Logline: Aliens have taken over Earth. This is year 12 of the occupation.
OPENING – we meet TYLER KIRKLAND, 35. Wakes up next to KRISTEN. They don’t know each other’s names. Just a casual one-night stand.
Tyler and Kristen look out the window of his apartment and we see New York City has been utterly destroyed a long time ago.
And that’s exactly how you grab your audience. WHAM! It’s startling. It’s sudden. It’s totally unexpected. Here, we’re thinking we might be in the beginning of a romantic comedy and BAM! The horror of the situation hits and we’re only on Page 3.
The beauty of the scene is, we still don’t know what’s going on. We just know we’re in the aftermath of an attack on NYC.
This is how a script should read. The story is ahead of the reader, making the pages compelling. Do you know how many scripts I’ve read where I’m way ahead of the story, making the pages a chore? Too many!
Okay, we’re onto the day. Tyler meets his friend DEXTER – we learn that everyone now works for meal cards and day passes.
They walk to work. Everyone wears the same outfit. There at a stoplight, a woman accidentally steps off the curb against a red light. The stop light fires an autocannon and the woman is immediately killed. Her body falls into the street. The other commuters ignore her and walk across the street when the light turns green.
And again, it’s shocking. What the heck is going on here? What has happened to our world? And we’re only on Page 5!
We then witness a worker stopped by AN INSPECTOR. These Inspectors wear hoods and stand watch over the commuters.
The worker is belligerent. He’s mad as hell and he’s not going to take it anymore. He pulls out a gun and shoots the Inspector.
The Inspector’s hood falls off and we see he’s inhuman. Immediately, drones fly out of a mothership that floats above them. The Inspector tears into the worker’s body and then dumps him in the river which is overflowing with dead bodies.
We realize here aliens have taken over the world. The surviving humans have submitted to their rule. We’re now just slave labor.
Tyler and Dexter ride the ferry. A dome forms over the ferry and it actually submerges. Underwater, we see the fallen Statue of Liberty laying on the ground floor.
Tyler and Dexter go to work, digging up the ocean floor, searching for uranium. They are monitored at all times by the aliens.
Talk about a hook! That’s Page 10. That’s my rule, people. If the script doesn’t hook me by the first ten pages, it’s going straight into the trash. I’d say 80% of the stuff that comes in fails at this. “YEAR 12″ succeeds……so far.
Okay, we see Tyler starts off each morning, watching various DVDs of his son Kevin. Kevin’s first day at school, Kevin at the school play, etc, etc.
Tyler goes to work the next day. We meet his neighbor MR. LUTZ. Mr. Lutz has a suitcase with him. He explains he has to report – he’s turned 65 today. We realize he’s going to be killed. Aliens have no use for anybody old. (THIS WAS AN INTERESTING SUBPLOT THAT UNFORTUNATELY IS NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN IN THE SCRIPT, MAKING ME WONDER WHAT’S THE POINT )
Tyler wakes up in his apartment and finds ANDREAS MIKRA and MALIK EVANS there. They’re terrorists. Malik killed 14 aliens two years ago.
They quickly tranquilize Tyler and take him outside in a bodybag. They take him underground where Kristen is waiting. She injects him with a fluid that brings him back to consciousness.
Tyler finds himself in an abandoned subway system. This is where the resistence’s headquarters are located. We meet MAYOR GADDEN, 50′s and ERWIN KANDEL, 60.
They are going to strike at the mothership – they need uranium. With it, they can blow the ships out of the sky. All they need is 11 ounces of uranium. They want Tyler to swallow it and they will extract it later.
We learn that Tyler was a soldier – he found in the war against these aliens – they need him to be a soldier again.
The next day at work, Tyler downs the necessary liquid uranium. However Dexter sees him and rats him out to the aliens. WHAT A DICK!
Tyler is dragged away. Happily, the aliens then kill Dexter and dump him into the water. It just never pays to snitch on your friends.
Tyler is taken to the United Nations building which is now just a holding pen for prisoners. (THIS IS A NICE TOUCH.) However, all is not lost. The terrorists strike the building with a rocket launcher. Malik and Kristen get Tyler to safely.
Safely underground, they start the process to extract the uranium…only they are attacked by the aliens. Explosions rock the tunnel, destroying the extraction machine. Mayor Gadden is killed.
Our resistence group flees with the aliens in hot pursuit.
The group makes it to Penn station which is deserted. Alien dogs attack them. The group shoots at the dogs and escape via a diesel locomotive.
They’re headed to the Westmoreland Airforce Base. The base contains nuclear weapons. With the uranium, they will be able to launch the nuclear weapons.
However, Tyler learns the group hasn’t had contact with Westmoreland Airforce Base in seven years. No one knows if there’s anyone even there. (HERE’S WHERE THE SCRIPT STOPS BEING OUT IN FRONT OF US. NO MORE SURPRISES ARE IN STORE FOR US, NO MORE STARTLING PLOT TWISTS THAT SHOCK US. EVEN THOUGH IT WON’T HAPPEN FOR ANOTHER 40 PAGES, WE KNOW THE AIRFORCE BASE WILL BE ACTIVE AND TYLER WILL SAVE THE DAY. THE SCRIPT NOW IS BECOMING INCREASINGLY A CONNECT-THE-DOTS-TYPE OF PLOT )
The aliens send alien lions after them. These things knock the train off the tracks, tipping it over.
Everyone is killed except Kristen and Tyler. They have to walk on foot now to their destination.
They’re attacked by refugees desperately in need of food and medical supplies. Tyler is forced to kill several refugees. This is a nice touch here. Here, in the face of complete alien occupation, we’re still willing to kill each other like savages.
Tyler leads them to his sister’s house. She’s died there long ago. Tyler buries her. The effects of the uranium are starting to take its toll. Tyler doesn’t have much longer to live.
Tyler and Kristen bunk up in this house. They make love. When Kristen awakes, Tyler is gone. Somebody else is here. Kristen is quickly snatched.
BEATRICE and WARREN HEWITT, 40′s – two daughters – they’re cannibals. They plan on eating the both of them……until Malik comes to the rescue. Turns out he didn’t die.
Tyler, Kristen and Malik are on the run again. This time alien lions attack. Tyler is badly injured. Fades in and out of consciousness as Malik and Kristen struggle to get him to safety.
Tyler has a fever dream. His son Kevin is there with his wife Samantha. Samantha tells him that everything’s okay and that he should go with Kristen. He wants to stay there with them. But the landscape changes and his son and wife are gone.
Tyler wakes up. Malik and Kristen are there. They’re only half-a-mile from the base. However, they’re out of ammo and it’s only a matter of time until the aliens track them down.
They make it to the base only to find everything’s been destroyed. There’s nobody there. Making matters worse, the alien warships rise up behind them, ready to deliver the deathblow.
That’s when missiles shoot out of the sky, obliterating the warships.
The ground opens up and we realize the base has gone underground. Soldiers quickly load them into a humvee and drive underground. They hurriedly get Tyler to an operating table.
The aliens begin to drill the ground, trying to find a way in.
They begin the extraction process. The aliens attack. The whole is base is on the verge of being destroyed.
The extraction is completed in time. The missiles are launched, bringing the mothership down.
It’s a joyous celebration. The humans now have the upper hand. Everybody cheers. Everyone except Tyler. He didn’t survive the extraction process. He dies.
We see the aliens are captured now.
Repairs are underway.
The Statue of Liberty is brought up from the ocean.
And the final scene shows Kristen at home, pregnant with Tyler’s child.
Okay, I don’t know about you guys but I’m finding this year’s Black List extremely lacking. What did you guys think about “YEAR 12?” Is this something you’d make? I mean if we’re going to make an alien invasion film, I’d definitely go with the far superior “THE DAYS BEFORE” before I’d film this.
Don’t get me wrong. “YEAR 12″ starts off like a house on fire. It’s worth an honorable mention just for its First Act. However, everything after that is run-of-the-mill. We’re definitely going to need more plot twists to keep us guessing and on the edge of our seats. The way Act II and III play out, the film becomes a bad television chase movie. Sure, the special effects might blow us away ala “AVATAR” but isn’t it time for the actual story to be the headliner instead of the supporting act?