"Turn Back the Hands of Time" Draft 1

Introduction

In this blog post, I wanted to talk about the 1st draft of an original screenplay I wrote titled "Turn Back the Hands of Time". My next blog will be about the 2nd draft as I plan to write the 3rd draft and will eventually write a blog post about that. So, how did I come up with a script? Well, when I was starting off as a screenwriter back in high school I actually found the 1st draft of "Back to the Future" online and read it. From there I wrote 3 drafts of "Paradox" which was just a BTTF rip-off. I didn't like them very much. But, in the 4th draft, I started introducing elements that would eventually evolve into "Turn Back the Hands of Time" such as the Mayor being added in, the protagonist being named George rather than Mark, and the 2nd Act having George go around town trying to fix people's lives. I went back to read the 1st draft of "Back to the Future" again and it mentions a song called "Turn Back the Hands of Time" by Eddie Fisher. I gave the song a listen and thus I had a new title and the gears started turning in my head.

Premise

My "Paradox" scripts originally had a teenager from the present day going back 30 years to the 80s. But, since the Eddie Fisher song is from the 50s I instead had a 50s teenager go 30 years back to the 20s. I thought this was a rather novel idea as the 1950s and the 1920s are such similar decades for a few reasons.

• Followed a World War
• Period of post-war economic boom
• These two decades seem to be fondly remembered. 

Since I wanted to write a story about a teen from the 50s going back to the 20s, I had to give him a reason. Since it the 50s, I decided to start the film off with George watching a documentary on the Atomic Bomb testing that was going on at the time. In Drafts 2 and 3, I decided this would become George's primary motivation for going back. In this Draft, George is a bit more selfish and his character does flesh out in later drafts. Since the actual "Turn Back the Hands of Time" song is a love song I decided to give George a love interest for the 2nd Act to flesh out his character and the overall story. I was excited by this decision as I've always to write a romance. Before you read the actual script below, as a writer I like to give my characters meaningful names or base them on real people so I'll give a rundown on the meaning behind the character's names.

• George Wells - Our protagonist. Named George after Rod Taylor's character in the 1960 adaption of "The Time Machine". Starting in Draft 2, I even remark that George even looks like a teenage Rod Taylor.
• Herbert Wells - George's father. If you combine his name with that of his son's, their name becomes Herbert George Wells. A reference to Herbert George Wells a.k.a HG Wells who wrote "The Time Machine".
• Amelia Taylor - George's love interest. The first name comes from Amelia Earhart and her last name means to cut eluding to her rebellious nature as she tries to cut free from her parent's conservative attitudes and assert her independence.
• Professor Victor Titman The inventor of the time machine. I made him a Professor rather than a Doctor because when I hear Doctor I think of medical doctors and of course "the Doctor" from "Doctor Who". He's named Victor like Victor Frankenstein due to his obsessive nature and regret of building the time machine. The last name Titman means "Man" or "Time" in this Victor built a time machine that literally makes him the Victor of Time. 
• Mayor Frank Titman - The Professor's bitter brother. I gave him the name Frank as a contrast to Victor and because he is quite frank about his thoughts and emotions so the name fits. 

Script 

Just like with my "Twilight Zone" teleplays I left the link to the script below:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CNuPMRHcb53AQ7n2LpO1yRkIB40fIfIR/view?usp=sharing

Conclusion 

Just like the 1st draft of many Hollywood scripts including "Back to the Future" there are good ideas here, but they need time and subsequent drafts to grow and be expanded upon to go from good to great. This goes for the characters many of them are only operating at a fraction of their personality that you'll see in later drafts. With that, I thank you for coming and reading my blog post. If you read the script, I hope you had as much fun reading it as I did writing it. Just be excited that with every new draft everything gets better: story, characters, etc.