Round 3.2 [The Exodus vs. Little Black Stray]

The Exodus (Shockah rank: #7, Burley rank: #6)

v.

Little Black Stray (Shockah rank: #3, Burley rank: #4)

GET IN THERE AND LET THEM SEE YOUR TEETH!

The Exodus
In a world where the Earth is nothing more than a black cinder, the last surviving humans live on orbiting space stations, trying to make the best out of an impossible situation. Some are resigned to being the end of the human race, some think the Earth can be rebuilt and repopulated... and one scientist thinks he's found a signal from an alien race. Are they really out there? Can they save the human race? But presenting the evidence will start a civil war in space, and threaten to end humanity prematurely.

Pros
In a world where there is no world...

Here he goes with the goddamned questions again. What would a floating life raft look like? Did they have time to organize when they left the scorched Earth? Or, is their craft a collection of mish-mashed space ships, old satellites and asteroid detritus? Do they have locomotion at all? Of course, then I get down to the questions that are really fun to ask, but completely futile: how do they process their waste and water? What about generating electricity and warmth? Artificial gravity?

Of course, the real fight here is pessimism vs. optimism. Or, in the non- religious -political sense, conservatism vs. liberalism. Resign to your fate, or fight until the end? There are good questions to ask there. I would see our simple greater-than story line something like this:

Group aboard spaceship has managed to stabilize life and chores > people get bored > some people start freaking out > other people start having chaotic fun > scientists ponder and argue > alien signals picked up > scientists argue over whether they are real > self-contained community destroys itself.

This could be a re-telling of the Salem Witch Trials, or the McCarthy hearings, or any other compressed society situation. There would be ridiculous social pressure to conform, which (of course) would spawn some wicked non-conformists. I can totally see this as a stage drama, where the play is about the process rather than the events.

But, as a movie, I think you'd need events. You'd need to take the characters--at least some of them--somewhere. But what if some couldn't overcome their fear, and it turned into crazed sabotage? How feudal would things get? How mammalian? This one is ripe for the characters, that's for sure.

Cons

Both of today's movies I see pretty clearly, and I don't feel the drawbacks as much. When I'm judging these things, my cons inevitably turn into "would that be a drag to do?" Even if the overall plot is worth the dragging, how much drag-space does the idea present to me? These have very little drag space. I think both would be fun to work on.

Believe it or not, originally I was going to fight for Little Black Stray to the death, but the more I started trying to keep an open mind and find my way into the idea of The Exodus, the more I like the damn thing. I like the compression and containment of it. I like the pressure-cooker aspect of it. I like that you can control the very air the characters breathe, and therefore the story and plot can turn in dramatic ways very quickly.

I'm not saying that I like it as much as Little Black Stray. Tonight I'm saying I like them both equally.

Little Black Stray
In a World where violent male offenders are sent to labor camps on the remote prison planet, one crew of hardened men finds something impossible: a young woman in tattered clothes, mute and frightened. A small group protect and feed her, keeping her out of sight of the guards and away from those who would use her mercilessly. As she gains in strength it seems that she has an agenda--and the truth of what she was doing on a world where no women stepped before might be a big enough secret to shatter the whole planet of forced labor.

Pros
But I love this idea too. As Shockah mentioned, there is the gender thing. But even more than that, there is an interesting exploration of masculinity and the different expressions of it. That is to say, I see some of these characters as treating the woman as a big brother might--protecting her and defending her. Some would treat her as a potential mate might, trying to woo her, and also defend her. Some would try to treat her as a possession, thus requiring the services of one and two. Some of the men, in this society, would take the roles of women, and if they did what would they say about the real woman in their midst?

But what if she could take care of herself? What if she took no shit, but was only too sick to defend herself to begin with? My ideas for the secret are not-so-well-formed at this point. I like if she's an android, but it takes a while to learn. Or, that she was somehow left to die. Maybe she was brought to the planet for a specific reason--slavery? hostage?--and she escaped, but couldn't go any longer.

But mostly with this, I very much am feeling the song it's based on. If you haven't read the lyrics, I might recommend it--but these lines especially resonated with me:

Confess all that you've seen
Confess with one of all your tragic misdeeds

See the sun wrestle with your door
See the sun wrestle with your door
Trembling stray, this is now your home

I also imagine her character having a great weight on her shoulders--an impossible situation. It's a tragedy, in some ways, and it's all she can do when she realizes that not only did she escape, but she's still alive and feels the pain of her events too deeply.

But, then, with this new crowd of people to back her up, maybe she can gather the strength to take on the opposition.

I mean, what if the true criminals on the planet were not the prisoners, but the people who put them there or kept them there? What if, despite their differences, this movie becomes about this diverse and violent group of men uniting under her leadership to overthrow some power? Then we have the story of them finding her, healing her, hiding her--and then being trained, led--and maybe even betrayed by her--no. Probably not that, but she changes their lives. The rule with this story would be that everybody she encounters changes for the better, whether they like it or not.

In any case, my greater-than is:
Hard labor prisoner life is established > Prisoners find woman nearly dead > nurse her back to health and hide her > she recovers, is traumatized and holds / can't remember secret > men protect and spark memories / gain confidence > she reveals awful truth > prisoners rise up under her lead, including those who tried to rape her > big confrontation happens.

Cons
I'm totally low on cons tonight. If the lord of Screenplays descended right now (Goldman? Are you listening?) and said that it was law we had to pick one of these and start writing, I'd be really psyched. Maybe I'm just in a good mood tonight and glossing over what I know will be two difficult stories, but both of these seem really clear to me. To be clear, I know there would be issues with both of them, but I'm just feeling optimistic about overcoming those issues, and that I think it might even be as enjoyable as writing YELLOW [our Project Greenlight entry screenplay] was.

If you rise to vote, sir, I will have some terrible thinking to do.