been working on this in my spare time with a writer- not much spare time....but still... title DO IT YOURSELF... tag line .."If you Type it then it is true" Thinly veiled name- Megapedia
Head of Cult- Slim Tim Trainor
Look of devoted followers - most guys like JoshuaZ, girls like Donna Reed in the It's a Wonderful Life alternate reality scene...
Lead character NYU student looking for her sister who has become one of them...
What do you think about dressing most of the cult when they are mobile in Abercrombie and Fitch hoodies? Could be just spooky enough.
[[anything you post I may use without even a thank you- thank you]]
Full Version: Wikipedia The Film
Oooh... this would definitely be a perfect comeback opportunity for Vincent Margera, formerly of MTV fame. He could play the part of the sketchy middle-aged Hollywood producer stalking these kids on the Internet. 
One of the big problems is making it scary enough, and not just comically laff-offable.
In my nightmares, it's always like those scenes in Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1978) where the Pod People slowly turn in unison and emit their chilling, ear-splitting, mind-numbing shriek at the one that isn't one of them.
If you can get an effect like that, you'll be getting to the ♥ of it.
Jon
In my nightmares, it's always like those scenes in Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1978) where the Pod People slowly turn in unison and emit their chilling, ear-splitting, mind-numbing shriek at the one that isn't one of them.
If you can get an effect like that, you'll be getting to the ♥ of it.
Jon
QUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ Fri 26th September 2008, 10:40pm) 
One of the big problems is making it scary enough, and not just comically laff-offable.
In my nightmares, it's always like those scenes in Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1978) where the Pod People slowly turn in unison and emit their chilling, ear-splitting, mind-numbing shriek at the one that isn't one of them.
If you can get an effect like that, you'll be getting to the ♥ of it.
Jon
Very much body snatchers at the conclusion
the set up is very Val Lewton/The Seventh Victim
The idea is that any of these idiots can alter the entry and convince other idiots that what they wrote is true.
Also Krimpet it is true that you are unfunny, retarded and unloved. You don't even get a film about you much less any friends.
QUOTE(ColScott @ Sat 27th September 2008, 1:48am)
Also Krimpet it is true that you are unfunny, retarded and unloved. You don't even get a film about you much less any friends.
Right, now just imagine "Dan Murfree," producer of the smash hit My Little Pony: The Movie, sitting in front of a computer in a dark room muttering those lines to himself while tip-tapping away.
It ith true that you are unfunny, retarded and unloveded! You don't even get a film about you, much leth any friendths!
QUOTE(ColScott @ Fri 26th September 2008, 10:19pm)
been working on this in my spare time with a writer- not much spare time....but still... title DO IT YOURSELF... tag line .."If you Type it then it is true" Thinly veiled name- Megapedia
Heh. Excellent. Do it.
(I know how difficult it is to get a script made into a movie, but if anyone has the contacts, you do. Just try to steer clear of a plot like Anti-Trust. It attempted to be a creepy thriller about computer nerds, but just ended up mired in self-parody. Hell, the REAL WP admins are so naturally creepy, you could use their personality archetypes straight. Hell, Tim Robbins would make a good Jimbo....if he stood in a ditch....)
QUOTE(ColScott @ Sat 27th September 2008, 12:48am)
Very much body snatchers at the conclusion
the set up is very Val Lewton/The Seventh Victim
the set up is very Val Lewton/The Seventh Victim
Hmm... so presumably you won't have the off-screen suicide at the end, and it will turn into more of a paranoid fantasy as it goes along...? Hopefully you won't have the love triangle with the phony shrink and the poet... Please, no poets!
Y'see, if it were me, I'd start it out as more of a comedy, that gets more serious and scary as it goes along. The site should be called "Interpedia," to emphasize that it's on the internet, and the cult leader should be named "Johnny Scotland," and played by Simon Pegg, who is getting increasingly bankable these days. If you can't get Simon Pegg, you might be able to get by with someone like Skeet Ulrich or Seth Green, but whoever it is, he's got to have facial hair and be able to do stupid convincingly.
Anyway, for the first half of the movie he'd be going around to various interviews, parties, restaurants, etc., mostly lying to raise money, and always followed around by at least three or four cultists, wearing logo hoodies or whatever. Every time he makes a negative statement about someone, or something, you cut to one of the cultists raising an eyebrow, then opening up his/her laptop and finding the page on whatever it is he just said something negative about. Then, later in the movie there's some reference (maybe by a TV news show playing the background, or whatever) to that thing in which the negative statement is repeated as fact.
For example, he's in a seafood restaurant, talking with some Canadian right-wing female journalist, and says something like "I've always hated dolphins, with their stupid blow-holes." And then you cut to a shot of one of the cultists typing some stuff, and then later in the movie you have one of the other characters make a casual reference to the fact that the government has just launched a new program to eradicate all dolphins, the first step in a larger campaign to get rid of all creatures with blow-holes.
Anyway, the main gag in all this is that he doesn't actually realize any of this is happening - he doesn't even notice that he's being followed around everywhere he goes, or that every nasty thing he says quickly becomes "established fact." He just assumes it's natural that everyone else agrees with him...
So in the last half, you've got to somehow move the creepy/scary cult aspect more into the forefront... How specifically you do that I'm not sure, but maybe you could have one of the cultists (female) murdered by the other cultists, after her cell phone rings in a restaurant, and Pegg/Scotland says, "bloody kids - people who have their cell phones turned on in restaurants ought to be beheaded," at which point of course his own cell phone starts ringing. (Presumably his ring tone would be something like ABBA's "Dancing Queen" or something by Celine Dion.)
For the denouement, the sister would probably have to directly confront Pegg/Scotland at a party or reception of some sort, trying to tell him what's going on, at which point he goes on about his website being "totally benign," and "I wish people like you would just disappear," at which point you go into a chase sequence. Of course, you'll need an actual ending, but I might be able to come up with one of those too, given sufficient time...?
QUOTE(Somey @ Sat 27th September 2008, 7:59am)
The site should be called "Interpedia," to emphasize that it's on the internet,
Yes, good,
QUOTE
and the cult leader should be named "Johnny Scotland,"
Awful.
QUOTE
Then, later in the movie there's some reference (maybe by a TV news show playing the background, or whatever) to that thing in which the negative statement is repeated as fact.
Yes, that should be one of the main themes in the film. Everyone now believes that everything in Interpedia is a fact. On the lines of Fahrenheit 451.
QUOTE
For example, he's in a seafood restaurant, talking with some Canadian right-wing female journalist, and says something like "I've always hated dolphins, with their stupid blow-holes." And then you cut to a shot of one of the cultists typing some stuff, and then later in the movie you have one of the other characters make a casual reference to the fact that the government has just launched a new program to eradicate all dolphins, the first step in a larger campaign to get rid of all creatures with blow-holes.
Yes, excellent.
QUOTE
Anyway, the main gag in all this is that he doesn't actually realize any of this is happening - he doesn't even notice that he's being followed around everywhere he goes, or that every nasty thing he says quickly becomes "established fact." He just assumes it's natural that everyone else agrees with him...
Yes, the character needs to be sympathetic, but clearly weak and deluded.
QUOTE
So in the last half, you've got to somehow move the creepy/scary cult aspect more into the forefront... How specifically you do that I'm not sure, but maybe you could have one of the cultists (female) murdered by the other cultists, after her cell phone rings in a restaurant, and Pegg/Scotland says, "bloody kids - people who have their cell phones turned on in restaurants ought to be beheaded," at which point of course his own cell phone starts ringing. (Presumably his ring tone would be something like ABBA's "Dancing Queen" or something by Celine Dion.)
Something on those lines. This makes him the central character of course. Hopefully there is room for a middle-aged academic character played by Jimmy Stewart, who believes in truth and verifiability and all that, but is equally deluded in believing in the good faith and superior motives of the cultists. He could meet his end half way through the film, crushed in the roller-racking of the university library, in the manner of Patrick Troughton in the Omen (who tries to warn Gregory Peck outside the churchyard, but ends up being impaled on the flagpole of the church).
no the pre credit sequence is pretty solid
1- exec comes home to tall bldg apt in NYC, sees his family has moved out, sees computer turned on to Megapedia, reads it and leaps to his death
2- In Soho at a greek restaurant, woman and man owners kiss each other while he goes to take orders. She goes to boot up the computer at the front desk for reservations, reads something then throws hot grease in his face.
3- Two cops arresting some gang bangers in Harlem. One goes in the car to look up warrants on computer, comes back and shoots the other one in the face.
When we examine each scene later there is a red-haired woman about twenty in a red hoodie at each event- so she would HAVE to know they were going to happen before they did.
Much more dramatic than blowholes. The Megapediots are rewriting history and taking their enemies out of the picture.
They do whatever they can to prevent people from seeing through their sad pathetic lives. Look at Krimpet desperately try to undermine when even his avatar is a work of childish desperation.
1- exec comes home to tall bldg apt in NYC, sees his family has moved out, sees computer turned on to Megapedia, reads it and leaps to his death
2- In Soho at a greek restaurant, woman and man owners kiss each other while he goes to take orders. She goes to boot up the computer at the front desk for reservations, reads something then throws hot grease in his face.
3- Two cops arresting some gang bangers in Harlem. One goes in the car to look up warrants on computer, comes back and shoots the other one in the face.
When we examine each scene later there is a red-haired woman about twenty in a red hoodie at each event- so she would HAVE to know they were going to happen before they did.
Much more dramatic than blowholes. The Megapediots are rewriting history and taking their enemies out of the picture.
They do whatever they can to prevent people from seeing through their sad pathetic lives. Look at Krimpet desperately try to undermine when even his avatar is a work of childish desperation.
QUOTE(ColScott @ Sat 27th September 2008, 12:51pm)
No, the pre-credit sequence is pretty solid:
- Exec comes home to tall bldg apt in NYC, sees his family has moved out, sees computer turned on to Megapedia, reads it and leaps to his death.
- In Soho at a greek restaurant, woman and man owners kiss each other while he goes to take orders. She goes to boot up the computer at the front desk for reservations, reads something then throws hot grease in his face.
- Two cops arresting some gang bangers in Harlem. One goes in the car to look up warrants on computer, comes back and shoots the other one in the face.
Much more dramatic than blowholes. The Megapediots are rewriting history and taking their enemies out of the picture.
They do whatever they can to prevent people from seeing through their sad pathetic lives. Look at Krimpet desperately try to undermine when even his avatar is a work of childish desperation.
All of the above scenarios are a bit too acute — Wiki-Induced Kognitive Impairments steal up on people much more stealthily, through a chronic, gradual, but insidious and persistent warping of one's Sense Of Reality.
No viewers will feel that the incidents described above could actually happen to them. Viewers need to be pulled in against their initial disbelief and skepticism, immersed bit by bit — like frogs in warm water — gradually led to identify with the victims of Wiki-Warping.
Jon
QUOTE(ColScott @ Sat 27th September 2008, 9:51am)
Look at Krimpet desperately try to undermine when even his avatar is a work of childish desperation.
I thought Krimpet was a chick.
Anyway, don't forget the kittens!
QUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ Sat 27th September 2008, 10:15am)
All of the above scenarios are a bit too acute — Wiki-Induced Kognitive Impairments steal up on people much more stealthily, through a chronic, gradual, but insidious and persistent warping of one's Sense Of Reality.
We're talking about a Hollywood movie, Jon. Stealthy is for lo-budget film festival stuff.
QUOTE
1. Exec comes home to tall bldg apt in NYC, sees his family has moved out, sees computer turned on to Megapedia, reads it and leaps to his death.
2. In Soho at a greek restaurant, woman and man owners kiss each other while he goes to take orders. She goes to boot up the computer at the front desk for reservations, reads something then throws hot grease in his face.
3. Two cops arresting some gang bangers in Harlem. One goes in the car to look up warrants on computer, comes back and shoots the other one in the face.
2. In Soho at a greek restaurant, woman and man owners kiss each other while he goes to take orders. She goes to boot up the computer at the front desk for reservations, reads something then throws hot grease in his face.
3. Two cops arresting some gang bangers in Harlem. One goes in the car to look up warrants on computer, comes back and shoots the other one in the face.
See? It writes itself.
Altho the blowhole bit would make a great tossed-off joke.Don't you wonder if they're talking about this on the seekrit admin mailing list right now? Hope they're shitting their pants. Or furry costumes or whatever those freaks wear. "He's gonna make fun of us in a MOVIE!! Do something, Jimbo!"
QUOTE(ColScott @ Sat 27th September 2008, 11:51am)
1- exec comes home to tall bldg apt in NYC, sees his family has moved out, sees computer turned on to Megapedia, reads it and leaps to his death...
I thought you said you were trying to go for a Seventh Victim kind of effect? Maybe I was watching the wrong movie, but I seem to recall that one being a bit more subtle!
You know far, far more about this stuff than I do, and I wouldn't presume to tell you you're wrong, but do you really think you can get a green light on a straight-up paranoid-fantasy horror movie about this stuff? Maybe the whole green-light concept isn't what it used to be... anyway, I just think it has to be at least a quirky horror-comedy, or else you've got another Pulse on your hands, or something like that.
Some random ideas, stealing themes from the real WP...
1. It's all a government conspiracy by (enter government of your choice, or the UN). All the "agents" are mind control/psyop types.
2. It's all a corporate conspiracy by (enter fictitous based on real life corporation of your choice).
3. People that go against the grain are hunted down and stalked in real life, with the "contacts" that the editors have in every facet of the high tech world. Make it even scarier, it can be very, very simple stuff. You post anonymously The Truth that it's all a trap? A Checkuser gets your IP. It's a random, anonymous AT&T IP address. He hands it off to someone, who gets another editor that they know works at AT&T to look up who has access to that information. They then get that info, and it traces back up to someone else in Megapedia, who then "outs" the Truthspeaker. The Truthspeaker's car promptly explodes from an ignition bomb, several hours after he posted the Truth, which was Oversighted anyway within minutes. It can be all 24-style, with the upper eschelon of admins as a sort of Evil CTU!
4. Don, did you ever see Hot Fuzz, with the parody of the Village Council bits at the rounded table, meeting like it was a Satanic cult, weeding folks out "for the greater good"? Something like that can totally be an Arbcom Meeting, if not a WMF board meeting. Chanting mantras, incense, very crazed and Rosemary's Baby.
5. You totally have to steal that tiny bit from WANTED, and have an editor take a keyboard in the face. "Revert this!"
1. It's all a government conspiracy by (enter government of your choice, or the UN). All the "agents" are mind control/psyop types.
2. It's all a corporate conspiracy by (enter fictitous based on real life corporation of your choice).
3. People that go against the grain are hunted down and stalked in real life, with the "contacts" that the editors have in every facet of the high tech world. Make it even scarier, it can be very, very simple stuff. You post anonymously The Truth that it's all a trap? A Checkuser gets your IP. It's a random, anonymous AT&T IP address. He hands it off to someone, who gets another editor that they know works at AT&T to look up who has access to that information. They then get that info, and it traces back up to someone else in Megapedia, who then "outs" the Truthspeaker. The Truthspeaker's car promptly explodes from an ignition bomb, several hours after he posted the Truth, which was Oversighted anyway within minutes. It can be all 24-style, with the upper eschelon of admins as a sort of Evil CTU!
4. Don, did you ever see Hot Fuzz, with the parody of the Village Council bits at the rounded table, meeting like it was a Satanic cult, weeding folks out "for the greater good"? Something like that can totally be an Arbcom Meeting, if not a WMF board meeting. Chanting mantras, incense, very crazed and Rosemary's Baby.
5. You totally have to steal that tiny bit from WANTED, and have an editor take a keyboard in the face. "Revert this!"
There haven't as far as I know really been any major films which have extensively featured the internet. It's hard to translate online drama into something that would be enjoyable to watch on screen, I guess.
QUOTE(ByAppointmentTo @ Sat 27th September 2008, 1:15pm)
There haven't as far as I know really been any major films which have extensively featured the internet. It's hard to translate online drama into something that would be enjoyable to watch on screen, I guess.
Uh... no comment on quality for some, BUT:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tron_(film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swordfish_(film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitrust_(film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Free_or_Die_Hard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackers_(film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untraceable
QUOTE(Rootology @ Sat 27th September 2008, 4:23pm)
QUOTE(ByAppointmentTo @ Sat 27th September 2008, 1:15pm)
There haven't as far as I know really been any major films which have extensively featured the internet. It's hard to translate online drama into something that would be enjoyable to watch on screen, I guess.
Uh … no comment on quality for some, BUT:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tron_(film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swordfish_(film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitrust_(film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Free_or_Die_Hard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackers_(film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untraceable
ΩΔ! How could you omit The Net!?
Jon
QUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ Sat 27th September 2008, 1:32pm)
QUOTE(Rootology @ Sat 27th September 2008, 4:23pm)
QUOTE(ByAppointmentTo @ Sat 27th September 2008, 1:15pm)
There haven't as far as I know really been any major films which have extensively featured the internet. It's hard to translate online drama into something that would be enjoyable to watch on screen, I guess.
Uh … no comment on quality for some, BUT:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tron_(film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swordfish_(film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitrust_(film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Free_or_Die_Hard
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackers_(film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untraceable
ΩΔ! How could you omit The Net!?
Jon
That's the movie I was thinking of when viewing this thread. What role could Sandra Bullock play here?
And there's more! I can't be bothered to come up with links for these, but in addition to Pulse, there's also...
Pulse II: Afterlife (straight to DVD, releases in three days)
fear.com
.com for murder
Brainscan
Virtuosity
Hellraiser: Hellworld (though that's really mostly about a MMORPG - sucky movie, too!)
Ghost in the Machine
Lawnmower Man II
Natural City
...The last one is considerably more futuristic, supposedly - I haven't actually seen it (yet).
In fact, I was thinking that a straight-up horror treatment of Wikipedia could work a lot better if it were set fairly far off in the future, say, 20 years or so. That way you'd suspend some of the audience incredulity, maybe with a MacGuffin of some kind whereby there's some technology that allows encyclopedia pages to command people to kill others, or maybe themselves, though similar things have been done already (Videodrome, etc.).
Of course, the problem with most of these movies is... they're not very good! I just think that with a horror approach, you have to get away from trying to portray the technology aspect of it so much, because it just doesn't work well visually. Pulse tried to deal with that by not doing it, and it worked to some extent, but if you tried to use that kind of creepy zombies-in-the-wiring approach to a movie about an encyclopedia cult, it seems to me it would just look kind of silly... wouldn't it?
Pulse II: Afterlife (straight to DVD, releases in three days)
fear.com
.com for murder
Brainscan
Virtuosity
Hellraiser: Hellworld (though that's really mostly about a MMORPG - sucky movie, too!)
Ghost in the Machine
Lawnmower Man II
Natural City
...The last one is considerably more futuristic, supposedly - I haven't actually seen it (yet).
In fact, I was thinking that a straight-up horror treatment of Wikipedia could work a lot better if it were set fairly far off in the future, say, 20 years or so. That way you'd suspend some of the audience incredulity, maybe with a MacGuffin of some kind whereby there's some technology that allows encyclopedia pages to command people to kill others, or maybe themselves, though similar things have been done already (Videodrome, etc.).
Of course, the problem with most of these movies is... they're not very good! I just think that with a horror approach, you have to get away from trying to portray the technology aspect of it so much, because it just doesn't work well visually. Pulse tried to deal with that by not doing it, and it worked to some extent, but if you tried to use that kind of creepy zombies-in-the-wiring approach to a movie about an encyclopedia cult, it seems to me it would just look kind of silly... wouldn't it?
QUOTE(Rhindle @ Sat 27th September 2008, 5:04pm)
QUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ Sat 27th September 2008, 1:32pm)
ΩΔ! How could you omit The Net!?
Jon
That's the movie I was thinking of when viewing this thread. What role could Sandra Bullock play here?
Oh please don't make her Evil — I couldn't take it if she were ScannerVain or something!
Jon
Just do it Bollywood style - all the horror and social comment you want, plus a few good tunes and dance numbers, and production value for the dollar (...obviously, providing it is still a viable currency) that you wouldn't believe!
Best of all, the catering truck is to die for (especially if you choose the phal)
Best of all, the catering truck is to die for (especially if you choose the phal)
QUOTE(Somey @ Sat 27th September 2008, 2:22pm)
In fact, I was thinking that a straight-up horror treatment of Wikipedia could work a lot better if it were set fairly far off in the future, say, 20 years or so.
Don, I'm not even going to presume to tell you squat about making films, since you sort of have that down pat. But please don't say it's set "in 2028" or something like that in the film. Nothing drives me battier in films than when they're like, "In the year 2010, replicants grown in off-world colonies will fight Harrison Ford in Los Angeles!" I wish all near future films just called it "in the near future, etc." since it kills the immersion a tiny bit when you watch them again later.
Then again, if Wikipedia or half the businesses and presences built around the Internet are around in 2028, I'll be shocked...
QUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ Sat 27th September 2008, 5:24pm)
Oh please don't make her Evil — I couldn't take it if she were ScannerVain or something!
Jon
I've got it. Johnny Scotland's EX-wife!
Careful folks, I helped to write this.
QUOTE(Rootology @ Sat 27th September 2008, 8:37pm)
Nothing drives me battier in films than when they're like, "In the year 2010, replicants grown in off-world colonies will fight Harrison Ford in Los Angeles!"
Wut, you didn't know about the Lethe-9000 Self-Oversighting Replicants being grown in off-world colonies to edit on-line e-cyclopædiæ? I thought pretty much everyone knew about that but the Lethe-9000 Self-Oversighting Replicants themselves —
Oh …
Nevermind …
Please Oversight I Said That …
Jon
QUOTE(Rootology @ Sat 27th September 2008, 5:37pm)
Then again, if Wikipedia or half the businesses and presences built around the Internet are around in 2028, I'll be shocked...
It's worse than that. By 2028, or 38 (does it matter?) the "internet" will have risen up until we're all so immersed in it that there's nothing to "build around." As well talk about building a business "around" the air that permiates the Earth's surface and just about all therein. In 2028 every bird in your trees, housefly on your windows, and item in your refrigerator will have its own CPU and IP address. Your problem is merely to find the software tool that does the data crunching to figure out which fly left a flyspot, on which refrigerator item. If you can figure out how to ask the question, the system has the data to give you an answer.
And if you were wondering about privacy?
Johnny Scotland's sex scenes should be pretty interesting. It's going to be an R-rating. That's a no-brainer.
QUOTE(JÏ…n Orkney @ The Day Of The Wikids)
Wikids blend in a lot more than they used to. I liked it better when they all wore those wrap-around VR glasses — "virginal reality shades" was the joke of the day — you could see them coming and fork off with no fuss at all. But I halfway expect to see a pair of those on the Antech Road Show any day now. So you don't really notice wikids on the street anymore, their wikits are indiscernible from the ekits du jour and ikits de rigueur that up2date H.saps just can't live without — literally.
Jon
QUOTE(Rootology @ Sat 27th September 2008, 5:37pm)
QUOTE(Somey @ Sat 27th September 2008, 2:22pm)
In fact, I was thinking that a straight-up horror treatment of Wikipedia could work a lot better if it were set fairly far off in the future, say, 20 years or so.
Don, I'm not even going to presume to tell you squat about making films, since you sort of have that down pat. But please don't say it's set "in 2028" or something like that in the film. Nothing drives me battier in films than when they're like, "In the year 2010, replicants grown in off-world colonies will fight Harrison Ford in Los Angeles!" I wish all near future films just called it "in the near future, etc." since it kills the immersion a tiny bit when you watch them again later.
Then again, if Wikipedia or half the businesses and presences built around the Internet are around in 2028, I'll be shocked...
no it is very much set in contemporary NYC (good tax incentives to film) and is a horror film in the classic vein of an old Rod Serling Richard Matheson story- trust no one because you cannot conceive of the evil in the heart of the cult
QUOTE(ColScott @ Tue 30th September 2008, 1:36am)
no it is very much set in contemporary NYC (good tax incentives to film) and is a horror film in the classic vein of an old Rod Serling Richard Matheson story- trust no one because you cannot conceive of the evil in the heart of the cult
Oh, come on, man! First it's The Seventh Victim, now it's I Am Legend II or the Twilight Zone? Why even ask us WR folks for ideas if you've got the whole thing practically worked out already?!?
Apropos of nothing, I just got finished watching 30 Days of Night, which I'd DVR'd Saturday on Starz. It's a very creepy movie, and I guess it would be scary too, for someone who hadn't seen as many scary movies as I have... but I was thinking while watching this, it would have been absolutely hysterical if in the middle of the film, the surviving humans manage to get one of the generators running, the computer boots up, and they're able to get on the internet just as the vampires attack. Most of the survivors manage to escape, but not all... and afterwards, the vampires see the computer running, open up a web browser, and immediately get on Wikipedia to edit the article on "Barrow,_Alaska," at which point they get into an edit war when they try to change it to say that most of the town's inhabitants are vampires.
Anyway, I'm not saying I won't buy a ticket on opening weekend, but if the critics trash this movie for not having an original story line, don't blame us...!
QUOTE(Somey @ Tue 30th September 2008, 1:13am)
QUOTE(ColScott @ Tue 30th September 2008, 1:36am)
no it is very much set in contemporary NYC (good tax incentives to film) and is a horror film in the classic vein of an old Rod Serling Richard Matheson story- trust no one because you cannot conceive of the evil in the heart of the cult
Oh, come on, man! First it's The Seventh Victim, now it's I Am Legend II or the Twilight Zone? Why even ask us WR folks for ideas if you've got the whole thing practically worked out already?!?
Apropos of nothing, I just got finished watching 30 Days of Night, which I'd DVR'd Saturday on Starz. It's a very creepy movie, and I guess it would be scary too, for someone who hadn't seen as many scary movies as I have... but I was thinking while watching this, it would have been absolutely hysterical if in the middle of the film, the surviving humans manage to get one of the generators running, the computer boots up, and they're able to get on the internet just as the vampires attack. Most of the survivors manage to escape, but not all... and afterwards, the vampires see the computer running, open up a web browser, and immediately get on Wikipedia to edit the article on "Barrow,_Alaska," at which point they get into an edit war when they try to change it to say that most of the town's inhabitants are vampires.
Anyway, I'm not saying I won't buy a ticket on opening weekend, but if the critics trash this movie for not having an original story line, don't blame us...!
It is traditional in Hollywood to evoke the titles of other films to give a feel for what you are doing. If anything the plot currently most evokes a Ray Bradbury short story.
You haven't contributed much yet- please do.
30 Days of Night had one massive problem you apparently overlooked- if the screen cards didn't tell m, I would have thought it all took place in one day not thirty.
You might look at the work of Chip Delany for some pertinent ideas. Especially these, if I remember rightly from that long ago:
- The Einstein Intersection
- Babel-17
- Dhalgren
- Triton
I don't know whether you intend Wikipedia to be a foil for the main plot, or if it is central. If it is central, will Wikipedia or the Wikipedians be shown to be bad or misguided, or not. If the former, which of the many bad things about the place and the people will be shown for what they are? And how will it be interesting in film, a medium which is not renowned for its engagement with conceptual issues such as encyclopedias.
E.g. you ask straightaway what the Wikipedians should look like, but it's not what they look like that primarily makes them weird. And they certainly have no fashion sense (David Gerard). Should the film engage with some of the really weird things, portrayal of which could not possibly be shown in a family-friendly encyclopedia, er, film?
The lead character is 'looking for her sister' - as though she had been abducted. But Wikipedia is not the sort of cult that abducts people. They just stay up their in their bedrooms and get sucked up into the screen, in a conceptual kind of way.
I like the idea of a film, nonetheless.
E.g. you ask straightaway what the Wikipedians should look like, but it's not what they look like that primarily makes them weird. And they certainly have no fashion sense (David Gerard). Should the film engage with some of the really weird things, portrayal of which could not possibly be shown in a family-friendly encyclopedia, er, film?
The lead character is 'looking for her sister' - as though she had been abducted. But Wikipedia is not the sort of cult that abducts people. They just stay up their in their bedrooms and get sucked up into the screen, in a conceptual kind of way.
I like the idea of a film, nonetheless.
Science fiction and speculative theatre extrapolate trends that are visible in the present. As Leibniz put it, "the present is big with the future" — and "big" here means "pregnant".
Well, visible to those who have eyes to see.
So, yeah, present tense Wikipediots are a pretty dull lot of nut cases, but what is that One Mad Belief (OMB) you sometimes see, sometimes blinker your eyes against, and what sort of Forest Slimevil would spread from those nut cases if they should go unchecked?
Jon
Well, visible to those who have eyes to see.
So, yeah, present tense Wikipediots are a pretty dull lot of nut cases, but what is that One Mad Belief (OMB) you sometimes see, sometimes blinker your eyes against, and what sort of Forest Slimevil would spread from those nut cases if they should go unchecked?
Jon
I once saw a scene in Gulliver's Travels miniseries (starring Ted Danson) in which Gulliver comes to a country desolated by war. He comes to a university with chalkboards and chalkboards full of equations and formulas being written by numerous academics. At some point, all the so-called highly intelligent people of the world were called together to solve the world's problems. But instead of solving the world's problems, they determine that the entire world is wrong and needs to "start over." So they order their armies to destroy the world person by person and village by village. Gulliver says that's stupid and that no small group of individuals (no matter how smart) have the right to do what they are doing. So the perfectionists order their soldiers to take Gulliver away for his lack of vision and calling their plan dumb. At least, I think that's what I think happened. It was about 15 years ago when I saw it.
That scene always comes to mind when I think of Wikipedia. That and other absurdist media like HHGG and Monty Python.
Perhaps that scene could be an inspiration?
That scene always comes to mind when I think of Wikipedia. That and other absurdist media like HHGG and Monty Python.
Perhaps that scene could be an inspiration?
QUOTE(The Joy @ Tue 30th September 2008, 4:19pm)
I once saw a scene in Gulliver's Travels miniseries (starring Ted Danson) in which Gulliver comes to a country desolated by war. He comes to a university with chalkboards and chalkboards full of equations and formulas being written by numerous academics. At some point, all the so-called highly intelligent people of the world were called together to solve the world's problems. But instead of solving the world's problems, they determine that the entire world is wrong and needs to "start over." So they order their armies to destroy the world person by person and village by village. Gulliver says that's stupid and that no small group of individuals (no matter how smart) have the right to do what they are doing. So the perfectionists order their soldiers to take Gulliver away for his lack of vision and calling their plan dumb. At least, I think that's what I think happened. It was about 15 years ago when I saw it.
That scene always comes to mind when I think of Wikipedia. That and other absurdist media like HHGG and Monty Python.
Perhaps that scene could be an inspiration?
I like your description very much...
Peter- an encyclopedia is inherently undramatic as is a computer. The core facts are not important- the sister hasn't been abducted, she is now "one of us". The Jimbo character created the cult at first benevolently. He didn't expect the power trip to be so addictive- they seldom do. Once he tasted the ability to score guys and girls out of his league (vis Marsden) he cannot stop. It's like Charlie Manson, he didn't even know he could inspire 50 followers but once you have tasted it, you protect it even if you have to kill. The leaders of Wikipedia, the true douchebags like Cary Bass, these guys KNOW what the problems are but fixing them would diminish their power. So they allow it all to go forward, just like 95% of Germany in 1935. THAT is what I need to manifest in the film
QUOTE(ColScott @ Wed 1st October 2008, 12:46am)
Peter- an encyclopedia is inherently undramatic as is a computer. The core facts are not important- the sister hasn't been abducted, she is now "one of us". The Jimbo character created the cult at first benevolently. He didn't expect the power trip to be so addictive- they seldom do. Once he tasted the ability to score guys and girls out of his league (vis Marsden) he cannot stop. It's like Charlie Manson, he didn't even know he could inspire 50 followers but once you have tasted it, you protect it even if you have to kill. The leaders of Wikipedia, the true douchebags like Cary Bass, these guys KNOW what the problems are but fixing them would diminish their power. So they allow it all to go forward, just like 95% of Germany in 1935. THAT is what I need to manifest in the film
That's a very pertinent analysis of the way power has actually been weilded on WP. I also agree that that should be the focus of the plot; something that the audience can get their mind around, because in one form or another, this shit has happened before.
Of course, the writing is key here. You can have one of the best cast films ever, but if the writing sucks because it uses too many hard-to-grasp idioms, the actors won't be able to save the film. But then, you are a successful Hollywood producer; I hardly need tell you this.
QUOTE(ColScott @ Wed 1st October 2008, 1:46am)
QUOTE(The Joy @ Tue 30th September 2008, 4:19pm)
I once saw a scene in Gulliver's Travels miniseries (starring Ted Danson) in which Gulliver comes to a country desolated by war. He comes to a university with chalkboards and chalkboards full of equations and formulas being written by numerous academics. At some point, all the so-called highly intelligent people of the world were called together to solve the world's problems. But instead of solving the world's problems, they determine that the entire world is wrong and needs to "start over". So they order their armies to destroy the world person by person and village by village. Gulliver says that's stupid and that no small group of individuals (no matter how smart) have the right to do what they are doing. So the perfectionists order their soldiers to take Gulliver away for his lack of vision and calling their plan dumb. At least, I think that's what I think happened. It was about 15 years ago when I saw it.
That scene always comes to mind when I think of Wikipedia. That and other absurdist media like HHGG and Monty Python.
Perhaps that scene could be an inspiration?
I like your description very much …
Peter — an encyclopedia is inherently undramatic as is a computer. The core facts are not important- the sister hasn't been abducted, she is now "one of us". The Jimbo character created the cult at first benevolently. He didn't expect the power trip to be so addictive- they seldom do. Once he tasted the ability to score guys and girls out of his league (vis Marsden) he cannot stop. It's like Charlie Manson, he didn't even know he could inspire 50 followers but once you have tasted it, you protect it even if you have to kill. The leaders of Wikipedia, the true douchebags like Cary Bass, these guys KNOW what the problems are but fixing them would diminish their power. So they allow it all to go forward, just like 95% of Germany in 1935. THAT is what I need to manifest in the film
Working Title : Natural Born Wikers
There is a subtle but significant difference between what happened in the Cheersy adaptation of Swift's flim-flam noir and what happened in Nazifying Germany. In the Realpolitik case there was no pre-existing army that razed the slate, but the army had to be created out of tangled Masses Of Brown Socks, er, Shirts. So it was really a matter of inducing the Masses to Brainwash and Purge themselves. Naturally, a programme like that depends very heavily on the most naive members of society, tossing them a few Barnstars — inherently worthless tokens of Cabalarity, anything from Brownie Points to Iron Crosses — in order to pump up their approval-craving narzissism and gain their undying loyalty unto death.
Jon
Two other science fiction novels that are chock full of thematic ideas for this project would be The Santaroga Barrier and The Green Brain by Frank Herbert.
Jon
Jon
But if you want to get at the Real Game behind all the Phoney Games in Wikipedia, I think it would help to take a gander at the following sample of books on the present scene.
- Jonathan Chait, The Big Con : The True Story of How Washington Got Hoodwinked and Hijacked by Crackpot Economics, Houghton Mifflin, 2007.
- Chris Mooney, The Republican War on Science, Basic Books, 2005.
- Michael Moore, Dude, Where's My Country?, Warner Books, 2003.
Lol, to the average Wikipedian I think "Johnny Scotland" would seem more like a riff on Doc Glasgow than Jimbo Wales. But the viewing public would probably associate with Johnny English (T-H-L-K-D), so that's no good.
But the basic formula is undeniable: combine a distinctively redneck nickname with a carefully selected geographic place-name, one which evokes an incompatibly higher level of dignity.
I think you'd have to call him "Bubba".
But the basic formula is undeniable: combine a distinctively redneck nickname with a carefully selected geographic place-name, one which evokes an incompatibly higher level of dignity.
I think you'd have to call him "Bubba".
QUOTE(Jon Awbrey @ Sat 27th September 2008, 5:40am)
In my nightmares, it's always like those scenes in Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1978) where the Pod People slowly turn in unison and emit their chilling, ear-splitting, mind-numbing shriek at the one that isn't one of them.
Jon B)
And that shriek is "UNCIVIL"!
Priggish pricks.
QUOTE(CharlotteWebb @ Mon 23rd March 2009, 3:16pm)
Lol, to the average Wikipedian I think "Johnny Scotland" would seem more like a riff on Doc Glasgow than Jimbo Wales. But the viewing public would probably associate with Johnny English (T-H-L-K-D), so that's no good.
But the basic formula is undeniable: combine a distinctively redneck nickname with a carefully selected geographic place-name, one which evokes an incompatibly higher level of dignity.
I think you'd have to call him "Bubba".
This must be one of those transatlantic cultural differences. I can't imagine anyone in Europe equating "Wales" – over 50% of babies born outside wedlock, in economic chaos outside the two big cities for the past 25 years (most of the country is still classed as Objective One, more than 25 years after the miners strike), and with rampant drug problems, particularly in the south) – with "dignity".
QUOTE(Eva Destruction @ Mon 23rd March 2009, 12:55pm)
This must be one of those transatlantic cultural differences. I can't imagine anyone in Europe equating "Wales" – over 50% of babies born outside wedlock, in economic chaos outside the two big cities for the past 25 years (most of the country is still classed as Objective One, more than 25 years after the miners strike), and with rampant drug problems, particularly in the south) – with "dignity".
Calm down, now...
I considered suggesting that he be named after a Welsh town of some sort, but too many of them have unpronounceable names. Still, having a character called "Johnny Penrhyndeudraeth" would certainly be original, if nothing else!
ColScott, make sure you buy the rights to John Varley's novella Press Enter.
And just be sure you don't make Bedtime Stories* meets The International**. Thanks.
(*) Possibly the worst movie of 2008.
(**) Possibly the first and best lost opportunity to dramatize the banking crisis.
And just be sure you don't make Bedtime Stories* meets The International**. Thanks.
(*) Possibly the worst movie of 2008.
(**) Possibly the first and best lost opportunity to dramatize the banking crisis.
QUOTE(gomi @ Mon 23rd March 2009, 12:11pm)
ColScott, make sure you buy the rights to John Varley's novella Press Enter.
Which is one of the great SF stories (along with his Overdrawn at the Memory Bank). The paranoia of both the all-knowing net and the program which makes you want to kill yourself, having been ripped off many times (one key idea, for example, being recently ripped off in The Happening.)
I can see some of those flamed-out WP editors who want to remove temptation, living in Varley's house which has been stripped not only of the phone and internet, but electrical outlets and wiring, as well. Can't be too careful, and you don't want to make it TOO easy to backslide.
Did you catch the little nod to the end of Press Enter, to the classic Heinlein story The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag? And Heinlein is always echoing Lovecraft...
QUOTE(CharlotteWebb @ Mon 23rd March 2009, 8:16am)
Lol, to the average Wikipedian I think "Johnny Scotland" would seem more like a riff on Doc Glasgow than Jimbo Wales. But the viewing public would probably associate with Johnny English (T-H-L-K-D), so that's no good.
But the basic formula is undeniable: combine a distinctively redneck nickname with a carefully selected geographic place-name, one which evokes an incompatibly higher level of dignity.
I think you'd have to call him "Bubba".
I agree that it should be a better nickname but Bubba seems TOO silly for a horror film- any other ideas?
QUOTE(gomi @ Mon 23rd March 2009, 12:11pm)
ColScott, make sure you buy the rights to John Varley's novella Press Enter.
And just be sure you don't make Bedtime Stories* meets The International**. Thanks.
(*) Possibly the worst movie of 2008.
(**) Possibly the first and best lost opportunity to dramatize the banking crisis.
I'll read it
But this is closer (what we're doing) to the Val Lewton film THE SEVENTH VICTIM
QUOTE(ColScott @ Mon 23rd March 2009, 9:28pm)
I agree that it should be a better nickname but Bubba seems TOO silly for a horror film- any other ideas?
Billy Cornwall
Jesse Devon
Ricky Berkshire
Roscoe Somerset
Cletus Hampshire
QUOTE(thekohser @ Mon 23rd March 2009, 9:08pm)
Billy Cornwall
Jesse Devon
Ricky Berkshire
Roscoe Somerset
Cletus Hampshire
How about Gerard David?........
is this movie going to be like those post-apocalypic....
QUOTE(Eva Destruction @ Mon 23rd March 2009, 5:55pm)
This must be one of those transatlantic cultural differences. I can't imagine anyone in Europe equating "Wales" – over 50% of babies born outside wedlock, in economic chaos outside the two big cities for the past 25 years (most of the country is still classed as Objective One, more than 25 years after the miners strike), and with rampant drug problems, particularly in the south) – with "dignity".
EU jargonomics aside you're not making it sound like the kind of place any successor to the throne would want to be named after. Still less goofy than "Earl of Shaftesbury" however.
But what can I say, the landscape looks beautiful in all the pictures I've seen.
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