[LMB] The Script From Hell Parts I&II

[Crystal Carroll]

Well, it's not annotated, and I'm not the official keeper (I am however
30 and started reading genre at age 7 with the Narnia books)
Crystal
From Diane Es post in January 2002

All of you asked for details of "The Script From Hell".

A disclaimer, first.  I participated in a round-robin group-read of the
script about a year and a half ago (the list-posts date from mid-August
1998) at Scott Raun's.  He was throwing a party for a visiting
listmember, and Lois brought it along as a "treat" for the attendees.
After the first dozen or so pages, we started giving it the MSTK300
treatment-- it was the only way to survive the abomination, like chewing
one of your own legs off to survive an poetry reading by the Asgoths of
Treel.  (gratuitous Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy reference)  In
fact, I find I can't describe the Abomination without throwing in snarky
little comments as I go. You've been warned. ;>

At the time, I summed it up this way  in my list-post about the party:
"It was worse than I'd imagined it. Much worse.  But once we'd started,
it was sort of like watching a disaster happen; we couldn't seem to stop
until it was over."

So keep in mind that my memories are rather old and may be less than
100% reliable.   I may have unintentionally taken a bit of poetic
license here and there, but the god-awful horribleness of it is as true
as I can make it.

Oh, and if you want to comment on this (please do!), please reply-all,
so we can get a round-robin discussion going.  If you only reply-to-me,
the others will be left out, and that would be a Bad Thing. (Not as bad
as the script, admittedly, but bad.)

Script From Hell (with bits cribbed from my old list-posts)

Intro:

We're inside a ship. A really big ship.  A HUMONGOUSLY big ship, called
the Worldship <Duh>, with "alien runes" carved on all the walls.  It's
inhabited by Fremen-- oops, sorry, I mean by The Free Dendarii Peoples
of Space, a bunch of monk's-robed, tattooed, primitive tribal types who
live all their lives on shipboard.  Their mystic leader, Obi-Wan-- I
mean Ky Tung-- is gathering them for some ritual chanting in the center
of the ship.  While this is going on, a Black Battle Cruiser docks, the
lock is opened by a Dendarii named Baz (yes, you heard right; Baz is a
Dendarii tribesman) and hundreds of space-armoured
s/t/o/r/m/t/r/o/o/p/e/r/s/ Armsmen pour out, slaughtering all in their
path. After them strides Darth Serg-- I mean *Count Serg Vorbarra*, in
black space armour and a cape, stepping over the bodies of his fallen
foemen.  (Now, *where* could they have borrowed *that* idea from?)

Count Serg gets to the doors of the Dendarii Temple (or whatever the
heck it's called), and his Armsmen blast the doors open.  Inside, the
entire Dendarii complement of the ship (including women and children,
but not including Baz) is engaged in some sort of ritual.  Ky Tung asks
Baz "How could you betray us?", Baz replies, "It was the only way to
save us from total destruction", and Serg, cackling evilly, orders his
Armsmen to kill everybody.  Baz's "But you promised to spare them!" is
drowned out by blaster bolts and screams.... and Obi-Tung Ky-nobi
reaches for the object on the altar.....

A wave of white light explodes outward from whatever Ky grabbed,
incinerating everything in its path. (Think _Raiders of the Lost Ark_
finale. That screenwriter must've *loved* that scene; she uses it
several times.) Serg, who is at the far back of the temple, manages to
get outside and close the heiroglyph-encrusted doors, but is badly hurt
in the process.  Baz is caught in the blast and crumples into a heap
just outside the doors, along with sundry other Dendarii and Armsmen
corpses.

Serg and the remains of his Armsmen flee the Worldship.

Baz wakes up, turns eyes that "although obviously blind, seem able to
somehow see" on the blast doors, and walks away muttering about revenge.

End intro.

First Scene, 20 years later, more or less:

Miles is running an obstacle course.  He fights off a holographic
"soldier" in hand-to-hand combat, runs to the edge of a canyon, starts
to walk a tightrope across it, doesn't make it in time.  The tightrope
is cut by a mechanical timer, he starts swinging across the canyon on
the resultant rope, and straight-arming himself to a stop on the
opposite wall-- and breaks his wrist "because he has brittle
bones"<!>.   Computer-voice tells him "you lost, quit", and extrudes a
little shelf for him to stand on.  He replies, "Like hell I will!",
ignores the shelf, climbs up the canyon wall by the rope (with a broken
wrist, mind you) and pelts along to the finish line-- where he collides
with a girl who's also running the course on a converging path, thus
screwing up both their scores.

The girl is Elena.  The course is the hologram training course for the
Bayaarn military (No, that's not a typo. As Lois commented, in that
patented dry way of hers, apparently Hollywood thought "Barrayaran" was
too long a word....) and both Miles and Elena have snuck onto it,
illegally, in secret, without getting caught, because the Bayaarn
military won't let either of them in and they think this is a good way
to change the Powers That Be's minds. (She's not eligible because she's
a "peasant woman" and he's not eligible because he's not genetically
perfect; seems Bayaar has these draconian eugenics laws.)

While M & E are bickering over whose fault the collision is, ("Is, too,
yours!" "Is not!" "Is, too!") a big, tall, tough-looking soldier type
shows up and hauls them both away in handcuffs.   This, we learn later,
is Bothari. (No, he's no relation to Elena; why do you ask?) Oh, he puts
a splint on Miles' broken wrist before cuffing him.

Bothari hauls them through corridors, past other Bayaarn men (which, the
script informs us, are *all*, without exception, 6'6", while Miles, at
"only" 5'10", is "short") and into a massive library.

Oh, excuse me, it's not a library as we understand the word, it's a room
lined with racks of "book discs", which are supposed to make it clear to
the audience that Bayaar is a "high tech, paperless society". A Bayaarn
man is waiting there, examining a "holographic representation of the
entire universe" that occupies the center of the room (must be a
*really* small scale model).  The man is Aral, but Elena doesn't get to
find out that he's Miles' father until she's made enough snarky comments
to make her look really stupid.  Aral basically tells Bothari to take
the frill away, then comments to Miles that he couldn't expect to keep
breaking into Military testing facilities and getting away with it,
silly boy.

After a  bit of verbal byplay, Aral gets down to the reason he had Miles
brought there.  He hauls out a <gasp>* real book! printed on <gasp>
actual paper! and asks Miles what he thinks of it.  Miles' response
amounts to "cool antique!" and he is informed that his father knows this
book is somehow the key to "the Artifact", a remnant of a lost alien
civilization and object of incredible power that Aral and Miles must
somehow prevent Serg from obtaining.

He takes Miles over to the holoprojector, and zooms in to The Void, a
big section of space Totally Without Planets, Stars, or Anything Else,
and tells him that's where the Free Dendarii Peoples, the Nomads of
Space, live.  He also says the Artifact is somewhere in there, too, but
the Dendarii Peoples won't let anybody not-Dendarii in to find it.

We also learn that the Dendarii Peoples and the Bayaarn Empire have been
at war for 20 years and Aral is the prime member of the Let's Make Peace
party. (Can you guess what incident started the war and who the chief
warmonger is, boys and girls?)

He gives Miles the book, then says, in effect, "Gotta go to work, son.
Why don't you bring your new girlfriend to watch the coronation?" and
disappears down a corridor.

Next on "The Script From Hell": Aral charges a platoon full of
space-armoured, plasma-rifle-weilding heavy troopers armed only with a
sword! Miles makes his escape through the high-traffic spacelanes over
Bayaar in a condemned lightflyer! The souk on the space station
(complete with stampeding cattle and charcoal braziers)! The Journey
Into The Void!! And lots more!!!

Miles leaves the library, goes to wherever Elena's being kept, and lets
her out.  Bothari, who's been guarding her, follows along, and Miles
tells Elena Bothari is his bodyguard.

Elena responds by whining about Vor privilege and him not telling her
Aral was his dad, etc, and then Miles offers to take her to the
Emperor's Coronation with him. (OK, maybe it was just the Court, but I
remember it as a Coronation.)  Elena makes some snarky comment about how
he, being Vor, can get better seats than she, a mere peasant, can, and
accepts.

Cut to:

THE CATHEDRAL, an imposing Gothic structure in the middle of the
futuristic Imperial Capital.

Inside, the front seats are reserved for the Vor, the peasants are
relegated to the back/balcony, and the middle ranks are filled with the
Alien Races the Bayaarn Empire has conquered and made client-states of.

As Miles and Elena slip into the Vorkosigan family pew, we see Aral
arguing with Serg (who, BTW, has acquired some nifty scars and a black
patch over one eye, IIRC) in the front of the cathedral.

They're arguing their relative cases to the Emperor, whose name is Cai
or Kai or something pseudo-Celtic like that, and who's about 10 years
old.

Aral wants to make peace with the Dendarii Peoples.  If they'll only
reach out and stop being knee-jerk militarists, he's sure it could work
out...

Serg insists that the Dendarii hate the Empire (really? why?) and
therefore the only solution is to wipe them out.   After all (infodump!)
the Empire is as strong as it is because they've ruthlessly terminated
any child that didn't live up to their eugenics standards, and if they
don't wipe out or conquer any non-Empire civilization they encounter the
rest of the universe won't respect them anymore. He didn't keep the
Empire intact while the Boy-Emperor was growing up so Aral could turn it
into some feel-good, wimpy liberal fantasy-land!  (OK, so I don't recall
the exact arguments-- but this was the general tone.)

They both turn to the Boy-Emperor.   Cai sides with Aral, saying
something typical of Wise Young Children.  Serg tries to talk him out of
it, fails, and sulks away, muttering that they'll be sorry...

... and after some bit of time-killing nonsense I don't remember, the
doors at the back of the cathedral burst open and an entire squad of
Armour Clad Dendarii Combat Troops, carrying Plasma Rifles, bursts in
and starts firing!!!!!

Pandemonium ensues (natch), and the massive altar-table "weighing
several tons" is tipped over as people run around screaming in panic.

This is where Aral 1) pushes the Boy-Emperor behind the altar and tells
him to keep down, and 2) draws his sword and CHARGES THE TROOPERS,
calling on his fellow-Vor to "Follow me!"

Meanwhile, Miles realizes that Serg *isn't* following Dad's suicide
charge, but is heading towards the Emperor. So he follows Serg.

And sees the Evil Count Serg slit Cai's throat-- behind the altar, where
nobody else can see, of course!

He engages Serg hand-to-hand, and gets thrown across the space, landing
against a wall or something similar (yet, amazingly, despite his
"brittle bones", he only collects bruises this time), and is stunned.

Meanwhile, Aral has survived his suicide charge and even managed to take
out most of the troopers.  He somehow realizes Miles is In Trouble and
comes charging to the rescue.  He and Serg get into a swordfight over
and around the Boy-Emperor's body.

Miles wakes up, sees his father run through by Serg, and rushes to his
side.

Aral says something about "Find the Dendarii... the artifact..." and
dies.  (We couldn't decide whether to mourn him or envy him.)

Serg jumps over the table, notices that most of the armor-clad
"Dendarii" have been wiped out by the sword-weilding, dress-uniformed
Vor, and calls, "Look!  Vorkosigan and his mutant son have killed the
Emperor!!  They're in league with the Dendarii!!", while pointing at
Miles, who is crouched over Aral's corpse and next to Cai's.

IIRC, Miles just stands there, gaping at Serg, until Elena shows up and
says, "Are you crazy? Let's get the hell OUT of here!!"

So she and Miles get the hell out of there, just as a mass of Serg's
Armsmen conveniently arrive too late to save the Emperor, but not too
late to witness Miles "proving" his guilt by fleeing the scene.

Serg wanders down to supervise the clean-up (sending a contingent of
Armsmen after Miles & Co) and finds that one of the Dendarii is still
alive.

The Dendarii flips up his visor and lets the audience in on a secret--
he's really one of Serg's Armsmen in disguise.  They all were.  It was
just another Evil Plot of Serg's. (Big surprise.)

Then Serg kills him, so he can't squeal, while the flunky complains he's
always been loyal to Serg.... (Do we see a pattern here?)

Cut to:

The Spaceport.

Miles, Elena, and Bothari are dodging stormtroo-- Armsmen, I mean
Armsmen.  Elena is griping again, but just for variety, she's griping to
Bothari, mostly about Miles.  Bothari's answer is basically, "I'm his
bodyguard, it's not my job to think.  And you're a wimp, anyway, because
you're a useless woman, so what do you know about being a soldier?"

Miles leads them into a hangar, which contains a dusty, abandoned
lightflyer-- with a CONDEMNED, DO NOT ENTER label on the door, no less.
An Armsman wanders in about then, so they all dodge inside.

Once inside, they go to the control room.  One of the panels under the
controls is open and a bunch of wires are hanging out.

Miles starts dinking with the wires inside.

Elena says, "Are you crazy? Didn't you see that Condemned label?  They
don't slap those on for fun, y'know." etc.

Miles says, "Shut up.  It's a ship; we need a ship so we can get out of
here."

"A ship that *works*, idiot.  And do you know how to fly one of these
things?"

"Sure, I've done it lots of times... on the simulators at the Academy."

Elena, to Miles. "How'd you get in there? *I* never got in there!"

Miles: <smirk>

Elena, to Bothari: "He's CRAZY!"

Bothari: "Insanity is relative." (My favorite line from the whole damn
script.)

So Miles hot-wires the lightflyer, pulls the pilot's headset on (yes,
they kept that part), and grabs the controls just as a squad of Armsmen,
attracted by the engines starting, enter the hangar.

Miles blows past them (out the roof, IIRC) and into the stratosphere!!

We get a close-up of the nose of the ship, with the name writ large:
Phoenix.  (In case you hadn't realized it yet, subtlety is *not* this
scriptwriter's forte.)

The ship makes typical "I'm just a broken-down Corellian freighter"
noises as Miles wrestles it up, up, up, out of the atmosphere, and into
the "crowded space lanes" above the planet.  He ducks and dodges the
T/i/e/ F/i/g/h/t/e/r/s/ pursuit ships, cutting across traffic lanes,
ignoring signals from traffic control, etc.  (Yes, the script actually
did mention traffic congestion, signals, and "lanes" in space.)   There
are lots of explosions as the Evil Pursuers recklessly blow civilian
shipping away in their attempt to wipe out Our Heroes, the Phoenix is
rocked by the shock waves, system lights flicker, etc, etc, until Miles,
ignoring the frantic Traffic Control people, cuts ahead of several
patiently waiting freighters and dives screaming into the Stargate.....

<poof> Special effect as ship disappears. </poof>

Tomorrow: Miles captures a Dendarii ship and meets Auson! (Yes, they
actually kept that part. It's even moderately accurate.) The Battle In
the Space Souk! And more really bad dialogue!!!!