The Stars by Michael - Short, Sci Fi - Michael is a dreamer, he is a believer. He looks towards the stars for the answers to his questions.He never expected them to answer… 7 pages - pdf, format 8)

Hey,

Sorry, but I didn't like this at all.

I don't think you formated the quote thing in the beginning right. You should look it up.

I've never seen ellipses after "Fade To" usually it's a colon so I think thats wrong.

You do this thing where you put hyphens in between words that I found confusing, example "...grass- yellow...". I guess you mean, "...grass-- yellow...". Anyway, you should fix that, and in my opinion you do it too often, it's a screenplay not a novel.

A lot of your descriptions ran too long. I think you need to shorten them or at least break them up some more. A good rule of thumb is no more then four lines per block of description.

You never describe what a "Gray" is. I'm assuming an Alien. I was picturing Roger from American Dad. Anyway, you need to fix that, give me something to fill in the blanks.

The way you did the Voice thing in the spaceship was confusing. At first I thought there was another character there called voice. I would suggest "Voice(O.S.)", off screen that is.

Alright onto content. I thought all the star talk was really, really corny. I thought it got worse once he entered the spaceship. I had a physical reaction to the "Good will to man" line.

I guess his waking up from a dream at the end was alright. That redeemed it a little for me.

Overall, I think this needs work.

I wasn't very positive but please don't let that discourage you.

sheepwalker    

    

Thank you for taking the time to read my script.

As far as my descriptions being to long, I understand what you mean. I see the scenes in my mind as if they were right in front of me, so I write it down.

I wrote this because I am a true believer in UFOs and all that mama-jama. So, in writing it I wrote it knowing what a gray was and the lore that surrounds them. I wrote it more for the people who are in "the know". As far as it being corny, I'm sorry you feel that way, but this was an extremely heartfelt script.

Once again, thank you and I'm sorry you didn't like it.

-Mike

Quoted from Last_Hero_Standing I wrote this because I am a true believer in UFOs...I wrote it more for the people who are in "the know".

Well, I have to say that statement certainly piqued my interest in your story.  While I am admittedly not in your target audience, I was curious to see what you had to share given your unique perspective.

Some general comments:

*  We need Michael’s age, to start.  I envisioned him as much younger than he eventually turned out to be.
*  Sheep up there is correct.  Break up the large blocks of text into smaller paragraphs.  Give yourself more white space.  Otherwise, this reads like a book.
*  This line is odd: "The sky is bright with stars.  None shine brighter than the other."  Stars have infinite variety.  The implication of similarity here makes no sense, particularly for someone that apparently watches them every night.
*  Another odd line:  "As he turns to walk away..."  He turns away from this extraordinary vision?  I cannot imagine anybody doing that.  Running away, maybe.  But you almost imply that he is bored with what he sees.  And since he ends up staying anyway, I would encourage you to just continue the narrative without including that one detail.

I was not confused by the "grays", and I knew what you meant.  The inclusion of Joyce was a bit odd, though, and I did not really understand what she brought to this story.

The final message of hope is fine, though perhaps a bit generic as you have it here, and I think part of the problem is Michael’s exclamation: "I understand!  I don’t know how, but I understand!"  That struck me as a bit of a cop-out.

I was left feeling that you had a general idea of what you wanted to say here, but that the idea was not quite fully-formed, even to you.  I won't go so far as to say that I did not like it, but I guess my advice would be to figure out exactly what you want to impart with this story, then come back to it and make sure your readers get it, too.

Hey Michael,

Well, I'm not in 'the know', but I used to be when I was younger, and I still enjoy a good alien story every now and then.

This, however, I think would work much, much better as a short story, mainly because a lot of the story is internal and won't translate to film.

For instance;

Quoted from 'The Stars' He searches for reason-logic, and finds none.

How does Michael search for reason on screen?  Does he check in the loft in the barn?

You can't show him looking for reason on screen, but you can delve into his mind in a short story.

Another reason this would work better as a short story, is you can get a little deeper into Joyce and what happened to her.  In the script, Michael only says her name and we see a picture of her, but it doesn't drive the story at all and has nothing to do with good will.

This isn't to say that I didn't necessarily like the story.  I just think it would work better in a different form rather than a screenplay.

And, true, you will probably have other people say that Michael's voiceover is corny, but I can't really say anything to that.  I live on a farm and everytime I go out to hay the horses everynight, I always catch myself doing a little gazing.

- Mark

I also used to be "in the know".

This struck me as a particularly 60s/70s style abduction. Things got a bit darker after that (from what I remember), particularly in the UK. But this is a script rather than UFO forum, so...

It's an interesting script. But I think you need to broaden it's appeal if you're serious about people reading or even making it.

The ending jarred quite a bit for me. The pay-off of the Joyce memory needs to be a little more "earth-bound". As (I'm assuming) few if any of the people who read your script (or see any film that's made of it) will have any knowledge of abductions, the "you'll become a prophet" style ending might well leave a lot of people cold. It's just too out of the range of normal human experience for me to connect with it or get anything from it. I'd have the grey make a speech about how she's gone to a better place / become atoms floating in the void (depending on your belief system). Something nice to put his (and the reader's) mind at rest.

The "a dream?" ending also felt a little to cliche for my liking as well. I'd have him walk into the nearest bar (or whatever) and announce that things are going to change. But I that might be out of whack with the rest of the story if you want to focus on the personal more.

Thanks for reading everyone!

Also, I do agree with the fact that this should be a short story, maybe I'll include it in a collection I'm writing. (A reformated selection of course) Oh and one mroe thing...the whole "dream" thing is a play on the fact that when people are abducted they often say it was like a dream. The shooting star is supposed to symbolize the fact that it wasn't a dream.


-Mike