2000 AD Online Forum

Scojo, first off, well done on the Dredd Reckoning script. Seriously, I mean it. I've sat down countless amounts of time to do the same thing better never got further than a few pages in. It takes real dedication to write the 122 pages you did. Like a lot of Dredd fans I'm convinced that i could take over the scripting reins from Wagner, after all I've read all his stuff so I must know as much as he does. It only ever takes me a couple of pages to get bored and realise I'm wrong.

What I don't understand is that as a professional screen writer why did you dedicate so much of your time to a script that you then posted for free on the site? Surely the best option would have been to submit the script to Shoreline first?

What I don't understand is that as a professional screen writer why did you dedicate so much of your time to a script that you then posted for free on the site? Surely the best option would have been to submit the script to Shoreline first?

Matt,

Ta for your comments. But....

I'm NOT a professional screenwriter. Just aspiring. I guess you only become a pro once someone options or buys your script.

I submitted my screenplay to Jason Kingsley, CEO of Rebellion. I asked if I could send my script to Rebellion for consideration and he said YES. This was in November.

I sent a hard copy in January. It was in the correct screenplay format. Not the same as what's up on the site.

I emailed him 4 weeks later. He said he was busy.

Weeks went by.

He did email me once, saying he'd looked at a bit of it. How much he didn't say. Said he would try to read it over that weekend. I guess he didn't. I had no reply.

As May approached, I asked him to give me a date by which time he would have read it.

His reply?

Still busy. Didn't say when he would read it. Not next week, next month, next year. Nothing.

So I emailed him back saying I understand you're busy (fair enough I'm sure he is) but I would have liked some feedback after 4 months. I didn't think I was being unreasonable.

The Comic2Film website mentioned two new Dredd scripts were currently in the works. Not the old Shoreline synopses. If Rebellion were working on new scripts, there would be little point in reading mine after these scripts got approval. So that's why I wanted some sort of reply.

Anyway Jason never gave me the impression he'd contact me and give his opinion. Maybe I'm wrong, but that was the impression I got.

Fair enough. Can't force the guy to read it.

So I said if you don't reply in a day or two, I'll put it up on the site.

That wasn't meant as some silly threat or anything, just that way people can read it. Hopefully that would include Jason and people at Shoreline.

So that's about it really. Maybe I shouldn't have put it up on the site.

Big mistake in hindsight!:)

I guess my attitude doesn't win me any plaudits so it's not surprising the nature of some of the comments.

At the end of the day, I'm passionate about Dredd working on the big screen. That's why I wrote my two scripts. Dedication is want you need!

I like them. At the end of the day the only person you can really please is yourself.

If you read your work and say I genuinely like it, well that's the best you can do. Then you have to fight for your cause.

I think a lot of people here are being particularly unkind in their criticism (the somewhat trivial changing lines debate springs to mind) but that's their opinion. Fair enough.

I can't make other people like my script, although I'm a bit sad that Jason never gave me his opinion. Not even a "sorry, it's not for us" reply. I didn't get any comment at all.

Oh well that's life I guess.

scojo

Scojo,

I relented and read the first three sections of your script.

Please don't get wound up by these comments or bother answering them on the message board; they are, after all, only my opinion and I have, on occasion, been wrong.  Take what you will from them and discard the rest but please don't bore other message board users with a rant.

Firstly what I liked (of what I read)
-      Your enthusiasm and dedication (but do keep things in persepective)

- Dredd chasing a big road-liner full of pirates along a busy sked-way could be a great action sequence if handled correctly.  Car chases are ten a penny in movies but one done at ridiculously high speed, on the ground in a busy environment, could provide a memorable action set piece.  Perhaps a convoy of trucks that Dredd has to take out one at a time from the rear before doing a dangerous truck to truck transfer would give you a logical set of action beats and cunning stunts. This might also differentiate the scene from other run of the mill set pieces.

- I get the idea that sugar may be a strong plot element – I like the fact that this is not just a completely unrelated action set piece but will start the ball rolling into a bigger investigation – maybe the sugar is a Maguffin (McGuffin?) behind which the real plot lies.

- The idea of the jet packers buzzing over the city before pulling their heist is a good way to show how massive and busy beyond our comprehension Mega City One is (not the sanitised big city Coruscant from Star Wars but a real bustling metropolis). Whether this was your intention or not, I still think it's a good shout.

- I'm assuming the two plots will collide somehow near the end – Sugar and dropping crime rate – it's always nice to have seemingly unrelated events coming together (if done well -Magnolia).

What I didn't like (of what I read)
- Dredd is too weak.  It takes him ages to bring the pirates to justice.  The crowd at the sugar spill totally ignores Dredd – even if it is super addictive sugar this is the man who makes Zombie and Vampire hordes back off with just his voice.  Criminals and citizens should not think about messing with him. His name is "Judge Dredd" not "Judge Slight Trepidation".   Let him make his mark properly before showing the tough challenge he faces.  

- The tension of the chase is spoiled by the inter-cutting with innocent citizens who are then rudely interrupted by the road-liner crashing into them.  I was expecting some robo-dustbins to be knocked over, an alien fruit stall to go flying and two giant robots carrying a massive sheet of plate glass to make an appearance.

- Similarly, the juves robbing the suitcase inter-cut with the chase seems superfluous (possibly the case leads to a later plot thread but I still think it dilutes your opening stunt).

- The chase actually seems to end a few times before it actually does – it looks like Dredd gets distracted and then "Oh yeah, I remember, the perps with the jetpacks!"

- Way too much exposition in the Justice Central Tour and Council of 5 scenes (number of sectors, where judges fit in etc). Credit the audience with some intelligence – when they see big gangs of Judges in uniform they'll figure out that the Judges run things.  When they see a mad, mental city, the audience will figure out it's not Butlin's.

- The attempts at levity in the Council of 5 scene are confusing; how on earth is the actor meant to deliver lines about compulsory euthanasia and air tax – if you give no indication in the script as to whether they are serious or not (and no, BEAT doesn't tell me).

- Council of 5 scene wastes a lot of dialogue and back-story (different taxes and mutie raiders) on things that probably don't propel the plot.

- Why are the Justice Department resorting to an undercover agent hacking into Sector 288s mainframe?  This looks like a big plot hole - surely Hershey would just ask for the figures?

- Dialogue – you must admit some of it needs polishing.  Dredd sometimes speaks when a visual would do (too many vehicles). The "funny" lines (available in green, sugar free herbal tea) aren't funny .  The "cool" lines (playing with knives, sweet taste of justice) aren't cool. The killzingers (told you so) don't zing.  Some of it is just plain hackneyed (What would we do without you).

- The incidental dialogue (man and robot discussing music) wastes time and adds nothing to plot or real character development (if you want to show an "old-timer" driving the truck then describe him and let the casting department sort it out; don't waste dialogue on it).

- Some of your spelling and grammar is untidy and could do with proof checking. Don't you get little red and green squiggly lines on your PC? (I can see hundreds on mine as I type this but then it isn't meant to be a professional submission).

- It just didn't grab my attention. There's no big original idea of YOURS in it – not even a tease.

What I have read isn't bad; it's just average (sometimes dragged to below average by dialogue/lack of original ideas) and the last thing we want is another AVERAGE Dredd film.

Yes, worse stuff has been made into movies but you wouldn't really be happy with that as a reason for it being made, would you?

As you haven't provided a synopsis, what I've read so far is all I can go on and I am not going to read any further. What I have seen so far hasn't convinced me it will reward my effort. I suspect this is how editors make decisions sometimes (and rightly so).

Take on board the feedback and courtesy you have received from other, proper editors and writers (i.e. not me) and apply that to your obvious enthusiasm. You may find it gets you further than whining, constantly attempting to prove yourself right and moaning that nobody understands you.

 

To be honest if you can't be bothered to read it, I can't be bothered to reply.

After all, let say you MR TIPS, wrote a script. I post my opinion abut your scenes having no relevance etc and I don't much like it. Then at the end of the post I casually say  "Oh by the way, I've read less than a third of your script."

What would you think?

Would you take my comments seriously?

I doubt it.

scojo

Lack of original ideas?

You have the cheek to post here and say lack of original ideas when you haven't read it all?

Jeez! Unbelievable!

scojo

You appear to have misunderstood me or perhaps I didn't communicate it clearly enough.

I thought there was nothing original in what I have read that made me want to read on.  So either stick a synopsis up with the script or stick some great original ideas in the first three sections.

Sorry if I didn't make that clear.

And another thing...

CAN YOU PELASE GET IT THROUGH YOUR HEAD THAT MY SCRIPT, YES MY SCRIPT, IS WRITTEN FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE NEVER READ A DREDD STRIP BEFORE.

SO THE TOURIST AND COUNCIL OF FIVE MEETING SCENES ARE IMPORTANT.

UNLESS YOU DON'T WANT THEM TO KNOW WHERE MG1 IS, WHO THE JUDGES ARE, WHY THERE ARE JUDGES, WHAT  SORT OF CRIMES ARE COMMITTED ETC.

SO PLEASE THINK BEFORE YOU POST, OK?:)

Sorry for shouting:)

scojo

Jeez, now he's telling me to write a synopis cos he's too lazy to read it!!!


NO NO NO NO NO!

Read it, dont read it, print it out and stick it up your bum for all I care:)

I give up. I really do.

John Wagner, now I know why you don't want to write a Dredd film script!!!!!!!!!

Cos you'd be flaming mad to!

scojo

I did think before I posted.  

I THOUGHT that there was TOO much exposition.  I didn't say "Don't have any exposition, we know all that!".  

I just THOUGHT that you could cut down on the amount of stuff that doesn't advance the plot.  A visual of the Statue of Liberty among the skyscrapers tells us we are in America.  A visual of a gigantic city tells us how big it is without hitting the audience over the head.

I'm sure the scenes are important to you but you might consider shortening them a bit.

I THOUGHT you might UNDERSTAND that you start scenes as late as possible and end them as quickly as possible in a screenplay.

I am sorry if I'm not making myself clear.

I am not too lazy too read your script - it just isn't inviting enough so far; didn't I make that clear either. Sorry.  

I did take time and effort to read and comment on (some of) your script. If I had been hooked, I would have continued.

I wasn't expecting thanks but I didn't expect name-calling.

Have you written anything shorter that I might get to the end of?  

>To be honest if you can't be bothered to read it, I can't be bothered to reply.
>After all, let say you MR TIPS, wrote a script. I post my opinion abut your scenes having no relevance etc and I don't much like it. Then at the end of the post I casually say  "Oh by the way, I've read less than a third of your script."
>What would you think?
>Would you take my comments seriously?
>I doubt it.
>scojo

At least he read a third of it, which is more than a lot of people have read.
Now I shall say this bluntly and for the last time and if you continue to be such an arse I will take the opportunity of using Wakes killfile option and Make Scojo the first person I have ever killfiled.
Scojo I'll also take this slowly as I'm sure you are far more intelligent than I am and don't want you to have to point all my obvious miss-understandings of your genius.
You asked people to criticise your work, they did, you didn't like their replies so have spent loads of time pointing out how intelligent you are and how thick the rest of us are. Now thugs has pissed people off, so they don't like it, so what, if your as clever as you say then ignore their comments and move on.

May I give you some advice, if you ask for something and you get it, don't throw a tantrum if it doesn't please you. So how about in future doing any of the following options:

1) Ask for advice or criticism, and when it come in take it on board and don't start the first of god knows how many threads about it.

2) Ask for advice and ask people to contact you of the board so you can have as many discussions as you like without turning this board into the big pile of horse shit that it has been over the last couple of days.

3) Never again put any of your scripts or stories on the board and if you want people to see them then put them in your own web space with a link to your e-mail address, so that people can contact you about it if they so wish.

I doubt if you'll do option three as it wont fit in with the criticise or adulation comments I made earlier. I truly don't believe that you seek genuine criticism, and just do it so that for a length of time the board is full of nothing but your name and the whole board just reverberates with the name of 'Scojo'.

As I said get over the fact that people aren't bowing down to your genius and in future take your scripts and stories somewhere else, but if you did, would anyone choose to see them.


La Placa Rifa,
W. R. Logan.

Link: Class Of '79

>Jeez, now he's telling me to write a synopis cos he's too lazy to read it!!!
>NO NO NO NO NO!

Maybe a synopsis would help all the people who don't wear 'I Love Scojo' T-shirts to actually want to wade through 122 pages.

>Read it, dont read it, print it out and stick it up your bum for all I care:)
>I give up. I really do.

You do care, thats why we get all these bloody posts with you going on about it.

>John Wagner, now I know why you don't want to write a Dredd film script!!!!!!!!!
>Cos you'd be flaming mad to!

But if he did he wouldn't post it here, go on about it, or tell us all how stupid we are if we didn't get it.
Plus if he did he may have a chance of it being used or getting paid for it.

La Placa Rifa,
W. R. Logan.

Link: Class Of '79

Well we all know who ran out of toilet paper, don't we folks?:)

Just for being particularly rude Logan, I am gonna post my Possession script on this site.

So you and your silly class of 79 can go on a field trip for the day instead.

Somewhere close to nature perhaps.

Like Sellafield Nuclear Plant.

scojo

Thanks WR,
I was fortunate enough to extend a few words with Mr. Wagner a while back and he asked me what I thought of "Die Laughing".  I paused because I hadn't thought it was that great.  He noticed my discomfort and very politely said; "I know what you mean.  The formula was wearing a bit thin wasn't it?"

What a nice bloke he was. And Alan Grant for that matter - cleared up my dishes in a Cafe.  Not a bad word said about anyone - just brim full of ideas, and +ve feedback.

Scojo,
Was there anything in my comments that you found helpful?  Is there anything I could expand upon that maybe I didn't make clear.  Again, I repeat, these are only my opinions but you did ask.

Did you understand my point about how an image can save you a lot of exposition/dialogue?  Do you want more examples of where I thought it was overly wordy?  

Do you understand that I never read on, not because I was lazy, but because I didn't think it was exciting/original enough after THREE sections to make me think it would be exciting/original in the other 13 sections?

Do you understand why I thought a synopsis might help your cause but a brilliant original hook in the opening would be better?

 

An image alone doesn't explain what judges are.
An image alone doesn't explain why there are judges.
An image alone doesn't explain the high crime rate.

Do you see a trend emerging?

I think the first action sequence is very exciting. I suppose I would say that, seeing I wrote it. I'm sure you can think of something more exciting.

Maybe you could share it with us?

I am serious. What would be your great original, exciting opening to a Dredd movie?

scojo

"An image alone doesn't explain what judges are."
It can, if coupled with short, clever dialogue and you credit the audience with some intelligence.

"An image alone doesn't explain why there are judges."
It can, if coupled with short, clever dialogue and you credit the audience with some intelligence.



"An image alone doesn't explain the high crime rate."
It can, if coupled with short, clever dialogue and you credit the audience with some intelligence.

Haven't I made it clear that I want LESS exposiition not NO exposition.

Example - at one point you have someone explaining how many sectors there are in the city.  Why? Later on, when someone mentions Sector 288, anyone with basic numbering skills can assume that there at least another 287 Sectors in the city.  So why have the first line of pointless exposition?


If I recall, ROBOCOP and BLADE RUNNER manage to show us complex cities and we understand how everything (corporations etc.)fits into place without too many big long laundry list scenes.  The exposition in Robocop is entertaining and funny; not a tour guide - when was the last time you listened to an exciting and entertaining tour guide.


> Do you see a trend emerging?
Only that you are ungrateful, closed to suggestions and rude. And, this is the funny one, not half as clever as you think you are.


>I think the first action sequence is very exciting. I suppose I would say that, seeing I wrote it. I'm sure you can think of something more exciting.

>Maybe you could share it with us?

>I am serious. What would be your great original, >exciting opening to a Dredd movie?

The issue isn't whether I can do better, it's whether YOU can do better.  And if I did come up with a great original opening for a movie I wouldn't be dumb enough to give it away for free.  

>Well we all know who ran out of toilet paper, don't we folks?:)
>Just for being particularly rude Logan, I am gonna post my Possession script on this site.
>So you and your silly class of 79 can go on a field trip for the day instead.
>Somewhere close to nature perhaps.
>Like Sellafield Nuclear Plant.
>scojo

I know the Scoda is the master and is more intelligent than myself, but could someone try and tell me what the hell he's on about?

La Placa Rifa,
W. R. Logan.

Link: Class Of '79