Project God by Anthony Lando (a2n2t) - Short - When aliens finally explain the origin of existence are we ready for what they have in store for the future? 5 pages - pdf, format 8)

Hi Anthony, I'm afraid this script isn't particularly good. Lot of mistakes going on here, mate. Your formatting is off and you have really poor punctuation throughout.

I really don't get what the reading room is and why this alien is seemingly being interviewed. It was very strange and just sort of came out of nowhere. Maybe the basic story premise here is workable but it needs to be executed a lot better. Basically it's just two guys sitting in a chair having long dialogue exchangs filled with exposition. The dialogue was also not great by the way. Not really much of a story here, I think you need to rethink this if you want it to work. Good luck with it.

Cheers,
Tim.

Hi Anthony,

I think I would agree with Trojan that there are definetly some formatting and punctuations mistake here.  I'd suggest having someone else take a look at this for you to pick out some of the typos and missed punctuations.  Happens to all of us when we are too close to the story.

That said, I'd disagree that there isn't a story here.  I think you have an interesting concept, but need to work on drawing it out a bit more.  For instace who is the man interviewing the alien.  Is he some head of state, an TV personality?  What purpose does he serve?  

I think it might work better if this alien some how got into the Oval Office and he was able to get 5 minutes with a busy POTUS to tell him that he was about to end Project God and we were all doomed.

Just a thought.  But, as you have it constructed now, Trojan is right, its just this powerful alien talking with this dude.

Anyway, I don't think I would abandon it, but it needs a little work.  Best of luck.



Craig

What's up, Anthony?

I was intrigued by the logline.  I'm a sucker for stories that try to explain about how something came about.

This, however, didn't do much for me.  There's too many questions we, as readers, have to ask just to get the jist of the story.

"Why does it take place in a reading room?"
"Why is John important enough that Reduelon chose to speak with him?"
"Why does John take Reduelon seriously?"
"Why doesn't John call the psych ward like they did in K-PAX?"

There's too much that we, the reader, have to take for granted to make this story likable.  I applaud you on taking the task of trying to explain the existence of man.  This story, however, was ultimately a let down.

- Mark

Alot of formatting errors - slug lines that aren't correct - INT. NARRATED FLASHBACK - V.O. This should be written as a VO accompanying a MONTAGE of images. Why the repeated use of fade in fade out? This script contains alot of dialouge and is a little shy on the imagery side IMO. It's almost like a segment of The Day The Earth Stood Still and a concept that is far too similiar. One of the biggest problems I have with scripts like this is spaceships, which are innately human attempt at conceptualising how aliens would visit our planet. If you reasoned it out from a physics point of view, you would see that to 'time travel' or even approach the speed of light, a physical vessel is usless. It would be far logical for an alien species to jump through worm holes or exploit ripples in the space time continuum etc. This would help create original visuals for your short and also give your aliens a more God like power and seperate your short from ones in a similiar vein.

I agree with everyone about the formatting problems.  I also had a big problem with the dialog.  It was all to on-the-nose for me.  It read like a bad 1950's sci-fi movie.

You idea needs to be fleshed out a little better.  Why would the alien tell anyone that they are doomed?  Why not just kill off humanity?


Phil

I had the same reaction as Phil when I finished reading it - why come back and tell mankind that it's toast? Nuking a whole planet is a pretty big expense, even for an advanced civilization, so why not just let us rot?

We would have to be, as Stanton Friedman suggests, an emerging threat to the peace of the cosmos, given our recent foray into space travel and our development of nuclear technology, combined with our curiosity and our propensity for violence.

Anthony,

This little number needs a lot of work. As previously comented upon, there are a lot of spelling and format issues.

That having been said, there was something about the pure simplicity of it that appealed to me. "We made you. You're going nowhere. We're gonna unmake you."

That works on some level.

Get some help Anthony. The folks here are a nice bunch for the most part and providing you give a little back, the advice will follow.

Good luck

Malcolm