Round 8.2 [Cop On the Hunt v. The Scabs]

Cop on the Hunt (Shockah rank: #8, Burley rank: #20)

v.

The Scabs (Shockah rank: #19, Burley rank: #1)

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Cop On the Hunt
In a world where galactic criminals are rounded and left to die on one planet, one man--a crooked cop--must penetrate their violent society to spring a prison break with the leader of the most ruthless gang. If he succeeds, his name is clear. If he fails, Earth will fall to INVADING IMPATIENT ALIENS.

Pro
Bwah ha ha! I love this concept -- it's so straight-to-video, so ready to be Van Dammed, that anything we do to it will immediately raise it above its schlocky origins. Which makes me think: what's the best approach for something like this -- try to (sm)art it up, think it through logically, make well-rounded characters, etc., or embrace the schlock, go straight to the heart of schlockness and try to transcend it that way?

Um, no real answers here. Pretty straightforward -- that's always a plus in my book.

Con
So anyway, this is basically what John Carpenter's been doing for years, with varying degrees of success. In fact, this could easily be the next Escape From movie. I'm not really sure if that's a pro or con, just thought I'd mention it.

Also, not sure what aliens invading has to do with leader of the gang. I mean, presumably he knows something that can stop it, but nothing suggests itself right away.

The Scabs
In a world designed by engineers to be a self-sufficient, endlessly exploitable resource for the rest of the known galaxy, robots toil tirelessly in the fields, the forests and the mountains, providing food and raw materials for a rapidly expanding market. But when a series of accidents destroys some of the mining robots, the rest of the metal workforce decide to strike and power off, leaving the humans that depend on the planet in the lurch. A taskforce is assembled to get the planet up and running again while a negotiator tries to get the robots back online. While the taskforce tries to relearn the long-forgotten principles of farming and manufacturing, the negotiator accidentally reveals the existence of the taskforce... and the robots, realizing that their existence could be usurped by the humans, decide to go on the offensive.

Pro
I'll admit, I've come around on this one. Wish I could adequately remember my objections to this one (why do I always object to the ones I came up with?), but I guess time makes fools of us all. Speaking of that reference (what reference?), it should be noted that I see this as a comedy, kind of in the Futurama mold. I mean, striking robots? That's hilarious. I don't think there's any way I could take that seriously as straight drama. Which isn't to say that I don't take the issues raised by the story seriously, just that these issues should probably take the form of comedy. In fact, going back to the image that originally suggested this story, I remember making a conscious decision that if I was going to create a story dealing with capitalism, exploitation, labor, etc., it had to be both as abstracted from modern life as possible (hence, the robots) and it should be funny. Right now, come to think of it, I see this less as Futurama and more like Arrested Development in Spaaaace! -- imagine a Jason Bateman as the negotiator character and a team of Gobs and Busters as the taskforce.

More pros: Pretty clear conflict (robots vs. the humans), that can branch out to other "fronts" -- I see the negotiator character growing a conscience and defending the robots, and I can see the taskforce getting fed up with their superiors and with each other. And what happens to the taskforce if the negotiator comes to side with the robots? That's a conflict of interest (the best kind of conflict :-)

Another pro: I like how that, until probably the third act, there's potentially a lot of characters in lots of different places, that don't have any real contact with each other, but their fates are entwined. Like, I see one storyline being the negotiator dealing with the robot labor representative, another storyline about the taskforce trying to learn to farm, and maybe another about the government dealing with the strike in public -- none of these people need meet, but what they do affects the others. That's exciting to me. (So maybe it's like Futurama's version of Syriana. Futuriana?)

Unintentional irony dept.: I chose the title as a literal reference to the taskforce, not realizing until later that these scabs are literally biological, as opposed to their metallic counterparts.

Oh, and just to give you an idea of my vision and lame sense of humor: I see a whole spectrum of robots, designed for different functions, and one type of robot is constructed of three spheres attached to each other (like a snowman, but each sphere can roll independently across the "skin" of the other spheres). What's the human nickname for these robots?

Wobblies.

Con
If we're concerned with some kind of realism or plausibility (and if this is slanted towards a Futurama-esque sense of comedy, I'm not sure that we are), then the idea of a single planet that provides sustenance for an entire galactic empire (or whatever it is) might be iffy. Regardless, some kind of history (how did we get to this point) will be necessary, even if it isn't used, and some kind of idea of how the planet works on a day-to-day basis before the Point of Attack and Predicament occur.

Also, not so much Prison Planet, unless looked at metaphorically from the robots' POV (and maybe, at some point, the taskforce's).