Here's what to expect...
Here's my personal wish list for future movies and television shows. These are all scattered ideas that I've had in my mind since my early teen years to now. These have never been made (to my knowledge) which makes me even more eager to see them done. There are lots of ideas that I've came up with (there's literally an entire notebook that I may not be able to fully incorporate here), so it'll take some time to update this blog. However, please take a gander and share, comment, etc.
Movie Dream List:
Concept: After the release of Alien Vs. Predator, I began coming up with ideas for a sequel that would include scenes of the Predators and aliens battling in a day time city setting which has never been seen on screen before. As visually stunning as it would be (still would love to see that), I couldn't find a reason to place the two species in a city setting that would make sense for the narrative. Instead now I've came up with the idea to use some of those visual ideas towards a stand-alone Predator film. Some visual elements included a scene where a Predator drop ship hovers over a skyscraper and an army of Predators are seen jumping out the ship and sliding down the glass building firing their shoulder cannons at xenomorphs on the streets and on other buildings. The xenomorphs can be replaced with human army troops/police officers instead. Also scenes of Predators stampeding through the city with their spears taking out military ground troops as rapid gun fire and Predator war cries take up the scene's atmosphere.
Celtic Predator (AVP)
Alright, so let's talk about the new idea in general (scratching the old AVP 2 idea) which is essentially that a newly ranked elite level Predator goes off on a mission to Earth in an attempt to conquer an entire planet with his own personal army to prove his worthiness to the species. The movie can be told through the point of view of the actual Predator itself and a scientist who's been studying the alien species since the events of the first Predator film. With the idea of both point of views being explored, the movie switches between the two throughout the film as the film perfectly leads towards the foreboding massive invasion sequence. I wanted to explore the Predators more than any other film has ever done by showing a lot of scenes with the main spotlighted one interacting with the other hunters as well as scenes of the scientist discovering their culture and behaviors through artifacts and relics. I also wanted to show the power of their technology by creating new tech for them as a means of separating their solo hunting gear with their military arsenal. The idea that the Predators are just hunters would be expanded here as the titular Predator have ambitions to do more than the traditional "hunt" and instead be a conqueror inspiring a small faction to go against the culture.
So whereas Predator 1 was about a cat and mouse game with an alien creature and a group of commandos, Predator 3 would be about an alien ranking up and using his new position of power to go against his people's traditions to ambitiously reach for a larger reward than trophies...entire planets to call home. This would cause said Predator to be seen as a betrayer of his people which causes conflict resulting in brutal and gritty Predator vs Predator battles adding that extra layer to the mythos of how crucial the "hunt culture" is with this species. Similar in essence to a Magneto, General Zod, or Killmonger situation (using comic book references here just as a loose example), I want to tell a story of someone who became so ambitious with his idea of leading his people to a brighter and better future only to end up being seen as an evil antagonistic figure to everyone but the small devoted individuals that he inspired. Great intentions of envisioning a paradise for his species (broadening their horizon with other planets to start colonies on) but a dark and twisted manner of doing so (mass genocide of the potentially threatening native species there) makes the titular predator to be a multilayered and compelling lead.
You'd get two completely different but hopefully fulfilling experiences from seeing Predator 1 and Predator 3 (yes I'm intentionally not mentioning part 2 since my memory of that films is pretty shaky). So the first 3 quarters of the film is showing roughly equal amounts of our human archeologist character studying and speculating on what bits of the Predator culture that they could find over the centuries as well as the Predator lead who just recently rose up high in the ranks as a hunter and was sent by the king to find a new planet for game with his crew only to be revealed as secretly setting his eyes on a planet to wipe out and conquer/changing the culture forever. There's a scene where the Predator finds Earth in the records as teeming with life and immediately makes it the selection to be the first to take over only to find that the planet is considered restricted by the king due to "an agreement made". When our predator learns of this and sees the resources in the records to be prime for a new colony, this sets up our first major climactic point in the film as the predator learns that only the king has the key device to unlock unrestricted planets on the ships' galactic map targeting which leads to what is to be the greatest Predator fight scene ever shown on film.
The clan makes their way back to the home planet pretending to have found somewhere of interest to use as a game planet but the king already questions their intentions after getting the ping about Earth on their ship. In the royal palace of sorts, the rogue Predator asks the king about the legacy of the Yautja needing to be more than hunters which angers the king ordering his guards to kill him only to witness the guards getting slaughtered by the rogue's clan in a quick confrontation as such an event was revealed to be pre-planned with precision. In other words, the rogue had already planned out how to take out the guards in such a case that the king wouldn't agree to his plans to outgrow "the old ways". This leads to the clan moving into kill the king to which the rogue stops them and tells them to leave the two together alone in the palace ensuring that no one interrupts their battle.
Translated in English subtitles, the king says "I see you respect our tradition enough to honor the code of battle between two Yautja". The rogue responds "The code of battle between hunters will be a thing of the past as peace and paradise will fill our spirits eliminating conflict...I only do this because I respect you enough to give you an honorable death". This communication allows viewers to see the rogue's viewpoint of expanded territory and space allowing for conflict to never happen amongst tribes which, although may sound good on the surface, may not be so cut and dry as he thinks. The king responds "You foolish child, there will always be conflict. There will always be someone attempting to take my place by force who thinks they know what's best for everyone until they realize before their death that they knew nothing but their own selfish desires. Today I stand in the face of another one, and though it pains me to kill one of such great power and skill in the ranks, I will not hesitate to kill anyone and anything that threatens the Yautja". The rogue unsheathes his wrist blades which leads to the king holding out his royal spear. The scene is then presented in this epic painting worthy shot of the royal palace filled with decorated trophies of exotic skulls of varying sizes as the king's cape blows in the wind facing the rogue with his wrist blades extended.
The two have an epic clash to which the king proves his position by wounding the rogue severely while hardly taking damage of his own. This is due to the armor that he wears, the sheer imposing physical stature, and high classed (the highest) combat skill attacking with strategic precision yet the rogue shows a sense of unrelenting endurance and energy striking ferociously. I want to show through the fighting itself of the sensibilities of both characters. The king fights with patience and a sense of elegance with the royal staff while the rogue, although only gets a few hits in and is constantly getting knocked down, is constantly recovering back up out of sheer adrenaline and blood lust. Eventually, this extensive battle leads to the rogue, who is bleeding out in areas, pretending to be knocked out from a blow that should've killed him only to trick and fool the king with a cloaked proximity mine that he had attached on the floor when the king knocked him across the room sliding. What's key here is that, before the fight, the rogue is shown removing all weapons except for his blades as the king only uses his staff disregarding the high tech weaponry in the palace. This was to show that the honor code of the battle was to restrict the plasma tech weaponry only keeping with the melee warrior weapons. This is another sensibility in the fight showing how the rogue's way of overthrowing traditions follows through even in this fight.
As the king approaches him with the staff ready to deliver the final blow, the proximity mime uncloaks as the red lasers shoots out around it to which the king swiftly knocks it away with the staff only to still be caught in the explosion damaging his arm. This leads to the rogue, who rolled and leaped away just in time to know get caught by the explosion, staggering up and walking towards the now armless king bleeding out. The rogue looks down towards him and says, "See this? (the rogue holds up the burnt royal spear). This is where tradition has left you. Blind...blind to the truth. You have restricted yourself and have thereby restricted your people. And now here you are. Laying in a pool of your own failure. You could have joined me on my conquest for a new age, but something told me that in order to fully see the new world, I had to kill the old one. Oh my king, I shall tell the people that you fought with honor and they will look up to your image of stone in mourning and respect, but once I have taken your place, your legacy and everything that you stood for will end. This is the end of the old ways".
The rogue then stabs him with the spear but doesn't remove his skull as the old tradition would have dictated him to. Instead, he burns him in the courtyard of the palace alongside the trophies which is something (in my canon) that has never been done before in their culture. The rogue's clan ensures that the ceremony remains a private affair and puts the word out that the king has fallen and a new king has taken his place who will show his worth with a prize for the colonies that is unprecedented...a promised paradise for all who follow. The rogue, now with the king's key designates Earth's location coordinates and travel route while also unlocking all of the other once restricted planets that are prime for colonization. This leads to the rogue king taking his trusted band of devoted warriors and going to Earth.
The moment we get to the point of the story where the rogue king sends out a scout to Earth is where we dive into the archeologist story. We see this man studying discovered pieces of Predator tech and hieroglyphics in caves showing the ways of the hunters that have been recorded by civilizations over the centuries. This invited the idea that even before Dutch's encounter with the Yautja in Predator, these hunters have come to earth to hunt 100s of years ago being studied but never captured by civilizations. It's through the archeologist story that we get insight via his findings of why the predators never simply wiped out the human race emphasizing on a "code of sorts to be kept in tradition" with certain species. The archeologist is also brought in by the government when one of the predator scout ships are discovered which is where our back and forth story becomes more connected. The rogue clan starts murdering off people in certain populations who would've been considered as innocent and not worthy of a trophy in prior traditions which the archeologist notes as being uncharacteristic making this potentially "something much more dangerous and cataclysmic taking place". The movie then switches into a full on epic alien invasion movie where the predator mother ship starts fast traveling to different parts of the Earth, dropping down warriors in pods, and wiping out tons of people with varying plasma canon weaponry.
This eventually leads to the big citywide scene with the drop ship hovering over a large city and predator warriors on buildings taking out army troops in the city as well as a scene with the predators using alien attack dogs ravaging through civilians in the streets. Suffice it to say, it's one epic massive bloodbath of a scene. Desperately trying to find a way to at least cease the invasion in order for the military to come up with a plan to take out the mothership, the archeologist challenges the king to a battle which he knows the hunters around him cannot interfere and has to traditionally bare witness (as learned by his studies). He acquires the Yautja symbol for "challenge" from his notes and finds a way to showcase it on a few buildings with red spray paint as the mothership hovering over should theoretically notice it. The rogue king is shown looking down from the ship but doesn't respond as to accept would be to honor the old ways. The rogue king however steps out on a platform on the ship (almost like a balcony) looks down towards where the symbol is shown and throws an explosive device blowing up the part of the building where the symbol is shown on then casually walks back inside his ship.
......Currently, I haven't come up with an idea for how this ends on a positive note for Earth (lol). The easy way would be to just have the military finally find a way to penetrate the mothership's shield and take out the king causing the warriors to be leaderless and having no way to return home leaving them in our home field advantage without being able to restock and replenish from the ship. However, I wanted to find a way to make the archeologist story play a crucial role towards the end with his knowledge. Consider this...unfinished until who knows when.
Predator Planet (AVPR)
Alpha Predator (Predators)
Concept art close to my vision of one of the attack sequences with Predator squads marching through mass destruction in the city.
(Internet artist)
Concept art close to my vision of the city attack sequence showing off Predators' animal species unleashed as weapons in the city. This is there version of how we use attack dogs in the army or police.
(Internet artist)
Movie scene close to my vision of one of the attack sequences showing our helicopters being obliterated in the sky from their ships.
(Battle: Los Angeles)
Concept art close to my vision of one of the Predator ships exterminating an entire city after resources have been collected by the hunters/scavengers.
(Internet artist)
Concept: The main reason that I went out to see the first Hellboy movie initially was because of the absolutely badass looking assassin character with the gas mask and wrist blades from the promotional trailers and posters. I fell in love with the character design (as well as the presentation of his fighting ability and personality) and felt that he was one of the stronger elements of the movie in terms of its villain gallery. It was a shame to see him go out the way that he did in the end, but as it turned out, all was not lost as it was confirmed that he was eventually resurrected in an epilogue scene of Hellboy 2. Either way a stand alone movie depicting his origin story would be fascinating as I've always wondered how he came to be. He is truly one of the most mysterious villains that I've ever seen in a film and definitely earns the title as one of the most badass side antagonists in a comic book movie to date. His highly experienced and enhanced swordsman skills, clockwork gear turning zombified body, and sand-like dried up blood truly makes him stand out from the crowd of super villains that we've seen so far. I honestly feel that the character needs to be brought back to life (in terms of on screen presence) and spotlighted extensively as we do a deep dive into the story of his evolution.
Kroenen WWII scene (Hellboy)
He was told to have been Hitler's top assassin (there's a major part of his story already to go on for a film). He was told in his bio of being a music prodigy with angelic features touring the capitals of Europe to spread his opera singing talent, but eventually his career ended due to puberty (there is your beginning of the film). Also in his bio, he demonstrated symptoms of masochism, whipping himself with a fresh branch of oak each day, and finding pleasure in the pain. Through his teenage years, he loathed his awkwardness and developed an extreme form of surgical addiction where he removed his eyelids, lips, and his toe/finger nails. He also designed a tight-fitting gas mask to filter out germs, which he wore almost permanently.
.png)
Kroenen without mask and armor (Hellboy)
Just going by the official Hellboy film bio, you can almost see the development of this tragic character write itself on screen as we see him slowly become this monster. As the bio continues, it is said that he became skilled with mechanical devices, believing that fusing mechanical constructs with living bodies would help create perfection. One of his early inventions was a clockwork nightingale that sang a Mozart aria perfectly (this easily ties in with the opera career end story which I really like). Eventually he meets the resurrected Rasputin (don't really care if they use the same actor from Hellboy or not, but it would help for continuity sake) and through his obsession with purity, becomes his loyal disciple. Here we can have some easter eggs or tie-ins with the first movie as Rasputin discusses his plan to release Hellboy in the future, but it won't be hammered in constantly as the movie isn't about Hellboy.
He eventually joins the Nazi Party and quickly rises through the ranks until he becomes Lieutenant Colonel and receives the Iron Cross for services to the Third Reich. The movie shall heavily focus on his commanding rule during this time as we get a good look of him designing his signature swords and becoming a skilled fencer. The bio continues to state that he became head of the Thule Society (a group of German aristocrats obsessed with the occult). He helped them to spearhead Project Ragna Rok,(the portal generator that would eventually release Hellboy). This is where we will get another look at the genius side of the character reminding that he is more than a great swordsman.
Kroenen WWII scene (Hellboy)
Because the bio stops there and carries over to the events of Hellboy, the movie can either end with the creation of the portal (which would be a good ending as it is) or continue on with the events of Hellboy through his solo point of view. The war segment is short in the film, but can be expanded on with his fight scenes as the film lapses through his Hellboy timeline. We get the moment where he gets impaled with the spike, but more importantly shows the moment of his absence and inevitable resurrection. When he becomes the zombie-like mechanical assassin as Rasputin's puppet, the movie should end with a moment of him playing an opera song of his childhood. Now, that would be a great ending as it is for me, but to take it one step further we can get a bonus end credit scene of the Zinco Epilogue segment that was never shown in the Hellboy 2 intended bonus scene. The scene revolves around Kroenen being resurrected into a machine by Zinco and Rasputin being revealed as alive.
Kroenen WWII scene (Hellboy)
Kroenen WWII scene (Hellboy)
Kroenen in his lair listening to opera was one of the cooler scenes in Hellboy and definitely one I would like to emphasize on heavily in my film. (Hellboy)
TV Show Dream List
As crazy as it sounds (this may actually end up being the direction that the films take), I feel that the series overall can truly become something bigger if they found a way to tie in all of the tapes together. If there is anyway to imply that all of the shorts are part of a shared universe, then everyone including myself would be "mind blown" by the concept. As of right now, the series is just a cluster of unique and interesting tapes, but what if they were all evidence stolen from a secret government branch of some kind (like a paranormal government branch). Maybe in the VHS TV series there is an overarching story that involves the people who works at this government branch finding the stolen tapes. Another idea is to have this X-Files-like feel to the show where we have a few characters from this government agency solving the cases found on the tapes after separating fact from fiction. There are so many ideas that can come out of this show and every episode will have its own "case of the week" feel, but keep in mind that each case will be very unique (much like the shorts in the films). Some episodes will even utilize tapes from the actual films to fully bring this world together. Season 1 will definitely include the Succubus tape, the alien abduction tape (the dog cam short), and the asian cult tape.
 |
| Succubus tape from V/H/S |
 |
| Cult tape from V/H/S 2 |
 |
| Murder tape from V/H/S |
 |
| Alien Abduction tape from V/H/S 2 |
No comments:
Post a Comment