A military astronaut test flying a secret craft becomes stranded in a parallel world where the U.S. is a third world country ruled by a brutal dictator.
bcpPenpusher
A military astronaut test flying a secret craft becomes stranded in a parallel world where the U.S. is a third world country ruled by a brutal dictator.
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The logline sets up an interesting situation — but, alas, it does not describe a plot. And the purpose of a logline is to (succinctly) describe a plot.?A plot would arise out of ?the action the astronaut takes, what he must do, after he finds himself stranded in the parallel world.
So, what must the astronaut do about the situation he finds himself in? ?What action does he take that constitutes his objective goal? ?And why must he do it — what is at stake?
Here’s the meta-problem I see with the the concept itself, let alone the logline: ?it’s juggling w-a-y too many balls for an audience to keep track of:
1] Reverse engineered alien spacecraft…
2] Parallel worlds…
3]US as a 3rd world country…
4]Ruled by a brutal dictator…
5] A Big Twist/Reveal: his wife dead in one world lives in the other.
I don’t see how you can do dramatic justice to all these story elements in one feature film. ?It ?seems to me it would take a series, or a franchise to develop and play them all out. ?And if that is your objective goal, fine, but just focus on the “origin story” that kick starts the entire series or franchise.
If your objective goal is to write one feature film, then you gotta simplify, simplify, simplify the logline. ?And I don’t know where to advise trimming because I don’t know what you consider to be?the organizing idea,?the overarching theme that ties?all these diverse elements together into a coherent, dramatic whole.
Except to suggest that if you haven’t done so already, read the guidelines for writing an industry standard logline under “Training” at the top of the web page. ?Strip your story down to short answers to the basic questions listed.
fwiw
While your revision has too many elements for a logline, I disagree that he couldn’t do it justice in one movie. ?The parallel world is just the setting, so that wouldn’t be the focus, but most likely as in The Flash series, just have teasers as to how the world differs from our own. Also part of the setting is the US part, and then the brutal dictator is most likely going to somehow cause conflict, probably by the laws in place. ?Finding the spacecraft that brought him is the plot itself, until at the end he starts to question whether he wants to go home or not because of his wife.
For the logline, however, you may want to keep the wife twist out. Stripping it down, you don’t really need to mention that the US is 3rd world country, or the dictator in the logline. The bare bones of the story, at least from what I gather, is that an astronaut is stranded in a parallel universe, separated from the technology that allowed him to get there, and is trying to find his way back home.
I have an example, tweaking your idea for my own use:?After an astronaut is stranded in a parallel universe and separated from the (secret could be included, but again I don’t think it’s essential to the logline) technology that got him there, he must steal the ship back from the militarized?U.S capital. (~29 words)
I added the part about stealing to give the plot more of a focus in the logline, but that was just for my purpose.
Great concept, keep working at it.
Consider the modern version of Planet of The Apes, it is similar in setting and subject matter. The logline for that movie would likely focus on the astronaut’s struggle to find the long lost human ship. In other words his goal is to get home the action by which he will achieve this goal is finding the since space ship, the obstacle are the apes and the antagonist is is the ape general.
For example:
After entering a space anomaly an astronaut is stranded in the future on an Ape ruled Earth, he must find a human built space ship to fly and pilot himself back in time before the anomaly disappears.
The back story, his family and the status quo of the people on Earth is not relevant to the logline – same applies to your concept.
Does the dictator’s last name, perchance, begin with a “T”? 🙂
The hook that spawned the franchise out of the original “Planet of the Apes” ?was ?role reversal, a world where apes ruled and humans were treated like, well, animals. ?In the origin movie (1968), the protagonist’s goal is to escape capture and find out how in the world the relationship between apes and humans came to be reversed.
The hook in this logline seems to be that the United States (and presumably the rest of the world) exists in 2 parallel and polarized universes. ?In one, the US is the top dog, a 1st world, democratic country. ?In the the other, the US is a slumdog country, a 3rd world dictatorship. ?I think this could work depending on the dramatic relationship between the two. ? Is the slumdog country what the top dog is in dangers of becoming? ?Is the top dog country what the slumdog country has the potential to become? ?Or…?
Whatever it is need not be revealed up front, wouldn’t be in the logline. ?But have it in reserve for the pitch. ?Hollywood suits are going to want to know what is the thematic idea that yokes these diametrically opposite world’s together, the big “because” that can sustain a long term narrative.
But what should be in the logline is what the astronaut must do when he finds himself in the slumdog world. ?What is his objective goal? ?I think the series would benefit by being framed with an overarching objective goal for the protagonist, a dramatic thread that ties together and drives the narrative.
fwiw