LEGENDS OF MAGOLIA: The Noble Blade

[Nektonic]

LEGENDS OF MAGOLIA
The Noble Blade

The blade of the master cuts deep.


I just made the deadline, uploaded this sucker at about 10:57pm. Lots of great titles, loglines and sci-fi ideas here. Lookin' forward to reading everyone's script.

[alex whitmer]

Man, you just made it. Looking forward to reading it.

aw

[Nektonic]

Yeah, just made it by the skin of my a-- I mean the seat of my pants. It said it uploaded successfully. I hope there were no problems because then I'll look like a big doofus come tomorrow.

[conlanforever]

Glad to see you made it in. I liked Currency and I'm looking forward to this entry.

[MiataFilmSomething]

Just read this one. It seemed like some of the continuity was a little off; like it didn't flow well. And I maybe didn't really understand Valon's motivations as to why he was doing what he was doing. What made him snap?

With that out of the way though, the descriptions were great. I could really see it in my head.
I think I was watching it with an anime frame of mind in my mind.

It would be neat to see what could be done with the armor and the fighting scenes.

By FAR, the best scene was the master's speech at the end about the philosophy of the blade. That was just spot-on awesome. I really enjoyed that. Great speech filled with truth and honor.

[conlanforever]

I thought you really created some great visuals of the world and its inhabitants.

My only real criticism has to do with Valon. I had no idea why he was doing what he was doing, what his motivation was. It didn't seem that he just went crazy. If it would have just stopped with the beheading, I would've chalked it up to overzealous law enforcement. His bad deeds would have carried more weight for me if I knew why he was doing it.

On the other hand. I thought the writing was good. I thought you did a great job with the action scenes and you really showed a lot of imagination.

I thought the speech at the end was a little long, but at the same time I liked the dialogue.

Overall, I thought it was a really good script.

[pauly_the_hitman]

I am sorry but I just didn't finish reading it, I couldn't, it seemed confused and out of balance.
Pauly

[Captain Pierce]

I won't pretend to be capable of an alex whitmer-level dissection of spelling and grammar, but two things that caght my eye were:


On it is the image of two field workers taking a
bride from a merchant.

(I think you meant "bribe" :): ) and:


One of your students requires a
lesson Master Kan.

(here should be a comma after "lesson"). This latter issue was something that I noticed a lot throughout the piece.

A couple of minor quibbles: in the scene where Master Kan dons his armor, I didn't get the sense that he's getting the same 15-foot armor as Valon and the others from the description. You do mention that it's "similar" to Valon's, but given the way you describe Valon's, I got the sense that he was in some sort of "cockpit" concealed in the chest section of the armor, and I just couldn't make the mental leap to that kind of thing being


"pulled towards Master Kan as if he possessed his own gravitational force."

(Which, BTW, is a great description. :) ) Also, a little later you mention "two black cybernetic knights" fighting, but from your earlier description of Valon and his comrades, I assumed more of a silver color for them.

All that aside, you've created an interesting world here, and I agree with Miata that it seems very anime. (Which is not by any means a bad thing. :) )

[seansshack]

alex whitmer-level dissection of spelling and grammar

Gonna wiki this in a mo :thumbup:

[krestofre]

There's something about this one that I liked, but there were two glaring problems in my opinion:

1. I completely missed Valon's motivation. I have a feeling that you hinted at it, and I was supposed to get something, but I missed it. I have no idea why he decided to decapitate two people and start the events of the script in motion.

2. I see that Master Kan has successfully graduated from the Master Yoda School of Vague Mysticism. His two speeches on page 5 and 6 need some pretty heavy trimming.

Nothing a second draft won't cure. This one rates as "pretty good" in my book. :thumbsup:

[mjjason]

I loved the world and the description here. Also the overall concep but I must say I echo the comments of others. What was Valon's reason for snapping? It wasn't clear and so the ending had a less significant impact. I also liked the speach at the end but you may want to break up the long dialog with some minor action descriptions.

Overall, I like this concept though the script needed some further explanation.

[MrKilloran]

Echoing: Valon's sudden change, could it be the time of him being a knight had clouded his mind, made him spiteful? Idk it was confusing.

The master, maybe some more back story to his character, especially if there was a relationship between him and Valon in the past, it would add more meaning behind the fight and speech at the end.

Overall, had a very epic sense to it and I liked it, great descriptions just add explanations. Good work.

[Nektonic]

Thanks a lot for the kind words and constructive criticism guys.

Pauly, I'm sorry that it didn't work for you. Just wondering which page or scene made you give up on it. Anyways thanks for the honest feedback.

About Valon snappin' and decappin' if you will. Yeah, there is a backstory to this. At the moment I am juggling a few ideas as to what got him to view the world in such a skewed way thus resulting in his violent outburst. As for his character I was attempting to allude to this by his vanity which ties into his very unique looks. I can see how that might not be as clear as I intended. I definately want to expand this story to build the characters more clearly. There is also an adversarial relationship between Valon and Master Kan that I was trying to allude to with the dialogue at the end. This relationship is key to the backstory as well. I just need more pages to develop it.

As for Master Kan's character -- I would have liked to have had more pages to develop him in more detail, but for the 6-pager entry I made the decision to make him a bit more archetypal and mysterious.

I'm glad that you all seemed to respond to Master Kan's speech at the end. That was the whole reason for writing this in the first place. Don't get me wrong, mecha robots and super advanced space stations and anime-style action is fun to imagine and write but the heart of the story is the philosophical stuff that Kan delivers. I do agree that it is delivered in a much too big block of dialogue. I wanted to break it up a bit with some character actions and other visuals, but the 6-page limit kept me from being able to do so. No problem though because as I was writing this I started to get that sneaking suspicion that I would eventually be lengthening this on subsequent drafts anyway.

krestofre -- did you think that Master Kan was too Yoda-ish? Not that I don't like Yoda, he's probably my favorite Star Wars character, but I definately don't want this imagined universe to be too reminiscent of Star Wars. I want to do my own thing here as much as possible.

MrKilloran -- I am glad you got the epicness I was going for.

Captain Pierce -- thanks for catching the misspelling. As for the armor Master Kan wears I was thinking that it was basically the same size as Valon's, just a black color. I will try to clear up the description some more in the script. Although, your comment gave me the idea that maybe Kan's armor should be an older and less powerful model than Valon's. I kind of like the idea that would be illustrated by this -- Kan defeating Valon with his skills and not his use of superior technology. As for the size of the armor, they are both large 15 ft tall or so. The wearer does sit in a sort of cockpit due to the size of the armor. I will elaborate on this in a longer draft.

MiataFilmSomething -- I am glad that the descriptions worked for you in visualizing the world. I was really trying to vividly paint a picture of this fantastical and futuristic world. As you mentioned that you would like to see what else could be done with the armor and battle scene, I did have much more that I wanted to do with that. Due to the 6 page limit I decided to favor the speech at the end than go into a big battle scene. For the longer draft though, I'll be going to town with the fight scene.

The anime-style visuals were not meant to cause the reader to visualize the piece as an animated film, but I was obviously influenced and thinking of anime with this. Especially with the cybernetic armor and the fields of blue flowers. Having said that, I would love to write an anime someday if the opportunity ever arose.

Even though you all had similar criticisms with The Noble Blade, reading different takes on the same problem helps me understand why that aspect didn't work just that much more. You all know how to give honest and helpful suggestions without being harsh. I really appreciate that. Thanks for the help. If you all have anymore ideas or suggestions I would love to hear them.

One more thing that I would like to add is that this story, The Noble Blade, is really part of a larger work. It was conceived as an original story for Scriptfest II, but it takes place in a larger universe that I have been working on for almost 2 years. The larger work is called The ARMAGOLIATHON. It is an epic science fiction fantasy that I plan to write as a trilogy. I'm still working on the world building aspects as there is a lot of stuff to get in order before I write the main three scripts. If any of you want to read anymore of the things I write for this series then let me know. It may be a while before I have anything ready but I'd love to get feedback like this on the longer works. In relation to the longer works, The Noble Blade might be good as a standalone promotional short film or it may work its way into the trilogy. But trust me when I say that you guys haven't seen anything yet. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

[jamiejay]

I liked the world you've created and the descriptions. Reminded me of Troy meets Star Wars meets DragonBallZ... but not too much of any one of those ;)

I was a little confused about the motivation as well... but because of the typo with "bride" instead of "bribe", I thought he was justified because he was killing two rapists. Seriously.

You can definitely tell this was part of a much longer story. Hope it has some good female roles as well :)

Nice job overall.

[krestofre]

krestofre -- did you think that Master Kan was too Yoda-ish? Not that I don't like Yoda, he's probably my favorite Star Wars character, but I definately don't want this imagined universe to be too reminiscent of Star Wars. I want to do my own thing here as much as possible.


He's not too much like the character Yoda, that's not what I meant. I meant that he follow in the long line of movie characters who say things that are deep and meaningful and make the characters and the audience think, but if you really examine their words, they're specific enough to spark thought, but vague enough that you wonder if they really know what they're talking about. This type of character was spoofed brilliantly in Mystery Men with their character The Sphinx.

[agalla1]

I, also was very confused about Valon's motivations and thought that bride (actually bribe) meant they were harrassing a woman and that made him snap... I also read your explanation of Valon...but still not sure if I understand him...I continued reading your script I realized I got lost somewhere in the story but that could just be me hung up on Valon's character......I really enjoyed Master Kan's speech I am a sucker for long dramatic speeches! LOVE THEM lol! I liked the fact that it was very original..the concept was completely different from the other scripts that I've read...Overall, very good job! ;-)

[alex whitmer]

This …

Scattered amongst the fields are automated harvesters and workers picking the blue flowers, depositing them into large shoulder-mounted collector baskets.

Very nice. Right away I can envision a number of Diego Rivera paintings.

http://moderato.files.wordpress.com/2007/06/diego.jpg (http://moderato.files.wordpress.com/2007/06/diego.jpg)

This …

fifteen feet tall and encased in intricately decorated high-tech mechanical armor.

I’d use a comma after decorated, and maybe hyphen intricately and decorated, like this …

fifteen feet tall and encased in intricately-decorated, high-tech mechanical armour.

This …

No one takes any notice of it.

Why? I guess this will soon be answered.

This …

Before they make it their feet

Typo. Missing ‘to’.

And this …

Before they make it their feet a silver

Maybe a comma after feet.

This …

Thin wisps of blood flow down Valon’s sword. The droplets
mix with the gushing blood of the fallen bodies, forming a
crimson pool in the dirt.

Gushing works, forming should be simple present.

This …

The gathered crowd shudders as each word is spoken

This is why I asked why the crowd gave no notice. Is this the first time on of the knights went berserk?

This …

Buckyball

Not sure what that is.

This …

Ships of all shapes and sizes come and go, passing through
the transparent membranes as easily as a stone passing
through water. Minor disturbances ripple then settle across
the membrane.

You really write visually. Nice job.

This …

As she floats into the chamber her hair and gown give her the appearance of being submerged underwater.

Comma after chamber will break this up.

This …

GRAND MASTER THUDA KAN

I assume this is the same figure meditating? Why wait so long to connect the two?

Great stuff this …

MasterKan’s armor collides with Valon’s armor. Two black
cybernetic knights duke it out across the serene fields of
blue and green.

This …

… who blocks the sun.

Feels awkward stuck on the end there.

This …

For this is the reason that a noble warrior keeps
his blade polished so that the world is reflected in it.

‘Reason that’ and ‘so that’ get clumsy so close together. Change one or the other.

This …

You see young Valon. To be a warrior
who lives on in the grand tales
once his body has been cast

I think a comma would work better after Valon.

STORY

Really enjoyed the visuals in this one. And, quite possibly the first successful attempt to get the Transformers, Buddha, and a few Shaolin monks on the same page! Really enjoyed it.

The last long-winded speech was a bit much, and can be broken up with some interspersed action. I got the feeling everything was static here, but I did really like the message – a lot.

Never really figured out what set Valon off other than two guys buying a bride. Is that a big no-no? And was the bride left back at the stall?

Nice, pithy action lines.

Great job.

p.s. Out of curiosity, is MAGOLIA supposed to be MAGNOLIA?

[Nektonic]

Alex, thank you for the extremely detailed review. After reading it my head is about to explode from an overload.

I wasn't thinking of a Diego Rivera painting, but the fact that you were reminded of one is cool.

As for the scene introducing Master Kan, I did have some trouble with the flow of that one. I like the visuals but I agree that I need to simplify it.

I also agree on Valon's motivation. I tried to squeeze too much into 6 pages and maybe got carried away with the descriptions of the world. This hurt the character development but I am happy that I have the start of something that at least worked on other levels for most readers.

As for the last speech, yep -- too long for one chunk of dialogue. When I lengthen this I plan on breaking it up with some action. I'm glad you liked what Kan was saying though.

The whole thing with bride was meant to be bribe. I can see why that would throw people off. Whoops.


Really enjoyed the visuals in this one. And, quite possibly the first successful attempt to get the Transformers, Buddha, and a few Shaolin monks on the same page! Really enjoyed it.

This is a good summation of what I was going for. Thanks. I am glad that this combo worked for you.

As for the use of Magolia, no it is not supposed to be Magnolia. I took it from the word ARMAGOLIATHON, which is going to be a longer work that takes place in this same fictional universe approximately 700 - 800 hundred years later. Magolia is the current civilization in the narrative of The Noble Blade. In this fictional universe I am creating, MAGOS is the term for light and knowledge. So their current society is named after that ideal. I also thought that Magolia just sounded cool and dignified as well.

Again, thank you for the detailed analysis and I am glad you enjoyed the script.