The Find

[DarrenJSeeley]

find-1.jpg

THE FIND

On an uncharted planet, a communication breakdown between an alien civilization and a team of astronauts goes horribly wrong.

Will contain R type material.

[Chris_Keaton]

You are the first!!!

[DarrenJSeeley]

After giving it some thought, I might have to put Find "out" of the comp. Although I did manage to make some drastic cuts and sacrifice white space, I also felt that the 11 page draft was far superior to the 8 page cramping. I already gotten feedback on the 11 page draft from another peer site... It's also the version I'm more satisfied with...and there's not much point in submitting the 8 page version and having folks here comment on the cramped space, and maybe a few other bits that the few extra pages covered.


**************

I have decided to submit the 8 page edit after all....but only for the purposes of the challenge.

What I edited out is some F bombs and other language (always expendable) a few bits of dialog, an extended battle scene and white space. The full version (11pgs) can be viewed in other places I frequent. While I still prefer the 11pg script, the essence of the piece is still retained.
Please note that to help readers here I bolded the headers. I'm not a huge fan of bolding, but it seems it's a popular thing nowadays.

[Egg Born Son]

Congrats on getting it in. By some miracle my first draft came in at exactly 8 pages so I fear I didn't rework it as much I should have for that very reason! Promise I'll mentally reinsert the f-bombs (and maybe some gratuitous nudity) when I read yours.

[ZellJr]

Jesus these posters. Just amazing.

And here I am getting my posters from google images.

[Craighoit]

I really look forward to reading both versions. One of the things I really like is seeing and learning from the creative choices that people make. Reading both will allow me/us to see what you left in and what you left out. Watched a movie (Journey 2) last night with my daughter. When it was done, we watched the deleted sceens. As you'd expect, most of them were expository in nature, helping define some character realationships, and not as critical to the cental dramatic line of the action. This was a really great "teachable moment" as they like to say, because it allowed us to talk about stories and structure a bit. What I found interesting was that she fekt many of the scenes should have been left in.

[Chris_Keaton]

Review Follows:



I like how a lot of these scripts have the title alluding to something mysterious.

- The opening is description heavy. I'd cut and compress or liven it up some. An example would be their space suits. We all have a good idea what a space suit looks like so maybe the description of the hose running to a tank isn't needed.
- I see you are heavy on the physical description. This better turn into a porno.
- They seems not that thrilled or anything for meeting these aliens for the first time.
- I would question their intelligence. I mean in the future don't they have chemicals that are harmless separate, but once combined...BOOM?
- Were you horny when you wrote this?

I like that this has potential. Like what was their war about. How do they seem both primitive, but have advanced (dust) technology. My guess is that they are primitive and other alien's have manipulated their society and humans were mistaken for them. The human technology was cool. I like the idea that first contact was really more important to the aliens. There must be more set up though, because it seemed rushed.

[krestofre]

You spend a half page on the mating signal thing, and that really has nothing to do with the rest of the story. I only point this out because in your thread you were concerned about not having the space to tell your story. It's interesting, and perhaps connects to something later in your mind, but is inconsequential to the events of this version of the script.

I kind of feel the same way about Parker's return. It's cool tech, and could be a neat component to a larger story, but how does that really change the conflict of the aliens or the humans being The Find?

Aside from those two points I agree with Chris that the characters blindly trusting the canisters and opening them without precautions was a little hard to swallow. I just can't imagine real people doing that if they were in the same situation.

My favorite part of the script were the troll-like creatures. They had motivation. They acted according to their rules. That made them the strongest part of the script, I think.

For my own tastes I would have enjoyed learning more about the conflict of these two races, but I know, 8 pages is hard.

Thanks for the entertaining read and for entering the fest!

[STYLZ]

OK I didn't read any of the other reviews yet. I can tell this is a much larger story. Seems like it needs more room to breathe. The descriptions seemed a little too abbreviated. That being said, you have a knack for creating a scifi world, that is for sure. You have an excellent scifi imagination as well I can tell. The story definitely had a beginning, middle and end..and I like the end in that the people get recreated as their deaths seem to come fast and furious. Thanks for sharing.

[dtroop506]

Darren,

I read your disclaimer and and I agree the 8 page limit hurt some of the creativity this time around. Not just yours.
It's like trying to cram Star Wars into a ten minute short.

I thought the Sand Art method of communication was interesting. Although I would have preferred it if Caroline had injested some Silly Putty -like substance.
I enjoyed the sly reference of the Emerald jumpsuits with the glowing stripes. This was clearly an homage to Elvis Presley during the 1970's Vegas years. Well done.
The little creatures (the hubba-bubbas or whatever) were good.
Then it really got good with the horny aliens ripping off everyone's clothes. That's just good solid writing.

I didn't like when the troll bit off that guy's head. But I was happy when you reanimated him in the vat of KY jelly.

Overall, I may have not fully understood everything you were trying to do, but I did find The Find pretty entertaining.

And, I will look for your director's cut of the script elsewhere on the web.