Star Fox: Part I....of Part I

[Sciflyboy]

I'm pretty sure everyone here has dreamed up their very own Star Fox story, I have plenty, but it's such a relief to sit down and write it out. Viewing the fanfiction post in a matter of minutes will show you how many stories are out there, each one unique and teeming with new individual desires for the Star Fox canon. So I worked up the courage to post mine here. I wrote it a few years back and am just glad to share it with anyone. Here's part one of Star Fox: Part One

Star Fox

Part I

Story by

William John Ouellette

First Draft

September 16, 2008

ACT ONE

EXT.(eternal shot) SPACE – RED MARS LIKE PLANET APPEARS

Planet gets closer and atmosphere becomes clearer. Mountains flow past and the terrain becomes noticeable. The ground is red and foliage is dried out and sparse. A wisp of smoke goes by, followed by a burn mark in the dirt. More smoke and burn marks appear when a smoking burnt vehicle passes. Walls of a large structure emerge with movement in the background as an army base is revealed, minutes after being defeated and occupied by an enemy force.

EXT. ARMY BASE – PERIMETER WALL – FACING OUT - AFTERNOON

Occupying SOLDIER ONE and SOLDIER TWO stand watch, wearing full body suits with guns at the ready.

SOLDIER ONE

Come on!

SOLDIER TWO

Now what?

SOLDIER ONE

This gun is jammin’ again.

SOLDIER TWO

I told you not to take any of their guns,

they don’t lube them up enough and the

cocking jams.

Soldier One shakes gun and eyes the sight. Some loose dirt falls from the top of the wall.

SOLDIER ONE

(fussing with gun)

I couldn’t have figured it take us about

half an hour to take this place. I guess

I owe you twenty bucks...

Soldier One looks up to see that Soldier Two has disappeared. He walks a few steps forward, looks around and calls for Soldier Two.

SOLDIER ONE(CONT’D)

Hey! Where the…

Startled by a shuffling noise O.C.(off camera) he becomes shaky. He moves in one direction. He hears another noise O.C. and he quickly turns the other way.

INT.(internal shot) SOLDIER ONE’S HELMET – LOOKING OUT/POV (point of view)

The ground and the base of the wall are visible, but the main presence is in his deep breathing which is picking up. He looks around a corner and sees Soldier Two’s standard issue laser rifle on the ground. There is a flash of red and then total black.

EXT. ARMY BASE WALL – FACING OUT

Two guns now lay in the dirt. Jumping from the top of the wall lands FOX MCCLOUD, an anthropomorphic fox, wearing a red and gray body suit, light backpack, wrist communicator, and a holster, his blaster is in hand. His protective face mask faces camera and quickly mechanically opens up to reveal Fox’s face. He speaks into his wrist communicator.

FOX

Command, this is Red Fox One, entering

compound to execute plan Delta Rescue.

Fox collects the guns, climbs to the top of the wall and tosses the guns into a small corner. When he moves away he leaves a small dial with a blinking blue light stuck to the wall.

Fox lands on the inside of the wall and stealthily maneuvers alongside it. Everywhere he disappears, he reemerges leaving behind a blinking dial.

As he traverses the length of the compound he comes to a support column against the wall and pulls out his zoom goggles from his pack.

ANGLE – IN HIS SIGHTS

Battle tanks are moving on the other end of the complex; they are all being stored in a hangar. There is one

patrolling in front. He looks right and three soldiers are along the base of the wall guarding an exit. He looks up and sees a ledge over the door way.

Fox dashes and leaves a dial.

EXT. WALL EXIT

The three soldiers are clumped together, discussing something, but on top of them Fox is arms spread, back against the wall, over the opening of the door. Small debris from the fight is scattered across the ledge blocking his path.He inches himself to the debris, then lifts his leg over, careful not to disturb it. His leg hits it and the debris falls onto one of the soldiers. The soldier lifts his head. Fox jumps into the group.

He lands onto the group and crouches. As the soldiers struggle to figure what happened, Fox taps on his communicator and explosions rock the other wall of the complex.

The master alarm sounds instantly. One of the soldiers notices Fox running toward the patrolling battle tank.

ANGLE – THE WALL TO THE TANK

Fox is running quickly, the soldier running behind, shouting, trying to brandish his gun. Chaos surrounds Fox and the area around as others shout for orders and try to give commands.

ANGLE – ON THE TANK

Fox catches the back of the tank, crawls up the turret to the hatch and opens it. The confused driver is easily pulled out and thrown from the tank. Fox jumps in and with his upper body sticking out, controls the tank and points it to the opening of the tank hangar. Shots hit around the turret from the running soldier and Fox crouches in and closes the hatch.The soldier catches up to the tank, jumps on, reaches for the hatch and opens it.

Fox dashes out,kicks the hatch close, jumps and immediately runs away from the hangar. The soldier moves to open the hatch.

ANGLE – ON THE HATCH

As the solider opens the hatch we see a string of a dozen dials lining the opening, all with blinking blue lights. The soldier jumps from the tank and runs.

EXT. FRONT OF HANGAR

The tank crawls near the entrance. As other tanks begin to make their way out of the hangar, the rouge tank reaches the entrance and explodes, sending a powerful shockwave out.

EXT. CENTRAL BASE COMPLEX – OUTSIDE WALL

Fox reaches a hallway leading into the building. He stops and conceals himself along the wall as organized soldiers come running out.

EXT. CENTRAL BASE COMPLEX - HALLWAY ENTRANCE

Fox corners in, but is followed by a soldier he didn’t see.

INT. CENTRAL BASE COMPLEX - DARK HALLWAY

The soldier, rifle ready, quickly walks alongside the wall and peeps around the corner. Two legs dangle from the ceiling behind him before Fox dives onto him. After two punches the soldier is out.

INT. CENTRAL BASE COMPLEX - INTERIOR HALLWAYS

Fox runs up to and places his ear against a series of doors on opposite sides of the hallway. One right after another he stops, listens and moves on.

ANGLE – THE FOURTH DOOR

On the fourth door, he listens, nods and removes from his pack a metallic rod and magnetically sticks it above the lock. It flashes yellow light from its ends and melts a hole through the lock.

INT. CENTRAL BASE COMPLEX – HOSTAGE ROOM

As Fox enters, friendly soldiers are tied up and sitting in rows. Heads turn and excitedly greet Fox.

SOLDIERS

(separately)

Fox? Huh! Wha?

A rather stereotypical general, with an olive green outfit, big hat and rows of medals on his chest, stands and cheers for the heroic efforts of Fox.

GENERAL

Fox, our hero! Great work son!

Fox pulls out his blaster, aims and fires at a chain and all the shackles come loose. At once all the soldiers stand and clap for Fox, cheering his name.

Within the soldiers comes KRYSTAL, a blue vixen; young, tall and sultry as she walks up to Fox.

ANGLE – KRYSTAL AND FOX

KRYSTAL

(sultry)

You’re my hero Fox, but we still need your help.

FOX

(confused)

Yeah, but I just rescued you.

KRYSTAL

You don’t understand.

Krystal places her fingers on Fox’s chest. Her physical actions are of immense attraction to Fox, but her words seem strained as if she’s trying to say something her body isn’t.

KRYSTAL (CONT’D)

You need to help us…

As she finishes she pulls closer to Fox, closing the space between his lips and hers. The unison call of ‘Fox!’ from the soldiers rise as they are millimeters from kissing.

SOLDIERS

Fox! Fox! Fox! Fox!

CUT TO:

INT. OFFICE BUILDING – 12TH FLOOR – CUBICAL 64 – FOX’S DESK – LATE MORNING – PAPETOON, CORNERIAN MOON

DAVE (O.C.)

Fox!

The calls of ‘Fox!’ singles down to one voice, DAVE, Fox’s work associate, who awakens Fox from his daydream.

[Drasiana]

Yikes, perhaps in the future upload these as .pdfs for us to read? Script format is jarring when read in this format.

That being said, a couple notes for you on the format:

-The only times of day that should be stated in your sluglines are "Day" and "Night".

-Don't put in your sluglines what should be easily said in the action description, eg. "A red planet appears".

-Don't mention camera angles. This pisses off directors and it says much better of you as a writer if you can trick the reader into thinking those angles in the way you write. It's also a lot less jarring. Instead of saying "ANGLE - etc" every few seconds simply mentioning what's going on will be enough for the reader to determine that yes, there probably will be a shot of this happening.

-Capitalize the General and Driver's names when you meet them.

-Establish these are anthropomorphic creatures right off the bat with the soldiers

-Don't start a scene with dialogue (last scene). Have Dave's O.S. line either at the end of the previous scene, or just throw a sentence to indicate Fox is sleeping. Also, that slugline is rediculous. "Fox's office" will suffice.

-Capitalize sounds. You don't need to say "he hears a sound O.C." because we can't see sounds to begin with. Just say "he hears a THUD" or something.

Now on to grammar:

Planet gets closer and atmosphere becomes clearer. Mountains flow past and the terrain becomes noticeable. The ground is red and foliage is dried out and sparse. A wisp of smoke goes by, followed by a burn mark in the dirt. More smoke and burn marks appear when a smoking burnt vehicle passes. Walls of a large structure emerge with movement in the background as an army base is revealed, minutes after being defeated and occupied by an enemy force.

I don't really understand what's going on here. Is a ship shooting at the ground? Just say that. The "more smoke and burn marks appear" thing is quite vague. Same with your "walls of a large structure emerge with movement in the background". What? You have quite a few of these sentences, where it seems like you're trying to be more verbose than you need to. As well, the first few sentences of this paragraph have the same rhythm and get a little repetative. At this point, as much as you use camera angles I'm still not entirely sure where the camera is supposed to be in this scene. Are we at ground level? Close? Far away? Breaking up your action description is a good way of indicating new shots, and you need to do as much here if you want us to know what's happening.

I can't really comment on the story, considering it's only a dream sequence followed by a brief wake-up instance now, but you do seem to have some grasp on the screenwriting format and I am interested in seeing what happens next!

[Sciflyboy]

Star Fox part II.pdf

[Sciflyboy]

Here's the second part! Did a quick edit on the descriptive parts, thanks Drasiana, hopefully this is improved somewhat from the drastic beging, but I've never done this before, so I feel good. Enjoy!

Star Fox part II.pdf

[Drasiana]

Are you using CeltX? I'd suggest trying to get your hands on Final Draft if you're serious about this; it's the industry standard program. Pages should equate to roughly a page a minute but CeltX is somewhat off in its formatting.

Anyway, I've written directly on the .pdf so you can see my notes as you go. Just some broad strokes:

-Your action description is too long. Try not to go longer than 4 lines a paragraph, and try not to have many paragraphs.

-Again, stop mentioning the "angles". It's lazy, and directors will scoff at it.

-Only use O.S. for dialogue. Capitalize sounds. Again, we can't see sounds, so you don't need to put them "off-screen"

-Only use V.O. for lines that do not come from within the scene and that the characters cannot hear, ie. narration

-Only use day/night for times of day; none of this "afternoon/evening/late night" stuff.

-A lot of your dialogue is on the nose. Please refer to this topic

-Loglines and action description are not interchangeable. Again, loglines should be comprised of THIS:

EXT. LOCATION - DAY

_{You can, in some cases, add "- Continuous" or "- Flashback" to the end}

Do NOT add weather conditions, do NOT add traffic conditions, do NOT mention characters and do NOT add camera angles. Not only does it look absolutely rediculous, but all that information should be in the action description. Because that's what action description is for; describing things. The loglines are there to split up scenes and for very general production reasons.

Again not many story notes until I've seen more of the story...we only now just reached your inciting incident (not a bad thing considering your pagecount, don't worry, but feel free to submit these in larger chunks if you want). Anyway, I hope you can read my chicken scratch writing and do forgive if I'm a little blunt, but I can't really sugarcoat technical issues given the nature of the things. So far the story is moving at a decent pace and I am actually somewhat interested in the plot. It'll be easier to give my full thoughts once I read more so keep at 'er.

SF_Edits.PDF

[Sciflyboy]

Alright, part III here. Should make for a smoother reading. Thanks again Drasiana, read your whole document. Don't worry, I deal very well with constructive criticism and I'm glad you're taking time for my little project. Alright enough yacking, let's do it!

Star Fox part III.pdf

[Drasiana]

This is sure getting there! I'm actually not including a .pdf this time because my edits can be pretty much summed up here.

Biggest problem this time around is your montages, which didn't make a lot of sense. A montage is to show a passage of time, through different places, often to music and without dialogue. Always make it clear where the montage begins and ends (BEGIN/END MONTAGE:), and you cannot put montages within montages.

That said, not a lot to say, really. A lot of your dialogue can be trimmed down to avoid repetition or melodrama but you actually have some pretty good lines in here. My biggest notes on your dialogue are: avoid using overly childish insults/retorts (Peppy saying "it's not stupid!"), and try not to repeat things that have already been said (both lines at the top of page 9 can go). Less is more. The line where Fox says "I can't get a promotion at work because I don't have leadership skills" only needs the first part of that sentence ("I can't even get a promotion at work!"), we'll assume the rest. The line that Peppy says right after that was great though!

Indent your parentheses. I'm not sure if CeltX does it automatically, but make sure you're using whatever the "parenthetical" setting is.

I kept imagining Slippy as an old creepy dude, which I'd avoid for the sake of preservation, but I'm not sure if you were even trying to do that and that's just the way it read to me.

Add a scene between Peppy's first contacting Fox, and Fox accepting his offer. You mention later that Fox "gave up everything" for this; show us that scene! I want to see more of Fox's conflict here, and for it to be a harder, "will he or won't he?" decision.

So far I actually like this story. The AU thing is rarely done well, but I kinda like the way you've set it up. It works, and you use Fox well as an introduction into this fantastical world, instead of just assuming we'll understand all the backstory. It's different than what we're used to but, for a film adaptation, you don't seem to be missing the original intention.

[Sciflyboy]

Part IV - 'Narrow Escape', I'm naming them now. Appologize for being late, Red Sox had almost a six hour game today. Drasiana, for some reason I imagined Slippy somewhat older, 40's ish? It was hard for me to accept him as anything but a childish comic relief in the game, it's hard to take him seriously. But anywho, thanks. Here's more!

star fox Part IV.pdf

[Drasiana]

The thing about Slippy is that he is comic relief...it's an important character role, and his role in the team was important too! You could easily have the character in your script right now be Beltino, and have Slippy be his plucky son. It varies the character roster a little more...having him more like his game personality doesn't mean you have to make him "annoying", though

I'll read the new part as soon as I can. My next few days are booked solid with work and producers being goofy (not all of it's a stereotype, gah!) but I will, I will...

[Sciflyboy]

Part V 'The New Recruit'. What will they find in the Asteroid Belt? How will they get to Katina? What will be revealed about Peppy's mysterious past? Read now!

Star Fox Part V.pdf

[Sciflyboy]

I think in my version Slippy is the mechanic and Falco brings the relief. Maybe it's more 'adult', it's just how I saw it. Have you written anything?

[Sciflyboy]

What's going on with the site? It hasn't looked right lately. Ahywho, here's PART VI 'The Sargasso Job'. How will the team escape the Asteroid Belt? How good is this new pilot they picked up? When do we get to see shit blow up? Right now! Enjoy.

Star Fox Part VI.pdf

[Sciflyboy]

Alright, the site's looking a little better. Here's Part VII 'Flying Blind'. Where does the team go next? Does their escapade at Sargasso pay off? When do we get to see more characters? After you stop reading this and read the attached file, that's when. Yes!

Star Fox Part VII.pdf

[Sciflyboy]

Here's this week's episode! I didn't post one last week, we were having repairs done to the house. But without further stalling I give you STAR FOX PART VIII "Just Getting There", it's shorter and quieter. Who are these new strangers? Can Fox trust the safety of his team to someone who's hiding their past? When are they going to get to Katina? Find out............NOW!

Star Fox Part VIII.pdf

[Sciflyboy]

It's been two weeks since my last post, so I know eveyone is super excited about about this next episode. Where will the enemy strike next? What will the team find at Katina? Is team Star Fox ready to prove it's worth? Here is Star Fox Part IX 'Arrival'.

STAR FOX Part IX.pdf

[Sciflyboy]

Here it is, the final installment of this summer long epic, Star Fox Part One. What did Falco find in his Arwing? How will the team take on this looming enemy? Will Fox emerge as the leader of Star Fox? Find out in the final episode, Star Fox Part X 'Definiing Point'. It's been great, I've enjoyed writing for you. Please let me know what you thought, nicely though, I'm not a writer.

Star Fox Part X.pdf

[Hidi]

I saw you briefly enter the chatroom, and I thought I'd check out any of your threads, thus leading me to this. Interesting story. Despite what Dras said there, you can accommodate for the lack of formatting here. The authors here attempt to do so when using a fiction-style story. Come by more often!