My viewing life has been cursed with finding great story premises with bad plots. Beyond White Space is a good example. The set up is near perfect: A badass space captain wants to go after a giant space creature that killed his dad, but he’s got to dupe his fishing crew into coming along which creates internal conflict that jeopardizes the mission. It’s not Moby Dick, but with some work, it can avoid being an empty blockbuster as well.
Salutations, Mr. Locsmandi
Making a movie requires courage and hard work. As always, my script doctoring isn’t meant to disrespect anyone’s final project. It’s always easier to come up with suggestions after the film has been made. My script doctoring is merely an exercise to build a stronger storytelling ability. Beyond White Space is Ken Locsmandi’s lovechild so I acknowledge this must have been a labour of love for him. So kudos to you, Mr. Locsmandi. And although I respect the amount of work put into Beyond White Space, I still need to cut this baby up in order to learn from it.
Quick Summary
To summarize Beyond White Space: The story is about Richard Bentley (Holt McCallany), captain of the Essex, who wants to avenge his father’s death at the hands of a giant space creature – Tin Lung, a dragon – who protects the entrance to white space, a space that’s said to heal all illnesses. An inspector of sorts is allowed onboard, Lynn Navarro (Zulay Henao) who’s chosen to chaperone Bentley’s so-called fishing expedition, but she knows the real mission is to defeat Tin Lung. Ms Navarro is terminally ill and is hoping to get into white space without any care of Tin Lung’s destruction. The rest of the crew just want to earn some hard-earned cash and the captain is planning for.
Main Problem
Beyond White Space is an action film that’s fast-paced with high-end fight scenes. But, psychologically, the story isn’t driven by the characters enough. Also, the expedition doesn’t take enough time. We end up face-to-face with Tin Lung in a little too quickly. Beyond White Space should be more about desperate characters caught in a bad scenario than a fishing crew going for a quickie in outer space. Like Moby Dick, the film should be about an obsession going too far. In the meantime, we can enjoy the most awesome space creatures designed by Ken Locsmandi, the talented man whose worked on Donnie Darko, Ghosts of Mars and Fight Club.
My Overall Strategy
My overall strategy is simple: Make the film about a long voyage instead, by increasing the time it takes to find the creature. Also, make the voyage more arduous so it feels as if it’s a dangerous mission that could go badly at any moment. This should piss off the characters more and show us what they’re truly made of. In the end, the crew have to cooperate at the last minute just to survive and maybe walk away with some cold, hard cash.
Script Doctoring
Here’s my best guess to help Beyond White Space find its focus.
Omit all the introductory scenes. The opening battle scene, the restaurant scene and Lynn’s scenes need to be completely removed. This kind of build up is good for a blockbuster budget for a longer film, but with an indie production with less resources, its best to get rid of it. You can use flashbacks, old videos, and inter-space transmissions to deliver pertinent details. Instead, the story should start with Harpo (Jocko Sims) banging on the captain’s door violently, while the rest of the crew struggles with a food shortage while, the captain’s brother Owen, plans a takeover so that they can go home. Meanwhile, the captain is listless and alone in his quarters, daydreaming about his father and obsessing over Tin Lung’s death.
Make the voyage boring with badass conflict between characters. Nothing will go wrong on the way there. This alone will aggravate the audience that’s desperate for complications. The emptiness, the silence is deafening because it contrasts with the danger they’re headed towards. The crew’s inability to trust each other in this predicament becomes a serious complication, one that even damages the ship. Have characters that don’t like each other have sex with other. This reveals an emotionally chaotic environment wrought with a sense of fatalism. Crew conflicts could also include some high-end fight scenes that Ken Locsmandi did very well already in this film.
Give Lynn way more back story. Lynn is dying. She’s an official whose broken the rules to commandeer a ship that seeks confrontation with Tin Lung. But make her a mother too, and have her communicate with her daughter. This relationship should parallel nicely with Richard’s story about losing his dad. Maybe Lynn’s daughter will grow up to go on a similar mission. Lynn also needs to fall in love with Owen, despite the fact that Own doesn’t support the captain’s mission, but she does. Near the end, all three of them work as a family to get the job done against a crew that’s ready to mutiny.
Make Owen a nice guy who’s confused. Both Richard and Owen lost their dad, but Owen doesn’t need to avenge his death. But during the voyage, have the crew conflicts change his mind. He’s allied with the wrong people on the ship, they turn out to be real shitheads, so why not go back to family and his love interest. He may disagree with their goal, but family comes first for him. That’s a good dose of psychological depth for his character. Besides, they’re so far out into space, it’s a one way mission. What else he is going to do?
Have at least one Asian character on the voyage. I am not suggesting political correctness here. But since the mythical beast is Chinese, have at least one Chinese character on board that is sleek, sexy and strong – and knowledge of the myth. Male or female, it doesn’t matter. Sex appeal does. Have this person tattooed with the dragon on his or her back too. Make the tattoo glow when he meditates, as if his clan is inextricably linked to Tin Lung. Also, have this character resent the hunting of Tin Lung. This character could also introduce some interesting fight scenes.
Inspire the sleazy characters to a humane level near the end. Everyone on the ship is a bad ass of some kind. They don’t have good character or simply don’t get along with others. Have the voyage threaten their lives so that they can reaffirm the goodness in it, but then kill them off. Flat characters suck in movies, they feel more like plot devices. So, giving the sleazy characters some depth and an unhappy ending keeps the audience thinking about how life can really suck at times. I mean, what do you expect for hunting Tin Lung?
Have Lady Luck play a mischievous role. Make coincidences a big part of this film. I mean, it’s a mythical beast, so have it that the gods are calling upon this little shipwreck of a crew to aggrandize tthemselves to death. They deserve it. Tin Lung is heavenly and they should lose. Or not? Perhaps Tin Lung calls upon them to be the next victims through some cosmic pheromone. So, make it look as if they’re humans falling into a cosmic trap of some kind. Besides, a little mysticism can go a long way of giving the story a fairy tale look.
That’s my best guess.
I don’t script doctor films that I don’t like, and although Beyond White Space isn’t my favourite film, it does have story elements that piqued my interest. Hence, I’m tempted to give it a sort of screenwriting wish list of sorts. Again, kudos to Ken Locsmandi and his screenwriters, Ryan Colucci, Clay McLeod Chapman for creating an entertaining action film. I hope these suggestions do more to contemplate good storytelling rather than soulessly criticize a work of art.
Call Me
Consequently, if you want me to look over any story you’re working on, please email me at michael@storyarcsjournal.com.
Thank you and happy writing,
Michael