Martian Manhunter: Space Odessy (A film treatment inspired by the Nolanverse)
Director: Ridley Scott or Duncan Jones
Characters
Jónn Jónnz - Martianman hunter
K´hym - daughter
M"yrr"ah - Wife
M´ymm - Mother
Shasheen - Father
Dr. Saul Erdel - Brilliant Physicist, Engineer And Radio Astronomer
Dr. Amanda Waller - Secretary of defense for the United States. Head of CIA covert operations Intelligence Angency Cadmus
Dr. Lee - Erdel´s colleague and Astro Physicist
President James Reagen - Son of Ronald reagan and current US president.
Maa´le´fak - MMH twin brother. not identical
Protex - Leader Of The Imperium another alien race
The High Priest Venga Sal - Supreme leader MMH´s quadrant on the planet Maáleca´Andra
To´zar - High Priests Venga Sal´s Advisor
Zen´Ta´Rham - High priests advisor, second in line to rule The Seven Councils and Imperial capital
Cameos
Dr. Ivo - Professor Of Nano technology
General Wade Eiling - One of the highest decorated soldiers in the US, and military advisor to Amanda Waller.
Batman/Bruce Wayne - Billionaire philanthropist by day, distributor of street justice by night
Dr. Harley Quinzel - Psychiatrist, Neurologist, expert in the field of psychopathy and childhood trauma
Setup:
(The following images are all photo real)
We are presented with a galaxy, much like our own, but with two stars at it´s center.
We focus on one planet. This drifting orb is the fourth one away from the two suns. As we watch its elliptical movement around the stars, we notice it is like a giant Earth, with atmosphere, water, clearly defined territories. We hover over this familiar yet strange planet a while. Observing it with curiosity.
Cut to.
Now inside the planet, we take a wide-angle shot, floating down from the atmosphere. We see that the planet has a whole complex ecosystem of its own. It is an expansive area of rain forest and streams, with a hot to humid tropical temperature, slightly light even though it is night.
Now a more intimate shot of the alien natural world: There are large monstrous creatures who occupy this lush forest world, they seem to be a cross between dinosaurs and arthropods. All the creatures have antennas on their heads. We watch just like a nature show the creatures, going about their daily lives. Drinking from streams, hunting, Laying in shade etc.
We then focus in on a much smaller yet still large group of creatures, more humanoid or Anthropoid in shape. They move a lot like apes, but again have something of the insect in them. They´re big and green, for humanoids, and they also have Antenna.
They seem to be hiding from the larger animals, in the rain forest, using it as their shelter.
We then see similar creatures only pale white, they haven´t got antenna´s like their green counter-parts, and, their environment is a lot less hospitable. Volcanoes rage, and we see little green or water or other animal life. These white humanoids seem much more war like in nature, scrapping over low resources.
We skip through a series of images, of the green and white humanoid creatures, in their primitive form, resembling the activities we´d expect to see of prehistoric man, only the white pale creatures, as you´ll notice seem to exist in a much more hostile environment.
Whites avoiding rivers of silver (or Mercury like substance) and Molten, looking for cool spots near the river and shade. We see some die or kill one another.
The Greens we see: running from large predators, collectively hunting, bathing their young under waterfalls and lakes. In one shot – of a group - you can clearly see them in a deep forest, strange animals jump from tree to tree around them, but then their antenna begin reacting to something, their eyes glow bright red, and the whole group runs.
Last shot in this series, The Pale White Aliens: It seems to be raining fire from the sky, a stampede of them try to make it toward safer ground, so as to survive the ash and fire rain. Some fall, finding it hard to breathe, some are trampled on – dying in the process, the others scatter, running for survival.
A small rock plunges into the earth and there is a loud explosion.
Darkness.
Then light again. The sky clears revealing the area of commotion; the weather has once again returned to normal. One brave Pale Creature walks back toward where the rock crashed, he has a stick; there is glowing molten lava in a hole in the ground. The creature looks over it in curiosity. He then dips the stick in the lava, the sticks end glows a bright color, a kind of purple fire.
He stares in amazement.
Later, he is in a much more habitable place of the planet, some other Pales (short hand) come and attack him. He sees a near by stream of the Molten, he runs towards it. The others chase him to its edge. The lone Pale grabs a stick; he dips it in the lava and it burns the same purple flame. Now a whole big group watches. He waves at the others who are attacking him, trying to scare them off. They continue to provoke him. Finally, he hits one of them with the flame. Immediately, the Pale who is hit by the flame, almost combusts - till the purple fire is consuming his whole body. He runs into someone and the same thing happens to them. The bullied Pale throws down the stick in amazement. The others move away from the ones on fire, staring at this mystical site. The two on fire melt, disintegrating into nothing.
Then the Pale Creatures gather and stare at this now glowing lava river in amazement.
Cut to,
Image Of Mars.
Tag: Millions of years later
We scale the wide lifeless expanse of Mars. Focus in on a mountain, with deep, sharp crevices. A sound emanates from deep inside one of the cavities of the Mountain; a kind of indistinguishable patterned sonar.
Cut to,
Slowly we drift toward earth, along the way the sonar sound gets tuned into various radio and television stations. We hear Bart from The Simpsons “eat my shorts”, Nirvana screaming something about teen spirit, a sports commentator on the Olympics, country music etc.
We see the skyline of Earth. The lights from the cities as we drift further down. Till we end up in New Mexico.
We are in a small town café in the day, New Mexico. A serious late twenties man is drinking coffee, reading the papers.
The waitress comes up to him, “So what you having? The usual, doc?!”, “Actually I´m OK. Not hungry to-day, just can´t stop thinking about work.”
“You need to keep up that appetite now, that big brain´a yours ain´t gonna feed itself. Sides, if you find them little green men today, you ain´t gonna wanna have your first encounter on empty stomach, Dr. Erdel.”
Dr Saul Erdel smiles, “You´ve convinced me, the usual.” Then his mobile starts buzzing. He reads a text. It says “You´ve got to come in right now. Its happening.”
“Hold the usual Burtha. I have to go to the office.”
He gets in a Jeep and we see him driving fast toward the desert. We see as he drives past a vast array of large radio telescopes. He takes his radio and switches it to a special frequency and we hear a bandwidth that is transmitting an odd signal.
We see as he enters the offices of SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Life), the army stands outside the offices. As soon as he enters a Chinese colleague, rushes up to him. “The signal came up last night.”
Dr. Saul Erdel: “What?” “It came on last night.”
The oriental man bursts into a flurry of scientific jargon, so as to explain what is happening.
Dr. Saul asks him about “the army”, The Oriental man - who we now know is Dr. Lee - replies “National Security”. Erdel: “What is this for real?” To his shock, Dr Erdel a physicist and the leading expert in radio communications, is hearing that the station has received a radio transmission from another world.
He immediately wants to know everything. Apparently U.S. Government officials found out immediately, and shut down all radio station frequencies in which the signal could be heard.
Finally Dr. Amanda Waller, enters the room, brazen and with a look of singular purpose. She introduces herself and asks to speak to the head of department. Dr. Erdel volunteers himself. She immediately asks him to come with her. Saul asks to take Dr. Lee, she agrees.
They are driven off into the desert, escorted by secret service police and military. In the car, Dr. Waller explains that she is “Secretary Of Defense and head of the Secret Services of the United States of America.” She asks for Dr. Erdel and Dr. Lee´s credentials; suitably impressed for such a serious woman, Amanda explains: “So you shouldn´t have trouble understanding this has become a matter of National Security, Code 5, on a need to know basis. We don´t want to exclude you, but telling anyone about the discovery today, would be a serious breach of National Security, and therefore would constitute a federal crime.”
Dr. Erdel turns to Lee and asks “What the hell is going on?”
Dr. Lee, “ I don´t know, they stormed the office before I could run any calculations, all I know is the signal was strong and it didn´t come from any of our satellites, and I doubt that it is human in origin.”
Amanda: “Well let me explain; at approximately 15:00 hours this morning an alien signal was picked up. A U.S. defense team intercepted the signal at your station. We´re just taking the necessary precautions.”
“How?”
“We´ve hacked your system from the beginning Dr. Erdel. Trust me it´s better than the other option, my superiors suggested.”
Dr. Erdel: “What´s that?”
Amanda: “Psych evals, of all staff working on scientific projects of a sensitive nature. Anything like this ever happened, and we had a scientist we took for an idealist; you know the type, kind´á guy who believed a discovery like this had to be shared with the American people, because they had a right to know, they´d snub him out before he had time to make his morning coffee. Just another tragic accident or suicide, of a mind to brilliant for his own good.”
Dr. Erdel: “Are you for real?” Amanda smiles “No, of course not.”
Dr. Erdel: “Where are we going?” Amanda replies, “Now how good a secret agency would we be if we told you that?”
Cut to:
They arrive at a Military landing strip. A private jet is parked right in front of the convoy. Amanda is taken out of the car. The loading bridge opens on the jet. Amanda gestures toward the two, to get on the plane.
Cut to:
The plane taking off.
Cut to:
Inside the plane Dr. Erdel now agitated starts to want answers.
Amanda for a while is elusive, but then begins to talk. She explains that they have received an alien transmission from space, which has been confirmed by a number of Government agencies around the world. She concludes with the shocking statement. “It´s emanating from Mars.” Dr. Erdel immediately protests, claiming “ That´s crazy. “It´s impossible that a signal could come from Mars. It’s a barren, lifeless, desert; we would have known if any intelligent life existed there.”
Amanda tells him that that were her sentiments exactly, and she has a great respect for his work in the field, and she personally wants him right by her side as one of her main advisors. “On what?” he asks.
Amanda “Well the greatest ticket of all. Mans first mission to Mars. Get ready to make history Dr. Erdel.”
Cut to:
Tag: 7 Months later.
Dr. Erdel is in a lecture room giving a group of cleancut Government looking types a technical scientific lecture, about the signal. Many stare in bemusement, others in awe.
Various scribblings and diagrams about bandwidths, megahertz and frequencies etc, cover the White Board.
He explains that what we know about the signal is it is stationary, and which part of Mars it is emanating from. He explains that for us to land in that region of Mars, our trip will have to be calculated to a very high degree of precision, because the alignment of the Planets has to be very precise, to compensate for Earth and Mar´s respective orbits. He explains “Effectively we are trying to shoot at a large and fast moving target, and on that moving target, we´re aiming to hit a rotating bullseye the size of a pin.”
Someone at the lecture: “So how do we do it?”
Dr. Erdel: “Well; aim with a machine gun.” Some laugh.
Dr. Erdel. “We need to send several shuttles to get a reasonable chance of landing in the vicinity of the signal.”
Cut to:
NEWS BROADCAST IN NEW ZELAND. Program: The Hard Line With Dan Brower.
Dan: “ Do they really expect us to believe that all of a sudden coinciding with a mission to mars, and the cutting off of various radio stations around the world, that nothings happening up there. This has been the quickest set up for a mission to Space, in the history of space aviation, why? … I think our Governments are hiding something that the people have a right to know. You heard it first here on Hard Line with Dan Brower.”
Amanda in her office. Various TV screens on the wall, show shadowy silhouetted figures speaking to her.
One of the figures says, we have everything under control on our side, people just take him to be a nut. He adds: “Besides the whole world is completely lost in excitement about the mission. 5 of our Astronauts have already become pinups. Once they take off, no-ones gonna watch this guy; we´ll have 24 hour news coverage on the mission, live feeds from the shuttle; trust me this guys gonna fade out like the rest of em.” But another protests, “we can´t afford for this guy to be operating. Until we can verify where that signal is coming from, and that it presents no danger to the American people, I want a complete lock down on media reports about the shut down of radio stations, and, information proliferation on mission objectives.” Amanda replies, “we are in talks with New Zealand now, sir.” She adds: “ But remember what we are trying to protect here. Its not only the safety of our citizens, but their freedom. That means their most precious freedom. Their freedom of speech.” Another silhouette answers “I admire your concern for the liberties of our people, but this is too sensitive, Dan Brower is dangerous, and he´s gaining more popularity on the internet everyday. He could compromise the mission. Think what could happen if Islamic Fundamentalists hear that America is trying to make contact with Martians. Think how that could compromise our relations with Saudies, or, destabilise the region. The rippling affects of letting this information go beyond us is unthinkable.”
Amanda nods, getting the point. She says “I´m downloading the satellite images to you now sir, its submerged in sand, and its seen better days, but the picture is clear; it seems to be some kind of transport device, sir. A spaceship.” You see her computer screen, on it images from Mars download.
Cut to,
Parades around the country. We hear a newsman talk about how historic a day it is; the G8 have unified, collaborating with each other, in a two year mission for man to explore Mars. All the resources and know how of the eight states has been pulled together, culminating in this historic moment. 12 brave men from various nations, will be sent to chart different areas of Mars. (Of course we know this not to be true, in fact it is only one area of Mars they are interested in) Mans first mission to Mars. People are crying, waving at the 12 men on a podium in space suits. We see a news report on one of the astronauts who doesn´t go and decides to stay with his family.
Cut to
Tag: 30 MINS TILL LIFT OFF.
We see in quick succession: Mission Control Stations in Tokyo, Paris, London, Moscow etc all bustling with activity. Untill finally we are in NASA Mission Control in America. We focus in on Dr. Erdel. As we look out the window with him, we see the most magnificent, giant, technologically advanced looking rocket ship. Seeming, far bigger and far more advanced than any of our current space shuttles; however the design is still familiar.
A tear drops down Erdels face, as he scans the crowds glaring in amazement.
We hear the familiar voice of George Diller announcing the count down from 10.
We skip to France and Tokyo, counting down in their respective languages, then back to Diller´s voice in Time Square, as thousands in the streets watch the count down on a big screen counting with Diller: THREE, TWO, ONE, we have lift off. As the shuttle takes off, there are screams of delight, and Time Square becomes a living carnival.
The last image is of several rockets flying through space.
Setup finished. The main body of the story now Begins:
End Of Part 1