My Sci Fi Drama script

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Metronome1
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My Sci Fi Drama script

Post by Metronome1 »

I was bored and probably wont film this... You can, though.

Galactic Rim

Title

Ext. Ship

Caption: The Katan

Int. Ship

Three kids are driving the ship. John, Jace and Ann.

John:
Is it time to go home yet?

Jace:
For the last time, no! We can only go home when we find Robbie.

John:
Huh. (Walks to a wall) I want to go home. (beat) And I want Robbie.

Ann:
You know what? This sucks. Do you know why this sucks?

Jace:
Stuff it, Ann.

John:
We all found out by now, Ann. That’s why I want to go home.

Ann:
Really? You found out?

John:
No duh, Sherlock.

Ann:
OK. So tell me. Why do you think this sucks?

John:
Because it’s so boring.

Jace:
That’s my reason too…


John:
Copycat.

Jace:
Gee, that helps.

Ann:
MY reason is different. Well, sorta. Well, just a little different.

Jace:
Spill it out.

Ann:
Because it ruins my dream to be an astronaut and I should be fifty but instead I’m nine! My whole family probably thinks I’m dead and I have no idea where home is! Dumb ice meteors.

John:
Oh. Well, that sucks too.

Jace:
Uh, I don’t find that a problem. I mean, it only feels like I was away for a week.

Ann:
Only.

John:
Jace, I think you forgot that we were supposed to get back home after a real week. Instead, we got frozen and now we are far from home. And! And we should be starting home now, but instead you have to find Robbie!

Ann:
Yeah, Jace. If Robbie is still alive after half of a whole century-

Jace:
-Fifty years-

Ann:
-Yeah, if he is, then why should we find it?

John:
I know why. I just don’t like it. Why is he the only one who knows how to fly a ship?

Ann:
Because we’re just kids, John. And isn’t he yours?

John:
Robbie is a kid’s name. And so what if he’s mine? He is still holding us down, and if he would only move his freaking butt and come here already-

Jace:
Having a kids name doesn’t make him a kid. You named him.

Ann:
Jace. Where are we?

Jace:
Space.

Ann:
No, we’re in New Jersey. Where in space?

Jace:
How should I know? John, can you send a communication to Earth?

John:
A what?

Ann:
A communication. So you could call Earth.

John:
Huh?

Ann:
Like an email. Like a cell phone. God. What did they teach you in first grade?

John:
They didn’t tell me I had to send a comunctitation. Robbie did that.

John: (cont)
Besides, Earth doesn’t know we’re still alive! Mommy, Daddy and Cookie think we are floating rocks in the middle of space.

Jace:
We can only go home if we could find Robbie. OK? Now you can stop complaining and be mature!

Ann:
Are there any instructions? Maybe I could read them.


John:
Good idea. Do you think their written in first grade English?

Ann:
Maybe. I don’t know.

Jace:
Actually, that would have been a good idea. If you are going to send a kid to space, you need to think about if the kid would get hurt in the future, or if Robbie disappeared. Then they would leave an instruction thing to read in good English.

Ann:
Hey, that’s right! Maybe they talk about it in the video.

Jace:
Yeah! Uh, but how do videos work?

Ann:
(Sigh) The button shaped like a triangle under the video screen.

Jace presses the button. The TV turns on. On the TV is a man.

Man:
Greetings! This is a video release for astronaut and historical reference only. The Katan project’s goal: to see if outer space leaves ill effects on a child’s body. Three children, John Luthsfield, Ann Lewis, and Jace Mature have been sent to space. Their x-15 shuttle is to make a full swoop around the moon and land on Earth a week later. It is fully equipped with FTL drives, comfort systems, and a maintenance guide named Robbie. Their date of leave: April 19, 2216. For the children, a set of emergency pamphlets in Early English have been scattered through the ship. One is under this screen. With these pamphlets, the children could navigate home if their guardian and assistant Robbie is out of commission. This is all.

Screen:
End Video One

Ann:
Jace, you’re a genius.

Jace:
Ann, you get the pamphlet and start driving the spaceship. I’m going to look for Robbie.

John:
What do I do?


Jace:
Try not to act stupid.

John:
Oh, shut up.

Int. Corridor of ship

Jace:
Robbie? Robbie, can you hear me? Robbie?

Jace walks the halls. She turns a corner and sees… something we can’t see.

Jace:
Oh, my G-d… JOHN! ANN!

Ann: (OS)
Kinda busy!

Jace:
It’s Robbie! Something’s wrong!

John runs in.

John:
What happened to him?

Jace:
John, can you help him?

John:
I think he’s dead… God… Robbie…

Jace:
He’s just not moving, but he’s alive!

John:
We have to help him! I just don’t know what to do! CPR?

Jace:
That wouldn’t work, you idiot! YOU CAN’T DO CPR ON A ROBOT!

We pull back to see- a large robot, on the floor. He looks broken. His head is splintered. Sparks shoot from him.


John:
He didn’t freeze like the rest of us. Why didn’t he freeze?

Jace:
Because he’s a robot and he was in the side room working! The ice meteors that froze us must have hit the side room!

John:
We have to get him to work. Or do you want to spend your life here? My dad said that if we get stuck we would lose our air.

Jace:
Forget it! Ann is flying the ship, and he’s just a robot.

John:
He was MY robot!

Jace:
I thought you wanted us to leave before looking for him.

John:
I didn’t think that he was broken! And now I know Ann can’t fly the ship without a manual, so she might crash into another ice asteroid and we could freeze again! I’m still a little bit cold.

Jace:
OK. You know what? I’ll go to Ann, and you could fix Robbie by yourself.

John:
NO!

Jace:
Would you rather we both leave him? Because I could go for that.

John:
NO! Help me fix him! I need help!

Jace:
I want to go home! Let me go home!

John:
WE NEED TO FIX ROBBIE!

John lunges at Jace, and hits her. She hits him back. They roll on the floor. They bang into Robbie, and knock a ray gun out of his hand. John grabs it, and Jace tries to wrestle it out of his hand. They have a vicious tug of war over the gun. The gun accidentally goes off. A red ray blasts a ventilation pipe. For a second, steam shoots out.

Jace:
You’re going to blast the wall! We’re going to die!

John:
Give it to me!

Jace:
Let go!

John:
Give it to me or I blast all the walls and kill us all.

Jace lets go. John aims the gun at her. She puts her hands up.

Jace:
John. Put… the gun… down.

John:
I’m going to fix Robbie. And… you are going to help me.

Jace:
John… listen to me. We are going home. At home they will fix Robbie. Ann is doing a good job, driving the ship. When we get home, they will fix your robot. But until then, we can’t. We are only in first grade. 50 years of suspended animation doesn’t make us smarter. If you fix the robot while she is driving, we will all die.

John (still aiming gun):
Why?

Jace:
Because you hit a pipe. The oxygen in this room might run out by the time we get home. You can’t stay in this room or you’ll die. The robot is too heavy to take into a different room. John, we need to go!

John, still aiming the gun, thinks about this. She’s right. He drops the gun.
John:
Robbie was my best friend…

Jace:
Come on. Let’s go. The other rooms have an extra oxygen supply.

John:
We’d have to eject this room, wouldn’t we?
Jace:
To save oxygen. Yes. (Beat) I’m sorry. Come.


Int. Cockpit

Ann is reading the manual to herself.

Ann:
Pull the lever… the red lever with the letters FTL, which means Faster Than Light… what? And press… warp heading… type in Earth Arizona… you should get a map on the VCR showing if you will go through suns… Then you would have to reset the targeting system. OK. I could do that.

Ann pulls the red lever and presses a button on a touch screen saying warp heading. She types in Earth Arizona. The VCR reads:

NO SIGNAL- OUT OF RANGE- DAMAGE TO SATTELITE RECEPTORS

Jace runs into the room. John solemnly follows.

Jace:
Ann, are you ready?

Ann:
Crud.

Jace:
Ann?

Ann:
The freaking map isn’t working.

Jace:
What does that mean for us?

Ann:
It means I don’t know where we are.

Jace:
Can you find out?

Ann:
Robbie would have a map in his brain… He has a built in computer. Did you find him?


Jace:
Well… he can’t help.

Ann:
Then either we get lucky, or we burn up in a sun.

Jace:
But we’ll die.

Ann:
Heh… no duh, Sherlock.

John:
Robbie knows?

Jace:
Knew.

John:
Don’t say that! You said it yourself! He’s alive!

John runs out the room. He runs to the fallen Robbie.

John:
Robbie, we need your help!
…
Robbie, wake up!
…
WAKE UP YOU STUPID ROBOT!

John kicks Robbie. A COMPUTER VOICE dictates:

PREPARING TO EJECT SIDE ROOM DUE TO LACK OF OXYGEN

The door closes. An oxygen meter on a wall begins to lower. Sirens blare.

John (now frantic):
ROBBIE, WAKE UP! ROBBIE! ROBBIEEEEEEEEEEE! (Starts to gasp) I can’t breath… Robbie… (Gas starts to fill the room) help… (Takes a giant, last defiant breath) ROBBIEEEEEEE!

John falls over, nearly unconscious. Right before he blanks out, he sees-
-The ray gun.
He is too week to grab it. He smashes his fist on it.

It shoots the door. The door explodes. Oxygen rushes in.

John:
Robbie… I just… I…

The computer dictates:

ALERT- PROXIMITY BREACH- ABORTING

John runs off. A blast door blocks the destroyed entrance behind him. Behind the door, a light glows on Robbie’s hand. Lightning crackles from the ray gun.

Int. Cockpit

Ann:
John! You suicidal idiot! You could have been killed!

John:
I couldn’t help Robbie. He just won’t move… We won’t get home.

Jace:
So we get lucky or die. You know, I never thought it might have been us twinkling in a little star when I sang that song…

Footsteps.

Ann:
Did you hear that?

John:
Wait a minute… What do ray guns shoot?

Jace:
Why do you need to know?

John:
I fired it next to Robbie.

Jace:
YOU FIRED IT?

John:
Just tell me!

Jace:
Well… nuclear Radiation… I think…

John:
Radiation?

Jace:
I think so.

John:
Robbie gets powered by radiation.

Robbie enters the room. He is alive!

Robbie:
Stand aside please. Ann, please step down from the cockpit seat. I am to drive you home.

He walks up to a console, and sticks his finger into a port.
The screen suddenly changes from
NO SIGNAL- OUT OF RANGE- DAMAGE TO SATTELITE RECEPTORS
-to
NETWORK CONNECTION FOUND

The ship starts to stretch.

Ext. Earth.
A wormhole opens. Out emerges… the Katan.

John:
Oh… wow.

Jace:
Is that Earth?

Ann:
It looks so small… we made it…

John:
We’re in the future now.

Ann:
What?

John:
Fifty years later. We are in the future now.

Ann:
I… we…

(Silence)

Everybody SCREAMS WITH JOY. They cheer.

John:
WE’RE HERE! WE MADE IT! WE’RE BACK!

Ann:
The second we land, we party. How’s that?

On the screen: INCOMING TRANSMISSION

A video turns on. On it is a woman.

Woman:
You are flying right above American Airspace. Please identify.

Jace:
John, how would you like to send a communication?

John ponders.

Woman:
Please identify.

John turns on a camera.

John:
This is the U.S.S. Katan. We’re coming home.

Caption:
2266. The future… is our children.

The end.
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angusware
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RE: My Sci Fi Drama script

Post by angusware »

so, do you want feedback, or not?
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RE: My Sci Fi Drama script

Post by Jperson »

Interesting...Didn't read all of it, cause I'm lazy. But liked the beggining, it's a very interesting idea...
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Metronome1
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RE: My Sci Fi Drama script

Post by Metronome1 »

Thanks. Yes, I would like feedback.
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Post by Metronome1 »

May I have feedback?
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Post by Jperson »

Urg. OK, I'll feed back on the little bit I reado. OK, nice. Do you like writing, you're obviously quite good at it. The script flows most of the time, except for a few uncomfortble "catch" moments, which even (I know it's hard to take ;) ) I write in. It's so hard to avoid when writing in children. I don't know quite how to describe it. Moments that don't quite work and are a tad uncomfortable to the reader/viewer for some reason. These points are really, really hard to deal with. Nice ideas, loving it so far, really, great film. It means minimal effects (so far as I've read) and essentially just one set, really. Ideal for amatuer, young filmmakers (like myself). Infact I would love to film it if I had time on my hands and wasn't filming Spent Brass (or trying to...) at the moment. Keep up the writing, I would very much like to see some more of your stuff, if you have anything more for me to see that would be great... PM me.
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angusware
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Post by angusware »

Overall it was good. Some of the dialogue seems... laboured and very fake.
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Post by Metronome1 »

Which ones?
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Post by Jperson »

angusware wrote:Some of the dialogue seems... laboured and very fake.
Exactly what I was saying with the "Catch" moments, like they snag on something, almost, and just feel, well, uncomfortable and laboured.
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Metronome1
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Post by Metronome1 »

Ok. I'm new at this. What is a Catch moment?
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Post by Jperson »

I "invented" that. Erm, it means when somebody says, like, well, something that doesn't fit very well. Example, when a child says something that you wouldn't exactly expect that child to say. Happens a lot if you're trying to write to kids arguing. Let me try to give an example:

"I hate you!"
"You're smelly!" - that would be the catch bit. It just doesn't kinda work. This can happen for any type of group. It can happen when one child is being like nice to the other, they say things, that just don't fit... These moments are like uncomfortable.

I've done my best to explain, but, I don't think that was a great explanation.
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Post by Metronome1 »

Alright, I started making it.

trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtUqOcfhtao
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