SCRIPT DRAFT 2 - Anita Tung
--
External Conflict- main
character and sidekick uncover a secret plot to destroy their home
and must stop it
Internal Conflict- main
character must come to terms with repressed actions and memories
World- made up of gigantic
floating cities above the clouds. The one both our characters are
from is riddled with crime and sickness. Flying ships travel from
city to city, usually carrying cargo and people.
Ree- escaped child, was in
special training to become an elite soldier from ages 5-13, now 15.
Bald, has a tattoo of the elite on her face. Tries to block out her
abusive training as much as possible.
Munk- orphaned at 12, now 16.
found Ree after her escape and helped her hide, they've been working
together as petty thieves since then to survive.
The Twelve Guardians- protectors
and rulers of the United Cities, have supernatural powers,
communicate telepathically.
–
ONE
Ree and Munk are aboard a ship,
sneaking into the cargo storage area. It's heavily guarded, and
they're hiding.
Ree: Stay here.
Munk: Are you kidding? There's no way
you're going down there.
Shot of three soldiers walking by a
door.
Munk: This is insane. There's a
fuckton of guards on this ship and they patrol this door every five
seconds. Something's weird.
Ree: Come on, we could eat for months
after trading those meds to the right people.
Munk: But-
Ree is already gone.
TWO, THREE
A patrol of 3 guards walks towards
the cargo hold door. Ree grabs one, knocks him out and vaults over
him, knocks the second out, and jumps onto another's shoulders and
strangles him until he blacks out. She drags one over to the door for
identification. The door slides open with a hiss, revealing a dark
room full of capsule-like structures. Ree sneaks in and the door
slides shut.
FOUR
Quickly, she grabs one of the
capsules and leaves, but outside the alarm is raised and guards are
running from every direction. They see her, but she runs. Ree finds
Munk waiting and grabs him, and they run up to the top of the ship
and jump over the side, to land on their tiny beat-up ship, which
drops away quickly.
Guards: Hounds! We need hounds!
Munk and Ree jet into the clouds
FIVE
Munk: Shit. Shit shit shit. Ree, why
did you have to do that?! They all saw us!
Ree: Just latch us onto something
quick before they launch hounds.
Munk: God, they'd launch hounds for
this? What the hell did you take?
Ree: What does it look like I took,
dumbass? They've got a room full of these med kits and we only need
one, I dunno why they're so worked up about it.
Munk: Okay, okay. Here's a passenger
ship, grab the stickers and I'll get us below it.
They fly below the passenger ship
and Ree throws a suction device onto the bottom of it and reels their
tiny ship in.
SIX
Ree: It's headed towards Y-180... Like
the cargo ship.
Munk: Home again. It's been a while.
Ree: Yeah, almost two years.
Munk: Two years since I found your
sorry ass sitting in the grimiest port in the whole city with nowhere
to go and nothin' to eat...
Ree: Oh whatever. You waiting for me
to thank you? I woulda been fine.
Munk: Right. Let's see what you
grabbed that's so great that they wanna set hounds on us.
They go through a small hatch into
the ship
SEVEN
Ree: It just looks like an oversized
pill. Or an egg or something.
Munk: Does it open?
Ree: It must...
Munk puts his hand on the
capsule-like thing. He picks it up and pulls the ends, then tries
twisting it. He turns it in his hands and then finally presses inward
on both ends.
Munk: What the hell? Definitely... not
a med kit...
The capsule turns transparent and
inside there is a glowing sphere structure. Mega zoom in to see weird
blobby particles and stuff inside.
EIGHT
Close on Ree's face, fade to white,
flash of an image of a person being pulled apart into similar
blob-like particles, fade back to white.
NINE
Munk: Hello? Ree?
Ree: What.
Munk: You totally
zoned for a second.
Ree: Oh... I had
this weird... nevermind.
Munk: Have you
seen this stuff before? You know, back when you were with them?
Ree: I don't
remember.
Munk: Do you think
they'd know what it is? We need to tell someone...
Ree:
I am not going back to
them.
Munk: But-
Ree:
Munk, you have no idea what they did to me. I barely
even know! I've been trying to forget for this past two years that
I've been out!
Munk: Then who?
Ree: I dunno.
Munk: The Elites
are the only ones who'd know for sure. Maybe you could get back in
there! You still look like one of the trainees, and if we got you an
outfit...
Ree: What about
the Twelve?
Munk: The
Guardians? No one talks to them. No one even knows what they look
like! They only talk to the Elites and the Directors, and just to
give orders.
Ree:
But they're the best ones to go to! They're the highest!
Munk: I dunno, can
we even get into The Center? No one goes there!
Ree: I'm not going
to the Elites. Ever.
Munk: Well, okay,
then we better turn this boat around.
TEN, ELEVEN
Their boat detaches from the
passenger ship and veers off in another direction. Above, a black
ship follows, and begins to descend on Ree and Munk. Cut to inside
and suddenly there's a huge crash and there's a hole in the ceiling
of their ship.
Ree: Goddamnit!
Munk, grab your stunner!
Munk: Are you
kidding? One stunner against a whole hound ship?
Ree: No stupid,
they need that... whatever it is. They're not just gonna shoot us out
of the sky, they're coming over!
TWELVE, THIRTEEN
Grapples coil down through the hole
and latch onto Ree and Munk's boat.
A group of soldiers descend through the hole and crash into
the ship. Ree lunges at them and Munk shoots with the stunner, but
misses. Both are knocked unconscious and the soldiers take them and
the capsule thing, and are reeled back onto the hound ship. Ree's
eyes are half open as she is dumped onto the floor of the hound ship
by one of the soldiers. Munk is out cold.
FOURTEEN, FIFTEEN
Soldier 1: Are you
serious? A couple kids?
Commander: Are you
blind? Look at the little one. She's got the mark. And her hair's
gone. That only happens in one place.
Soldier 1: But I
thought they confined those to the Camp until they were ready.
Soldier 2: Yeah, I
never heard of any getting outta there...
Commander: Either
way. That one's dangerous. She probably doesn't even know how
dangerous. I want her supervised around the clock, with multiple
guards.
Soldier 1: And the
other?
Commander: Looks
like he's just a useless kid. Toss him.
Soldier 1: Yes
sir.
Soldier 1 reaches down and grabs
Munk's limp figure. He goes towards the airlock and grabs the handle,
opening it.
SIXTEEN
Suddenly, Ree leaps up and dives at
Soldier 2, grabbing his gun and firing at the Commander and another
soldier. The Commander and the other soldier are hit and die, and Ree
knocks Soldier 2 unconscious. When Ree turns around, Soldier 1 has
his gun to Munk's head. Munk's eyes are half open.
SEVENTEEN
Soldier 1: Drop
the gun and get on your knees. Or he dies right now.
Ree drops the gun and kneels. Her
eyes stay locked on Soldier 1. Soldier 1 backs up, points the gun at
Ree while still holding Munk, and prepares to drop Munk out of the
ship, then freezes, drops Munk, and gives a silent scream of pain.
His body contorts and shakes, then starts dissolving into the same
weird particles that were in the capsule thing and that Ree saw
briefly, then finally drops, limp. Fade to white.
EIGHTEEN
Munk is shaking Ree, who seems to
have briefly lost consciousness.
Munk: Ree,
wake up, goddamnit wake up!
Ree's eyes open.
Munk: What
did you just do? That was the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen!
It was like... I just... I don't even know! How did you do that? You
didn't even touch him!
Shot of Soldier 1 lying facedown,
dead.
Ree: Oh god.
Munk: Did you know
how to do that this whole time? What even was that? What else can you
do?
Ree: I...
Munk: You saved
me.
Ree: I'm gonna be
sick.
Ree vomits, then wipes her mouth
with her hand. Munk puts a hand on her shoulder.
NINENTEEN
Munk: Hey. Hey,
it'll be okay.
Ree: God, what did
I do to him... I'm just like them. I'm what they wanted me to be.
Munk: No you're
not. You're you. You did what you had to!
Ree: I tried to
forget...
Munk: It's okay,
Ree. We're okay. You don't have to do it again.
Ree: That thing...
the thing we stole. It can do that. What I just did, only more.
Worse.
Munk: What? How do
you know?
Ree: I just know.
I can feel it.
Munk: The city.
They're taking it to Y-180...
Ree nods. Munk stands, and goes to
the controls of the ship.
TWENTY
Munk: I think I
can get us going in the right direction, but I'm not completely sure
how to fly one of these...
Munk begins to turn the ship, and
stares at the control panel.
Ree: Just get us
out of here, before more come.
Munk hesitates, then presses a
button on the control panel. Wide shot of the hound ship zipping off
into the distance.
TWENTY-ONE
Munk: Well, I
guess that was it...
Ree: No shit.
Munk: I had no
idea these things could go so fast.
Ree: We'll be
there soon.
TWENTY-TWO
Wide shot of The Center- a large,
floating crystal looking structure, cathedral-like. The hound ship
pulls up to one of the entrance gates and stops.
Ree: What are you
waiting for? Go in!
Munk: Where are
the guards?
Ree: The Guardians
don't need guards. If they don't want us here we'll know soon.
Munk: What's that
supposed to mean?
Ree: Just go.
TWENTY-THREE,
TWENTY-FOUR
The hound ship enters the gate, and
flies down a long corridor. It stops in a chamber with one door, and
lands. Ree and Munk get out, Ree is holding the capsule. The door
slides open, and they walk through down another long corridor that
opens into a huge central room. 12 pedestals with strange containers
face inward in a semicircle. In each of the containers is a naked
creature, humanoid but distorted, with strange
patterning/growths/extra limbs or something, staring at them. Ree and
Munk approach the center.
TWENTY-FIVE
Munk (quietly,
only to Ree): These are really them?
Ree: Guardians of
the United Cities, we need your help! I am Ree, and this is Munk-
Guardians: We know
you.
Ree: You do?
Guardians: We know
you, number seven zero three.
Ree: That's not my
name anymore.
Guardians: And we
know what you bring. What you stole.
Ree: You know?
Someone's taking a whole room of it to Y-180! To the city!
Guardians: Yes.
That city has grown into a disease. A plague.
Ree: What?
Munk:
You're the guardians!
The guardians of the cities! You're here to keep them safe! What's
wrong with you?
Ree: You...
Guardians: We are
keeping the United Cities safe from the corruption of Y-180.
Ree: No.
Munk:
That's our home! You
can't!
Munk's eyes roll back, and he drops
to the floor.
TWENTY-SIX,
TWENTY-SEVEN
Ree: Munk! No. No
no no you can't, you didn't...
Guardians: Number
seven zero three. You have been trained. You have more power than you
know, and you were made to be with us, in the ranks of the Elite.
Ree: Munk, wake
up! What did you do to him?
Guardians: Seven
zero three. Remember your past.
Fade to white. Shots of Ree in the
white room again and again, practicing killing with the same kind of
weird globby disintegration power, various amounts of people dead
against the same wall. Fade to white
TWENTY-EIGHT
Ree: No.
Guardians: You
have killed more people of Y-180 than any of us so far.
Ree: No!
Guardians: You are
one of us. You are an Elite.
Ree looks at the capsule thing and
back at the guardians.
TWENTY-NINE
Ree: I will never
be one of you.
She grabs the capsule thing and
places both hands on the ends, then pulls the transparent exterior
off and is holding the glowing sphere.
THIRTY, THIRTY-ONE
The guardians begin disintegrating
in the same way as the other stuff, screaming in pain as they are
pulled apart bit by bit, panel borders gone or weird or full page
spread
THIRTY-TWO
Ree and Munk are surrounded by death
and destruction, bits of weird flesh and bones and gore and globs of
nastiness. Munk's eyes blink open.
Munk: Ugh!
Oh my god! What the hell?
Ree: Sorry. Here,
you've got a little something on your-
Ree wipes some gore off Munk's face
THIRTY-THREE,
THIRTY-FOUR
Munk: You actually
killed the Twelve. Holy shit.
Ree: Yeah.
Munk: What now?
Ree: Dunno.
Munk: There's more
of that glowy stuff headed for Y-180.
Ree: Yeah. Yeah,
we should do something about that. Let's go home.
Ree and Munk limp out of the chamber
and into the light outside
crit 9/17/12
ReplyDeleteMunk: Do you think they'd know what it is? We need to tell someone...
Ree: I am not going back to them.
Munk: But-
Ree: Munk, you have no idea what they did to me. I barely even know! I've been trying to forget for this past two years that I've been out!
> Seems odd that Munk's very first idea, right off the bat, is go to the Elites; this seems like a last-resort idea and the stakes aren't there yet
> I think she can say "I've been trying to forget it for the last two years!" and we'll get the picture -- just trimming anything that could be construed as exposition with a capital e
Munk: What did you just do? That was the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen! It was like... I just... I don't even know! How did you do that? You didn't even touch him!
> Was he half unconscious during that whole thing?
Munk: Did you know how to do that this whole time? What even was that? What else can you do?
> "What else can you do" seems like an odd question to be coming from him immediately -- it might make more sense if this was a scene where he's just met her and he's blown away by all the amazing shit this new person can do, but since they've been together for 2 years...
Ree: We'll be there soon.
> Preferably show this or let reader infer it, instead of informing us
Guardians: We know you.
Ree: You do?
Guardians: We know you, number seven zero three.
Ree: That's not my name anymore.
> I feel like disbelief surrounding omnipotence is kind of a cliche -- your writing of this isn't awful by a long shot, but i feel like it would be 10x cooler if instead of a "you do?" response, we just got a stony/intense expression from Ree in response to "we know you," and then instead of repeating "we know you," which feels kind of corny to me, they just addressed her:
"We know you."
(stony look)
"Number seven zero three."
"That's not my name anymore."
"We know what you bring. What you stole."
"Someone's taking a whole room of it to the city."
"Yes. Y-180 has grown into a disease. A plague." ((by the way: diseases and plagues don't grow, they spread; blights and cancers grow... this may be trifling semantic bs but that's my 2 cents))
"What?"
"You're the guardians! You're here to keep the people safe! What's wrong with you?"
"You..."
((being REAL picky here but I question the present continuous tense for formal speech, it feels unresolved; I'd change "We are keeping the United Cities safe from the corruption of Y-180" to "We must keep," "We will keep," or the passive -- "The United Cities will/must be kept safe from the corruption of Y-180." passive is good in this situation because it absolves them of admitting to their role))
Guardians: You have killed more people of Y-180 than any of us so far.
> "so far" sounds a little funny, almost kidding, like someone's keeping score, or comically acknowledging they're about to kill soooooo many people
> i also feel that Ree doesn't have very many essential lines in 26-28; none of her lines seem overacted or out of place on their own, but maybe think about how you can use effective acting in place of those repeated "no" lines.
Munk: There's more of that glowy stuff headed for Y-180.
Ree: Yeah. Yeah, we should do something about that. Let's go home.
> Although I like and appreciate Ree's casual, kind of awkwardly self-deprecatory "we should do something about that" line, I feel like it's not a proper ending; I think a stronger way to end this would be for her to get a silent panel or two where she just stands up, or stands still, maybe zooming out, maybe zooming in, something that would give us a moment to breathe and see her newfound purpose and resolve, and she just says, "Let’s go home."
on the larger story at work:
ReplyDeleteas the plot escalates, we learn that ree has been trying to forget some traumatic personal events connected with the government for the last 2 years. although the sort of thing i initially suspect is later vindicated, and there isn't much of a surprise there, the thing that does surprise me is that the trauma isn't related to what was done to her, but what she was forced to do to others. i would not mind more than one page -- even a full-page panel -- devoted to this flashback; it's the moment when everything comes home for me as a reader. in fact, i think it's more powerful for me than the story's actual climax, the moment in which she chooses to destroy the guardians.
you expressed frustration with the ending, and part of why this doesn't seem like an adequate climax, i think, is that it doesn't seem like a difficult choice for her to make. throughout the story, ree and munk find themselves in tight situations and are forced to make unpleasant decisions in those situations -- stealing, killing, carjacking, seeking the guardians, etc. one gets the impression that these two kids wouldn't do these things if they weren't forced to do them for survival, and thus the drive to survive moves the plot forward. but the climax is just another in this series of events -- to save the city, ree is forced to destroy these beings who she didn't much like anyway, and although it isn't pleasant for her, it doesn't seem like there was much choice in the matter, or that it came at any sort of a cost.
my line of thinking -- what if Munk doesn't survive? Granted, it's hard to create ending dialogue with only one person left alive, but I can see this "cost" creating an opportunity for a more salient choice on the protagonist's part. If the guardians don't kill Munk, but it's Ree’s use of the capsule that obliterates him along with them (and it's implied she's fully aware of what will happen when she triggers it), then you've a truer sacrifice -- especially in the moment when Ree turns away from the scene of death that she has caused and toward the city that she must now save, alone. (Maybe she says "i'm sorry" to Munk before or after.) In this version, all of the difficult decisions that Ree and Munk have been forced to make along the course of the story culminate in one final horrible choice that no longer comes at the expense of nameless soldiers but at the expense of the only person who has ever shown her kindness. Choosing the greater good -- society -- thus comes at the ultimate individual price. This ending would be complicated; it would ask questions about heroism and sacrifice. One danger in choosing this ending would be having it come off too flippantly, but knowing you, I think you can avoid this.
That's all i have to say for now!
oh yeah, and I think "Let's go home" could still work as a great last line even in an ending in which Munk dies.
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