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.
Atop The World Trade Center Above New York City After My Moment With DeForest Kelley: He’s Dead, Jim. And The Towers, too…
I was 22, out of Portland at a great distance for the first time.
And I was gone where I had never gone before: New York City.
Oh, I had been as far north as the Canadian border. And as far south as Big Sur. But East? East of…say, Hermiston, Oregon? Nope.
Oh, I’d seen the “city.” I grew up in Portland. I’d spent time in Seattle and San Francisco. But New York? Oh my God…
The second full day I was there my neck was sore. I had spent so much time the day before just looking up at the skyscrapers -!
The tallest building in Portland at the time was 44 stories. The average building in NYC seemed to be about 60. At some point NYC had become the showplace for the Next Tallest Building.
I went to the top of the World Trade Center. Twice. You could feel the tower sway with the wind. You had to switch elevators at the 44th floor because it took two maxed-out elevator shafts to get you to the top. One hundred and ten stories, over a mile into the sky. I haven’t been back since they fell. The NYC skyline without them -?
About three years earlier, I became a fan of Star Trek. No, I don’t dress up in Star Fleet or Klingon attire and I’ve never been to a convention. As a late teen, I started watching syndicated reruns of the Kirk-Spock-McCoy originals with my friends after school. But I had ignored the show when it was first aired on the NBC network. I was a kid then and I was hooked on Lost In Space.
When I was a college-age teen, they were showing Star Trek every evening, Monday through Friday, 6pm. Basically we would get home from school, pull out some joints and trip on Trek.
Watching a new episode every evening, we could almost count on Mr. Spock saying “fascinating,” Captain Kirk hitting on an alien or simulated female, and Doctor McCoy saying things like “He’s dead, Jim,” and “Jim, he’s dead,” and “Dammit, I’m a doctor, not a detective.”
On the day when I first went up to the roof of the World Trade Center, I was on 42nd Street with my pal Joey. We were trying to cross the street, mid-afternoon, very busy. Yellow cabs everywhere. Ridiculous. Jamming up in front of us as we stood impatiently waiting to cross.
This one cab pulls up and stops, blocked, right in front of the cross walk. We’re staring down into the rear window because it’s there. And it stays there. And it stays there.
Then I realize that there are three women in the back seat, and a man is sitting across them. That is, he’s laying across their laps, his head propped up slightly and looking up at me.
How lucky, I’m thinking. Those are three nice laps that guy gets to lay across. And he looks pretty darned happy. In fact he’s smiling at me. Why is he smiling at me?
Why he’s bragging, of course. He’s gloating. He’s silently saying “Check this out, pal. I’m in the back seat with three babes. And you’re standing there with Joey.”
But there was something more…
He kept staring at me. Expectantly. What the hell was he waiting for? Was he a pimp or something? Or…?
Wait a minute! That face! He’s a doctor, not a pimp, dammit!
It was Doctor McCoy! Dr. Leonard McCoy of the Starship Enterprise!
Yes, he nodded when my face lit up. That’s right. Now you’re getting’ it. I’m a celebrity, dammit, not a bimbo. It was actor Deforest Kelley, seemingly having the time of his life.
And he laughed as the cab pulled away.
And then we beamed up into the tower. Walking out onto the open roof was daunting.
Those towers were ships crossing the sky on the back on the Earth. There was something solid in their image though they swayed in the atmospheric dance. Only by standing on them or being in them, or by touching them could you tell that they were not solid but fluid giants rising into a new relativity.
May they all ride the skyways forever.
It Came From Out Of The Script
Excerpt from the screenplay mOOn platOOn (registered @ WGA)
It’s January, 1986, and the space shuttle Challenger is about to be launched. The American public and the world have come to take these launches for granted. In fact, a teacher has been placed aboard this flight for public relations purposes. The Soviets are convinced that a crucial weapon component is also being launched aboard the same shuttle covertly to complete a space-based particle beam weapon.
CROSS-FADE TO INT. The Oval Office. Reagan and Bush read an incoming communiqué.
GHW BUSH
It’s from the Kremlin. The translation reads “A final warning to the White House to halt military research in outer space.”
REAGAN
It’s 11:15 and the space shuttle is going to be launched in just a few minutes. Are we in trouble here?
GHW BUSH
There’s no proof that they have capability to hurt Challenger.
REAGAN
Should I call off the launch?
GHW BUSH
I dunno, Mr. President. That’s a tough call. There’s just no proof that they can hurt us. I don’t see how -?
REAGAN
Well, we know that particle beams work. We have ‘em ourselves.
GHW BUSH
Yeah, but -!
REAGAN
And we also know that we can’t monitor all of the surrounding space well enough to be assured that we aren’t being targeted.
GHW BUSH
Were you reading that?
REAGAN
I think we should delay the launch.
GHW BUSH
That’s crazy. Please don’t do that. If you do that, they win this round. They win. And I’m positive that it’s a bluff. I play a lot of poker. Go with me on this one, Ron. It’s all strategy.
REAGAN
Um hmm.
INT. The Kremlin.
SOVIET GENERAL
Tracking devices are on target. We have lift off confirmation. When their space shuttle is 72 seconds into the flight, it will be within reach of the particle beam. Shortly after that, it should explode.
GORBACHEV
What if they declare war?
SOVIET GENERAL
Without proof? Then we have won.
CUT to news footage of Challenger rising into the sky along with Mission Control’s voice casually announcing, “Challenger, you are go for throttle up.” And then the image of the explosion that we all know so well.
SWING the view to the other side of same explosion, looking down on Earth and watching the white clouds of the explosion from farther and farther above until we are backed up to a satellite with a killer ray projector aimed directly at Challenger. It sparks and sizzles as if burned out.
INT. The Oval Office. Reagan has the phone to his ear. Bush is watching. Reagan is somber. He hears news of the Challenger explosion. He slowly puts the phone down.
REAGAN
Those Commie bastards.
GHW BUSH
We’re tracking the location that the beam was fired from right now. We’re –
REAGAN
I think I have your proof that they can hurt Challenger.
GWH BUSH
Well now, that’s a -!
REAGAN
In fact it seems they can blow the whole thing up!
GHW BUSH
What the hell is wrong with our intelligence that we can’t get a grip on…?
REAGAN
That’s what I’m asking you! As former head of the CIA, you’re overseeing the operation!
GHW BUSH
Yes, but it’s your administration, your appointees, your pals who run things these days. They don’t want to give me the information I need.
REAGAN
Here’s all the information you need, George: unless you want to go back on the international funeral circuit, you had better get your intelligence in order. There’s never gonna be a “President Bush” unless you stop beating around one and get your act together. My people are under orders to give you full cooperation. Any questions?
Bush takes several measured steps toward The President as if gearing up to challenge him. Reagan takes notice and stands a bit taller, cocking an eyebrow. Bush stops advancing.
GHW BUSH
Did you ever see The China Syndrome?
If I Were Casting Now
The part of George Herbert Walker Bush, Vice President of the United States and former head of the CIA: James Sikking (Hill Street Blues, Lt. Hunter 92 episodes)
mOOn platOOn Byproducts
mOOn platOOn An ongoing fictional TV series for a network like HBO, the Sci Fi Channel or Showtime, taking place during the period 1982 - 1988 on the Moon. Located in Moonbase Portland, the series revolves around many of the other 37 inhabitants that we did not have a chance to meet in the motion picture. With a limited but diverse social scene and the ongoing weirdness of living in space upon the Moon, the series reels with mysterious occurrences, 80s nostalgia and strange phenomena. A sci-fi psychological comedra.
mOOn platOOn Issues
In our story, Oberon and Shellie can't keep their relationship together even though all of the outward indicators seem compatible. They are both attractive, intelligent and educated and have a genuine affection and attraction, but...
There's something in the chemistry between Oberon and Ariel that transcends the obvious. Even though they're from "different worlds" they cannot resist one another.
Have you ever experienced this kind of "chemistry?" Do you believe it's real?
Other Projects By Steve Games
Invaders From Earth
Premise for a Novel by Steve Games
It’s holiday season, December, 2110.
A family is laughing and lounging together in their home.
The peaceful, common scene is disrupted when a living water creature smashes through the floor and takes two children. Into the ground it goes with them, pulling mud in behind and closing the hole up. The frantic family cries out and claws at the debris.
An emergency meeting of the village reveals that we are on Mars. The water creature has been seen in the great caverns, but never encountered so closely or so confirmably. Perhaps the stories of the Old Man are true…?
The Old Man, the only person still here from the very beginning in 2035, told of many strange things he’d seen and heard of from the caverns of Mars. But those old tales seemed irrelevant with the growth of civilization on Mars these days and the lack of any interaction with Submartians or proof of their existence.
But no one was pouring money into exploring Inner Mars. The wondrous labyrinths woven throughout the red world’s interior were discovered by the Old Man and his companions back in the 40s. News of the discovery raised a stir at first.
They followed the tunnels for miles, astonished at the cathedral-sized hollows, the stadium-proportioned caves that many tunnels would open into. They found chains of voids that would take years to map, going ever-deeper below the surface of Mars. Had these funnels been carved by water?
And then water found them.
One member of the expedition spotted a still pond that seemed to be liquid, perhaps even water. He drew closer and tossed a rock into it. The “pond” reacted by springing from a stationary position into an active flowing intelligence driven to defend itself.
The legend was that several bodies of water appeared, moving independently through the caves, like living floods, like that thing that took the children, and these water creatures took several of the explonauts away. They were never seen again.
The surviving explonauts struggled to return to their civilization on the surface of Mars, but were cut off by even more and diverse creatures along the way. Because of poor lighting, strained equipment and weakened stamina, confusion doomed many more of the party.
The Old Man, in his 20s at the time, was the only one to return to the surface, where a routine patrol found him on the outskirts in a coma.
Parties searched as best they could a fraction of the mammoth underground for the others. Even the most sensitive searchbots found no remainders. The Old Man’s memory of the event was suppressed. The idea gestated that the Old Man may have gone insane inside the planet and killed his fellow explorers, so deep in the puzzle they would never be found.
After that, the years went on and no resolution emerged. The Old Man was considered an eccentric and kept at arm’s length by most, but even scientists had little interest at the time in going deeper than a few miles into the vast underground system.
But lately, some young folks have taken interest in the depths of Mars’ interior. And again, reports have generated. Creatures. Beings. “Things.”
And now this.
Turns out that Martian life is based upon underground microbes. It has taken on many forms for 3 billion years, and now thrives in great numbers throughout the interior of Mars, from near the surface itself to as deep as 900 kilometers.
Near the surface, and down to 20 kilometers, dwell the water creatures, each the size of a small river, able to join together, pool, or break away individually, always liquid. Banded together, hundreds are able to flow upon the surface of Mars temporarily, and will do so in search of new minerals or things landed from the sky, but must re-submerge and live mostly below the surface, sheltered by the nurturing inner planet. The Aquas can’t exist below 400 kilometers underground because they will vaporize at those temperatures.
The deepest creatures are the Plasms. They are hot, super-dense, lava-bathing, starfish-shaped beings radiating both heat and light. They move with great speed, almost spider-like but more flowing. They cannot survive above 500 kilometers below the surface. It’s too cold for them up there. A human comfort zone would be like a deep freeze for the Plasms.
Between those extremes lives an intelligence equal to humanity’s, belonging to a partnership of underground Martians that is not happy to have their world invaded by extramartianials.
Earthlings have been living on Mars for 75 years, now. In a few places, they’ve comfortably settled in, even had a couple of new generations born. Life is getting routine on Mars. But the floor is about to crumble.
The natives are out to stop the Invaders From Earth.
The Cast In Hollywood
A temporary heat wave is again seizing the land. KEEP THOSE BLASTED CIGARETTE BUTTS TO YOURSELF! USE YOUR ASHTRAYS!
Participants can get involved by going to www.paypal.com and sending to stevegames1@yahoo.com through their system.
It is critical at this time that producers of mOOn platOOn step up. Build the new tomorrow today.
