Sailor Squirrel (Galveston, TX)

Choosers of the Slain is a unique and incisive screenplay, overwhelmingly pertinent to the foreign wars and domestic culture of the United States. This story is powerfully written. Thacker doesn’t pull any punches describing the grim realities of warfare, nor its moral implications – especially the responsibility of society at large in beginning wars at all.

Premise: The premise is certainly original, which stands out I think against many other stories in the Sci-Fi genre. The supernatural conceit allowing Camp’s “previous life” is rooted in ancient folklore, and still presented in a very fresh and modern way. It’s also an ingenious tool for exploring different times and places, which for all their differences, serve only to highlight the eternal similarities of armed men in combat. Same tune, different band.

Story structure: Choosers of the Slain is an exemplary frame story, or internal narrative – a story within a story. This type of storytelling has always been one of my favorites, employed famously by Mark Twain and many others. There are a good number of flashbacks, very fitting for Thacker’s historical subject matter, that add depth to the characters without eating up too much screen time. I have often heard screenplays discussed as having “three acts,” although I think Choosers poses an interesting challenge in finding the lines between those. The story grows fluidly, and only jars the reader when that is exactly Thacker’s aim.

Character: Camp is what a soldier should be. He is brave without being foolish, loyal without being blind and intelligent without losing his aggressive edge. His tongue-in-cheek, sometimes gallows, humor helps to ease the tension of violence and shows how tough men can and do laugh even after the “Crack of Doom.”

Valerie is a sympathetic foil for the audience, and achingly emblematic of civilian perceptions of war – as something to be rooted for, not dissimilar from a football game. Valerie’s conflict is more poignant for most of us than Camp’s, simply because most of us have never been in his shoes. But hers are all too familiar.

Dialogue: Thacker’s dialogue is superb. Characters speak how they should. Stilted comments are avoided except where they are funny. Camp’s Texan accent and manner of speech is authentic, and a nice reprieve from John Wayne, for instance. As a Southerner, I can’t overstate my appreciation of a country-boy character who is sharp as a whip.

Emotion: The United States has been continuously at war since 2001. If the emotions of Camp and his comrades, including Valerie, won’t grab you then I don’t know what will. Even in the terrible situations that wars so expertly create, a good soldier – hell, a good person – will do the best they can to help and protect their comrades. This theme grows stronger throughout the work, and rightly so, as the setting sometimes appears to get darker, even when you thought it couldn’t. As noted earlier, Thacker doesn’t pull punches, and it’s about time somebody wrote a war story that actually shows what war is, and the choices it thrusts upon its victims.

Full disclosure: I have worked as an amateur script analyst on this project, and I’m so glad to see so many people enjoy this screenplay!

My hat’s off to Camp, Archie, Odel, and all the rest.