Script Review: Daybreakers by Michael & Peter Spierig
[In lieu of actual content, for the next several weeks I will present, at least, one review of an upcoming film each week. These are scripts that I’ve been paid money to read, and many of them contain watermarking, identification numbers, password-protection, and other ways of tracking what company it was sent to; because of this and my desire to keep my job, I will not offer downloads for ANY of the scripts I review here. Don’t bother asking.]
Here we are in the world of Daybreakers, in which vampires have become the majority (after some sort of viral pandemic) and the few humans left (5% of the total world population) are hunted for their delicious blood. After establishing this offbeat world and its central conflict — that vampire numbers increase while the “food” supply dwindles — the writers focus on hapless vampire hematologist Ed Dalton. He works for a pharmaceutical magnate, Bromley, who farms humans to provide blood for vampires. Ed, who’s conflicted about using humans, has the moral-balancing task of coming up with a feasible substitute that can sustain vampires without requiring them to kill humans.
One night, Ed comes upon an erratically driving car, which narrowly avoids hitting his sunlight-proofed Escalade. The car’s on the run from the police, because it’s filled with humans (including AUDREY, the de facto love interest). Ed surprises the humans by allowing them to hide in his Escalade while he lies to the police about where they ran off to. Once the police get a safe distance away, the humans leave — but not before Audrey notices Ed’s work ID badge, which identifies him as a hematologist. Ed continues home, where younger brother FRANKIE has returned from military service (in this world, the military simply hunts for human camps). It’s Ed’s birthday — which Ed deems meaningless, considering his immortality — so Frankie surprises him with a premium bottle of 100% human blood. Ed and Frankie argue about the righteousness of killing humans to feed on their blood.
Before the argument can get too heated (though it does get heated enough for Frankie to smash the bottle against the wall), they’re attacked by a “subsider” — a freakish sort of vampire who feeds on other vampires (and/or themselves). This is the sort of world they live in. Frankie and Ed dispatch the subsider. After the police sweep the scene, they discover the subsider was actually a neighbor who disappeared. Ed is incredibly disturbs and feels increased pressure to come up with a substitute. Later that night, Audrey sneaks into Ed’s house, announces that the vampire world is falling apart (citing, among other things, the opening scene — a child vampire committing suicide after deeming an ageless body pointless). Ed tells Audrey he can’t help her, but she gives him a note with a meeting place and time. After Audrey leaves, Frankie hears the commotion and wonders who it was. Ed says it was nobody, but Frankie is quietly suspicious.
The next day, Ed asks Bromley about whether or not a substitute will guarantee the humans’ freedom. He receives an unsatisfactory answer, so Ed decides to meet Audrey — at a wooded creek in midday. He’s introduced to ELVIS, a vampire who reverted back to human form. How? While driving during the day, he got into a car accident that caused him to plunge through the sun-protecting windshield and into the daylight. The combination of the sun hitting him just right and landing in some sewer run-off (which immediately squelched the flames) helped him to survive. Somehow, the sun restarted his heart. Ed is amazed. Audrey, Elvis, and the other humans beg him to help them recreate this “cure” in a lab.
Before Ed can respond one way or the other, the arrival of Frankie and a military unit answers for him. Now on the hunt as an enemy of the state, Ed is forced to flee with the humans. They take him to their hideout, an abandoned winery, where he meets more humans, some of whom are on their way out to pick up humans from a large group they recently came into contact with. In the script’s single least believable moment, a vampire senator shows up at the winery to encourage the humans’ exploits, because he believes a cure for vampirism is better for humanity than any other solution. A senator who cares about humanity? Such imagination!
While Ed performs tests to figure out what caused Elvis’s transformation, Frankie accepts reassignment to a unit headed by Bromley’s personal friend, a general. As a pseudo-loyalty oath, Frankie is sent on an assignment to pursue the convoy of humans moving through the desert (chosen because vampires fear the desert’s lack of cover and delicious human food), which carries Bromley’s daughter, ALISON. As Alison calls the winery to announce they’re under attack, Ed hones in on the cure. He refuses to leave, even though the vampire squadron has the drop on them. He forces Audrey to experiment on him. It basically works like a defibrillator, except the electric shock is a sun-reflecting mirror aimed at his heart. The third jolt gets Ed’s heart beating again — he is human. But Frankie’s nabbed all the humans and returned them to Bromley. Will Ed manage to bring the cure to the masses, or will the blood-loving vampires continue their reign of terror?
Take a wild guess!
Daybreakers is one of those scripts that revels in its own cleverness, going overboard with explanations because the writers want to show us they’ve thought it all through and covered all the bases. They create a vampire-dominated world that sometimes feels real but becomes frequently confusing — because, shock of all shocks, the writers didn’t think of everything. I jotted down a variety of interesting questions this script raises unintentionally (and, as a consequence, has little interested in answering):
- Why doesn’t vampirism have much effect on these people’s lives aside from them (a) requiring a blood food source, (b) not being allowed to go out in daylight, and (c) becoming surprisingly pro-human-murder upon transformation? I know there are a number of schools of thought on vampire lore — ranging from “eh, I’m not much different” to “I am literally a soulless killing machine” — but in this script, what was once humanity seems to take the sudden transformation of the planet in benign stride. This allows for little more than a few jokes (Starbucks mixing coffee with blood, cable news debating the merits of human farming, an ad for a Cadillac Escalade pimped out with the latest sun-blocking technology, etc.) that toe the line between “satirical commentary on America’s pathetic preoccupations” and “no social commentary, just some cheap jokes.” Unfortunately, it doesn’t offer any real insight into how the planet might react if 95% of the human population found themselves turned into vampires — possibly because it’s set in the not-too-distant future when vampires already run rampant, the script doesn’t concern itself with the immediate reaction so much as the complacency several years after the immediate reaction has been quelled. But is it really acceptable to think people would just settle in and accept their fate? Which ties right into…
- Why hasn’t anyone else attempted a cure? The “solution” is to simply create a viable substitute for blood. Ultimately, Bromley has a clear reason for wanting a substitute instead of a cure (I won’t spoil it, but you can probably predict it if you understand the mind of a stock “glowering capitalist” character), but Bromley can’t be the only game in town… Can he? Nor can Ed be the only one sympathetic to humanity… Can he? Considering the way this script revels in its own details, the script is surprisingly careless about its portrayal of society as a whole. In the minds of the writers, nobody but the people who have dialogue exist. But those people matter to the story — when you’re building a complete world, these details are important. What, exactly, is the infrastructure of the blood farming industry? Which ties right into…
- Why did these idiots let the human decimation get so out of hand? We’re supposed to believe this is a not-too-distant future version of our world, right? A world with thousands of years of agrarian society under its belt? A world that turned livestock farming into a fairly disturbing industry to serve the greater good of mankind? Yet these vampires — whose “night-to-night” lives remain virtually unchanged — don’t understand any of the policies of rationing and forced breeding? They can’t grasp that they have a finite supply of humans, and the only way to make that infinite is to make them last? As in, you don’t have to kill people to “farm” them — you can bleed them in moderation, allow the blood to regenerate, and then bleed them some more. If the vampires were portrayed as more animalistic, I’d be able to accept the notion that they inadvertently turned billions of people before realizing they’d need a food supply. That, at least, would be sort of an intriguing concept for a story. They don’t go into that at all, aside from showing the “subsiders” as the “animal” versions of the vampires.
The problem traces back to our lack of understanding of the vampire infrastructure. How much blood do they need? How many times do they feed per day? Giving even a passing sense of how much they need to feed versus how much they have to go around would greatly heighten the suspense and Ed’s own desire to come up with a substitute. Just saying “5% of humans remain, which gives us six months before we’re out!” doesn’t help at all — and even if it did give some sort of meaningful picture, it still doesn’t forgive these idiots for letting so many humans die. Unlike oil (the finite substance most analogous to the fight for precious human blood in this script), the blood is renewable ad infinitum if the vampires played it smart. I feel dirty for putting this much thought into how to properly store humans for the purpose of regularly bleeding them, but hey — these are the sorts of thoughts a script like this inspires.
- Why does the vampire subject, on whom Ed tests his blood substitute, scream “Owe!” before dying?
- Do vampire brains continue to develop even though they can’t age? Early scenes show us “child” vampires (ages 8-10) attending high school, to signify the length of time they’ve been vampires. The opening scene shows a young girl dressed in woman’s clothes committing suicide because life as an ageless vampire seems so pointless. This sort of reminded me of the Fasano/Ward draft of Alien 3. It’s flawed narratively but endlessly inventive, and one of its inventions is of an Alien-universe droid whose brain so perfectly mimics a human’s, it becomes “insane” and prone to hallucinations because a droid cannot sleep, yet its brain requires sleep.
To that end, the human brain develops biologically in tandem with experience. This is why certain experiences (like sex) have profound impacts on the brain if they are experienced before maturation. But if a child vampire’s brain can never “ripen,” how would they live with their increasingly adult experiences? That fascinates the shit out of me, but the script doesn’t take much interest in it.
- Late in the script, a military recruitment poster is defaced with the phrase END TIMES, a phrase I associate with religious types. That made me wonder: what happens to religion in a world where so many are vampires? I mean, when you’re dead but you retain immortality and the power of a dozen men, what do you believe? You certainly can’t embrace the standard values of most religions, because you’re kind of on the wrong end of their moral stick. What happens there? On some level, this ties into the idea that the vampires’ lives just don’t change enough to make this script truly interesting, but I find the idea of vampire theology fascinating. I’m guessing writers before me have come up with something like this. If anybody knows of any examples of vampires worshipping some sort of new (or ancient) religion, I’d love to hear about it.
- Another infrastructure question: within (rough guess) five years of the vampire majority’s existence, car manufacturers have overhauled their designs to accommodate them, the government is tackling vampire rights issues, houses have been designed and constructed to avoid sunlight… I remember reading some article about Minority Report that talked about its infrastructure (particularly the vertical highways that ran right over buildings). Although they speculated that such infrastructure changes/improvements are within our grasp (or will be in the near future), the amount of time and money required for such drastic overhauls made it implausible that any such construction projects would be finished by the time the movie takes place, assuming said projects were approved and budgeted tomorrow.
Daybreakers reminded me a bit of that. Everything has changed, yes, but it all seems so quick and painless. Set it 20 or 25 years in the future, and I’d probably buy it. Better yet — set it in the present day but in a parallel universe where this vampire “virus” plagued mankind centuries ago, and we’ve progressed to a certain degree, but things are bad. I just can’t accept that, within the span of 10 years (I’m being generous in assuming the “2017” date implies this draft was written in 2007), a vampire plague would transform most of mankind, they would all pick themselves up and dust themselves off and revitalize the planet with vampire-centric improvements on current human technology, and they would find themselves careening toward a world-destroying food shortage. Maybe it’s not so much the time factor as much as the remarkable efficiency of the construction/manufacturing ends of it don’t sync up with the stupidity involved in the food supply.
If you read this far, you might be wondering why I’ve gone off on tangents about what amounts to backstory without addressing the narrative itself or the characters. The short answer: this script gave me nothing else to think about.
The story is becoming a Hollywood nuisance: a generic action script that tosses in horror movie tropes to make it seem a little more inventive. I love horror movies. I love action movies. I’d probably love an action-horror movie if someone ever made a good one. The problem is — nobody’s trying to combine the genre. They just want to make shitty action movies, and they think grafting an obvious horror gimmick onto it will make it seem unique. (Man, I can’t wait to rip into David Hayter’s Wolves, assuming it ever gets made. Spoiler alert: it’s the embodiment of this shitty sort of writing. Holy fuck is it a flaming turd.) So, to that end, there really isn’t much story, or much character. Everything’s just a bunch of gaudy jewelry to disguise how bland and unappealing the action sequences dominating the script are. (And can we declare a moratorium on shitty horror/action scripts using the “viral pandemic” thing as its “ripped from the headlines” explanation for How It Happened? It’s as sloppy and stupid as the many ’50s B-movies that used radiation as the default explanation.)
To put it another way: you know things are bad when one character has to ask another if Audrey is the love interest. They have no chemistry on the page, and no relationship develops. It’s one of those situations where Ed is the male lead, and Audrey is the female character with the most screen time — therefore, she’s the love interest. On the plus side, at least the writers didn’t devote any time to explaining the nonexistent chemistry in the action block or having Ed and Audrey banter about how “real” their relationship is.
But things get worse: throughout the script, the writers toss in boldfaced, underlined, italicized statements like BIG JUMP, SHOCK, or (my personal favorite) BIG SCARE MOMENT. Instead of, you know, actually shocking or scaring us. Really? This passes for writing these days?
Go through the synopsis, or read the script yourself (or see the movie), and tell me if there’s anything — other than the setting — you haven’t seen before, and better. Maybe that’s not such a big deal, because this script seems more interested in its setting than anything else. A script needs more than a unique setting, but the only thing Daybreakers has going for it is the relatively novel universe — and they even fuck that up. What a colossal disappointment.
Posted by Stan on January 5, 2010 4:54 PM | Permalink | Print-Friendly | Reviews | Digg It
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Comments (9)
Wow. You savage the writers for thinking themselves clever and self-aware and then you type paragraph after paragraph of things they allegedly did not consider, better summed up by bitchy people who sneer, “but that’s physically impossible!” This is the mistake of confusing figurative universe for a literal one — like the people who are asked to identify “three things you cannot live without” and put “oxygen, water, food.” What a meaningless, missing-the-forest-for-the-trees review.
I’ve not seen the script, the trailer, or any advertisements. I did not know about this movie until a local radio station announced, minutes ago, that it was giving out passes. Geez, have fun living at home and not getting laid.
Posted by Vince | January 6, 2010 8:18 AM | Reply
Why defend something you allegedly know nothing about? Did half-assed radio copy and an offer of free passes really sway you that much?
I’ll openly admit the last of my many nitpicks — the one about being able to build a totally different infrastructure so quickly — is a “that’s physically impossible!”-type remark, but did you miss the part where I lobbied for setting it in a parallel universe where vampires have been the majority for centuries? That’s not exactly a war cry for realism. The rest of them are either wistful ruminations about missed opportunities that would have made the script much more interesting… Or they’re directly addressing flaws in a story (such as the fact that vampirism does nothing to change the way society functions, which presents obvious questions about why nobody would have thought of finding a cure and/or why they do such a poor job of “farming” humans after a century of high-density stockyards) that revels in how well it planted all the trees in that forest you claim I’ve missed. Would you rather I exclaimed, “Wow, nice forest!” while ignoring the fact that half the trees have Dutch Elm?
Strip away the “figurative universe,” and you’re left with a hackneyed plot that just strings together a bunch of car chases and action sequences. That’s the forest you’re so excited to see? I enjoy big dumb action movies when they accept that they’re big dumb action movies and don’t aspire to accomplish anything more than delivering high-octane ass-kickings. It’s when they try to get heady and thought-provoking — and fail — that I get annoyed and start asking questions. You can feel free to disagree with this pale, friendless virgin all you want, but don’t come crying to me when your coveted free pass gets you into a 12:01 showing of a shitty movie.
And speaking of pale, friendless virgins — I’m just wondering why you spent an hour poring over my Black List reviews on New Year’s Eve. Shouldn’t a cool guy like you have dropped some ecstasy before banging five increasingly hot chicks on the main floor of Glendora’s hippest nightclub? Would your mom not let you borrow the Laguna?
Posted by Stan
| January 7, 2010 1:40 PM | Reply
I wonder how many of the nitpicks you refuse to admit. I never imagined defending it as mindless action; what caused me to take note is the premise, ripe for comparisons to how humans treat animals as well as harm the environment. Earlier in your “review” you blathered something along the lines that far-sighted technocrats should have seen the depletion of resources and acted appropriately, but that’s a exactly the long-standing problem with societies everywhere, and a global challenge with respect to climate change in particular (see for instance Jared Diamond’s _Collapse_).
As for monitoring my whereabouts, I must say you managed to plunge the depths of desperation and creepiness; I’m surprised the remark drew as much blood as it did. I had dislocated my knee that afternoon, so it was Aleve rather than E, bed rest rather than dancing, and one hot chick servicing me rather than five (but my mom is cool like that).
Posted by Vince | January 7, 2010 4:42 PM | Reply
Right… So first I made “the mistake of confusing figurative universe for a literal one,” but now the problem is that I didn’t consider the “literal universe” deeply enough to properly scrutinize the “figurative universe” or propose a plausible alternative? Airtight.
Oh, that’s right. I forgot that the people who make retarded points while reveling in their own ignorance are the heroes, and the people who defend themselves against ad hominem attacks are the insecure cowards. Thanks for setting me straight.
Incidentally, I’m sure whatever troll handbook you’re using says to start with the pointless attacks, then back off and pretend to take the high road if you get called on your bullshit. It’s fun to change gears, but it’s not effective when the original comment is right there for all seven of my regular readers to see.
Posted by Stan
| January 7, 2010 9:33 PM | Reply
Is this a joke? You do not even possess an elementary understanding of the terms under discussion. The threat of vampire pandemic is — I am guessing — virtually non-existent. It’s a plot device to dramatize real-world issues. You might as well complain that Groundhog Day, never tells us why Bill Murray relives the same day over and over, or how the non-humans in Animal Farm can speak.
Additionally, you seem not to have the slightest clue when and where an ad hominem is a fallacious, or the main thrust of my criticism, which, despite almost endless babble and posturing, you never touch. But by all means please continue embarrassing yourself on the blog and in the comments.
Posted by Vince | January 8, 2010 12:29 PM | Reply
Stan: “Right… So first I made “the mistake of confusing figurative universe for a literal one,†but now the problem is that I didn’t consider the “literal universe†deeply enough to properly scrutinize the “figurative universe†or propose a plausible alternative? Airtight.”
Apparently this went right over your head.
You whine about Stan’s nitpicking, his supposed “mistake of confusing figurative universe for a literal one”: “you type paragraph after paragraph of things they allegedly did not consider, better summed up by bitchy people who sneer, “but that’s physically impossible!†This is the mistake of confusing figurative universe for a literal one — like the people who are asked to identify “three things you cannot live without†and put “oxygen, water, food.†What a meaningless, missing-the-forest-for-the-trees review.”
Then you whine about his failure to properly acknowledge the “literal universe” when critiquing a “figurative universe”: “I wonder how many of the nitpicks you refuse to admit. I never imagined defending it as mindless action; what caused me to take note is the premise, ripe for comparisons to how humans treat animals as well as harm the environment. Earlier in your “review†you blathered something along the lines that far-sighted technocrats should have seen the depletion of resources and acted appropriately, but that’s a exactly the long-standing problem with societies everywhere, and a global challenge with respect to climate change in particular (see for instance Jared Diamond’s _Collapse_).”
And of course your new comment.
“The threat of vampire pandemic is — I am guessing — virtually non-existent. It’s a plot device to dramatize real-world issues.”
—-
“I’ve not seen the script, the trailer, or any advertisements. I did not know about this movie until a local radio station announced, minutes ago, that it was giving out passes.”
I love your definitive statement given your apparent complete lack of knowledge about this movie except for the script review here. Pray tell, where exactly did you pull this little vampire pandemic = impending climate change environmental disaster plot device idea from? Go ahead, elaborate on the factual basis for that position at length. PLEASE.
You have given absolutely no evidence whatsoever for this position of yours. You dismiss any comments or criticism made about the gaping holes in the plot or premise because they don’t inherently assume your asinine assumptive non-proven position to begin with. You have yet to rebut any of Stan’s original review comments, or the following comments, with anything other than references to your asinine assumptive non-proven “plot device” and personal insults (ad hominem).
You are apparently unable, or simply unwilling, to acknowledge the disparate standard you have given Stan, or the convenient way in which you apply it yourself. If the mistake is confusing a figurative universe for a literal one, then why apply a literal universe to a figurative one, that being your little “plot device” theory? And why expect Stan to then take your theory based on a literal universe, a “plot device” apparently known only to you, and base his critiques on that alone?
Stan is a nice guy. My previous comment didn’t make it because it was too abrasive. I sure hope my repeat of my last sentence in my last comment makes it this time, especially given your renewed arrogant and condescending flourishes of abject stupidity.
If only you had dislocated your personality instead of your knee.
Posted by Man vs Nature: The Road to Victory | January 10, 2010 11:48 PM | Reply
Wow, Vince. Is the idea just to disagree? He made some really good points. It’s not really my kind of movie but even less now that I have some more info.
I also believe that if you create a world it must have its own laws and they have to be different than ours.
Admitedly I’m working on a vampire movie as my PhD thesis and I found some cool stuff to fit into the lore.
I may even use Stan’s services as he seems to be looking for substance, not cutesy crap. Most readers I’ve used do’t even see scene transitions or character parallels. And they want money.
Most writers think that the idea is to have a quotable line and stupid jokes. No, this is cinema where the image is the key.
The image of a tear, the image of frown, the image of a hot bod… umm sorry thay slipped.
Posted by Christian H | January 11, 2010 12:46 PM | Reply
I appreciate you guys coming to my defense, but I’m afraid your questions will go unanswered. I decided to ban “Vince,” because life’s too short to waste time with trolls. If he’d had something more substantial to contribute, maybe I would have kept going.
Christian: nice to “meet” you. Thanks for adding me to your blogroll. I’ve returned the favor.
Posted by Stan
| January 12, 2010 2:09 PM | Reply
No problem. I hope you find some interesting stuff. I personally get so pissed that this career has turned into the Lottery that I kill more characters in my movies.
Posted by Christian H. | January 12, 2010 4:16 PM | Reply