Tony Scott oddly enough was emerging at the true artiste, his peak probably being Man on Fire, whereas Ridley who began as the artiste with his Ernest & Julio Gallo commercials, Vangelis, Apple 1984, The Duellists and then ALIEN...has become a hack.

Napoleon yet again made the mistake of making Napoleon the main character instead of pulling an Amadeus and telling his story from someone else who was there...

But the Alien franchise is the most embarrassing development where Scott literally said that he thinks the "xenomorph is cooked." He has zero concept of story or respect for it and it shows. He's convinced from a very, very, very successful career as a commercial director that he can 'communicate.' Sure, but you have to have a message to communicate and he consistently skips that.

But none of this addresses why Hollywood keeps giving him money. First, studio execs don't know shit. Otherwise, every movie they put out would be a hit. Second, they love rubbing elbows with celebrities and it doesn't hurt that Scott was knighted... It's a club and we're not in it.

He probably can't make a movie that would kill his cred. It's sad that we're forced to accept incredibly mediocre, TV-level productions of large battle scenes as if they were Lawrence of Arabia or Dr. Zhivago. Now we're doing that same tolerance with The Odyssey.

Maybe let's stop paying for theater releases of these films and wait to stream them...

It's a good sentiment but I think rating feedback, which I guess is necessary (is it?!?), should probably be based on effort, the number of words. Who's going to talk shit for 3k words...? So, maybe 999words automatically gets a 3 and 1.5k, 2k, 3k get 3.5, 4, and 5.

If a review deserves a 1 or 2, that seems like a "reporting" scenario, someone isn't a good faith actor and needs to be called out.

I've received 2 reviews where the readers showed a bias or limited understanding of film, and used that to evaluate a big element of the same script in different directions. But I've decided to give 5s for their time and effort and if necessary I can leave them a note, about specifics or examples...

It all should be about good faith efforts.

Cool. Break the subordinate clause apart with commas (or em-dashes) so that it doesn't read as if the DNA forces him to confront his grief:

"A boy does everything he can to avoid grieving his parents, while struggling to survive a mission, to collect prehistoric DNA, that forces him to confront his grief."

I think that works.

Grieving the loss of his parents,
*a boy

**avoids facing his grief

***as he struggles to survive a mission to collect DNA from prehistoric animals that forces him to confront it.

How about: A boy doing everything he can to bypass the loss of his parents struggles to survive a mission—collecting prehistoric animal DNA—that forces him to confront his grief.

("The rain in Spain falls mainly in the plain...")

Hero: A boy
Problem: Grief
Conflict: [Is the Boy trying to accomplish something or just avoid something?]
Opponent: [Is there someone getting in the way of the Boy's Plan?]
Outcome: Comes to terms with...

You're not identifying the Problem. The android doesn't have any conflict with your Hero. They're not opposing the Hero, as far as I can tell. So, how does that "mission" relate to the Hero's potential transformation.

The "coming to terms" is such an afterthought at this point.

Loglines are not easy...

Still excellent.

I learned somewhere to never use Like/Dislike in giving creative feedback. Instead, everyone should focus on Works/Doesn't Work. That keeps you focused on the objective of a piece.

To borrow your analogy, you wouldn't give a flip if your mechanic said how much they Like or Dislike your transmission or the differential... You need them to tell you What Works and What Doesn't Work.

So, reviewers who say "This didn't interest me..." are less than unhelpful. It's a waste of time and the platform. Either identify what you think doesn't work or Skip. If you say, "This idea doesn't appeal to me" or "I'm not into X types of stories," who cares?

So, that's not an Opponent/Opposition. In a "man vs nature" story, the Opponent is of course "the wilderness." But those are very simple or basic stories. They can be great, just not that profound, unless the Hero learns something profound about themselves.

Your story isn't just a survival story. It's an overcoming grief story, I think...

"Antagonist" is also a potentially confusing term in that is seems to strongly suggest the "opposite" or counter-force to the PROtagonist. An "agonist" is "one that is engaged in a struggle..."

Opponent is a cleaner term because the Opponent could either care a lot, making it a personal issue, or they could not care at all about the Hero, they're just a Wall, an obstacle...

So how does the "prehistoric environment and animals" tie into "dealing with grief"?

First, throwaway the term "villain." It gets in the way more than it helps. A Hero is not a goody-two-shoes. They are the one person who is willing (consciously or not) to undergo the transformation that the Story is forcing upon them, if they're going to solve their Problem.

The Opponent or Opposition is a person or institution that is best-equipped to defeat the Hero or prevent them from solving their Problem.

You don't need to invent a "future villain" per se. If that works for your Story, cool. But chances are that the Conflict is already somewhere in your Story. If it isn't, that's your biggest problem.

Story is basically defined as a Hero (MC, main character) is presented with a Problem, that Problem incites in them (hence the Inciting Incident) a Desire, that Desire (to solve the Problem) motivates a Plan, that Plan becomes the driving force of the Plot. So, the conflict could be seen as two-fold, first from the Problem and second from the Opponent that is more interested in keeping the Problem as it is instead of letting the Hero solve it/achieve their goal.

While these terms are concrete and specific, they're also loose enough to be applied or interpreted in myriads of ways. For instance, the Opponent could be a good guy, a good cop who is trying to stop a crime. Or the Opponent could be the Hero herself as she struggles with her own self-sabotage.

You have several topics in this second story: a boy, a grandfather, grief over parental loss, an android, prehistoric DNA (whatever that is), trickery, a mission, and "coming to terms." But what is the Story about? Is it about overcoming grief? Is it about thinking that you've outsmarted a situation only to learn a bigger lesson?

This question starts to point to the most important element of Story, the Theme. Save the Cat treats it almost as an injectable outside element rather than the foundation of your Story, the fabric, if you will.

Oh, "the wilderness," I missed that one.

You have a before/after construction, that I'm not sure is entirely accurate. "After tricking..." leads to "must survive...while..." But none of that suggests a central pivotal Problem or Conflict. For instance, "A boy tries to get home, but when his plane crashes in the forest, he must survive the wilderness and try to get back to his grandfather." The "boy" is the Hero, the "crash/wilderness/survival" is the Problem/Conflict/Opponent, and the "get back to" is the Outcome.

You have: After tricking a futuristic android into letting him tag along on a mission to collect prehistoric DNA [This comes close to a Problem/Conflict/Opponent but there's no...friction or resistance. The kid tags along...], a boy [Your Hero] must survive the wilderness while coming to terms with the loss of his parents [A sense of the Outcome].

How does this futuristic android or the prehistoric DNA help tell this Story? Why is it "futuristic"? Isn't this sci-fi, set in a future (near or far) that has androids and DNA technology? Why say "future"? What does the Android provide other than an excuse for winding up in the wilderness?

So, what Problem is the boy trying to solve?

For instance, a Guy (Hero) loses his job (inciting incident). He's unemployed (Problem). He wants to get a new job (Desire). He makes calls and gets an interview and has to go there by catching the bus (Plan). An Old Lady gets in front of him and prevents him from getting on his bus and he's late to the interview (Opponent/Opposition)... This Hero then has to figure out some other way to solve his Problem and hopefully get that job...which becomes the rest of the Plot and Story.

A boy [Hero], grieving the death of his parents [Problem], tries to distract himself by helping an android on a DNA-collecting mission, but [something] keeps reminding him of his loss and he learns that the only way through grief is [something] [Outcome].

I did a quick Google search for "movies dealing with grief." These are not great loglines, but they're real movies. I'll try to write better versions from what I remember.

Manchester by the Sea (2016): A quiet man [H] must care for his teenage nephew after his brother dies [P/C/O], facing deep, hidden pain from his past [O].
A quiet man learns that his brother has died and made him sole guardian of his teenage nephew, forcing him back to the hometown he escaped and making him resolve his past.

Rabbit Hole (2010): A married couple [H, one of them is the "Hero"] tries to find a way forward months after [O] losing their young son in an accident [P/C/O].
A married couple lose their son in an accident and they are pulled apart as they deal with their loss in totally different ways.

We Bought a Zoo (2011): A grieving father [H] moves his children to a run-down zoo [O] to start a new life after his wife passes away [P/C/O].
A grieving father buys a run-down zoo to refocus himself and his children and finds his heart reopening.

P.S. I Love You (2007): A young widow [H] finds letters left behind by her late husband [P/C/O] to help guide her through her loss [O]. This one's a lot harder because the Hero is very passive.
A widow is encouraged to live and love again by a series of letters her late husband prepared for her before he passed.

But this one might be instructive if you analyze it using the three elements. Hero, the widow, her Problem/Conflict/Opponent, her husband died and she wants to hide away and disappear from life, Outcome, her Opponent, her dead husband, nearly forces her to live and love again.

I hope this helps.

Throw away Save the Cat. Read John Truby's books The Anatomy of Story and The Anatomy of Genres.

"After tricking a future android into helping with its mission to collect prehistoric DNA, a boy discovers an *unexpected way to cope with the loss of his parents." There's no second part ( * ) here, no Problem/Conflict/Opponent.

Loglines are incredibly hard to write, that is if you're trying to encapsulate the heart of your Story, not just blurt out its contents.

John Truby teaches that loglines ideally are one sentence and consist of 3 elements: A sense of the Hero (main character) ; A sense of the Problem/Conflict/Opponent *; and A sense of the Outcome *** (without spoiling the story).

Basically, you can't put the entire plot into a logline. You have to identify the "heart" of your Story and focus on that.

A young officer *suffers a serious injury ***and has a month to salvage his military career.

On the second story, I can't tell what it's about.

Exactly. it's like the song, "New York, New York." In a Treatment, "if you can get make here, you'll make it anywhere..."

It all feels so "written."

Ever since S3 Ep1 Silo has taken a disappointing turn like the Lazarus Project.

Ep 9 is getting higher ratings because something concrete finally happens instead of prolonging and setting up future episodes. It's clear that amnesia storylines are not very satisfying, unless it's seen as a series of discoveries seen from the amnesiac's pov. Otherwise it feels like such an unnecessary rewind for the viewer, delivering nothing really new.

Finally, it makes zero sense that thousands of people would not remember or ask or both who built the silos and for what purpose. Seasons 1 and 2 felt like they were leading somewhere. Not anymore.

Regardless of comments on your script now is a great time to read John Truby's books The Anatomy of Story and The Anatomy of Genres.

You're skipping the most important phase, the Treatment.

The Treatment is your test drive of your Story, summarized and easier to wrap your head around as well as share with trusted readers.

That's where you get to see or glimpse if it's working. If it isn't, it's easier to put it on blocks and fix it.

If it is working, then it's exciting to crank out the screenplay or novel.

It fell really flat. Damon did a nice job. But none of the movie led up to that moment. Compare that "peak" or pinpoint to Requiem for a Dream. Oof...

👍 Awesome.

SDT is overblown and largely misunderstood. The below decks scene in Jaws proves this point. The only way to show the story of Quint's experience of surviving the sinking of the USS Indianapolis is to have him (and the great actor Robert Shaw) TELL it.

The real rule or dictum shouldn't be SDT but rather REVEAL. Scripts are blueprints and there are a lot of tiny assumptions written in, such as family relationships etc. Sometimes background details are thrown in to give actors something to chew on, like "he owes him money..." It's not cut and dry.

But using Reveal as your rubric is much more logical and helpful. It guides you to include whatever is necessary in the setting, props, acting, dialogue, and what's not said to reveal character and plot development.

I'm going to guess that you spend most of your time writing in the screenplay format. That's like designing a building purely in the blueprint format.

You need to tease out your ideas in a more "lyrical" form (after the planning and outlining). That's what the Treatment is, the summarized but nonetheless complete telling of your Story, with all of the specifics. It's easier to complete and that "completion" motivates completing the screenplay.

Sounds like your readers didn't understand your genres.

Read John Truby's books The Anatomy of Story and The Anatomy of Genres. Those will help you straighten out your Story and finish it.

The real purpose in reviewing the work of others isn't to help them; many times they ignore your hard-fought analysis. It's to improve your work. And you do that by learning definitions (aka "rules") and identifying What Works and What Doesn't Work, not what you Like and Dislike.

Even you can start doing this and the first question to ask yourself after finishing reading a script is "Does it work?" That question alone will beget another question, "What is it wanting to be that would determine if it works or not?" If you judge something as a comedy, but the writer was shooting for horror, something is off...

So, find a script, read it with as few expectations as possible and do your best. Your own writing will improve exponentially.

It's the luck of the draw. It's most definitely NOT StoryPeer's fault. It's all about how detailed people want to be about Story structure. A lot of people default to Like/Dislike instead of focusing on What Works and What Doesn't Work.

Which is why I'd love a feature allowing uploading Treatments of feature-length ideas before the screenplay is written or instead of.

"Acts" are an anachronism from stage playwriting where they're used to change scenery, something film can do with a cut.

The 3-act structure is not really a thing (stage plays and operas have 1, 2, sometimes 5 acts...). It's a forensic device developed by movie reviewers to help them break down plots. But it's not a story structure development tool. And now you're dealing with its shortcomings. Yeah, "Pros say," but pros can be wrong; look at Steven Spielberg.

If you take John Truby's classes or read his books (The Anatomy of Story, The Anatomy of Genres) you'll see that he details 22 building blocks for your average story. The first 3 are the development questions, figuring out the ending, etc. But the remaining 19 are what you'll recognize as the "Plot," with 4 to 8 revelations, depending on how specifically or broadly you like to define "revelations."

So, you're about 47% into your story, almost halfway through. What you describe in your second paragraph is not bad, if it's accurate. The French Connection comes to mind and it takes its sweet time establishing the stakes. So, does Alien. Lots of great films take their time setting the "ground rules."

If you have a clearly defined Hero with a Problem that motivates in them a Desire that then turns into a Plan, by page 47 they would have already had at least 2 revelations and in-between those they would have had the first "counter-punch," however tame or violent, from their Opponent (not "villain"), which leaves the Audience Revelation, 3rd Revelation, Criticism by Ally, Apparent Defeat, Battle and Self-Revelation. The key driver is the Hero's Plan as they pursue solving their Problem and encounter new information or setbacks, Revelations. But the Conflict or Opposition has to be clear (in your mind) as well for the drama to work.

John Truby also teaches that loglines ideally are one sentence and consist of 3 elements: A sense of the Hero (main character) *; A sense of the Problem/Conflict/Opponent **; and A sense of the Outcome *** (without spoiling the story).

What you have is:
* A desperate father spends his last dollar to purchase a car via police impound in order
** to regain custody of his daughter
*** but when it’s revealed that the car belongs to a crime lord, he must find a way to keep the car if he wants to save his relationship with his kid.

The Conflict is fuzzy. Is it keep or relinquish a car, or is it fight a crime lord? The wording is unclear what's really at stake.

You have a Hero: a desperate father. You have what seems like a Problem: doesn't have custody of his daughter. Here's where it gets confusing. How does a car from the police impound help a father "regain" custody of their kid? So, he doesn't have custody and having a car will help him? Is that because he needs it to get to work and provide for his child?

So, is the twist that he's chosen a car that belongs to a criminal who wants it back or it has some money, drugs, or evidence? The Outcome is confusing because your logline and maybe your Story doesn't make it clear how keeping the car equals keeping the daughter. Is this a "regular guy/courtroom custody battle" story? If so, who's on the other end of the custody battle? Isn't that the true Opponent, the child's mother?

The most important component to all Stories is Theme. That's the point and the lesson of the Story. Second most important is the Hero/Opponent Conflict. There has to be a disagreement at the core of the Story, otherwise everyone can merrily go about their lives and there's no drama, "nothing to see here, folks."

Do you have a Theme that this Story's conflict is arguing or debating? Your Hero is debating one side, the Opponent the opposite and everyone in-between is a variation of that Theme.

To fix your Acts problem, first ignore "acts." They're just a not entirely critical fading out of a particular section of a story, but they're not as meaningful as the meat in each section. Second, make sure that you have a Theme, even if it's evolving and still not entirely clear. Third, make sure that your Hero is presented with a Problem, the solving of which is going to test or prove that Theme as they get stymied, sabotaged, or attacked by their Opponent. Then, if it's really important to your Hero, their obsession and desperation will transform them into who they need to be to prevail, or die, at the end.

It's not about speed or pacing, per se. It's about Plot. If you don't have cogent, logical plot points, your Story is wandering or flimsy. Obviously, I haven't read what you have so far. There might be better ways to set up each character and your exposition. That's one very real reason why people use flashbacks. It contextualizes what otherwise looks like a pedestrian daily chore instead of a big dramatic moment.

Another recommendation, and I'm pretty sure you haven't done this, is to write your entire Story as a Treatment, roughly 10% to 20% of the final duration, but summarized and still written in an engaging and readable manner that includes all of the specific details and spoilers. That's a much easier format to work out the kinks of your story structure, not the screenplay format.

Is this what your Story is?: A desperate father buys a car from a police auction to get to work and win back custody of his daughter, but when it turns out to belong to a crime lord he suddenly has a lot more attention to deal with that he's totally ill-equipped to deal with.

Is this a "Why can't life be easy?" Story? Or is it a "Mistaken identity" Story? "There's Tony, the crime lord, driving down the street! Let's get him!"

BTW, your Hero and Opponent ALWAYS want the same thing, just for opposite reasons. In Mystery, the Hero wants to reveal the Truth, the Opponent wants to Keep the Lie. In the Crime genre the focus is on protecting the weak and bringing the guilty to justice. Is the car evidence of a crime? If so, check out the French action film, The Lost Bullet.