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Playing with Structure: "Death Flight" (Page 1 of 2)
Friends In Your Head | Forums → Off Topic → Playing with Structure: "Death Flight"
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2 2010-08-06 09:03:29 (edited by Brian 2010-08-06 09:03:45)
Re: Playing with Structure: "Death Flight"
Wow, neat. I always feel like I'm better at finding payoffs versus setups, so I'm going to jump in towards the end, but this should be interesting.
3 2010-08-06 15:10:17 (edited by Zarban 2010-08-06 15:16:32)
- Zarban
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Re: Playing with Structure: "Death Flight"
- Teague
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Re: Playing with Structure: "Death Flight"
Awesome!
- BigDamnArtist
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Re: Playing with Structure: "Death Flight"
Alright alright ALRIGHT, hoooooold up a minute. I have to be that guy right now, because no else seems to want to take it up.
Firstly I would like to point out the irony of trying to write a "prefect movie" with the concept of trapped on a plane and aren't allowed to land. I believe someone gave us several good reasons why this would never ever actually happen, in a certain Die Hard commentary.
Alright so that aside, our basic premise so far is that an air borne deadly contagion (It must be airborne to get from the lower fuselage all the way into the passenger cabin, unless of course you want to play the ole "well a piece of shrapnel pierced the carton and then hit someone in the chest" card) is let loose on in an airplane mid flight and, logically, that plane is banned from landing anywhere.
Okay...let me break this down...Air Borne Contagion: A virus needing and using air to survive and spread. And as we all know, planes fly in a completely air free zone where absolutely no infected air can escape and infect the entire planet when the belly of that plane explodes, causing "many onboard injuries and maybe death"....except...wait.....shit.
So we have half an airplane coasting through the skies leaking contaminated air across the entire northern hemisphere as it circles above waiting to be able to land. Oh yeah, smart plan there guys...Are we sure these guys are actually on our side?
But what if the plane stays pressurized you ask? Well well, lets take a look at that one shall we....
So, we have a completely air tight airplane filled with a vicious contagion that spreads through air...alright...how about this...we land the completely air tight plane, that can in no way leak any bad little buggers into our precious safe air, we taxi it over to a really big hazmat tent. Seal it all up nice and tight like you do, and we crack the airplane and VOILA! We have a safe contained virus outbreak.
And hell, since I'm on a role...
@Zarban: can you please explain to me how crashing an infected plane filled with innocent civilians into the ocean releasing a deadly virus into the air while simultaneously killing most of the people on board, is the "logical" thing to do?
"If they somehow get the disabled plane to a rural airfield where they can quarantine it "
As opposed to the nice big open airstrip half a mile back with a nice smooth runway that we can land on and then move the thing into quarantine?
Sorry guys, but until you can logical explain these massive gaps in logic I'll never be able to buy this a "perfect" movie candidate, hell I probably wouldn't even consider a good movie...unless of course I am miraculously floored by the stunning wit and cleverness of the writing....delivered by Alan Tudyk.
(Please consider that the tone of this was jest but the points I make aren't, I seriously think this entire concept is flawed from the start)
ZangrethorDigital.ca
6 2010-08-08 00:43:44 (edited by ShadowDuelist 2010-08-08 00:44:32)
- ShadowDuelist
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Re: Playing with Structure: "Death Flight"
9 2010-08-08 08:42:19 (edited by Zarban 2010-08-20 13:37:36)
- Zarban
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Re: Playing with Structure: "Death Flight"
Re: Playing with Structure: "Death Flight"
Ever read "The Hot Zone?" The hard part about telling a story about hemorrhagic fever is making it sound even remotely plausible. Truth is stranger than … and so on.
- Teague
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Re: Playing with Structure: "Death Flight"
We could also go full retard and make it an exploitation film. People just start falling apart because of bullshit science. Add some Wu Tang and funky color correction, cast Bruce, call it a day and rake in the $2 million from DVD rentals.
Just sayin,' it's an option.
If not, I think keeping it on the plane will be the least difficult on the audience...but taking it to the CDC or mission control would be the least difficult on the writers. Easier to convey information to the audience if there's someone there just saying it. We could also have a CDC guy on the plane, who was travelling...with...the...nevermind, not gonna work. If he was there, then there would surely be more to-do about protecting the organ and the passengers.
Unless this is an under-the-radar operation. Maybe in the initial stages of her dissection, they realized she was immune to XYZ, and the doctor who noticed it clandestinely pocketed a chunk of her liver because he knew how much he could make selling it to some black market pharma dude Stateside. It's possible over the course of his traveling with said organ, Bradley Cooper has become sick, and therefore spreads a lot of this virus she was riddled with but unaffected by. (When he, ha, sublimates.) That gives us a bunch of sick people who don't know the antidote is present on the plane.
14 2010-08-08 09:16:20 (edited by Jeffery Harrell 2010-08-08 09:17:33)
Re: Playing with Structure: "Death Flight"
Re: Playing with Structure: "Death Flight"
Eh, I say we reach for the brass ring and try to justify everything as best we can, even already acknowledging that the premise isn't the most grounded (HA!).
If we fall short, well, it's a thread on the Internet, we won't have lost much.
Re: Playing with Structure: "Death Flight"
You even went for authentic livery. Impressive.
The suits are probably gonna make us set the opening in Equatorial Kundu, though, for legal reasons.
Re: Playing with Structure: "Death Flight"
(Er. Except we'd need a reason why the plane isn't simply diverted to a military airfield in Alaska and the passengers put into quarantine and treated. Damn.)
- ShadowDuelist
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Re: Playing with Structure: "Death Flight"
But what if it turns out to be a zombie virus? The people on the ground know this, and they do not what that shit in the US, no matter how tight the quarantine. For most of the movie it appears to be what Jeffery described, but just when it looks like they might make it, it's revealed that the military is going to blow the plane once it's over water and people start turning into zombies. However, some of the passengers are shown to be immune to the virus, and, realizing what's happening, are determined to find a way to survive.
- Zarban
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Re: Playing with Structure: "Death Flight"
Re: Playing with Structure: "Death Flight"
Don't let me drag you down, Zarban. It's just my process.
- Teague
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Re: Playing with Structure: "Death Flight"
I like Zarban's idea.
- redxavier
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Re: Playing with Structure: "Death Flight"
I feel you can't really have a story about a plane potentially going down and killing everyone on board without having at least one protagonist on board, or somebody intimately connected to your protagonist on the ground - you'll remember Die Hard II put McClane's wife on board one of the planes. So the story should definitely follow somebody on the plane. And when you have one person, unless he's a single pilot locked in the cockpit, he'll need other characters to interact with.
Or maybe that's the way to go - have the story be about the pilot who's flying the plane, a plane full of highly contagious 'Captain Trips' level infected people. He has to wrestle with the dilemma - does he sacrifice himself and crash into the ocean, does he attempt to land the plane with the help of ground control and the kind female voice at the other end, or does he follow a mysterious third party who insists that he land at a military base? What does his more experienced 'veteran but passed over for captain too many times' chip on his shoulder co-pilot think? And what about the passengers, who are trying to get into the cabin to stop him from killing them all even though they're doomed?
So you have conflicts set up multiple ways - with himself (he has a family waiting for him), with his copilot in the cabin (an uncertain ally), with the increasingly angry crowd trying to bash their way to him (and who try to sabotage the plane any which way they can), with ground control, and with the military (who come the climax could attempt to force the plane to divert).
Following problem solvers on the ground, who are in no danger themselves, lacks dramatic punch and you have to invent some bullshit reason about why they are doing what they're doing if they don't have somebody on the plane they know. 'I lost my little brother down a well when I was 11 and now I want to save everyone I can'. Reluctant heroes, ordinary people thrown into extraordinary situations, are arguably more engaging protagonists, and the scientist on the ground in his lab isn't in that extraordinary situation (he's just more stressed). It's perfect for a subplot though, the race against time that we return to every few scenes to get a break from the plane itself - although I like the idea of keeping all the action on the plane. We just hear about the scientists from the military guy, is he even telling the truth? And all we have of ground control is this measured and encouraging female voice, who seems to be saying all the rights things but is just a little too good to be true. Heck, it sounds like it's an automated voice sometimes...
As a huge fan of the Outer Limits, I'd have the ending be a real punch in the guts. With the co-pilot, who's become infected as well, forcibly overcoming our younger protagonist and landing the plane at the military base with its promise of a cure. Leaving our young captain tied up, the co-pilot opens the cabin door to see that the rest of the passengers have all died. He walks over and in between their bodies, somewhat horrified since this is his fate and then opens the plane door. He looks out to see an army of fully HAZMAT equipped soldiers pointing rifles at him. They fire and he crumples backwards into the plane where he can be seen by the captain. Soldiers board the plane and as the captain watches helplessly a soldier shoots the moaning co-pilot again in the head. Soldiers walk to the cockpit, pick the captain up and take him away. Outside over the shoulder of his apparent rescuer he sees the soldiers torching the plane with flamethrowers. Wide shot of him being carrried to a large complex of white tents. Roll credits.
Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere. - Carl Sagan
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