My Movie Script

[NMI]

Unfortunately, the true powers to be in this case is Jerry Bruckheimer and his studio(s).
Also, moving this topic to the Rifts Movie section of the forums.

[Maryann]

No one can bring it to his attention because he doesn't accept unsolicited scripts. Besides that the writer for the film is working on the script already.

[Lord Z]

Well, I respect you for actually taking the initiative and doing something which I did not. Kudoos for that, Renegade.

Although Bruckheimer's company doesn't take unsolicited scripts, you might not have wasted your time. I suggest holding onto your script. When Bruckheimer releases the rights to the Rifts IP (either because the movie won't be made or after the movie is made), you could market it again. A movie script might work as an audio drama (as Lucus Arts did with the Star Wars franchise) or an animated feature.

Definitely ask someone to edit the project for you in the mean-time. I and some of the other creators on this board sometimes take turns editing each others work before submitting them to Palladium.

[Maryann]

I really don't mean to be a wet blanket, but putting a work that you plan on submitting commercially out on a message board is a BAD idea. No producer is ever going to consider a product that was posted on a message board, they just won't, its damaged goods.

[jaymz]

Ok, read it.

Not bad but a few things.

We don't really get to invest ourselves with what seem to be the main characters. I enjoyed the scnese but I really had no intrest in them succeeding or failing. We know nothign of hte characters except for a breif flashback with Lily.

Also it seemed to jump around alot from place to place too much. Especially early on.

The hwole idea is good BUT it needs more fleshing out. I enjoyed it htough so nice work. I'd like to see this kind of story done up as a multi part story for the Rifter like the Hammer and the Forge is. You already have half the work done with dialogue etc

[jaymz]

Ok, read it.

Not bad but a few things.

We don't really get to invest ourselves with what seem to be the main characters. I enjoyed the scnese but I really had no intrest in them succeeding or failing. We know nothign of hte characters except for a breif flashback with Lily.

Also it seemed to jump around alot from place to place too much. Especially early on.

The hwole idea is good BUT it needs more fleshing out. I enjoyed it htough so nice work. I'd like to see this kind of story done up as a multi part story for the Rifter like the Hammer and the Forge is. You already have half the work done with dialogue etc

Thanks jaymz. I had a feeling that the intro scenes might be a little skimpy, but I was trying to stay around the 90 page window (in a properly formatted script 1 page = 1 minute, so a 90 page script is roughly an hour and a half movie). I would love to spend more time on each character, but I don't want to create a three hour epic since they can be a little tough on the bladder. But maybe I can add a little to them to bring down the choppiness of the scenes as well as give a better background for the characters to increase their interest.

As for submitting it to the Rifter in novelette form, not a bad idea and I will think about it. Of course what would be even cooler if some artist (since I never learned to draw much beyond the stick figure level) out there would be willing to work with me to make it into a comic book format (also for the Rifter, like Machination of Doom).

YH&OS
Renegade

Well i think in this day and age you can go for a 2.5 hour movie without much issue 4. so that would give you 150 pages to work with. that woudl allow a 10 page montage of the great cataclysm and maybe another 5 for a montage leadup to the war. That leaves you with an additional 45 pages to add to the story of the characters etc all being about 2.5 hourin length

[Display-Name-Alpha]

I really don't mean to be a wet blanket, but putting a work that you plan on submitting commercially out on a message board is a BAD idea. No producer is ever going to consider a product that was posted on a message board, they just won't, its damaged goods.

This is lol. how is it damaged goods? Care to elaborate your wet blanket a bit

[Rallan]

I really don't mean to be a wet blanket, but putting a work that you plan on submitting commercially out on a message board is a BAD idea. No producer is ever going to consider a product that was posted on a message board, they just won't, its damaged goods.

This is lol. how is it damaged goods? Care to elaborate your wet blanket a bit

Because it basically says "this script was written by a gushing uncritical fan who can't see any flaws in the subject matter at all and almost definitely isn't self-critical enough to know whether his own writing is any good or not." A fan-written script posted on a fan forum is basically a red flag that warns "Here be fanfic!"

Also, the script really isn't that good. Some criticisms follow, since RenegadeNorth wants some feedback on how to improve things.

the CS/Tolkeen War is a major plot point, but virtually nothing related to the war takes place on screen. Almost everything we know about the war is exposition from characters rather than events onscreen. We don't know who the CS or Tolkeen are, what they are, what they believe and stand for, why they're at war, or how they're fighting.

the True Federation of Magic are always being mentioned as sinister antagonists, but no attempt is made to explain what they are (not even something as simple as saying that they're a secret society of evil wizards), and they have no impact on the storyline whatsoever. Klister turns out to be an evil traitor who's one of the True Federation, but he does nothing. We find out he's a nefarious traitor... and then five minutes later the goodies steal the Magical Macguffins mere moments before he could, and he disappears from the entire rest of the movie, reappearing only in the final seconds of the film to try and establish a cliffhanger and room for a sequel.

the Splugorth turn out to be the real baddies, and they get just about the only scene that has a proper "show, don't tell" approach in the whole script (where they capture some Coalition troops and use changelings to impersonate them), but we never learn anything about them at all. Why are they making fake CS soldiers? Dunno. Why are they interested in Lilly? Nobody says. How do they even know Lilly's got important stuff on her? Never mentioned. They just turn up and act evil for the sake of it, and everyone's so busy talking about how bad the Federation of Magic are that there's no indication the splugorth are important until the changelings from early in the movie suddenly appear again near the end.

Exposition, oh dear GOD the exposition. Virtually all the dialogue in the entire movie is just characters asking leading questions and other character answering with slabs of plot and setting information that the audience needs to know. Or more often, plot and setting information that the audience has already been told a zillion times. How many times do we need to hear that Tolkeen will lose the war and that some magic artifacts need to be kept out of evil hands? Every scene with Malecki for the first half of the script, that's how often. And when they're not explaining the setting and plot, they're explaining (often to characters who already know) what they'll be doing in a scene or two anyway. This also leads to the problem of the characters knowing so much they can never be surprised, because in every scene they either vomit up a whole lot of information they know to explain it to the audience, or speculate on what's going on and come up with answers that exactly match what's going on.

Personality and character development. Or more accurately, what personality and character development? Everyone's too busy talking about the storyline to have time to show any signs of having a personality. These are the only things we know about the characters in this movie:
- Malecki is a stone cold pragmatic badass. But we only know this because he tells us, not because we see it.
- Lilly and Rose hate Atlantean slavers. Don't expect this to have any bearing on the plot though, because it doesn't.
- Klister and Tulkriv are evil villains. How do we know this? Because both of them are corny mustache-twirling villains who get scenes where they cuff an impudent underling and yell "IDIOT!"
- Jason is a starry-eyed idealist. We know this because he divulges his whole life story to Lilly in the space of five minutes as part of a badly written attempt to explain their romantic subplot.
The first time a character shows any emotion about anything at all (Rose crying after the CS ambush their camp) is more than halfway through the movie. And I can understand why it took that long, because none of the characters have any personality or emotion. Hector's death? Who cares? He got maybe ten lines and five minutes in the movie before he bit the dust. Steve's death? Who cares? He's being set up as a major character, sorta Malecki's sidekick, but he has as little personality as everyone else in the story, so his death is totally impact-free. Rose and Lilly's father? We never even knew he existed until he makes his appearance, and he does stuff all once he appears, so there's no emotional investment in him when he dies a minute later. If anything, people are gonna be confused about why the heck he appeared in the first place. And what does the character of Mary even exist for? She gets the most dramatic introductory scene (actually the only dramatic introductory scene), and then proceeds to contribute nothing whatsoever for the rest of the movie, except when she' randomly given a question to ask so someone else can deliver a bit of exposition.

Romance. The film's romantic subplot is terrible. Lilly is captured by the CS, and Jason the psychic CS trooper talks to her. Inside of a minute they're flirting (despite the terribly boring dialogue which would put anyone in the real world to sleep), and inside of five minutes he's gushed to her that he's an idealist who has his doubts about the CS. He's also decided that he wants to help her escape because he loves her, and she's decided to trust him absolutely with secrets like the location of the secret goodies' base because she loves him. And let's not get into the bit where she's still unconscious just after the fight and he's stroking her hair and whispering sweet nothings, because that's downright creepy.

Dialogue. it's almost universally bad. The sentence structure is stilted and not at all how people speak in casual conversation, the grammar is almost bad enough to come from a poorly translated Super Nintendo game, and the only thing anyone talks about is exposition anyway. Malecki get some extra-excruciating dialogue early on in the piece when an attempt is made to make them talk like geniuses and scholars, but which comes off more like a teenager on the internet trying to make himself sound like a genuis and a scholar.

The talking skull. I don't think I have to explain why that was not a good idea.

The Sword of Atlantis, the Impaler, and Rose's moment of mercy: What was the point there? For the entire script, everyone has been dishing out lethal force all the time, and it has been portrayed as exciting and action-packed rather than morally questionable. Then Rose (whose personality and morals we know nothing about because she's had no character development all movie) is about to beat the most villainous baddy in the whole movie and suddenly there's a "NOOOO! DON'T DO IT!" moment that's supposed to be all angsty and momentous, but which feels like it was just tacked on at the last minute to artificially inject some drama. And having Malecki just happen to be there with his evil-attuned sword to ram home the point? Talk about hamfisted and unsubtle.

Conflict avoidance. There are oodles of moments throughout the script where something could've been set up to provide conflict (and therefore a bit of drama, tension, or character development) but which are neatly defused as soon as possible. Lilly and Rose hate Atlantean slavers. Steve conveniently tells everyone that he's an Atlantean about five minutes after he meets them. But it's okay and everything's resolved in hte very same conversation because hey, he's a different kind of Atlantean and they should believe him. Also in that conversation Malecki blabs that he's evil, and proves it by being the only character who can hold an evil-attuned magic sword. Does everyone worry about the fact that they're working for a guy who can use an ancient artifact of evil which burns everyone who's not a baddy? Nah, they're mildly concerned for a little while, but after he delivers a pithy three-line statement about moral relativism they're too bored to care any more. Some of the CS guys are nice! Not to worry, Malecki will have a magic vision so the goodies know this, which means the audience knows even before the grand finale that there's not likely to be any messy mistakes. All of the baddies are disguised as the CS! Not to worry, Lilly and Rose's dad will appear from nowhere for ten seconds, psychically let Rose know about this so there won't be any messy mistakes, and then die tragically. It's almost as if any plot development which might add any depth or substance to the storyline has been deliberately pruned out.

[Ahulane]

Yeah, I'd have to agree with the Rallan's analysis of the script.

Your first draft of a script should contain few, if any typos and grammar issues because, your first draft should actually be your 5th draft and have already been revised several times.

The whole fanfic comment can go either way for me as I've read some pretty good fan written material, sadly this isn't one of them (keep trying though).

One thing that irritated me were the GIANT BLOCKS OF TEXT OMG!!!

Your action lines should be short and sweet sentences not massive text blocks.

You don't need to add "FADE TO's" or "CUT TO's" this is a post production effect not a story telling effect, it pulls the reader away from the immersion. While it's not a bad thing to have them occasionally, you don't need have them all the time, less is more. Same goes for the SFX tags you have up, no-one cares that there is a SFX: ROARING WIND AND CRACKING THUNDER, describe it in the writing instead of just flat out telling us.

More character interaction during dialog. I felt that the characters were robots standing around stating things than actual people. Even if there just fidgeting with their hair, have them doing something more than just talking for pages at a time.

You don't need to be ultra descriptive in your scene layout's, that's not your job as a script writer unless your directing. If your directing you can write a script however you want, but if you even have the remotest of hope that someone will pick your script up and want to shoot it, they are going to want just the bare bones. They'll hire a director who will read the script, then make their own revisions as to how they see it, (the producer will most likely do that as well) then the DP and he will discuss how they are going to make it look. Afterwords the director and sometimes the DP will sit in on the editing process and further shape the script into THEIR VISION.

The same goes for the massive amounts of description wasted on character wardrobe...doesn't need to be there, use big words to describe multiple things.

STEVEN TAIT, a 30 year old black male dressed in ornate brown
robes with brushed bronze plates on the shoulders, forearms,
and chest and studded with small gems of all types, he is
also wearing rings, braces on his forearm, several necklace,
and a coronet (Persian style) all bejeweled as well.

Just say...

STEVEN TAIT, a man in his early 30's is dressed in decorative brown
robes. He wears many immoderate pieces of jewelry and armor
denoting his status.

If the items he wears isn't important to the STORY then there is no need to describe the innumerable articles of garbage that are all over their person. Short and sweet while getting your point across.

Non-fan's don't know what manipulate objects does no matter how straight forward the name of the spell is. If it was a spell of Horrible Face Mutilation by Way of Curb Stomping, people would still be scratching their heads going "what's that?" So cut those out and just do a brief description of what is happening. "She gestures with her right hand and flick's her wrist causing all the mugs on the table float to the people that sit before them."

The same thing goes with the racial name's...you don't need to say it in the action lines. If it's not important don't say it. If you have to point out that so and so is a Promethean Phase Mystic from Phaseworld then you need to have it in dialog, but only if it's important. If it's just in passing and has no relevance then don't bother.

Better scene description...simply stating that your in a forest doesn't help me, as a reader, picture the scene. Is it a jungle? redwood forest? north western Canadian type forest? swampy forest? is there debris on the ground? whats the weather like? did it just get done raining? this is the future, does the forest change at all? is there wreckage of past human civilizations around?

Your going to a fight sequence, these things are going to be factored into (or I would hope) your fight.

What's an "INT. FOREST OF WISCONSIN - DAY?" wouldn't you still be outside...in the woods? may be a typo but that's a big one.

All of these locations that your putting people in (atlantis, lazlo, etc.) need to have descriptions of how the cities look otherwise don't bother. If people are simply in a stone room and you never see outside then all you need to say. Place's that most people know about (Paris, England, Great Wall of China, etc.) don't need description, but fantastic and futuristic local's need to be fleshed out enough so that your reader(s) who don't know what Lazlo is (I play the game and I don't even know what the place looks like) will be able to picture it with little difficulty.

Don't have characters use an obscene amount of game slang unless there is something to directly represent it to help people grasp the concept. If you say "D-Bee" then we better "see" (cause were actually reading) someone else say something that we can relate the phrase or word too.

What's a wolfen and a coalition dog boy? (as a hypothetical reader who doesn't know anything about palladium material).

Don't write montage's into your movie, it show's how weak of a writer you are (sorry). A montage is an editing (post production) and directorial decision, not a writers. Describe the montage's as regular scene's and let the powers that be make those decisions. When you become as good of a writer as Tarantino then you can write however you want.

I wanted to hurt myself after reading this script...

[Rallan]

I'm gonna suggest one thing to RenegadeNorth, even though the script is totally unsavable.

Write the same story again, but write it like Quentin Tarantino. I don't mean that you have to fill it with profanity or anything, I just mean you should try and rewrite it so that the dialogue is almost entirely unimportant (a hallmark of Tarantino is that they talk about virtually everything except the plot), and the characterisation is the big thing. Have the characters drift through the story being themselves, instead of being mouthpieces who constantly explain what the plot is and what they'll be doing two scenes from now.

I suggest this because at the moment the script has absolutely no characterisation whatsoever, and the dialogue exists for no reason except to let the audience know what's happening. And that is boring and thoroughly crappy. You really truly desperately need to write an all-character version of the script. And then once you're done, you need to try and blend that all-character version with the wooden, stilted script you have at the moment.

[Ahulane]

I don't know, wouldn't that get confusing. I mean, I introduce “Joe” as a tall blonde guy, and then in the dialog say something like “well that's an elf for you!” the reader might go: “When did Joe become an Elf? Did I miss something?” The only time that I would use a person race in the action sequence would be just as a tag, after all, just to break up the monotony of using names all the time.

A simple way to do it would to be to describe the character's obvious racial differences and then have someone comment on their race...so you were pretty close there on your Joe analogy. You need to describe it in your writing, but if it's not important then don't worry about it.

Okay, I guess that I left it a little bit bare, being someone who has been taken camping for most of his youth, I have a pretty good idea of what a “forest” looks like. In my experience, there are very few occasions that changes what a North American forest looks like. How much real difference (unless you are someone who likes to look at the needles, leaves, and seed pods of the trees) is there from a 20th century forest in Georgia, versus one in Wyoming, versus one in central California, versus one in Colorado? I though that it in saying that it was a forest in Wisconsin would have set things better then it obviously did, and so I will try to change it. But that leads to the next criticism...

That section was me being a little nit picky. You don't really need to describe exactly the forest your in down to the last detail, but it helps to say in a short action line or even the header if you can keep it short "EXT. DECIDUOUS WISCONSIN FOREST - DAY"

Okay, so maybe write something to describe the city briefly as an “establishing shot,” not that I would use that terminology, that's for the director to decide on. I think one of the reasons that I didn't is that like you I have never read a good description on what the city looks like in any of the canon for Rifts, but I would assume that any picture made based on an RPG would have a “technical adviser” to help with those kind of details for the non-fans and the fans don't need help. However, luckily I got the Rifts “Ultimate Edition” for Christmas, and one of the things it includes is pictures of the different cities in the color plates included in the book! So now I have some visual reference in a canonized book to work from! Anyone but me feels like singing the hallelujah choirs? No...probably just me...

A way to get past this and show your ability as a writer is to tell me what you think it looks like. As a screenwriter your job is give me an idea of what everything looks like. So what if there aren't any books or pictures on what the interior of Chi-Town looks like. Your writing a script that has it in there so tell me what you think it should look like and let me as a reader try and visualize it off of your description. Establishing shots would only be useful if you intend to spend time in the location otherwise it's a waste of time.

Okay, I think that some scenes worked best as a montage, it helps me keep those description/action sequences in the short and quick format. I can change it though easily enough to normal format.

I get what your saying, but you simply had too many. One maybe two are fine, any more than that and you risk turning your movie into a music video of sorts. Interject some dialog into your action sequences, and no not just the occasional "damn, ****, ****, ****, etc." but actual dialog. Action scenes shouldn't be in a script simply for the sake of having some action, their needs to be more than just "it's time to kill the bad guys, queue the montage" It's up to you really though but personally I'd stay away from the montage's.

All spell names are in brackets [] for that reason, it is more of a way of keeping me true to the rules of the work than anything else. I think that the script, especially one being read by fans, could handle small references like that, if nothing else it might serve to keep the rule lawyers off my back.

Doesn't matter...

Fan's will be able to pick out what is what if you do a good job of describing what is happening, non-fan's need to be able to picture what is going on in the scene without you flat out telling them "it's a spell called manipulate objects"

Trinket spells and stuff your using to help sell the environment don't matter to really anyone reading the script. It's the big flashy life saving or environment altering things that people will go "what the hell is that?"

It's completely subjective, writing a script...it varies from person to person on how it should actually be done, just do your best to write in a style that helps you write (nothing is worse than writing the way someone else says you have too) then go back and change things to make sure everyone understands.

Keep at it.

[Ahulane]

My only fear there was going against canon. I mean, what if I had described what I thought Lazlo looked like only to have someone say: "Man you are dumb! Didn't you know that Lazlo looked like ____. Don't you read the material that you are basing your movie on!"

I used to dread this type of thing but, if there is something you think should be done a certain way then you need to do it yourself or just sit back and watch. So if your worried about someone saying, "that's not canon!" then just point out that Ben Ramsey wrote the script for Dragonball: Evolution and they should shut their holes.

Anyways...if someone has an issue with you not making something exactly like the source material then they should either write it how they think it should be or just shut up.

[Jefffar]

Just a reminder, criticism should be of the positive kind. Otherwise a moderator might mistake it for flaming.

Also, the last official update from Kevin indicated this movie was being written, however this was some time ago. Currently the Jerry Bruckheimer site does not indicate anything about this movie one way or another. So there may have been a change in the movie's status that has gone unreported since the last word from Kevin.

Folks in the movie industry often refuse to look at unsolicited scripts for a number of reasons - the msot important is they don't want to get sued for stealing an idea. Likewise, I'd say a script posted on a message board would probably be ignored for just that very reason - the difficulty in confirming ownership.

If you are interested in writing a movie, I'd suggest checking out sites like this one, which has information on how to become a professional screen writer.

[Maryann]

Just a reminder, criticism should be of the positive kind. Otherwise a moderator might mistake it for flaming.

Also, the last official update from Kevin indicated this movie was being written, however this was some time ago. Currently the Jerry Bruckheimer site does not indicate anything about this movie one way or another. So there may have been a change in the movie's status that has gone unreported since the last word from Kevin.

Folks in the movie industry often refuse to look at unsolicited scripts for a number of reasons - the msot important is they don't want to get sued for stealing an idea. Likewise, I'd say a script posted on a message board would probably be ignored for just that very reason - the difficulty in confirming ownership.

If you are interested in writing a movie, I'd suggest checking out sites like this one, which has information on how to become a professional screen writer.

The movie is still in the writing stage, I can't elaborate but I'm sure Kevin will update everyone as soon as he's allowed to.

[Maryann]

Facts is facts, some of us just know a little more than others.

[Jefffar]

Thread locked because some folks can't limit their responses to the content of the posts, not the character of the poster.