As he chronicles one tenacious man’s fight to survive after a nuclear holocaust decimates life on Earth, a dedicated and determined alien observer must decide whether to obey or defy orders to terminate humanity.

As he chronicles one tenacious man's fight to survive after a nuclear holocaust decimates life on Earth, a dedicated and determined alien observer must decide whether to obey or defy orders to terminate humanity.

Same thread for the story, different approach.

Inciting incident -
According to your last post the inciting incident is the destruction of Earth by man kind. This is not a good inciting incident as this takes place over many centuries as a result of many actions and events.

Where as an inciting incident needs to be a single event done to the main character by a force other than them selves.

Hero -
According to your last post "...one troubled survivor?" will be the main character one is implicit in the description no need to mention it.

Troubled is a generic none specific description that doesn't describe a character flaw that will present an obstacle for the MC to achieve his goal. Almost all characters are troubled from Vito Corleone to Wayne Campbell question is, in what way is your character uniquely troubled that works best for this story?

Goal -
According to your last post the MC "...must convince them spare mankind and secure their future as a species?"
As a rule of thumb I normally say if I can't describe the MC's goal in less than three words it isn't a good goal.

How will he convince a whole department of alien scientists? More importantly what will this look like? A camera will have to show this goal being achieved but how exactly?
Will he hold a summit and have lengthy discussions with the observers department heads? I just can't see the climactic scene at the end of act 3 from this.

If he were to need to kill the alien leader who is an anti homo-sapien then the climactic scene will be just that. Otherwise to see a man try to convince a bunch of aliens that humans are good doesn't sound cinematic, compelling or achievable in 110 minutes with a camera.

Stakes -
According to your last post the stakes are that "...alien observers are ordered to halt a 100,000-year experiment?" i.e do one thing, then "...collect viable specimens?" do a second thing, then "...terraform the planet?" do a third thing.

Which is it that most impacts the main character? Which will be his motivation?
Because there are several actions the aliens are ordered to take the plot is unclear because it isn't explained what exactly the MC will be doing in the story.

When mankind destroys their planet (main event), alien observers are ordered to halt a 100,000-year experiment they have been running, collect viable specimens from the human survivors and terraform the planet (stakes), one troubled survivor (hero) must convince them spare mankind and secure their future as a species (what he must do).

Thanks, no feedback is bad and straightforward is good.

There appears to be a few fundamental problems with this concept. Fundamental problems such as these that are not resolved are often indicative of faulty concepts.

Please forgive my candidness (few appreciate strait forward feedback).

The first and most glaring problem is the mix of plots -
You seam to have one plot; guy fights aliens to save humanity and another plot guy saves girl.
First and foremost decide which plot this story should be and structure the logline to that.

The second is that you are trying to re tell the story from a book -
If you decide to adapt a book to screen you will need to make any necessary changes required for screen, this doesn't seam to be the case here as you keep referring back to the original novel.

The third problem is the basic structure of a logline -
Loglines are tools we use to either convey a plot for pitching purposes or aid in the structuring of a plot for writing purposes they also help us identify flawed concepts that are not worth pursuing.
There are subtle differences between the types of log lines according to function but the basic structure is the same.

Here is a link to a page that explains this basic structure:
https://loglines.org/howto/

In short try to prioritise clarity in a logline by specifying a main character with a flaw that experiences a significant event that causes him or her to need to take action to achieve a goal. Most of these elements do not exist in many of the iterations of your logline.

There appears to be a few fundamental problems with this concept. Fundamental problems such as these that are not resolved are often indicative of faulty concepts.

Please forgive my candidness (few appreciate strait forward feedback).

The first and most glaring problem is the mix of plots -
You seam to have one plot; guy fights aliens to save humanity and another plot guy saves girl.
First and foremost decide which plot this story should be and structure the logline to that.

The second is that you are trying to re tell the story from a book -
If you decide to adapt a book to screen you will need to make any necessary changes required for screen, this doesn't seam to be the case here as you keep referring back to the original novel.

The third problem is the basic structure of a logline -
Loglines are tools we use to either convey a plot for pitching purposes or aid in the structuring of a plot for writing purposes they also help us identify flawed concepts that are not worth pursuing.
There are subtle differences between the types of log lines according to function but the basic structure is the same.

Here is a link to a page that explains this basic structure:
https://loglineit.com/howto/

In short try to prioritise clarity in a logline by specifying a main character with a flaw that experiences a significant event that causes him or her to need to take action to achieve a goal. Most of these elements do not exist in many of the iterations of your logline.

Your revised logline leaves me confused as to where your premise is going; that is, what the plot is. And the primary purpose of a logline should be to succinctly and clearly outline the plot, the "A" story.

And what is the "A" story? An X guy having to rescue his Y love interest from a ruthless Z? How unique, how different, how attention grabbing is that? It's been there, done that in countless movies.

The hook of your story is that an alien experiment called human history is about to end with the extinction of the experimental rats, the human race. That's the "A" story. Every other story thread should be subordinate and related to that "A" story -- and not mentioned in the logline.

fwiw

Your revised logline leaves me confused as to where your premise is going; that is, what the plot is. And the primary purpose of a logline should be to succinctly and clearly outline the plot, the "A" story.

And what is the "A" story? An X guy having to rescue his Y love interest from a ruthless Z? How unique, how different, how attention grabbing is that? It's been there, done that in countless movies.

The hook of your story is that an alien experiment called human history is about to end with the extinction of the experimental rats, the human race. That's the "A" story. Every other story thread should be subordinate and related to that "A" story -- and not mentioned in the logline.

fwiw

I like your thought process, I have been playing with the idea that they do in fact convince them to leave...after cleaning up the earth, or better yet they convince them to leave and let man figure out how to come back out of the chaos or even deposit on a habitable planet before they leave...have to toy with this.

So does the logline below capture what I am conveying?

An unwitting participant in an alien experiment must vanquish the ghosts of his past in order to save the woman he loves from a ruthless gang leader.

A story would be the man struggling with his fear of guns (accidentally killed brother while hunting) in a world where violence in now common. Saving the woman he has come to love.

B Story, follows the aliens, desire to terminating the experiment and going home.

Story's converge when man challenges them what gives right to terminate the experiment and convinces to let man live on his on and evolve as you suggested.

IOW: they are engaged in a Pygmalion project -- trying to create a species in the image of their own ideal..., or similar... or at least good enough.

Well, that seems to me that their objective reflects a character flaw, hubris, hamartia on a global and historic scale! And after millions of years of stupendous failure, they're still in denial, still haven't learned better.

It seems to me that what the aliens need to learn from their experiment is to stop tinkering with evolution, stop trying to create their image-ideal. They need to just let go, accept and respect homo sapiens for what we are -- and aren't. They need to step back into their own solar system and let us work out our own destiny instead of trying to make us live up to their expectations.

So it seems to me that a doable plot line might be that the aliens want to pull the plug on the experiment by pulling the plug on homo sapiens, maybe pulling the plug on all life on earth. And the objective goal for the main character is to persuade them not to pull the plug.

Not just persuade them not to pull the plug, the objective goal might be to to convince them to let go, let humans live, let evolution happen.

Or better yet, the MC could discover a fatal flaw in the design of their experiment that if exploited would enable humans to (finally) win their freedom, autonomy to work out their own density without meddling and tinkering from these "benign" but narcissistic aliens.

fwiw

IOW: they are engaged in a Pygmalion project -- trying to create a species in the image of their own ideal..., or similar... or at least good enough.

Well, that seems to me that their objective reflects a character flaw, hubris, hamartia on a global and historic scale! And after millions of years of stupendous failure, they're still in denial, still haven't learned better.

It seems to me that what the aliens need to learn from their experiment is to stop tinkering with evolution, stop trying to create their image-ideal. They need to just let go, accept and respect homo sapiens for what we are -- and aren't. They need to step back into their own solar system and let us work out our own destiny instead of trying to make us live up to their expectations.

So it seems to me that a doable plot line might be that the aliens want to pull the plug on the experiment by pulling the plug on homo sapiens, maybe pulling the plug on all life on earth. And the objective goal for the main character is to persuade them not to pull the plug.

Not just persuade them not to pull the plug, the objective goal might be to to convince them to let go, let humans live, let evolution happen.

Or better yet, the MC could discover a fatal flaw in the design of their experiment that if exploited would enable humans to (finally) win their freedom, autonomy to work out their own density without meddling and tinkering from these "benign" but narcissistic aliens.

fwiw

For some reason can't reply to you recent post. The motivation of the aliens is: they are longing for beings that can join them as equals. Think of them as shepherds/farmers maybe - they won't "give" a race technology unless they attained a benchmark that the "Master" has set for the experiments.

Backstory, they have "reset" earth numerous times over the millennia...dinosaurs ruined their plan, ice age killed off another attempt, etc...they had hopes for this iteration as demonstrated by the good things: music, art, etc; however, man's aggressive side resulted in wars and finally annihilation of the planet. The aliens know they are close and the anthropologist wants to reset; however, the militant wants to go home! It's been 100,000 years after all (they are that old).