Round Six [Reminiscence v. Time to Die] posted by Martin

Reminiscence (Shokah rank: #13, Burley rank: #3)

v.

Time to Die (Shokah rank: #6, Burley rank: #10)

SET ‘EM UP AND KNOCK ‘EM DOWN!

Reminiscence
In a world where genetic and social engineering have eliminated violent crime and other offenses, there is only one punishable infraction: Nostalgia. In order to keep the populace in line, the past must be eliminated, keeping everyone in a blissful present-tense existence. But some insist on remembering, collecting and hoarding pieces of the past to keep it alive. Tom was the greatest of all them, blessed and cursed with an eidetic memory. But when he’s betrayed to the authorities, Tom finds himself on the prison planet, forced to find a way to survive, all alone on a harsh — yet beautiful — landscape. Can his knowlege of the past help him, or even save him? Or will he be prey to the predators on the planet, both alien and human?

Pro
Did I say our last idea was Dickian? Wow. PK in da house.

How do you eliminate memory? Is it a mechanical process, or is it an external thing—like you can’t sell old music, that might trigger memories, or perfumes and scents need to be cycled every 10 years, without repetition within a 100 years span? The older one gets, the more risky the proposition of falling back on memory, so in that sense the young would be heralded. Logan’s run!

So—the punishment from nostalgia, in this case, could be for people acting retro or making public displays that could trigger memories. The police would have to investigate, with the idea that they don’t want someone to come up and remind people of the past. Of course, then, you’d have secret memory parties, where people talk about the past, and maybe someone has smuggled a scent from years ago that everyone remembers.

Of course, this would be pretty impractical for the government to do, unless they gave people a big reason to switch. There is the big stick approach—banishment—but it would have to have some positive reinforcement too. One of the creepiest things about our modern world is the way that government—unlike the predictions of Orwell or Dick—may be draconian in some ways, but it does so with a big smiling face, and a thumbs up grin. It uses positive key words, and admonishes the press for being pessimistic about items the administration wants to control the message on. In other words, it’s not all double-plus-good, it’s No Child Left Behind.

Con
But again, we’re fronted with a serious issue: How the hell do you show something from inside a persons head? It’s true his memory is visual—that’s good—and I can see scenes of overlaying his memory / visualizations with the reality, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy to spell out in purely visual terms.

Also, it reminds me a bit of the Monty Python sketch from Holy Grail where all the son wants to do is sing. The son, in this case, is the dude, and the government would be the dad wanting to marry him off and inherit the swamp kingdom.

Time to Die
In a World where death itself is beaten by genetic regeneration, a guard is killed during a riot on the prison planet. One woman—his wife—faces sure death to retrieve his body in time to bring him back to life. It’s a race against time, with one nearly resourcesless woman willfully fighting like a juggernaut against the prisoners who are holding his body hostage, and the powers that be that think she should just give up. All to simply save the man she loves from eternal death.

Pro

I like the clarity of the situation. This too is Besterian, in that here’s a character with one goal: get her husband’s body back in time to rejuvenate him, and one big problem: it’s millions of miles away on a Prison Planet under the control of the prisoners. No matter how we dress it up, this story is all about two-steps forward, one-step back, and a few impossible hurdles she manages to overcome. Along the way will be people who support her, people who think she’s crazy and dangerous (say, the people who run the prison planet), and people who care about her personally but want her to just accept that he is dead (say, an ex lover who wants her for himself?). When she reaches the prison planet, how will she get the body back from the violent felons? One goal, one strong protag, lots of blocks. Very straightforward.

Con
Could be too formulaic. We’d need a strong villian—probably a prisoner—but none is lending themselves to me right now. The trick in a film like this would be to find those moments that inscribe values and interest into a character, and make her real and three dimensional, instead of cookie cutter. Otherwise, she’s just a paper cut out of an action heroine.

Comments (0) — Category: the screenplay