mOOn platOOn

7 regular features updated on odd days

The Bottom Line: This is a blog about mOOn platOOn, by Steve Games. Working in Hollywood but outside the bounds of studio controls, it’s a dream to create a movie – a TV series – a video game, books, interactive website and toys, and this is the beginning.

A Spielberg Phenomenon: Close Encounters of the Malibu-Redondo Beach Kind

He tells a good linear story. The mysterious truck that chases the bewildered driver.* The sea monster that takes on a town and a modern day Ahab.** The alien stranded on Earth who only survives with the help of children.*** The childlike tycoon who resurrects monsters from out of the ancient past.****

The King of Blockbusters, raider of the Hollywood arc, Steven Spielberg. I don’t really know anything about him.

Is he nice? Who knows? Smart? Hmmm….I’d have to guess. The more that I think about what I don’t know, the more I realize that I’ve always assumed certain things about this motion picture “icon.”

I’ve always assumed that he grew up around the business. That from an early age he was supported by his family in his quest to become the King of Hollywood. That his being Jewish didn’t hurt. That film school was a given. That “connections” came easily.

In plain translation I suppose that I’ve always assumed that Spielberg was “set up.” His support system and geographic location made early success possible.

Gosh, this sounds a lot like jealousy.

So now I have to face the fact that Spielberg – even with all of that early momentum – would not have become the ICON without his own dedication to the craft and his unique imagination.

Okay. He was worthy of the support. And he has given back to the community. Amy Irving’s opinion? Who knows? Amy, I suppose. Oi vey.

None of this has anything to do with my main point: I rubbed elbows with Spielberg two days in a row in two completely different places for two completely different reasons. Which struck me as odd.

Have you ever played “Sorry” – the board game? My family played it tonight and some strange things happened. For one thing, I kept drawing the number “7.” Over and over, sometimes several times consecutively. Dr. Sue had the same experience, only with the number “4.” And Adam kept getting out of START instantly (by drawing a “1” or “2”) almost every draw. In fact, all but one!

No matter who shuffled the cards, cut the cards or otherwise mixed the cards up, all three players – Me, Dr. Sue and Adam – each drew the following sequence of numbers once: “2…2…12.” (Drawing a “2” means you get another draw. In each case the next draw was yet another “2.” And then a “12.” Each of us!)

As the game climaxed, all three of us ended up in the same position: 3 of our 4 pieces were “Home” and each of our final pieces stood just ONE SQUARE OUTSIDE HOME. We were in the identical positions, where the first of us to draw a “1” would win.

Two draws later, Adam drew yet another “1.”

If you ask me, that’s a bunch of weird coincidences. Like when one day you’re on the set of Catch Me If You Can in Redondo Beach, as I was, playing the part of some drunk on a stool while Leonardo DiCaprio and Christopher Walken conversed in a booth nearby, and I’m watching Spielberg at work in the corner of my eye…and then when DiCaprio goes over and stands behind Spielberg to watch the shot replayed and looks up for a moment directly at me, right into my eyes for some reason (there’re lots of people around but he looks right at me)…and later when I’m outside crossing the street, Spielberg is crossing the other way (looking at his notes, I think) and we pass in the middle of the street and I’m thinking “I just crossed the street with Steven Spielberg…”…

[Geographic note to readers: That was in Redondo Beach. Malibu – the part I was in the next day – is a good 40 miles north.]

…And then the next day, as I’m walking down Pacific Coast Highway toward my car in Malibu, a car pulls out of a driveway directly in front of me and stops. Who is in the passenger’s seat, looking up at me…?

Steven Spielberg.

It Came From Out Of The Script

In this fragment of a scene, the commander of Moon base Portland, Colonel Hamilton, is struggling to determine the whereabouts of two missing people and identify a UFO when another base official, McVey, calls in with more strange news. With Hamilton are the base doctor and his 2nd in command, Major Munoz. Hamilton has gradually changed over time…

Hamilton is extremely liberated from his ultra-conservative self. Wearing an open shirt, he’s unshaven, hair long and shaggy, eyes dark, skin a ghostly white. His aura of challenge pervades the air. McVey calls in over the intercom preceded by a crackle and beep.

McVEY

Major? I’ve confirmed that two space suits are missing. Repeat: we are two space suits short. There are also air supplies missing, and some minor items.

MAJOR MUNOZ

Roger that.

HAMILTON

So. Two people in comas. Two missing. Two space suits missing. And Storkie says that Puck confirmed that the object he was tracking was artificial. On a course for lunar orbit. Someone else is on the Moon.

DR. CANNADDA

“Someone else?” Who? Who could do that without the world seeing them? Besides us? We have the shuttle program for cover…

MAJOR MUNOZ

That could explain where the missing people are. But there’s no intelligence, no confirmation, no other word on that object, you know, it just passed out of sight. Might’ve kept going beyond the Moon as far as we can tell…

HAMILTON

I say it landed! Do you think the Russians are starving their own people just to sit around and let us get away with this? We get the bomb? They get the bomb! We get a moon base? They get a Moon base!

DR. CANNADDA

There is a possible psychological explanation for the two missing people.  Particularly in Eli’s situation, I would suspect that he was getting an extreme case of what we might think of as the lunar equivalent of “cabin fever.” Maybe an overcast of homesickness, besides.

HAMILTON

Getting buggy from being indoors and away from Earth for too long?

DR. CANNADDA

Exactly. For some individuals, long-term deprivation from such elements as wind, rain, and sunshine directly on the skin, can make a real impact on their brain functions. In desperation, someone confined constantly to interiors as we are here might fight for the illusion of freedom by going out there. And then, it would be easy to become disoriented. Getting lost on the Moon’s surface would be quite easy for someone walking alone.

HAMILTON

I’ve got people accidentally committing suicide?

If I Were Casting Now

The part of Colonel John Hamilton, commander of Moon base Portland, protector of Nixon’s secret plan: Tommy Lee Jones

mOOn platOOn Byproducts

mOOn platOOn Action Figures           A series of super-articulate 6-inch action figures including variations of characters who stretch over the years, appealing to collectors (mainly male) ages 10 – 70. Includes Nixon and Reagan (President Nixon and Moon Nixon) as well as Oberon, Ariel, Zodia, Colonel Hamilton, Major Munoz and a dozen others. Licensed to U.S. toy manufacturers only.

mOOn platOOn Issues

Imagine living in a mall. A very large indoor mall with many levels. Or an enclosed stadium. Or a large, modern prison. Or an aircraft carrier.

Now imagine that same environment transplanted, alone, to the Moon. Safely sealed, your home is a self-contained world that you leave at great risk only in cumbersome armor.

Your limitations now define you. Limited environment. Limited social opportunity. Limited supplies. And then even limited time, to accomplish a mission.

Can you take it? Are YOU a candidate for space migration?

Other Projects By Steve Games

Earthlings Without Earth

A short novel and proposed series of four motion pictures about an old man’s journey into the far future, outliving even Earth. From his old age aboard the space station to his permanent existence in low gravity, his story continues through to the actual creation of time travel – where a surprising, never-before-anticipated phenomenon occurs.

The Cast In Hollywood

95 degrees at noon....

THANKS TO $ CONTRIBUTORS: Chuck Cummings, Gordon Toland

• *Duel

• **Jaws

• ***E.T.

• ****Jurassic Park

Participants can get involved by going to www.paypal.com and sending to stevegames1@yahoo.com through their system.