"Let's say you were hired..." Topic

Mussolinis Brain:
Vasquez was played by Jenette Goldstein. The thing with her is that she is in a lot of movies and series, but you almost never recognise her. There is a funny story (don't know if it's true or not thogh) about when she auditioned for Aliens (her first movie). She had heard that they needed a hispanic character and thought the movie was about illegal aliens and not about extra-terrestials so she showed up dressed.
They used that in the movie when Vasquez says: "I only need to know one thing – where they are!" and Hudson says: "Somebody said alien, she thought they said illegal alien and signed up.")

As for movie/series I'd make: I would go with Dragon Gunner, Hammer's Slammers would be great and NO pretty faces just for their faces. That's ridicolous.

Argh, didn't edit my post properly. Of course Jenette Goldstein showed up dressed! What I wanted to say was that she showed up dressed as a stereotypical hispanic illegal alien and not in fatigues like all the others did.

Ok, for a more serious answer…

I actually did write a couple of "scripts" when I was a young lad, in the early 1980's. Was hanging out with a couple of other movie enthusiasts, we had already done a short movie (a James Bond rip-off) in 8mm and were looking to do something (a lot) more ambitious. So I set about writing something that would fit into roughly 45-60 minutes and would allows for continuation.

The only "scripts" I remember in any detail are the "alien conquerors" and the "space war" ones.

The first featured an initial situation much like the one wminsing proposed, both politically and technologically. The Cold War superpowers had gone to space but hadn't stopped being trigger happy, so the situation is pretty volatile. An US ship receives communication that a Soviet ship has apparently disappeared in the asteroid belt and investigates (can't recall the exact reason why, possibly to dig up the wreck in order to gain some advantage), only to discover a hostile ship of extraterrestrial origin. The superior aliens destroy the US ship, take the crew prisoners and throw them in their version of the brig where the Soviets are already languishing, along with a couple of other, good (or at least it seems so at the time) aliens. Predictably, with the help of the latter, the human prisoners manage to break free, surprise the bad aliens and take over the ship. At which time they discover that the nasty aliens have already launched their attack on Earth. They make a heavy-hearted decision to live to fight another day – in short, they run like heck. The rest of the series would consist of their attempts to raise a rebellion against the conquering aliens who have taken over several civilizations already. It's a bit of a V meets Farscape sorta thing and unimaginative as it sounds today, the base concept might actually have a chance to catch on if done right.

The latter idea was an even grander space opera with two seriously space-faring empires going at it over something I can't recall (possibly the reason why they are fighting wasn't meant to become clear until later in the series). The clue of the show – besides space battles (-;) -- was to be that in addition both sides believing they are in the right, neither side would be, or would be presented as, the bad guys or the good guys: the main characters would be split over both sides, both empires would have heroes and villains, both would do terrible things to achieve victory etc. Probably was thinking along the lines of doing Star Wars without the simple evil Empire vs. righteous Rebels setup, given the date. The actual episode was to consist of quickly introducing each main character (as I recall there were only two primary roles for both sides) as they take part in a space battle being fought out. Not too original in these post-Babylon 5 times I suppose, but I suppose it could still work if done right. Would probably be too expensive to produce as a live action show tho.

Ahem.

My show opens in typical "Dawson's Creek" teen high school style and follows a young woman through a typical crisis involving friends and family. During this half hour, we get the feeling not all is right – We don't recognise brand names, the setting seems somehow odd . . .

Then the ships arrive. Turns out this is a colony world of Earth that during a huge war with alien species was literally bombed into the stone age; They have only just been contacted by the PanSentience, the allied races including Humanity, to warn them of a new conflict brewing with the main hostile* aliens the Hands Of Pnit, and to offer protection and assistance. Part of the assistance is to recruit locals from each world to bring the PanSentience new ideas and new beings to assist with re-contact missions, as among all the PS species the colonies have diversified to a huge degree. Our heroine decides to apply to join a human-crewed ship; Only problem is, that word now has some _very_ odd definitions both socially and physically. For instance, the bridge crew of the human ship, despite being cosmopolitan in the extreme, have some problems with our heroine's world; One finds it shocking that none of them have implanted computers, another finds their eating of plants rather immature, and still others are shocked that none of them are slaves.

Yes, been done in literature and it does smack of "Stargate SG1" but it will be accessible in that the cultures on the human worlds ( The main focus of the character's encounters ) will be recognisable ones to the audience being extrapolations of what humans might become given a fresh start . . . And the major conflict will be the way the contact fleet deals with the new cultures – How to tell them what is happening/what has happened, whether to embrace them/protect them without contact/encourgae them to change in certain aspects, and so on. An dthe aliens will be background matter, but will make some apperances when needed for their input and to show the hostile forces.

*Oh, the hostile aliens are not exactly hostile; They are a loose affiliation of species who have been uplifted by the Eternal Ones, a group of several species of exotic form ( Hydrogen breathers, radiation and magnetic metabolisms ) who have tired of the fast-paced organic life messing with the universe in the way that we are upset by the activities of termites; By simple awe, they have influenced these other races to work for them in precisely the same way we set spider to work in greenhouses, or bees in orchards.