Turtles fan-script by me

[Logan]

I mentioned on another thread that I have an on-again/off-again labor of love that is a Ninja Turtles screenplay. Something to do for fun, that sort of thing. Well, I decided I'd post what I have so far in increments for you all to read. I'd love to hear your thoughts and comments.

Keep in mind that it very much adheres to the Mirage issues, sometimes verbatim, but I also took liberties to try and make the stories within more cinematic.

Enjoy!

[Logan]

Here is a couple more pages. Hoping this will get some input...

[Logan]

The update after this one will probably be the last for a while as I need to write some more. All the same, I hope you're enjoying this.

[saul]

Wow! This is by far the most professional fan script I've ever seen!
The formatting, the prose, is all spot on and great to read.

Now I know your goal here is a direct, straight-from-the-comic adaptation, but if I had to voice any constructive criticism, it's that the dialog and plotting of the comic doesn't exactly line up with Hollywood quality fare. (I can elaborate more on this if you want)

One of the great things I admire about the original movie (by Langen and Herbeck) is that it took the stories we were familiar with, from the cartoon and comic, and gave us something new, yet similar. Given your quality of writing, it would be interesting to see where you could take this project by adapting it more with your own creative ideas to make something fresh.

That being said, it's very interesting to see how a direct adaptation would have worked, and I look forward to seeing where you go with this. Keep it up!

[Slap-Happy]

I read the first part and while it was good, there are still some issues.

You need scenes establishing who the turtles are and why they are there to fight the Shredder. You also say "the four turtles reach the rooftop" and then proceed to reveal them, right after you just told the reader what they are.


Their fight with the Shredder is too one sided at times. Yes, he easily beats them at the beginning, but is easily beaten in the rest of the scene. I'd put more scenes of the turtles easily being beaten by him before they develop a better plan against him.

Right after the death of Shredder, you cut to Splinter. At this point in the script, he isn't introduced as the turtles master. Also,where are the turtles during this scene? If they are with April, then she must also be introduced before this scene.

Basically I'd say just flesh out the story before and after the Shredder fight and before the Mousers take Splinter. Also work on the dialog.

I'll also suggest that you download the software celtx. It's a really good script writing program that'll helpmate formatting easy and will put your script in a nice PDF.

[Logan]

Thank you for the comments. It's very much appreciated. Everything written here is really rough with very little in the way of editing done, so spelling/grammatical errors and some other things still need to be done. That said, I will address directly some of the qualms mentioned here.

Slap-Happy:

I'm deliberately introducing the boys into the story as if already established. Why? Because they are, in a sense. Ordinarily, I don't do this in my writing (I actually tend to go overboard with introducing characters) but I feel in this particular instance it's better to sort of have the story "hit the ground running", so to speak.

As far as Splinter and April are concerned, however, I actually had some narration by Leo to sort of tie those characters all together and brought the audience/reader up to speed. But I realized that I didn't really have any more ideas for narration in the later parts of the story, so I decided to drop it because it otherwise stands out like a sore thumb. I'm trying to figure out how to make a transition scene that's organic and doesn't come off as entirely expository.

Oh, and I'm actually writing this on Celx. :tgrin: I generally use txt format because it's fairly simple to use. I don't know how many people I know who can't seem to figure out how to use pdf, so there's that story. If enough people bug me about it, I certainly have no problem with providing it pdf.

Saul:

Dialogue will definitely be readjusted. Just the other day I made I minor tweak in a scene where Leo calls Michelangelo "Mikey" and it definitely clashed with the tone of the scene, so I changed it to "Mike". The later additions will more than likely have a bit more polish to them.

Regarding your comment about the original film's contributions from the screenwriters, I actually played around with doing some things of my own with the characters as far as personalities go. For this script, I decided against it because, while I definitely think my ideas are good, they do clash against Eastman & Laird's characterizations.

Two examples:

"Dumbing down" Donatello. That is, not making him as scientifically and techno savvy as he is. I wanted him to be smart and inquisitive, but I also wanted it a little more grounded to take into account his upbringing. He'd be obsessed with reading science journals, philosophers, and science fiction (quoting the latter two on occasion).

Making Leonardo religious. Not like having him going to church every Sunday, but just having him be really spiritually curious. Constantly searching and trying to understand God and that sort of thing. That's there on some level in the comic, but it's very restrained, no doubt because Eastman & Laird are both non-religious and probably not very interested in exploring that angle.

Maybe further down the line I'll get a yearning to write a more-or-less original story with the boys. Time will tell.

Thanks again for the comments!

[Slap-Happy]

I'm deliberately introducing the boys into the story as if already established. Why? Because they are, in a sense. Ordinarily, I don't do this in my writing (I actually tend to go overboard with introducing characters) but I feel in this particular instance it's better to sort of have the story "hit the ground running", so to speak.

As far as Splinter and April are concerned, however, I actually had some narration by Leo to sort of tie those characters all together and brought the audience/reader up to speed. But I realized that I didn't really have any more ideas for narration in the later parts of the story, so I decided to drop it because it otherwise stands out like a sore thumb. I'm trying to figure out how to make a transition scene that's organic and doesn't come off as entirely expository.

I think that maybe, right as all of the turtles are downed by Shredder, before they kill him, there should maybe be some narration, and the whole story flashes back to maybe a week before the fight, then you give a story that is sort of like issues 1 through 3 condensed into one story, that all leads up to the end/beginning fight.