Old Script: "Deja Vu". Opinions please.

[X-Nightcrawler]

This is a script I wrote in December 2004 which was just picked up by a tiny-ass production company in Canada (I had given up about having it picked up by a legit prod company so it's fine by me, at least it's curriculum).

Anyways, since the guy that's doing it is going to rewrite it and translate it to french, there's no problem to post it here and hopefully see what you guys think about it.

After a disturbing dream in which Seth saw the death of his girlfriend, Faye, he meets Anya, a girl who claims to have had the exact same dream. Not only that, but she claims that the dream is actually a premonition of a future that must be changed. This transforms Seth's normal life into a race against his girlfriend's latent death.

Have some mercy on the language slips, I wrote this a year and a half ago.

Tell me if there's any problem with the file. It should be formatted (I also have it in PDF format but it's too big up attach to this post).

[syxxpac]

I already gave you my opinion a long time ago, isn't that ENOUGH?!!

Ahem.

Anywho, from what I recall, it was intriguing enough, but some of the players felt underdeveloped (I would've liked more Anya exploration, personally), and the dialogue was a bit wooden. But still an easy read, it just needed a bit of revision, but then, what script doesn't?

On a related note, you should definitely rewrite and polish up that twisted Silent Hill-esque script you sent me, the one where all the characters converge on the hospital to pass into the great beyond after death... at least, I THINK that was the plot.

There. I was cooperative. Now read Phoenix Rising and give me opinions! My thread is dying!

:D

[Jix]

I read it.

The premise is pretty good. It mixes a lot cool concepts like deja vu, dreams, fate, alternate realities, stealing people’s memories. But that’s the main problem with the script. You could create separate movies for either one of those concepts. It’s too ambitious and in the end it leads nowhere. It just ends with everybody moving on with new girlfriends and the reader asking a lot of questions, though not the good kind of questions.

For a while it looks like the story is about Eileen, but like Syxxpac says, we’re left guessing about who she is. And it’s compounded as the story moves on when we find out she can steal people’s memories. I know you wanted to give her credibility, since she’s the voice of authority on the subject of dreams and deja vu, but it makes us want more answers. And when you don’t deliver, people assume you simply gave her that gift as a quick fix to her lack of depth.

The end, where the script alternates between realities, is pretty good but needs to be polished up. You should maybe show more hints that Max wasn’t dreaming the accident, because as it is, the alternate Faye’s, come at you out of nowhere.

The dialog is a bit unnatural but some bits flow nicely and show us you have the talent to fix it if you really want to. Don't get fixated on the same expressions, like "Whatever" or "Oh". Here’s an example:

MAX
Oh what's up?

SARAH
Oh nothing. How long have you
been here?

He sits up on the bed.

MAX
About five...seconds.

SARAH
Oh, okay.
(beat)
Listen. I have this interview thing in ten minutes. If you go out, lock.

MAX
Lock in the event of a fire. Got it.

Sarah laughs.

SARAH
It wouldn't do much harm to go see a movie. Even by yourself.

MAX
I...no, I don't even have a cent.

SARAH
Right, right. I haven't...here. (she reaches for a 10 dollar bill from her pocket) Here's a ten.

Max shakes his head.

MAX
Oh no. Thanks but, no thanks.

SARAH
Oh...okay. Anyway, I'll be back at around seven.

There’s also a few scenes I’d spice up a bit, like the moment Eileen tells Seth she had the same dream. That scene is the beginning of the thriller but it falls flat when Eileen says "Oh it gets stranger, but I'll leave it here until Faye comes." It ends there. Very important moment but very anticlimactic.

Good potential but will give a director nightmares, which may or may not lead to a positive ending. Then again, anything is possible with alternate realities... :)

[X-Nightcrawler]

Interesting, interesting. Thanks for the thoughts, Jix, you brought up some stuff I hadn't considered.

About what you said regarding Anya/Eileen's lack-of-answers, I think you really are up to something here. Could you tell me what kid of answers do you mean, or better yet, what questions were left unanswered (I know about the "WHO is she?" which isn't really satisfactorily answered, or is that all that you mean?).

Also, about the end. Thanks for the props. I do think I should do more with the alternating realities overlapping on screen. But my question is more about, what do you mean hint that he wasn't dreaming? He was dreaming it, but that's where the deja vu comes from. You mean make it more apparent (that the accident still happened in some other reality)? If so, that makes sense, thanks.

And I had already thanked you, syxxpac when you first read it. So . . . consider Phoenix Rising read, I'll tell you what I think when I'm done.

[Jix]

Eileen steals people’s memories. That’s some pretty traumatic stuff - a separate movie in itself.

- Is she a telepath?
- Can she read people’s thoughts?
- How is she so certain about alternate realities?

She just says “I’ve lived doing this”. If I recall, she said she helped the real Anya with a similar dream problem. But then we find out she stole her memories.

- Did she still help Anya? Her credibility is really put into question because of that.
- How are her flashes related to the dreams everybody has been getting?
- Is that how she sees people’s memories, through flashbacks?
- Was the “Me” “Seth” scribble a romantic thing? She explained she thought Seth was going to be her next case, like Anya. But by making it look like she never helped Anya, it looked more like a romantic scribble.

As for the end, you could kill two birds with one stone by making Eileen elaborate earlier on how vivid dreams are related to alternate realities. Right now she just skims the surface and jumps to another topic. I’d even exchange her Memory-Stealing skill with a more comprehensive Alternate-Reality skill – one that also causes her grief. The memory skill just confuses things at the expense of the alternate reality issue, which is at the core of the script, so I’d remove it. That would set the tone for the alternate reality at the end better.

That's just how I'd do it. I hope this helps.

[X-Nightcrawler]

Originally posted by Jix
Eileen steals people’s memories. That’s some pretty traumatic stuff - a separate movie in itself.

- Is she a telepath?
- Can she read people’s thoughts?
- How is she so certain about alternate realities?

She just says “I’ve lived doing this”. If I recall, she said she helped the real Anya with a similar dream problem. But then we find out she stole her memories.

- Did she still help Anya? Her credibility is really put into question because of that.
- How are her flashes related to the dreams everybody has been getting?
- Is that how she sees people’s memories, through flashbacks?
- Was the “Me” “Seth” scribble a romantic thing? She explained she thought Seth was going to be her next case, like Anya. But by making it look like she never helped Anya, it looked more like a romantic scribble. Darn. I'll take note if these aren't obvious.

She's no telepath. She's just more . . . well, like the script mentions, some people are more affine to receiving memories. Someone else's. Only this girl decided to use this 'skill' to help others escape from their problems, as she is doing with Seth. No, she can't read people's thoughts, being a wider medium for memory receiving is as far as she goes. And yeah, she just knows about this because of . . . well, experience. Remember in her room when Seth brings out all the cards with names and phone numbers? Those are like the card she was doing when she found out who the receivers were, just a reminder of the people she's helped, like a database.

Yeah, she still helped Anya, the REAL Anastasia says it on the phone conversation. Not sure about the second question in the second block. If I'm getting it right, theyr'e related because she's one of the receivers (like Seth and Max), but this particular dream helped her realize that her memories aren't her own (her mother isn't dead, she has a younger sister, etc). She sees people's memories through dreams. It's explained that the conciousness of sleem s the most focused 'casual' state of mind, and that's why that's when memories from other time/space arrive (I'm actually making it sound more complicated than it is, I hope it's clear enough).

And the "me" "Seth" was the card she was making for this 'case'. She was missing some pieces of the dream/memory, the ones that Max received. Notice how that case card is very similar to the one that Seth stole, Anastasia's. Seth just thought strange that this girl (who at that moment he thought her name was Anya) had a case card of herself.

Whew, at least the questions are just things left unclear and not plotholes. Thanks for bringing these out, I'll make sure to make everything more clear (or at least tell the french/canadian man to do so).

Again, thanks.

[Jix]

Hmm, I guess I should re-read the script again. I seemed to have missed some stuff. But at least I READ IT! (which is more than most can say about my script.... *grrr*)

[X-Nightcrawler]

Originally posted by Jix
Hmm, I guess I should re-read the script again. I seemed to have missed some stuff. But at least I READ IT! (which is more than most can say about my script.... *grrr*) Believe me I'd be all over your screenplay like I was all over syxxpac's. The problem is that, as a sequel 'fanscript', I can't really comment much as I don't remember the first thing about the Alien movies. I saw all of them at one point but I don't remember a thing about them.

But hey, if you ever do a non-fanscript script I'm so clueless about, trust me I'll be the first to read and comment.

[TheJadedGamer]

Congrats for you, X!

I can't read your attachment you have (I don't have any fancy-pancy programs that open them), so if you would message me the script transported to WordPad, it'd be awesome. Even if everything is out of synch, I'd still like to read it.