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The Seventh Angel (a short script)

Adeimantus

Adeimantus

The second in a series. My first was posted here a couple weeks ago: "Mantodea," the bug one.

I'd be most appreciative of any feedback, suggestions, critique. Won't hurt my feelings if you slam it. Won't get me excited if you think it's the best thing since modern dentistry. But it will help me enormously. Every honest critique is worth its weight in gold to a writer.

Title: The Seventh Angel
Genre: SciFi/Drama
Pages: 11

http://www.politikonzoon.com/SeventhAngel.pdf

Self-imposed pre-writing limitations: A "SciFi-tragic-romance-with-time-travel," shot in and around Chicago, about 10 minute run time, only 4 actors, zero budget, little or no FX.

Acknowledgment: Paraphrase of a short excerpt from "On the Concept of History," by Walter Benjamin, 1940


Thanks in advance!

best,

-Charles
 
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Hey man,

I get lost when you explain who the daughter is.

Is it that Frankie invented something that was worse for the environment?

And then her daughter was a tyrant?

It may be me who doesn't understand it -

I think it works really well for sound effects.

I think a good example of how to do the sound and scene cuts is the beginning of Domino.
 
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ROC said:
Hey man,

I get lost when you explain who the daughter is.

Is it that Frankie invented something that was worse for the environment?

And then her daughter was a tyrant?
Click to expand...

Very helpful, ROC. My big concern is that this is too compressed. I may need to de-compress it a bit to make things clearer. Johnny WAS sent back to save her life, because she invented something that would have changed history for the better had she not been killed. The problem is, he slept with her and fathered a child. That CHANGED history, so his mission changed without him knowing it (I'm playing with time-travel paradoxes). His daughter became a worldwide tyrant when she tried to fix the energy and pollution problems. Exchanged one set of evils for another. SO his mission changed. The scene with the gun to her temple was NEW memories forming in his mind. Originally, he hadn't tried to kill her and failed. After he fathered her child, He HAD tried (and failed) to kill her. It's a bit circular, but so is most time-travel plotting.

:D
 
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Hah!

That's a great idea.

Sorry, I didn't get the rewrite history part. So instead of writing the formula, the daughter took up the time of the mom and she never wrote the formula? Or the daughter found the formula much later?

I failed...

Maybe if I go back in time and read it again...

My back teeth are floating...
 
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ROC said:
Hah!

That's a great idea.

Sorry, I didn't get the rewrite history part. So instead of writing the formula, the daughter took up the time of the mom and she never wrote the formula? Or the daughter found the formula much later?

I failed...

Maybe if I go back in time and read it again...

My back teeth are floating...
Click to expand...

You didn't fail. If you don't get it, it means others won't get it. Means I failed.

Yes, in the first world-version, when he is sent back, cold-fusion is re-discovered, and the powers that be think if they save her life, her work on the cold-fusion problem will save the world. When he screws around (literally) and changes things into the second world-version, it's discovered that cold-fusion is bad science, and won't work, likely discovered by her daughter, which motivates her to wrest power and try to save the world, only there are never good tyrannies, only bad ones. She wants to "FIX" things, history, the "things that have been broken," which is exactly what Johnny is trying to do, the Seventh Angel of History.
 
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A little length to smooth into the exposition wouldn’t hurt. I think you get the juice out of the paradox fruit, but it lacks an original flavor. You lead us up to what doesn’t blow us away or pay off bigger that the lead up with the paradox.

Can you somehow alter Frankie’s contribution to science and the world and/or goal of the forces of the interrogators so that at the end (at the peak of the interrogation) Johnny jumps back from 2084 to the Museum August 2010, and though he has never met Frankie he is trying to protect her (from his would be love as it turns out), but also from the forces of the interrogators. So Johnny is running through the museum calling Frankie. A SHOT is fired and we see the matrix bullet that could hit Johnny and send fate in one direction OR hit Frankie and send fate in another direction, but accidentally hits a kid who was destined to do something else for the world (Or something) and get more out of the paradox ending?

-Thanks-
 
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Buddy Greenfield said:
A little length to smooth into the exposition wouldn’t hurt. I think you get the juice out of the paradox fruit, but it lacks an original flavor. You lead us up to what doesn’t blow us away or pay off bigger that the lead up with the paradox.

Can you somehow alter Frankie’s contribution to science and the world and/or goal of the forces of the interrogators so that at the end (at the peak of the interrogation) Johnny jumps back from 2084 to the Museum August 2010, and though he has never met Frankie he is trying to protect her (from his would be love as it turns out), but also from the forces of the interrogators. So Johnny is running through the museum calling Frankie. A SHOT is fired and we see the matrix bullet that could hit Johnny and send fate in one direction OR hit Frankie and send fate in another direction, but accidentally hits a kid who was destined to do something else for the world (Or something) and get more out of the paradox ending?

-Thanks-
Click to expand...

Good point, Buddy. I've been focused on the relationship between Johnny and Frankie in my thoughts about rewrite. That maybe it needs to be expanded.

But you make a valid point. I don't think Johnny's execution at the end has enough kick. I'll think about your suggestions.

I'm just wondering what the guards at the Chicago Museum of Natural History are going to think about a couple people chasing each other with guns down the halls with a hand-held cameraman chasing after them?


Thanks!

-Charles
 
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like it..

my favorite bit of prose..

a storm blowing from paradise...



That said the last line doesn't work for me. Like others have said, I think Gabby could have any number of great ways that she brings the future you describe, and
progress
doesn't seem to be a logical one..

Turn it on its head.. rampant GREEN laws lowering the standard of living in the world. Organic farming practices resulting in 60% LESS farm yield. A "natural" ice age occurs, that could have been prevented if we hadn't stopped pumping CO2 into the air. You need to IRONY out some of your wrinkles :)
 
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