Snapped String
KnightriderMentor
When a reckless special agent, who’s enhanced with mind control technology, is hacked and made to kill his own team, he must expose his would-be puppeteers to prove his innocence, but the closer he gets, the more he finds himself asking: Is he a puppet, and, if so, who’s pulling the strings?
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Or tease the audience with an “Inception”-like ending. And whet their appetite for a sequel or 2 or 3 that finally resolves the ambiguity. Maybe that’s the protagonist’s quest, to find out if he’s acting out of his own free will or if he’s only a puppet. And if the latter, how can he liberate his consciousness from the technology — and liberate humanity?
As I said I like the underlying premise, but I am not sure that the logline conveys a glimpse of a plot that delivers on the promise of that premise. I can envision story lines going in several directions. But it’s your story, so you have to figure out which one you want to explore. Best wishes.
Yep, I think maybe at the midpoint or 3rd act would be a good time to at least raise the possibility the the whole time he has been on his mission he may have been controlled all along, then can set up a scene where he’ll have a choice to believe that the last 48 hours since the shooting he has been in control or accept that he “never woke up” so to speak and has been under the control of someone since the shooting and all he’s been through has been the result of someone hacking his mind.
It’ll be great to play up both sides and kinda give that Sophie’s choice element at the end.
>>>he?ll begin to question if what he is doing is really him or the work of someone else.
What hooks my interest: what happens when a guy (or gal) who is pulling the strings discovers that someone is pulling his (or her) strings? (3rd Act Big Reveal, 2nd Act mid-point discovery, or 1st Act Inciting Incident?)
Yes he does.
However, during the his attack, he is deactivated – meaning the technology within his head that gives him the ability to control others, but in this case be controlled is no longer working. Thus he can’t be controlled any longer. This gives him a slight advantage and disadvantage, it means he can’t be hacked, but also means he can no longer control others.
Hopefully that has cleared things up.
Although it might be an element that I play up throughout the story that during his mission he’ll begin to question if what he is doing is really him or the work of someone else.
>>, is made to kill his own team,
So he actually kills the team members? And he is made to do so with the same mind control technology he uses on proxies?
>>he must stop the would-be puppeteers from using the same mind control technology to create a perfect controlled society
If he’s made to kill his team, that is, if his mind is already being controlled by the technology, if he himself is a proxy– then what free will agency does he have to stop the people who are playing him as a puppet?
I guess the theme I am trying to explore is that element of: Is it right to alter, surpress or even flat out control elements of what makes us human makes us free willed if these changes enhance us for the better, removes the element of chance in our upbringing long story short: Should we alter ourselves to ensure our pursuit of altruistic goals or is free will worth all the pain, problems etc that come with certain selfish desires.
That he was a puppeteer was the most interesting aspect of the premise to me!
I don’t understand what thematic idea you are trying to work out, what you envision to be the framing or unifying concept of your story. You keep posting loglines that are variations on the theme of mind control and manipulation. Obviously, you’ve got an itch you want to scratch on mind contorl, but I’m not sure what it is.
This logline gives me an itch I’d like to have scratched in a film about the implications, moral dilemmas, and consequences of mind control, but apparently it is not the same itch as yours. So I don’t know what else to say.
I changed it once again as I want this guy to be someone who does perhaps morally questionable work, but it affects him he is someone who doubts what he does but sees the benefits but now he must deal with someone who can potentially do something that will make him have to question what is more important what is right or what is best
Thanks for your advised. I have tweaked the logline to make him someone who is potentially afraid to make the tough decisions, someone who sees and is affected by the choices he makes. I also took out the aspect about him being a mind controller to get to the point and focus on the character flaw.
>>in Pulp Fiction John Travolta is a mob killer
Killing people who are not saints, not innocent victims. And he gets killed himself by a guy being victimized by his mob boss — street justice is done.
James Bond is fighting bad guys, righting various wrongs in the world — and he lives a glamorous lifestyle in between. He exudes a pheromone that makes him irresistible to beautiful women. So I can root for him. Heck, I wish I were him!
Jason Bourne is a quarry, he’s being hunted, and he’s a victim of an agency conspiracy which has robbed him of the memory of his identity. He must right the wrong done to him. So I can root for him, too.
What wrong must your protagonist make right?
As I said, I think you have a very promising premise with the idea of mind control technology. But I fail to see how your logline follows through the logical and dramatic promise entailed in your premise.
And “inexperienced” doesn’t really cut it for me as a character flaw. Inexperience is an extrinsic character problem, a complication: we all have no choice but to start from zero knowledge and skill in whatever we assay to do. That’s not a flaw, that’s an unavoidable circumstance of life.
My understanding of a character flaw is that it is intrinsic. It is an internal attitude, habit, point of view that initially the character is in denial of, resists changing.
Now if the protagonist is “inexperienced” because he’s been resisting training or he’s lazy, that inexperience may be a symptom of a character flaw, but it is not the flaw. It is a consequence of something deeper, something intrinsic that causes him to fail to acquire the necessary experience.
Thank you. On your opinion does this version work better than the other where he is aware of what he has done from the outset, rather than being unaware?
Thanks Dpg, however don’t a lot of films suffer from this issue, James Bond or Jason Bourne’s work isn’t kind natured, but because they are doing it for the “Good Guys” we kinda let them off and root for them, like in Pulp Fiction John Trvolta is a mob killer, but we root for him because they made the main villian worse and kinda made him funny. Point being: Is it the point of the logline or the script to make the character likeable as I thought the logline was just to hint at the flaw, which in this case is his one inexperience both as an agent, both in the real world has made him naive and thus he is manipulated in more ways than one.
If he is an agent using this tech, I guess I would need to give him morals, someone who is doing this because he sees it as doing good and etc.
Your other points are spot on and will look to rework the ending.
Perhaps make it clear to him that what happened to him was not an isolated incident and he must stop the “real” puppeteers from carrying out further mind control attacks on other operatives. By this I mean give him a clear goal that we could conceivably envisage him completing and in the same token allow him to do something for the greater good.
Hope this helps.
The premise has potential, but this version of the logline gives me no reason to root for the protagonist. Given the nature of the work, my first reaction is to hope the hack succeeds in getting him to kill his team. And then himself. It would be poetic justice: the puppeteer becomes the puppet.
And if he “finds those responsible” then what? Does he wag his finger, give them a stern lecture about subverting free will? He’s got to do something more than merely “find” the rascals. What is it?
And he needs to do something about himself, too. Like redeem himself for ever being a puppeteer.
The premise has potential, but this version of the logline gives me no reason to root for the protagonist. Given the nature of the work, my first reaction is to hope the hack succeeds in getting him to kill his team. And then himself. It would be poetic justice: the puppeteer becomes the puppet.
And if he “finds those responsible” then what? Does he wag his finger, give them a stern lecture about subverting free will? He’s got to do something more than merely “find” the rascals. What is it?
And he needs to do something about himself, too. Like redeem himself for ever being a puppeteer.
It does, I guess I was just trying to get across the fact that this is a person that, because he never really goes on missions as he is controlling people from a far, he has to finally do it.
However, I do see your point so will trim it down
It does, I guess I was just trying to get across the fact that this is a person that, because he never really goes on missions as he is controlling people from a far, he has to finally do it.
However, I do see your point so will trim it down
Putting your life on the line is more compelling than facing the reality of putting your life on the line.
—–
…he must face the reality of putting his own life on the line to find those responsible.
…he must put his life on the line to find those responsible.
—–
Hope that helps
Putting your life on the line is more compelling than facing the reality of putting your life on the line.
—–
…he must face the reality of putting his own life on the line to find those responsible.
…he must put his life on the line to find those responsible.
—–
Hope that helps