Blast from the Past #412: Re: comments on first draft of Episode 81 ("Sons of the Silent Age")

Subj: comments on first draft of Episode 81
Date: Friday, June 25, 2004 1:57:06 PM
From: Peter Laird
To:   Lloyd Goldfine

Lloyd,


Here are my comments on Ep. 81 first draft script.


1.) Re: the following:

"DONATELLO
Gee, April, you make it sound almost... spooky."

This sounds to me more like a Mikey line than a Don line. 


2.) Re: the following:

"CASEY
It’s just a barn owl.  We got lots of them in the city, too."

This sounded a little odd to me. Is Casey referring to NYC when he says "the city"? If so, are there really a lot of barn owls in NYC? Maybe we don't need that line, and he should just say "It's just a barn owl."


3.) Re: the following:

"BACK TO April as she sort of protectively draws herself together into herself, sort of hugging herself for safety.  
APRIL
I feel completely naked before it.
CUT to Casey being a wise-guy.
CASEY
Keep your clothes on, April.  From the looks of it, they’re shutting the place down."

I'm not sure we need (or want) the "completely naked" bit. It seems redundant (April's posture is showing her feeling of vulnerability) and Casey's "Keep your clothes on" is a bit too crude. I would shorten it as follows:


"BACK TO April as she sort of protectively draws herself together into herself, sort of hugging herself for safety.  
CASEY
From the looks of it, they’re shutting the place down."


4.) Re: the following:

"MICHELANGELO (PIRATE VOICE)
Aaargh.  Aye, Donnie, ye scurvy wench... just so long as they don’t bring ‘er down into... Davie Jones’locker!  Aaargh!"

Instead of "wench", how about "wretch"?


5.) Re: the following:

"CASEY (O.C.)
...oh yeah, well I got one for you.  How come Utroms are always lonely?
RAPHAEL (O.C.)
Beats me.
SWING the camera around 180• giving us a quick glimpse of a portion of the merwoman’s body as it slips beneath the moonlit water surface.
CASEY (O.C.)
Cuz they ain’t got no body.  Get it?  No body."

While this might have been an appropriate joke about that Utrom-wannabe "Krang" from the old TV show, it seems kind of weird in the current context, where the Utroms DO have bodies -- they're just not humanoid bodies. And while it is a minor point, I really don't want to give the rabid old show fans ANY encouragement to say "See! See! The Utroms ARE disembodied brains, just like Krang!"


6.) Re: the following:

"DONATELLO
Mikey!  Quick – hand me my backpack – the first aid kit and my Tech Tab are in it!"

"Tech Tab"? What is this? (Never mind... I figured it out by reading further.)


7.) Re: the following:

"APRIL
Casey, help me turn her over and move her closer to the fire...!
CASEY
Ain’t no way I’m gonna touch Miss Fishsticks...
Leonardo rushes in to help April and together they turn the merwoman face upwards, April moving close to the merwoman’s face/head."

I don't see any particular reason that Casey should be so squeamish about touching the merwoman. Maybe we should lose his line, and April should just say "Somebody help me turn her over and move her closer to the fire...!" Then Leo could step up and help her as he does here.


8.) Re: the following:

"April’s face is right over the merwoman’s, close.  (NOTE that the merpeople DO NOT have gills!)"

I'm curious -- why don't the Merpeople have gills?


9.) Re: the following:

"DONATELLO (O.C.)
She’s been exposed to a massive dose of radiation... but it’s fading... even though it is killing her."

I wonder if this might parse better if reworded thusly:


"DONATELLO (O.C.)
She’s been exposed to a massive dose of radiation... but even though it’s fading, it's killing her."


10.) Re: the following:

"APRIL
There’s only one option.  And don’t you give me any grief, Casey Jones.  You’re the only other one here who knows how to administer CPR..."

I suspect that April's aside to Casey here is supposed to tie in with his "Miss Fishsticks" line (which I suggested we lose), but even more odd here is April's assertion that Casey is the only one there other than her who can perform CPR. I think that that would be something any of the Turtles could be capable of, especially Don. Anyway, I think she doesn't even have to mention it -- she just tells Casey what to do. 


11.) Re: the following:

"DONATELLO (O.C.)
No gills, meaning she breathes air, not water.  And no clothes to transmit radioactivity... shouldn’t be contagious.  It’s okay to touch her... not that you’ve waited for my thumbs-up or anything..."

Is "contagious" the right term when referring to radioactivity? Something about it sounds odd to me. Perhaps if we can't determine the right word to use here, the following rewording would work:

"DONATELLO (O.C.)
No gills, meaning she breathes air, not water.  And no clothes to transmit radioactivity... should be okay to touch her... not that you’ve waited for my thumbs-up or anything..."


12.) Re: the following:

"RAPHAEL
Sure hope her heart’s in the same place as yours..."

This seems like an odd line for Raph -- it's probably more of a Don line. Also, it sounds a little odd -- who is the "yours" referring to? Casey? April? One of the other Turtles? I understand the value of the line -- that they are acting in this emergency by going on the assumption, hopefully a valid one, that resuscitation techniques which work on humans will also work on this humanoid fish person -- but maybe there is a better way to phrase it.


13.) Re: the following:

"CUT TO close-up on Casey’s hands administering one more press (manual circulation technique) to the merwoman’s chest.  (If one didn’t know that Casey was trying to help the merwoman, it would appear that he was trying to hurt her.)"

Not sure if this would work, but to emphasize the idea that the mermen are mistaking what Casey is doing for hurting the merwoman instead of trying to help her, I wonder if it would be cool to start this shot of Casey doing his CPR thing in a slightly distorted fashion, with the colors a little off, then we pull back and realize that it's the scene reflected in one of those big shiny mermen eyes, and as we pull back we see that big angry merman face.


14.) Re: the following:

"WIDER, UP ANGLE looking down and across at the four Turtles facing the four mermen.  None of the Turtles have withdrawn any of their weapons.  And only Leonardo is making a move: lunging and tackling one of the mermen."

Is there a reason why the Turtles have not gotten their weapons out? Is this because we don't want them to too easily defeat the mermen? If so, and because it doesn't make a whole lot of sense that if they had their weapons on them they wouldn't use them to defend themselves, I would suggest that perhaps we set up this campfire scene by showing that the Turtles have set aside their weapons while they are in "relaxing mode". That way, we can avoid the whole problem.


15.) Re: the following:

"MICHELANGELO (SPOKEN SORT OF LIKE HOMER SIMPSON)
Ummmmm.  Eggs.  Maybe we can find some wild bacon while we’re at it...
Raphael smacks Mikey on the top of his head with the hilt end of a sai.
MICHELANGELO
<BAP!>  Ow!"

In another context, Mike's joke would be very funny, but here it just seems gross.


16.) Re: the following:

"DONATELLO
Unfortunately, yeah.  It looks like they’ve neglected to clean up anything else beyond the plant itself.  Especially over this way..."

Don would say "yes" not "yeah".


17.) Re: the following:

"CUT to close on Leo, all business.
LEONARDO
And if they die, then no more merpeople.  We can’t let their species die off.  We save them no matter what!
WIDER to show our gang standing around in the woods near the swamp.  Don is checking out info on his Tech Tab.  Raphael pulls out his sais, looking like he means business.
RAPHAEL
Not if I can help it."

I understand the meaning here, but if you read Raph's line right after Leo's, it sounds very much like he wants to PREVENT them from saving the eggs! Also, should there be a "have to" in Leo's last line, i.e. "We have to save them no matter what!"


18.) Re: the following:

"DONATELLO (O.C.)
We might be able to re-rig them so that they fall outwards and create a new dike, one that will block the leaking dike."

To avoid using the word "dike" twice in the same line, how about:


"DONATELLO (O.C.)
We might be able to re-rig them so that they fall outwards and create a new barrier, one that will block the leaking dike."


or...


"DONATELLO (O.C.)
We might be able to re-rig them so that they fall outwards and create a new dike, one that will block the leak."


19.) Re: the following:

"BIG BEEFY GUARD
Boy, I sure hate them green enviro-mental activists.
CUT to a close-up on Mike smiling, winking and making a final comment.
MICHELANGELO (WHISPERING)
Green is the word. "

Would it be funny to give Raph a line to follow Mikey's here, something like this:


"RAPH (TO MIKEY) In your case, the word is "mental".


-- Pete