Okay, I was fooling around on IMDBs message boards when I came across a thread entitled "What if Michael Bay directed The NeverEnding Story?"
Of course, my first thought was "Wow, this will end well..." but then as I was writing, the idea turned out to be pretty freaking awesome.
Here's my response:
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The Never Ending Story, directed by Michael Bay, would take the basic story of TNES and mix it with TRON, with a dash of The Matrix and Terminator thrown in. It would consist of three films costing over $1 billion total to make.
Bastion, a gaming geek, gets his hands on a new virtual reality video game called The Never Ending Story. He invites four people over (the female best friend, the jock neighbor, the jock neighbor's extremely hot girlfriend, and the comic relief best friend) in order to play the game. Through completely impossible means (lightning strike, someone spills mountain dew on the VR machinery, or another stupid plot hook), the six of them get their consciousnesses sucked into the video game, essentially becoming their characters. However, they would be split up when they arrive, each arriving in their characters' "hometowns".
Fantasia would no longer be a fantasy world. It would now consist of multiple types of fiction, ranging from high fantasy, sci-fi, steampunk, gothic horror, anime, and others, and it would play out tropes to the max.
The Nothing would be a destructive force, bent on destroying the virtual world, and Bay would destroy the entire concept of it by giving it the virtual form of a world-eating machine with billions of moving parts. In the real world, it would be a rampant coding error. It also would not show up until the second movie. In the third movie, it would pull a Skynet and try to eliminate mankind in the name of perfection.
The Gameworld Multitasking Omni-Resolution Kernel (GMORK) would depart from the original and be a game construct in human form. It will be the evil equivalent of TRON, seeing the characters as security breaches and actively trying to destroy them. It has been infected by The Nothing and serves its purposes.
The main character of Bastion would be played by Shia LaBeouf and basically be a carbon copy of Sam Witwicky. He would become Atreyu when he enters the game (basically merging the two characters into one). He would be a bog standard fighter-type character. His ultimate goal is to beat the game and get the girl. He wants Vanessa, but winds up realizing that he has always been in love with Lizzie.
Lizzie, the female best friend, would be played by an actress that is breathtakingly beautiful in real life, yet will be shown as Hollywood Ugly. She will be a magician in game and she will be desperately in love with Bastion.
Preston, the Jock Neighbor, will be a complete tool. He likes and respects Bastion, but will never admit it in public. He's also secretly gay and has a clandestine relationship with one of the other football players (who is openly gay). He openly picks on Dylan and other geeks (even Bastion) to deal with his own frustration and sexual identity crises. He will eventually come to terms with his own sexuality and Lizzie will be the person he comes out to first. His character will be a badass sci-fi soldier.
Vanessa will be the Popular Cheerleader With Hidden Depths. She is basically the girl to whom popularity is important, but longs for something more. Physically, she will be the Perfect 10 model, flawless in every way, but she will reveal that her homelife isn't as idyllic as everyone thinks, given that her parents, when they are around, are cold and distant, buying her affections rather than being genuinely caring. Her character will be an inventor from a Steampunk setting, which would give her the ability to show off her extremely high IQ. Through the course of the story, she will discover what having a family is all about, as well as the value of truly caring for someone and having someone that really does care about her. She gravitates towards Bastion, but eventually winds up with Dylan after he nearly dies saving her life.
Dylan will be the Comedic Sidekick who completely in love with Vanessa. This causes some contention between him and Bastion, but it works itself out. He is the only one who truly realizes exactly how smart Vanessa really is. He is consistently and often hilariously treated badly by Vanessa, who knows that he has the hots for her, but not the true depts of his feelings. He will be a werewolf in-game.
The Ivory Tower would be a space station designed to keep The Nothing at bay, but it has been sabotaged by GMORK, and is in severe disrepair.
The Auryn would be an Artifact Of Immense Power that the heroes have to find and use to return the Ivory Tower to its former glory.
Artax would be a mobile command base (mainly a Steampunk design with some high tech addons and magical enchantments) that somehow runs off magic, steam, and high tech fusion power sources.
The Childlike Empress would be the game's nascent AI that manifests itself in game as needed for advice, questions, and game tips. It would, of course, learn and grow as the game goes forward and more people play, but for now, it's in its infancy.
The first movie would consist of the characters finding each other, having misadventures, and running from GMORK's forces. Preston comes out to Lizzie and the two become confidants, each telling the other of their problems in love. Vanessa and Bastion both see this in the wrong way, thinking that Preston and Lizzie are hooking up, though both vehemently deny it. To "punish" Preston for "cheating," Vanessa starts flirting with Bastion, and even kisses him. This causes problems with Dylan, who sees this as Bastion betraying him.
The second movie would start with the group finding the Auryn and losing it to GMORK (as well as very nearly their lives) due to continued anger and mistrust. Seeing that the group is splintering, Lizzie convinces Preston to come out to the rest of the gang. After a big "hug-it-out" session, the gang rallies and defeats GMORK and his forces. Of course, Bastion/Atreyu will be the one to defeat him. During the battle, Dylan is gravely injured when he jumps in front of Vanessa to shield her from damage. She, of course, is astonished that he would do so despite how she treated him. The story would culminate in The Auryn being recovered and the Ivory Tower being repaired, barely in time to save Fantasia from total digital erasure. The heroes are then sent home, but one of them is harboring a secret...
The third movie would take place in The Real World. The Nothing has secretly infected Preston (through the battle with GMORK) and then goes global (putting Preston into a mild coma) and begins taking over all the computer systems in the world. Preston wakes up after a few days, just in time for The Nothing to become a noticeable threat. Through some other technobabble means, the gang is transformed into their virtual counterparts and must now defeat The Nothing in the real world and save Earth. The movie ends with The Nothing blowing up in a typical Baysplosion (don't ask me how), Vanessa asking Dylan if he wants to go out with her (and then kissing him passionately when he just assumes that she is torturing him again), Bastion and Lizzie sitting on his rooftop in the comfortable embrace of true love, and Preston coming out to his parents by bringing his football player boyfriend home.
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Make a few tweaks to the overall plot and actually get a crew that would do it right, and this would be a hell of an action trilogy.
What do you guys think?
Of course, my first thought was "Wow, this will end well..." but then as I was writing, the idea turned out to be pretty freaking awesome.
Here's my response:
***************************************************************************
The Never Ending Story, directed by Michael Bay, would take the basic story of TNES and mix it with TRON, with a dash of The Matrix and Terminator thrown in. It would consist of three films costing over $1 billion total to make.
Bastion, a gaming geek, gets his hands on a new virtual reality video game called The Never Ending Story. He invites four people over (the female best friend, the jock neighbor, the jock neighbor's extremely hot girlfriend, and the comic relief best friend) in order to play the game. Through completely impossible means (lightning strike, someone spills mountain dew on the VR machinery, or another stupid plot hook), the six of them get their consciousnesses sucked into the video game, essentially becoming their characters. However, they would be split up when they arrive, each arriving in their characters' "hometowns".
Fantasia would no longer be a fantasy world. It would now consist of multiple types of fiction, ranging from high fantasy, sci-fi, steampunk, gothic horror, anime, and others, and it would play out tropes to the max.
The Nothing would be a destructive force, bent on destroying the virtual world, and Bay would destroy the entire concept of it by giving it the virtual form of a world-eating machine with billions of moving parts. In the real world, it would be a rampant coding error. It also would not show up until the second movie. In the third movie, it would pull a Skynet and try to eliminate mankind in the name of perfection.
The Gameworld Multitasking Omni-Resolution Kernel (GMORK) would depart from the original and be a game construct in human form. It will be the evil equivalent of TRON, seeing the characters as security breaches and actively trying to destroy them. It has been infected by The Nothing and serves its purposes.
The main character of Bastion would be played by Shia LaBeouf and basically be a carbon copy of Sam Witwicky. He would become Atreyu when he enters the game (basically merging the two characters into one). He would be a bog standard fighter-type character. His ultimate goal is to beat the game and get the girl. He wants Vanessa, but winds up realizing that he has always been in love with Lizzie.
Lizzie, the female best friend, would be played by an actress that is breathtakingly beautiful in real life, yet will be shown as Hollywood Ugly. She will be a magician in game and she will be desperately in love with Bastion.
Preston, the Jock Neighbor, will be a complete tool. He likes and respects Bastion, but will never admit it in public. He's also secretly gay and has a clandestine relationship with one of the other football players (who is openly gay). He openly picks on Dylan and other geeks (even Bastion) to deal with his own frustration and sexual identity crises. He will eventually come to terms with his own sexuality and Lizzie will be the person he comes out to first. His character will be a badass sci-fi soldier.
Vanessa will be the Popular Cheerleader With Hidden Depths. She is basically the girl to whom popularity is important, but longs for something more. Physically, she will be the Perfect 10 model, flawless in every way, but she will reveal that her homelife isn't as idyllic as everyone thinks, given that her parents, when they are around, are cold and distant, buying her affections rather than being genuinely caring. Her character will be an inventor from a Steampunk setting, which would give her the ability to show off her extremely high IQ. Through the course of the story, she will discover what having a family is all about, as well as the value of truly caring for someone and having someone that really does care about her. She gravitates towards Bastion, but eventually winds up with Dylan after he nearly dies saving her life.
Dylan will be the Comedic Sidekick who completely in love with Vanessa. This causes some contention between him and Bastion, but it works itself out. He is the only one who truly realizes exactly how smart Vanessa really is. He is consistently and often hilariously treated badly by Vanessa, who knows that he has the hots for her, but not the true depts of his feelings. He will be a werewolf in-game.
The Ivory Tower would be a space station designed to keep The Nothing at bay, but it has been sabotaged by GMORK, and is in severe disrepair.
The Auryn would be an Artifact Of Immense Power that the heroes have to find and use to return the Ivory Tower to its former glory.
Artax would be a mobile command base (mainly a Steampunk design with some high tech addons and magical enchantments) that somehow runs off magic, steam, and high tech fusion power sources.
The Childlike Empress would be the game's nascent AI that manifests itself in game as needed for advice, questions, and game tips. It would, of course, learn and grow as the game goes forward and more people play, but for now, it's in its infancy.
The first movie would consist of the characters finding each other, having misadventures, and running from GMORK's forces. Preston comes out to Lizzie and the two become confidants, each telling the other of their problems in love. Vanessa and Bastion both see this in the wrong way, thinking that Preston and Lizzie are hooking up, though both vehemently deny it. To "punish" Preston for "cheating," Vanessa starts flirting with Bastion, and even kisses him. This causes problems with Dylan, who sees this as Bastion betraying him.
The second movie would start with the group finding the Auryn and losing it to GMORK (as well as very nearly their lives) due to continued anger and mistrust. Seeing that the group is splintering, Lizzie convinces Preston to come out to the rest of the gang. After a big "hug-it-out" session, the gang rallies and defeats GMORK and his forces. Of course, Bastion/Atreyu will be the one to defeat him. During the battle, Dylan is gravely injured when he jumps in front of Vanessa to shield her from damage. She, of course, is astonished that he would do so despite how she treated him. The story would culminate in The Auryn being recovered and the Ivory Tower being repaired, barely in time to save Fantasia from total digital erasure. The heroes are then sent home, but one of them is harboring a secret...
The third movie would take place in The Real World. The Nothing has secretly infected Preston (through the battle with GMORK) and then goes global (putting Preston into a mild coma) and begins taking over all the computer systems in the world. Preston wakes up after a few days, just in time for The Nothing to become a noticeable threat. Through some other technobabble means, the gang is transformed into their virtual counterparts and must now defeat The Nothing in the real world and save Earth. The movie ends with The Nothing blowing up in a typical Baysplosion (don't ask me how), Vanessa asking Dylan if he wants to go out with her (and then kissing him passionately when he just assumes that she is torturing him again), Bastion and Lizzie sitting on his rooftop in the comfortable embrace of true love, and Preston coming out to his parents by bringing his football player boyfriend home.
***************************************************************************
Make a few tweaks to the overall plot and actually get a crew that would do it right, and this would be a hell of an action trilogy.
What do you guys think?
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just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing someone, lol
