Help, Need MORE help on my screenplay!

[romantico]

Last week I posted a question here in the lounge asking for a name for a town in Illinois.Well, You gave me many suggestions & I have narrowed it down to 4. As of this afternoon, I wrote myself into another corner, hopefully some here can help.

As I mentioned, this story is about a UFO sighting in a small midwestern town & how this affects the people. The town witnesses dancing lights in the sky,cattle mutilations near the grain elevator,etc.Well, theres a guy who owns a farm & one day we suddenly see about 18-20 people standing guard outside the barn armed.As if they were protecting or guarding something. These people are gonna be what I call Freeper-esque.Dressed in camoflauge & Army fatigues,sporting a NRA t-shirt or a 'God Bless Bush & the USA' t-shirts,etc. they are more or less militia.Now, politics is not a focus, but I want people to know these are rather conservative people who need answers to everything.God or the bible is all you need in life type of people.If they see lights in the sky, they MUST be angels dancing.If they see a gray alien, its Satan.They question these UFO events as being signs from God & nothing else.

So, back to the barn. I want to dismiss the obvious.No, they are not guarding an alien or UFO debris. My question, what is in the barn? I thought about something like the fuselage of a WWII Foo fighter w/a swa stick on it but with very advanced technological instruments.Not like space age,but something highly advanced for WWII like a digital radio or a plasma screen navigational monitor or touch screen NOAH radio/digital communications,etc.

I am not approaching this like a UFO/outer space theory.More or less a dimensional theory.(could this town be a exit on a dimensional highway?)Even thought about a painting in the town hall of early settlers in 1776 & seeing strange things like a soldier wearing white shoes w/the NIKE swoosh on them or something settle yet obvious upon further inspection. So, my question is what could be in that barn? Something no one will figure out. I keep hoping I can think of something like the end of the original Planet of the Apes movie.Something that makes the viewer say, "DEAR JESUS!I DON'T BELIEVE IT!!!"

[MrBenchley]

1. What do we get for helping?

How about something simple...like a box that's much bigger on the inside than on the outside...

Or a door in a frame: it opens to another time and place, but closed, there's just the barn on the other side....

[LunaSea]

6. A hypercube...

but I'm not sure when the concept originated.

Ever read Edwin Abbotts "Flatland"? Might be some ideas there.

I would agree that its not a good idea to share your story with the public unless you can smile when you see someone steal your plot and profit from it.

[MrBenchley]

8. Exactly

The wonderful thing about the gimmick is that it can be done without an expensive computer effect if you enlist a magician's help...

(Ever see "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid"? Steve Martin picks up a tiny paper sack and shakes about twenty pounds of ground coffee out of it....)

[newyawker99]

13. Hi LunaSea!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[wyldwolf]

2. Here's some advice from someone who has been there...

DON'T share your plot in a public setting.

[tjdee]

9. How would you get feedback then?

If you've been there, I defer to your better judgment, but what of the thousands of people in writers' workshops, etc.?

[hotphlash]

10. Trust Wolf...

and me. The people in those workshops SHOULD at least register with the WGA (Writers Guild of America) for some protection.

[newyawker99]

14. Congrats hotphlash!! 500 posts

:toast:

[flyingfish]

3. This always works

Some hot college coeds who happened to get lost one night because their car breaks down on a lonely, rural road, came across the barn, and were sleeping in it.
Nude.
Because they got caught in a rainstorm and needed to dry out their clothes.
Lucky you come across the barn and save the day and it is the start of a wonderful relationship with the horniest sorority in America.
Hence
the
DEAR JESUS! I DON"T BELIEVE IT!
Makes perfect sense.

[wryter2000]

4. A sled that says "Rosebud"?

Sorry, I'm blanking.

The Holy Grail?

[romantico]

5. I figure

I'm gonna have to credit DU if I keep this up!I've already copyrighted the story treatment.I did that last spring.Have all my paper work & the registration number,so I'm not that worried.

[LunaSea]

7. good for you!

I hope it sticks.
Look me up when your ready to think about jacket art.

[nuxvomica]

11. A simian Abe Lincoln

:) I'm actually trying to think about something and I'll post if a do. But I suggest you re-think the town hall painting. It's a nice touch but you have to remember that the painter is going to be possibly several decades removed from the scene he is painting and that would indicate Nikes found there way to his time period, in which case he would avoid such an anachronism in the painting.

[nuxvomica]

12. alright, so I said I'd post something and here it is

This is the germ of an idea. I know the whole religious angle is kind of jejune, but, whatever…

The town has a rip in time and space and the freepers have learned to navigate it. At first, they tried to change history (opening scene: stormtroopers at the Continental Congress) but discover that whenever they do so, a completely improbable event prevents it. This then is the odd solution to the “grandfather paradox” of time travel. But they can retrieve things from the past as long as history doesn’t miss them. To realize their vision of the world turned into a totalitarian militaristic corporate slave state, they decide to capture Jesus Christ and exploit His influence on the world's Christians to foment a religious war from which their fascist overlords would rise victorious.
But each time they try to capture Him He eludes them (by some improbable event as I said before). Someone gets the bright idea that there was a specific time during His existence on Earth when He would be most vulnerable – the Crucifixion. They replace Him when no one’s looking and fake an ascension with a theatrical dummy so that history doesn’t change.
In the barn is a large cross on which our Lord still hangs, suffering.
Why don't they remove him from the cross?

I think this would play as a metaphor of how fascist interests in this country exploit Christianity for un-Christian purposes.