rock overlooking the
lake. The waters color changes again, to a deep purple,
then blue again, then red, then indigo.
WOMAN (VO)
And that day, your father
got better. He named you Lhamo.
"The Protector."
BOY (VO)
I know.
Silence.
The noblemen and monks surround Reting as he steps out of
the palanquin.
One man stands out here, a monk, a high lama in fact, with a
kind face and fantastic, mesmerizing
All we can see, filling the entire frame is a flame-orange sky... almost like the sky from the burning of Atlanta in "Gone with the Wind".
SUPERIMPOSE: Presenter credit
PAN DOWN lower and lower until we see the terrain below... the desert. There is no vegetation whatever, just sand and odd-shaped rock formations. The air is filled with red dust, which alternately obscures and then reveals the ima
CAFETERIA - DAY
Fun-time. Total chaos. If youve been to high-school you know the riff.
Bad food, teen-age melodrama, and a squadron of SUPERVISORS trying to keep
a lid on things.
ALEX
makes her way to the far corner of the cafeteria where a cluster of kids
lounge around a table. These are Alexs FRIENDS. And while none of them
are your garden variety pocket-protector-type nerds, these k
rock, fellas. One-one-niner.
-Beautiful. -There it is again. There it is again.
Voltage down to .
-Can you repo the solar arrays? - Uh, negative.
M.P.C. load is critical.
-Mars surface ops, were losing the signal.
-Were losing the signal here!
Roger that. Transmission terminated.
-Well, people, congratulations.
We collected data on over a dozen new rocks.
Id say this was five years and three tril
Garden and Billiards and the walls are
just boards so you can hear whats happening in the other
rooms and right now, from DELILAHS room, you can hear a
high-pitched, merry little giggle and thats important.
WRITTEN WORDS (crawl contd.)
She bore him two children in the
eight years of their marriage and
when she died, it was not at his
hands as her mother might have
expected, but of smallpox. That
rock and the Iowering skies.
Oh, mercifuI God,
Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ...
Though Heathcliff became
Mr. Earnshaws favorite chiId,
his protection was limited
by the Iength
of the oId mans life.
...shall not die eternally.
You have aIso taught us
by His hoIy apostIe St. PauI...
Grant this, we beseech Thee,
O mercifuI Father,
through Jesus Christ,
Amen.
Your quarters are in
the stabIes from n
garden.
Hey, at least this isnt
The Wally Sparks Show.
Id like to have all the girls
Wally turned down.
Yeah? Id like to have all
the girls you turned over.
Ha ha ha!
Oh!
Our guests today all live far
beyond the borders of normalcy.
Everybody,
Id like you to meet...
the man who has fallen in love
with the family dog...
Harry Karp and Queenie.
No wonder all the critics are saying
talk shows are go
garden and chases her nasty old
cat every day.
AUNT EM
Seventy -- Dorothy, please!
DOROTHY
Oh, but he doesnt do it every day -- just
once or twice a week. And he cant catch
her old cat, anyway. And now she says shes
gonna get the sheriff, and --
AUNT EM
Dorothy! Dorothy! Were busy!
DOROTHY
Oh -- all right.
MCS - Aunt Em and Uncle Henry taking chicks out of incubator -
UNCLE HENRY
Poor little orph
GLADIATOR
by
David Franzoni
FIRST DRAFT REVISED
April 4, 1998
FADE IN:
EXT. NEAR THE GERMAN FRONT - 180 A.D. - DAWN
The rising sun unveils steep hills and luxuriant mountains
untouched by man. Snow flurries dart in the frigid air
and on the horizon CROWS gather.
EXT. DIRT ROAD
A column of Praetorian Cavalry flank two enclosed wagons
as they rattle along a rock and log accordion road. On
all sides
garden
of the sons, an infantile idyll.
Nature, sex,
eroticism in chaste playfulness -
like the water in the fountain:
A transparent dome
masking a statue of a siren.
The youth in white breeches and the girl
with the Cul de Paris play hide and seek.
Their game a dance, a pas-de-deux.
Allusion, yet so intensely innocent
that we do not actually expect
a real kiss.
Instead an expectant glance -
musi