[Quick Summary: On Mars, four cops arrive at a mining outpost to take a prisoner back to the big city...but only one cop survives the trip.]
CON: I didn't connect with this script, though it has all the elements - efficient, fast moving, Western, sci-fi, an escape. I'm not sure why.
PRO: I've always found it difficult to clearly change point of view (POV) without confusing the reader. This script makes it look so easy and natural.
In the scene below, we begin with characters meeting the Local Cop ---> Local Cop looking at the characters.
ex. "INT. STORAGE AREA - NIGHT
Bashira is alone in the storage area. She's frozen, staring at a locket closet. From inside comes a rhythmic THUMPING. Something's inside....
Helena draws her weapon and nods to Jericho to unlock the closet. He quietly fiddles with the lock and...
THE DOOR OPENS [First, characters look at Local Cop.]
A uniformed woman, a LOCAL COP, 20's, falls out. She seems more like a mental patient than a cop. She's in a stupor, but she raises her right arm and then makes a strange repetitive gesture, moving her arms listlessly together and then apart, the thumbs and index fingers extended upward.
HELENA: Officer, are you all right? (no response) Can you speak?
LOCAL COP (GHOST) POV [Then we switch to Local Cop's POV looking back.]
looking at Helena and the others.
The POV is strange, distorted.
Helena's VOICE sounds weird, slowed-down. This is the POV of something inside the Local Cop. A ghost. [This emphasizes we're still in Local Cop's POV.]
HELENA: Officer? Talk to me. What's going on?"
WHAT I'VE LEARNED: Introduce a character before switching to that character's POV. Don't jump too fast to the new character's POV, otherwise it's too confusing.
ex. Introduce Local Cop before switching to Local Cop's POV.
Ghosts of Mars (2001)(undated)
by Larry Sulkis & John Carpenter
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