A Perfect Story
jamesmichaelPenpusher
Bella from the Planet Kabbalore is caught up in a civil war on the planet Delta 5. After a request from Delta 5's Governor Zelack, the President of the New Commonwealthsends a rescue party, consisting of NSPA Agents and Commonwealth Search and Rescue teams. Their ship is attacked and the party crash lands and are left for dead on a planet which is occupied by intelligent undead and enemy soldiers
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Interesting premise. Shoot ’em up opportunities aplenty, body parts strewn right, left and centre. The usual grisly suspects. With a ridiculously huge budget, this flick would probably lure the pimply, gamer away from his X-box meditation on a Friday night. But ultimately, we’ve seen it all before with the undead. I am Legend did it terrifyingly well. No need to repeat, please. Please. Judge Foundis
I have to disagree with Phyllis. While I myself am not a fan of the genre this appears to be in, the proof of the pudding is in the tasting. It’s all about the execution. 5 teenagers go to a cabin and are attacked by X monsters is a subgenre that has been around for decades because it continues to sell. And some of them are still unique.
Now about the logline… Almost every pronoun can probably go, aside from Bella. It’s a lot of words that make the logline look overwhelming before you even read it. It turned me off just seeing that enormous sentence. For sanity’s sake, maybe focus on one protagonist.
This needs an “extreme logline make-over”, so you can start by deleting everything up until “Their ship…” This is where your story starts.
Identify your protag; I assume it’s Bella. Who is she?
What is the protag’s goal? Getting out of a civil war? She has to have more of a goal…
The obstacles? Zombies
The stakes? Losing her life, and failing in her other goal, as yet unknown.
“After narrowly escaping one warring planet, in possession of a stolen nuclear bomb, a headstrong Delta 5 agent crashes on an neighboring planet, overrun by enemy forces needing weapons, and zombies, in need of brains!”
Point taken, Russell. If this scriptwriter takes the conventions of the zombie genre and subverts them, a unique and compelling narrative could emerge. It’s an ambitious task, but not impossible. And yes I would agree with the logline being too complicated. Keep it simple and strong, identifying the protagonist, her goal and ultimately what’s at stake – the intelligent undead should be the icing on the proverbial (!). Judge Foundis
This story is both unintelligent and quite dead. However, it is salvageable. The viable story thread here is one of interstellar law agents having their ship attacked and forced to crash land on some primitive or hostile planet. A planet well removed from civilised space. Forget the zoombies (which might include the writers of this). And definitely the first two sentences of this logline are clunky and turgid. Call them star law agents, say, and then got on with the dramatic part of the story. Don’t encumber the reader with a dissertation of their departmental names.
For added dramatic tension, it would make sense that the original attackers would be hunting the survivors down to finish them off. So we have two compelling antagonistic forces in that case: The hostile environment and the ‘space attackers’.
Even if this is supposed to be a spoofy comedy along “Danger 5” like lines, the proposed revision makes for a cleaner and more streamlined story.
Steven Fernandez (Judge)