Some time ago, I got to thinking about the media’s famed trend of making so called “gritty reboots.” Dark, seriously toned works based on lighthearted source material, such as children’s cartoon. In thinking about this, I considered, what would be the most ridiculous title to do that to? That train of thought cascaded into the following, a screenplay for the trailer of The Least Likely Gritty-Reboot Ever. Note that this is just a trailer, I don’t have anything close to a whole movie planned out.
FADE IN
EXT. A CITYSCAPE – DAY. The city appears almost futuristic, glass spires rising up in ways that just barely defy modern architecture. It is a great metropolis. But it is damaged. Buildings seem damaged here and there, scorched in places, even high up, as if the setting of a very gradual war. The distinct impression given is of a once prominent city that is just on the verge of falling truly into ruin.
NARRATOR
The City of Townsville.
FLASHES of tactical policemen in armor. Monsters rampaging through the city
NARRATOR
Once, a haven for scientists, and genetic engineers
FLASHES of monstrous criminals, escaped experiments run amok and turned to violent crime.
NARRATOR
Now, tormented by the fruits of their labor.
INT. COURTROOM – a tribunal of JUDGES watches looms over PROFESSOR, a tall, scholarly young man in prison garb. As the JUDGE speaks, flashes are shown of an earlier police raid on PROFESSOR’s lab, in which a chimp crashes into a set of chemicals; of PROFESSOR returning to the same damaged lab and walking defeatedly among the wrecked instruments.
JUDGE
Professor John Utonium. Given the…lax nature of your crimes, this tribunal has agreed that you are to be paroled. On the condition that you swear to never again participate in the science of Genetic Engineering. Do you so swear?
PROFESSOR
I swear.
CUT TO the PROFESSOR determinedly righting a piece of toppled lab equipment; filling test tubes; totally doing science
PROFESSOR sits in a desk chair speaking into a recording device. Something like a fish tank sits on a table behind him, with three small, vaguely fetal-looking forms floating among the fluid, each connected to a cord built into the tank.
PROFESSOR
(taking notes)
No less than three of the embryos are showing unprecedented growth.
The three EMBRYOS slowly rise out of the tub and into the air of heir own volition, seemingly defying physics. PROFESSOR is facing the other way.
PROFESSOR
The subjects are deformed, with enlarged craniums, and no sign of the development of digits. However, they appear perfectly symmetrical, and healthy. I can’t explain––
The PROFESSOR turns in his chair and sees the three floating forms, staggering back in shock.
CLOSE UP on the eye of one of the floating EMBRYOS as it opens, revealing a contracting pink iris.
INT. PROFESSOR’S HOUSE – LIVING ROOM – The PROFESSOR paces around the room, looking down at small girls’ voices coming from below screen.
GIRL’S VOICE #1
Professor? Where did we come from?
PROFESSOR
(hesitating)
I made you. In my lab, downstairs.
GIRL’S VOICE #2
What did you make us out of?
PROFESSOR
(smiling)
Just what all little girls are made of. Sugar…
CUT TO PROFESSOR filling the tub the girls were grown in with nutrient solution
Spice…
CUT TO PROFESSOR splicing genes in test tubes.
And… Everything nice.
CUT TO PROFESSOR pulling a petri dish out of a freezer, pausing to look at a picture, the glass in the frame cracked from the raid, of a younger him and a woman with dark auburn hair and green eyes
With a little, accidentally added, Chemical X.
PROFESSOR stands over the tub with a large erlenmeyer flask in one hand and an eyedropper in the other, both filled with a dark fluid. He is about to drop a small amount of the chemical into the tub, but reconsiders.
PROFESSOR
No.
As he turns sharply away the flask catches on the edge of the tub, spilling the whole of the contents into the solution. Immediately realizing his mistake, PROFESSOR turns back to the tub
PROFESSOR
NO!
RETURN to the scene in the LIVING ROOM. PROFESSOR looks suspiciously at the far wall as he hears a faint, growing mechanical sound. The wall EXPLODES suddenly, hazing the view in dust and rubble. As PROFESSOR emerges, coughing from the cloud, a robotic hand emerges and grabs him by the waste, flinging him out the hole in the wall onto a neighboring lawn. PROFESSOR looks painfully up at his attacker. It is a ROBOTIC SUIT seemingly assembled from scraps of construction equipment. The VOICE that comes from inside it is harsh and spasmodic, as if each syllable forms a challenge for the speaker.
VOICE
What–is–wrong–Professor?
Parts of the ROBOTIC SUIT move out of the way to reveal an ugly CHIMPANZEE operating it. What appears to be a large glass dome wrapped in cloth covers its cranium, and the skin around it seems to have grown around the lip. Its skin is a sickly greenish color.
CHIMPANZEE
Don’t–you–recognize–your–old–pet?
PROFESSOR
Jojo?
FLASHES of the raid of PROFESSOR’s lab, of the chimp that crashed into a rack of chemicals and escaped.
The CHIMPANZEE attacks the PROFESSOR with his ROBOTIC SUIT, the PROFESSOR narrowly avoiding each blow
CHIMPANZEE
NO! You! Left! Jojo! For DEAD! I! AM! MO––
DISTRACTED by the sound of disturbed rubble, CHIMPANZEE turns to the hole in the house. Three small FIGURES stand, silhouetted by the light in the house. They have engaged, round heads, and their hands and feet lack any apparent digits.
CHIMPANZEE
What–Have–You–Made–Now,–Professor?
The three FIGURES rise slowly into the air in defiance of gravity, faint auroras trailing behind them in pink, green, and blue. Faint lights glow within their eyes illuminating massive irises in corresponding colors, slowly growing in brightness.
TITLECARD
The Powerpuff Girls