This scene reminded me of several things, including a certain "Cowboy Bebop" episode. When working with a familiar concept, you need to put a distinctive spin on it. I like the idea of the ageless kid jumping from town to town and family to family, but I want to know more about Aldo's motivation for doing so. Is he really that scared to be alone? If he knows he must always leave the people he attaches himself to, how much does the guilt of lying to them weigh on him? What was it like for him to realize that? In a way, I'd like to know more of Aldo's story; more details about his parents and their accident, the first new family that took him in and any suspicions they began to have about him, his eventual realization that he can never stay anywhere too long and that only faking death will allow him to escape. I know that this scene is supposed to show Aldo being very cynical and world-weary, but his cynicism feels a bit cliched. I think it would work better to show his transformation into a cynic rather than just have him tell about it. I like the idea of one of Aldo's "childhood" friends finding him after decades have passed, but Malcolm's expository dialogue starts to sound redundant after a while. Example: "Saw your foster ‘parents’ cry as they thought they lost the son they had promised to protect." I'd say cut "they had promised to protect." Similar thing with "The feeling that I got my best friend killed and had to keep it a secret as they tried desperately to find you"; cut "they tried desperately" since the focus at that moment should be on Malcolm's feelings. Malcolm and Aldo both start to sound overly poetic as the scene goes on, and I think the piece would better served if the dialogue was more simple and naturalistic. Lines like "it was the same boyish face, same charm, same manipulative intentions" seem out of character, especially when they're followed by colloquial lines like "if you ain't a demon." Aldo can have a bit broader vocabulary due to his extra life experience, but each character needs to speak in his own voice. There is good atmosphere in this piece, so if you trim the dialogue to the bare essentials, you should have something.
The dialogue does need some trimming, yes, but the interactions between the two characters are really interesting and they show what both characters are going through. If you'd expand anything, I'd say it should be exploring how Mal feels that Aldo 'wronged' him... I never really go a clear sense of that.
This scene reminded me of several things, including a certain "Cowboy Bebop" episode. When working with a familiar concept, you need to put a distinctive spin on it. I like the idea of the ageless kid jumping from town to town and family to family, but I want to know more about Aldo's motivation for doing so. Is he really that scared to be alone? If he knows he must always leave the people he attaches himself to, how much does the guilt of lying to them weigh on him? What was it like for him to realize that? In a way, I'd like to know more of Aldo's story; more details about his parents and their accident, the first new family that took him in and any suspicions they began to have about him, his eventual realization that he can never stay anywhere too long and that only faking death will allow him to escape. I know that this scene is supposed to show Aldo being very cynical and world-weary, but his cynicism feels a bit cliched. I think it would work better to show his transformation into a cynic rather than just have him tell about it.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of one of Aldo's "childhood" friends finding him after decades have passed, but Malcolm's expository dialogue starts to sound redundant after a while. Example: "Saw your foster ‘parents’ cry as they thought they lost the son they had promised to protect." I'd say cut "they had promised to protect." Similar thing with "The feeling that I got my best friend killed and had to keep it a secret as they tried desperately to find you"; cut "they tried desperately" since the focus at that moment should be on Malcolm's feelings.
Malcolm and Aldo both start to sound overly poetic as the scene goes on, and I think the piece would better served if the dialogue was more simple and naturalistic. Lines like "it was the same boyish face, same charm, same manipulative intentions" seem out of character, especially when they're followed by colloquial lines like "if you ain't a demon." Aldo can have a bit broader vocabulary due to his extra life experience, but each character needs to speak in his own voice.
There is good atmosphere in this piece, so if you trim the dialogue to the bare essentials, you should have something.
The dialogue does need some trimming, yes, but the interactions between the two characters are really interesting and they show what both characters are going through. If you'd expand anything, I'd say it should be exploring how Mal feels that Aldo 'wronged' him... I never really go a clear sense of that.
ReplyDelete