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Originally posted by MUTANTENEMYFAN97:
NOTE: For the tone, i was going for an action thriller along the lines of Captain America the Winter Soldier. . . .

What do you guys think?

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Originally posted by second:

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Originally posted by MUTANTENEMYFAN97:
NOTE: For the tone, i was going for an action thriller along the lines of Captain America the Winter Soldier. . . .

What do you guys think?

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You need more details.

Since you mentioned Captain America: The Winter Soldier, use it as an example of the amount of detail necessary for your Serenity 2.

Here is that example:

Plot: Steve Rogers heads an operation to retrieve a S.H.I.E.L.D. freighter that has been hijacked by pirates. Immediately after, a heavily armed team make an attempt to assassinate Nick Fury in the streets. He makes an escape and takes refuge at Rogers’ apartment. He urges Rogers to not trust anybody and gives him a flash drive just before he is shot through the window by an assassin. In the aftermath, Rogers finds himself hunted by S.H.I.E.L.D. on the orders of Fury’s superior Secretary Alexander Pierce. Joining forces with Natasha Romanoff, Rogers sets out to follow the information on the drive, which leads them to uncover a secret conspiracy of Hydra agents that have infiltrated the core of S.H.I.E.L.D.. Rogers also finds that the mysterious Hydra assassin known as The Winter Soldier may be his old companion Bucky Barnes. He and Natasha realise that stopping Hydra’s plan to launch Project Insight, a mass surveillance operation that will be able to eliminate targets anywhere in the world, may mean destroying S.H.I.E.L.D. altogether.
http://moria.co.nz/sciencefiction/captain-america-the-winter-soldier-2
014.htm

For more guidance, there are thousands of plot summaries at www.moria.co.nz/
Pick a few more movies you love from moria.co and read the plots to learn the style and amount of detail for describing your Serenity 2.

Tell us what your movie is about! Your 3 Acts does not do it!

Here is the plot for Blade Runner :
Los Angeles of 2017. Rick Deckard is a blade runner – a bounty hunter that specializes in terminating replicants, androids so able to mimic human behaviour that they are indistinguishable from humans except in the mimicry of emotions (something that can only be detected by a test that measures reflexive responses to questions of an emotional nature). Deckard is called in by the police to hunt down four replicants escaped from an offworld colony and come to Earth in search of their creator to find a means of extending their built-in four-year lifespan. However, Deckard’s quest to find the replicants becomes one that makes him question his own humanity.
http://moria.co.nz/sciencefiction/blade-runner-1982.htm

Does anybody recognize this movie from its plot?
Humanity has left Earth and spread out across the galaxy to terraform and inhabit many worlds. The universe is politically dominated by The Alliance but lawlessness reigns on the many outworlds. Dr Simon Tam has rescued his sister River, who has vast unknown telepathic powers, from a top-secret government laboratory and they have sought refuge aboard the spaceship Serenity under Captain Malcolm Reynolds, who operates as a smuggler and trader. During one business negotiation, River goes crazy and kills most of the people in a bar before Simon stops her. Fleeing, the Serenity crew discover that they are hunted by a top-level assassin who has orders to bring River back at all costs. Malcolm decides to risk things for River. Under her direction, they travel through the territory of the cannibalistic Reavers to the mysterious world of Miranda that exists on no maps. There they find the horrific secret of the origin of the Reavers.
http://moria.co.nz/sciencefiction/serenity-2005.htm

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Originally posted by GWEK:
I'm going to disagree and say start with LESS information first. Give us the pitch. What's the ONE SENTENCE description of the plot? THEN develop that out into a 3-act structure.

For a solid movie pitch, you usually need a compelling protagonist (I'm assuming it's Mal, although based on your initial description, Simon seems like he may take over the narrative in Act Two), something they want/need badly, the obstacles that they face, and perhaps the outcome or how they deal with it. (For the record, those also hint at your act structure.)

For example (and I don't love this):

In the aftermath of the Serenity broad-wave, Captain Malcolm Reynolds just wants to be left alone to continue his life of anonymity, but when the fledgling New Resistance demands he assume the mantle of leadership, he finds himself forced into a battle that mirrors the worse time in his live -- a second Battle of Serenity Valley.

Who is the protagonist and what does he want = Act One.

What are the increasing obstacles to that need = Act Two.

How does the protagonist respond = Act Three.

What is missing from my pitch is a compelling villain -- unless the antagonist of the piece really is someone from the New Resistance who is trying to force Mal to accept a role he wants nothing to do with (but secretly NEEDS for some reason).

With respect to the original three-act structure, there's nothing wrong with it, but there's also not a lot of unique hook. Post-Miranda, EVERYONE assumes there's going to be some sort of civil war or revolt (funny fact: LEAVES ON THE WIND, the only major post-SERENITY tale we have right now, seems to go out of it's way to squash that.) So how can that typical idea be made more interesting?

Similarly, if Mal is betrayed by someone, Jayne seems to be the obvious choice, so why not make it someone more interesting? Perhaps Zoe, having lost faith after Wash's death but desperate to protect her baby, crosses the line. Or maybe Blue Sun promises to restore River, putting Simon at risk? Or perhaps even Inara can't resist the lure of Blue Sun when they promise then can help her with her secret. Or maybe Kaylee is captured and turned into a sleeper agent...

To me, these are all more interesting that "Jayne gets greedy again" -- which we already saw in the series.

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Originally posted by GWEK:
I'm going to disagree and say start with LESS information first. Give us the pitch. What's the ONE SENTENCE description of the plot? THEN develop that out into a 3-act structure.

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Originally posted by MUTANTENEMYFAN97:
I should've thought of that

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Originally posted by second:

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Originally posted by MUTANTENEMYFAN97:
I should've thought of that

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I think you need more than one sentence: "To save Serenity and the crew, River Tam fakes her surrender to the Alliance Authorities." You need to know why does River fakes her surrender. Is she stealing something from the Alliance? Is she planting some incriminating evidence that will shame the Alliance into leaving Mal free? What will Mal do to rescue River? Make a few decisions and you have a one paragraph long plot, then it is onward to expanding the story to one page summary.

Does anybody recognize the following plot? Just imagine all the names left blank: Princess L----. Villain D---- V-----. The Evil E-----. Hero L--- S--------.

In a galaxy far, far away. The forces of the Empire, headed by Darth Vader, capture Princess Leia Organa of the intergalactic Rebellion. She leaves all-important information about the flaws in the Empire’s top-secret weapon The Death Star in the company of two droids C3PO and R2D2. The droids flee in an escape pod down to the surface of the remote desert planet Tattooine. They are captured by native Jawas and sold into the company of naïve young farmboy Luke Skywalker who dreams of joining the Rebellion. Luke accidentally uncovers a hologram left inside R2D2 by Princess Leia for former Jedi Knight Obi-wan Ben Kenobi. Meeting Ben Kenobi, Luke realises that his aunt and uncle have been keeping the truth about his father, who was a Jedi Knight, from him. When Vader’s forces kill his aunt and uncle, Luke joins Ben Kenobi as he sets out to answer the princess’s call. Ben starts to teach Luke to understand his mystical powers as a Jedi. Hiring the services of the space pilot Han Solo, they set off to save the princess and stop the Death Star before it destroys the Rebel stronghold.
http://moria.co.nz/sciencefiction/star-wars-episode-4-a-new-hope-1977.
htm

It should be said that the writer of this movie did not use the first and second versions of his movie script and began again, taking only bits and pieces from previous versions for the final draft. Doing that made the Universe a better place.
www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/crazy-history-star-wars

In 1975, George Lucas commissioned Ralph McQuarrie to illustrate scenes from the script for Star Wars. McQuarrie provided most of the magic that made the script come alive in the imagination. The finished movie looks like the illustrations.
www.buzzfeed.com/danieldalton/stunning-star-wars-concept-art-ralph-mcq
uarrie#.ow1eyBxRW


“George had described Darth Vader as having flowing black robes. In the script, Vader had to jump from one ship to another. To survive the vacuum of space, I felt he needed some sort of breathing mask. George said, ‘OK,’ suggested adding a samurai helmet, and Darth Vader was born.

Simple as that.” – Ralph McQuarrie

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at
www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Originally posted by MUTANTENEMYFAN97:

An updated plot

When River gives herself up to the Alliance after a failed heist, the Mal and Co are transferred to a prison colony where the worst of criminals are placed. There they meet a Browncoat radical/sympathizer who is trying to persuade Mal into joining his revolution. Meanwhile, Simon is on his own working as a double agent and suddenly uncovers a twisted conspiracy that ties to the heart of the Alliance.

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