Termination
Share
Have an account? Sign In Now
Lost your password? Please enter your email address. You will receive a link and will create a new password via email.
Please briefly explain why you feel this question should be reported.
Please briefly explain why you feel this answer should be reported.
Please briefly explain why you feel this user should be reported.
It’s a interesting logline, but as is often the case in time-traveling scenarios, ordering a credible sequence of events can be challenging. If the terrorist is the son-to-be, and the father encounters him in the past — that is before the son is born — then it follows that the son must also be a time traveler, doesn’t it? Don’t they have to meet in the past? Or…?
Anyway, for your consideration:
To prevent the government of a future world from terminating her illegal pregnancy, a woman must join forces with a time-traveling terrorist — the very son she?s trying to save.
Rationale:
> It’s 30 words versus 38 for the original time line.
>The protagonist as a woman would have a more immediate, urgent and visceral stake in linking up with the terrorist than the father: she’s the one whose body will be violated – not his.
fwiw.
Hi dpg, thanks for the comment. The only way the father can encounter his unborn son as a fully grown adult is if he travels into the future to the world where his grown son exists, which is what happens in my story. So, it’s the parents that are the time travellers.
I totally understand where you’re coming from with the suggestion to make the wife the protagonist, and I’ve juggled the pros and cons of this on several occasions. I may look at it again.
Okay, but…
Your original premise raises the dramatic question: Will the state succeed in aborting the pregnancy? “To stop the government of a future world terminating his wife?s illegal pregnancy…” That’s the stated protagonist’s goal: to prevent the state from aborting the pregnancy, right?
Now if the son exists in the future, then haven’t you given away the answer in the logline and well before the 3rd Act of the story? To wit, the answer to the dramatic question is: the state fails to abort the pregnancy.
So where’s the suspense? What I am supposed to worry about? The kid turns out to be a terrorist — so what? What’s the theme, what’s at stake in the story?
As said, these time traveling scenarios can bend the mind. I think your concept has intriguing possibilities; the plot can fork in several directions. But I’m not sure which fork is being taken.
regards.
The problem I think you are highlighting infects THE TERMINATOR – John Connor sends a soldier back in time to stop a Terminator killing Sarah, his mother, before she falls pregnant with John. We know the Terminator doesn’t succeed because John Connor is still alive in the future (otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to send a soldier back in time – Grandfather Paradox, anybody?). So, as you said, we know the outcome before the movie starts, so where’s the suspense? But the movie was a massive hit and spawned one of cinema’s biggest franchises.
Let me try to explain my story in a little more detail…
The pregnant mother travels into the future to when her son is a fully grown man (the terrorist) and the government in that future world wants to terminate her pregnancy to wipe out the son’s entire existence.
So the pregnant mother and her adult son exist in the same time-frame (he’s the fetus in her womb as well as a fully grown adult). He will go on existing in that time until the government catches his mother and terminates her pregnancy. If, like the Terminator, the government sent somebody back in time to kill her, then the son wouldn’t exist in the future. Yet, because they both exist in the same time-frame, and all the action happens within that time-frame, the son can continue to exist until her pregnancy is terminated. A paradox, I know, but I love the irony.
If you look at time as one strand that’s happening at the same moment (as some scientists are beginning to view it), then your argument stands up – if the son exists at the beginning of the story then we know that the pregnancy isn’t terminated at the end, and vice versa, if the pregnancy is terminated at the end of the story then the son cannot exist at the beginning of the story. But the events I depict are within the world of cinema and some suspension of disbelief is required. If we pedantically glue the principles of quantum physics to all time travel stories, then very few of them would make logical sense.
Also, you said: “So where?s the suspense? What I am supposed to worry about? The kid turns out to be a terrorist ? so what? What?s the theme, what?s at stake in the story?”
Well the story and theme is really the protag’s journey from not wanting to be a father to doing everything he can to become that father. It’s asking questions like, if you knew how bad your children will become, would you have them? Also, it’s a positive statement against abortion, showing that any child can become the world’s greatest person or leader. Although the son in my story is a terrorist, he’s actually fighting a state that actively outlaws childbirth (because of scientific induced longevity that has lead to a sever population crisis), and protects the mass of young illegal children that the state seeks to terminate.
>>The TERMINATOR
The box-office mojo of James Cameron’s story wasn’t just in the concept — it had one of all time great villains, a robotic assassin. (and the role was perfectly cast by The Arnold). It takes a great villain to make a great hero. Do you have an equivalent antagonist who is the evil incarnate personification of the Big Bad Future Government?
>>paradox
Indeed. I take your point.
>> the protag?s journey from not wanting to be a father to doing everything he can to become that father.
That is the issue that most compels my interest in your concept. Good luck fleshing out the story.
Thanks dpg. The protagonist’s journey is obviously my main interest, too. First draft’s done, but I have a lot of rewriting to do 😉
Logline update:
“To stop the government of a future world terminating his wife?s illegal pregnancy, a time-travelling astronaut agrees to capture the world?s most wanted terrorist, who turns out to be the unborn son his wife is carrying.”
I think this last logline attempt is pretty close, however; because you have “Time Traveling Astronaut” the reader will probably understand this is a futuristic sci-fi story.
—–
“To stop the government from terminating his wife’s illegal pregnancy, a time-traveling astronaut agrees to hunt the worlds most wanted terrorist: His own unborn son.”
—–
Hope that helped, good luck with this!
Thanks for the response, Richiev. This story is a futuristic one. It begins in 2025, but the two main characters, a husband and wife astronaut team, are soon thrust a few hundred years into the future, where the government of that time seek to terminate the wife’s pregnancy.
I like your logline, though. It’s more concise than mine 😉
Thanks for the response, Richiev. This is a futuristic story. It begins in 2025 and the main characters, a husband and wife astronaut team, are soon thrust a few hundred years into the future where the government of that time seeks to terminate the wife’s pregnancy.
I like your logline, though. Much more concise than my attempt 😉
Ignore my double post; forgot to log in the first time D’oh 😉