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The Skull
Mr. Spaceship
The Story: The future, and once again, mankind is at war with an alien race. This mob are known as the “Yuks”, and can call upon an intimidating arsenal of sentient spacecraft. The tables are briefly turned when an Earth-based research team works out how to build a ship powered by a human brain, but things go awry when the brain they’ve chosen as pilot turns out to be a pacifist…
Directed By: Paul Verhoeven presents another anti-war satire in the vein of Starship Troopers .
Starring: Jeff Bridges stars as Mr Spaceship himself, the infuriatingly preachy war machine who turns on his inventors by taking no part in the conflict he was designed for.
Essential Scene: R. Lee Ermey cameos as an angry military man who furiously berates Bridges when it becomes clear he won’t help the war effort. “Why you cowardly spaceship!”
Piper In The Woods
The Story: Army doctor Henry Harris is puzzled by a series of soldiers who return from a trip to an astronaut claiming they are plants. They tell Harris that they have been told as much by an indigenous race of asteroid dwellers known as the Pipers. Instead of assuming it’s a wind-up, Harris heads to the astronaut himself, only to find the whole thing was bullshit. Realising however that he’d quite like to wash his hands of all life’s responsibilities, Harris returns to Earth claiming he too is a plant.
Directed By: Judd Apatow. There is no way in Hell you could play this one straight, so why not make it a slacker comedy?
Starring: Steve Carell as the gullible, hard-working doctor with Jason Segel, Paul Rudd and Owen Wilson as the duty-shy soldiers.
Key Scene: Wilson and Rudd try to keep their faces straight whilst claiming they need to be out in the sun in order to photosynthesize.
Colony
The Story: Back-to-basics sci-fi, and a welcome break from Dick’s usual high-concept output, as a team of explorers head to an uncharted planet, only to discover a predatory species with the ability to mimic human technology…
Directed By: Robert Rodriguez could pull this off without taking the concept too seriously. If you’re making a movie about killer phones, you need to make it fun!
Starring: A crew full of lithe, camera-friendly alien-fodder, with old hand Bruce Campbell ending up as the last man standing.
Key Scene: Bruce heads back to the ship, only to find it’s not the one they landed in. Uh-oh…get out of there!
The Trouble With Bubbles
The Story: Unusually for a Dick story, man’s exploration of the solar system has proved fruitless, with not a solitary alien discovered in years of searching. However, some bright spark has invented something called a Worldcraft, a little plastic bubble in which the owner can create a mini universe complete with life-forms. It’s like a hand-held version of The Sims ! However, when a Worldcraft is casually broken, killing all the life-forms inside, one man decides the whole enterprise is immoral. Well, duh…
Directed By: Peter Weir explored a similar(ish) theme in The Truman Show, so could bring a stabilizing hand to a fairly out-there concept.
Starring: Ewan McGregor as the moralising hand-wringer looking to bring down the manufacturer of Worldcraft, and Willem Dafoe as the villainous CEO charged with making sure he fails.
Key Scene: A spectacular disaster-movie sequence set inside a broken Worldcraft.
Planet For Transients
The Story: In the future, the Earth has been trashed to such an extent that humans are forced to wear lead-lined suits to protect themselves from surface radiation, and live in isolated groups. When our hero, Trent, attempts to locate a group of fellow humans, he discovers that all manner of humanoid creatures have evolved in Earth’s new atmosphere…
Directed By: Again, Spielberg would be a likely candidate here, touching on all his old themes of alienation and inter-special bonding.
Starring: Jesse Eisenberg as our lone hero. He needs to be the sort of guy who wouldn’t just punch-out a new species on sight…
Key Scene: Jesse bonds with a grotesque race of mutants, who in turn resolve to help him find his people. Aaaaaah.
The War With The Fnools
The Story: Aliens are invading, and they’re taking the form of two-foot-tall humans! Fairly easy to deal with you might think, but one of the aliens discovers that practices involved with maturity make them grow. Therefore, after a diet of booze, cigarettes and sex, they become massive. Aargh!
Directed By: Peter Jackson, returning to his Bad Taste roots with this barmy extra-terrestrial comedy.
Starring: Sean William Scott as a redneck sheriff charged with running the invaders out of his small Texan town.
Key Scene: Carmen Electra pops up for a gratuitous sex scene in which she assists an alien to reach his full potential…
The Last Of The Masters
The Story: The scene is set some 200 years after a global anarchist revolution has caused the national governments of the world to collapse. One remaining state runs an efficient but small society, attempting to keep itself concealed from the Anarchist League. When a trio of anarachist agents stumble upon this society, the government is forced to kill them, fearing repercussions. However, when one of the three escapes, those repercussions are soon on the agenda…
Directed By: Michael Bay could happily ignore the ideological debate over statism versus anarchism in favour of the massive dust-up that follows.
Starring: Eric Bana plays the escaped anarchist, whilst Gerard Butler is the main man amongst the government forces. Let’s get it on!
Key Scene: A 300 -style battle against the odds, as the massed forces of anarchy prepare to take on the highly organised government troops. Fiiiiiight!
Out In The Garden
The Story: A bizarre fable in which a married woman spends her days sitting in the garden with her beloved duck, whilst her husband stays indoors. One day, the woman has a son, and the husband, tiring of the duck, decides to kill it. The husband thinks nothing more of it, until he realises the boy spends all his time in the garden, eating spiders in the same way the duck used to. Draw your own conclusions.
Directed By: Lars von Trier could probably dredge up some symbolism amid the weirdness.
Starring: Nicole Kidman as the placid, child-of-nature wife and Tom Cruise as her increasingly emasculated husband.
Key Scene: Who wouldn’t like to see Tom Cruise frantically wringing a duck’s neck?
The Short Happy Life Of The Brown Oxford
The Story: Guess who’s back? That’s right, it’s Doc Labyrinth again, and this time he’s invented a device called the Animator. Can you guess what it does? Yep, it brings stuff to life, with the doctor’s shoe first on the list of test subjects. Thrilled by his success, Labyrinth stuffs the shoe in a drawer and pops out to celebrate. However, when he returns he realises the shoe has escaped, and had been creating some company for itself…
Directed By: We’ve already divvied the other family comedies out to John Lasseter and Lee Unkrich, so we’ll let Brad Bird have a bash at this one.
Starring: Paul Giamatti reprises his role as Doc Labyrinth to crowd-pleasing effect.
Key Scene: Labyrinth ends up on his arse after a cheeky rollerskate jumps into his path.
