One-Liner: Thursday Edition
Jonathan Mostow, director of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, has been confirmed as the director for the Namor movies.
Submit your pitch for what would make an entertaining 90-120 minute Namor movie.
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12 Comments:
Blonde social worker befriends handsome, amnesiac homeless man with pointy ears. As he displays wonderous powers, they fall in love.
But when he remembers who he is and what happened to him, he returns to Atlantis, vowing to destroy the people who captured and tortured him back in World War II, the U.S. government.
Now it's up to one woman (and possibly her hot head brother, intelligent ex-boyfriend, and a surly but lovable pilot) to brave her way to Namor to convince him not to attack and there by prevent a massive war.
Wow. Maybe it's too early, but I think Steven's got it. I was racking my brain trying to think of the definitive Namor story but was coming up empty. [Pun Alert] I forgot about the whole amnesia thing.
Sorry... I did warn you.
90-120 minute movie? On Namor? Thor swings a big ass hammer upside his head, and Iron Man kicks him a couple of times. Fade to black, and run the credits for 80 minutes I guess. That's entertainning enough. Seriously I find Namor about as interesting as Aquaman, in that I don't really.
You had to do this, didn't you.
Goddammit.
Now I have to come up with one. Though it'll be a little long.
========================
Namor: The Sub-Mariner
A scruffy homeless man jabbers to himself in the streets of New York. He then stops cold and stares out at the harbor, silent. Voices bounce around his head, telling him to leap into the sea. He is afraid, but the voices are insistent, and he weakens. As he is about to jump, he is stopped by policewoman Betty Dean.
It’s obvious that they know each other. The man, known only as MacKenzie, is a surly, delusional crackpot, but he’s kind to womenfolk, and Betty in particular. She offers him a sandwich and a lift back to the shelter.
That night, a group of drunken men accidentally set fire to the shelter. MacKenzie wakes up to screams and a fire alarm. He sees an old woman on fire, and he runs to her. As he throws a blanket on top of her to smother the flames, a gout of fire streaks past and sets Mac himself aflame.
The sprinkler system kicks in, dousing the room as Mac throws off his tattered rags. We see that he is built like a champion bodybuilder, and that his ears are pointed. Water washes down the man’s form, and he feels himself grow stronger. With his newfound strength, he picks up the burned woman in one hand, a large metal desk with the other. He hurls the desk through the front of the building, smashing to safety.
Outside, rain falls. Everyone at the shelter stares at Mac, amazed at his appearance. Before he can say anything, MacKenzie grips his head and screams—-the voices in his head are back, now deafening. He runs. He runs to the water’s edge, where he again resists the call to drown himself.
At last, at the brink of madness, he hurls himself in.
And all is made clear. His memory rushes back. He is Namor the First, Prince of Atlantis! He is Namor the Conqueror, Namor the Just! And he will regain his throne!
He zooms to the city of Atlantis, a magnificent fantasy city under the ocean. Greeted by astonished blue-skinned citizens, he returns to his castle. The Warlord Attuma has ruled in his stead for the last five years, though upon the return of the Prince, Attuma resigns his office with a smile. The Lady Dorma, Namor’s betrothed, is overjoyed to see him.
We get the skinny pretty fast: the Surface World has damaged the seas badly, and a punitive strike was deemed necessary by Namor and his advisors. With the Prince being a rare half-breed of human and Atlantean, he could mingle with the air-breathers. He would insinuate himself among them, then, once he gave the signal, he would disable the air-breathers’ defenses, allowing the Atlantean army to take New York City easily. But something went wrong, and the attack was postponed.
Now that he’s back, the attack can proceed! Surely Namor has learned enough about the surface world to lead the armies against it!
He returns to NYC, this time certain nothing will stop him. But something does, a product of his five-year exile: an appreciation of the air-breathers’ lives. Resuming his identity of “MacKenzie,” he sees that Betty Dean and other humans aren’t necessarily malevolent, and that killing them would be wrong. He even has a moment with Betty, and he tells her who he is. She is amazed, and also startled how the gentle MacKenzie could become the haughty and destructive Prince Namor. He himself wonders.
Namor returns to Atlantis and renounces the plan, saying that instead, a diplomatic solution would be better. The Warlord Attuma, hearing this, closes a trap on the Prince. He had given Namor the amnesia five years back and abandoned him to the surface world, certain that the Prince would suffocate in the dry city, unaware of the truth. But somehow he survived. And now he wanted peace? Namor the Warbringer? Ha! The air had softened his brain! As Attuma had suspected, Namor was unfit to rule! The throne belonged to Attuma!
Namor goes ape and smashes Attuma’s guards. He sees that the Atlantean war machine, made up of super sci-fi tech and giant monsters, has already moved on NYC and will break the surface shortly. No time!
The climax of the story is Namor’s fight against his own army to protect NYC. It becomes a big ol’ donnybrook, with fighter jets shooting at massive mutant sea beasts and blue-skinned men with fishbowl helmets using lightning-lances to disrupt tanks.
It ends with Namor pounding the holy crap out of Attuma on the waterfront. Namor eventually defeats Attuma and humiliates him in front of his troops.
The existence of Atlantis becomes known to the surface world and Namor becomes both King and ambassador.
(A subplot about the pull of Lady Dorma and Betty Dean would have to be woven in somewhere, since they symbolize his dual nature.)
Action! Adventure! Underwater kingdoms! Giant sea monsters! Love! Hate! Betrayal! Hoo-hah!
Hey Hollywood--I’ll write out a full script of this (better structured, of course) for peanuts. That's not an expression; a few jars of roasted nuts would be enough. Contact me at nefarious_guy@yahoo.com for deets.
Hoo-hah!
Other elements to include in the pitch:
--Namor grew up despising himself as a half-breed and vowing revenge on the filthy air-breather who defiled his mother. Upon his return to NYC as the saboteur, he finds his human father, Leonard MacKenzie. Leonard has had a great deal of contact with Atlantis, and knows exactly who Namor is. He also speaks of Princess Fen with great love. This confuses the hell out of Namor. Later on, Fen and Len find each other, and we see that Fen was forced to lie to the Atlantean court, to hide the shame of her affair with an air-breather. Drama!
--There'd have to be at least one or two big action scenes aside from the shelter fire, the escape from Attuma, and the invasion. Maybe he beats the invasion force to NYC by a day, and he tries to rally the humans to him. They don't listen, so in true Namor fashion, he starts ripping up the city. Doing so gets the human forces active before the Atlantean army arrives. Plus, hey, explodo. Betty Dean could be key here.
This would be a ridiculous film to make. Filming on top of water is difficult and expensive. A movie that spends an enormous amount of time under it? Oy.
You did this just to mess with me huh?
I think the ideal would be to take a more Golden Age Namor approach, but with a more decidedly modern approach.
The first 10-15 minuets are shown in short scenes describing a ship getting stuck in ice, a currious mer-woman named fen climbing on board, and the metting with the captain. The one thing that should be shown is Fen is strong but curious. She'd instigate talking to the captai and the intercourse to. Then show a pink skinned baby being born to the blue skinned Fen.
Slight jump forward.
Namor is sent by his mother Fen and his Grandfather the King to determine what is polluting there homes. Namor arrives in New York in the 30's with no eviromental codes and over crowding Namor takes this as his view of humanity.
Namor flies down and begins roughly interrogating several thugs and gets into a gang fight showcasing his abilities. When a woman named Betty stops him. She's an officer of some sort, but most of all never backs down from him. She tells Namor of the best humanity has to offer. That not everyones bad and that humanity can learn.
Intercut here we see New york has certain... Champions of it's own. The Human torch stops a robbery and saves children from a collapsing building. Other people people are shown to, all of whom are in some way helping.
Namor has some thinking to do but flying over new york he see's that despite Betty most humans are petty and don't care. They rob each other, they pollute their own air as well as the sea, and in certain parts of the world he discovers humans wage huge bloody wars with each other.
He decides to attack New York with the full force of Atlantis. He convinces his Grandfather to attack the surface starting with that city.
Then we get to the centerpeice the invasion. It would be almost entirely alien type machines that are vaugely creaturish. But Betty knows whats going on and she tries to stop him but Namor brushes her off. Now the torch shows up and the fight begins. Each have had scenes showing off there powers but the Torch should still be an enigma personally. We've seen Namors rightous furry and anger but the Torch is in some way... Cold. He does trade quips with the prince and the fight goes on. Torch decides see's the chaos new york is in and decides namor has to be stopped at all costs. He charges up and begins going Nova while Namor (being Namor) charges straight forward never backing down, but then Betty (who had been following and avoiding the danger) steps in front of Namor.
The torch not wanting to kill an innocent woman stops. Betty then explains whats going on. After talking the two down they come to an agreement about Namor leaving. But the army is under orders from the king, not Namor, to destroy atlantis.
The Torch and Namor team up to save the city. But now Namor is a traitor to his homeland and banished to the surface.
This is meant to have the Torch as a not so obvious Antagonist. Namor is afterall the contemplating destroying the surface world and Torch is obviously a hero. But Namors view is the sympathetic one. His home is being destroyed but he still gave humanity a chance. It just couldn't prove itself worthy, except for one person, and Namor finally realizes that one person shouldn't be hurt just because of her kin.
Harvey, I like how you've left a big Hollywood oversight in your plot. Five years and it doesn't rain? In New York? It takes fire sprinklers? (I'm not being sarcastic or jerky - seriously). Kind of how like in Batman Begins the water evaporator thing doesn't evaporate the water in human bodies - phew!
EEEe--OOO-EEE-OOO - sorry fanboy geek-alarm just went off on my computer.
All I want to see in a Namor movie is Dr. Doom chasing him in that purple jet of his. He is Doom but at least he has flair.
Namor is a passenger on a commercial airliner going from one place to another when terrorists release deadly snakes on board the plane.
Harvey, I like how you've left a big Hollywood oversight in your plot. Five years and it doesn't rain? In New York? It takes fire sprinklers?
Yeah, I thought about that, but I was in a "get it done" tear.
How about when we see MacKenzie, we find out that he hates the rain because it makes the voices louder. Getting wet strengthens him and weakens the amnesia, which he thinks makes him crazier. Thus he is pathologically afraid of water. A full dunk and the voices would destroy his mind! It'd also make him stinky. Which could be part of the early dialogue.
He wears a ton of clothes (in keeping with crazy homeless guy couture--he shops at Derelicte), so he never gets all that wet. When he's in the fire, his clothes ignite. Thus, he chucks them aside just as the sprinklers turn on. It'd be his first major exposure to water in years.
The whole story pivots on the central conflict of Namor: his dual nature. He is human and Atlantean, indigent and king, villain and hero, a man drawn to both his aristocratic aquatic fiancee and a New York City beat cop with a thick Brooklyn accent. He's an arrogant prick with an understanding side, and a conqueror who wants to prevent a conquest.
It'd sell, baby. It'd sell.
Though it'd need a lot more work, o'course.
Well done, folks. Harv/Mallet: get that baby down on paper and start shopping it to Mostow!
Harvey - I dig it.
Revive the Hulk franchise and have Namor and Hullk slapping each other aound for 90 minutes, destroying as much of their surroundings as possible.
And Tom Hanks must play Namor.
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