This is some damn fine action writing. Dynamic, clear, and utterly thrilling. There's a reason these guys are so successful...

Concur, Debbie. While I don't personally do a lot of underlining in my own writing, I'm certainly a big fan of using individual lines to suggest camera shots and using strong, active verbs to convey action. A thesaurus can be a screenwriter's best friend!

I just copied that paragraph of verbs you collected for future reference, Scott. Hope that's not cheating. ;)

No, Traci, that's what's known as smart!

I don't know. The screenwriting is fine, but the sequence of events... I mean even today, all parachutes are rated to hold two people with equipment. When I saw it onscreen this scene felt completely forced. The opening scene of this movie, otoh, is one of the finest action set pieces I've ever seen on film: every event results logically from what happened before, *real* drama, poignancy and visual kinetics.

Those guys really know how to write action. But THIS is the best action scene ever! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jpoki4wBwtA

LOVE this descriptive writing. Problem with it? The guys are already in the studio system and millionaires. They can write any style they want. Anyone outside the system -- no agent, no repping, no sales -- let alone features actually made -- will have their script with this same, exact type of action - writing style thrown in the waste can. No matter how good the script is? Yes. If you're an unrepped writer...OUTSIDE the system...your script, with this type of EXACT writing style, will be tossed. Does everyone understand why? Because the majority of readers who are low paid and harrassed at work...can only promote of they basically say 'no' to everything. And when they are schlepping home 40 bad scripts -- most of them coming from 'inside' the system -- for their weekend reads, believe me...PLEASE...believe me...the last script they want to read, is a spec script from an unknown, unrepped writer...with CAPS and UNDERLINES all over the place...all because the established, millionaire screenwriters of STAR TREK did so. How good is this type of writing? Do it without the CAPS and UNDERLINE. Like Wilder, Hecht, Goldman, Allen, Kasdan, and other studio and Oscar successful screenwriters have done. See if the story still holds up.

Excellent pace and superb choice of words *BUT* there's (still) a huge gap between their free-falling distances (as hinted about) and Chekov's run to the transporter room. Interpreted it as another suspense thrill that barely made up for the mindset synchro time when i reacted; where are they now, local gravity causes speed, inevitable ground splat, whatta luck! Almost perfect illusion, nevertheless.