Recombinant Sci-Fi: One New Story from Many Old Ideas

A while ago I posted a blog concerning screenplay ideas. After receiving absolutely no help from you, my so-called loyal readers, I narrowed my choices down to two.

The first, a half-fiction, half-fact World War II script, I had been working on for quite some time. While the actual screenplay portion of it has never been started, the research portion of it is almost complete, and I've a veritable goldmine of plot and action. Still, the time didn't seem quite right to hit this one full speed.

So, I picked the second... a sci-fi horror that I had mentioned in the previous blog, but heavily, heavily modified. So heavily modified, in fact, it no longer encompasses the single project, but is now a combination of three projects I had started, as well as three existing movies you've no doubt all seen.

Anyway, it's called The Gate, and it's coming together nicely. I don't want to give anything away, but let's just say the overall premise is another combination of ideas... this one of Aliens and Doom (don't ask).

As I began writing the first draft months ago, I realized that the story, though attempting to be profound, lacked a lot of what makes a good science fiction movie (namely, pacing and action), so I had to take a step back and look at it from a different angle. And, finally, I think I found it.

Basically, I took two other treatments I started (one an obvious will-never-get-made Star Trek treatment and the other a quasi-wannabe-Battlestar Galactica-esque story) and merged them into The Gate. In addition, I took heavy inspiration from Halo, Starship Troopers (the book, actually), and even Return of the Jedi.

Well, I only mention Halo and Starship Troopers because any reader of my script will likely make those connections, mainly due to the likelihood that any reader of my script probably won't have any military experience, which is where the true inspiration came from.

What I am left with is four stories in one. One of the male protagonist, one of the female protagonist, one of the sci-fi/horror/moral aspect, and one of the sci-fi/war aspect. Which, hopefully, will give me plenty to fill 120 to 150 pages of script.

How I decided upon this, I'll never really know. Writing is such a funny game to play.