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Melinoe, Jonas's 2nd Draft
(Script 2) 07/22/2011Two hundred years ago, a visionary explorer vanished in the depths of space. Today, a team of scientists is sent to investigate the crash site of his ship. But the planet Melinoe has more in store for them than they know.
Creative Notes
Due to the absurd speed at which the first draft was written, a few typos managed to sneak past the exhausted writer. They have been found and ruthlessly eliminated. The script otherwise remains pretty much the same. I may make a few minor alterations at a later date, but nothing that would significantly alter the pace and structure.
Synopsis
[Scriptwriter's Note: If the premise interests you even remotely, do not read this. The life of the story is in the script, and the synopsis is a dead, ugly thing.]
Gary Wolf Tooth, working for a planetary surveyor company, recruits a group of people for an expedition. The group includes his old friend, Professor Anthony Farmer, currently a teacher at Pollux University. Anthony is an expert on the writings of August Bowen, a brilliant inventor and explorer who mysteriously disappeared 200 years ago, leaving behind a bizarre work known as the Bowen Codex.
Bowen's crashed ship has been located on the planet Melinoe, a thousand light-years from Earth; this is the target of the expedition. Once there, the expedition begins running into various problems, starting with a destroyed landing area. Ultimately, stranded far away from their shuttle, they come face to face with the planet's stark beauty - and its ancient mysteries. Here an ancient civilization once rose and then destroyed itself, committing a terrible crime in that process.
Undoing that crime may require painful sacrifices.
Gary Wolf Tooth, working for a planetary surveyor company, recruits a group of people for an expedition. The group includes his old friend, Professor Anthony Farmer, currently a teacher at Pollux University. Anthony is an expert on the writings of August Bowen, a brilliant inventor and explorer who mysteriously disappeared 200 years ago, leaving behind a bizarre work known as the Bowen Codex.
Bowen's crashed ship has been located on the planet Melinoe, a thousand light-years from Earth; this is the target of the expedition. Once there, the expedition begins running into various problems, starting with a destroyed landing area. Ultimately, stranded far away from their shuttle, they come face to face with the planet's stark beauty - and its ancient mysteries. Here an ancient civilization once rose and then destroyed itself, committing a terrible crime in that process.
Undoing that crime may require painful sacrifices.
Reviews
Overall Recommendation:
4.8 stars
(4)
Most helpful reviews
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people found the following review helpful:
A Thrilling bit of Space Opera
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people found the following review helpful:
Needs to be a movie.
Most recent reviews
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people found the following review helpful:
Wonderfully intriguing.
Jonas, your sci-fi story is a teriffic and fun read. I read it right through and was captivated throughout. I rate it 5 stars all the way.
The only area of detail I wondered about has to do with time dilation which, even if not truely correct, doesn't hurt the story at all, except that you may wish to change a few numbers.
My questions:
1) I could be incorrect but: If Bowen flew more than a thousand light years away at much faster than the speed of light - when he returnes thirty years later, shouldn't hundreds of thousands (or even much more) of years have passed on earth, in which case, shouldn't earth's technology have surpassed Bowen's genious?
2) At the end - the Corus ship just happened to come to Melinoe the same time they were there, with no alterior motives toward them, or connection to their visit?
3) The highly advanced civilization of Melinoe created a near perfect world. Why claim they destroyed themselves by war when it can be possibly more easily acceptable to claim they grew so advanced, they strived past reality in their search for truth or perfection, and that's what caused the creature event? This would create a new senario for death of an advanced civiization.
Best of luck with a teriffic story.
Anthony
The only area of detail I wondered about has to do with time dilation which, even if not truely correct, doesn't hurt the story at all, except that you may wish to change a few numbers.
My questions:
1) I could be incorrect but: If Bowen flew more than a thousand light years away at much faster than the speed of light - when he returnes thirty years later, shouldn't hundreds of thousands (or even much more) of years have passed on earth, in which case, shouldn't earth's technology have surpassed Bowen's genious?
2) At the end - the Corus ship just happened to come to Melinoe the same time they were there, with no alterior motives toward them, or connection to their visit?
3) The highly advanced civilization of Melinoe created a near perfect world. Why claim they destroyed themselves by war when it can be possibly more easily acceptable to claim they grew so advanced, they strived past reality in their search for truth or perfection, and that's what caused the creature event? This would create a new senario for death of an advanced civiization.
Best of luck with a teriffic story.
Anthony
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people found the following review helpful:
A great adventure and a satisfying sci-fi story.
It's always fun to follow someone on an adventure, and this script does a great job of taking you along for the ride.
I like the way the university reveals itself to be a dome within a dome. And I like the school dialog. I think Anthony's character is very likable. I'm not sure about the initial jokes (p.5) would play out for an audience, but at least his character has a great sense of humor.
I like the octopod scene and I think the back story is well done.
p 13. The joke between Nasseem and Rose - there could be MORE to that joke that the audience might like to hear..
I thought August Bowens montage was great. I like the way stasis is done and Melinoe looks like a very interesting world to explore.
Here are my little nits, mostly about making the wit wittier. There are points in the dialog where you could really do or say something odd and unexpected and it would be really funny instead of merely amusing:
p. 27 I'm not sure about the dialog for the landing sequence. It seems like there should be more talking about where to land...
p 39. Not sure about the "creeped out" bit of dialog. Naseem could say a bit more than "Just a little creeped out" . Perhaps he could say something about his multitude of choices to die....
P. 62 Maybe it's all in the delivery, but the food ration dialog was not as funny as you could probably make it. Anthony's got a good sense of humor. Maybe he could make his rations talk with that falsetto he was doing at the beginning of the script. Maybe someone has a stash of spice in a shoe somewhere for just this occasion, or a special way of cooking it or opening it....
p 78. Naseem "No, it sounds charming" Could add more dialog here to continue the theme.
p 86. Andreas sacrifices himself and the audience has no back story to make his sacrifice more meaningful. Consider adding it. I know he's got his death sequence, but really it's too late by then.
Wolf Tooth has inner pain, but Andreas' inner pain is not revealed to us. In fact, the characters (except Wolf Tooth) read as pretty happy, witty, skilled people who all get along perfectly. No one ever has to apologize for screwing up. It's fine, you've got enough going on, but it's something to think about.
p 87. Wolf Tooth "Not Again." Might be a good place to put in the reason why he said that, because we don't ever really answer that part of his character so we understand the significance of the change in him. Also, his choice isn't hard because the cave entrance has collapsed. The choice and the significance of the choice would be greater if he had to make that change before their only exit collapsed.
p 89. Hey. What happened to the robot monster thing?
Otherwise, the story seems fabulous! I think audiences will love to see it.
I like the way the university reveals itself to be a dome within a dome. And I like the school dialog. I think Anthony's character is very likable. I'm not sure about the initial jokes (p.5) would play out for an audience, but at least his character has a great sense of humor.
I like the octopod scene and I think the back story is well done.
p 13. The joke between Nasseem and Rose - there could be MORE to that joke that the audience might like to hear..
I thought August Bowens montage was great. I like the way stasis is done and Melinoe looks like a very interesting world to explore.
Here are my little nits, mostly about making the wit wittier. There are points in the dialog where you could really do or say something odd and unexpected and it would be really funny instead of merely amusing:
p. 27 I'm not sure about the dialog for the landing sequence. It seems like there should be more talking about where to land...
p 39. Not sure about the "creeped out" bit of dialog. Naseem could say a bit more than "Just a little creeped out" . Perhaps he could say something about his multitude of choices to die....
P. 62 Maybe it's all in the delivery, but the food ration dialog was not as funny as you could probably make it. Anthony's got a good sense of humor. Maybe he could make his rations talk with that falsetto he was doing at the beginning of the script. Maybe someone has a stash of spice in a shoe somewhere for just this occasion, or a special way of cooking it or opening it....
p 78. Naseem "No, it sounds charming" Could add more dialog here to continue the theme.
p 86. Andreas sacrifices himself and the audience has no back story to make his sacrifice more meaningful. Consider adding it. I know he's got his death sequence, but really it's too late by then.
Wolf Tooth has inner pain, but Andreas' inner pain is not revealed to us. In fact, the characters (except Wolf Tooth) read as pretty happy, witty, skilled people who all get along perfectly. No one ever has to apologize for screwing up. It's fine, you've got enough going on, but it's something to think about.
p 87. Wolf Tooth "Not Again." Might be a good place to put in the reason why he said that, because we don't ever really answer that part of his character so we understand the significance of the change in him. Also, his choice isn't hard because the cave entrance has collapsed. The choice and the significance of the choice would be greater if he had to make that change before their only exit collapsed.
p 89. Hey. What happened to the robot monster thing?
Otherwise, the story seems fabulous! I think audiences will love to see it.
Project Collaboration
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Project Information
Melinoe, Jonas's Project
(Science Fiction and Fantasy, Action and Adventure) "Two hundred years ago, a visionary explorer vanished in the depths of space. Today, a team of scientists is sent to investigate the crash site of his ship. But the planet Melinoe has more in store for them than they know."
There's some really unexpected twists in the story that keep things interesting without being completely out of nowhere.
Worst part:
Some of the dialogue is really clunky but nothing a little polish can't fix.
I would happily pay money to watch this movie without any changes. The story is an enjoyable piece of sci-fi. I would happily pay multiple times for a version with a little more polished dialogue.