X-Elixir

nazis are bad enough... but superhuman nazis? flippin awesome.

i really like the indiana jones feel to the story. i didn't mind the evil laughter either because it's kind of expected.

great action, character development, and mood. though it was kind of funny that they had a supernatural elixer and all you had to do to kill them was to stab them with sticks. though i guess that's the same with vampires and it only adds to whole pg-13, cue-the-john-williams-action-music feel. :)

terrific job!
 
The most fun I've had reading a script in the fest. I liked the dialogue, Paul and Buck great characters. As previously mentioned, I didn't get the vampire/stick connection.

You write action really well. Overall really good job.

Yams!? Funny.
 
Loved this one. Bravo for going for something different than a detective story. The script flowed really well, and I liked the story. It was a lot of fun and the kind of thing I like to watch and write.

To address some of the criticisms I've seen so far:

Is it a simple story with simple characters? Yes, but that is the point. I got what you were going for with the pulp action adventure-vibe that would be written for teenage boys and early 20's young men. I think this kind of story fits in the Indiana Jones camp. What I mean by that is that too much character development will weigh things down. This kind of story is supposed to have somewhat stock characters. It's all part of the fun. And that is not to say that Buck and Paul are not developed. They are. Their dialogue does reveal something about them. I feel its enough.

Also, the dream sequence with the sticks made total sense to me once Buck and Paul encounter the zombie / vampire Nazis. But I suppose more explanation couldn't hurt either.

You're right grizzly... 10 pages is not a lot of space. You fitted everything in that was necessary though so don't sweat it. You can always expand this, which I think you could do. I'd love to see more of Buck and Paul's war-time adventures.

One thing I did notice was that you did this with your scene headings:

EXT. - LOCATION - DAY

... when you should be presenting it like this:

EXT. LOCATION - DAY

You don't need the extra hyphen after INT. or EXT. A minor nitpick.

This is your first attempt at screenwriting? You've gotta be pullin' our legs, and let me admit, I'm jealous. I thought I had some talent, but even some of my most recent scripts wouldn't qualify as toilet paper, let alone compare to your first attempt. I am not some industry veteran or anything; so my opinion might not mean squat, but I say get your butt into the writer's chair and do some more shorts or even a feature script. If you keep this up from here, I wouldn't be surprised to see your name in the opening credits on the big screen a few years from now.

Good luck and have fun with the writing.
 
Review of X-Elixir

This …

the conning tower

*Is ‘conning’ a name or a function? It’s not capped so I read it as a function. Sorry, not familiar with military nomenclature.

Page 2

The chest is full of ancient scrolls. Newbury grabs
one, unrolls it, begins to intently read.

*Wouldn’t these scrolls be too brittle to unroll?

Sweet and quick read. Nice military ‘vignette’.

Very cool Indiana feel to it with a little dance macabre thrown in.

My only gripe is the ancient scrolls. Be a great scene to watch them crumble, and now they need to reassembles – hopefully correctly – and maybe the weakness to the wooden stick comes from a mistake in putting it back together.



Anyways, nice ride. Thanks.

aw

 
Hi GrizzlyGuy,

It seems to me that you tried to make a very complexed and detailed story. This is very impressiv for the first script you did. Compliments! :thumbup:

Here only two points I like to say about your German spelling.

1. Gruppenfuhrer is Gruppenführer - we have the 'Umlauts'! That means, in the German language exist ü, ä, ö and these aren't the same as u, a, o. With the American computer keyboard (Apple Macintosh at least) you can create them with 'Alt' + 'u' and then the u, a or o depend which one you need. I don't know if it is the same with Windows. An alternativ way to write ü, ä, ö is ue, ae, oe. It isn't that nice from the visual point of view, but completely correct from the grammatical point of view.

2. Your 'Ya-vuel' put a amused smiling in my face. I admit that you mean probably 'Jawohl' (meaning: 'yes, that's right'). This word you could find simple in a dictionary! :)

Best wishes

Susanne :bath:
 
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This was a very enjoyable and original read and, for a first script, fantastic work indeed. Well done, above all, on getting so much into ten pages and yet keeping it straightforward without confusing the reader.

As far as the dream is concerned, I don't find it superfluous (actually you need it for the final scene), but I think you needed to make a bit more of the stick. Young Buck appears to use the stick simply because it's the only thing at hand. In some way you needed to make it clear that he learned something here. It doesn't necessarily need to be clear at that moment, but when the final scene comes the reader needs to be able to think back with "of course, the stick!"

I wonder also whether you could have given a little more space to the Elixir (I see you originally intended to). Not necessarily historically with the Druid or whatever, but maybe an extra scene during World War II with the mad professor blinded by his discovery and it's possibilities. As you say, there were some scenes (such as the tank action) with Paul and Buck that could have been cut to make room.

Enough of my ideas though - the fact that there are so many possibilities shows that you have invented a fertile world, and the way it is now makes for a fun read. Well done!!
Jason
 
Thanks for all the nice reviews and feedback, folks!

conlanforever said:
The most fun I've had reading a script in the fest.
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Wow, thanks for the compliment! Maybe Buck and Paul will make a return in a future festival.

Nektonic said:
This is your first attempt at screenwriting? You've gotta be pullin' our legs, and let me admit, I'm jealous. I thought I had some talent, but even some of my most recent scripts wouldn't qualify as toilet paper, let alone compare to your first attempt. I am not some industry veteran or anything; so my opinion might not mean squat, but I say get your butt into the writer's chair and do some more shorts or even a feature script. If you keep this up from here, I wouldn't be surprised to see your name in the opening credits on the big screen a few years from now.
Click to expand...

Thanks Nektonic, that is very encouraging. I have an idea for a feature rolling around in my head (who doesn't, right?) so maybe I'll take a shot at it.

This one flowed rather quickly for me, once I had the story in my head. Maybe 3 hours tops to write the first draft. So, writing something that is 90-120 pages long doesn't see like the huge task I initially envisioned. But writing 90-120 GOOD pages... dunno, doesn't seem possible but maybe I'll give it a whirl. :-)

Thanks for the clarification on the scene heading format, I'll fix that in my next attempt.

alex whitmer said:
*Is ‘conning’ a name or a function? It’s not capped so I read it as a function. Sorry, not familiar with military nomenclature.
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Yes Alex, the "conning tower" is the part of the submarine that sticks up from its main body. The main hatch is on its top, and the periscope comes up from it when submerged.

I think you're right about the scrolls, they probably would be too brittle to unroll. I'm glad you and the others picked up on the Indiana Jones feel, I envisioned the initial scenes as being typical of an Indiana Jones movie. But I did leave out his whip... :-)

Susanne G. said:
2. Your 'Ya-vuel' put a amused smiling in my face. I admit that you mean probably 'Jawohl' (meaning: 'yes, that's right'). This word you could find simple in a dictionary! :)
Click to expand...

Hah! Good catch Susanne, you are correct! I was envisioning American actors, so I left out the umlaut and did a phonetic spelling on Jawohl. I didn't want the actor to pause at those points and get confused, or pronouce Jawohl as Jay-wall or something like that. Danke!

Horncastle said:
Enough of my ideas though - the fact that there are so many possibilities shows that you have invented a fertile world, and the way it is now makes for a fun read. Well done!!
Click to expand...

Thanks Jason, and there are lots of directions that this story could go. If it wasn't for the 10 page limit, you would have learned more about the X-Elixir, and a lot more about the background of the German characters. For example, Gruppenführer Karl Brandt was a real historical figure (although he wasn't a Gruppenführer). He was Hitler's personal doctor:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Brandt_(Nazi_physician)

Imagine the fun little backstory I could have put together on that one... :huh:
 
I really liked the beginning of the script. AWESOME setup and descriptions and the flow of it just really sucked me into the story. Good job on the beginning.

The rest of it was really good too, I am just most impressed with the beginning.

This is nitpicky, but Buck and Paul seemed to have the same character traits and personality. I would try to make them a little more different from each other.

Fun read! Have you seen the trailer for that foreign movie coming out about the zombie Nazis? I see this script having the potentential to be that kind of fun pulp style film.

Neat idea and execution!
 
MiataFilmSomething said:
This is nitpicky, but Buck and Paul seemed to have the same character traits and personality. I would try to make them a little more different from each other.

Fun read! Have you seen the trailer for that foreign movie coming out about the zombie Nazis? I see this script having the potentential to be that kind of fun pulp style film.
Click to expand...

Zombie Nazis? No, I haven't heard about that one, but it sounds like a cool flick! :thumbup:

Good point on my characters, they did turn out to be similar.

My initial idea was that Buck would be Buck, but Paul would be this skinny, bespeckled geek guy. He was going to be a 'geek hero' by intercepting/decoding the German communications, thereby learning about the X-elixir. The final scene was supposed to have Paul hotwiring a German tank, Buck/Paul crashing it into the manor, and killing all the SS. Then Paul would run into their radio room and raise a flight of B-17's via Morse code. He'd convince them to divert and bomb the manor, destroying all traces of the X-Elixir.

Oh well, no way I could fit all that into 10 pages so I had to settle with a simple kill-em-with-sticks ending. :-Laugh(DBG):

Thanks for the review!
 
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