An astronaut travels back in time to enlist the help of his younger self.

Both Adam and Nicolas raise valid and good questions. Doing my own take, from the top:

Firstly, there is a plausibility problem here: An astronaut (presumably during the pinnacle of his career) travels back in time to gain help from his younger (and presumably less established and less skilled ) self? Sounds nonsensical on the face of it.

If, a la “Butterfly Effect” #1, the astronaut’s purpose is to save the life of a sweetheart (or parent or sibling), then that fact is too emotively effective to leave out of the logline.

By leaving the astronaut’s purpose out of the logline, the writer(s) are doing their script no favours. Any professional reader would assume the underlying script was written by amateurs just on this basis. (Bad impression to convey!)

I would also question the necessity for the central character to be someone as high profile as an astronaut. A more ‘mortal’ person might work better from an empathy point of view. Particularly if the time traveller’s purpose is intensely personal. (If scientific credibility around the time travel process is somehow important in this story, then the character could easily be a talented but flawed scientist, or even a test subject.)

In summary, the astronaut’s purpose is critical in trying to evaluate the commerciality of this concept. Not specifying this purpose is even worse than specifiying a lame or over-done one.

Steven Fernandez (Judge).