Let's make a fucking awesome Sci-Fi Action Flick

[Hotfoot]

This is a thread transplant. Hopefully we can get some better ideas over here than I saw over at the thread's point of origin.

I'll start off with my contribution:

How about starting with a pan of a massive space battle. Burning hulks venting air and dead crew into the void. Cold, dead bodies, cut in half by pieces of shrapnel float past the camera, frozen droplets of blood scattered about. As the camera continues, you see a few damaged but still functional ships are duking it out when finally some new ships jump in, the battle commences. The commander of the reinforcements mop up the remaining resistance and immediately launch transatmo fighters and dropships. There's something on the planet below that could turn the tide of the war. They have to hurry, as enemy reinforcements are only a few hours/days away.

From there, there's a focus on the ground battle. We see initial bombardments taking out anti-air sights while the transatmo fighter/bombers clear a landing zone for the dropships. Then the fighting begins on the ground, and our heroes start to kick ass and take names. What they're looking for is in some well-defended location that can't be nuked, since they need what is inside.

And we go from there.

The following are my commandments. These shall not be violated upon pain of death, or sitting in a room with people who love shitty anime.

No laser blast/bullet/plasma burst/whatever will go slower than half the speed of sound. Period. It is acceptable for missiles to start out at slower speeds (particularly man-portable ones), but there will be no other exceptions. NONE!

There will be a sufficiently awesome and slightly realistic laser effect, in which the air around the beam becomes ionized. In space the only time you will see this is if there is some sort of gas between the two combatants, like the air escaping from a hull breach.

Standard infantry weapons will all be based on the Colonial Marine Pulse Rifle.

People will die. This vision entails a lot of close quarters shit, so there will be traps, ambushes, and people generally biting it. Making the main character die towards the end is even better. The sequel will be about the guy he was breeding as his replacement. THIS MEANS THAT BOTH MUST BE LIKABLE, BUT NOT CLONES!

NO SUDDEN SUPER ALIENS/MUTANTS/BULLSHIT HALFWAY THROUGH! If you're fighting crazy aliens, make that abundantly clear from the beginning. If you're fighting humans, keep the humans. Throw in cool combat robots as needed, but otherwise, keep your surprise bullshit to yourself please. M. Night Slurpadong need not apply.

On that note, NO MIRACULOUS BULLSHIT! No fucking Macs bringing down the mothership, no fucking six year olds haxxoring the gibsons, nothing. Plans A through XXX should be involved and realistic (the final plan, of course, is dying with a smile on your face).

Nukes aplenty. God damn it when you're done nuke the site from orbit and GTFO. Very few things are as awesome as riding off from the nuclear sunset.

I HAVE SPOKEN!

[frigidmagi]

Standard infantry weapons will all be based on the Colonial Marine Pulse Rifle.

Bah I say Bah! I prefer rifles that fire a solid projectile for my standard infantry weapon.

[Hotfoot]

What? A 10mm round isn't good enough for you? I'm talking about the rifles from Aliens!

[frigidmagi]

Solid Slugs don't Pulse Hotfoot.

[Hotfoot]

And turbolasers aren't lasers, look, you've seen Aliens, right? It's not an energy weapon. Now let's focus on the movie.

I call for the following actors:

Michael Ironsides
R. Lee Ermey
James Earl Jones
Jake Gyllenhall
Eric Bana
Christian Bale
Jason Statham
Grace Park
Michael Clarke Duncan
Shauna MacDonald
Natalie Mendoza

Any other suggestions?

[frigidmagi]

R. Lee Ermey

You get Gunny? Oh Fuck No.

[frigidmagi]

To Begin:

I vote we go Epic.

The Void is vast and so should Sci-Fi be.

In this case let us concenrate on something not done in Sci-Fi. Let us do evacution. Let us do an invasion of a planet that by distance or location is badly situated for a sucessful defense. The enemy is of such horror that the defenders, members of a Athenian sytle Empire do not wish to leave behind so much as a single child. So they are trying to lift out every citizen of the planet they can.

Ground forces have been landed and no one has space superiority. The Marines must hold off the enemy for as long as humanly possible away from the evacuation centers. While the fleets struggle to hold an open espace lane and keep the skies clear.

[Hotfoot]

Awesome. In fact, we could have these two movies be linked somehow. Could start as this one, go into yours, and then finish in a huge fucking climax with the final defense of Earth or the last ditch strike against the enemy.

Okay, so I've got my beachhead scene with orbital bombardments, transatmo fighters and fighter/bombers tearing shit up and clearing the defenses for the dropships while the fleet above starts repair and rescue operations as well as setting up a defensive line for when enemy reinforcements come. There needs to be an urgency to the situation. The cast so far is as follows:

James Earl Jones as the Major in charge of the entire operation. He'll be with the fleet.

Jake Gyllenhall, Eric Bana, Jason Statham, Michael Clarke Duncan, Shauna MacDonald, Natalie Mendoza are the bulk of the special forces squad that highlights the film. We'd find some other relative unknowns to fill out the rest of the team.

Grace Park as a transatmo fighter pilot ace.

Christian Bale as the second in command of the squad, the protege. Maybe Eric Bana as the Squad leader.

Michael Ironsides as the captain/Lt. monitoring the operation from the dropship/mobile command center.

Special mention: might put in Patrick Stewart in as the commander of the fleet, not as Picard, but as a badass. The kind that will fucking shoot you if you look at him wrong. I'll come back to this in a moment.

The ultimate scene would be the final battle. The enemy fleet has come in and guns are blazing. This is the start of the fleet battle, the already battered heroes put up as much of a fight as they can, but they're losing. Smaller ships get in close and start to board the lead cruiser, initiating a boarding action in which the Major and the fleet Commander have to take up arms agains the boarders. The Major leads the marines into the fight, while the Commander holds the bridge. One scene I especially want is Patrick Stewart shooting a boarder through the neck, then towering over him as he delivers the final shot, saying "Get the hell of my bridge." More cursing if he requests. Because he will.

Meanwhile, below, the firefight is going badly. Enemy ground forces are coming after the firebase on the ground, taking advantage of the fleet's inability to provide orbital support. The team below in the facility is running into ambush after ambush, the wounded are stacking up, and finally they reach their objective and have to set up a defensive line while the team's electronics expert is working with the computer system. Power to the room has been cut, so the team has to power the system with batteries they brought with them. Time is against them, and the enemy keeps coming (combat droids could come into play here).

To this point, people die. Sad music plays. Finally the transatmo fighters manage to gain the upper hand on the surface, allowing the surface team to send enough support to extract the team, and an exit is planned. One of the smaller ships breaks from the line and heads to the planet. The remaining nukes in the fleet are armed, even the ones in tubes that were damaged in the fight. Meanwhile, the dropships and transatmo fighters run like hell to the ship, leaving behind a few nukes of their own. As enemy transatmo fighters and picket ships streak towards the heroes, the nukes go off. The friendly fleet is annihilated and helps to disrupt the enemy fleet's attack, while the nuke on the planet goes off, causing widespread destruction and possibly frying some of the enemy transatmo fighters in the EM pulse.

Washed in light of the bright radioactive fires, the dropship and transatmo fighters land on the smaller ship at the last moment as the ship jumps to hyperspace, hoping to get to friendly space with the intel.

This could also be a good crossover point with your idea Frigid, as the ship jumps to a planet they thought would be a safe haven only to be pressed into helping with the evacuation...

[Josh]

No Lee Marvin? No Kurt Russell?

I vote Bruce Willis leads the hopelessly outnumbered marine force that stands to the last man so that the majority of planetary citizens can be evacuated.

Then we find out that the opening scene is a playback for the main characters.

[Hotfoot]

Lee Marvin is dead, and I've never liked Kurt Russel, I'm sorry.

Bruce Willis, yeah, but he's more high profile. If we could afford him, sure.

[frigidmagi]

We should make your movie set in a forward base fighting the same enemy. We should at this point define the enemy.

For my part I dearly want an enemy that is literally 10ft tall call me crazy. I got an idea I need to chew on a little more.

[Comrade Tortoise]

Question: Are we limited by length? IE could we put this into a trilogy with multiple parts, focusing on different characters in this fight? IE One movie about the infantry, another about the fleet personel, and another about the fighters?

Because I would LOVE to see Christian Bale as an infantryman... mmmm sexy beast in power armor... But Jake Gylenhaal would be better as a combat pilot, he really would be. He is too small of frame for me to picture him as anything but a fighter jock.

[frigidmagi]

We're already up to 2 movies set in completely different solar systems CT.

[Hotfoot]

Well we're going to be dealing with aliens, so we could have a warrior breed and a worker breed easily enough, much like the original concept of Starship Troopers (the book).

However, I'd like to avoid insectoids, they're far too overdone. Something somewhat humanoid would be nice.

[Josh]

Lee Marvin is dead

...every time the Krauts thought that, they learned to regret it.

And I proclaim that we have a massive budget for this here film. No Wing Commander movie here.

If we're running with epic scale and a trilogy, we can even divvy up the action a bit more. A ground unit, a fighter/bomber squad. Hell, the first two movies would be buildup to tie everything together in the third movie when they come into contact.

Oh yes, and a space navy thing. Supporting role for the admiral in command of the battlefleet in this here epic thingy.

[Josh]

Well we're going to be dealing with aliens, so we could have a warrior breed and a worker breed easily enough, much like the original concept of Starship Troopers (the book).

However, I'd like to avoid insectoids, they're far too overdone. Something somewhat humanoid would be nice.

We could dig out our octopi aliens from a while back, with a warrior race subspecies they use for fighting.

[frigidmagi]

Actually, how do y'all feel about transhumans?

[Hotfoot]

Lee Marvin is dead

...every time the Krauts thought that, they learned to regret it.

And we'll be using minimal CG, so we're not slapping his face on Hayden Christianson's body :P

And I proclaim that we have a massive budget for this here film. No Wing Commander movie here.

Fuck yes. In fact, Frigid and I have already conferred that CG should be at a minimum. This means real explosions, models of everything, and I personally have requested a massive vacuum chamber be built for realistic explosions in space and good examples of explosive decompression.

If we're running with epic scale and a trilogy, we can even divvy up the action a bit more. A ground unit, a fighter/bomber squad. Hell, the first two movies would be buildup to tie everything together in the third movie when they come into contact.

Oh yes, and a space navy thing. Supporting role for the admiral in command of the battlefleet in this here epic thingy.

I say we throw the two together with cuts between the action, with an increase in scale each time. My movie starts out as a smaller scale action, while Frigid's is larger scale, the final movie should be near-apocalyptic in scale. We're talking final defense of Earth or the last ditch strike against the enemy's heart.

[Hotfoot]

Actually, how do y'all feel about transhumans?

You mean sort of like Neosapians from Exosquad? Genetically altered humans that rebelled?

I don't like it. I LOVE IT.

[Comrade Tortoise]

We're already up to 2 movies set in completely different solar systems CT.

Either way. Having it in sections, or rather, multiple sets of main characters (the infantry, fleet, and fighter squadrons) would work well. All too often the action focuses only on the one group. Fighter pilots or infantry, almost never both, and the fleet personell are almost always red shirts save in ST...

Also, I will accept nothing less than an originally produced clasical/choral musical score.

[Hotfoot]

I accept the music with a few caveats that some heavy metal be reserved for specific sequences. Orchestral Heavy Metal would kick some serious ass.

[Comrade Tortoise]

I accept the music with a few caveats that some heavy metal be reserved for specific sequences. Orchestral Heavy Metal would kick some serious ass.

What would you use heavy metal for?

[Josh]

Okay, let's start the task divvying. Hotfoot, obviously, is the producer and director here. FM can handle the grunts, I'll take the navy stuff, and Ben can get us going on our Neosapien style baddies.

(As an aside... EXO SQUAD! You rock, Hotfoot.)

[Hotfoot]

I accept the music with a few caveats that some heavy metal be reserved for specific sequences. Orchestral Heavy Metal would kick some serious ass.

What would you use heavy metal for?

For starters, something that the marines/special forces start to play during the drop. Also, final credits.

With the right people, you could have some kick ass metal that turns into a kick ass classical piece perfect for combat.

[Josh]

For starters, something that the marines/special forces start to play during the drop. Also, final credits.

With the right people, you could have some kick ass metal that turns into a kick ass classical piece perfect for combat.

Interwoven styles are the win. Look at the various pieces for Firefly and Serenity.