Original Soldiers topic on "YOUR IDEAS"

Okay folks,
Cough it up. Let's hear what input you had on your screenplay ideas for the majestic contest of Original Soldiers.

My concept dealt with CYBORG (antagonist) who established a enemy base on Earth, ever since Pharoah era. But, the enemy lair could not be seen because it was invisible. The established story on the screenplay of six pages shows droid spacecrafts sent to destroy a military compound. So, I used "frequency" as the a subplot of the story. Frequency can be used as energy, hence the enemy's invisibility. With frequency, it can be established as an energy source, if one reads "reflection & refraction" science. Thus, allowing me to go even further into the story to say that the enemy base is capable of regeneration. The possiblity to heal itself. So, GUND & COMPANY (Gund, Beaker, and Lt. Anu), have to find an invisible base. But, Lt. Anu has been working on a special computer module that can locate with infrared lighting. Thus, the Rainbow Road is the path to the invisible lair. Of course, Gund & Co. can't be seen by the enemy, because Beaker has three aluminum firefighter suits that are undetectable by sonar/radar devices. Once inside the base, SPECIAL TASK FORCE has to find their way through the Catacombs of Frequency. The lair is wall to wall wiring, which has been established to keep the enemy invisible. With wiring frequency, energy is possible, which has Lt. Anu finding them through the holes and pathways that lead to the DROID spaceship annex. Lt. Anu has the computer module fixed to check all levels of rainbow visibility so that the area is seen through their eyes, to make things more possible to do more damage to the enemy base. But, STF (Special Task Force) finds that when they try to compromise the wiring, it regenerates itself. Making them vunerable to the healing process. Of course, STF has to witness another attack on another military compound and they are helpless to do anything to stop the attack. Therefore, Gund & Co. decide to highjack "ONE" droid spacecraft that they will send to HQ. Which will help them get more information on their opponent. In the meantime, Gund & Co. have to figure out how to stop the immortal enemy base. Soon, Beaker finds the history of the base and configures that it comes from outer space from many thousands of years. Gund realizes that aliens won't cross the galaxy to be victims of travel, so they must have built computer systems that regenerate themselves for any destructive issues. But, they have yet to realize that the real antagonist hasn't revealed itself. The CYBORG of all commands is closely watching them and has them in a cage of energy, but it allows them to wander around whilest he continues to defeat the country. Until, Gund & Co. decipher the wiring to destroy the enemy base, they are losing time and running out of options. Then, HQ sends information, by breaking silence. The new information gives Gund & Co. better odds, but that is when CYBORG reveals itself. Trapped with energy force field, Gund & Co. are doomed. Until, an unexpected guest arrives to save STF, which is Captain May. The unexpected visitor carrying a new weapon that incinerates the energy and causes the invisible base to become visual. Cpt. May runs havoc on the base and finds his way to through the maze of confusion, past the Droid spaceships, which of course, he destroys causing less time for him to save STF group. He finds the CYBORG a definite opponent to fight, but with his new weapon he has the advantage. He saves SFT and now they are seconds from becoming obliterated. But, with luck Gund & Co. make the best exit ever.

Daniel M.

So, how about yours?

It is my hunble opinion that the scariest flying enemy ever on screen

was in the Wizard of OZ

So I went with the Flying Blue Monkey thing

I had the same idea Jim, but I wanted smaller versions of Gamera instead of Flying Blue Monkey's.

I may have copied the Wizard of OZ. My story is about 4 people following a winding path
towards a goal. I even have a toto in there. And Yes I remember hiding behind the couch when the flying monkeys appeared.

Gamera is friend to all children!

This is not my pitch, but how I developed my idea for my story.

My story evolved from three events in the past 2 weeks:
1. Iran captures RQ-170 Sentinel drone and prepares to reverse engineer it.
2. Iran and Afghanistan military announce joint defense committee to establish more sophisticated military force in region.
3. Pakistan military and intelligence chiefs have been publicly sabre rattling about fighting US and NATO forces if they transgress Pakistan's sovereignty again.

Based on US and NATO predictions for military hotspots in the next 20-30 years, South Central Asia (Iran, Afghanistan & Pakistan), comes in number one.

Fast-forward to 2035 and the formation of the Republic of IRISTAN.

IRISTAN takes out the US ARMY satellite fleet controlling droids and drones in South Central Asia using a stealth space drone they developed based on the one captured in 2011.

Gund, Beaker and Anu are sent in to destroy the new stealth space drone in IRISTAN before the new US satellite fleet is launched and operational in 72 hours.

Note: Technology will accelerate faster than it has done in the past 25 years.
The Internet will be 5 times bigger and faster. Droids and drones of all shapes and sizes will occupy our daily lives and many will be operated remotely via satellite.

China knocked off a dummy satellite last year. A major battle would effectively knockout
all satellites,having us sucking on our thumbs.
Sgt Gunderson-those damn pin pricks keep sucking up to technology

LMAO

Thank you for some of the insight to your great ideas.
I like blue monkeys, they are funny.

But, seriously, did anyone understand that the six page screenplay was the
front of the story and we had to follow the storyline to that exact idea.

I believe it wasn't about the countries incognito to super weaponry, but
the "real storyline" to three comrads sent to save their military headquarters.

Did anyone catch that?

Daniel M.

to me

the most important part of the first script was the fact they went to a museum

to get weapons


i hit the wrong button

I'll only reveal this much (since I don't want to expose my fabulous ideas to anyone just yet).

The original script AS provided doesn't appear in my screenplay until five pages in. I wanted to foreshadow the story a little first.

"But, seriously, did anyone understand that the six page screenplay was the
front of the story and we had to follow the storyline to that exact idea.

I believe it wasn't about the countries incognito to super weaponry, but
the "real storyline" to three comrads sent to save their military headquarters.

Did anyone catch that?

Daniel M." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

THIS IS WHAT I CAUGHT, Daniel: "The application must consist of a written pitch of no more than 8000 characters (around 1500 words) detailing the script YOU'D LIKE TO WRITE based on the premise of ORIGINAL SOLDIERS. The pitch can be in beat sheet, outline, or narrative format, as long as it fully details THE STORY YOU WANT TO TELL from beginning to end, including the plot, characters, and tone. YOU CAN USE AS MUCH OR AS LITTLE of the provided settings, elements and characters as you want."

The 6 page downloadable screenplay was basically a reading exercise. And according to the premise, which is as stated, "When a new attack ship disables America’s all-droid army in 2035, two veterans who have stuck to the old ways must save the day one last time," there are ONLY 4 ironclad elements which must be involved in your story: 1.) The year is 2035 (a near future setting). 2.) A NEW attack ship has disabled America's all droid army. 3.) Two VETERAN 'SOLDIERS', not veteran schoolteachers, not veteran police officers, not veteran lifeguards, not veteran lion tamers, but two VETERAN SOLDIERS will be the protagonist who will 4.) SAVE THE DAY/DEFEAT THE INFIDELS/OVERCOME THE NEW.

NEW versus OLD, and MAN versus Machines is the heart and soul of the premise. That is what my story is based on. Other than the EMP, I USED ZERO ELEMENTS from the script. ... That's all I can reveal about my story, without compromising the NDA that AS is going to make me sign when I'm chosen as one of the five. LOL.

"You can use as much or as little of the provided settings, elements and characters as you want."

The scripts had a lot to be desired. For example:

• Armies/soldiers don’t line up in “combat formation” to be picked off. I don’t think expensive drones would be purposely made targets.
• Contingency plans are drawn up well in advance of an attack would dictate what happens next, not enlisted men with guns in their truck.
• US Special Forces would never be phased out in 25 years. They are too valuable an asset.
• EMP(electromagnetic pulse) is typically generated by a nuclear explosion. If US droids were disabled, enemy droids would also be disabled. Equipment that is off is also disabled.
• The US has never been invaded and probably won’t be in the next 25 years by a terrestrial force. Who would try to invade the most militarily advanced and capable nation on the planet? Not the Chinese or Russians, knowing that every major city in their countries have a nuclear weapon aimed at them.

Aliens invading has been done to death don't you think?

I took the characters names and ran with that.

I kept everything.
Especialy the part about the museum.

Hmm... like Larry, I went with the conflict between new and old. I had Anu represent the former, Gund the latter. Anu and Gund clash at first and -- man, I hope this isn't too predictable -- fall for each other while saving the planet. I also kept the part of the museum.

I have to say, I'm blown away by how detailed some of the proposals are. Mine was very basic.

Over the summer, I was part of a writing seminar that met in Anaheim. Although we've all gone back to our day jobs, we've kept in touch by email. "Original Soldiers" was a chance to group-think a concept, the way we learned in class. The Pixar way, since our teacher was an animator who works for Pixar. His approach was to find or create a fascinating character and wrap the story around his arc.
WE came up with five or six ideas, and then, each of us was free to use or not use them in individual submissions. Norma didn't want to use Islam as a named villain, while I thought it was important to understand what was going on in the "Arab Spring." TIME magaine just named the Protesters their "Person of the Year".
One of the ideas we came up with... was using the equipment they use to dig tunnelos for subways, to dig hundreds of miles of tunnels, and then have the Command Bunker for the US drones move through the tunnels, invisible to spy satellites. That seems nerdy enough for this kind of contest.
Our writing group dropped the ball for "Zombies vs. Gladiators." Only one person actually finished a script and posted it. We did better for "Original Soldiers." I think we had ten people submit entries.

Daniel, I guess they don't have paragraph breaks in the year 2035 either. LOL :)

Regarding the original premise, human special forces would not be replaced with robots in 25 years. There's simply not enough time for that to happen. Even if there was a breakthrough in robotics today that would result in cheap, incredibly intelligent robots, that could replace human soldiers, you'd still need people controlling the robots. Certainly there would not be enough time for the special forces to essentially be forgotten and guns a thing of the past.

Furthermore, the firepower available today would still be able to shred any robot in the next 25 years. So standard ammo, guns and ordinance would not be "outdated." A robot might be bulletproof against small arms fire, but there's always something of higher caliber out there :)

To try and bring some plausibility in the compression of the timeline, I removed nuclear weapons from the table. In my story it is set up that there was a breakthrough in (CENSORED) technology that had a side effect of destabilizing the sensitive nuclear triggers in nuclear weapons, causing detonation if a beam of this (CENSORED) energy was focused on a nuclear weapon site.

This caused a reverse nuclear arms race where the countries of the world raced to dismantle their nukes as fast as they could.

At the same time there was several breakthroughs in robotics. In order to fill the vacuum created by the absence of "M.A.D." (Mutually Assured Destruction) the nations of the world turned to robotics for their defense.

One robotics manufacturer and armorer rises above all others and soon provides all nations with their robot soldiers. The idea is that there would be three standard humanoid bots in the future. Each with various levels of intelligence and firepower.

Those standard bots would be built according to each country's specs, and then inspected and further modified by each country upon receipt. Sort of like buying a Mustang and then putting in a supercharger in it.

I also created a supposedly uncrackable form of communication that all drones in the world use. This new (CENSORED) technology is one of the reasons why all of the countries of the world have no problem buying bots "off the shelf."

Of course, it turns out there's a back hole in the new communications tech that nobody figures out till it's too late.

I have the military and civilian (police/fire,etc.) robots throughout the entire world go apeshit and start attacking their masters, starting at the Joint ops base, massacring most of the base, aside from Gund, Beaker, Anu and another C.I.A. character that shall remain unnamed. :)

I veered away from the "two old dudes and pick up truck full of ammo" and created a ultra secret team, "The Original Soldiers" project, that was put together just for this robot doomsday scenario, and create anti-robot strategies.

Gund, of course, is the team leader. The OS operate out of a secret base built into the museum.

There are several awesome characters that also comprise Gund's team, each with their own unique talents. Gund and Beaker both have their own specialized anti-robot weapons, which are also awesome. Oh, and they drive around in a HUGE F'ING TANKZILLA that can fly and blow the shit out of just about anything. (and yes, that tech has just been invented last year; not hovercraft, but pretty damn close)

So the Original Soldiers don't just have to save the base, or the USA, they have to save the planet.

Oh, and killer robots at every street corner are actually the least of their problems! :)

Those that are controlling the bots are of a much greater threat to the survival of mankind than even the killer robots. The bots are just pawns. My actual bad guys are BAD ASS.

Ryu,

I think simple sells. I hate getting mired down in details.

The original concept had some lighthearted cues and I tried to keep that going. Like who in the military would keep a bowl of Bazooka bubblegum on their terminal station? Nobody, but it's sets a tone. And the fact that Gund didn't share his gum was another subtle clue about his character that could be expanded on.

I went for serious but with slight touches of humor since I feel much of the sci-fy stuff just gets too action oriented for my tastes. Action is great, but I don't want to swim in it for an hour and a half.

I did three pitches. Basics:

1) internal coup, sponsored by outside powers
2) foreign enemy invades successfully, Gund et al mount a resistence (Red Dawn. With robots)
3) aliens invade and want their technology back (having been reverse-engineered from a crashed spacecraft).

Looking back, I don't think my pitches were as professional as I would have liked, but they all have a ful story-arc, beginning, middle and end, with thematic points made throughout. Now we have an experienced producer on board, it may be that I regret not taking more time over them. But hopefully the stories will win out and they'll be as exctied about them as I am.

In the Pixar philosophy, one goal is to create a memorable character. And, conventional wisdom says, an action movie is judged by the villain's personality and plan rather than the hero's. If the EMP came from an attack on Seattle, on American soil, who would be behind such an attack? Is there any way to base it on real events? This is from the TIME article on their person of the year:

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2101745_2102132_2102373-1,00.html

according to the international monitoring organization Freedom House, the Middle East and North Africa remain the world's tyranny belt: at the end of 2010, Freedom House declared three-fourths of the Arab countries "not free" — including Tunisia and Egypt. For a critical mass of people from Cairo to Madrid to Oakland, prospects for personal success — for the good life at the End of History that they'd been promised — suddenly looked very grim. They were fed up, and the frustration and anger exploded after the regimes overreached.

The stakes are very different in different places. In North America and most of Europe, there are no dictators, and dissidents don't get tortured. Any day that Tunisians, Egyptians or Syrians occupy streets and squares, they know that some of them might be beaten or shot, not just pepper-sprayed or flex-cuffed. The protesters in the Middle East and North Africa are literally dying to get political systems that roughly resemble the ones that seem intolerably undemocratic to protesters in Madrid, Athens, London and New York City.

If TIME thought this was the most important story of the year... how to project it forward another twenty years? My theory is, unless you change the society, these protests are just going to replace one dictator with younger ones who will need to steal enough public funds to make their families billionaires. And nothing in the Arab Spring is changing the system that produced dictators.

OR... it can be an alien invasion. But that wasn't my choice. I took this contest as a challenge to create the best possible Bond villain... in the ranks of Goldfinger and Le Chriffe. It's dangerous to get into politics for a contest like this. That's why we agreed to submit individual entries instead of putting our names on a group script.

Andy, you're correct about it being dangerous to bring politics into the picture. For all intents and purposes you can't use the Russians because kids today don't consider Russian our enemy, which it still is. You also can't use the Chinese either, as that's not P.C., and that "Red Dawn" remake had to be changed from Chinese to North Koreans because someone high up in the Chinese Govt. complained.

Of course you can't have a radical Islamic terrorist either.

So, who's left?

"Radical Skinheads" like they did instead of Islamic terrorists in "The Sum of All fears" (changed from the book)

Supervillain. Self explanatory.

Aliens. Which has been done to death.

Evil A.I. (Skynet, Hal, etc.) which has also been done to death.

The greatest challenge in this seemingly "easy" project wasn't finding the perfect team for Gund and Co. as much as it was finding the perfect villain, which I think I accomplished in my story.

@ Neel - who thought this project was "easy"?

One idea we kept coming back to... and I know at least three people used it...

is the Outer Limits episode "100 Days of the Dragon."

The unseen enemy develops a serum that allows human flesh to become rubbery enough to be reshaped...

The EMP attack was a diversion, to take all the security safeguards offline, so Imposters could sneak into the military base and replace key personnel.

I don't think we ever specified what ethnicity the person was before the transformation... just that the head villain replaced a General, and did a much better job of being a General than the man he replaced.

This is just my opinion.

I think you could use China or Russia or whoever you wanted as long as you

Change them up a bit so that they no longer resemble the current China or Russia.

Lets say that the Chinese economy tanks. The people rise up against the Gov. A Charismatic leader rises to power.

A Cinese Hitler or Stalin if you will.

At that point the Charismatic leader is the enmy not the China that we see today.