"Hegemony of Archon" Script

P

Policar

Carbonite Member
Need some help revision my short film script.

Basically, it draws on two basic ideas:

1) Man (technology and society) vs. Nature (and uninhibited human nature).

2) Restoration of a fallen kingdom. (The Romance--my favorite story. My love of Paradise Lost and the Wasteland relates primarily to the simple appeal of the Romance archetype and I believe the popularity of Christianity relates to this, too, but I don't want to get controversial.)

Anyhow, the script is sci fi that deals with a distopian future but relates to contemporary issues.

Oil runs out and companies grow too large. All seems lost. Yet...things don't turn out so badly. Under the guidance of the benevolent leader of the world's largest corporation (Genomics), a sun gathering system is created that fuels the world without causing any waste or need. The US, China, Russia, the EU and most of the civilized world stop fighting over the last remnants of fossil fuel, and instead work together and usher in a new era of prosperity....

Until the head of the corporation is murdered under mysterious circumstances, and his son, Moon, takes over. He builds a massive satelite, creating a permanent solar eclipse, and preventing solar power from being delivered...except to him! He takes over the "civilized" world. Only "savage" areas that don't rely on technology are free from his control! What irony! The prosperous civilized world is helpless; only the "savages" living without technology can survive without surrendering to Moon!

An uprising begins. These people live off the land, but are free. They represent nature and human nature. Rousseau's dream: a man free of government, free of bounds!

Yet he is also free of technology and must fight against the rest of the world for freedom....

Issues of anarchy versus totalitarianism arise. Man versus nature. Technology versus religion....faith versus empricism.

The Hegemony of Archon!


Crits please.
 
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Manuel represents "manual" labor (he makes robots) and also "man." His name also recalls Emannuel; he is a Christ-like figure. His shocking death at the hands of a ray gun (technology) is ironic.
 
There is enough material to make 2 features in your post, i doubt you can fit everything in a short...which as i said before, what you say and your script is very different...
For example, there is nothing about restoration of a kingdom.. Just because protaganist's name is reminiscent of 'Emmanuel', you cant expect we are gonna catch some allusions here and there...
MOON
Thank you. It's really cool to be
in the UNS Satellite, this way I can
give orders from above.
Click to expand...
Do you really think any man of power speaks like that?
When i read your draft i imagined a young writer whose heavily influenced by Star Wars and Blade Runner...
My suggestion would be to search more on the topic, if possible ask for pro help from scriptwriters... Dialogues dont sound good...
His shocking death at the hands of a ray gun (technology) is ironic.
Click to expand...
I see..Rousseau's dream is to stay as a dream then ;)
 
When I read your initial post I was very intrigued by the core story. The idea of a fossil fuel replacement being accepted and utilized by the whole of the Earth is a very timely idea. Then the conflict of the "creator" of this alternative fuel being mysteriously killed and then his son rising to power and creating a means of shutting off this source of power, instantly crippling the whole of mankind. And then the idea of a group of "others" who have managed to live without the necessity of modern technology, removing them from the grip of this madman. You could probably create a whole seried of novels from this core idea, perhaps a sci-fi style television show, a definitely a couple movies.

So, you can imagine my disappointment when I opened the PDF and found 5 pages, the last of which only contains "THE END". So, effectively there are four pages of script to try and tell this immense story which you described.

I am a fan of light writing when it comes to scripts, I believe the audience is a lot smarter than most people give them credit for. But to distill what could effectively be, at a minimum, two feature length films, into 4 pages is impossible.

Most of your action lines read like a novel. They are too long and to flowery. Economy of words is the order of the day when it comes to screenplays. The script is merely a blueprint, it is left to the director to make it "pretty".

Voice over is a very tricky thing. Some people will disregard a script immediately upon seeing voiceover present. I, on the other hand, will give it a chance. The purpose of voiceover, as with anything in a script, should be to add to the story not simply a means to tell elements of story that the writer was too lazy to incorporate more visually. Remember, when we are listening to the voiceover, there needs to be something for us to watch as well. If you have an audience staring at a blank screen while someone tells them the story, they will be very angry. If they wanted to hear a story they would have bought a book on tape.

I am rarely a fan of the narrator style film, Shawshank Redemption being an excellent exception. That said, I didn't care for the, "How do I know these things? I am Manuel Ramirez, and I make sphere-o bots for Moon. Moon uses spher-o bots in his quest for universal sovereignty.". You should have used some of the hundred or so pages that are currently missing to show Manuel making spher-o bots and then show Moon using them in his quest for universal sovereignty.

Sorry to be so harsh, but I believe this is a place to learn. So if someone presents something here, then I assume they want honest feedback/criticism.

I hope this has been helpful in some way, and I hope you will fully develop this story/idea and create the novel(s), series, and/or films that could easily come from this idea.

Peace,
Larry
 
That's okay. I wrote the script first and the ideas developed from it. Maybe some other time I'll take them in another direction. The idea of the script was to defy genre expectations; I think I took that idea too far. Robert McKee wrote that sci-fi is the genre most removed from reality and thus the genre that typically requires the closest adherence to generic norms. I suppose this is especially true in films (more so than in prose), especially when one considers that A Scanner Darkly didn't do too well and no one has yet adapted Neuromancer.

The comment about the book-like prose is also very true and something I need to work on very seriously.
 
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