Type of Material: Screenplay Title: Cause and Effect/The Crystal Skulls

Number of Pages: 110 Author: Phillip Barron

Submitted By: Triggerstreet Circa: Present, Ancient Rome

Submitted To: ScriptShark Location: London, Rome

Analyst: AM Genre: Sci-fi

LOG LINE: A group of people who manipulate history based on their knowledge of future events find themselves forced to thwart a mysterious man who is manipulating time for his own ends.

	Excellent	Good	Fair	Poor	Budget
Idea		X
Story Line		X			High	X
Characterization			X		Medium
Dialogue		X			Low
Production Value		X

MECHANICS	Excellent	Solid	Needs Work	Re-Think	N/A
Action lines clearly and concisely manifest visual action and literal context.		X
Scenes avoid the problem of continuing beyond optimal length.		X
Spelling, grammar, and proofreading.		X
Page count.		X
The script’s physical presentation.		X
Dialogue.		X
The script effectively manifests a compelling theme and adheres to it throughout the story.		X

CHARACTER	Excellent	Solid	Needs Work	Re-Think	N/A
The protagonist clearly manifests both internal and external goals.		X
The protagonist has consistent opposition to his/her goals.		X
The protagonist is sympathetic and/or engages our emotional investment.		X
The protagonist clearly changes / has an arc.		X
The supporting characters are unique and add value to the story.		X
All of the characters are authentic to their backgrounds.		X
The script has an effective antagonistic force, direct or indirect.		X

STRUCTURE:	Excellent	Solid	Needs Work	Re-Think	N/A
The script has a strong structural foundation that serves the story, classic three-act structure or otherwise.		X
Plots and subplots work together.		X
The set-up is concise, and effective.		X
The story has well-designed reversals.		X
Transitions are effective and appropriate to the story.		X
Every scene has relevance.		X
The story includes an effective dramatic climax / payoff.		X
The setup is resolved effectively.		X
A catalytic situation drives the plot.		X
Dramatic conflict and tension build across scenes, throughout the plot.		X

MARKET VALUE	Excellent	Solid	Needs Work	Re-Think	N/A
Originality / freshness.	X
The story has a clearly defined target audience.		X
The story clearly has mass audience (universal) appeal.		X
The story includes a conceptual “hook” that could potentially be used to effectively market the film.	X

PRODUCTION VALUE	Excellent	Solid	Needs Work	Re-Think	N/A
The lead character is castable / has star appeal.		X
The visual arena of the script is stimulating.		X
The project has International appeal.		X

COMMENTS: Despite the inevitability that time travel films are going to always leave some viewers confused, it’s refreshing to see that THE CRYSTAL SKULLS exploits the conceit in an intelligent way. The various time loops and switches seem complicated at first, but they all seem to follow an underlying logic. Since a lot of writers use the implausibility of time travel movies to make up the rules as they go along, it’s refreshing to see that this writer appears to have gone to considerable effort to make everything track properly.

The early sequence with the drivers colliding is a fun way to establish that these characters have knowledge of even the seemingly most insignificant details of the future. It’s also a credible way to show that they take an indirect approach to altering history. They don’t go back in time and kill a world leader, they simply tip the first domino over that will lead to an inevitable chain of events. This is a clever use of time travel, in a “butterfly effect” sort of way. (Referring to the “chaos theory” principle that a butterfly can flap its wings in Japan and set off a chain of events that lead to it raining in Central Park as opposed to sunshine.) An even more clever instance of this is when Gladstone demonstrates to Mena how he saved an man from being killed by the scaffolding bar knocked over by the out-of-control truck. It’s a simple, easy way for the audience to grasp what could have been a complicated concept.

However, it comes as no shock that Matt is the one manipulating things and stealing the Crystal Skulls. Since he’s the only character we’ve met who has a motive for wanting to manipulate the timeline, the screenplay practically draws a bright neon circle around the character. Once we’re two-thirds of the way into the story and we only have one credible suspect for manipulating the timeline, it’s not hard to guess where the script is going to go. Would it be possible to introduce a few red herrings here? Perhaps some other members of the team could experience losses or events that they’d want to undo. This would not only add a little more ambiguity to the story, but it would service those characters better. While Matt is ready to throw away everything he believes in for the selfish pursuit of getting his wife back, the others stand by their convictions. They don’t alter the timeline for personal gain, no matter how they stand to benefit from it.

There’s a question raised by Matt’s statement on page 8 that “It wasn’t supposed to happen. It’s not part of the plan.” Is he implying that time has been altered from what their records show, or is he just saying that this isn’t how he saw things working out. The ambiguity of the statement is a nice touch, as it could mislead some of the audience into thinking that the temporal alterations begin with this event. The end of the film closes this loop, however, and leaves us with the impression that this was the only way events could have played out. Since effect (the explosion of the yacht) preceded cause (Matt going back in time to save his wife) the only logical explanation is that the events of this movie are a closed loop. History isn’t being altered so much as it’s being fulfilled. Is that a correct interpretation? If so, why didn’t Matt know that Liz was going to die in the explosion, as it should have “always” been fated to happen? (This is probably why time travel movies can sometimes give you a headache.) The logic makes sense but Matt’s line only draws attention to the fact that with all his knowledge of history, he should have had some record of his wife’s true fate. Gladstone does say that the information in the room is organized so one can’t read too far ahead, but one expects that after Liz is killed, Matt would see that it is what was supposed to happen, via the verified historical records.

The only concept that seems a little confusing is the question of where the books of the future come from. Is the intention that they are history books that were written after the fact, but then sent back in time so that they foretell the future? That would be simple enough to grasp, but I’m confused by Gladstone’s assertion that no one wrote the books because they’re part of a continuous loop through time. If you can simplify this explanation a little, it might reduce a little confusion.

Structurally, the script is sound. Act One introduces the basic concepts of time manipulation in an easy to grasp way. As we enter Act Two, we’re plunged into the alternate history where Rome never fell. It’s around here were the characters start making a few logical leaps that come across as too convenient. They make a pretty large guess in assuming that the crystal skulls will enable them to travel through time. This might play better if we get a little more of an introduction to the crystal skulls early in Act One. We see Fisher and Ericson retrieve one, but it would help to have a little more exposition about what Matt and Gladstone think they know about the skulls. Once they find the skull in the Herculaneum Museum, it seems almost too easy that they’re able to get it to do what they want. However, since Matt is the one to get it to work, perhaps this suffices as another hint that he seems to know more about this than he should. Other than that, the plot hints dropped about Saturn’s hunt for the skulls are done rather well and advance the story even if the Roman adventure feels largely like an inconsequential diversion.

It’s a little hard to imagine that just two guns in ancient Rome could completely alter history as much as they do. The implication seems to be that the Romans were able to reverse-engineer the guns, but that would likely be a little beyond their grasp. It’s like saying that if you left a car in the past, they could figure out all the principles behind the combustible engine in a matter of years. Would they really be able to mass produce enough of their own guns so that the Roman Empire wouldn’t fall 300 years hence?

Once they’re back in their proper timeline, the story resumes at a clip. The only speed bump here is the confrontation between Mena and her father, which feels a little overwrought. One problem with Mena’s character is that the audience is never given a reason to empathize with her before this. She doesn’t earn her position on the team; Gladstone says that they were more or less told she had to be a part of the team. There’s some clever writing in that she’s the one that buys the ticket that convinces her past self that her husband is cheating on her. However, the audience is left wanting some more resolution to that. She seems to just shrug it off and accept that she destroyed her own marriage over nothing.

The only point where the script seems to cheat is with Saturn’s assertion that “Herculaneum is unique, a trauma in space-time.” Why is this? We’re given no explanation and it’s a case of time travel only working in a particular way “because Saturn says so.” Considering that all the other temporal mechanics are pretty well thought out, this comes across as a little bit of a cheat. Either give the audience a real reason why the earlier leap could be so large or else confine Ericson and Fisher’s time jump to within a month.

Once Matt uses the skulls he makes the classic mistake most characters do when they try to alter the timeline. They leave themselves no room for error, forgetting that they can go anywhere they want. Why does he go to the engine room, the place where he has the tightest timeframe to save his wife? Why not go back further and do something to the ship so that it never leaves port? Or get his wife off the ship before it leaves? The rest of his scheme is pretty well-planned, so this move on his part comes across as especially foolish.

Still, much of the film evidences good plotting. One of the better misleads comes when we are convinced that Matt was the one who stole the skull from Gladstone’s house. We don’t find out until the end that it was Mena who did that and then suddenly everything makes sense. (Though Mena’s line on p. 109 seems to be a mistake. She took the skull in the past, but she probably means to say she replaced it while the younger Gladstone and Mena met for the first time.) If the few loose threads cited above were fixed, this could be a very intelligent script.