me with visual punch, the VO's give them less impact.
Interesting. Not bad for one week of writing. Has a ton of potential but dragged just a bit for me in the middle. Not to say I didn't like it because I did. Had that Conan vibe like others mention but I was disapointed at how fast the shark scene lasted. Felt like the Kracken scene in the new Clash of the Titans. Here you have this giant beast ready for battle and before you know it it's over in a flash. The voice overs throughout didn't kill it for me but maybe having a second character with Johan would have worked better. All in all, I enjoyed it.
This one definitely had great vision. I enjoyed the descriptions of the cave. They slowed the read a bit, but I was immersed for the most part. The problems I had have been pretty well covered by those before me.
The “sorry a**” line really throws a stick of dynamite in all that immersion and the Voice Over did the same. I don’t remember any of that back story, nor do I think it was needed. This actually has a shot at being a ‘no-dialogue’ piece. Most of what’s really necessary would be self-explanatory as it played out in front of us (Man wants powerful amulet fights Other Man who wants powerful amulet), and the rest could be revealed through cave paintings as Johan tracked through the cave.
And I’m guessing by now you know that a full grown man exploding out of a fish’s a** is always funny
Not feeling this from page one... just not my type of story I think. The VO is actually grating... although I should point out that it is actually impossible to misspell an abbreviation. You haven't misspelled it, you've simply missed a full stop from the end. One could probably misspell an acronym... but never an abbreviation. Abbreviations are not words. Even if you got a letter wrong, one could never say it has been misspelled. It would be simply wrong.
Page 2 and I'm still not feeling this... I'm going to have a coffee break and come back to it.
He exhumes a sigh of relief? Exhumes is a poor choice I feel.
I'm at page 3 right now and this is tough going. Just not my type of story at all. So I'm not out because of your writing ability or anything like that... it's just this story is not something I can get into. Unlike rendevous, I couldn't watch the Hobbit or any of the Lord of the Rings. I'm more of a British drama type.
I did like Conan... the old ones... but nobody has had their head cut off yet, so I'm out. Sorry.
The Elevator Most Belonging To Alice - Semi Final Bluecat, Runner Up Nashville Inner Journey - Page Awards Finalist - Bluecat semi final Grieving Spell - winner - London Film Awards. Third - Honolulu Ultimate Weapon - Fresh Voices - second place IMDb link... http://www.imdb.com/name/nm7062725/?ref_=tt_ov_wr
Ok, this has busted the ‘low budget’ thing by page 2 for sure.
The dialogue needs work, but with anything written in one week, it’s to be expected. I like VO in a story like this to build the world but it all needs reworking(and trimming way down) in my opinion.
This reads like a giant movie rather than a short to me. You have a vivid imagination and your writing is easy to read although I feel like even the action could be trimmed down.
Decent story. Too big maybe for this. Good on completing the one week challenge.
Another great entry that's hard to review. Strong writing on display IMO, although the "sorry ass" line had me wondering. I got a Heavy Metal vibe here, not sure if that was what the writer was going for, but I was a big fan of the fantasy and Urhmeir serving up some amazing visual kills in the spirit of an Indiana Jones flick.
I don't think the VOs really killed this, it's so much easier for a reader to get annoyed with them on the page as opposed to taking the story's journey in stride. But in fairness, the content of the dialogue might throw some of because it's a world not fully understood. Dialogue was good too BTW.
I personally enjoy the hell out of this, no doubt a vision is present.
A lot of work and imagination went into this. Unfortunately the VO contained so much backstory it felt like one of the many, really bad attempts at a Dungeons and Dragons movie they’ve churned out over the years.
The descriptions are good and well thought out, I would suggest working more on the story and character development though. As it was I didn’t care for the protagonist or really understand why he was there. To free someone of a curse, why? What personal connection/motivation does he have? Is he just a good Samaritan that goes around curse cleansing?
I wasn’t convinced about the antagonist either, Pirates are usually motivated by greed – this one seemed just insane and yet lead a gang of greedy pirates. Speaking of which pirates seems to materialise in this script conveniently to be disposed of, but TBH a lot of movies and TV shows are guilty of that so I’ll let you off!
A 300 foot shark!! How big is this chamber they are in? And he slashes his way out of his arse; lmao!
Well done on entering the OWC.
Mark
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