IDF Script

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Let me preface this by saying I have no idea how to write or format a film script. However, like the heroes of our story, I don't intend to let that stop me.

Concept

The film is to be frames as a sort of documentary, with occasional subtext and voice overs to provide additional information. Our characters themselves are very "genre savy", in that they are well aware that their lives are a pulp sci-fi adventure. IDF World provides more background on the universe they live in. Obviously the movie will never take itself very seriously, we are striving to have fun creating awesome visual effects and whatnot.

Opening

  • Idea 1 The movie opens with a nearly black screen with maybe one or two dots, and the subtitle "Space". It then says "You know what? Actual pictures of space are really boring." The screen then changes to a fantastic CGI starscape with subtitle "Space (Artists Depiction)". Going forward, most things in film will have "Artists Depiction" added on to the end. - Mike doesn't care for this idea
  • Idea 2 Movie opens with fabulous, fantastic space vista with just the subtitle "Space(Artists Depiction)" -PREFFERED
  • Idea 3 Neither of those, just cut to bellow.

Opening Sequence

Short sequence depicting the character's location, giving the name of the solar system, the planet, and the moon, all with descriptors that do not paint it in a particularly good light. Things like "Ass-end" and "armpit of". Something like:

"Remote Ammonia Mining Station G2" "Orbiting Ganamari 8" "Ass-End of the Steno Ganamarian System" "Armpit of the Milky-Way Galaxy"

Our heroes are wearing bulky space suits. The insides of the helmets are illuminated so you can clearly see their faces. Despite this, Ivan is wearing sunglasses.

Scene opens with with a close up of Ivan. He's wearing a space suit but has his sunglasses on. He looks serious. He raises his rifle to his shoulder.

Cut to wide shot, Ivan fires into a rock wall and laughs as it explodes.

Terrence come up behind him and shoves him.

Terrence: "Cut that out! Lasers are expensive!"

Terrence takes a few steps forward, crossing in front of Ivan.

Terrence: "Are we getting close?"

Ivan: "As the asteroidal moon passes through the gas giant's third ring, it picks gaseous ammonia particles. The Moon is riddles with caves, and gravity pulls the ammonia down. Eventually it forms an atmosphere, and there's enough pressure for it to liquefy."

Terrence: "I know. My balls are frozen to me suit. But that doesn't answer my question."

Ivan: "Sorry."

Terrence: "Are we getting close?"

Ivan glances at a wrist computer and waves his arm.

Ivan: "About forty more... something, that way."

Ivan begins to walk and Terrence follows.

Ivan: "So, down here in the caves where it's deep enough, they set up collection plants. The ammonia is liquid, so they just have to pump it into tanks. Shafts run up to the surface on mag-levs, where robotic drones retrieve the tanks. And, thus, you have an ammonia mine."

Terrence: "Thanks for the color commentary."

Ivan: "So, we, intrepid space heroes that we are, get to descend into the caves and re-start the laser-fusion initiator on the power-plant."

Terrence: "Yay us."

Ivan: "Now, the initiator--"

Terrence: "Ivan, I know ALL of this. Why are you explaining it?"

Ivan: "Well, you said your brains were frozen."

Terrence: "BALLS, Ivan, BALLS."

Ivan, shrugging: "Either way, its the thing you do your thinking with."

They walk a bit further and arrive at some sort of machine.

As Ivan approaches it he hits his head on a rock outcropping.

Ivan: "Why do they make these suits with lights on the inside of the helmet? I can barely see!"

Terrence: "The shades are probably not helping, buddy."

Ivan, tapping the machine: "I think we're here!"

Subtext informs the viewer that they have reached "The (highly unstable) Laser Fusion Initiator".

Terrence: "Do you know how to operate one of these things?"

Ivan smacks the console with the butt of his gun and the machine lights up.

Ivan: "Piece of cake."

The camera changes to a shot over the two men's shoulders where the screen of the machine is visible. The screen clearly indicates that a core overload is in progress.

We could stop the scene right there and cut to them safely on ship, or do some bullshit where they solve the problem.

First Act

Scene 1

Brief establishing shot around Beowulf's crowded living quarters.

Terrence(emerging from a hatch at the rear): "MY space suit is going to smell like ammonia for months."

Ivan: "Better than the smell before you cleaned it out."

Terrence crosses the cramped cabin and deposits a bottle of cleaner into a rack and sits down at the terminal in the corner.

Ivan, still standing and holding a star chart: "Computer, prepare to break orbit and lay in course preset one-one-two-mark four."

Computer: "Sorry, I didn't get that."

Ivan: "Computer, break orbit."

Computer: "Checking stock prices... unable to esablish connection."

Ivan(rolling up the star chart): "Computer! Orbit! Break it!"

Computer: "Checking show times for 'Breakin' Two: Electric Bogaloo."

Camera pans back to Terrence.

Terrence: "Ivan, you just have to know how to work it. Watch. Computer: smooth jazz." (note: we can substitute a different kind of music so long as its recognizable)

Computer begins to play music.

Terrence: "See?"

Ivan twists star chart into a pretzel just as indicator light flashes on console behind Terrence.

Crossing the cabin, Ivan shuts off a speaker which stops the music.

They lean over a screen which shows a weird rubber forheaded alien, whom we know as Slade.

Terrence: "What the hell do you want, Slade?!"

Slade: "Such hostility! I come bearing gifts."

Terrence: "Forget it, Slade, your last 'gift' sent us into an exploding Amonia mine. We're mercenaries, k? We don't need the shitty work YOU provide!" Now on the spaceship, Terrence complains that his space suit is going to smell like ammonia for months. Ivan replies that that's better than what it smelled like before Terrence cleaned out the inside. (The implication is that Terrence shit his space-pants and had to clean them out with ammonia).

Through the screen, we can see Slade is sitting behind a desk in a spacious office, with a bikini-clad alien babe behind him. He leans back and orders a drink. "Danglesh, please, Quanthex Dankers." The girl nods and takes a step over to a replicator in the wall and carefully punches in a series of commands, a drink is replicated and she brings it to Slade's table. He awkwardly uses the moment to brush his hand against her bare skin, and she is obviosuly repulsed by his touch. He takes a zip from the weird alien drink, and returns his attention to our heroes.

Slade: "This one calls for your all-important skill-set! Sort of. Namely, having a ship, and still always needing money."

Terrence: "I got what you need right here." as he speaks he points down, either towards a button on the console or his crotch. Either way he reaches for the button, but Ivan stops him.

Ivan: "Just tell us about the job."

Slade: "A trinket, really. I need you to go Barleone and retrieve an item for me. I've taken an interest is Miduan culture, I believe their Heart of Light would look good on my mantle."

Terrence(insensed): "You want us to STEAL a cultural treasure from a repressed native tribe?!"

Slade(Defensively): "Not from the natives! From your old friend, Muldoon."

Ivan(through gritted teeth): "Muldoon..."

Terrence: "The jackass miner? HIM?! Yeah, Slade, that's definitely a 'no'."

Slade(grinning): "It's not like anyone else will hire the two of you."

Terrence hits the control and blanks the screen.

Scene 2

Scene opens from front of living quarters, Ivan is standing beside cabinet, Terrence is sitting at Table with two bowls and a bottle of something purple. Terrence tosses a fistful of alien coins onto the table. The denominations aren't important, but its clear from the look on his face that its a pathetically meager amount.

Ivan: "I'm getting dinner from the replicator, any requests?"

Terrence(Distracted): "Dealer's choice."

Ivan Taps something at the top of the cabinet before opening it and bringing out two unlabeled tin cans. He brings them back to the table and the camera pans up to his face.

Ivan: "Space-dinner is served." (His hands are out of frame, play sound effect of pop tops opening).

As Ivan sits, camera pans back down to table. One can contains something that looks like baked beans, while the other is clearly dog food. Dry kibble, something with the little bone shapes. Ivan dumps each can into a bowl.

Shrugging, Ivan takes the beans and settles into his seat, grabbing the purple bottle and squirting heaping gobs of the stuff onto his beans.

Ivan: "Aren't you going to try it?"

Camera cuts to far side of table to show Terrence, clearly disturbed by the can's contents.

Terrence: "...I'm not hungry."

Camera cuts back to Ivan, still heaping purple crap on his food.

Ivan: "I bet it tastes fine. It just needs a generous helping of... of..."

Ivan holds the label up for Terrence to see, the bottle is labeled in incomprehensible alienease.

Ivan: "What the hell is this crap?"

Terrence takes the bottle from Ivan while Ivan piles a large spoonfool of food into his mouth. He immediately turns red, starts coughing and choking, and sweats very profusely.

Camera cuts back to Terrence, who considers the bottle thoughtfully while Ivan flails and cries at the edge of the screen.

Terrence: "Who even does our shopping?"

Computer: "Sorry, I couldn't find movie times for 'agh, I think I'm dying, hnnnn'."

Terrence, nodding and gesturing to the speaker above him "Right".

Terrence tosses the bottle abjectly on the table and leans back, staring up at nothing.

Terrence: "We wouldn't have to put up with this bullshit if I still had my reputation." (note: this needs to be phrased better)

Scene pauses for a moment as subtext clarifies: "Bullshit" = Dangerous, low-paying missions, dog food.

Camera cuts back over to Ivan, who has recovered some.

Ivan: "Dude... we see and do enough crazy crap every day, who even cares? We're flying through the galaxy on a spaceship. Everything else is secondary."

Camera cuts back to show Terrence, who thumps his fist on the table and taps the glass bowl of kibble irritably.

Terrence: "I'd call this secondary." (Note: this line could also be improved) Terrence's short rant about the alien impersonating him goes here.

Camera cuts back over to Ivan.

Ivan: "WEll, you know what I think?" He pauses to take a second bite of food.

Camera cuts to a side view of both heroes, Ivan still with the spoon in his mouth, turning bright red and sweating again.

Terrence: "No, I really don't care what you think."

Scene.

Scene 3

Later that evening we get a few establishing shots around the ship. There's a cockpit area and some living space. Not much, our heroes sleep in bunk beds, and the center of the room they live in contains the transporter platform. The whole space is cramped, with exposed conduits and tubing everywhere, and decorated the way you'd expect two broke bachelors to do up a room. We need at least one poster of a green-skinned alien.

With Ivan asleep, Terrence sits down at the chair by the communications terminal and contemplates a bird feather. The camera cuts to a scene in which he talks to his spirit animal, a bird with a broken wing. Maybe he won't actually talk. We'll figure out the specifics later. Eventually it cuts back to the ship where Terrence returns to the communications system and raises the alien from before.

Slade is sitting in his desk chair, leaning back, while an obviously disgusted alien babe rubs his sholders. He's got some kind of computer device in his hand, we can't see the screen from this angle but a chorus of moaning gives us a good idea of what's going on.

Slade, without looking up: "Here to re-consider?"

Terrence: "Here to at least listen to terms."

Slade sets the tablet down and turns to face the screen. He snaps his fingers and the very uncomfortable girl sits down on his lap.

Slade: "Its very simple. The Heart of Light. Muldoon has it. I want it. Since you loath him and hold some affection for me, I think you'll be willing to help."

Terrence: "Skip to the part where you offer me way to little money for such a dangerous job."

Slade(wrapping him arm around the girl's middle and leaning in): "Oh, Terrence, my dear boy, I've something so much more valuable to offer you than money."

Terrence wrincles his face and glowers at the screen, but manages to speak. "Go on."

Slade: "When that nasty fellow, I forget his name, the one who impersonated you all those months? Do you recall how many times you and I spoke during that dreadful period?"

Terrence, crestfallen. "...it was more than a few. You were the only one giving us steady work during that time."

Slade, leaning back and trying unsuccessfully to make the girl lean against him: "You know I am quite meticulous with my communications logs. Each and every one of those conversations was recorded, along with the date, time, and your ship's exact coordinates at the time of transmission."

Terrence is still upset but his eyes lift at the prospect.

The girl struggles to escape Slade's grip and he lets her go, patting her on the ass as she walks out of frame.

Slade: "Your own ships logs aren't worth a damn to all the people that fellow swindled. But my records, a... proven source, from a respected businessman. That, I think, might finally convince your detractors."

Scene cuts off there.

Scene 4

The following day, our heroes sit in the cockpit preparing to break orbit.

Terrence: "Do we have enough Delta-V to break orbit?"

Ivan: "Terrence, we got Delta-V in units you've never even converted. Mostly because I can't figure out what they are."

Terrence: "So... yes?"

Ivan(Lifting his hand and waving it): "Yes and a half."

Terrence (lifting up a notebook and glancing at it): "Ok, Ivan, this course you plotted is written in some kind of ancient hieroglyphs. We break orbit, navigate the asteroid cluster, then fly dangerously close to... Ivan what is this shit?"

Ivan: "The part that looks like a dong or the rabbit ears?"

Terrence: "It's... more like a freeway off-ramp?"

Ivan: "Right, that. It's a hell of a thing."

Terrence: "Mind sharing?"

Ivan: "I dunno what the astronomical term is, but this system is binary with a main-sequence star and a brown-dwarf orbiting a barcenter. The drwarf comes close enough to pull a stream of ionized plasma off the surface of the star, kind of like a constant solar flare. If we hit the shockfront just right we can ride that mother like a surf board."

Terrence: "Why... would we do this ...?"

Ivan: "Because it will FREAKING RULE!" He twists in his seat and turns to give Terrence a high-five, which Terrence flatly refuses.

Ivan, undaunted, pulls out a book that was wedged behind his seat. The cover is incomprehensible alienease.

Ivan: "I read about it in this book, '101 Awesome Things to do in the Universe'. That green-skinned chick gave it to me. She was in to me."

Ivan passes the book to Terrence and we get a close-up of the cover, which is translated '101 Stupid Ways to Die In the Universe'.

Up next we get some glory shots of the outside of the ship, engines firing, lights turning on, cool shit.

The flight through the asteroid field is tense, full of dips and sharp banks. Dialogue, maybe?

They fly close to the sun. The cockpit is bathed in orange light and Terrence has to shield his face. Ivan, looking cool as ever in his shades, leans back and quips.

Ivan: "Who's the dork in the sunglasses NOW?!"

Cool scene involving the shockfront, lots of terrence yelling, crying, and cursing. Maybe Ivan stalls the engines here?

Scene 5

They arrive eventually at the jump gate, which will look really cool and is crowded with alien ships. If I can get away with it I want to sneak the Enterprise somewhere into the background. Before they can fly in for the jump, they have to wait in line and go through a toll booth, which will be the same in space as it is on earth. This wait is implied to last several hours.

Ivan and Terrence are sitting in the cockpit looking bored. Terrence has the bowl of kibble up at his station.

Reacting to some signal, Ivan manipulated the controls and a pattern of lights indicates the ship moves forward some and stops.

Cut to view of outside, as the cockpit comes close to a booth where an alien sits at a control pannel.

Cut back to view inside cockpit, low angle showing Ivan reacting to a COM screen and Terrence in the background at his station.

Alien: "Hey, that's a pretty sweet ship you got there."

Ivan, proudly: "Thanks, I rebuilt the engines myself."

Alien: "...out of what?"

Ivan: "I dunno what they were, but they're engines now!"

Alien: "Niiiiice. Full-bore Bussard collectors?"

Ivan: "You know it!"

Alien: "Adle-hoof intakes?"

Ivan: "Only the finest!"

Alien: "...Myhoff Lifters?"

Ivan: "In mint condition."

Alien(dejected): "You... have no idea what any of those things are."

Ivan: "Frankly I'm not even sure what language you're speaking."

While the above is going on in the background, Terrence starts by eyeing his bowl of kibble. He picks a piece up, studies it closely, and finally tosses it in his mouth. For a moment his face is placid, then he makes a very disgusted expression, sticks out his tongue a few times, and leans over to spit. He spits again, coughs, and dry-heaves for the rest of the exchange.

Alien: "Well, everything looks like its in order. Final destination?"

Ivan: "We're going to--"

Terrence interrupts: "We're going to Bussell System."

Ivan twists in his seat until he can face Ivan, and stairs at him questioningly.

Terrence, to Ivan: "We're taking the job."

Scene 6

Scene begins with an outside view of the ships, camera panning towards a window. We can see in through the window with Ivan and Terrance sitting at the table, gesturing emphatically at each other as if embroiled in some sort of argument. The camera switches to the inside, and Ivan finishes with "You say 'phallic' like that's a bad thing." Terrence calls him an idiot.

Ivan then takes out a small tablet and provides a brief overview of the item they are to steal. The Heart of Light is a cultual treasure belonging to the madeupname people of the planet they eventually go to (which for now we will call "planet salvador" because shut up). Many of the indigenous people's cultural treasures have been stolen by outsiders who have been just fucking up the planet. The place is rich in natural resources, see, and the dude they have to steal from runs a bigass mine.

Ivan calls the people of planet salvador "primitive" but Terrence quickly corrects him, saying that they have a rich, vibrant culture, and its only because of jerks like EvilMiningGuy that they get such a bad rap. Ivan counters by pointing out that they hadn't developed high technology, at which point Terrence says something disparaging about Ivan's mother and her level of technological advancement.

The argument ended, Terrence concedes that "we don't know very much about [the natives]" but there's nothing wrong with the way they live.

Scene 7

Ivan and Terrence consider a map of a Savior System.

Terrence: "Muldoon's base is here, on Savior-6. Muldoon doesn't own a damn thing, but he controls the entire Savior System and sells mining rites to whoever pays him the most, keeping the richest deposits for himself."

Ivan: "Savior Simon System."

Terrence: "What?"

Ivan: "That's what Muldoon has the place registered as. I think it's so he can use the prefix S.S.S. on his ships. His flagship is the S.S.S. Ssssssssss."

Terrence(after a long pause): "I hate that guy."

Terrence, after another pause, looking quizzical): "Wait, where are we registered out of?"

Ivan: "I.D.F. Beowulf, registered out of the one hundred and seventeeth planet if the Frinlth System."

Terrence: "Where the hell is that?"

Ivan(digs in his pocket for a moment and produces a small rock): "Right here."

Terrence: "...our ship is registered to a tiny pebble?"

Ivan: "It was in orbit in the Frinlth System, so I listed it and claimed it as our home port. I was afraid we wouldn't be able to find the place again, so I put it in my pocket for safe keeping."

Terrence: "You can do that?"

Ivan: "The galactic government has VERY loose definitions for what constitutes a 'planet'."

Terrence pushes the rock back towards Ivan.

Terrence: "Ok, Muldoon owns that entire star system; what kind of security are we dealing with?"

Ivan: "Check point at the jump gate, patrols, and probably a laser-detection grid."

Terrence: "Well we got stealth systems though, right?"

Ivan: "Yeah, we have sensor-jamming technology, retro-reflective armor for the laser grid. It won't exactly be a walk in the park."

Terrence: "What about the cloaking device we picked up on that one planet?"

Ivan: "That turned out to be a blindfold and a pair of fuzzy handcuffs, but also not the worst thing you bought that day."

Terrence sits and looks regretful for a few moments.

Terrence: "I guess the biggest problem will be how to keep the ship safe in orbit while we're down on the planet."

Ivan: "I was thinking about that. There is basically no way. Our best bet would be to do a fly-by, drop our asses on the surface, then program the ship to go into low-power mode, shut off everything, and come by on a return-trajectory."

Terrence: "Like that time on Ibis? That plan worked on Ibis."

Ivan, laughing like a "bro": "Yeeeeah it did!"

Ivan, suddenly serious: "Except we had time to enter orbit and beam down. This time we're just gonna have to fly by if we want to keep from getting spotted."

Terrence: "So... what?"

Ivan, shrugging: "We use an escape pod. The gas-jets from the ejection system won't raise an alarms and can be activated while Beowulf is already powered down. If we keep the pod offline until we're juuuuust kissing the atmosphere..."

Terrence: "Can you make up at least one plan that doesn't taunt the wrath of a vengeful, old-testament god?"

Ivan: "Retroreflective armor for the laser grid? All it does is bounce back laser beams the way they came, its completely safe, and effective."

Terrence: "I'll take it."

Ivan: "Well the big problem obviously is the Jump Gate."

Terrence: "No, wait, let's double-check on that. Can you hand me the binder marked 'SHIT I ALREADY KNOW'?"

Ivan: "I'm no stranger to sarcasm, Terrence."

Terrence: "OBVIOUSLY the Jump Gate is the problem. Muldoon owns it along with everything else in the system. And the only ships that come and go are his mining ships. Even if we fake a regestration--and I'm frankly not sure our current registration isn't already fake--"

Ivan(Interrupting): "Oh its fake as shit."

Terrence: "Right, so even with a fake-er registry, Muldoon would catch us if we try to get through the gate."

Ivan: "Our ship is also registered as a church. You know, for tax purposes."

Terrence leans back and puts his hands over his face in expasperation.

Terrence: "...ok. We have our own god damn FTL Drive. Explain to me... again... why it is we can't just fly through a neighboring jump gate?"

Ivan: "Our you sure you need me to explain it? You didn't write it down on your binder or some shit?"

Terrence: "Just shut up and make with the technobabble."

Ivan: "FTL in general has never been particularly fast; that's why they set up the Jumpg Gate system."

Terrence: "Who the hell are 'they'?"

Ivan: "I dunno, who builds the highway system back on Earth?"

Terrence: "The Federal Government?"

Ivan: "Well, maybe they build the Jump Gates, too. Anyway, the gates allow for near-instantaneous travel anywhere in the galaxy, while the FTL drive on Beowulf is really only made for short hops--trips that would take us a few weeks under sub-light. Ultimately, our top speed is about ten times the speed of light. Good for getting across a solar system, not so useful for getting between them."

Ivan: "The nearest neighboring jump gate is 10 light years away. At ten times the speed of light..."

Terrence: "It takes us a year to get there."

Ivan: "I'm not really sure I'd like to commit a year to this endeavor. Plus that cryo-sleep chamber the guy sold us turned out to be an old refrigerator that locks from the outside..."

Terrence: "Sorry about that, by the way. At least it had air holes drilled in it."

Ivan: "I'm no longer afraid of enclosed spaces, so there's that."

Terrence: "You've gotta have something, man. You're always thinking about this shit."

Ivan: "...I do have one idea."

Ivan reaches up and takes booklet/binder down from shelf above table. The cover denotes is at "Jumps by Dre" and it appears to be an FTL drive operations manual. It needs to either be absurdly thick or very thin.

Ivan: "I've been going over the schematics for our FTL jump-drive."

Terrence: "Wait, does that really say 'Jumps by Dre'?"

Ivan: "Yeah, that's the brand we have."

Terrence: "As in Dr. Dre, the rapper from earth?"

Ivan(after opening the binder): "Yeah... that's what it says in the book."

Terrence: "It HAS to just be a branding thing."

Ivan: "Nope, says here he had a huge hand in designing the thing."

Terrence: "Why would... you know what, never mind, we got a way bigger problem."

Cut to the engine room.

Ivan and Terrance are standing on either side of the engine core, which has a very crude placard on it denoting itself as a "Jumpz by Dree" drive.

Ivan: "Everything on this ship is either fake or a cheap knockoff."

Terrence: "Caveat Emptor, bitch. What's your plan?"

Ivan: "If we tie the jump drive to the main deflector, I think we could open a trans-spatial flecture."

Terrence: "I see words coming out of your mouth, but all I hear is sci-fi bullshit."

Ivan: "Look, ultimately, the jump-gate technology and the jump-drive technology aren't all that dissimilar. They're not designed to work together, because reasons, but I believe if I activate the drive in just the right way, I can knock us out of jump-space without us having to pass through Muldoon's Gate."

Terrence: "I did not understand the half of that."

Ivan: "Ok, it's like this,"

Ivan reached up and grabs a tub dangling from the ceiling. It starts spewing some kind of weird gas, looking perplexed, he immediately shoves it back into place and rips out a different tube.

Ivan: "Imagine this end of the tub is Muldoon's end of the jump-gate. We entered up there somewhere, we're supposed to come out Muldoon's hole."

Terrence: "That accurately describes every encounter we've had with him, go on."

Ivan takes out a small knife and stabs a hole near the end of the tube.

Ivan: "What I'm proposing is, I use our drive to punch a hole when we're here, near the end. We come out in normal space, in the outer solar system, and Muldoon is none the wiser. We'd still have to use our FTL drive to cover the last leg of the trip, but we'd be talking a few days, a week tops."

Terrence(Looking suspicious): "...is this dangerous?"

Ivan: "Ho, ya!"

Terrence: "Are we talking 'riding a motorcycle without a helmet' dangerous, or... 'running around in a thunderstorm waving a big metal pole and actively calling God a pussy'?"

Ivan takes a long pause.

Ivan: "30/70?"

Terrence, after a long pause: "Could we use this technique to avoid paying gate tolls?"

Ivan: "Probably, the same concept works in reverse, we'd just have to time it right. Also there's the whole suicidaly dangerous thing."

Terrence: "We can pretty much append 'besides the suicidally dangerous part' to all your plans."

Second Act

Opening Scene

SHot of hole or tear in space opening, brilliant light, cool CG effect, ship zooms out of tear and flies past camera at trememndous speed. Only sound is Terrence screaming at the top of his longs which will be dopler-shifted as the ship lies by.

Next

Add in bit where they discuss getting past the laser detection grid. Ivan explains that this is "no problem" because Beowulf has "retro-reflective armor" which doesn't do shit against big space guns but can reflect smaller laser beams back to their point of origin.

They execute Ivan's insane plan and have to evade patrols. Since they can't enter orbit around the planet they will have to do a fly-by and go down in an escape pod(if there's time they can complain about the cost - escape pods ain't cheap). They can get beamed back up, but they have to set the coordinates ahead of time and rely on the ship's notoriously fallable computer. How much of this we actually expos is up for consideration, but that's the plan.

Escape Pod part

Before leaving the ship, Terrence calls to Ivan to get moving, and Ivan says that he "just needs to get some food out of the replicator" for the trip. At this point the camera angle actually allows us to see inside, revealing the replicator to litterally just be a pantry. Ivan still makes a big show of asking the replicator for something before opening it.


Ivan is moving around the cabin grabbing supplies, Terrence is at the table scratching some notes on a folded chart.

Terrence: "Ivan, I'm doing the math, and I don't like this. Your plan has us re-entering the atmosphere faster than the safety threshold. A lot faster."

Ivan: "You mean entering."

Terrence: "What?"

Ivan: "Atmospheric re-entry implicilty requires us to leave the atmosphere first. Since we've never been to this planet, and our escape pod definitely hasn't, we can't possible be 're'-entering the atmosphere. This is atmospheric 'entry'."

Terrence makes an exasperated what the fuck face.

Terrence: "FINE. We're still making atmosphereic 'entry'"(sarcastic air quotes)"a lot faster than recomended."

Ivan: "How much faster?"

Terrence: "Eight, maybe ten percent? But that's past the escape pod's maximum recomended entry speed, and these specs are for a new pod. I don't need to remind you, ours is a bit past it's use-by date."

Ivan: "Pfffft. Escape Pod expiration dates are the biggest scam in the universe. EVERYBODY knows that! Oh yeah they say the ablative heat shield starts to break down, but that's just a lie to get you to buy a new escape pod every ten years! And you know THEY are the ones to sell you the pod!"

Terrence: "Ok. Our pod is forty years old, the ablative heat shield has your initials carved in it, AND we're planning to hit the atmosphere going a lot faster than we should."

Ivan: "Ten percent is hardly 'a lot'."

Terrence: "It is when you're talking about orbital velocity!"

Ivan: "Chill, I already worked all this out before we even approached this plan. We're fine."

Terrence: "Freaking HOW?!"

Ivan: "You're using the specs out of a manual. Yeah, we're hitting too fast. But there's also only two of us instead of the three the pod is designed for, and, we're going to make it a water landing."

Terrence: "We what now?"

Ivan: "Yeah, dude. We're targetting to land just off the coast. We can hit the water a lot faster than land. It's cool. It'll be cool. We're cool."

Ivan gives Terrence a double thumbs up a few times, Terrence shakes his head.

Escape Pod Escape Scenes

This whole sequence will be mostly silent.

Establishing shot as Ivan and Terrence open the hatch to the escape pod. This should look suspiciously like a toilet seat. Maybe add a shot where Ivan is inside and Terrence is passing him packs, but only if feasible.

Inside the pod its dark and extremely cramped, we'll use the lack of light to cover up the fact that the pod is a really crummy set. Camera shows both individuals, Terrence is very somber preparing for the dangerous descent, while Ivan is fiddling with a rubix cube.

Effects shot from the outside of the pod leaving the ship.

Cut to wide shot as the ship flies away from the planet while the pod descends.

If possible, shot of pod entering atmosphere and becoming bathed in fire.

Shot out pods window of fire.

Shot of Terrence, gritting his teeth and looking terrified while his face is bathed in orange flame. Pan over to Ivan, who is reading a magazine. We'll make up something fun and stupid for it, like "tits and lasers"

If doable, make a shot where the pod jettisons some kind of aero-shield and activates descent thrusters. I have some ideas about this but it will be a challenge to film.

Final shot is on the ocean, the pod is sinking in the background, our heroes heads pop out of the water. As they tread water, Terrence glances over at Ivan, who is still wearing his sunglasses. Ivan glances back, and Terrence makes an exasperated face.

Planetside

Standing on the beach as the waves role in, Ivan plants a beacon.

Ivan: "We've got three days get back here and activate this thing."

Terrence: "Shouldn't be just take the beacon with us, activate it from wherever?"

Ivan: "Beowulf has to hone in on a stationary signal while it's fly-by. We either set the beacon now or when we're ready set it and wait three days for a pickup."

Terrence(sarcastically): "Is that, like, three 'earth' days?"

Ivan, glancing at the beacon: "Its three something, all right."

Follow this up with a short travel montage. Lots of walking/hiking. Terrence points out that they are on the native's territory, passing through an area not controlled by evil miner guy.

Terrence: "It looks like we're in [the native's] territory now."

Ivan(sourly): "The guys that work for Muldoon?"

Terrence: "No, these are just the locals, the indigenous folks. They're nice people--or they were before mineral deposites were discovered here. They call the planet [pretty name]. They're nice people. I think I speak a little of their language."

Ivan: "In otherwords they aren't gonna be pissed at us for trespassing on their land?"

Terrence: "They might be pissed at you."

Ivan: "That's fair."

Party with Locals

Scene opens with Ivan and Terrence bushwacking their way through heavy foliage. They have a combination of headlamps and riffle-mounted flashlights. They emerge suddenly on a torchlit clearing, having stumbled rather by accident onto a large group of natives. The natives brandish spears at them and Ivan raises his gun menacingly.

Terrence, knowing the locals are friendly, lets his gun rest on its strap and raises his hands peacfully, then grabs the muzzle of Ivan's weapon and pushes it towards the ground.

Terrence: "Lower your gun, asshole!"

Terrence moves forward, hands raised again, and says something in a few syllables.

Subtitles: "...hi."

One of the aliens moved forward, he is clearly the chief, he stares Terrence up and down, then spreads his arms apart and speaks several sentences.

Subtitles: "(the chief greets Terrance warmly)"

Terrence, to Ivan: "He says 'Hi'."

Terrence turns to the Chief again, speaks a bit of alien badly, subtitles: "We've come to this planet to explore, we are interested in seeing the mining complex..."

Chief says something, no subtitles.

Terrence, to Ivan: "He says Muldoon is a shithead."

Ivan: "...really?"

Terrence: "Exact words."

Ivan launches into a lengthy explanation of who he and Terrence are and where they came from, using mostly hand signs and sound effects. This lasts for an embarrassing several minutes.

Chief(subtitles): "Is he some kind of idiot?"

Terrence(Subtitles): "Yes."

The natives are either having a party of throw one(there exact motivations don't really matter). There should be a good overhead shot of everyone dancing among torches. If we frame it right we won't even need to do this part out in the woods, we just need to get the lighting right. The main point is lots of music and dancing. Druming kinda music, the dancing can look cool. We could also use bamboo and coconut shells for drinks in case we wanna let everyone get drunk

Ivan starts dancing like an idiot. Seriously stupid dance moves. I have some ideas, they will look bad. A few of the natives are confused, most are repulsed. Girls being uncomfortable around my character: now an official theme.

Monster Chase Scene

While hanging around the edge of the festivities, Terrence makes eye contact with an attractive alien babe who is clearly giving him the look(no subtlety required here). Terrence first gestures uncertainly towards Ivan, and the girl shakes her head emphatically no. Terrence points to himself and she gives him a little nod, gesturing for him to follow.

Terrence follows the girl to a secluded pond where she undresses. Getting the idea, Terrence strips off quickly and follows her. They get about waist-deep in the water with her backing up and him following. The camera shot will be over Terrence's shoulder.

Rather suddenly the girl side-steps and a horrible monster leaps out of the bushes. Terrence screams and runs.

Cut back and forth to shots of Terrence running through the jungle, looking over his shoulder, seeing the monster gain.

Cut to shot of Ivan, switching on a laser site and bringing his rifle up to his shoulder.

Terrence trips while turning to look behind him and the monster towers over him. He screams, then Ivan shoots the monster and kills it.

Ivan moves in over Terrence and tosses him pants.

Terrence: "...thanks."

(Note: you can wear swim trunks and shoes for this scene, we're never going to shoot bellow your waist. Just understand that the nudity is implied)

Next Part

Establishing shot of a mine. If possible Id like to use an actual shot from a mine in el salvador, if not we can use stock footage. We'll be editing in a giant death-fortress in the background. (Note: This could be a good chance for you to flex your cardboard and spray paint skills: build the model, make it detailed but shitty, light it and photograph it well, and then we'll mat-paint it into the background).

Cut to our heroes on a hilltop, observing through rifle scopes and binoculars.

Terrence: "Any ideas?"

Ivan: "If it's in his fortress, we're boned."

Terrence: "You'd think he'd keep it there."

Ivan: "I try not to think like Muldoon."

Ivan points to something.

Ivan: "There."

Terrence (using rifle scope) changes what he's looking at. If we can, we need a far-away shot of something abandoned-looking.

Terrence: "I see it, what are you thinking?"

Ivan: "Muldoon's a careless son of a bitch, when his goons were finished mining out that section, they probably just moved the security line and abandoned all kinds of crap."

Terrence: "As much as I love a good salvage run, I don't think left a prized cultural treasure in there."

Ivan: "No... but he may have left behind some computers attached to his intranet."

Abandoned Mine Scene

(Our heroes then sneak to an abandoned section of the complex to make use of an old computer terminal) The mine is implied to be on the surface(a strip mine) So for a set we can use anything that looks reasonably abandoned. The really big challenge is that it has to not have any big visible signs. Also we don't want to get shanked.

Our heroes find a computer terminal. If there's electricity available it won't be too much trouble to rig something up with an old monitor, but it may just be easier to frame the shot such that a keyboard is visible but the screen itself is not. We'll use a mechanical keyboard to get those good loud typing sounds.

Terrence: "We're in."

Ivan: "What kind of porn does he have? Is Muldoon in to weird shit?"

Terrence slowly rotates his head to stair questioningly at Ivan, then looks back at the screen.

Terrence: "We're on his corporate intranet, not into his personal files."

Terrence works the computer a bit longer, Ivan scouts around in the background, finds something.

Terrence: "I think I found it. It looks like Muldoon displayed most of his 'cultural treasures' in his east-side villa, which it seems he doesn't use often since it lacks a full-time staff."

Ivan: "Security?"

Terrence: "Pretty tight, but that's not really the problem. The mining operation is huge, it'll take us days to go around it. We don't have that kinda time."

Ivan: "Where's the villa?"

Terrence points at the screen.

Ivan: "There's a tunnel that leads from over here, let's out right by the Villa. Its sealed off but I think we can make it."

Terrence: "How the hell do you know that?"

Ivan: "The Elders told me about it, last night when you were busy getting monster-chowed?"

Terrence: "HOW?! You don't speak Savior, and they don't speak white idiot."

Ivan: "There may have been not a small amount of hand-signals and dirt drawings involved."

Terrance taps the computer a bit more.

Terrence: "I'll be damned, there is a tunnel. We just might pull this off yet."

Tunnel Scene

If possible, it'd be cool if we could get an actual mine shaft, failing that any kind of industrial-looking corridor will do. Doesn't have to be that long, we can shoot it to look long. Doesn't even have to be underground, but we need minimum 30 and preferably 50 feet and it needs to "look" like its a tunnel. An office building would work if its old and dingy.

Do a few shots of them moving down the tunnel, first leapfrog style, then a bit more confidently as they get further in.

Eventually, they encounter a door with a talking head. (There's two ways we can accomplish this: cheap would be door with a hole and a guy in makeup. Cool would be with a puppet al-la Labrinth)

Door: "STOP! Trespassers!"

Terrence: "What the fuck is this guy?"

Ivan: "Ooooo! I've heard 'a these! Its a Tangarian Puzzle Door!"

Door says riddle. The riddle is clearly complete nonsense/bullshit, but clearly in english(we should create it by running a common phrase through a translator several dozen times).

Terrence: "Do you have any idea what it just said?"

Ivan: "That wasn't some weird alien language?"

Door: "It was the riddle! To pass this way you must tell me (repeats riddle)."

Terrence: "Its not some weird alien language..."

Ivan: "I got an idea!"

Ivan raises his gun, and starts shooting(the end of the muzzle will be slightly out of frame so we don't have to render all the laser shots). Ivan first fires a pretty reasonable volley. Then fires a second round. Then continues to fire a frankly unnecessary number of times while Terrence glares at him. After the first few shots Ivan isn't even looking at the door, just turning his head towards Terrence while he shoots. Terrence becomes progressively more agitated and Ivan slows down his firing rate, slows a bit more, then pauses and fires off a single final shot.

Ivan and Terrence proceed through the smoldering remains of the door.

Robot Fighting Part

Ivan and Terrence emerge from the tunnel in the abandoned villa and discover that it is being guarded by robot patrols.

Ivan: "Guards! What do we do?"

Terrence(raising gun): "They're just robots, Ivan, shoot them."

Ivan: "What if they aren't robots, Terrence? What if they're just guys dressed up like Daft Punk?"

Terrence: "Shoot them twice."

A lot of how this scene works is going to depend on where we can film and who we can get to play the robots. Personally I'm thinking we ask Diana's brothers and a few of their friends to volunteer. And we could have them be skatboarding robots, which, while stupid, would be funny and look visually awesome.

My ideal filming location might be that abandoned resort, possibly for no other reason than because I have been there and seen it. We are fully flexible, here, this is just my first idea. Ultimately we need a location that we can feasibly make "look" like a Villa, with careful framing and the right setup.

This is not actually all that ambitious of a scene to film, believe it or not. The main challenge is we need a location and some assurance that the cops aren't going to show up and assume we're terrorists and start shooting. I'd like to do a lot with smoke bombs and and "pots"(thats where you rig a small charge inside a container full of sand or soil and detonate - the effect is basically harmless but looks like a large explosion. I am hoping that El Salvador's lax fireworks regulations will aid us.

We need about 5 robots. For the costume, what I would LIKE to do is coveralls, work gloves, and the old style daft punk helmets. Failing that a cheasy robot mask from a haloween store would do. I've looked in to it and prop-accurate daft punk helmets are retardedly expensive, like stupidly, so we need something cheap. The robots use weapons mounted in their hands, so we just need to glue a fake jewel to the palm of some of the work gloves.

If we DO end up with skatboarding robots, this scene happens later on:

At some point during this scene, Terrence falls, firing a wild shot. A robot stands over him and points his hand-weapon

Robot: "Any last words?"

Terrence: "Retroreflective armor?"

(Robot gets hit in the back by a beam from outerspace)

Bow Discussion

Ivan: "So, the day the gun was invented, the bow and arrow became obsolete. Overnight."

Terrence: "Ok?"

Ivan: "Longbows of the day were superior to early guns, especially muskets, in every conceivable way. They could shoot further, faster, straighter, and do more damage to a target. A skilled bowman could fire off ten arrows in the time it takes to load one musket round, and could reliably hit a target at over three times the distance. Plus, musket balls back then, especially at the edge of range, were so low-velocity that they'd somtimes bounce right off. An arrow, fired in an ark, could go through a freaking bone at the maximum edge of range. Add in that bows were a lot cheaper, metal at the time was rare and expensive, and forging rifle barrels was an art. Comparatively bows are made of wood, and arrows could be produced fast and cheap by barely-skilled hands. An army could equip a hundre bowmen for the cost of just ten muskets."

Terrence: "I get it, but why are you telling me all this?"

Ivan: "Why did the gun so instantly render the longbow useless?"

Terrence: "I DON'T FREAKING KNOW!"

Ivan: "Training."

Terrence, exasperated: "What?"

Ivan: "A gun was ten times more expensive than a bow, but an archer had to train for a lifetime. Yeah, they were objectively better in combat, but you could teach a man to fire a musket in an afternoon, and he'd master the skill in a few weeks. That meant they could ultimately field way bigger armies, because pulling a dude out if the field and shoving a gun in his hands was easy."

Terrence: "Fun fact, ok, but again, why are you mentioning all this?"

Ivan: "Just thinking out loud. A security guard who skateboards can cover more ground, and a skilled skateboarder could easily outrun a guy on foot. They'd even have the advantage when it comes to dealing with obstacles. You don't see skateboarding security guards for the same reason early armies during the beginning of the gun era didn't field a bunch of archers: all the added training just isn't worth the advantage. But a robot doesn't have that problem; once you teach one robot how to skateboard, its just a matter of copying that code out to all the rest of your robots. Ergo: skateboarding robot security guards."

Terrence: "You are such a friggin idiot..."

Escape

They escape, and are helped by the tribe they met earlier.

Terrence meets with the girl who tried to feed him to the monster, who explains that she was actually really drunk that night, and seeing him in daylight and sober she actually thinks he's "effeminate", and, "kind of faggy". We could have Ivan translate that last part using a dictionary he found at the villa.

Though not explicitly stated, Terrence interprets this to be related to his recent disgrace, lamenting that even girls in primitive tribes know about it.

For their help, Ivan offers to return the Heart of Light to them, explaining that it's not right that they (he and Terrence) should keep it. The natives politely refuse the offer, explaining that "the heart of light is just some glowing hunk of rock we found in a cave" and that they have been pretending for years that all sorts of random junk is sacred cultural treasures, so the invaders will steal those and leave their real treasures alone.

Final Act

They get to the beam-out site on time and make it back to their ship. More bullshitting around in space ensues, and they escape and reach the planet where their contact is waiting to receive the thing. (It's Klepton for now, but we can find a better name.)

The planet could be a heavily atmosphered moon like Titan. One idea is we could use the HardWar video game to do some of the exterior shots (again, "artists' depiction"). They meet with the contact and hand the thing over, and then Terrence asks for the information to clear his name. The guy laughs in his face, pointing out that, at most, six people were fooled and no one actually cares: Ivan and Terrance are so "small-time" that they don't have a reputation to speak of.


Random thought: We use some footage from the HardWar video game to show the heroes going to visit Slade's tower on Klepton, and frame it with "Klepton: (Low-Paid) Artists Conception".

Later on as they make the run-up to Slade's penthouse we use a very crude drawing in crayon, captioned "Slade's Penthouse: Six-Year-Old's Conception".

Slade's Pad

Ivan (Fiddling with his gun): "Set your weapon to Stun".

Terrence: "Ivan, it's a laser blaster that blows holes through solid rock. It does not have a 'stun' setting. Just various levels of 'kill'".

Ivan: "Right, just like a real gun".


Our heroes go to see Slade and deliver the item. He curtly informs them, via video monitor, that they can leave it on the door step and get the hell out. Angered by this, Terrence pushes through the door.

In the next chamber, Terrence meets and alien who produces a crazy looking knife and waves it around menacingly.

Knife guy: "You wish to intrude upon my master? Well, you should be warned I am the finest Dakri fighter on all of Klepton!".

Terrence is completely unfazed by this statement, and places a hand on his rifle.

Terrence: "So, there's two problems with that statement."

Knife guy, doing some elaborate bullshit with his knife: "Oh?"

Terrence, shrugging: "First, I ain't from Klepton."

As Terrence finishes speaking, he side-steps and Ivan moves forward, rifle at the ready.

Terrence: "The second is that this ain't a Dakri fight."

For emphasis, Terrence fires his laser gun into the ceiling.

Knife guy shakes like a leaf and emits a high-pitched, girlish scream before dropping his weapon and running down a side tunnel.

Terrence shoots the next door open.

Ivan takes up station beside it.

Ivan: "Go in, I'll cover you."

Terrence: "You sure?"

Ivan: "In case knife-guy or a competent body guard shows up. Go!"

Terrence nods and runs down the hallway.

Showdown With Slade

Terrence bursts into Slade's room, rifle at the ready. Slade is wearing a comfortable bath robe and apparently preparing for a dip in his private hot tub along with three bikini-clad alien babes (no two alike: one is furry and catlike; the second slippery and amphibian, and the third feathery), all of whom look like they'd rather be somewhere else. He sits in a chair and they remain near him, fawning over him. When he gestures they come close.

Terrence: "I want the data crystal you promised me, Slade!"

Slade, off-handledly: "Take it."

Slade gestures to a table nearby where a small crystal sits.

Terrence glances quickly at the crystal but keeps his rifle trained on Slade. He side-steps to the table and grabs the crystal, dropping it in his vest pocket then returning both hands to the weapon.

Terrence: "Why didn't you give it to me when I brought you your damn Heart of Light?!"

Slade: "If I'd known you were going to scuff up so many of my nice doors on your way in, I would have. Honestly, I just didn't think you'd care so much, and I do so enjoy a nice..."

Slade pauses to ogle one of the girls.

Slade: "...bath."

Terrence lifts his rifle menacingly.

Terrence: "You knew how important that information was to me!"

Slade bursts out laughing: "Oh, is it? You really think a few minor log-notes are going to change anything?"

Slade moves to the edge of the bath and sits down, undoing the sash on his robe.

Slade: "The truth, Terrence: the logs won't change a damn thing. No one cares. When that fool impersonated you, he didn't ruin anything; there was nothing to ruin! You're a small-time, low-cost handy-man who fancies himself a mercenary. You never had a reputation to begin with".

Terrence: "You know what, Slade?!"

Terrence raises his rifle to his shoulder in firing position. The girls all move away, but Slade doesn't react (not believing Terrence will do it), and Terrence fires a single burst into Slade's chest. He falls backwards into the tub and is clearly dead.

Camera cuts back to Terrence, where the bikini-clad alien girls immediately cluster around him and start fawning over him.

Terrence: "I don't even know what to say about all this".

End.

Ending

In a final scene, our heroes return to the bridge of Beowulf, Terrence is still inexplicably surrounded by bikini-clad babes who are fawning over him. Ivan is completely ignored. In fact, really, both our heroes aren't really paying any attention to the girls.

Ivan: "I'm setting a course for the Anaksu System!"

Terrence: "Why there?"

Ivan, looking over his shoulder at Terrence and grinning: "Because we've never been there before".

Ivan turns back to the controls and Terrence leans back in his chair, looking contented and confident.

Fade out.