Toying around with an idea

I'm always revising what my ideal story arc for "Doom" would be as a film, and instead of giving you a long, exhaustive treatment, I thought I'd sum it up in a few short paragraphs. I've discussed this before, but I wanted to be more concise this time. Since we all know certain background elements (such as the fact that a massive corporate entity controls all space travel and has purchased the military), I'll skip right to the juicy bits.

ACT 1:
Marine on Earth assaults superior officer for order his men to fire upon civilians. Punishment is administered in the form of six months manual labor and menial duties on Martian soil. Military personnel and various technicians, architects, biologists and engineers make the long trip to Mars. Marine becomes bored as life is reduced to maintenance, labor, statistical reporting. His main release comes from reports from home and occasionally testing experimental weaponry.

ACT 2:
UAC's attempts to create multiple one-way teleportation systems (or "gates") between Mars and its two moons are a success for both cargo and humans. Progress was sped up greatly by the discovery of an alien artifact found on Mars, which is actually a beacon. Upon being examined, it sends a signal to an unseen force, who has been waiting for humanity to discover it in order to ensure they are worthy opponents. A massive organic entity which resembles the Icon of Sin suddenly appears near Mars, as if materializing out of nothing. It is larger than Earth.

ACT 3:
After swallowing Phobos whole as an initial threat, the Icon of Sin begins deploying various monstrous creatures, which quickly infest Deimos and Mars. UAC quickly sends two platoons of its elite to eradicate the problem. One platoon is sent directly into the Icon of Sin's mouth under the guise of saving Phobos, when it actuality it wishes to form an allegiance, attracted by its immense power. The second platoon makes its best attempts to clean up Mars before moving on to Deimos.

ACT 4: By the time the second platoon has made it to Deimos and is ready to "jump the gates" to Phobos for a search-and-rescue, the ulterior motive is revealed. In order to destroy the Marine and anyone who might get in the way of the proposed allegiance, a captured monster is released into Deimos, destroying all but the Marine, who manages to obliterate the threat. Upon traveling back to Mars, he and other survivors manage to flag a ship back to Earth, but it is too late. The first platoon's request for allegiance is denied and they instead spend the rest of their existence being tortured inside the Icon of Sin, who is now heading toward Earth as well.

So it's a bitter ending, not necessarily leaving itself open for a sequel but definitely not indicative of a positive resolve. Acts 3 and 4 would entail all the action, gore and disturbing bits. It would be an enormous payoff for a somewhat slow but intriguing beginning.

GoatLord said:

It would be an enormous payoff for a somewhat slow but intriguing beginning.

Not from where I'm standing: while I admit a planet-sized Icon of Sin is pretty fucking terrifying, your summary provides no substance, character, narrative arc, or anything that makes the premise intriguing. It's just stage directions for somebody playing with toy soldiers. The closest you come to a plotline is the ridiculous part about the humans who, immediately after the Icon starts its assault, decide to try and befriend it -- abandoning all sense of logic and survival instinct (the word is "alliance" by the way, not allegiance).

But not only that, consider that every act in a screenplay is roughly thirty minutes (screenplays are typically divided into Act 1, Act 2-A, Act 2-B, Act 3, not far off from what you did here). I wrote a Splatterhouse screenplay years ago that took its time building up to the scarier, gooier parts of the movie, like you seem to want to do; the difference is mine had an underlying theme pushing the plot forward, and the first two acts were laced with supernatural elements to remind the audience that it's supposed to be a horror movie. Yours seems like it'd go down like this:

ACT 1
Thirty minutes of life on mars. Nothing happens.

ACT 2
Another thirty minutes of life on mars, plus science! Icon of Sin appears in space to menace humanity a full hour into the film.

ACT 3
Thirty minutes of typical Doom fanfic rip-and-tear plot ensues as Icon immediately attacks mars and its moons with demon hordes.

ACT 4
Another half hour of rip-ant-tear as good marines discover the plot of the stupid marines and are summarily slaughtered. Ineffectual hero flees to mars and accomplishes nothing. Icon eats stupid marines and plans to eat earth next.

If the Icon of Sin is so large, why doesn't it just swallow up Deimos and Phobos and Mars and the Earth, instead of bothering sending its (ineffective) minions?

Yeah, the Doom plot is too thin to spread over an hour, even if it is fleshed out and expanded. Only hope would be a full on bloody action from pretty much Act 1.

Doom would probably work well as a Manga film, actually.

purist said:

Yeah, the Doom plot is too thin to spread over an hour, even if it is fleshed out and expanded. Only hope would be a full on bloody action from pretty much Act 1.

You obviously missed the point. Probably worse than the OP did.

Doom's plot isn't any simpler than that of most horror movies: and a movie has to tell a STORY, regardless of what its genre or subject matter is. That story has to have a beginning, middle, and ending, and it has to reach a logical conclusion. It has to follow one or more protagonists that the audience can identify and sympathize with, and those protagonists have to contribute more to the story than a body count, and their actions have to suit their character. This is all Creative Writing 101 stuff.

If it's science fiction, it also has to establish an unconventional setting without derailing the plot. If it's horror, it also has to build a frightening atmosphere -- beginning by establishing a sense of normalcy in the first act, then ending Act 1 by disrupting that normalcy with the scary element (which intensifies the further in we go). If it's an action movie, the plot has to reach each action setpiece in a logical manner; and those setpieces can't be too long or the audience gets bored.

purist said:

Doom would probably work well as a Manga film, actually.

If you think the plot is too thin to work with, how would the Japanese do any better?

Impie said:

If you think the plot is too thin to work with, how would the Japanese do any better?

By throwing in Mecha. Everything is better with Mecha.

Oh well, it's a stupid fucking idea and I clearly don't have the chops to make anything worthwhile in terms of a script. I've tried for years to come up with a decent Doom storyline and it always ends up being retarded. Thread closed.

Hey, I think you should create something because you want to, not just to please others, but have it your way boss.