pitch for Gabriel Ritter's Legend of Zelda Script

[Gabriel Ritter]

Dear Interwebs!

Its-a me, Gabriel N. Ritter. I'm here about my #Zelda Script. Yeah, yeah, you never heard of me. I write scripts and short stories. A bunch of scripts were made into shorts, I recenlty received a prize for one of my script which deals with anti-Semitism in academia in the interwar-period. Never made any international splash, and nationwide I am not that well-known either. (Also English is not my first language. Oh, you figured that out already?)

Anyway, years back I wrote a script for a movie based on the Legend of Zelda franchise. It was intended as an exercise, but the script turned out decent enough. I did not make it public, because of obvious legal questions.

Now @Netflix has that sorted out. Returning to this script, I still find it good enough to be a solid basis to work with.
To my surprise Netflix have yet to ask me to contribute, strangely they have no button on their site to just send them scripts (besides that the site is great) and the Atlantic Ocean keeps me from just walking over there (also it's too far to swim or walk).

But you, dear Interwebs, you work in wondrous ways! You make people rich and famous overnight or ruin them completely twice as fast!
So as I am not invited to pitch, and cannot travel there, I will pitch here and now, and who knows what might happen. (Well, most likely exactly nothing is going to happen, but you cannot blame me for trying, can you?) Here goes:


Dear person responsible for hiring authors!

Let me just take a few minutes of your time to tell you, why my script would be just right for a Legend of Zelda TV-Show.

In the script, Link, a brave Hylian youth, travels from his home village of Ordan to the Hyrulian capital, where he meets Princess Zelda. For her he travels to other peoples in the fantasy kingdom, the aquatic Zoras, the all-female Gerudos and a few others. Meanwhile, the villain Ganondorf has usued treason, corruption and false information to storm the castle and overthrow the rightful rulers. He plans to access the power of the creators of the world, which was protected in the castle. Zelda, Link - now wielding the legendary master sword - and their allies start a last attempt to free the country from Ganandorfs megalomancy.

The script takes in the first half the form of a episodic fantasy roadmovie: Link travels from his home to Lon Lon farm, than to the city, and than to other peoples. In the movie-format, these episodes are very compressed and abridged, and would therefore profit from the narrative possibilites a tv show would offer.
The last third of the movie has conclusions to acts of treason and such. Again, in a movie, they are not more than a few lines of dialogue about some of the backstabbing, in a TV show one could build tension for several episodes in this regard. Similar goes for the Princess Zelda herself: Link meets her after about one quarter of the movie, than a few times more, until she becomes a more central character. In an episodic format, I would have the narrative switch to the castle from time to time, to see her quarrel with Ganondorf politically, foreshadwing that he is about to continue politics with other means. I would work out Zelda's backstory, which is otherwise only told by Impa in a few lines, and there could be much more interaction (and also conflict) between Zelda and her father, the King (also their relationship is very important for the sequel/later seasons). I have concepts for backstories for many of the characters, Aghanim, the Kokiris, Nabooru, Impa. There was no time or place in the movie, besides a few half-sentences.

A lot of effort was used to stay as true as possible the the Zelda franchise, but at the same time make it accessible to viewers, who are new to it.
Diehard fans will be relieved to know, that the basis for the script is A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess. Sometimes I have used dialoge from the video games verbatim, e.g. for the Genesis of the world, characters like the Postman, the Masksalesman are seen in the background. Also I have made Link monosyllabic to the point of being almost silent (most if his talking is done by Navi).
For newcomers there is Maple, the teenaged witch-apprentice, who serves as a narrator and tells exposition to Link and whoever wants it to hear in small doses. Concepts like the Triforce, the kingdom, its peoples and the Sword of Evil Bane (aka Master Sword) are explained when they become relevant.

The concept takes generally a serious tone, but there is enough place for comedic relief, mainly from Maple, Navi, Link's sometimes awkwardness, Ingo and a certain royal cartographer, whom I would introduce into the castle setting.

You see, there is a lot of material to work into one of the best fantasy TV shows ever.
Also, nobody ever says "Excuuuuse me, princess" in the script.

Have I convinced you? If you want to contact me, I have an Outlook- Email address, which starts with gabriel.ritter
I have the same at kortz.at, and you could contact me via this forum.

Best regards
Gabriel N. Ritter