The Pilot

Certainly. Let's go with him being stoic.

Of course, on this show, "flawed" isn't exactly an uncommon feature, though it's not immediately apparent why some of the main characters aren't as decent as they appear to be.

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

I'm concerned that having the team's first appearance be a low-angle shot of them posing is going to make it look like we're trying too hard to make them look cool. Could we at least lampshade it?

I don't think a spot of bad luck in the pilot episode will make Cody into The Scrappy, as long as we demonstrate his usefulness leading up to it. I think Matrix is more likely to come off badly by being a drama queen about a minor injury and causing the team to overlook a member who was hurt worse.

I'm also thinking we should drop the word "Empowered" a couple of times. Probably once in the radio broadcast, and then again in the team introduction scene.

Lampshading the Justice League Shot isn't a bad idea. Maybe one of the mayor's aides could remark something like "Do you think they practice that?"

Stuff what I do.

My concern with Cody is that, in a Fighting Series, falling unconscious in the first episode is not unlucky, it's a sign of weakness. Fanbases tend to be unforgiving of first episode failings - compare Rukia from Bleach and Mickey from Doctor Who, both highly competant characters who are extremely ineffectual in their first appearances, and who, several seasons later, still haven't been forgiven by the fanbases.

On the team pose - I agree that a Lampshade Hanging is a good idea, but I don't think we need worry too much, since having set these characters up as heroic and cool, we subvert expectations by having Hikari upstage them near the end of the episode, anyway.

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Is there anyone interested in writing the script for the pilot?

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

I'd give it a try if I wasn't so lazy and voluntarily banned from the writing staff.

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Part 1 of script for the pilot:

Scene 1: the Convergence

[Fade in on a view of Los Angeles, with the Hollywood sign visible in the shot. There is the appearance of breaking glass, and numerous film and TV characters, both live-action and animated, appear and begin attacking the populace.]

[Cut to view of Tokyo, where the same glass-breaking effect happens and Kaiju and anime characters appear.]

[Cut to view of Vancouver, being attacked by Goa'uld, monsters from The Neverending Story, and stampeding Jumanji animals.]

[Cut to London. BBC and book characters.]

[Cut to New York. The hordes there consist primarily of villains from superhero comics.]

[Fade out.]

Scene 2

[Shot of Grosse Tete, LA. The weather looks slightly hazy. The words "5 months later" appear on screen.]

[We see the mayor and two aides standing at the highway offramp, waiting.]

Aide 1: When did Steve  ^*

say they were due to arrive, sir?

Mayor: He couldn't pin down a time. These folks have a lot on their plate.

Aide 2: They'll be worth the wait. They're the best at what they do.

Aide 1: (taken aback) The best? Who else does it?

Aide 2: Uh...

[See Ironeye's outline for the description of the team's arrival.]

Aide 1: (muttering) Do you think they practice that?

Mayor: (muttering) Hush, you. (aloud) Welcome to our fair town of Grosse Tete! Not as fair as it could be, obviously, or you wouldn't be here.

[Karalora and Ironeye step forward.]

That's all for now, fellow Showtropers! More to come as it develops.

edited 26th Jan '10 7:48:25 PM by Karalora

Stuff what I do.

Okay, so, like, I of course can write stuff.

Not right now, because it's almost 9 PM

Or maybe yes right now, because I'm drinking pepsi.

And well, it's only 9 PM. I go to bed at 1:30 AM.

Okay, so continuing from where the script was left off..

KARALORA: *nods* Hello, sir. I'm Karalora, this is Ironeye.

MAYOR: [beat] You don't hear names like "Ironeye" around these parts. Y'all get that from Transformers?

KARALORA: Well, sir, Ironeye - and Karalora, for that matter, are codenames. It can be dangerous to use your real name nowadays.

MAYOR: Ah, alright, then. You know, most of you five look a little young for this.

KARALORA: Yeah, I know we probably don't look like much, but don't worry, sir, we'll get this done, I assure you. Oh, and there are six of us. [Looks back, calling] Hey everyone, come here so I can introduce you!

[ARKS, MURKY, CODY, and MATRIX stop what they are doing and come forward]

KARALORA: These are arks, Murky, Cody, and Matrix.

MAYOR: Oh. Huh, I guess I didn't see Cody there. Sorry, son. So, anything you need before you go off to do what you do?

IRONEYE: Ah, yes. [brings the legal pad he is holding up to read] There has been a poisonous haze here, yes?

MAYOR: Oh... yes. It comes and goes, as if whatever is making it is hiding away part of the day. Probably sleeping. Some people have died from that dang poison.

IRONEYE: Okay, and it seems to be coming from the swamp, correct?

MAYOR: Yep.

IRONEYE: Alright. Oh, what part of the day does the haze recede?

MAYOR: Oh, yeah.. It goes away 'round morning. Comes back in the evening.

IRONEYE: Ah. That would corroborate with the note I have about people seeing some sort of creature in the swamp at night.

MAYOR: Mmhmm. That they have. Not a very good look, though, since it was night. I think this thing's nocturnal.

IRONEYE: Yes, that does make sense with the evidence we have. [pulls out a pencil from a pocket and writes that on his notepad]

SCENE 3

[Cut to a diner, interior. A radio is clearly visible on the counter. Near the radio but out of focus is a WAITRESS who is drying glasses with a towel.]

NEWSCASTER (from radio):..the panda was unharmed. Authorities are still looking for a young man looking to be around 18-19 who was last seen in [transmission cuts out for a second, static] -e let off a strange light, destroying the town and surrounds with the force of, as said by a survivor who was close but out of range, a nuclear bomb-

VOICE (off screen): Please, could you turn that radio off? [WAITRESS comes into focus with the radio leaving focus]

WAITRESS: Oh, alright, hun. [reaches over and switches off the radio]

[pan over to the origin of the VOICE, HIKARI, sitting at a table eating pie, and quickly finishes]

[WAITRESS walks over to HIKARI with a tray; on the tray is a cheque; the WAITRESS takes HIKARI's plate and hands him the cheque]

WAITRESS: You finished that up right quick. I take it it was pretty good then?

HIKARI: Oh, yeah, thanks. [looks at the cheque and takes out some money and hands it to the WAITRESS] Hey, who are those people out there?

[show the meeting between the TEAM and the MAYOR through the diner's windows, cut back to HIKARI and the WAITRESS]

WAITRESS: Oh, hm. Well there's the mayor and a couple of his aides... But I've never seen the rest of 'em. Oh, maybe they're here because of that weird mist. Yeah, the mayor knows someone up in Baton Rouge who knows some people who solve dangerous problems.

HIKARI: Oh. Weird mist?

WAITRESS: Oh, yeah, comes up at night. [looks distraught] Killed the tigers we kept around.

HIKARI: [looks excited] You kept tigers here?

WAITRESS: Oh, yeah, they're what put Grosse Tete on the map I reckon. Well, at least they weren't, say, eaten by that... [looks confused] dragon or whatever it is that people have been seeing in the swamp at night. One of them fictites, we think.

HIKARI: [more excited than before, stands right up] A dragon!?

WAITRESS: That's what they say, yeah. [HIKARI begins to walk away] You staying around here long?

HIKARI: [walking out of the diner] I've got work to do.

WAITRESS: [calling out to HIKARI] Hey! You be careful now! That thing's dangerous!

edited 28th Jan '10 9:58:32 PM by Matrix

Wow, Ironeye has really big pockets. The outline had him carrying a legal pad.

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

oh, whatever

I'm just messin'.

edited 26th Jan '10 10:04:12 PM by Ironeye

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

theres your stupid legal pad :p

It needs a little polish, but the general shape of the dialogue is pretty good.

Stuff what I do.

Well, Kara, I don't think anybody there speaks Polish, but okay.

:P

Started jotting down an idea. If you don't think it works, just say so.

Scene 4

[Kara is in the pickup truck, grabbing a mass of bullet-proof vests and a handgun which she promptly sticks into the holster on her belt.]

Kara: OK team, let’s get suited up. I don't want to spend all day tomorrow fixing you guys up, so please try to stay out of trouble.

Cody [takes one from Kara with a smirk]: Yeah. Like that’s going to happen.

CUT TO: [Hikari looking through his backpack, before taking a black t-shirt]

CUT TO: [Team spaced out, some sitting down, others just leaning. All looking at Ironeye]

Ironeye: From the reports from the townsfolk, we're dealing with what could be a dragon or something similar. A few of the people said that the fictite had multiple heads, and I'm pretty sure that this thing's making the air poisonous to breathe.

CUT TO: [Hikari coughing a bit as he starts to walk into the forest.]

CUT TO:

Matrix [puts up a hand]: Nyaaa~... What about air masks or something? Wouldn’t that stop the posion?

Murky [examining her blade]: We don't have any. I checked.

Ironeye: No, but we've got cloth masks, which should be able to keep the particles away from our airways. Just in case though, I don’t want us to be hanging around for too long. Anything could happen, so adapt to the situation.

Cody [loading bullets into rifle]: You mean make it up as we go along. [clicks it back into finished position] So like every other plan.

arks: Well, it works, doesn’t it?

CUT TO: [Hikari wandering through the forest, looking around with a grin on his face.]

CUT TO: [arks grabbing a baseball bat from the back of the truck and swinging it slowly a few times]

arks: Yes, perfect.

Kara [knocks on the van side]: We’re leaving now. As soon as the sun goes down I want us hunting for that monster.

Arks [nods]: Sure thing!

[Walking around through the pickup truck, Arks jumps into the drivers seat and buckles up. He then inserts the key into the motorhome and starts the ignition. Sticks his head out of the window.]

Arks: Kara, ready when you are.

Kara: Gotcha. [to team behind] Come on guys, they're going to leave us behind if we don't hurry up.

End Scene

edited 4th Feb '10 2:03:16 AM by CorruptDropbear

Help! I'm stuck in these tabs!

A few quick things (I'll give more commentary later):

• When contacting someone via radio, you say their name first. (e.g. Kara, this is Ironeye...)
  • For that matter, why is Kara on the radio in the first place? Based on the material you scripted, the entire team is in or next to the van for the entire scene.
  • Also (general question to everyone), are we going to give the team a van? I thought that vehicle #2 was going to be something a bit more...rugged, since #1 is a motor home and #3 is a motorbike (street bike or dirt bike?).
• An improvised cloth mask would be enough to deal with the poison fumes, given that we're working with a hydra that is heavily inspired by the original myth of the Lernean hydra. While the team wouldn't have known this when they arrived, the townspeople would know it, and Ironeye has spent quite some time getting all the information he can.
• The team wouldn't need to huddle around Ironeye to hear what's he's saying.
  • Ironeye's exposition is a bad case of As You Know, since that's pretty much what the entire team heard the mayor say two scenes ago. (Also, presumably every team would have a basic idea of what was going on, anyway.) What makes this especially pointless is that the audience heard that exposition, too. Ironeye should be revealing something new (for both the other characters and the audience)—stuff like his best guess being a multi-headed swamp dragon based on what he's found out. It'd be kinda sad if Hikari learned more while paying for lunch than Ironeye did in an afternoon of interviewing the people who had seen the creature.

That's everything I noticed at first glance. I'll have more to say tomorrow evening, I think.

edited 27th Jan '10 4:35:01 AM by Ironeye

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

Something to keep in mind when scripting things out: Cody's power means that nobody's going to notice when he says something unless he specifically calls for attention first. So stuff like:

Cody [loading bullets into rifle]: Making it up as we go along? [clicks it back into finished position] So, like every other plan.

arks: Well, it works, doesn’t it?

...seems a bit iffy. Unless I've got the wrong idea about Cody's Weirdness Censor?

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

By talking, he's drawing attention to himself. To the others, he becomes visible at that moment, and he doesn't appear to have come out of nowhere, either; it's more like he was always there and you only just noticed him.

So arks might have been surprised if he hadn't been expecting Cody to be there, but since he presumably knew Cody was around and knew about his power, he wouldn't notice anything odd.

I dropped by to say I wouldn't be around so much this week, and I was quite stunned to see that this much progress has been made. I'm very impressed, and rather taken aback.

edited 27th Jan '10 6:14:55 AM by BobbyG

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Makes me want to test the limits there. Does muttering to himself draw enough attention? Accidentaly breaking a twig (like when you're trying to sneak by and you hear this dreadful snapping sound from under your shoe)? Wearing bright neon orange?

edited 27th Jan '10 6:23:21 AM by KylerThatch

This "faculty lot" you speak of sounds like a place of great power...

Generally, no, none of those would be sufficient. Depends how loud the twig is, or how close to your ear he is muttering.

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I'm going to say that putting the "nya" in front and extended ("Nyaaa..") like an "Uhhhh.." would be better.

Note: Kara, Matrix, Jinxed, and I discussed the existing scripts, and we made minor changes to some of the lines in Matrix's bits. These changes have been edited in by Matrix (above).

edited 29th Jan '10 3:16:32 AM by Ironeye

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.

Edited Scene 4 to fit with Ironeye's problems.

Help! I'm stuck in these tabs!

Seriously, Ironeye's voice can carry more than two feet—the team doesn't need to huddle around him to hear what he's saying. They're perfectly capable of hearing him say two sentences while they're gearing up. Also, the team has a second vehicle (I think we decided on a pickup truck) for a reason—they won't be driving the motor home into the swamp.

I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me.