20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Remake) - Script Review

Post based on the remake script '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea' by Craig Titley, July 2007, second draft. This is not the final film version!

The Verdict:

The script is a very entertaining, action-packed throw-back to the good ol’ adventure movies, with lacking characterization of the main protagonists and an unclear enemy force.

What's it about?

Ned Land is taken aboard the Nautilus and helps Captain Nemo retrieve the keys to an ancient civilization, which holds priceless treasures and the most dangerous weapon of the world.

Plot Summary [SPOILERS]:

India, 1857: Prince Dakkar tells his son about the wonderful mysteries of life, while his beautiful wife watches over them. Later that night the British general Anson will kill all three of them in cold blood.

10 years later: Rumors of a giant monster frightens the west. Under the lead of Commander Farragut an expedition is send out by the Royal Navy to kill the beast. The Commander forces Ned Land, the world-best harpooner, to join his forces or rot in prison for the rest of his life. Julie Fleischer, the only woman with more than one line in this script – and of course the love interest – smuggles herself aboard the ship, in the trunks of the marine life expert Professor Annorex, because her father was killed in the last attack by this monster. The ship sails to the last attack site of the beast and is promptly attacked by it. It turns out to be a huge iron submersible called Nautilus. The only survivors, Ned, Julie and the Professor, are taken aboard by Captain Nemo and stay there for weeks.

Nemo stole a map from Julie’s father, who was an archeologist, and tries to find a treasure in a Sumerian temple. While Nemo retrieves 6 ancient keys, Ned and Julie try to flee, but are attacked by Ottomans and have to return to the Nautilus.

Captain Nemo takes the ship back to it’s base, an old volcanic island in the middle of the ocean. Nemo reveals that he funded the work of Julie’s father all these years and was a good friend of him. Now he tries to finish his work of finding an ancient, highly-developed culture, but he has to find a missing 7^th key. Coincidentally, Julie has the map of this key memorized and can lead Nemo there. But not before Ned and Julie make out for a bit…

The last key is hidden in the Antarctic ice and soon after Nemo, Ned, Julie and the Professor arrive there, they are attacked by General Anson, who wants the power of this ancient civilization to himself. The wounded Professor is left behind and now helps General Anson to stop Nemo. But he already has found the last key and takes course for the Lost World. Deep in the ruins of this civilization Nemo finds the Eye of Shiva, when bringing it back to the Nautilus, they are attacked by Giant Squid.

Now Captain Nemo reveals his true plan, he wants to use the power of the Eye to kill every human being as revenge for his killed family. He abandons Ned on the open sea and returns to his base. Ned follows them, while the Nautilus is overpowered by General Anson, who discovered and conquered Captain Nemo’s hide-out. To make matters worse, a new expedition under the command of Farragut also discovered the islands and starts bombarding it. While Ned fights and frees Julie, the Professor and Nemo, General Anson activates the Eye. It’s power summons a huge, roaring storm over the small island. General Anson tries to escape on an airship, but is killed by Captain Nemo. Farragut’s attack damaged the Nautilus, so Ned has to go out in a diving suit and de-activate the Eye of Shiva. He succeeds, but the Nautilus – with Captain Nemo aboard – falls down a deep chasm. The End.

Observations:

Unclear enemy force: I feel, there a few too many antagonistic forces at play in this script. On the first page General Anson is introduced as the main evil force. But in the middle of the script, his ottoman henchman does all the work and General Anson is only in the background. After a while Farragut comes into the play, another British Navy officer, whose only job seems to be to be a disruptive factor for everyone else. I wonder why the script writer put him in? In the last part Nemo also develops evil traits, threatening to destroy the world, which makes sense, regarding his personal history. As motivation for the character it is interesting and a nice twist at the end, but the threat is never addressed after the attack by Anson and just vanishes. This feels shallow and lacking.

Lacking Characterization: Who is the main protagonist? It clearly should be Ned Land. He gets dragged aboard in his Call to Adventure, he has the love story. But he only follows Captain Nemo. Ned develops no agenda of his own and no motivation to do anything in this script. Captain Nemo on the other hand gets a tragic back-story, has a clearly defined goal to pursue, but along the way also seems to be evil. So, the script is split between two characters: Ned, the flat archetype of a movie hero and Captain Nemo, the tragic, but ultimately corrupted prince, pushing the story forward.

The Project:

The script is based on the classic science-fiction by Jules Vernes, published in 1870. There were a few movie adaptations starting in 1907 with a silent short film. The most famous adaptation, produced by Walt Disney, came out in 1954, but there are dozens of other movie and TV versions of this tale.

Titley (Percy Jackson and the Olympians) wrote this version of the script for Sam Raimi to produce, but nothing came of it. After McG had a go at it, David Fincher (Se7en, The Social Network) is now directing this Remake/Adaptation, to be released in 2013.

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Thanks for reading,
- Tristan

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John Carter of Mars - Script Review

Post based upon the script by Ehren Kruger, previous draft by Mark Protosevich, dated September 7th, 2005. This version will not be used for the final film!

The Verdict: A mediocre Science-Fiction Action movie, that can't deny it's pulpy origins, but it is entertaining nonetheless.

What's it about?
John Carter, a special force soldier, is magically transported to Mars and finds himself in the middle of a planetary war. Now he has to chose his side and fight his way back home.

Plot Summary (Spoilers!):

Present Time, deep in the african jungle: Captain John Carter and his Sergeant, Powell, are on a mission to free a village from rebel fighters and find strange glowing gems in one of the huts. A little boy leads them to the cave, where these gems were found and Powell falls down into the deep cavern. John Carter follows him, but only finds more of these strange gems, which suddenly begin to glow. Carter now sees the time turned back and is transported to the red deserts of Mars.
He is captured by the Tharks, 4-armed, green-skinned warriors. Soon, John Carter proves to be a viable warrior himself, largely due to the low gravity, which gives him the ability to jump very high.
When suddenly a damaged airship of the Helium arrives in the city! The vile King of the Tharks opens fire, although on board of this ship is the Princess of Helium offering an alliance against the Zodanga, who threaten to destroy them both. John Carter can save Thoris, the princess, and she tells him about the 'Atmosphere Plant', a huge complex that controls the weather and water on Mars. Sab Than, the leader of the Zordanga, wants control over this facility, but this would mean the end of the Tharks and the Helium. Together the flee from the Tharks, before Sab Than can reach the city.
On the way through the desert John Carter finds out, that Powell reached Mars hundred years before him and is dead for a long time now. But when Sab Than catches up with them in the territory of the Warhoons, a primitive species of Tharks, it is revealed that Sab Than is in fact Powell. John Carter refuses his offer to join him and conquer Helium and the Atmosphere Plant and is left behind to be killed by the savages, while the princess is abducted by Powell.
In a totally absurd set-piece John Carter has to fight Gladiator-style in a Warhoon Arena againt gigantic ape monsters. He can escape and returns to the city of the Tharks, where the King is challenged killed in a duel. Now the Tharks form an alliance with the Helium and together they can fight back the Zordanga.
But Powell already has the key to the Atmosphere Plant (which was the Princess' naval ring all along!) and Carter follows to stop his old friend from seizing control over Mars. Inside the facility they fight, Powell is killed and John Carter is send back to Earth. But not to his time! He finds himself in the middle of the Civil War. 
Being granted near immortality, Carter waits until he can return to that cave and then transports back to Mars, to be with his love, the Princess of Mars.

Observations:

Pulp Origin: Shining heroes and scantily clad women, savage warriors, mysterious gems and time travel. That's pulp for you! Like the Conan the Barbarian series John Carter of Mars doesn't want to be something else than an entertaining blockbuster flick, but still feels out-dated and cheesy sometimes.


Too similiar to Avatar? While reading the script I had to think of Avatar all the time. An innocent man learns they way of some native people, learns their language and traditions and then has to fight with them against a superior enemy lead by an old military friend. There are giant birds/dragons tamed by Carter and used to attack the enemy. I know, the Barsoom Series was published long before Avatar was written and if anything, Avatar took some things from the Edgar Rice Burrough novels. But still, it could be a though sell now, that almost everybody has seen Avatar and will inevitably see the similarities.


The Project:
John Carter of Mars has a very long histoy: Already in 1931 MGM started shooting an animation movie based on the novels. The script was written by the author himself, Edgar Rice Burrough, but the project came to a halt, because the test footage received negative reviews.
The next try took place in the 1980s, but the technology wasn't advanced enough to bring the world of Barsoon to live.
In 2005 Paramount started production with Robert Rodriguez, who soon had to be replaced by Jon Favreau, who made most of the changes to the reviewed script. When Favreau left to make 'Iron Man' instead, the project stopped once again.
The latest and successfull effort to bring the novels onto the silver screen, was started by Disney in 2007. Mark Andrews and Michael Chabon wrote the most recent draft of the script for the director Andrew Stanton (known for 'Wall-E' & 'Finding Nemo'). This will be his first non-animation project. The movie will be released on the 9th of March 2012.



Official Trailer:

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References: A Princess of Mars - Novel (Wiki); IMdB; Wiki of the 2012 film;

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Halo - Script Review

This post is based on the script by Alex Garland, February 2005

The Verdict: 

The movie can't deny it's video-game origin, especially the main protagonist never comes alive. But it is filled with endless action and suspense to make up for this.

What's it about?

After a fierce space-battle, the Master Chief crash-lands on the ring-world of Halo and while he struggles to stay alive, he slowly reveals the true nature of the mysterious object.

Plot Summary:

The 'Pillars of Autumn', jumps through space to escape the ships of the Covenants. By accident it comes out near Halo, a huge ring-world with it's own atmosphere and gravity. The lone ship stands no chance against the opponent fleet and Captain Keyes orders the Master Chief, a genetically altered super-soldier to take the ships AI down to Halo and protect it. He crashes on the surface, as does the 'Pillars of Autumn'. The Master Chief encounters a few other survivors and together they build a base camp.

The survivors find out, that Captain Keyes was taken hostage and the team decides to rescue him. They go aboard the Covenant-ship, that is docked along the ring-world. They manage to get out of the ship alive with the Captain and it is revealed, that Halo was constructed by the "Forerunner", an ancient alien race, and that it can be used as a weapon. To find out more about Halo, the Master Chief heads towards the subterranean Map Room, while Captain Keyes goes to the crashsite of the 'Pillars of Autumn'. After some heavy fighting at a beach, the Master Chief reaches the Map Room, where the ship's AI is seemingly destroyed trying to connect to the Map Room's computer. Now the Master Chief doesn't know where to go, when suddenly he is attacked by Flood Infections, which can infect all the human soldiers and turn them into infected zombies.

The Master Chief is running out of ammo and it looks really grim, when suddenly Guilty Spark appears. It is a floating robotic device shooting down the whole army and asking the Master Chief to follow him to the Command Center of Halo. More than gladly he follows.

After battling the next Flood Army, the Master Chief reaches the inner sanctum of the Command Center and is asked to start the Sterilization Sequence to stop the Flood Infection. Fittingly in this moment the ship's AI re-awakens and stops the activation, as this would have killed every human in the galaxy. The Master Chief shoots and Guilty Spark and flees.

The only way to stop the Flood Infection from spreading throughout the universe, is to destroy Halo, by over-charging the energy core of the 'Pillars of Autumn'. He fights his way through the crashed ship and encounters in best final boss style the infected Captain Keyes. After killing him, the Master Chief activates the over-charging sequence and can flee from Halo on the last ship left. From afar he watches the ring-world explode and with it the menace of the Flood Infections.

Observations:

Computer Game Structure: 

I wrote a post about the Quest Structure of 'Clash of the Titans', and most of it applies here, too. There is no overall story goal, there are small level-like mini-goals and neither the protagonist nor the viewers know where the story wants to go. It makes such a epic movie feel small. Master Chief, the leader of the Spartans, has to go from the Covenant-ship to the Map Room to the Command Center to the crashed space-ship. These are not the steps of the Hero's Journey, these are recreations of the game's different stages. As such it is never-ending action from the first page to the last. But the set-pieces are amazing and the shoot-outs thrilling...

Non-Human Players: 

The Master Chief is a genetically altered super soldier, he doesn't speak much throughout the movie, nor shows any deep feelings. We see his face only once in a dream sequence and for the rest of the film he wears his suit and helmet. His companion, the ship's AI, is even less alive. She talks in his head and gives directions. There is not a single scene describing the motivation for the Covenant wanting to kill every human; Guilty Spark is a robot and as such also very much away from being a identifiable character. The last antagonist, the Flood Infections, are just a zombifying flesh-eating alien virus, so not much persona there. As you see, the whole movie is void of human characters, of emotions, of motivations or anything resembling it. Most probably it is a faithful recreation of the game, but I doubt it would work in a movie.

The Project:

The 'Halo' Series, produced by Bungie and Microsoft, sold over 40 million copies, worth 2 billion dollar worth of revenue, since 2001. Four years later the movie adaptation started with Alex Garland writing this draft of the Halo script. 20th Century Fox and Universal Studios partnered to produce the film. Peter Jackson was set to produce with Guillermo del Toro first, then Neill Bloomkamp directing. 2006 D.B. Weiss and Josh Olson revised the script, but the project fell apart soon after that. The rights to make the reverted back to Microsoft, who promises to make the movie sometime in the future.

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