So I like to think of movie ideas and here's one ive written. Title: S4 The movie starts with an introduction to the main character Jim Stanley. The opening scene shows a very young Jim with his father, who is an accomplished physicist, in their basement. Jim's father "Marcus" has created a miniature particle accelerator and is explaining to Jim some of the technical details about how it works. Jim is mesmerized by the device, wide eyed and brimming with curiosity. Marcus turns to jim and says "No matter what anyone tells you son, nothing is impossible. The only barriers we have is the limit of our own imagination". Marcus is a brilliant man but suffers from Paranoid Schizophrenia, which he controls with his prescription medication. That night as Marcus leaves for work, he is tragically shot and killed by an unknown gunman, for unknown reasons. Jim, devastated by his father's death, spends many nights by the particle accellerator where they last spoke. This fuels Jim to become a scientific prodigy and follow in his father's footsteps. Jim takes over the laboratory his father has built and begins conducting his own experiments. A Montage of Jim growing up is shown, with him entering various science related competitions and winning first prize. The final scene of the montage shows Jim receiving his PHD in theoretical physics at the tender age of 21. Jim, now engaged to his stunning fianc
Jim is then escorted back to the research facility. He is terrified but continues his work. He asks his colleagues if they know anything about the scientists who started the research. They explain that a physicist named Marcus was the original researcher and that everything they have done is building off his work. Jim is stunned, he now believes that his father started the work at S4, and was murdered by the whoever controls the facility. Desperate to expose the facility, Jim decides to smuggle out blueprints of the craft and a small piece of the crafts material, and take it to a major media outlet. Jims shift ends and he manages to smuggle out the evidence by hiding it in his shoes. He gets to his car and his phone rings. Unknown caller. Jim answers, "Hello". The dark voice says, "We know what you did Jim, return the material NOW, or your wife and child will pay the consequences". Jim hangs up the phone. He desperately tries to call Nicole but shes not answering. He takes the phone and throws it off a bridge in to a lake. He gets in to his car and races as fast as he can to his apartment. He arrives, walks through the door, and looks around. Nothing but silence. He yells "Nicole "...... still silence. He turns to walk in the bedroom and Nicole is hanging from the ceiling by a cord, dead. Jim screams and falls to his knees repeating "No, No, No", tears streaming down his face. Two men enter the room, grab him, they struggle, inject him with something, and he collapses. Jim awakens in a dark room. A man in a white coat enters the room. He looks in Jim's eyes with an instrument, and proceeds to sit across from him. The man says, "What can you tell me about how you arrived here"? Jim says while trembling "I...... I.......I stole the blueprints and the material, I'm s..ss...sorry, please don't kill me." The man in the white coat turns to him and says, "Its alright Marcus, just relax, we're going to work through this " Jim: "My name is Jim, Marcus is my fathers name " The man in the white coat takes a deep breath and says, "Your name is Marcus, you're 43 years old, you have Paranoid Schizophrenia, I'm your doctor, Marcus . You've become more and more delusional in the past couple months, we have been trying to treat you with a new drug but its had..... unexpected side effects. Jim: "No....This can't be true, Marcus is my father.... Im his son.... My wife... ." Doctor: "You have no son Marcus, Youre not married, you have been living in a fantasy world. " Jim: "No....... No......" The room starts spinning, and Jim blacks out. Next scene Jim is sitting motionless in a chair staring out of the window. A nurse comes over and helps him take his medication. He continues to stare blankly... Suddenly he notices a man outside in a dark suit watching him. The man puts out his cigarette, looks back once more, and walks off. The camera pans back to Jim, as he shakes while nodding back and forth. He looks in to a glass sitting at the table, holds it up to the light to see his Reflection, he sees a 21 year old man staring back at him........... The screen goes black. The end
I have to admit that I lost interest pretty early. I'm an amateur screenwriter, at best, so my criticism don't hold much weight, but at the very least this needs to be more readable. Have you ever head of Blake Snyder's "Beatsheet"? Here is a link to a basic outline. You can download a word document or pdf for free. I think it would help make this more readable while at the same time framing it in the traditional three act structure.
Damn...I understand its maybe a little slow but i had to ensure certain details were included. I will check out the beatsheet
I think most of my problem was the format. It is not an outline, or a script, or a novel. It's a mixture of all three. That makes it difficult to read.
Yeah, im not exactly a writer so i don't know how it works. I just wrote a story once and people really seemed to like it so i thought i would try something similar.
I'm certainly not trying to discourage you. Here is a beat sheet that someone did for Jaws. There are others but I chose Jaws since most people have seen it. I think you will find this helpful. Plot wise I will say that type of twist ending has done and I think it's tough to pull off.
Has it been done? They made him think hes insane and that he's his father but infact everything actually happened. What movie did that?
I read the whole first page and gave up. Could you do a cliffs version? That way if I want more info, I can go dig it up in the long version
That's really a slight variation to the ending of Shutter Island, but the twist endings like that, as a whole, are difficult to pull off. Twin Peaks, the tv show, was well regarded but the ending did not sit well with a lot of people and it's certainly in the same vein.
Cliffs Jim Stanley is a boy Jims father marcus is a physicist with paranoid Schizophrenia Jims father marcus dies Jim grows up becomes physicist Jim is about to get married and have a child Jim starts job at secret facility s4 reverse Engineering ufos Jim talks about work Work threatens to kill him Jim steals ufo stuff Work kills wife and drugs jim Jim wakes up in institution Institution tells jim hes 43 year old Marcus with Schizophrenia (twist) Institution drugs jim and keeps him there Jim sees his Reflection at the end realize hes been tricked (double twist!!)
Yeah twists at the end were so overdone following the wake of M.Night Shamalamamananaamna that we are completely oversaturated by twist endings for the next few decades -------- Your story isn't too bad though. Like most (*pre-)1st drafts of stories, it needs tweeking. The ending isn't enough to satisfy most people. [It would do better as a single episode of one of those shows like Twilight Zone]. More needs to happen at the end, it can't just end there for me I think you've got the right mind and a good style for writing at your age. You shouldn't have to abandon this story, it got my interest (I got sucked in, which is biggest accomplishment and the hardest part to do) but it needs more. Don't be like everyone else who sucks and wants to 'revise' the easy way by just piling up more "stuff that happens" on top of it while keeping it the same.
You're young dude. You mentioned it in another thread You're early 20's. That means all the writing experience you have prior to this is from your teens and gradeschool years. The experience you get every year in your twenties on is worth about 8x that of a year from those previous eras, because of the saturation of reality you are forced to experience after highschool. By 30 or so you should have limitless material, a very powerful and refined instinct
