An excerpt from my script review for I Am Mother which will be available 06/18/19:
3.) Quality of Characters
The All Seeing Eye.
You can’t pick and choose when your antagonist is omnipotent.
Sometimes Mother can see each and every move Daughter makes. Other times she can’t, for the sole purpose of we can’t let her for the plot to play out.
That is cheating.
If Mother is part of a larger “hive mind” you need to make rules that play into each and every plot point in the script, and then discover ways around it.
Crucial parts of the bunker are left unguarded, by an AI that deemed mankind too dangerous for itself and wanted to start from scratch?
This super intelligent AI isn’t going to have a camera watching the fucking only way in or out?
Listen, I get it, Mother can’t see everything or else nothing would happen, right?
Wrong.
Set up your rules, and then let the protagonist break them.
For instance, most batteries lose their charge over time, correct? If Mother needs to recharge at the end of each day, for over seventeen years, she’d probably need to recharge more frequently.
Perhaps during this charging period, Daughter knows which systems are and are not working, via some good old fashioned trial and error. This allows a workaround.
But just having her casually stroll up and unlock the door? Sorry, that’s a big no.
Especially once she finds a cockroach, and is curious about it. Mother should know that humans are inquisitive creatures, so her suspicions should be on high alert.
This creates more tension for the hero, and in turn us, the audience.
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