Ctrl/Shift by R5e (Gum) writing as Bill S, Preston ESQ - Short, Sci Fi - Two cocky teens get schooled by an elderly stranger. 4 pages - pdf format

For production consideration - No comments required

I liked that one.  It was cute.  Maybe you could get Jack Black to reprise his character of Zero from the X-Files.

Just my opinion but your Logline (social stigma? travelling salesman etc., doesn't quite deliver on premise.

FYI: 'dons' is a transitive verb.
He dons a black rusty trench coat and a
bowler hat.

I've read this usage before recently it seems and I've a feeling it might be the same writer...  Using 'dons' in this manner implies your character is donning (actually putting on) his coat and hat as we're watching, whereas I think you just mean to describe what he is in fact wearing already.

That aside, I think your characters were nicely defined in the vein of slackers ala Bill and Ted. Some nice whimsey and mild humour, and some nice themes going on - two young upstarts, the young thinking they know everything, wisdom, generational gaps Tech v old school etc., but it was too short for my liking and you only seemed to get things off the ground and then it all ended.

Your travelling salesman type comes across as a homeless man. He doesn't attempt to sell anything.
If he's blind how could he see/ know the item in question Kip put in front of him?
The blind element seems thrown in (he could just as well have been sighted) and it doesn't have bearing on the story.
There's not a lot of conflict or anything much at stake for any of the characters - it's more like a debate between young an old.
The SciFi element appears as your punchline not your ongoing plot.

That said, you ramped things up in the last two pages and I was enjoying it

Some will suggest you shouldn't use two character names so alike.

Characters are your strong point.
As is originality with your idea.
Great title.
Just needed a bit more focus and fleshing out for me.

P.S. This needs re-formatting to create the right rhythm and interruption of dialogue etc.


                ZERO
How do you think all that
technology came about, huh? The
tech-fairy? Who do you think
designed all that shit that goes
into those overpriced useless
little devices?

Who do you think
designed all that shit that goes
into those overpriced useless
little devices -

                     WHIP
Man, you haven’t got a clue --!

Man, you haven't got a clue. (Get rid of --!)

                    ZERO
Me! That’s who! Me and my peers
designed all that shit. Not only
that, we wrote the math theorem for
the stack that controls every layer
of the internet, all social media
too, you think that shit was just
magically invented by Ziggy
Stardust?!

- Me. That's who!

Go easy on exclamation points combined with question marks.

Use emdash, emdash, or dash where a character breaks into another character's spiel.
And be careful your older character doesn't speak 'shit' like the younger less mature characters do.
Define that character with different speech patterns.

Jmho.

Hi writer

Bill and Ted, okay? Got a “Boot Strap” Paradox thing going on here.

Dig the fact they all speak the same “shit talk”. Who made who, that whole chestnut.

I recall Rufus, their (Bill and Ted's) future, present, past mentor stating, “be excellent to one another”, lest I’m paraphrasing, but… where’s the “Wyld Stallyns” of it all? lol.

Must be the ‘Apps’ Zero designs to allow himself to travel inter-dimensional to give Kip and Whip the device they’ll need to inter-dimensional travel back in time to design the ‘Kip and Whip Inter-dimensional Travel Ctrl/Shift’ App that will allow Zero to travel inter-dimensional to give them the Holo-Phone  they (Kip and Whip) assisted in designing to allow Zero to travel forward in-time to give them the tech… err “Teach us!” and taught them he did. But who taught who?

Lost myself there. See you on the other side… somewhere in time, best of luck.

Hi Writer

Well-defined characters that worked well together. Cocky youths vs bitter old man was fun to read and both played their parts well.

For me, it doesn't stand on its own as a short but rather a prelude to something bigger.

Best of luck

My favorite line/thought: "Who do you think designed all that shit that goes into those overpriced useless little devices?"

Captures the idea that all young people think they've invented the world, and old people have no use. Just perfect.

All in all, this was interesting. Well-written. Though, I'm left to guess a bit on the ending.

I hope you come back and tell us where Zero fits in on the timeline. He's both future and past. Maybe, probably, Kip or Whip?

Nice banter and character homage here, made me smile.

But it's the intro to a something, I now want the something.

Given the title and the writer's pseudonym, I was expecting this to be a little bit more Bill and Ted's than it was.

It is fun and well-written for the most part - but Kip and Whip are just a couple of dicks really and lacked the lovable energy old Keanu and Alex gave us all that time ago. Also, Kip and Whip are difficult to differentiate in this story - by the time Whip pipes up with some dialogue it is easy to forget he is even there. It kinda feels like you never really needed them both.

Also, Seeing Zero (love that name btw) as a nod to Rufus, didn't like his language. Would have preferred him to be more intellectually speaking. Just my opinion.

That said, the dialogue is fun and I enjoyed the young v old techno arguments.

Good luck

Writer

Gotta say I liked this one! Writing is tight. I keep seeing George Carlin as Zero for some reason. Love how you literally blasted us in the face with Black Friday! Nice. Anyhow, I feel we need a better explanation as to what’s going on here, and what lies on the other side. For me, almost…. Almost a complete story. Nice work!

Steve

The dialog was smart and fun.

Overall it would work if the kids weren't so terrible to an old man for no reason at the beginning.
Maybe if they had a reason, though badly of him, mistook him for someone else... but right now it didn't ring true for the first 5 pages.
Then when you got to the twist the read got easier.
It's still smartly put together and makes sense and a very good script overall

While must give a nod to some of observations above, I like the whole enchilada here! Very much so!!

The kids are dicks. Pure and simple. I don't think the writer's intension was to hold them up as Bill and Ted 2.0. it's just a nod to the past to contrast with the present which is mostly theatrically represented by over entitled and spoiled snow flakes.

Great take on the Black Friday option, a breath of fresh air after the Turkey has been picked clear to the bone!

For me the theme is: RESPECT!

And I love the ending when ZERO literally slams the door in their faces.

No discounts here on Black Friday, a 100% nice job to you!

Ahoy writer,

I'm afraid, to borrow a phrase from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, that it's kinda yawn-inducing.  ;D ;D

Just kidding.

I like it a lot, I wanted to luv it. Methinks the ending is a bit ambiguous - not that that's a problem per se...it just wasn't satisfying enough for me.  Still pretty good. I just wanted more pizzazz. Sorry, I'm just telling you how I reacted to this. You only have to look at the comments above to see how out of step I am with the rest of the universe. As usual. Best of Irish luck! :)-A

Thanks, Don… for getting this revised edition up and running so fast! And thank you kindly everyone who stopped in and gave their time to read and comment during the OWC.

Based on the feedback, I pretty much scaled this down to a 4pg contained story that actually has an ending, toned down the shit-talk, and fixed some grammar issues. The original was to work in some sort of Bootstrap Paradox*, but that really didn’t make any sense with a 6pg script. So, now it's just ‘two cocky teens get schooled by an elderly stranger’ with no Bill and Ted reference. Simple location with 3 characters and bare bones fx.

Again, thanks all!

*for those not familiar; a Bootstrap Paradox is also known as a ‘ Causal loop’ or Sequence of events which cause each other. I go back in time and give you a time machine, you use it to go forward in time and give me the time machine, then I go back in time and give you the time machine… who had it first? And where did it come from originally? Chicken and Egg thing…

Would Doc have known that his ‘Flux Capacitor’ required 1.21 GigaWatts of power to enable it to fire if Marty hadn’t told him so? Things that make you think… ::)