It doesn't matter to Tim Burton, perhaps. Tim went to high school in Burbank, where I live, odd but working class, more to the big picture not the formalities. (And truly great big picture.)

Unfortunately, the format stuff matters to readers, who are often trust fund babies who don't really need the job but are playing at becoming producers. So, they latch onto what they think matters, the formalities. That's why when Syd Field's "Screenplay" first came out, even though he got a standing ovation when presenting it at the WGA, the readers drove real writers crazy because they would claim things like "your turning point isn't on page 28 like Syd says" (and then they'd refer writers who had sold more scripts to Syd to Syd's book). That's also why McKee is popular with them and they take his seminar just to "speak McKee" - it's the rule of the clique.

Oddly enough, I don't see anything at all unconventional about the script example you presented. What I DO see, however, is something similar to the other script you sent people - a tie into 19th century and turn of the 20th century stir of adventure.
A LOT of movie viewers all over the place and people here in town are getting VERY bored with the same old. If there's a sentiment going around that's like Bucket List and the Ripley script, I think we'll find a bit of a renaissance stirring, thanks to old but vivid ideas brought back to life.

No white space. Lots of Caps. Underlines. Ellipses... Telling and not showing.
This wouldn't get past your typical Hollywood reader.

Yet, it made the writers money.

FADE IN:
EXT. CHINA - 14TH CENTURY - DAY
A pastoral mountain clearing, many years ago. All is quiet. The hills are green, obscured by a heavy mist hanging in the air. There's a sense of mystery...
Then a crunching of bamboo. The trees shimmer... unveiling a secret, hidden community. The mist swirls, and FIGURES emerge. CHINESE PEASANTS, gently huddled and gathering crops.
They are peaceful, families working together. A father turns to his child... and we're surprised to see a HORN on the back of his head. The girl looks up and she too has a horn! ALL(underlined and caps) THE VILLAGERS HAVE HORNS! They're some kind of mythical, half-human creatures.
Okay, I can't take it anymore. My headache is coming back.

It's a horrible script to read but a great blueprint for a possibly great movie.
So, is it a bad script? Or a good script?
See what I'm saying?
Scott

I was a reader for the Sundance contest, strictly working-middle class upbringing (Dad picked cotton and stole watermelons in his youth, etc.). The readers I knew in L.A. none were trust fund babies.

But the real point is that any affectation in a script, whether it be exuberant use of caps, underlines, exclamation points or screen direction matter ONLY IF these things are covering up flaws in the writing screen direction because you can't tell what's going on, wrylies or excess exclamation points because the feelings of the characters aren't clear from context, etc.
And if a character is always cranked up to ten, it's likely his dialog will have a lot of !!.
One of my favorite scripts from the sundance reading era was something written nearly entirely in italics, narrative form with play style dialog. Because the characters were intriguing and the situation rich with conflict. It was a pain to read, but the main characters are still with me...

I've read a few dozen coverage documents lifted from a handful of studios, and you know what, format is never mentioned except in passing (i.e. so weird page count wasn't to be trusted). My two friends who were readers say the same thing whack format is a leading indicator of crap writing, but not alone something to judge a script on.
Maybe you could post specifics that you've seen that lead you to this conclusion, esp. about trust fund babies? The trust-funders I knew (one) went straight into producing, skipped the grunt stages entirely.

Mysti

Mysti