Script Review: Death And Me By Neil Gaiman

This story doesn't really begin on Saturday, May 26th 2007 but if we pick up there, it will seems like a beginning and you can fathom out all of the years of beforehands for yourself.

I wrote a post for film ick called Want To Know Who Is Going To Play Neil Gaiman's Death? Don't We All and in it I said "Later this year - if all goes well - Neil Gaiman will be directing his first feature film. It's an adaptation of his Death: The High Cost of Living mini-series, and - of course - he's scripted it" and also "I really want to read this one - the original comic is one of my very few favourites, as was true of We3 and you know how head-over-heels I ended up with that screenplay adaptation. If anybody out there has a copy, you know where to send it".

And somebody did send it. And I read it. And now I'm going to tell you about it.

What I have appears to be a draft designed to relocate the story from New York to London. There's still the odd reference to Central Park or Manhattan amongst the mentions of Baker Street and 'the muddy expanse of the Thames'. In fact, Hyde Park gets called Central Park at one point (or, I suppose, vice versa).

But not all of the film takes place in this one big city, however. In fact, the first two scenes take place far, far away.

We open in a Tibetan Monestary. We're told it is January. While a narrator gives us a little exposition, we see monks roll up a scroll, and on this scroll is "a dark haired girl with an ankh around her neck". That's the whole scene - a croll being rolled by Tibetan Monks, an announcement that it is January and exposition delivered in voice over. What's more, this is the only scene with a narrator.

This isn't the best of beginnings. This first scene is entirely made of exposition and, I would hope, on screen, atmosphere. If it wasn't so early and so brief and, as a result of this so easy to file away and only remember much later when you're reminded of it, it would seem quite shockingly redundant.

If I reproduce it here, however, it will be very useful in getting the premise of the film across, so I will. But I really don't think the script needs some kind of upfront explanation at all, much less one so blatant. It reminds me, in a way, of the opening narration to Dark City which virtually undermines the entire third act of the film. Here it is:

They say that once every hundred years she takes on human form, the better to understand what the lives she takes must feel like, to know the bitter taste of mortality. And this is a price she must pay for being the divider of all that has lived from all that must come after.

...But on to the second scene, and the second location. There's more exposition (of course there is, we're so early in the story) yet this time it's delivered in a much more suitable, and cinematic fashion and it feels much more like a real story, not like the set-up for one, or the blurb on the back of a book, or the hype for a TV show in the Radio Times.

It's February this time, and we're in Alaska. I'll let Neil Gaiman himself introduce the first of our main characters:

A man we will come to know as THE EREMITE comes stumbling toward us, through the snow, through the blizzard. He is dressed in rags and tatters, no longer young, and -- although we will not see this immediately, quite blind. A mane of leonine hair, he hasn’t shaved for a week, and he could be an Old Testament prophet coming out of the wilderness. He is singing to himself, loudly, over the sound of howl of the wind. The wind is such that he can barely keep on his feet.

He reaches a town sign stuck in the ground: WELCOME TO NOWHERE, Pop 63. His hand touches it, and he holds on to it fr a moment, getting his breath back. Then he walks on, leaving a bloody handprint on the sign.

We see the town as he would see it if he could see: a bar and grill is the only source of life, with company housing around it. Big, mean SUVs and snowmobiles in the parking lot, along with one 18-wheeler rig.

(I can tell you, I found the typos oddly comforting)

The Eremite is looking to get to London, and he asks the patrons of the bar for a ride. Yep - all the way to London. Obviously, nobody seems too keen. I think I spotted another insufficiently localised line in the script here too:

WORKER #1
And London’s thousands of miles away!

New York is thousands of miles away. Wouldn't London be... er... "on the other side of the world" or something like that?

Our introduction to The Eremite is a very telling one, a darkly funny one and, ultimately, a surprising one. It seems like he's doing a really bad job of convincing the patrons to chauffeur him half way round the world - peeing on the bar
probably didn't help - but, ultimately he gets his way and everybody else gets a nasty shock.

It's not until the third scene (London in April) that we're into material familiar from the original comics. Perhaps the most interesting about that however, is how scene two seems like it completely and utterly belongs. Indeed, almost all of the new material seems like it should have been there all along. Instead of the story seeming expanded upon or spread out, what we have seems like the full, original version of events and the comics were simply a digest. Indeed, it's entirely possible that this is not a job of expansion, but repairs, returning the story to an originally conceived outline. Or, on the other hand, Gaiman might simply be a genius for creating new material on an old framework.

Anway... London in April, under the underpass. This is where we meet the next of our major characters. Again, Neil can do the introductions:

Filthy hands are shuffling an even filthier pack of cards. Now they deal. It’s a dog-eared spread of cards, face down. The hands belong to MAD HETTIE. A finger runs over the cards, back and forth. She’s looking for one card.

MAD HETTIE (O.S.)
Up she goes and down she goes and where she stops nobody knows.

The finger picks a card, and turns it over. It’s the Death card -- the Queen of Spades. She hisses. She shuffles it back into the pack, muttering to herself. Turns over another card. It’s the Queen of Spades again. She fans it back into the pack -- we can see there are lots of different cards. She shuffles once more, turns over one more card, and, yes, for the third time, she pulls out the Queen of Spades.

We pull back now, to reveal Mad Hettie. Her age is hard to tell beneath the layers of grime and street dirt. She lives on the streets. She sits by a small fire. She wears an aged hat with an artificial flower in it at a jaunty angle. She is muttering to herself.

MAD HETTIE
Three times. Three times is the charm. Three times a lady. Lady, baby, gypsy, thief... Queen of Spades, we know what you mean. Oh yes. Now what about one for me, eh? What about a card for Mad Hettie?

She flicks a card out of the deck. Then she turns it over. It’s the ace of hearts. A smile spreads over her face.

MAD HETTIE
There we go. A heart. My one little heart. I knew it. Everythingoin’ to be loverly!

And now we've met two of our four leads. These are the two who admit that they want something - really want it - and will go to great lengths to get it.

If I were to recommend casting, simply off the top of my head, I'd offer Bill Nighy and Miriam Margolyes.

Let's skip forward a bit, to June, and introduce the leading lady in all of this. Again, over to Mr. Gaiman:

DIDI is asleep. She wears an oversized black tee shirt as a nightdress. Her hair is long and dark. Even in sleep, she is heart-stoppingly beautiful. She’s in a one bedroom apartment decorated fairly plainly, as if on a real budget. There’s a bowl of goldfish in one corner.

An alarm clock shrills, and Didi’s eyes open wide. Then she smiles...

And she starts to EXAMINE HERSELF, looking at her hands in wonder, as if she’s not had hands -- or a face, or a nose -- in a long time. She is utterly delighted with what she sees. Then she stretches like a cat.

DIDI
Yes!

She gets out of bed. She JUMPS a few inches, experimentally. She sticks out her tongue at herself in the mirror. She’s acting like someone who hasn’t had a living, breathing body for a hundred years or so, and has forgotten what it felt like.

She walks over to the window and looks outside. The sun is in her eyes. She looks happy. And then, for a moment, she looks puzzled and concerned -- then her gaze lights on a silver ANKH. She picks it up, and it CATCHES THE SUNLIGHT.

She looks at a clock.

DIDI (to herself)
Going to be a busy day.

Then she picks up the ankh and puts it around her neck.

If you're not familair with the comics, let me explain what viewers soon come to learn about Didi. Either she is the mortal personification of Death - a somewhat perkier version than the dusty guy with the scythe - or she is a teenage girl that lost her entire family in a tragic accident rather recently. Or - and this is the answer, I believe, if you can get your head around it - she's both. The universe has accomodated this day on earth for Death by just sort of shifting around a little and creating Didi, her dead family, her entire history. Not entirely unlike how Dawn just sort of came to be in Buffy, I suppose.

Didi is the character who can give The Eremite and Mad Hettie each what they are looking for, and as a result, they are making their ways to see her in New Yo... sorry, London.

The character who doesn't admit he's looking for something is our male lead - the Me of the new Death and Me title. The thing he doesn't admit he's looking for is something Didi can, and will, give him too.

Here's his introduction, and into the bargain, the intro of a supporting character too:

SEXTON FURNIVAL is at high school. He needs a haircut.

He has holes in the knees of his jeans because he likes them there. He’s unlocking his locker... And someone is shouting... and charging down the corridor at him.

THEO
Sex Bomb! Sex BOMBBB! SEXXXX BOOMMBBBBBBBBBBB!

Sexton closes his eyes as someone (THEO) crashes into him, sending him sprawling, painfully, against the lockers. Sexton looks up at Theo -- tall, cool, attractive, nasty.

That's Sexton (Me) and Theo (not Me). A few pages later, Sexton gives us a better idea of who he is by firing up his camcorder and recording a video diary in his bedroom. This is going to be the last big excerpt, but it is a big one, so hold tight:

He gets into a pose, so he can see himself on the miniscreen, and he starts to talk.

SEXTON
Okay. My name is Sexton Furnival but I’m pretty much over it by now, and this is the last ever installment of my video diary. This is because... (pause) Okay. I figure, I’m mature enough to know what I think. I’m seventeen. Almost seventeen and a half. And what do I have to show for it? For a start I’ve got nobody to love. Which is fine. I think love is bullshit anyway. I think the best that people ever get is horny and scared. And when they find someone who makes them horny and they’re sacred of losing them, they call it love.

Now he picks up the video camera, and points it at the mirror as he talks. Then he starts to swivel, so he is slowly taking in his room, his crumpled bedding, his books (big, solid, depressing things), finally a photo of Sexton and his parents taken when he was ten and they were all one big happy family. A guitar gathering dust.

SEXTON (cont’d)
Now, you may not think this is very interesting, or a good reason for checking out early, or whatever. But you’re wrong. Because there’s no point to anything. And if there’s no point, it’s probably easier being dead. And it’s not like anyone’s going to give two shits if I’m here or not.

He turns off the camera for a moment. Takes a deep breath. Turns over the photo, so he doesn’t have to look at it. Turns the camera back on.

SEXTON (cont’d)
Look, Sylvia, when you see this, I’m really not saying you’ve been a bad mother. But I’m not saying you’ve been a particularly good one, either. Let’s leave it at that. And Steve, it’s not your fault, either. I mean, you’re an arsehole, but that’s probably just part of being a lawyer. I Read somewhere that a suicide note is actually a cry for help. Well, this is a suicide note, but it’s not a cry for help. This is a statement of belief. Or of disbelief, because there’s nothing in the way of adult bullshit I do believe.

There’s a KNOCKING on the door. The door opens, and SYLVIA, Sexton’s mother, leans in. She’s an ex-hippie who owns a restaurant.

He turns the camera so that it’s filming her, now.

SYLVIA
Darling. Everything okay?
SEXTON Hi Mum. Everything’s fine. Shouldn’t you be at the restaurant by now?

SYLVIA
It’s Marlon’s first day as Permanent Chef, and I thought I’d stay out of the way. What are you doing?

SEXTON
Homework.

SYLVIA
You want anything? Herbal tea or anything?

SEXTON
Nope.

Sylvia closes the door. Sexton turns the camera lens back to him and says...

SEXTON (cont’d)
That’s the other thing. I don’t want anything. So I might as well be dead. Right?

So that's Sexton Furnival. He's going to meet Didi really soon - before she bumps into either The Eremite, or Mad Hettie, and when they do turn up and start messing with her day, he's quickly caught up in it all.

The first scene featured voice over narration, and there's only one other incident of voice over in the entire script. Sadly, it's as much of a mistake - if not more.

The voice over this time is attributed to Sexton, and it reproduces one of the more popular and oft-quoted pieces of the book. On paper there's several reasons it works well - the sudden introduction of an interior monologue in any written medium is much less extreme than in a film, for one thing, but for another, the lengthy piece of text can sit alongside an image representing only a short period of action. In the film, to give Sexton time to finish his thoughts while he's running down the stairs, Gaiman's going to need a lot of stairs. A lot.

I'd like to see this voice over, vanish, I'm afraid. Some slow-motion or a flashback wouldn't really work, either (a surprise is about to come and playing with pacing with either of those techniques could derail it a little). All I can think of by way of solution, in fact, is to turn the piece into dialogue, adapt it a little, and have Sexton deliver it to Didi the next time they talk, to let her know what he was feeling as he left on that day.

And there you go: I just caught myself offering advice to Neil Gaiman. This makes me feel awkward and a little embarrassed.

Okay, back to the monks. The Tibetan monks from the first scene. They do reappear again. What happens when they do does make sense, and it does sort of turn out to be a good gag. But (here I go again) their whole throughline seems a little thin. They're set-up at the top, almost as a backdrop to spoken exposition that I'm not happy with anyway, then later, they just sort of pop up, be part of a "What a weird day!" running gag, touch on an idea about what Didi is and does, and then they're gone.

Now... if they somehow appeared again, that'd be useful. They must have some place they can go, or something they can do, that will be more centrally relevant somehow? It would certainly ensure nobody saw them as just a device.

Another sequence that seems to need a little rethink, I'd say, takes place in a club. The scene is largely unchanged from the printed original and that seems to be the root of the problem.

I think it comes down to pacing, and possibly because ripping through a comic at top speed means that any slight variants in pacing are less noticable, the scene as reproduced here feels a little hard to swallow. Essentially, a character we've only briefly glimpsed before is accelerated to the front and centre of stage, and given a spotlight to tell her story. This is Jackie, and to me, she really doesn't feel "ready".

I think the scene in the club needs some expansion, just a little, to give Jackie some more time to settle. And the conversation she's having needs to have run a little longer to make her seem more sypmpathetic when she opens her heart up (guarded though she is).

I think that the solution is to get her conversation with Sexton rolling, then move time on a little. Come back to the club a short while later. Perhaps they don't talk so much in the mssing scene, perhaps they do. Just give the impression that they've had a bit more time to get to know one another.

Or maybe it's just me. I don't know. It's an important scene, and a relatively late one, and it contains quite a big reveal, so I won't reproduce it here.

My final problem concerns a scene with a ventriloquist's dummy and a police uniform that seems too banal - almost like something from an episode of a TV police procedural or a post-Silence of the Lambs serial killer film. Gaiman's world is more magical than this scene, and more idiosyncratic, and this suddenly felt like something... else.

And, truth be told, those are the only major issues I had with the screenplay all.

Gaiman's umpteenth representation of a magical underworld is as mesmerising and resonant as all of his others, from the strange rituals to the odd names and the curious characters to the odd deals. And like every one of his underworlds, it's satisfyingly different from all of the others. Knowing that he's directing is great too: he gets all of these things in a way that hardly any film directors ever have, and he's always been dedicated to making the audience, his readers, get what they want - even if, like Sexton, they won't admit to wanting anything at all to begin with.

This is a satisfyingly story-shaped story, with a great (belated) beginning, a fun, funny, wonderful and engaging middle and a true, fair and inevitable conclusion. I see no reason why Death and Me shouldn't be a bonafide smash. My years of anticipation have been quenched.

That's my review but... more later. Non-review things. There's a lot to say about this one.

When The Doctor Met Gollum

The BBC have announced Einstein and Eddington, a film retelling the story of Einstein's discovery of relativity. The big brain himself is to be played by Andy Serkis while Dr. Who David Tennant has the other title role, Einstein's pen pal Eddington.

Other stars will include Jim Broadbent, Rebecca Hall and Jodhi May. I'd cast both Broadbent and Hall in We3, I think.

Here's a little something from the BBC Press Release:

This human story chronicles two men who, during the First World War, refused to accept narrow nationalistic boundaries and, against the odds, continued to strive for a greater truth.

Between them, they changed the world and proved one of the biggest scientific breakthroughs of the 20th century.

Opening in 1913, the then obscure German theorist Albert Einstein (Serkis) had spent years working on his General Theory of Relativity, a theory that threatened two centuries of Newtonian certainty and the foundations of British science.

British scientist Arthur Eddington (Tennant) was one of the most prominent astrophysicists and was Director of the Cambridge Observatory, a seat originally held by the father of British science, Sir Isaac Newton.

Eddington's wholehearted belief that "truth knows no boundaries" led him to start a correspondence with Einstein and to solely champion Einstein's theories at a time when the rest of the British scientific community and the public at large were rejecting anything German, due to their role in the war.

Eddington's expedition to Africa to photograph light bending round the sun during an eclipse lead to his proof that Einstein's theory is right, turning Einstein into a worldwide superstar in 1919. A star is born.

Einstein And Eddington is written by Peter Moffat (Hawking, Cambridge Spies), the producer is Mark Pybus and the director is Philip Martin (Hawking, Prime Suspect).

Moffat and Martin are reunited after working together on the award-winning Hawking, BBC Two's 2005 biopic of Stephen Hawking, who is considered the greatest mind in physics since Einstein.

Einstein And Eddington is currently filming on location in Cambridge, Croatia and Hungary and will transmit later this year on BBC Two.

Big Mistake: Torque Director Handed The Reins To Neuromancer

One of the all-time greatest science fiction books is William Gibson's Neuromancer. If you don't know why, go see Google - better still, buy a copy. All will come clear. And you might just reconsider your love of The Matrix into the bargain (if you're not quite moved to this, then Fassbinder's World on a Wire will seal the deal for sure).

Sadly, it has now been announced that Joseph Kahn has signed on to direct the newly resuscitated movie adaptation. For a while, Chris Cunningham was involved, but that was some years back and, besides, Chris doesn't really seem keen to make a feature film at all, no matter what it is. I bet he could be offered We3 and he'd turn it down.

Joseph Kahn has directed a number of music videos you probably don't like at all - again, go see Google, but brace yourself for an avalanche of Britney Spears and Ashlee Simpson dreck - and his debut feature, Torque, was a rather clear indication of his capabilities, or rather their limits.

Movie Minesweeper - The I'm Half Watching The Tele Edition

- Soundtrack dot Net have some pictures from the scoring sessions for American Gangster. Looks like it's going to sound good.

- Yes, yes, there are pictures of Stallone as Rambo online, I know, I know.

- A clip from the Caveman pilot is now up for your viewing... pleasure? A thought provoking commentary on modern day race relations. Apparently.

- Mischa Barton is in the new St. Trinian's. Confirmation also comes that Russell Brand is playing Flash Harry, and that some filming has taken place in Hawaii. For some reason.

- Almodovar's El Deseo have commenced production of a documentary about El Senor de Sipan, "the ruler of ancient Peru's ruins".

- John Turturro is remaking Theo van Gogh's 1-900.

- The Playstation 3 version of Stranglehold will come with John Woo's Hard Boiled also on the disc. Of course, buying a Wii and a Blu-Ray player, something like Eledees and then also a copy of Hard Boiled on its own would be more satisfying at the end of the day. In related news, Sony are losing money - lots of money - because of the PS3.

- Today's second Rob Schmidt story: ThinkFilm are selling his film Bad Meat at Cannes. I met Schmidt at the London Film Festival years and years ago - at the time, Daniel Waters was a close friend of his. Wonder if they're still chums?

- Grant Morrison gives a very good interview to Wired. It's all Area 51, no mention of We3 - shame.

- VH1 have previewed their top 10 blockbusters of 2008. Maybe I'll try and rustle up a list for 2009 at some point, go one step beyond.

Script Review: We3 - Part 3

Grant Morrison has adapted his own comic book We3 into a feature film script, and it's even better than the comic which was already pretty amazing. In fact, I'll say it again: this is the greatest unproduced script I have ever read.

I've already published two long review pieces on the film - the first a kind of overview, the second looking at the action sequences. There were a few bits and pieces that I didn't get to address so far, and that's all I'm looking to do now - tie things up, fill in a few blanks. There's alos a few more excerpts from the pages I'd like to share.

So, what is We3 about? Well, everytime I get a new student, in our first class together, I essentially ask that question about a little list of films. Jurassic Park, for example - that's about dinosaurs, yes, but also a theme park, cloning, hubris, chases, natural order and so on. So what would I expect my students to tell me We3 is about?

About animal rights and animal cruelty. About feeling alone. About the military. About chases. About guilt. About grief. About hope and freedom. About fighting back. About instinct. About the cruelty of the natural world. About hubris, once again. About living things feeling a connection to one another - and why we need that.

Doesn't sound like the most uplifiting film, does it? Well, that's where you'd be wrong. Not only does We3 end on a very clear up-swing, there are plenty of scenes where, like fans rooting for their team in a particularly tight championship final, I can see the audience on the edge of their seats, ready to punch the air as the underdog, undercat and underrabbit overcome another obstacle. There aren't any cheap victories - for every brutal knockback our characters experience their breaks feel all the more deserved. This isn't a film of somebody kicking a dog while it's down, this is a film of that dog standing up, with it's own odd, slightly alien dignity, and getting the hell out of there - and promising itslef it's not going to lie down and be kicked ever again.

These animals don't need some kryptonite contrivance for us to consider their weaknesses - those are readily apparent. This is the rare kind of action film where the weaknesses are already obvious on page one, but where the resilience, tenacity and sheer will to survive become more and more clear the further the story proceeds. This is the I Will Survive of cybernetic animal slaughter chase films.

In a nutshell: you'll care about the We3, and that will make everything about the film work that much better.

Well, assuming that a decent director signs, not somebody who will drop the ball. I've no idea who's being lined up for this film, and I am cautious about the end result only in that respect. Let's discuss some candidates:

Michael Bay? Well, I suppose he's recently worked with producer Don Murphy on Transformers, and he seems to be a bankable option in view of all of the action. I don't think he'd do the film justice - he's not interested enough in the subtleties that elevate this from, say, Hard Boiled to something more like Bladerunner, Alien, Robocop or Terminator 2. And, frankly, there are better action directors than Bay anyway.

So how about James Cameron? Well, he'd be perfect in many respects, but it's moot. He's rather busy - and he originates his own material, too.

Ridley Scott then. Well, again, I can see that working out brilliantly. I'd have very few questions if Scott signed up to this one. It's never going to happen - he's signed up until the year 3000, I think - but if it did...

A young-ish upstart-y type is more probable. I've racked my brains, and I'm stuck. There are plenty I'd begrudgingly recommend, and who I'd think would make a pretty good job of things, but nobody seems to be the perfect choice. Pretty good choices, in one way or another, would be Florent Siri, John Fawcett, Brad Bird or Alex Proyas. My preferred option, when all is said and done, would be Vincenzo Natali. He's certainly capable of doing a sterling job on this film - but he's doing Splice, and in some ways the two are a little similar, so it wouldn't be as good a choice for him, necessarily, as it would be the film.

Perhaps I'm too in love with the script, terrified or some detail getting lost, some great beat getting missed. The ideas are all there, they just need to be respected.

Peter Jackson's Bad Taste and Braindead/Dead Alive might appear to be less competent than Heavenly Creatures, say, or The Frighteners, The Lord of the Rings and King Kong, but I don't believe that's the case at all. The issue is simply budgetary - with a crew, and some resources, and then the order that a good producer brings, Jackson really hit a string of home runs.

Some directors have had much higher budgets on their second, sometimes first, films than Jackson did on Heavenly Creatures and did a much worse job. Indeed, if you look past the production values that dollars bring in, past the sheen, they've done a worse job that Jackson did on Bad Taste. These are the directors who've had so-so hits with middle of the road genre fare, supposedly alternative indies and comic book adaptations. These are the directors likely to be offered a film like We3. These are the directors likely to fudge it. I'm not naming any names, but I hope you know the sort I mean.

Let's take a look at a couple of scenes from the script, to wrap things up.

Early in the film, a huge swarm of biorg rats are shown, building an engine from it's tiny component parts. I discussed this scene in the first part of the review, but only briefly. Here's a good hard look at it.

Doctor Senjei Honda is demonsrating the rats to Senator Dan Washington, and they're accompanied by Major Marvin Samson - "a tall man, uncomfortable in his skin, who stands stiffly and formally at all times and lives haunted with the memory of whatever mistake he made years ago that saw him wind up here at the head of this no-hope project"

SENATOR WASHINGTON
It’s just astonishing. I mean, look at that, they’re just like little cartoon creatures, don’t you think?

He nods approvingly at the Major.

SENATOR WASHINGTON
I had no idea what you’d been getting up to all these years, Marvin.

The rats go about their task industriously.

SENATOR WASHINGTON [BLUFF]
Animal slaves. What are the ethical implications?

Honda stops. He is matter of fact and direct.

HONDA
Fortunately, rats have no ethics. There’s no doubt, Senator, that we can replace a very expensive and increasingly obsolete human workforce with a super-efficient animal alternatives like these... but that is only one limited application of our Research & Development program here.

SENATOR WASHINGTON
So, let me get something clear. The technology’s a little outta my reach but am I right in thinking you’ve trained your animals to build machines? Is that correct, Doctor Honda?

HONDA
Trained? No, not at all. We steer them, like cars. Denise?

Honda’s assistant, DENISE (24), appears and hands the Doctor a remote games console joypad, like the ones the operators were using earlier.

HONDA
If you’ll allow me to demonstrate.

Honda demonstrates the ergonomically-designed control pad in his hands. Two joysticks for his thumbs.It’s the same device the Operators were using earlier.

HONDA
You speak, quite rightly of course, of ethics. With your commitment assured, Senator, our intention is to save the lives of countless men and women in our armed services. Ethics on a plate.

Honda is trying to control his genuine excitement which causes him to tremble beneath the veneer of cool.

HONDA
I’ll show you.

He holds the joypad up in front of his face.

HONDA
THIS is the GUN of the future.

A scene of rats working on the machine.

HONDA
It is my conviction that the wars of tomorrow will be fought by remote-controlled animals, like these.

This is an incredible scene, really. First of all, there's the visual component - the construction zone, the movement of the rats in it, the engine coming together. Then, as this unfolds before our eyes (like some old Art Attack, or Tony Hart or Rolf Harris painting) the conversation tells us all we need to know about these three men. And the We3 project can only exist because of a skewed ethical argument, and that is raised here, and there's a certain amount of off-kilter sense to it - even though it gets ripped apart quite comprehensively by future events. Morrison has scripted a perfect expositional scene - there's a lot more going on than meets the eye, but not a word of the surface text is wasted either.

The 'cartoon creatures' line has always reminded me of Morrison's Animal Man story The Coyote Gospel, very possibly the single greatest issue of an ongoing series that DC ever published outside of their Vertigo imprint, and certainly the high-water mark of Animal Man.

Honda goes on to be the (human) character in We3 that we can respect the most. This is where he begins, his starting position, and the escape of the animals leads him to undergo some important changes.

Note that, Denise aside, the cast of characters here is a rather unstarry. That's also true throughout the entire script - the animals take the spotlight, character actors are required for every other role. This will probably filled with "Hey! It's that one guy" and "Look! It's her" moments, but again, that's likely to benefit viewers overall.

I didn't find the script flawless, of course. Here's a section that needs a little fix, I think. Bandit has just picked up a familiar scent...

EXT. CONSTRUCTION SITE - DAY

BANDIT
IS HOME.

But whatever was once here, it’s gone now, replaced by a development site and these partially-constructed modern homes.

Bandit urgently sniffs the wind and for a moment, his superb sense of smell creates a strange POV image of the warehouse buildings that once stood on this site and where he once lived - walls and windows made of streaming vapor appear and disappear in ghostly fashion as Bandit snuffles and catches faint scent echoes of the past. A door opens, a man made of mist emerges and then its all gone, blown away by a following rotor wind.

The animals look down on a lifeless wasteland of scaffolding and cement with the sprawling city beyond. They’re fur begins to ruffle int he wind.

They’re beat and exhausted...but it’s not over yet as a bullet smacks hard into the dirt beside Bandit and makes him jump.

This visual conceit doesn't really work for me. Rendering scents as a vapoury image seems like a sensible thing to do if you're trying to ape animal senses, but it won't work 100%, and some of the audience will be lost a little. This is the kind of formal error, like zooming and jump cutting, that shatters a film's diegesis - and at this moment, we really need to be with Bandit - not least because of the shock that ends this passage, starts the next sequence. The idea that we can CG an emulation of a dog's POV is a fallacy - we need to construct a sympathy with the dog that works on our human pyshcology instead.

The answer is audio. The soundtrack needs to go down low, and Bandit needs to start recalling in audio. We're pulled into it, the surround sound traces of his memory taking him back. And as we are forced to imagine his remembered home, we can focus our attention on his face, his expression and experience and then... whap! The sudden noise of the shot hitting...

Of course, there's more to it than that, I've oversimplified. But, frankly, I think visually rendering this memory this way would be a mistake - and would miss an opportunity to really connect the audience to Bandit, to his experience, to the duality of his memory and the sad sight he sees now. "You can never go home" indeed.

That's just an example, but there's a couple of little shifts to be made, I think. They are all visual conceits, really - when it comes to the sequence of events, and the dialogue, and the structure of the plot and the relationships, Morrison has aced it.

So, that was the third and final part of my We3 review, wrapping up a few loose ends. To cut a long story short: with the right director, this film will become an instant classic, the kind of film that only builds its reputation as the years go by. It's accessible, it has a clear emotional throughline, a strong plot and more intellectual ideas buzzing around than a whole wall of Art House DVDs in Tower Records. What's not to like? Only the wrong choice of director could knacker this one. I'm hoping the producers take the right risks.

We3 Script Review - Part Two

[EDIT: This is Part Two of the script review. You may wish to read Part One first]

One of the more marketable, appealing and adrenalising elements of the We3 script is the incredible potential for innovative action sequences. For this second look at the pages, I thought we'd concentrate on just a few of those.

So, adressing scenes in chronological order as we progress through the story, we will begin with the We3's escape from the military compound that has been their base of operations. This isn't the first action set-piece - the film begins with one, touched upon in the previous installment of this review - but it is a particularly interesting one.

On Page 34 we're introduced to a bank of surveillance monitors, monitoring the base from virually every angle:

Pull back to see a bank of CCTV camera scenes show the life of the base unfolding from multi-angles. The almost silent hiss of calm machinery.

Sentry at the front gate. (GATE CAM)
Soldiers patrolling the grounds. (EXTERIOR CAM)
The commissionaire at the front desk. (FOYER CAM)
The coats hanging up in an empty locker room. (CLOAKROOM CAM)
Guards posted outside the We3 home bay. (CORRIDOR CAM 5)
Black Ops security door (CORRIDOR CAM 4)
Electric buggy going to Rat Lab (CORRIDOR CAM 3)
Cleaners mopping the floor (CORRIDOR CAM 2)
Soldiers walking through the halls. (CORRIDOR CAM 1)
Honda talking on his cell phone in the elevator. (ELEVATOR CAM)
Roseanne’s workstation. (WE3 BAY CAM 1)
We3 sitting in their posts. (WE3 BAY CAM 2)
General scene of the WE3 Bay (WE3 BAY CAM 3)

The (cubist) stage is set. This entire place is about to explode into action. Going from the perspective of one CCTV camera to another we see, without the relevant audio, the build up to the animal's escape. Roseanne Berry is walking away from the lab, leaving the animals free to exit their stations; the euthenasia team are coming to put the We3 down; the rest of the bay stirs, unaware, then:

Something has gone wrong. There is wild movement as the animals break out of their unlocked harnesses.

Close on Bandit’s snarling muzzle, teeth bared. A loud roar. The sound of gunfire. The sound of breaking glass and choked off screams.

Things are being tossed around. It’s hard to see what’s happening on the little CCTV image.

Cutting rapidly between CCTV footage and flashes of the We3 as they hurtle through the base, the scene is described as a dazzling mosaic of action, of different perspectives that catch every moment in the most dynamic fashion possible. With a decent director, this is going to knock audiences so far back into their seats the cracking of vertebrae will be deafening.

Imagine something like the shower sequence in Psycho, or the dress ripping in Disney's Cinderella, spliced with the kinetics of a super-ramped up chase-and-escape action scene. The potential is incredible...

...as is the potential to foul it up miserably. But on the page? Electrifying.

Most of the great leaps forward in action staging recently have revolved around the fluid movement of virtual cameras, doing impossible pans and tracks as characters pretty much dance around one another - from Blade 2 onto Spider-Man 3. This sequence in We3 requires an utterly different approach - a great deal of the shots presented here require no camera movement at all, let alone CG enhanced, stitched-together swoops. This is all about different, perfectly chosen, moments, sequence to build one after the other. This takes us back to the approach most famously exemplified in Battleship Potemkin's Odessa Steps sequence - or, more accurately, a very modern evolution of this. I can see it now - and it is incredible.

So, as you'll know if you read the basic plot outline in the first part of this review, the We3 escape the compound and set off in search of home. Can a group of deadly bioweapons be allowed to roam unchecked?

Honda has a plan to prevent any human casualties:

INT. RAT LAB - DAY

HONDA hurries into the rat enclosure.

The Operator center is filled with geek gamer guys operating rats with control pads. These are the soldiers of the future, pasty, overweight and munching on potato chips as they guide rats into battle.
Honda takes the control pad from one of them.

HONDA
We trained them to kill.
If you threaten them with any kind of weapon they will KILL.

Everyone stops what they’re doing and looks at him.

HONDA
There’s no need for human beings to die.

They all go back to what they were doing, heads nodding in time to the music on their MP3 players.

GEEK
Right on.

And as Honda says of the rats a few pages later:

HONDA
NO-ONE has to die when we have soldiers like these.

So, an army of Rats are engaged to chase down and stop one Dog, one Cat and one Rabbit:

All the geeks sit with their control pads at the ready.

As if synchronized, they operate their joysticks simultaneously. The rats sit up, then skitter eerily into place, arranging themselves into strict lines and columns, like well-drilled soldiers. The geeks munch candy bars, dip into bowls of popcorn and chips.

The geeks manipulate the buttons on their pads and, in response, the rats flow together out of the room in a creepy procession.

Amazing images.

I don't want to spoil any details of the conflict between the We3 and the rat-allions, but it begins when Bandit, Tinker and Pirate aren't exactly ready. Pirate gets the line 'Uh-oh', spoken with her synthesised voice - and that moment is going to bring everybody in the auditorium forward in their seats. There will be laughter - the kind that can only come from nervous, anxious energy, as well as the odd voice delivering such a line - and then the whole audience will fall silent as slowly, steadily, the full extent of the danger the We3 are in comes clear.

Here are a couple of non-consecutive teaser lines from this sequence, out of context:

Dozens of rats are chopped down in the spray of bullets.

Rats are thrown in every direction, spilling into the water far below, or thudding with broken backs against the bridge supports. The noise is horrendous, like a thousand ragged nails dragged across a thousand slate blackboards.

The culmination of the scene is incredible - a great dramatisation of some of the script's great ideas. Human lives are lost, after a scared animal acts in self defense; many animal lives are lost because of human intervention. That's the genius of We3, as I said before - big ideas, rendered in big, dramatic scenes.

The supposedly fail-safe plan to stop the We3 is Weapon 4, another cybernetically enhanced beast. This one appears very late in the script and while the set piece isn't quite as astonishing as the battle with the rats, it is still pretty darn special. We're getting to material that comes very late in the script now, so you may choose not to read on.

But I bet you do read on. I feel okay doing this because there's a source, the comic book, that is freely available.

On page 79, of 114, the Weapon 4 is first unveiled:

Then a slamming weight of muscled flesh hammers against the bars of its cage, making the whole thing shudder.
Slobbering, red-eyed, the beast within bludgeons its head against the bars, then draws itself up and bellows a soul-chilling roar of sheer destruction. Now we finally see the next generation Animal Weapon 4 in all its terrifying, primal glory - a giant black mastiff in a matt black heavy duty version of the We3 armor. Savage, awe-inspiring and utterly terrifying, the dog slams against the bars once more, teeth bared, eyes rolling, bloodshot. And HOWLS.

At this time, the We3 are hiding out in a rail shed together. Frank - the homeless chap mentioned in part one of the review - comes along:

His eyes slowly adjust to the damp gloom. He raises the burger to his lips, then freezes. There are eyes staring at him avidly following every move of his burger. There are shapes in here, light gleams off polished armor. Snuffling, shuffling sounds.

The animals are here, huddled together in this rail shed, hiding from pursuit. Tinker is looking and hunched, coughing occasionally. Bandit, part-pleading, part-on the defensive. Pirate is pawing at his wounded head.

Frank does a double take, blearily trying to deal with what he’s seeing.

He lifts the burger. All the eyes move at once. He lowers it and they follow. He raises, stops...and the eyes do the same.

FRANK
What the hell?

Bandit stares with red-rimmed eyes.

BANDIT
MAN GET!

Frank sways a little drunkenly on his heels. He tosses his bun down in front of the dog, Bandit greedily scoffs it up.

FRANK
There y’go.

Frank heads off to get 'liquor and tools', apparently planning to remove the We3's armoured casing and Wernicke's boxes. This is when the cops and military show up:

We see flashing lights, and hear the rumble of truck wheels and rotors. There are grim-faced policemen and soldiers up ahead, as we follow Frank down the alley towards what appears to be a police and military blockade of the entire area.

SOLDIER
Hey! You! Out!

COP
Get a light on this guy!

Frank lifts his hand to shield his face against the glare. Cops surround him as he emerges from the alley into a street filled with busy military personnel, including Boxer and his team.

COP 2
You shouldn’t be here, buddy. Seriously. Didn’t you hear there’s dangerous animals loose?

BOXER [no, not a Boxer dog, the leader of a 'hard-core Black-Ops team']
Ask him if he saw anything.

COP
There’s a big reward.

COP 2
I’m betting that’s the sorta money you could use.

Does Frank sell the animals out? Or what else could happen? The answer is in the comic, if you're desperate to know.

Weapon 4 is unleased on page 86:

OPERATOR
Animal Weapon 4 engaged.

The mastiff roars.

OPERATOR
Releasing restraint harness.

The cage locks spring open and the cage grille falls down.

OPERATOR
Stand well clear of the jaws!

Red eyes, steaming breath. A rumbling, doom-laden growl. Then the Rooooarrr. Weapon 4 lumbers out of its cage, remote-controlled. Its great head swaying from side to side. Strings of bloody drool hang in loops from the jagged mantrap of its mouth.

So, the We3 go head to head with the Weapon 4. It is written as it should be: three animals with strange, in-animal tools (if you pardon the expression) wired into their systems, fighting like animals with weapons would - against a giant, crushingly powerful animal restrained by the over-riding controls of the operator.

It is bloody and brutal and fatal. Recall how, for example, the two Terminators in Terminator 2 actually fought like robots, and not big tough men? They targetted one another's weaknesses and understood their 'robotness' in the way they battled? Well, this scene deserves the comparable approach - this is 3 animals with altered, tank-ified bodies fighting a tank-animal hybrid (tank winning out) with the body of a tank-animal hybrid (animal winning out this time). There's never been anything like it on screen before.

The epic struggle against Weapon 4 is to be the big action climax to the film - though there is one more, very suspenseful, sequence to follow when a tactical team try to corner the We3. It is pure Hitchcock, and ripe for a very tense rendition. To go into more detail would be to spoil everything...

But I think it spoils nothing to reveal that the We3 don't make it to the end of their journey unscathed. There have been consequences for the trio, and they have been painful. For all of the amped-up action that I've touched on, the heart of the film remains these animals, their desire to reach home, their attempts to understand the world around them, and the cruel, strange oddness of their plight. But the natural world - of which we are part - is not a peaceful place, and chaos, fear and the will to survive can take us to some dangerous places. We3 works because it shows us these places in a real way, even amongst the sci-fi trappings, and because the script is underpinned with a smart, and honest, perspective on survival and on the desire to be safe, be where you can be left alone, where the pain and the guilt and the fear should just drop away.

To be home.

Gone South

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Raja Gosnell - Scooby Doo, Never Been Kissed, some Home Alone sequel or another - is to make a talking animal voyage film.

Luckily, it isn't We3 - which loosely fits that description and the script for which I am thoroughly in love with. Nope, this is South of the Border. Apt title.

I'm sure you won't want to know anymore about this one, so I'll leave it there.

Michael Bay's Hourglass Figure (Go Figure...)

IESB have 'confirmed' that Michael Bay will direct the Prince of Persia film once he's done with Transformers - and presumably just before he does a second Transformers.

That should keep him away from Grant Morrison's incredible We3 script for a good while anyway, eh? I was secretly frightened he might end with that one.

Who will write this Prince of Persia film? Kurzman and Orci? Elliott and Rossio? Wibberley and Wibberley?

Script Review: Grant Morrison's We3

Grant Morrison has adapted his comicbook miniseries We3 into a feature script for New Line, and I've been lucky enough to read a copy. Luckier still, it's amazing. It's even better than the source material. In fact, this is the single best unproduced script I have ever read. Yep. And I really mean it.

What's so great? The answer to that, if I'm really going to cover it, is very long. I'll do my best, though, and I'll share whatever I think is fair to share from the script - so expect some minor spoilers, certainly as regards the first two thirds of the plot.

This is going to take more than one installment to do justice, so to start off with, tonight, I'm going to tell you the basics of what's going on, introduce the characters and some of the big ideas and give you a general overview of the story. Then, in further installments, we'll look at some of the scenes, set-pieces and sequences in more detail, and cover some of the really good stuff that I won't be able to boil down to just a few lines.

In a nutshell, We3 is the story of a cruel and inhumane military weapons research project and it's victims. It just so happens that the three characters at the forefront of this story, those who suffer the most, are a trinity of household pets. Well, at least, they used to be household pets but now Bandit the dog, Tinker the cat and Pirate the rabbit have been transformed into the flesh components of an incredible team of cyborg weapons.

In armoured shells and equipped with an array of very powerful weapons, these animals, the We3 are being used by the US military in the kinds of covert operations where no witnesses remain.

From the first page of the script:

A squadron of US troops, together with insurgent guerrilla soldiers, is making an attempt to retreat across the grounds through a hail of crossfire which comes from the shabby Presidential palace.

It's a sweltering Central American night and bullets zip through the air. This night raid on Guerrera's stronghold is going badly for the rebel forces.

Zip, spang of tracer fire. Men drop. US troops and insurgent forces crouch behind statuary and parked trucks.

It is amidst this carnage that we first meet the We3, the animal weapons. In heavy armour and under the remote influence of a joystick-wielding control team, they enter the palace and assassinate the dictator. It's a stunning opening, plunging the reader (and eventually the viewer) into a brilliantly orchestrated action and suspense sequence. Obviously, it's utterly unique as the We3 are nothing like anything we've seen before. Armoured animals, loaded with weapons, agile and able to navigate the palace like no soldier ever could.

It's also in this sequence that Morrison first starts to impress a political viewpoint - but more on that in a future installment.

Also very important at this stage, however, is establishing the nature of the We3 project - defining what the armoured animals look like, how they move, what they do in the heat of action. All of these details will be recalled, or counterpointed later.

With no dry, spoken exposition but a whole truckload of action, much of the essential information we need to garner in act one is related to us.

After the military mission, and the titles, we're off to someplace completely different: the kitchen of Roseanne Berry, a recently bereaved animal communication scientest. Morrison notes that she 'tends to emphasise the plain, studious aspect of her appearance and carries a weight of sorrow and guilt'. I have imagined Anglea Bettis in the role, or Maggie Gyllenhaal - though Bryce Dallas Howard would perhaps be more likely. Either way, it's a truly plum part - ladies, call your agents now.

After a short series of clean, clear and unobtrusive character-setting scenes, Roseanne is on her way to work. En route, she stops and purchases a newspaper - headlines SENATOR DAN WASHINGTON AHEAD IN THE POLLS’ and ‘GUERRERA REGIME COLLAPSES IN NIGHT OF VIOLENCE...’, the secondly more obviously relevant now - and crosses paths with a homeless beggar. This beggar is Frank. He's going to return later.

And then, Roseanne arrives at her workplace and, surprise surprise, she's a key part of the We3 project. The animals arrive too - still in their armoured shells, and wheeled on gurneys, back from the wars.

Today's an important day for the project. Senator Dan Washington is visiting, and being shown around by Major Samson, with whom he has a history (Samson is described as 'a tall man, uncomfortable in his skin who stands stiffly and formally at all times and lives haunted with the memory of whatever mistake he made years ago that saw him wind up here at the head of this no-hope project') and Dr. Senjei Honda ('a dishevelled, stout Japanese man in a lab coat').

Washington is given a stunning demonstration of the animal control technology:

...a group of rats are running around in an unnaturally purposeful way. In fact, stranger still, many of the rats are carrying TOOLS in their nimble little fingers.

Let’s follow a rat carrying a screw. It hands the screw to a second rat who lines it up with a hole in a piece of metal.

Then a new and more grotesque creature lumbers into view - a surgically-altered rat whose entire head has been replaced by a spinning drill bit. As one rat carefully holds the screw in place, the drill-head aggressively screws it in with a series of devastating headbutts.

The rats are bulding an engine.

Now, while Washington is still stunned, he's taken to meet the Weapon 3, or We3. Roseanne unlocks the animal's helmets and we see what's inside for the first time...

...a scared dog, an angry cat and a confused rabbit. These are Bandit, Tinker and Pirate and they used to be pets. Now, they're hardwired into weapons systems and sent to kill or be killed.

Each animal has a device attached to it's head - into it's head - that enables them to communicate verbally though electronic voiceboxes. As Roseanne explains "Humans have a part of the brain known as Wernicke’s Area, which allows us to process our feelings into language. This apparatus works as an artificial Wernicke’s, augmenting the animals’ natural abilities. Feelings are assigned to words, which are then processed through speakers in the armor." This is a brilliant conceit that really makes the script fly. The exchanges between the animals, or between the animals and humans, are limited to a very small vocabulary of little more than a dozen different words between the three creatures. The range of expression, however is huge.

Like most good drama, the emotions in play during the We3 script are big and... well.. dramatic. A small vocabulary, when applied directly to the emotional subtext, is a powerful way of stripping the drama down and hitting it home hard.

So, onwards. The Senator continues his tour, off to meet Weapon 4, a newer and more brutal 'biorg' that is being developed, while Roseanne receives bad news: the We3 are to be decommissioned. It seems that Weapon 4 is to supercede them immediately.

A key scene:

HONDA
These animals are test specimens. Laboratory rats. As scientists, you and I both understand the protocols.

ROSEANNE
I’d like to take a memento.

HONDA
I remember a rather long discussion about the dangers of sentimentality when you came to work for me.

She gives him a hard stare,

ROSEANNE
I remember too.

He relents a little, becomes softer.

HONDA
But please, there’s absolutely no need for you to be here when it happens. Say the necessary good-byes to the animals today. I’ll instruct the Euthanasia Team to wait until you’ve cleared your locker.

He thinks he’s being kind, she can’t believe he’s so cold.

HONDA
We are about to become politically fashionable, Roseanne. Your contribution will not be neglected.

He makes a tense tiny nod.

HONDA
Please. Take anything you like as a keepsake.

Something in Roseanne snaps. Her eyes burn.

So, guess what? Now you've got the set-up, I won't need to spell it out. Roseanne releases the animals and they flee the compound. Bandit has a longing for 'home' and leads the others off looking for it. But what is 'home'? As they understand it, home is somewhere they won't have to run anymore. I can understand that.

Much of the film is a long chase, a blend between one of Disney's Fantastic Journey films and, perhaps, The Iron Giant by way of Robocop or another hard, gristle-strewn actionaer. It is also a brilliant and incisive exploration of freedom, instinct, will the universe's natural orders... and the desire to identify yourself as an individual.

There is an absolutely incredible series of action sequences - which we will look at individually, and in more detail, at a later time. They are brutal, harsh, imaginative and, most importantly, always relevant.

Roseanne would appear, from this set-up, to be the film's human heroine though this isn't truthfully the case. Things aren't so simple. As noted, she is recently bereaved, and she feels immense guilt about her relationship with her deceased father as well as with the We3 animals. Remember the phenomenon of 'suicide-by-cop' that got talked about a lot a few years ago? The idea was that depressed people would do ridiculous things - hold up liquor stores, go on shooting sprees - so that they might be executed by the police. Roseanne's release of the We3 animals back at the beginning of their journey has an undercurrent of this kind of tragic feeling. She certainly expects to die, at least for a moment, in the melee that ensues. She even say "Kill me", as though under her breath and to herself but seemingly meaning that the animals should kill her, plough right through her, as they escape the labs in a blaze of violence.

The possibility of Roseanne's redemption is a key part of the story; the animal's perspective on her need for redemption, or possibly lack thereof, makes it even more interesting.

Throughout We3 the animals are just what they are. Bandit is a dog, Tinker is a cat and Pirate is a rabbit. I've spent plenty of time with each of these species and was absolutely convinced by their portrayal here. They haven't in anyway been subject to daft anthropomorphism. It's crucial, really, that they are real animals with real animal attitudes, personalities and psychology. I also believe it is essential that they are rendered as realistically as possible in the film, also. Where possible, a real dog, cat and rabbit could be used - no doubt adorned in mo-cap ping-pong balls so that their armour might be CG-created from the neck down.

Having said that... Weta's King Kong was so convincing that while I know exactly how they faked him I still can't see anything but a real animal.

It is on page 43 that the animals are clear of the compound; there is a total of 114 pages in the script. It's as soon as page 44 that the We3 having their first conversation. Bear in mind as you read this excerpt that the voices are synthesized, the language a product of their surrogate Wernicke's.

Bandit ignores the cat as she gnaws halfheartedly at her prey. He’s thinking, considering his next move very carefully. He inclines his head, sniffs. Sniffs. Stops. Faces east, into the light wind.

BANDIT
HOME.

He addresses the others, clearly their leader.

BANDIT
DANGER HERE. We3 HOME NOW.

He starts down the hill, purposefully.

PIRATE
?HOME? EAT. ?HOME? EAT.

Pirate looks to Tinker, chomping at her bird.

PIRATE
2! COME 2!

Tinker looks around.

TINKER
2 WHERE?

Pirate bounds down the hill after Bandit.
PIRATE
2 HOME! 2 HOME!

Tinker sneers. Tightens her claw around the dead bird.

TINKER
2 STAY.

She lifts the bird to her mouth but her eyes are following the others.

TINKER
EAT.

The others vanish into the trees.

Tinker drops the bird and it falls to the forest floor, uneaten. Her stealthy hiss of a voice gives her words the weight of prophecy.

TINKER
We3 NO HOME WHERE.

Then she calculates her best chances...and runs after the others, disappearing down into the dappled shadows, descending into a valley.

That will be the largest extract I'm going to take from the script at any time, but I really wanted to indicate the relationship between the animals. I think that page pretty much speaks for itself (if you pardon the expression).

So, we're ve just got started. I wanted to impress upon you the premise of the script, the approach to the animals' interrelationships and some idea of who Roseanne Berry is. These are all important things if you are to understand just what this film is trying to do.

If you've read the comics you'll know a lot about the plot that I haven't shared. But there's plenty you won't know too.

Next time, we'll talk about Weapon 4, about what becomes of all of those rats, about some elements of the visual style implied on the page and, maybe, unless I can resist it, I'll talk you through a big pile of notes I made while reading the script.

You see, reading We3 it was obvious to me how to approach this film, what I would do if I were the director. It all leaped out at me: details of sound, of design, of approach to character, concepts that determined how camera would be used, how the film would be lit. And on and on. I chewed it all over, like I do when preparing for a shoot that I'm actually going to get to do. I began the very beginning of the preproduction process, perversely for a film I haven't a hope in hell of ever being any more involved in than I am now. But I think my thoughts will be interesting, and will reveal even more about the ideas in We3.

More soon.

Numbers Game

Grant Morrison now has two screenplays in development: We3, from his own comic, is set up at New Line; Area 51, extrapolated from the videogame of the same name, is on the slate at Paramount.

Though both feature powerful inhuman characters fighting to escape containment in a scientific facility, the similarities stop there. Area 51 is relatively straight-up - or at least it was, until Morrison got involved - and We3 is brilliantly esoteric and eccentric.

The premise of We3 is brilliant: a dog, a cat and a rabbit escape from a lab where they have been experimented upon and transformed into prototype animal weapons. They've had their congitive abilities boosted significantly, though they remain relatively unsophisticated, intellectually speaking, and they've been surrounded by armoured suits equipped with ridiculous weapons.

Morrison uses this set-up to explore a whole range of ideas, and does so superbly. Animal rights are obviously a key concern, but there's a lot more wrestling with evolution, existential ideas of 'purpose' and natural order.

If We3 does go into production, I promise that I'll follow it very, very closely. And I'll also be very, very jealous - if there's one comic book adaptation I'd like to direct, I think this is the one.