In response to the call in the last line of
my earlier rant this morning (below) for TV
and movie plots that are NOT based on "deus
ex machina" and being saved by Big Daddy In
The Sky, here is my quickie treatment for a
pitch meeting about my new TV series. Enjoy.
Or not, depending upon whether you believe
God, Allah, the Three Gunas, or aliens from
the Pleiaides want you to enjoy. :-)
THE FREE WILL CHRONICLES
This series is set in an America in which
religions have "won out" and run everything.
It's still America, so there are still dif-
ferent religions -- Christianity, Judaism,
Islam, and Hinduism/TM -- but they mainly
"get along" because they all agree on one
fundamental tenet: God (or Allah or the
Three Gunas) does everything. Humans don't
do shit. They do NOT have free will; they
are "not the doer" of the things they do,
merely pawns in a game being played (benev-
olently, of course) by a "higher power."
This "higher power" KNOWS BETTER than
mere humans do, and everything that happens
happens as a result of His whim ("Their"
whim, for the Hindus/TMers who believe that
the Three Gunas do it all).
In this environment of True Believers, enter
Will, a skeptic. Will is a bit of a heretic
in this Brave New World, and believes that
God/Allah/the Three Gunas *DON'T* do every-
thing. He believes that 1) shit just happens,
and 2) people have a responsibility to deal
with that shit on their own, not wait for
God/Allah/the Three Gunas to deal with it
for them.
Needless to say, Will is a bit of a misfit
and a loner.
The basic plotline of each episode is that
Will, walking the Earth like Caine in Kung-Fu,
wanders into Dodge City and finds it a mess.
All sorts of shit is happening, and all of
the people are just sitting around on their
duffs waiting for God/Allah/the Three Gunas
to clean the shit up for them.
Will speaks up and says heretical stuff like,
"Uh...instead of waiting for God/Allah/the
Three Gunas to clean up the shit, why don't
you just get off your butts and DO SOMETHING?"
The peaceful members of the community merely
laugh at him. The more fundamentalist members,
be they Christian, Jewish, Muslim or Hindu/TM,
declare him a heretic and try to lock him up.
In other words, they want to make Free Will
less free, so that he'll STFU.
In every episode, Will manages to *use* his
free will and intelligence to somehow avoid
being locked up or burned at the stake, and
winds up DOING SOMETHING to clean up all the
shit. In most episodes, this "something" is
so simple and apparent that pretty much any-
one could have done it before, but no one
ever thought to, because they were so busy
waiting for God/Allah/the Three Gunas to
do it for them.
And it works. The shit is cleaned up. And the
streets are filled with rejoicing inhabitants,
each of them thanking God or Allah or the Three
Gunas for cleaning up the shit. No one ever
notices that Will cleaned up the shit. No one
ever thanks him.
Will shrugs and, like Caine in Kung-Fu, gets
the hell out of Dodge and wanders to the next
town, where this scene plays itself out pretty
much exactly the same.
We will vary the episodes slightly from week
to week by changing the nature of the shit
that Will has to clean up because no one else
will, and by changing the towns and the female
actresses hired to play the cute girl in each
town who falls for Will and wants to ball his
socks off and have his children but is afraid
to because she's the daughter of a Priest/Rabbi/
Ayatollah/Pundit/TM Teacher, and is afraid of
getting heretic cooties on her.
Will never DOES get laid in the series, even
though the possibility is always there. Hey, it
works for romantic comedies to keep the audiences
tuned in...why not for a drama about free will?
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB <no_re...@...> wrote:
>
> --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu <noozguru@> wrote:
> >
> > TurquoiseB wrote:
> > >
> > > I just watched a bad, pirated, fuzzy CAM copy
> > > of this flick, and it only adds to the feelings
> > > of dismay I felt when I first read Robert's post.
> > >
> > > When I first read it, my first thought was, "What
> > > you focus on, you become," and a sense of sadness
> > > that someone who had spent so long on paths of
> > > supposed self discovery could focus so intently
> > > on The End Of The World, in all its supposed
> > > manifestations.
> > >
> > > Then I saw this movie, and that sadness heightened.
> > > This is NOT a good film. But it's going to be a
> > > popular one (it is now currently the most popular
> > > film in America) because it focuses on what many
> > > people WANT to happen, and WANT to become.
> > >
> > > They want to become pawns in the game of Gods, who
> > > KNOW WHAT THE PLAN IS.
> > >
> > > They want aliens or God or gods and goddesses or
> > > Big Verginas from the Pleiaides to KNOW WHAT
> > > THE FUCK IS HAPPENINGS, AND TELL THEM.
> > >
> > > They want to be special, because they "know" what
> > > is happening, and no one else does. Like the char-
> > > acters in this film, they don't even CARE if the
> > > world goes to hell in a firestorm, JUST AS LONG
> > > AS THEY ARE CONVINCED THEY KNOW WHAT
> > > IS HAPPENING, and no one else does.
> > >
> > > Ego. What monstrous ego. Maybe the planet really
> > > DOES "deserve" to become a cosmic crispy critter,
> > > if this is all the creativity its inhabitants
> > > can muster up.
> >
> > More importantly if the Sun winds up belching a flare and
> > the Earth is in the way there is no "guy in the sky" that
> > is going to save living creatures on Earth. But you wouldn't
> > believe how many times I've mentioned in this scenario in
> > the past that people wanted to believe the "guy in the sky"
> > would save them. And also hated me for mentioning the
> > scenario. :-D
>
> Yup. It reminded me of a post that Stu made
> here a while back in which he complained that
> a LOT of the plots of movies and TV he was
> seeing around him involved "deus ex machina,"
> the Unseen Force that "really" runs things
> and "makes everything work out right."
>
> At the time, I didn't quite agree. But since
> then I have watched more of Lost, watched the
> ending of Battlestar Galactica, watched the
> beginnings of Kings, and watched this movie,
> Knowing.
>
> ALL of these stories are "deus ex machina,"
> and involve the belief in some Big Guy or Big
> Aliens who are "looking out for us," and who
> "know better than we do," and are "taking
> care of us." It's the cinematic counterpart
> of Nabby's belief in the fictional Maitreya
> and the aliens who are going to come someday
> and "make everything right."
>
> It's an ABDICATION OF RESPONSIBILITY FANTASY.
>
> IMO, of course. Some obviously *like* such
> fantasies, and have for centuries. "God will
> take care of things; we don't have to," and
> all that. I just tend to shake my head when
> I see more and more and more of these fantasies
> arise when times get tough.
>
> It's like "When the going gets tough, the tough
> hide under rocks and expect Daddy to come and
> save them."
>
> Not my kinda plotline. Why can't we have more
> plots in which the human race saves ITSELF?
> Through nothing more mysterious than using its
> gifts of free will, intelligence, and getting
> off its collective butt to DO SOMETHING?
