Earth’s galaxy, the Milky Way, travels through space 373 miles a second. That’s 1,342,800 miles an hour, a very unsafe speed by anyone’s standards. For millions of years, the people of Earth have lived every day unaware of the danger surrounding them. December 12th, 2008, all of that changed.
Scene: A cabin in the woods. Amateur astronomer Corbin Mantruck is looking through his telescope
Corbin Mantruck: Will you look at that! That star just went supernova! Beautiful! It’s lighting up the sky! Wait…What the…?
(Corbin peers closer through his telescope)
Corbin Mantruck: Oh Lord! We’ve all been fools! The supernova is shedding light on an otherwise dark area of space! It wouldn’t be a problem at all except…except I can see the wall at the end of the universe!
(Corbin does some quick calculations. He stares and them in disbelief and then does them again, this time very, very slowly. He gets the same answer)
Corbin Mantruck: The Earth. We’re headed straight for the Universe’s wall. And by studying the Doppler Effect and wavelengths, it looks like we’re headed straight for the wall, traveling at…no…wait….I must make sure…
(Corbin once more checks his figures, going through each item line by line. Once again, he arrives at the same, unbelievable answer)
Corbin Mantruck: We’re doomed. We’re heading towards the Universe’s wall at 1,342,800 miles an hour. At that rate, when we hit it we’ll be flattened like a pancake. I’ve…I’ve got to tell someone. At this rate we’ll crash into the wall in four days!
Scene: The Pentagon. 5-star general Steel Delivery answers a red telephone
Gen Steel Delivery: Hello?
Corbin Mantruck: General Steel Delivery? This is Corbin Mantruck, amateur astronomer and ex-Navy Seal.
Gen. Steel Delivery: How did you get this number, Mantruck?
Corbin Mantruck: That’s not important, sir. We don’t have time for that.
Gen: Steel Delivery: Go on, son.
Corbin Mantruck: I’ll get right to the point. The universe has a wall and we’re headed straight for it. If we don’t figure out a solution, we’ll crash into it in four days.
Gen. Steel Delivery: So?
Corbin Mantruck: You’re a General, General Steel Delivery, so please understand that what I say next is with all the restraint I can muster. We will CRASH INTO THE UNIVERSE’S WALL AT 1,342,800 MILES AN HOUR!!!
Gen. Steel Delivery: Good God.
Corbin Mantruck: You see the danger.
Gen. Steel Delivery: I do. We’ll all be killed….
Corbin Mantruck: Exactly. There are no Americans now, Gen. Steel Delivery. There are no Russians or Africans or Arabs of Chinese. There are only Earthlings. We’re all in this together.
Gen. Steel Delivery: You’re right. Of course you’re right. And I see your point. If we’re going to blow up the Universe’s Wall, we’re going to need to the resources of the entire world.
Corbin Mantruck: Glad we’re on the same page.
Gen. Steel Delivery: I’m going to call the president. We need to assemble a team of world leaders. It’s crunch time. And Corbin Mantruck? I want you here, on our team. You discovered this problem and your voice has earned the right to be heard.
Corbin Mantruck: Thank you, Gen. Steel Delivery. Now, to blow up the Universe’s wall. I assume we have some sort of new super bomb that nobody knows about?
Gen. Steel Delivery: That would be classified information, Mantruck.
Corbin Mantruck: Don’t jerk me around, General Steel Delivery! Am I a part of this team or aren’t I?!
Gen. Steel Delivery: I’m sorry, son. But I just can’t reveal classified information.
Corbin Mantruck: Damn it! This red tape is why I quit my job as a Navy Seal lab-scientist! You know what? Screw it, Gen. Steel Delivery. I’m out. You work with your world team on blowing up the Universe’s Wall, and I’ll work with mine.
Gen. Steel Delivery: There’s no way you can beat us, son. We’ll have the world’s top scientists at our disposal.
Corbin Mantruck: We’ll see. If you’ll excuse me, General, I need to hang up. There are some calls I need to make.
(Corbin hangs up the phone)
Corbin Mantruck: Bastards! They’re gonna do whatever they can to stop me!
(Corbin throws a wine glass against the wall)
Corbin Mantruck: Well, looks like it’s time to call in a few favors from my frat brothers. They say a Sigma Alpha Epsilon brother is a brother for life. They say a Sigma Alpha Epsilon brother helps a brother in need. Let’s hope that’s true. First call? Harry Hangover Dirtsen. Let’s see what he’s up to.
3 comments:
Shit work from a shit asshole.
You know nothing about physics, and what you do know would easily fit inside my ass.
Fuck you, loser.
Dear Superpreme,
Though your comment does not deserve a response, I will give one.
You may not enjoy my work. That is your prerogative. And though I attempt to make my screenplays thought provoking and exciting, I realize that not everyone will find it so. I'm sorry you were not entertained by my screenplay. Hopefully, others were.
As for my understanding of physics, that is another matter. While I make no claims to be an expert on the subject, I did however, research my work. The Milky Way does indeed travel through space at roughly 373 miles per second. I understand that this number is difficult to grasp, but nevertheless, it is true physics.
And while you may not be aware of it, a supernova is a very real thing. It occurs when a star (like our sun) explodes, and it gives off a VERY bright light. Light, as I certainly hope you're aware Mr. Superpreme, illuminates things. So while the screenplay may not be likely, it is nevertheless very possible.
As a final note, I consider myself very open to criticism. This blog is, after all, a community to post "ideas, synopsis, and samples of movies, movies, and movies." That being said, I expect the criticism to be helpful and at the very least cordial. Cursing is destructive. This screen writing community is meant to be CONstructive.
Sincerely,
Human Gorilla
HG--
I don't really know how say this.
I guess I better start by saying that I work at a prosthetics factory making replacement legs and arms for the soldiers coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan. And I'm not a designer or a tester either: I'm just a lonely joint greaser, and the truth is I've been pretty down on myself lately. You see, everyday my factory ships out hundreds of new prosthetics, and with every shipment that goes out I watch the quality of our product go downhill. Last week we stopped using expensive flesh colored vinyl in our rigid plastic hands, and have instead switched to a cheap blood-red "monkey rubber" supply the manager found on the internet. If the new prosthetic hands are not already cracked or broken by the time the leave the factory, they will be by the time they finally get strapped onto the hand stumps of someone who made the greatest sacrifice of all for our freedom: losing a hand. And not only is my company not embarassed to be passing out these inferior products to our nation's finest young men and women, the higher ups actually had a big party to celebrate how much more money they were going to make with the new cheap, foul smelling prosthetic hands. Also, we now only make one version of the hand with a thumb that can screw into either side for righties or lefties.
If I had been invited to that party, I wouldn't have gone.
But hopefully that helps you see why I was feeling so bad, and maybe you can understand why, when I used the breakroom emac this afternoon to check your webpage, I reacted in a crazy and unexplainable way to what, I've since come to realize, is really a great idea for a screenplay.
I've taken the liberty of including a copy of your screenplay idea with every prosthetic hand we sent out today (approx. 430). With any luck, the depression the soldiers feel about the loss of their real hands and their new badly constructed and molded false hands, and their never abating strong petroleum smell, will be at least partly alleviated by your creativity.
I know I can't ask for you apology, but nonetheless I'm sorry I reacted the way I did-- If I could go back in time and kill myself before I did it, I would.
Don't stop writing, HG.
Thanks,
Superpreme
Post a Comment