By
Steven Grogan
Time: 2000
Place: Between dimensions
Dark, with a
slight pinpoint of illumination in the upper right hand corner.
RANDALL:
(V.O.) The
sky was nowhere to be found outside today.
It had fallen, just like me…
RANDALL:
(V.O.) followed
by my tortured, drawn-out collapse into the corner of my own madness, caused by
one unmistakable stimulus.
Light moves closer again.
RANDALL:
(V.O.) The
fall began when, under the gaze of my loving, honest eye, the rest of the
world…
Light is now in the center.
RANDALL: (V.O.)
started not to slip, not to crawl, not to slide, but to run from grace…”
The circle of illumination increases in diameter.
RANDALL: (V.O.) making
a hasty retreat as if it were running from a tidal wave, or an earthquake.
Light expands again.
RANDALL: (V.O.) At
first my mind rejected the facts, but as the days went by the overwhelming
horror of the truth of my situation became impossible to deny, so I was left no
choice but to retreat…
Light grows to encompass the entire panel. We can now see a silhouette of Randall’s
head.
RANDALL: (V.O.) …away
from the evil of the 20th Century world…
Large, sprawling mural of ComaWorld: a land of hills
so incredibly green they almost seem to shine, trees with purple bark and gold
leaves, oval-shaped fruit unknown to our world, children with wide eyes and
glowing faces, cute furry domesticated creatures, the sense of magic dwelling
vibrant and alive in every particle of every being, just waiting to be
released…and all this sense of wonder interrupted by a sight familiar to our
own world but alien to this one: a young man sitting beneath a tree with long,
unkempt black hair, wearing dark brown pants, an army green short sleeve shirt,
a dark blue flannel shirt tied around his waist, beard stubble growing up and
down his neck, and two narrow eyes that lack all sense of wonder (a stark
contrast to the anime-style eyes of the children playing less than fifty yards
away from him). This is Randall.
RANDALL: (V.O.)
…to one of my own design.
In large letters: ComaWorld
with creative credits underneath. Close
shot of Randall. One of the children, a
little girl, approaches him. She
giggles, an unbelievably huge smile splashed across her face, as she grabs him
by the hand and pulls.
Girl: Come on,
Randall! Come play with us!
Randall’s face, smiling yet somehow devoid of joy.
RANDALL: (V.O.)
I am happy in this place.
Randall gets to his feet, letting the little one
lead him.
RANDALL: (V.O.)
I only wish I could somehow let people back home know what joy there is to be
found here.
Randall looks to the sky. The dark look takes over his face again.
RANDALL: (V.O.) No, on second thought I
should be glad no one else knows about this world but myself. The others wouldn’t be able to appreciate it
as it is. They’d have to change things.
The two are near the other children, some of whom
run to Randall.
RANDALL: (V.O.)
They’d just overrun this paradise, stampede through with no concern for whoever
got in their way…take what they could and move on.
Randall has now joined hands with two children.
RANDALL: (V.O.)
That’s what they did back home…that’s why I came here in the first place.
Randall is letting the children wrestle him to the
ground.
RANDALL: (V.O.)
I had to come here before I got dragged down into the quicksand of insanity
which had swallowed up so many back home…
They succeed.
Randall is down.
RANDALL: (V.O.)
…a madness caused by a world of excess, obsessed with fame and fortune. It seemed that selfishness was a demon and
the whole human race was possessed…
The children hug Randall, and he smiles.
RANDALL: (V.O.)
…and all the exorcists were dead.
Randall’s clothes lay on the bank while he bathes.
RANDALL: (V.O.)
My mind is often torn between believing in fate or free will, but I firmly
believe it was no accident that I found this place when I did.
RANDALL:
(V.O.) Just
as the wave of selfishness had reached its highest peak, this haven was
revealed to me. There was never a
second of confusion for me regarding what I should do.
We see Randall from behind, walking with the flannel
in his hand.
RANDALL: (V.O.) I
moved my entire life here, because the place I used to call home was not fit
for me anymore.
He reaches a small clearing and sits down.
RANDALL: (V.O.)
That was no place for someone like me who still believes honesty is the best
policy, who believes in caring for others before himself, who thinks it’s wrong
to take advantage of the weak.
Randall puts the shirt under his head for a pillow
and lays back.
RANDALL: (V.O.)
It’s so much better here. I can’t
imagine wanting to live anywhere else.
6 NIGHT SKY
The stars are out, decorating the black canvas in no
set order.
RANDALL: (V.O.)
If I think hard enough, I can reach back in my memory…
The stars suddenly start to rearrange themselves.
RANDALL: (V.O.)
…to the old world, and I can remember…
Now they are taking on a definite shape.
RANDALL: (V.O.)
…the events leading up to my departure…
The stars are now shaped like a woman’s face.
LISA: Randy?
RANDALL:
(V.O.) …as
if they were happening…
It is a shambles: clothes, CDs, books
everywhere. His mother, Lisa Gibson, is
leaning over his bed, shaking him.
Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, and Pearl Jam posters decorate his walls.
RANDALL: (V.O.)
…right now.
In upper right hand corner: Part One…Escape from Planet Me
LISA: Randy, wake up! You’re
gonna be late for school again, dammit!
Close-up of a groggy Randall sitting
up, yawning and scratching his head. He
has been sleeping in his clothes.
RANDALL: (V.O.) I remember the day it all
started going downhill.
8 KITCHEN
Randall is hastily scooping a bowl of Cheerios into
his mouth, causing milk to run down his chin.
RANDALL: (V.O.)
It didn’t seem like it was going to be a special day. Just another test of how much torture I could take while
wandering the drab, lonely, cold conformist halls of my high school.
Lisa hands Randall his lunch. He has a bookbag draped over one shoulder.
RANDALL: (V.O.) But
as I moved from my bedroom to the front door to the car, I started to feel the
difference…Something was out of place, even though everything was where I could
usually find it.
We see both of them, Lisa driving and Randall
thinking.
RANDALL: (V.O.) If
I thought something was in my closet, on my bookshelf, under the coffee table,
stuck to the bottom of my shoe…everything was there when I looked, but I just
couldn’t shake the feeling that it was all wrong.
Cut to looking at Randall as if
from driver’s seat. Outside we see the
landscape rolling by, an unchanging flat land reaching on into infinity.
RANDALL: (V.O.) That
morning I suddenly felt my life had always been lived on a road like the one on
which my mom always drove me to school…
An empty country road stretching out before us. The sun is setting.
RANDALL: (V.O.)
…a never-ending ode to monotony.
Camera pulls
back.
Randall’s head has entered the lower right hand corner.
RANDALL: (V.O.)
…a path of loneliness and repetition…
Cut to a view of Randall from the
front. He looks as if he has been
walking this highway for days. (Not
surprisingly, this isn’t much of a change from the way he normally looks.)
RANDALL: (V.O.) No
changes, no excitement, no one to rescue me from the boredom. The only two things that kept me hanging on
to my sanity…
Randall playing guitar in his room.
RANDALL: (V.O.)
…were my music…
Randall is playing chi sao with Sifu, a short old
white-haired Chinese man.
RANDALL: (V.O.)
…and the martial art known as wing chun kung fu, which I’d started to learn so
I could give myself some discipline.
Jock purposely bumps into Randall.
JOCK: Watch
where you’re standin’, dickhead!
RANDALL: (V.O.) Well,
that and to deal with ogres like this.
RANDALL:
You’d better apologize.
Jock and his Friend spin around.
The musclehead looks surprised, but Friend is wearing a mean-spirited
grin.
FRIEND: Come
on, man…go teach him a lesson.
Jock
walks over to Randall, who has turned to face his opponent.
JOCK: What’d
you fucking say, Dandy Randy? Come on
now, you little shit. We all know
you’re a faggot so why don’t you just admit it…before I knock your teeth down
your throat.
Close shot of Randall smiling.
RANDALL: You
know, you’re right. I must be gay
because I feel this terribly overwhelming urge to touch your balls.
Cut to Jock, taken completely by
surprised, enraged and red-faced.
JOCK: WHAT?!?!
Tight shot of Jock’s crotch
as Randall’s fist slams into his balls.
Jock lets out an incredible moan of agony.
Randall is walking along a trail to a small house.
RANDALL: (V.O.) The
bastard wasn’t alone, of course. His
kind never are. They’re all big and
tough until you confront them. That’s
when they turn into nothing but talk, and they have to call in their
reinforcements.
We
see Randall from the front now. He has
a black eye.
RANDALL: (V.O.)
Good thing for him ogres travel in packs.
All he had to do was put out a warning to his musclehead friends. There was no way I could fend off the entire
football team…
16 INSIDE THE HOUSE,
TRAINING HALL
Sifu is before us from the waist up.
RANDALL: (V.O.)
…or Sifu’s wrath.
SIFU: You did what?!?
Cut to Randall, kneeling in shame.
RANDALL: Sifu,
please calm down. Your heart…
Cut to Sifu, as before, shaking his fist in anger.
SIFU: How am I
supposed to calm down after what you just told me? All these years, you’ve been saying you understood and honored my
teachings. Today you have betrayed me. You do not respect me!
Randall,
looking up, desperate gleam in his eye.
RANDALL: Sifu,
that’s not true! I had to teach them a
lesson. They had to learn they couldn’t
push me around anymore.
SIFU: (V.O.) You could have stood up to
him with words!
Sifu
and Randall, side view.
SIFU: If he
had thrown the first punch, that would have been different…but it was you who initiated the fight!
Close-up of Sifu’s face.
SIFU: Wing
chun is not a tool for you to use so you can reclaim your self-esteem by
beating up bullies, because then you are a bully yourself. This is a very effective, deadly style. We are not concerned with tournaments, or
trophies…or even fixing our own bruised egos.
I thought you understood that when I took you under my tutelage.
Randall
kneeling, side view. His head is bowed
in shame. Sifu has left.
SIFU: (V.O.)Apparently
I was wrong. (pauses) Go home. There
will be no lesson for you today.
Cut to a wide
shot of the
room. In the foreground we see Randall
walking out. Sifu is in the background,
his back to us, looking out a window.
Randall
is closing the front door. Close-up
of Randall as he looks up to the sky.
RANDALL: (V.O.) I
had never felt such hollowness before, such misery over the fact that I had let
him down…and for some reason it struck me right then that no one else I knew
would care if Sifu was upset with them…
Close-up: Randall’s eyes.
RANDALL: (V.O.) …because
no one else seemed to understand the concept of respect anymore. To them respect was no more important…
The
sky. Clouds slip by here and there.
RANDALL: (V.O.) …than
a passing cloud.
Randall is walking toward us.
RANDALL: (V.O.) My
head was suddenly flooded with thoughts about the sad state of the world. For
reasons I still don’t entirely understand, I started walking to the back of
Sifu’s house…
19 BACK OF THE HOUSE
Over Randall’s shoulder we see a garden.
RANDALL: (V.O.)
…to his garden. It was overgrown with
weeds. If the situation wasn’t
corrected soon, the weeds would take over.
Randall
is kneeling in the garden, pulling out the weeds.
RANDALL: (V.O.)
I took this as a metaphor for the world.
If we didn’t correct our flaws, then evil would soon dominate the human
race.
Close-up: his hands in the dirt.
RANDALL: (V.O.) We’ve
all forgotten what it means to care for one another, to help, to listen, to
respect.
Close-up: his face, sweaty with work.
RANDALL: (V.O.) Selfishness
and impatience are consistently present wherever I go. No one cares to buy anything anymore with
money they earned because it’s so much easier to steal it. To these people the logic is: as long as I
have it, what difference does it make how I got it? To answer their inquiry: it
makes a world of difference.
Cut to Randall, from behind and to the
right.
RANDALL: (V.O.) Humans
have no more principals, no more morals.
We are slowly decaying on the inside…which is ironic when you consider
the fitness craze that has spread across America.
Beside
the garden. The weeds are starting to
pile up.
RANDALL: (V.O.) It
seems the focus on outer beauty has killed our sense of what it means to
cultivate our souls. Honesty, trustworthiness, friendship, loyalty, love,
respect…none of these things hold any value in the modern world.
Cut to Randall from high above.
RANDALL: (V.O.)
But I can’t be like them! No! ‘Do not
go gentle into that good night’! I
mustn’t let go of these values, because to do so would only speed the world
along toward its collapse. We can give
these values meaning again!
Cut to a normal shot. He pauses to wipe
his brow.
RANDALL: (V.O.) We
just have to rip out the weeds, our negative qualities that choke the life out
of living.
Close-up: Randall’s head.
RANDALL: (V.O.) We have to rethink our way
of treating one another. Surely it
can’t be too late! We just have to…
SIFU: (V.O.)Randall?
Randall
looks up. Cut to Sifu from the waist
up. He is smiling.
SIFU: I just
put the kettle on the stove. I figure
we could have a cup of tea before your lesson.
Randall
has stood up. Smiling, he brushes the
dirt off.
Sifu stands aside, watching Randall practice the wooden
dummy form.
RANDALL: (V.O.) It’s
not too late. Impossible! The spirit of respect still lives on, even
though it is slumbering now.
He
performs a lop sao-punch on the dummy.
RANDALL: (V.O.) The
martial arts have taught me about respect and honor. It is true that some practitioners lack these qualities, like the
ones who take the ‘our style is better than yours’ attitude…
Pak
sao, pak sao, pak sao, lan sao…CHOP!
RANDALL: (V.O.) …but
I feel that, more or less, martial arts students are the only ones left who
even remember what these concepts mean.
He
steps away from the dummy. He executes a low sidekick.
RANDALL: (V.O.) And
I think we hold the key to healing the world if we can just find a way to pass
these values on to others, because there’s no way we can expect everyone to
learn them from the arts as we did.
21 RANDALL’S ROOM
He is playing guitar on the bed.
RANDALL: (V.O.)
Music is a good medium to spread the word.
Everyone blames rock music when some kid shoots up his classmates
because supposedly a song by his favorite band “told” him to do it, so if music
is really that influential…
Close-up of Randall bending the B string.
RANDALL: (V.O.)
…then why not inject it with positive messages? With demands for love and caring and peace?
Close-up of his face while he jams
along.
RANDALL: (V.O.) I
don’t care if people think the message is old.
Close-up as he strums a chord.
RANDALL: (V.O.) I
don’t care if critics will call me a throwback to the flower power era just
because they think messages like Lenny Kravitz’s “Let Love Rule” have nothing
to do with what is current.
His
left hand forms a power chord.
RANDALL: (V.O.) Because
if they do say things like that…if
they do say messages of peace and
love are outdated and dead…
He stands up, really getting
into it.
RANDALL: (V.O.) …it’s
because they don’t care. They don’t
hold these values as important anymore. They are part of the problem, a
collective of cold-hearted, vicious, uncaring, selfish drones.
Cut to Randall from underneath.
RANDALL: (V.O.) It
was my dream to rid the world of all this evil, but it’d never happen unless I
believed I could do it.
Randall
from behind, off to the side.
RANDALL: (V.O.)
I couldn’t give up hope…I just couldn’t. Because if I did, what good would
living do me anymore?
Sitting on his porch, watching the stars come out.
RANDALL: (V.O.) God,
I was so naïve. I had no idea how big
this problem was, but I was sure I could beat it…even if I had to do it all on
my own.
Lying in bed with a moonlit
face, Randall is fast asleep.
RANDALL: (V.O.) I
had a lot of life’s most important lessons to learn yet, and as I was soon to
find out, most of them had to do with defeat.
END PROLOGUE/PART ONE
