The Quest
While a group of older teens are on a camping trip secretly building an unregistered ship,their planet is attacked and destroyed those not killed were taken.The teens have to rescue their families/friends.
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My mind ran off the road and into the ditch at “their planet is attacked and destroyed”.
Surprise is a good thing in a logline. As long as it whets interest in the story — not confuse. Alas, I was left in the ditch, dazed and confused. So were they “camping out” on the moon, on another planet when the attack occurred?
“Their planet is attacked and destroyed” — by whom? Identify the perp as the subject of that part of the sentence as in “XYZ attack their planet and enslave their families”.
And the logline also needs to ID a protagonist. It’s just “teens”, an ensemble of characters. That’s okay, but one should be the alpha character, the one who stands out above all the rest as the leader. Who owns the story.
Not just owns it, but who (given the genre and age of the character) must undergo a Hero’s journey. That ought to be the focus of the logline (and story) — how the inciting incident of the attack forces one character to undergo an implied Hero’s journey of transformation. As in “Star Wars” where there is a cast of thousands in the rebel alliance fighing the Empire — but it’s Luke Skywalker’s story, the story of his transformation from a rural hick to Jedi Knight.
And the story would benefit from a ticking clock. The parents must be rescued before.. ?? (As in “Star Wars” where Luke Skywalker must destory the Death Star BEFORE it goes live and destroys the moon that is the base for the rebel alliance.)
fwiw.
1: you don’t need to tell us they were on a camping trip.
2: Also; ‘unregistered ship’ is unclear. Was it unregistered on earth, or was it unregistered to some galactic DMV? If it’s unregistered to some earthen authority then that won’t be needed in the logline either.
3: Which leads us to the main plot point, “When the earth is destroyed…”
4: You should really have a lead character, such as: “A brash NASA washout and his friends must…” (As an example)
5: The teens have to rescue their families/friends. —- This is the goal, many times in a story the hero must ‘do this’ (reach a certain objective) before he can accomplish his goal.
Here is an example:
“When the earth is destroyed and the survivors enslaved, a brash NASA washout and his friends must discover a band of galactic rebels so they can team up and save their loved ones.”
Hope that helped, good luck with this!
Good points by Richiev. Particularly “a brash NASA washout”. It implies a journey of transformation, a kid who must go from being an egotistical loser to an altruistic winner if he is to save his family and friends. There are heavy stakes riding on the character transformation, not just narcissistic gold stars for self-improvement.
Great comments raised above.
I would add that the teens description is unclear, what does older teens mean? Older than who? Best to describe a character flaw in this case than the age. Teens is enough to place the characters in a specific demographic.
Additionally the way in which the families are captured and the MC evades capture is irrelevant to the logline. What is relevant is the main plot points at hand, these are: The MCs family is captured by an an invading alien force and the MC fights to free his or her family.
There have been many stories about a MC needing to free their family from an invading force but what makes them unique is the inner journey the MC has to go on before achieving their outer goal.
Best to focus in the next draft of the logline on the MC and their flaw with direct causality to them being able to free the family and not on how and where they were during the invasion.
As it stands now the logline has a few similarities with “Tomorrow When the War Began” I don’t think that was a good film so you could learn a few lessons from it of what not to do.
Hope this helps.
thanks for the input everyone…i really appreciate it !
how would George Lucas have explained Star Wars along with the story line in one or two sentences ? other than in a, galaxy far far away… would he use that or just start off with just Luke being a “farm boy” if this has the same idea as in not being of this planet idea.. “camping with friends” indicates why they survived the invasion, but isnt necessary, also building the unregistered ship tells how they could search for the missing people, again not necessary, would it be wrong to go with a world far away or would that be necessary ? appreciating your input !
Good questions. George Lucas had already broken into show business, had a film resume (THX-1138, American Graffiti) and contacts all over Tinseltown by the time he began pitching his Star Wars epic. And it was different era back in 1977; the theatrical production pipeline wasn’t clogged with sci-fi/ super-hero movies as it is today.
The biggest problem facing anyone writing a logline for an original sci-fi script is that the script is about a world that only exists in the mind of the writer. How is it possible to invoke a vision of that world in the mind of a reader in 30 words or less? Well, it isn’t possible.
Also, sci-fi films usually rely on a lot of CGI special effects; your logline suggests there will be a lot of CGI eye candy–action scenes and props. CGI technology is awesome now– and very expensive. So the industry favors proven story lines and familiar characters from established franchises or popular sci-fi books or graphic novels to improve the odds of getting a return on the very substantial investment required.
How does an original sci-fi story line compete for mind-space in such a market? I don’t know, except to suggest that more than ever before a sci-fi spec script has to have an irresistible hook, a unique twist. I suggest the question to ask is: What is the irresistible hook in this story or unique twist that makes it stand out from the competition, all the franchises and all other original spec scripts clamoring for eye-time and mind-space? Try to build a logline around the answer to that question.
And remember that even way back in 1977 George Lucas still had to pitch to many producers most of which turned him down before getting a budget for a complex scifi production. Even after getting the budget it was minimal and barley sufficient to produce the first Star Wars film.
There is no visual effect or super-dooper scifi gizmo you can describe in a logline, pitch or synopsis that will be surprising or unique to a producer. Most of them and their audiences have seen enough of these types of films to render them unimpressed by another CGI spectacular event.
In my mind what you could use to, as DPG puts it, hook their attention is a compelling unique story about an empathetic character with a powerful inner journey.