Place: Top Tropical Government Lab
Sgt. Barl Mensop: (Gruff and serious) Are you sure?
Red Winston: Yes. Yes sir. I double checked.
Sgt. Barl Mensop: And the father? Do we know who he is? I mean, who could even do this?
Red Winston: We don’t know. This is all very new. We have to be very careful. It’s a very delicate pregnancy.
Sgt. Barl Mensop: Well how far along is she?
Red Winston: There’s no way of knowing sir. We think it’s still early, but those are just guesses. You have to understand - we’ve just never witnessed this type of pregnancy before. She could give birth tomorrow, or next year, or she could give birth 68 years from now.
Sgt. Barl Mensop: 68 years?!
(An explosion occurs because it’s the bombing of
Sgt. Barl Mensop: (dying) I can’t….die! If I die there… there will be no one to…tell the world that…the planet Earth…is pregnant! (dies)
Sixty Seven Fucking Years Later:
Scene: A newly married couple is sailing their boat in the
Lady Tepper: Dang it!
Laurence Tepper: What?
Lady Tepper: Oh, I just dropped my pregnancy test in the water. I fished it out, but it’s got ocean water on it now.
Laurence Tepper: Wait a holy shit minute! This pregnancy test says “baby”! But that means…
Lady Tepper: That’s impossible, Laurence.
Laurence Tepper: Here... Put another one in the water.
(Lady Tepper puts another pregnancy test in the water. The two stare at it in silence. Again, the word “baby” appears on the pregnancy test.)
Laurence Tepper: Earth is pregnant! This Earth. The Earth I’ve lived on my whole life. It’s pregnant and it’s going to have a baby.
Lady Tepper: What should we do, honey?
Scene: Just the Oval Office
Dr. J. Roberts: Mr. President, it’s true. I know it sounds incredible, but it’s true. Earth’s due any day. But there are –
President X: What will the baby look like? Will it look like me? Like you?
Dr. J. Roberts: The baby will look like a ------------------- (Dr. J. Roberts’ voice is censored and we can’t hear what she says)
President X: Amazing!
Dr. J. Roberts: With all due respect, Mr. President, you bet it’s amazing.
President X: (Ushers my dad out of the Oval Office, and then whispers frantically to Dr. J. Roberts) But what’s this I hear about problems?
Dr. J. Roberts: There were…complications
President X: What do you mean, “complications?”
Dr. J. Roberts: You have to understand, Mr. President, the Earth has been pregnant for a long time. 67 years, we estimate. And we didn’t know! None of us knew!
President X: ….
Dr. J. Roberts: All of the pollution, the mining, the drilling, I mean that kind of stuff takes its toll….
President X: Spit it out, Roberts. Tell me what’s going on!
Dr. J. Roberts: (sighing) It’s Earth’s baby, Mr. President. It’s going to be retarded.
President X: We should’ve taken better care of our environment! We’ve been so careless!?
Dr. J. Roberts: I’m sorry, Mr. President.
President X: Do we…do we know how retarded?
Dr. J. Roberts: Well, we don’t have anything conclusive, yet. We just know it’s pretty bad.
President X: God, oh God!!....What have we done?!
Dr. J. Roberts: That’s not the question to ask, Mr. President.
President X: I’m the president.
Dr. J. Roberts: What we need to ask is “Who’s the father?”
President X: Well?!
Dr. J. Roberts: We don’t know.
President X: I need you to find out, Dr. J. Roberts.
Dr. J. Roberts: I will, Mr. President, but with this type of Earth pregnancy, I’ll have to wait until the Earth baby is born until I do an exciting DNA test.
Thursday:
Dr. J. Roberts: The Grand Canyon is fully dilated! It’s coming!
(In moments, the Earth’s retarded baby’s head crests from the
Severely Retarded Baby Planet: Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar.
President X: My God.
Later:
Dr. J. Roberts: (brushing her red hair out of her eyes) Mr. President, I have some terrible news.
President X: Ok.
Dr. J. Roberts: The baby planet’s retardation is affecting everything on Earth. The average IQ, worldwide, has dropped by over 25 points.
President X: Tell, me, Dr. What should we do? How do we proceed?
Dr. J. Roberts: I’m…I’m worried that the only way to…the only way to bring back the intelligence of the world is to…is to kill the retarded baby planet. And I hate that solution.
President X: !!!
Dr. J. Roberts: And…and I don’t know for sure! I don’t want to rush into this. Sir, I’m having trouble trusting my judgment, knowing full well that even my own intelligence has been lowered. I mean, maybe there’s another way! Must we really kill this planet miracle, just for our own intelligence?
President X: An ethical question beyond even Aristotle.
Dr. J Roberts: Aristotle's the father!
4 comments:
Human Gorilla-- every once in a while your screenplays seem to take all the best elements of the twilight zone and all the best elements of Rosemary's Baby and combine them to form one of the most interesting and fascinating works of stageplay I have ever had the exquisite pleasure of reading and rereading and reading again. Coming to Term is just such a screenplay. I've take the liberty of printing out a copy of this blog and mailing it to my nephew. He lives in Idaho, near one of the homes of Bruce Willis, and in the letter I included with the print-out I exhorted him to read it himself and then give it to Mr. Willis the next time he sees him, which should this summer when fly-fishing starts up or maybe even before. My cousin works at a bait store. Obviously Mr. Willis is no slouch when it comes to script selection! and his power in Hollywood is second to few. I'm certain that once he sees your work he will do what's in the best interest of his career and make this movie get made. All I ask is that you credit me in every speech you give, because, if you think about it, it was my work AS WELL as yours that made it possible for you to be famous. The credit plus a stipend. That, I think we can agree, would be obvious to anyone who wasn't looking at this selfishly like a shit.
Hate it.
Hello Human Gorilla,
My name is Bruno, and my specialty is coming up with monkey-themed screenplays. However, I am realistic enough to realize that I am not quite talented enough to actually write the ideas that I come up with. Recently, I noticed that Stephen over at www.screaminglygoodscreenplays.blogspot.com had written a few (very good) monkey screenplays, and so I proposed a number of ideas to him, offering to hire him on commission. While he was not interested, it was through his site that I found yours. And while you have not written any monkey plays (that I have noticed on your site, anyway), I'm hoping you could give it a shot and write out an idea for me. If I enjoy a snippet, I will be very interested in contacting you and commissioning you to write a complete version. I know it's a lot to ask for you to "audition," but you must understand that though I believe you are a very talented screenwriter, the fact that you can write monkey is as of yet unknown. If you are interested, please contact me at telemundobruno@gmail.com My idea is listed below.
"Sick Monkey: The Origin Story"
A scientist injects a lab monkey with a new, experimental virus. The monkey gets incredibly sick. It vomits, soils itself, etc. Everyone is writing the monkey off as dead. The experimental virus is destroyed. But then the monkey slowly starts to get better. One day he stops soiling himself. A week later he stops vomiting. And after a couple of months, the monkey is back to normal. But then he keeps getting better. As the days pass, he gets stronger and stronger, eventually becoming hundreds of times stronger than he was before the virus. The scientist, unaware of the monkey's new strength, is overjoyed that the monkey is alive. He rushes into the quarantine lab to greet the monkey, but he instantly vomits, soils himself, and dies. The monkey, is both unbelievably strong and highly contagious. He is the monkey that was not supposed to live. And when the monkey bursts through the room and frees himself, multiple scientists are dead before his inferior monkey brain grasps the connection. Every human near him will die. And so in this movie, "Sick Monkey" has to come to terms with his blessing and his curse. He is strong enough to do anything and to stop anyone, but at the same time the virus that makes him strong also kills anyone that gets close to him. "Sick Monkey" has to deal with the loneliness of being a hero in ways that non-contagious heroes will never have to suffer. As the movie progresses, Sick Monkey finds ways to help people without getting close to them. He finds strength through his pen pal, a female scientist that he has long loved but can never have. He is a monkey. She is a human. He is contagious. She would die. "Sick Monkey: The Origin Story" is a tale of a tortured monkey who wants to do the right thing but can never be close to anyone.
Thank you for your time, Human Gorilla. If you're not interested, please email me and let me know. I will be checking my email and your site constantly.
Thank you for your reply. Your email told me to be patient, and I understand that, but if you're interested in this deal, you need to show me that you can do this, first. So far, you're unproven. I believe that my monkey screenplays are opportunity knocking on your door. So come on, Human Gorilla! You say that writing monkey comes easy to you, but where is it? Where's the sample?
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