remnants
of our people to the east.
Some managed to survive here
for all these years,
but the blood of our tribe has grown
thinner and weaker with each generation.
Now our last prince must cut his
hair and leave us, never to return?
Sometimes I think the gods
are laughing at us.
Our laws forbid us from watching you go,
Ashitaka.
Whatever comes to pass now,
you are dead to us forever.
Farewell.
-
RETURN OF THE APES
by Terry Hayes
first draft
1996
DEEP SPACE.
No atmosphere, no life, nothing. Just a web of lights- a billion stars hang
in a velvet void. The only sound is the howl of the cosmic wind.
The light of a distant sun strikes a rising planet. We see ragged
continents and oceans wreathed in cloud. This is earth rise. Our world
spins slowly in space, a thing of beauty, of awesome majes
As the C-130 coasts to a stop, the hatch rotating down on a hot, dusty lifeless airstrip somewhere in Vietnam. Nothing seems to live or move in the midday sun.
TITLES RUN
A DOZEN NEW RECRUITS step off the plane, unloading their duffel bags, looking around like only the new can look around, their hair regulation-clipped, crisp, new green fatigues fitting them like cardboard.
CHRIS TAYLOR is just a
TRACKING DOWN the line of empty, open capsules. Frozen twilight. The final four capsules are sealed, lids in place.
ANGLE - INSIDE CAPSULE
NEWT, then RIPLEY. HICKS next, his head and chest bandaged. Then BISHOP in his caul of plastic. But the lid of Bishops capsule is misted with hothouse condensation.
CLOSER
A tear of fluid streaks the condensation.
An alarm SOUNDS.
A monitor begins to scroll da
SUPERMAN LIVES
??
Written by
Kevin Smith
??
??
EXT. SPACE
An Alien craft floats through the void, approaching a slow-moving
ASTEROID.
INT. ALIEN CRAFT
Two humanoid ALIENS dressed in uniforms pilot their craft nearer
to the asteroid.
ALIEN #1
Receiving a signal from an alien system,
but theres interference on the channels.
ALIEN #2
Once we get past this asteroid, it should
clear up.
Suddenly, THRO