Quick Ideas, Maybe Good? in BookThree: Flight Log 2016

Sometimes, I get these wild hairs into my brain and I think of a bunch of ideas. SOME of them even good enough (in my mind) to try to get into the hands of people who could make them a reality. But unfortunately… the last part rarely happens. Especially when it is a movie idea… because who would I send that to?

But… in an industry further producing Remakes, Re-imaginings, and Sequels… some ideas:

Idea 1:
The Last Starfighter: Total War
Do you remember the 1980s movie The Last Starfighter? This isn’t so much a remake or reboot but an idea along the same lines.
A group of young men enter a Video Game Tournament for the best of the best. The video game is an involved game involving space flight, planetary invasion, ground troops, resource management… an intense game. But the protagonist team do excellently and set new records for speed and casualties. The group is whisked to the head office of the tournament organizers where it is revealed the tournament was being held to recruit Military Leaders for an alien race. The head alien tells the boys that their home planet was invaded by a brutal alien power and they need the boys’ amazing skills to take back their planet. As the boys board the ship to leave Earth, robot duplicates of the boys leave the ship. The head alien tells the boys it is so that nobody will miss them on earth. As the ship takes off, the Robo-Duplicates approach a computer and begin to hack into the CIA, NSA, and NATO.
Meanwhile, the boys begin to train to help the Alien Fleet. They are put in charge of robotic forces designed to behave as the troops did in the video game. The boys successfully guide their robotic ships through defensive lines and invade the target planet. But as the boys continue to lead the robot military; it becomes clear that they aren’t “retaking” a planet for its natives… but that they are retaking a planet for a group of ousted invaders. As the boys search through the planetary information, it is discovered that the aliens the boys are working for are a group of brutal invaders. With the help of the Planetary Government (the planet the boys were accidentally leading an invasion against) the boys are able to escape and head back to earth. When they arrive on earth, they discover that their robotic duplicates had just transmitted everything the aliens would need to know in order to successfully invade/enslave the earth. The End.

Idea 2: The Sequel
*The Last Starfighter: Planetary Defense”
After discovering that their robot duplicates had beamed information off world; the boys try to convince anyone who will listen about the impending invasion. Almost nobody believes them; but they are able to convince a military contractor and a video game geek that something is coming. The military contractor secretly ties a number of planetary defense systems to a video game console just as the alien invasion force appears on the far side of Neptune. The boys do their best to keep the aliens off of earth; but their robot duplicates prevent them from complete success. A few remaining alien vessels land and the legitimate military bodies of the world are forced to unite to repel the invading hoard. The mutual acceptance of Alien Life shocks the globe and the boys are received as heroes for holding off so much of the invading force. The movie ends with government sponsored Video Game Training tying all planetary defense systems through video games.

Idea 3: Somewhat based on concepts similar to Monster Squad but with considerably more Real World Socio-Political subtext.
A group of Government Water Treatment Quality Control Scientists have a secret hobby… every saturday, they get together to watch terrible classic scary movies. Until one day they notice that a new Government Required Water Additive is hiding something disturbing. At first, they can’t pinpoint what the additive would even do and (as government requires) they add it to the drinking water of the town. However, as strange reports of Movie Monsters being seen in the area begin to appear… one of the Water Treatment staff begins to turn into a werewolf, one turns into a semi-vampire, and the other begins to resemble a hulking semi-green brute. The entire Water Treatment team begins to investigate the Additive and different genome reactions until finally discovering the smoking gun… a recording of Project Fear Liberty. In it, it is revealed that early genome mapping indicated that 33% of the earth’s population had dormant mutation markers that, if left unchecked, could become active in future generations. In order to “protect the purity of humanity” and because “a fearful populace are always more willing to give up their liberties” the government cleared Operation Fear Liberty in order to remove the “potential future mutant problem” while at the same time giving the federal government more direct control of local areas. The scientists (humans and monsters alike) end up storming a government laboratory to steal the antidote and reverse the effects to themselves and the rest of the town. And if you wanted to get really cheeky… you could take one of the classic lines from Monster Squad (1987) and redo it. You could have the werewolf scientist go from scaredy, semi-cowardly scientist to massively brutal courageous Werewolf fighter… at which point someone could say, impressively, “Wolfman’s got nards!”