The Armor of Belial

[George Willson]

A slave places his family at risk when he discovers an ancient weapon and tries to overthrow the cruel leader of his world.

Both scripts are 119 pages.

Armor of Belial (PDF)

Armor of Belial (RTF)

[The Reviewer]

Tonkatough at Simplyscripts said:

I'm sucker for fantasy high adventure. As soon as I saw the logline for this script I was keen to read. This is a fun story with a soild structure and a plot that moves fast. The idea of the Armour and how the hero takes full advantage of it to set right everything he deems wrong is awsome and pushes the story foward to its conclusion.

I loved the villian. Not only is he just plain bad arse (willing to kill an unborn baby) but he is also flawed by his misguided belief that a great wrong has been done to him. This is top stuf and makes your villian well rounded

I just have one question regarding the story that I found unclear. What happened to the armour at the climax of this story? Why did it behave like that when the hero touched it? Did it respond to love? Is it sentient? For me it just didn't add up.

I enjoyed this and I hope to read more of your work as you post it on this site.

George replied

Thans for reading, tonka. Glad you liked it.

One of the ideas behind the armor is that it responds to strong emotion. I did my best to setup exactly what the armor does when certain people with certain ideals interact with it. When Vargus first finds it, it attaches to him. When he goes unconscious, it drops off. Alatyr is easily able to tote it around without any kind of response from it. In the legend, Belial is defeated by Illian when Illian touches it, and Illian was said to be beyond reproach. When Vargus dons it again, Alatyr knocks it off of him with a touch, stating that love is stronger than hate. The armor responds most dramatically to those two extremes.

Throughout the story, I wanted to make that one point as clear as possible so that when we hit the two most crucial points of the story, the way the armor responds makes perfect sense.

Now, if you're looking for an explanation as to why the armor responds this way, it is never really explained. It was made for Belial by an unknown person, and that person was, unfortunately, not important enough to be passed down through the ages. We know it is enchanted somehow, and its enchantment makes it do what it does. If specifics are needed in these areas, I'll certainly look into adding them.

Tonkatough responded:

Hmm, very interesting. A suit of armor that reacts to emotions. When you explain it like this it makes perfect sense. So my guess was right about the armor responding to love. So your set up of that one crucial point in the story was spot on as it steered my thoughts in the right direction to where you wanted it to be. This is good script writing as you don't force feed that idea to me rather than let me come to my own conclusion. I just wasn't sure if my conclusion was the right one.

I just wanted to hear your version as it is your idea.

Oh yeah, your basic idea of having a hero having a powerful artifact latch on to him was brillant. Your story reminded me of a Graphic Novel called Creature Tech by Doug Tennapel. It shares the same basic idea with your script. If you get a chance, check it out. It's a blast.

[The Reviewer]

Mr. Z at Simplyscripts said:

Just finished this one, George. Got tons of comments, with

SPOILERS

I liked the idea behind the armor and its sensitiveness to human feelings; it felt like another character in the script despite being an object.

Yet, the role of the armor didn´t came up as hinted early in the script: its evil could consume the wearer, according to Alatyr. But I didn´t see much development of this evil angle; Vargus kicks some @ss with it but to free his people. I would suggest to develop Vargus’ “dark side” a bit more or not to hint it at all.

I liked the imaginary world you created and the whole setting in which the story takes place. My only trouble in terms of originality was with the Overseers. The scene were Tristam explains its origin to Vargus seemed very similar to the scene when Lama Su explains Obi Wan the clone making process, growth acceleration and artificial alteration of their independence.

While –I must admit- I never met with a producer myself, after reading lots of articles by professional screenwriters and readers, I´m under the strong impression that at the beginning of any script, FADE IN is the only thing a producer wants to read. Quotes, production notes, dedications, maps, photos, FAQ´s, or any other additional material, seem to be a huge no-no. So I suggest removing your pronunciation list, at least when showing this to someone outside your simply fanbase.

Considering a Flashback as “A literary or cinematic device in which an earlier event is inserted into the normal chronological order of a narrative.”, you can´t begin a script with a flashback since this can´t be an “earlier event”; it´s the first event, the only event so far. The first scene is alright, but I wouldn´t call it a “flashback” since technically it isn´t one.

P.1 They do not talk to each or anyone else in the line. In fact, no one in the line is talking at all - merely focused on getting to the tent one at a time.

IMO, three lines of action is way too much just to state that the slaves are silent.

OVERSEERS, genetically engineered clones of exceptional strength whose only differences lie in their ages and scarring, walk up and down the line, coldly watching their charges.

“Exceptional strength” isn´t something visual enough to be recorded by the camera. Maybe if one of them is lifting a heavy object or kicking an enormous slave´s @ss, you could make the audience get this idea right of the bat.

Same problem in P.10 when you describe Alatyr as Tristam´s “trusted advisor”.

P.37/38
I wonder why didn´t you use a montage to tell the story behind the armor; it would fit perfectly in that scene. You´ve got other IMAGE and SERIES OF IMAGES scenes later, which also look exactly like typical montages, yet you formatted them differently.

P.45
After a hard struggle Tristam can convince Vargus to rest; he´s exhausted and will need the energy. I was expecting them to spend the night there or at least a couple of hours. Yet, after Tristam tells his story, they move on. Because of this, the resting break seemed a little bit pointless. If you want them to rest, have them rest for a relevant amount of time. If not, Tristam could tell his story as they move along.

P.55 Sthennix wants the armor badly, yet he seems reluctant to give Pratosh the resources he needs. After finding out the location of the armor, I would expect Sthennix to give Pratosh full cooperation, or take full control of the search mission and send a huge amount of Overseers himself.

P.63 I liked the personalized password idea.

P.71 “…they cannot stand against the wearer of the armor”. Alatyr´s faith in the wearer of the armor seems sudden and contradictory. Remember that during his first encounter with Vargus he tells him that “Sthennix is not so easily defeated, or even weakened”, that the armor´s evil will consume him, and that Belial´s dependence on the armor led to his doom.

P.57 ½ to P.72 ½ .
15 pages in which the protagonist doesn´t appear. This can´t be good. I think Vargus should have a more relevant part to play than sleeping.

P.79 Why wouldn´t Pratosh think that the insurrectionists escaped through the forest instead of going back to re-search the caves? Maybe he could dispatch one search patrol to the forest and another one to the caves, to cover both fronts.

P.89
I liked the idea behind the pregnancy scene but it felt a little bit forced. I expected the ship´s medic to do a very precarious check to Ertaf (i.e. breathes, talks, doesn´t have open or infected wounds = she´s fine, whip her a bit more). It surprised me that the medic was able to find out an early pregnancy.

Pratosh says “There´s nothing. She´s an outcast. She has no one” but how would he know that? He didn´t question the two hundred outcasts at the caves, so as far as he knows, she could have someone back there.

P.91/92
Vargus and Tristam are surrounded and outnumbered. Yet the overseers take Tristam prisoner, and leave Vargus (and the armor) alone. This kept me wondering: What was Sthennix´s exact plan to get the armor back? He keeps doing nasty things to people to know about the armor´s location, yet when his men has the wearer surrounded, they leave him. Even if Vargus could defeat them all… shouldn´t they stay and watch him from the transports? Call for backup? Ask Sthennix for instructions?

Instead on focusing on the armor they bring Tristam to Sthennix so he can question him about the armor; doesn´t make much sense. I suggest working of the villains actions and motives a bit more.

The only reason I can imagine to make the overseers forget about Vargus and focus on Tristam is if Vargus escapes from them, and disappears into the forest. Even then, a search party should look into the forest while Tristam is interrogated.

P.93
IMAGE: A 5-year-old Sthennix happily living with his mother and father, doing as happy families do.

I suggest to be more specific here, much more specific. What is this family doing in this particular scene? I guess it should be a happy moment, but I can picture hundreds of those. You, the writer, should choose the most suitable one.

IMAGE: Sthennix and his parents live in a small shack, freezing and hungry.
Not visual enough for a screenplay, IMO. How do I know they´re freezing? Are they shaking? How do I know they´re hungry? Are they dividing an already small piece of bread into three even smaller bits?

P.99
STHENNIX
Imagine. You can have everything you´ve ever wanted, at the cost of everything you ever had.

In this thread you referred to a particular line of which you were very proud. If I had to guess, I would say this is the one. If not, well, just wanted to say I liked it a lot.

P.97/98
Vargus tells Sthennix he´s going to kill him… three times. One should be enough, IMO. Specially considering that we already know Vargus wants to kill Sthennix, and Sthennix already knows this as well. Besides, it doesn´t look good when characters say exactly what they think or plan to do; I would liked the scene better if you showed this idea more visually (i.e.Vargus steals some kind of weapon from a overseer and strides towards Sthennix).

P.99/100
Nargoth seems too cruel with his son who moments ago sacrificed his life in exchange of his family (which includes Nargoth as well). It didn´t feel real.

P.101
I´m not sure if you need this flashback scene. If I understood this correctly, the scene is repeated footage from the opening, and doesn´t give any new information to the audience. At this point we already know what happened in the mine, and is easy to connect the character´s dialogue with this event, without need of showing it again.

P.111/112
The deliberation about how they were going to take the guard felt too long; it´s just a guard after all. Of course this move should require some planning, but it´s not necessary for the audience to experience the previous deliberation. And I think it would be more surprising to show directly the three of them charging towards the overseer, without giving details about this beforehand.

And how does Nargoth knocks the guard to the ground exactly? Does he hit him with something? Maybe he has a Reez Wand?

P.115
I knew Sthennix would be defeated the same way in which Belial was, even before they started fighting. And I don´t belong to “the smart ones” of the audience, so this could be a bad sign. The climax seems logical but not unexpected.

I wonder if it was a wise move to tell Belial´s *whole* story, so early in the script. You´re giving away your ending by doing this. On the other hand I´m well aware that you need this plant for the pay off to work.

You could establish early in the story that Belial was defeated; his armor “betrayed” him, but no one knows why. It adds a little more tension to Vargus’ quest; the armor could abandon him at any moment, he´s always at risk even when wearing the armor. You could even have some scenes in which the armor does “fail” him, but we don´t know why, although the reason is hinted.

When Vargus’ confronts Sthennix in the final showdown, he knows he can defeat him but he doesn´t know how (and more important, the audience doesn´t know either). While getting his @ss reeze wanded, Vargus does the math and figures the armor´s weakness. If this is possible and how is possible belongs to the author´s territory; I just hope this rant is thought provoking for you.

Despite these things I commented, it´s always a pleasure to read a script which shows that the author worked hard on it.

George replied:

Mr. Z, thanks very much for the read and thorough commentary. I figured there'd be stuff in here like what you mentioned primarily because some of this was written a year and a half ago and some was written 2 months ago. Consistently, I get more comments on the old stuff while the newer stuff is left almost as is. It also seems like there are plants remaining in the script from actions the characters used to take, such as the rest stop where they don't rest. In the first draft, they spent the night there because there was no havens yet.

It seems also that some of the flashback issues you mention with Sthennix are still the first draft "placeholders" that I never went back and redid to some more proper description. Thanks for catching those.

The Overseers were probably the last thing conceived of. Originally, the idea was that they're the nomads that took in Sthennix, but I migrated to what's there now. I can alter the backstory a tad so we're not re-watching Attack of the Clones. The identical army is not original by any means, even to Star Wars. Need I mention the recent Oompa Loompas? However, I may return to my original idea just to escape the comparison.

And yes, you found the line. I tooled over that one for awhile. Still proud of it.

[The Reviewer]

Wesley at Simplyscripts said:

Spoilers...


Finally got around to reading this, I hope my review can be useful to you.

Vargus is a boy of about 14. Shouldn’t you be more precise? I have always heard people say must give their exact age, maybe they were wrong but I thought I’d ask nonetheless. (You do it a lot throughout but that was one example)

The one thing consistent with all screenplays is that people always find a way to use their characters names ASAP and you know for some reason it makes that point of the dialogue annoying for a reader/watcher. In The Crow: Wicked Prayer they do it so much in three minutes that the reason I disliked the film frankly was that.

Now that I said my piece about that, I will say at least it’s what the industry demands so it’s not wrong per se.

On page 7: Nargoth – If daddy doesn’t listen togrampa… You need a space.

These modern jet-ski things remind me a bit of Fempiror, coincidence or are you borrowing from yourself?

The fact that we know Vargus survived makes the scene with his father and Sirena almost pointless because they are doing the fantasy cliché of thinking he’s dead but hoping he’s not (Lord of The Rings, Star Wars and Dune all did this.)

On page 36 – 37 Tristam grabs his and pulls him back down. – Did you forget a word or use his instead of him?

This Pratosh following thing, is it meant to seem a lot like LOTR?

On page 66 The break through the wall into the hollow within. – Simple and easy to fix.

On Page 71 The unchain him and lock him in – Simple again.

Here’s what I don’t enjoy about them being locked up, it seems that bringing the children along hurts the section of the script. I just think it’d work better without the kids since this way unless they torture the children the “bad guy” looks like an idiot because he doesn’t even act like they are in the scenes.

When Ertaf revealed she was pregnant, I felt as if you were trying to tell us that Tristam is going to die. He doesn’t but it feels that way.

Nargoth comes off as a dick, at times I wish you’d kill him. If he was meant to come off that way, good but if not that’s a problem for me.

I enjoyed Tristam, Sthennix and Vargus they were all strong and near perfect characters. You actually made the bad guy human and not many films do that, they usually give the bad guy some stupid reason or unreal death but you keep it real and actually make it interesting.

The story has it’s been there done that moments but at the end of the day I think you’ve breathed new life into the adventure genre, before you released this and Fempiror only Red Phoenix stuck out in my eyes as something people would want to watch in theatres.

You should think about extending this. I feel as if you had more to tell but wanted to keep it short. Peter Jackson makes three-hour films and the general public loves to watch them.

I read this in two hours (The approx. length) and it was a real page-turner, sometimes I get bored while reading and do not finish for days. Good job and I hope you stick with this genre because it may be your key to a successful career beyond the unproduced realm.

[The Reviewer]

Bert at Simplyscripts said:

There is a definite "Fempiror" vibe running through this, but it also stands alone as a unique piece of work. And I've gotta say, these epic fantasies are really your niche, George. Not too many people even attempt this kind of stuff, leave alone do it so well. It's not quite as polished as your Fempiror pieces, but then, it's a lot younger, too.

I really enjoyed this one, but of course, it's not all sunshine and rainbows, either. I got a few comments for you. For this one, I didn't read any of the reviews prior to looking at your story.

(SPOILERS)

(1) I get what you are doing with the list of names, but it's a little off-putting, too. Before I've even started I am thinking, "Geez how complicated is this going to be?" [Note later: I'll also have you know that it was a giant pain in the asss to constantly have to check the spelling of the names while typing up these comments.]
(3) Vargus awakens in the morning, but the slug reads "Night".
(7) Nargoth says, "What's the deal?" Too modern.
(21) Vargus finds the armor too quickly, I think. Consider a brief montage -- some time passing -- a little more suffering -- before he makes this discovery. As you've got it now, he's only been down there about 15 minutes.
(28 ) The thing with the throne is good. But it seems that Sthennix's first instincts would be to look for Vargus' family. Why doesn't he suggest this right off?
(59) Ertaf's bombshell is delivered a little too abruptly. Ease into it, I think, or that particular line drops with a big "clang".
(83) So is it Vargus tossing these arrows or what? I think that would look cool, and you should be showing it to us. A Sub-Mariner kind of thing.
(86) "It's still a ways off, but we're almost there." Change this silly line haha.
(88 ) "breathe", not "breath".
(90) You are making Pratosh look stupid here, and you shouldn't. He should tell Sthennix, "She is with child". And later in this scene, if you are going to make Sthennix nasty enough to punch Ertaf in the face (and I'm not sure you should, actually), then he would be nasty enough to punch her in the stomach, too.
(96) Let's do better than "wolf-like creature", shall we? How large is it? Fangs? What color do its eyes glow in this desert night?
(112) I don't buy Nargoth knocking this guy unconscious just like that. Since they are in a bay, could you work it so Nargoth knocks him right off the ship?
(118 ) Where is Vargas' family during all this? We should at least see them watching and smiling. Also, this big celebration at the end was a bit too "Star Wars" if you get my drift, and I suspect you do. Everybody has seen that film, so don't think people won't notice that stuff.

And a few more general things:

You never explain to my satisfaction why this armor behaves the way it does, but I think that one is an easy fix. Alatyr should have a chance to explain this in the tomb, at the very end. Just have Vargus ask him why it would jump on and fall off like it does.

Right around the middle of this story I started feeling that maybe we were spending a bit too much time with Tristan and Ertaf. This is while Vargus was sleeping. That section kind of dragged for me. And why is Tristan always telling Vargus to sleep anyway? He sounds like an old woman when he does this.

I also wondered why, in this world of flying boats and jet skis and whatnot, that everybody was carrying candles whenever they went anywhere dark. You would think they would have invented some other more reliable source of light. If not flashlights, then something else.

This last comment I'm not as sure about, but I'll put it out there anyway. I am thinking that somehow you need to give us some hint as to where and when all of this is taking place. It's obviously not Earth, but we get thrust into this alien world with absolutely no introduction, which is kind of jarring and leaves big questions. At least Lucas gave us "in a galaxy far, far away." That's pretty vague, sure -- but it was enough. This is just something to think about if you agree.

So, apart from the gripes and all this is a really solid piece of work. I had a good sense of all the characters and their conflicts throughout, and the story is engaging. Hope these comments help you out with the polishing phase on this one.

George replied:

Not sure on the hint on where this is taking place. On the one hand, it is useful to know we're not on earth; but on the other hand, I start talking about other worlds and such, I start digging into the sci-fi aspect (albeit, this has a strong sci-fi vibe anyway). I can think of a couple of different ways to do it, so I'll give that some consideration.

And me and my wolf-like creatures. I do have a tendency to use wolves, don't I? It'll be like a trademark or something. Is it George's? Does it have a wolf of some sort in it? Do the characters have off-beat and weird names? Not to worry, my next wolf-like creatures get weirder...

[The Reviewer]

AnotherWriter at Simplyscripts said:

I’m a sucker for these types of fantasies – the ones that combines technology with a primitive world. I have to say that this script is well written. I can’t fault your prose. It’s an evocative piece of reading. It flows well. The words seem to roll off the pages. And each page seems to fly by. The narrative is rock solid with no inconsistencies or transitional faults. When creating a fantasy world with colorful names, there’s tends to be the issue of getting the names mixed up. This is particularly true if the names sound similar. But there’s no problem here – you’ve made them distinct enough to avoid confusion.

There are lots of good visuals and ideas. You seem able to set a good tone and sustain it through the entire story. The back story is excellent. The legend of Belial Vs Illian and how the armor’s power is fueled by either love or hate is brilliant. The theme of love conquering hate is always a powerful one. You’ve managed to successfully create a convincing world with a strong history.

The character descriptions were good. You can picture how they look and the presence they ooze from only a sentence of introducing them. I liked this. Each character seems to be well written. The dialogue rolls out of their mouths and remain faithful to their persona.

Vargus is particularly a well written protagonist. His development arc and the estranged emotional bond with his father was intriguing. You could almost feel Vargus’ underlying resentment to his father. And you have a solid back story to prove why. But I was a little disappointed by the obvious signposting on page 122 “I learned that I...” in completion of his development arc. I like the “Me and you” thing he had going with Sirena.

Delif and Kirnila come off as very endearing. Little subtle moments in the dialogue like “Come on Kids.” early on was cute. But they seem to vanish off with only snippets of them sobbing in captivity. Perhaps we could see more activity from them. Perhaps have them speculating about what is going on and what happened to their daddy. It’ll be an opportunity to apply Sirena and Nargoth sensibilities on their perception of Vargus to the little ones.

I liked the introduction of Tristam on page 10 - through the spyglass. I liked the intelligent use of visual cues to stitch sequences together. This is well done. The relationship between Tristam and Erdaf was also well crafted. When Tristam denounces that he was willing to get himself killed for someone else’s family – it sent a powerful message about the kind of world they lived in. That scene gave me goose pimples. I also really felt for him when Erdaf wanted him to stay. I empathized with both sides of the predicament.

However, despite this relationship being well written, I did feel that the exploration of these characters to be superfluous to the story. To a point that it was almost redundant. I did feel repetition when Erdaf was captured as a means of leverage to gain Tristam’s co-operation. The kidnappings and how they transpire felt too contrived in my opinion - like Sthennix was going around, collecting hostages.

I did feel that the Overseers, Sthennix, and Pratosh were too bad to be true. The constant whipping and shocking with Reez wands, accompanied with sinister laughs makes them almost cardboard bad guys. I will give you credit for the depth offered to Sthennix by providing a back story. But it felt too little too late.

I did like the subtle chemistry between Sthennix and Pratosh. The fact that Sthennix showed mercy to Pratosh gave depth to their relationship – I saw it as the master and the dog, where the dog will remain loyal to the master no matter how badly he is treated. Although I would’ve liked to have seen this explored further. Perhaps give the two history. Pratosh is a General, make him older than Sthennix. Perhaps Pratosh has always been a loyal servant in Sthennix’s house, and the devoted protector/carer of Sthennix whilst his parents were alive. Perhaps give Pratosh the good heart – a good man made to perform acts of evil only out of a loyalty for the person he sees as his “son”. This could expand upon the father and son theme you have going. That makes Sthennix a true polar opposite of Vargus. Perhaps on a focal/fight scene between Vargus and Pratosh, Pratosh declares that he will do anything for his “son”, and that becomes the light for Vargus to realize the true devoted love that Nargoth has for him.

Page 69 was great. I was worried about a cliché, but the fact that the Haven guards were wise to the misuse of Tristam’s password gave it some originality.

When Vargus dons the armor for the first time, every thing happens all too quickly in my opinion. He actively retakes the village single handedly in less than 3 pages. I would’ve liked to have seen the power of the armor unravel more strategically. Perhaps, place him into a position where he’s forced to use the power rather than have him actively overtake the Ryngard. Perhaps upon discovery of the armor, Vargus shows willingness to let the Overseers help him take the armor off. Upon failure, the Overseers escort him to the Ryngard, and that’s when a head Overseer makes the decision to “cut him out of it”. At that point, the self-preservative instinct of Vargus forces him to retaliate, leading to the eventual overtaking of the ship.

The flashbacks aren’t tactfully used in my opinion. Every time a character tells a story, we jump into a flashback. Although they are well written, their positioning doesn’t seem natural.

I think that the main problem I had with the script is that it doesn’t live up to the epic story it so deserves. It just seems to fall short. I believe that too much focus is placed on isolated scenes and character focal points. You could perhaps strip some of the repetition away – reduce the two focal scenes between Tristam and Erdaf (or perhaps remove them altogether), reduce the number of scenes where Pratosh kneels before Sthennix to admit failure etc. I’m not too sure of the timeframe by which the story passes by, but it feels like a couple of days. I figured that an adventure would feel more timeless. A suggestion would be to spend less time at certain locations (e.g. the Haven) and expand upon the surrounding world. I would’ve liked to have seen more of the Carnivores in the desert. Perhaps each backdrop provides an obstacle and a stepping stone to progress the story, and bring Vargus one step closer to Sthennix. The ending seems to come too quickly too. Vargus just seems to “fall” into Sthennix’s hands, making the previous journey he has already taken completely redundant. A suggestion would be to leave the kidnapping of Nargoth, Sirenna, and the children to the end of the second act. The fuel of finding Sthennix alone is enough to hurl Vargus through the second act. Perhaps after overtaking the Ryngard, Vargus is banished from the village by the villagers in fear of Sthennix’s wrath. Sirena offers to accompany him, but Vargus’ arrogance (as well as his concern for the welfare of his family) doesn’t allow her. Hence he begins his journey to find Sthennix. And Sthennix’s discovery of potential leverage to use against Vargus only comes towards the end of act 2.

But overall, this is still a good and well written piece. I really enjoyed it. There are lots of amazing ideas in this. It makes me feel tempted to read Fempiror.

[The Reviewer]

James McClung at Simplyscripts said:

I've been meaning to read this for some time now. I contributed to your WIP thread a while back so I was interested in how this turned out. Also, it was a good way to get introduced to the Adventure section.

First off...

- The Overseerers don?t seem to have much regard for slaves. They seem to kill them at the drop of the hat. I have a feeling their leader, Sthennix, wouldn?t approve of this since he?s looking for the Armor and would probably want as many slaves looking for it as possible.

- Again, the Overseerer dismisses the slave's notification that Vargus has disappeared into a glowing tunnel. I think he'd be more concerned about this fact since it would appear, from his perspective, that Vargus is escaping or, more importantly, has found the Armor, as he has.

pg. 28 - Sthennix doesn?t need to say he?s changed his mind. It?s quite obvious he has and the fact that he says so kind of ruins the moment.

- What's this "strange" guy who sold Belial the Armor look like? You might want to add that.

pg. 49 - What do these "carnivores" look like? You might want to add that as well, especially since they come back later. You don't have to add much here. I think "wolfen carnivores" would suffice and you could describe them further later on.

pg. 59 - "If anyone else had awakened me with anything else..." This line sounds strange. Fix it.

pg. 62 - ?If you give yourself the chance to relax, you?ll probably pass out.? I believe you mean, if you don't give yourself the chance to relax.

pg. 84 - Wouldn't Patrosh yell "wait!" before the Overseerer steps into the hole?

- If Sthennix wants Vargus to come to him on his own terms, why would he have gone through so much trouble trying to capture him?

- I found it unrealistic that Ertaf would want to fight if it put her child in danger. It's supposed to be the most important thing to her. She probably wouldn't even think about fighting.

This was an extremely enjoyable read for me. I was hooked very quickly and finished the whole thing pretty fast. Everything seems to be on the money. The plot. The characters. The dialogue. All that good stuff. The characters were particularly strong. All of them had motives, sure, but they also had reasons behind their motives, which made their characters much stronger and realistic. What I loved the most was the world you created. I thought it was a clever mix of ancient, medieval, and high tech civilizations yet clearly a fantasy world. I particularly liked the insurrectionist domain. I thought the tree lift was a nice touch.

All in all, an excellent read. I should probably check out the Adventure section more often.

George replied:

You touch on a couple of things that have bothered me as well about this one, and once I get to a point where I can revise, I'm definitely taking this into account. Never thought about the Overseer vs. slave thing though. Thanks for bringing that up. I'll definitely keep that in mind.

[The Reviewer]

Breanne at Simplyscripts said:

I really enjoyed this. It was very adventurous.

****SPOILERS****

I assumed the armor was of evil origins because of the use of the biblical word Belial. It also had a bit of a Samson influence as well - a special power dependent upon the wearing of a physical object. And with the added “Star Wars’ feel-the force” kind of dimension where the power is also affected by the emotional state of the imbued one.

FORMAT:

It is, of course, fine. No comments except to say that, like me, you space things a lot which makes the script appear longer than it actually is.

This is an example of a script where the page count is deceptive. At 135 pages, it reads quickly and would probably be quite a bit shorter on screen.

There were maybe a few little things (like P52 - trunk, not truck.) but they’ve either already been mentioned or aren’t worth mentioning.


STORY:

I liked the story and don’t have much criticism of it. As I mentioned, the is an adventure in the vein as Star Wars mixed with biblical influences.

I liked the fact that upon finding the artifact, the wearer immediately exploited it for all it was worth. A typical story of this type would have toned down a little at that point and allowed the main character to look at options for exploiting the device.

It was the nature of the object that it cause its bearer one-track mindedness and that was used effectively to take the story a different direction than the typical.

There are two challenges to that: 1) Keeping up the momentum after that and, 2) of course, keeping the main character from becoming one dimensional.

You kept the story going by turning it into an adventure. Mixed of futuristic Sci-Fi elements a medieval chivalry, the obstacles for the hero on his adventure were also mixed. One moment, finding the beastly carnivores like knights on a quest and at another moment, underwater in a submarine battle more befitting Captain Nemo.

Interesting mix. Other films have mixed the two elements, Stargate and such, but I think you made a nice addition to the “genre.”

The only criticism I could offer there would pertain to the creatures of this world. The carnivores were the only creatures we really saw in this strange new world. It would have been interesting if there had been, say, some kind of cave dwelling creatures that might prey upon the slaves, or even the Overseers. Or if Vargas could have shown a propensity toward bravery by defending a fellow slave from such a creature.

Or perhaps some strange creatures in the woods. Something that would have opened up this world a little more. As it is, it seems that it’s primarily populated by people. Honestly, I was a little surprised by the lack of strange creatures given your….uh….tendency…toward creating them.

The only other criticism I could offer is about the women. This is not just you. It’s very nearly every male writer and not just unproduced scripts but in tons of Hollywood movies where the setting is wartime or involves groups of oppressed people contemplating rebellion:

When the man is preparing to go off to battle, his wife always makes it more difficult for him. She always accuses him of not caring about her or their family because he’s leaving to go fight. This is a Hollywood stereotype about women. In real life, women are actually much more supportive of men at such a time. Women generally are very supportive of a man if we believe he’s doing what he’s doing to protect his family. This stereotype makes it look like we’re not capable of grasping the “big picture” when it comes to war.

While it’s true that we wouldn’t welcome it and would want a way to avoid it, it’s not true that we wouldn’t understand the situation or pressure our husbands not to fight for our families at a time when he most needed our support. To the contrary, most women buck up and do the opposite - we try to make sure he knows he has our support because we understand how important it is to his success. And we do understand what’s at stake.

I’m not scolding you or anything. I’m just making an observation. And the characters do, of course, come around and grasp the whole situation. I also know that it creates tension and drama. I’m just making the observation because I see it so often in so many pictures and it kind of makes us look bad. If you talk to the wife or mother of a soldier in real life, you don’t get that kind of reaction at all. Usually the wife is very supportive. They used to call it, “keeping the home fires burning.” Just a thought.

Oh, and one other little thing: Why can’t Sthennix (or anyone else for that matter) commission a mystic to make him his own armor? Seemed that Belial was able to produce this armor relatively easy. He just went out and bought it.

Anyway, I really like the script. It flowed very well from scene to scene and was overall very well crafted. Good work.

George replied:

Thanks, Brea, you make some very thought-provoking comments. To tackle the last question, I think it's a good point. Why doesn't someone make their own mystical armor? I'm not sure how to best answer this because I have a basic idea of what happened all those years ago, but not necessarily how to put it in the script.

It's like trying to explain why Sauron is the only one who could make a One Ring. Why didn't the elves put their heads together and get around it. According to the Silmarillion, they aren't much younger than Sauron. That's not being flippant; just thinking.

I know Belial's armor was more than just a purchase. I see the one who made it as tracking him down to give it to him. Like Belial had a quality this person was looking for to do whatever needed to be done. A good comparison would be how Star Wars portrayed Darth Sidious always finding exactly who he needed to achieve his ends. Of course, that opens up an entire other can of worms, so it's best to know that Belial acquired it from a mysterious stranger and used it for all its worth. I could probably do a prequel on the back story.

I do hope the women are not just seen as just arbitrarily bitching at their husbands for running off. Personally, I wrote Tristam's reasoning as thin, and he actually should have stayed with his wife. It was his own selfish desire to continue that made him go on. Vargus obviously didn't need the help. With Sirena, no one understood this armor Vargus had and saw his desire to run off as fool-hardy. This was not just Sirena, but everyone. I would like to think if I wrote something where the stakes were understood by everyone, that I would portray the women realistically and find my conflict else where.

And finally, I love the suggestion on the additional creatures. It is strange that I kept the journey free of forest, cave, and sea creatures, and populated it with just people. I could make the CGI guys exceptionally happy here.

Thanks again.

Breanne replied:

I wrote Tristam's reasoning as thin, and he actually should have stayed with his wife. It was his own selfish desire to continue that made him go on. Vargus obviously didn't need the help.

I didn’t think of Tristam’s reasoning as thin. I thought Vargas would need Tristam to get to the palace and that Tristam felt like this was his chance to depose Sthennix. Anytime there’s a fascist force using fear to control, there are always slaves who think it’s okay to be slaves as long as they stay alive.

I thought of Tristam as looking beyond that to a day where a just leader was once again king. I felt that his goal was honorable. That’s why I felt that his wife was a little unreasonable. But then again, it’s also one of those situations where you just don’t know what you’d do until you’re in it.

With Sirena, no one understood this armor Vargus had and saw his desire to run off as fool-hardy. This was not just Sirena, but everyone.

Yeah, I see what you’re saying.