The Martian Comical
I have movie idea. It might work best as an animated short, but Pixar would want a slice, and then the merchandising would ruin everything. Anyway, here’s the idea:
The year is 2205. The Earth is ruled by a western hegemony, loosely American. (For ease of use. We don’t want the audience to get confused by the Chinese and Hindi speaking reality of the future). The population has risen, but stabilized at an even ten billion: Five billion human beings, and five billion lawyers.
That’s right: Every human being has their own personal lawyer.
The typical day starts for the typical family. Morning breaks, and the children rise and promptly sue their parents for breakfast. The parents counter-sue for hardship, which is muddled by suits against each other over who last made breakfast. Furthermore, the children file lawsuits against each other, because little Dylan wants pancakes, while little Dakota wants Corn Flakes. The lawyers confer, and the issue is settled around noon, with the following result:
The family makes the lawyers’ breakfast.
And so life on Earth continues, until one day, aliens from a far distant star land on the planet. Technologically advanced to the point of superscience, they have come to make contact with other beings.
Unfortunately, they are the exactly the same size, shape, color, odor, and texture as marshmallows. They’re called – ready? – Marsh-ians. Sadly, the first person they encounter is a 10 year-old boy, who promptly stuffs the entire away team into his mouth and eats them.
Then the shit hits the fan. (And 27 people sue the fan’s manufacturer when the shit flies all over them. But I digress.)
The Marsh-ians respond the only way they know how: By taking the Earth to Intergalactic Court, and suing them for ownership of the planet. The Earth responds the only way it knows how: Everybody sues everybody else. 9,999,999,999 people sue the boy who ate the Marsh-ians, the boy counter-sues for malicious litigation, his parents sue each other over who is responsible for their son’s actions – you get the idea.
Meanwhile, in Intergalactic Court, Earth is getting it’s ass kicked. Our lawyers are no match for the Marsh-ians, who are light-years ahead of us in legal technology. They’re running circles around our lawyers with Gamma-ray-laser-guided writs, filing hyperspace motions, and all kinds of crazy shit. The best that Earth’s lawyers can manage is some weak-ass motion to dismiss based on being unable to get a fair trial due to our legal inferiority.
The future looks dim. Until…
Our leaders, seeing that we’re going to lose – and badly – swing into action. A bold, daring, decisive, and just-so-crazy-it-might-work idea is immediately acted upon. (Bold and immediate action? From our leaders?!? Remember, it’s science fiction.) They decide to thaw out the Earth’s last remaining stand-up comedian, currently serving an indefinite cryogenic sentence for causing mental hardship to 200 residents of Buffalo, New York by making fun of the Bills nearly 150 years ago. (He is obviously played by me. It’s my fucking movie.) They explain the situation to him, fast-track him through the bar exam (in a moving, Eye Of The Tiger montage), and turn him loose upon the Intergalactic Court.
The results are devastating to the Marsh-ians. “What the fuck were you thinking?” asks the comedian. “I mean, with all your super-advanced technology, you didn’t bother to observe us for the ten minutes it would have taken to find out you look like something we eat?!? That’s like (something something Monica Lewinski hacky hack hack), or like me expecting nobody to realize this whole thing is essentially ripped off from Woody Allen! Tip your waitstaff!”
This proves to be the Marsh-ians undoing. Advanced as they are in law, they left common sense behind thousands of years ago, and physiologically cannot tolerate it. Their tiny, delicious bodies explode upon hearing common sense uttered. The case is thrown out of court. (Get it?!? Because the Martians in War Of The Worlds were killed by the common cold, and these Marsh-ians are killed by common sense! HAHAHAHA! Of course, I’m speaking of the original H.G. Wells story, not the Tom Cruise movie. In the Tom Cruise movie, the invaders were evil psychiatrists, and were killed by money. That’s a Scientology joke.)
Sadly, this only pisses the Marsh-ians off even more. They assemble a massive armada and head for Earth, with the intention of blowing it into tiny, Lucky-Charms-sized marshmallows. The Earth must defend itself with the only effective weapon they have: Common Sense. However, humans were well on their way to becoming like the Marsh-ians, and must now fake common sense. After a one-hour television special, in which the comedian explains common sense (and claims to have “killed”), the Earth begins to go through the motions of common sense. They tear off warning labels, like Warning: Drinking Budweiser will not make sexy models like you. It will make you fat and stupid, or Warning: Guns actually do kill people. Do not point at anyone and squeeze trigger. They stop suing each other. They stop paying baseball players twenty billion per year. They throw their Bibles, Torahs, and Qur’ans into the trash. All award shows are canceled, and celebrities are forced to develop self-esteem.
The Marsh-ian fleet is thwarted. Their starships explode upon entry into orbit, unable to shield their occupants from the onslaught of reason.
Unfortunately, there are still five billion lawyers on the planet, who realize that if common sense becomes common, they’re all out of a job, so they betray the human race, throwing in with the Marsh-ians.
I can’t decide how it ends. My only idea is to have the humans build an enormous rocket that looks like an ambulance and shoot it into the sun, whereupon all the lawyers chase it to their deaths.
Maybe you can help.
Tags: Entertainment, Humor, Musings
This entry was posted on Monday, March 16th, 2009 at 10:22 AM and is filed under Complete Absurdity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.