Bill & Ted 3; Scene 1 - cold open
Cold Open - *brief* Studio Logo, but no introductions or credits yet...
Place: The Smithsonian Air & Space; Time and Place Museum, Washington, DC
Time: 700 years in the future (the year 2,720)
Note: Everyone wears futuristic - but tourist type clothing (whatever that means)
Note (2): Fictional spacecraft - and other flying objects from our future - can be included in the collection of museum displays. Example: Iron Man's exo-suit - and the EVA pod from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. You could also have the "Back to the Future" Delorean .and. the time machine device used in the 1960 movie "The Time Machine" as a 'joke'.
Tour Guide [points up]:"... And this is the ARIES-1 mission to Mars; crew return support module. (TG can be a man or woman; a real Smithsonian TG is preferred)
The existing Skylab fills in for the Mars Module
As you probably remember, all 5 of the astronauts had to quarantine - in low earth orbit - in this small structure - for a Month - to be sure that they hadn't picked up any Martian microbes - before they returned to the Earth..."
Male tourist from Australia: "The brave astronauts came home over 30 years ago; why did it take so long to put the module on display?"
TG: "The Module was used for the 2nd ‘sequel’ Mars mission... Once it was ‘retired’, we needed to decontaminate; that took time. We then had to figure out a way to return it from Earth orbit without significantly damaging it. Finally, with the recent budget cuts for art and education, it took more time to clean & prepare the module for public display.”
Female tourist from China: “What ever happened to the huge inter-planetary transfer vehicle?’
TG: “The 'Buzz' Aldrin inter-planetary spaceflight habitat – that was ‘home’ for all crews during their long Mars missions - was retired from active service several years ago.?It’s now ‘parked’ in distant earth orbit – we still use it as a space station - for tests and experiments...
Optional additional 'throw away" line:
Future mars missions will depend on a pair of transfer vehicles - one optimized for trips to Mars; the other will expedite return trips home. With all of the current crises on Earth, and, as I've mentioned, with our funding limitations, these plans are going to take time to be fulfilled.
(In my story, it was retired from service to Mars, and is now stored at L5 - as a space station)
Now to the next 'bay', where we have the ARIES-1 reentry capsule..."
TG [Next Bay]: "So here's the actual crew return capsule. Of course, the heat of reentry burned off any external contaminants - but we did an extensive cleaning of the interior before we let people get near it - just in case..."
Male tourist from Texas: “But you never found any 'space' germs?”
TG: “True - but you have to admit that it was better that we played it safe – and not sorry that we were in too much of a hurry to be careful... Imagine what would happen if we let a novel virus 'loose' - and that caused a global pandemic?”
Note: The exiting Apollo 11 capsule will 'stand-in' for the Mars Mission one
Note: in my scenario, NASA returned 3 astronauts to the earth after 1 month; the other two did extra safety checks on the one hundred pounds of samples collected on their Mars mission. The two then returned to Earth (1B) - with the samples in another –separate & smaller reentry module (1C).
Female tourist from Germany: [points] "Is that what i think it is?"
TG: "Yes ! This is the *actual* machine that Bill and Ted used to go back and forth in time."
Male tourist from Africa: "I've always wanted to see Nelson Mandela speak in person... So - can it still function?"
TG: "Technically, yes... but operationally, no...
You see, we realized that travel into our past - even though we have nothing but the best intentions - can... and often will - also cause unintended - possibly harmful - consequences...
To prevent someone from using the machine for temporal relocation, we've removed the time dilation crystal; without that vital component, all you can do - if you are inside of it - is make long distance phone calls."
American woman tourist in the back [Brooklyn or New York City accent]: "Then you wouldn't mind if I stepped into the 'booth' ?"
TG: "No. Have fun ! Imagine that you went back to... California - say in the year 2020..."
While the woman 'plays' with the time machine, the rest of the tourists goes to the next display...
TG [off at a distance; His voice echo's, and is faint]: [points up]: "Most of you are too young to remember, but this is the NASA 'lifting body' that Colonel Steve Austin flew into space."
[also distant] Male tourist from India: "I saw an old rerun of that event posted to an on-line video archive site... didn't he crash?"
TG: [ditto; distant] "Yes; the first vehicle he flew in DID crash - and he was badly injured - but, thanks to amazing medical technology – and an inspiring personal sense of self worth --- he recovered ---- and later successfully piloted this re-designed spacecraft - proving that you can, indeed, achieve stable Earth orbit - flying a reusable craft directly into space - and then back to a runway landing the ground... It's what we call 'single stage to orbit'."
New space plane would fly directly into orbit from a runway (Jan. 2022 post)
https://www.freethink.com/space/space-planes
While the tour guide talks, the woman, now wearing blue nitril gloves, pulls a 3 inch clear - but twinkling rainbow sparkling - crystal cube from [Silver] an anti-static baggie in her large purse. She uses a key to open the change collection drawer, and inserts the crystal...
Re-locking the drawer, a green “Ready” light comes on [i prefer that the "Insert 20 Cents" actually be an LED/LCD display]; a faint whirring, humming and ‘purring’ sound is now heard in the booth…
She then dials a (909) area code phone number...
(Orion Pictures should make this a real number – for a contest and/or fan information)
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The 'umbrella skeleton' structure on top of the phone booth glows - and starts to spark
Cut to the opening credits for the Movie --- Then to a scene of San Dimas, California in August of 2020
The actual Skylab fills in for the Mars Module https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/skylab-orbital-workshop/nasm_A19761033000
The Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, Washington, DC was used for a recent movie
Information about Mr. George Lukas stealing something valuable to achieve his goal:
How Did George Lucas' Theft [of his own movie - from his Film Studio] Change American Science Fiction?
George Lucas put his foot down and paved the way for a bright future.?
Hollywood is filled with stories about overzealous producers changing movies to make them "better" and actually destroying the vision of the writers and directors. We often hear about the losing side, but it's nice to uncover the story of a winner.?
Especially when that winner is George Lucas. See, with a simple win on?THX-1138, he was able to solidify himself as a voice in science fiction and go on to create?Star Wars. This story comes from?Inverse?and takes us all the way back to 1971.?
Lucas had just finished his work on?THX-1138?and was proud of the dystopian science fiction film. But the producers felt very different.?
This left Lucas in a bit of a conundrum. He had listened to and rejected many of the studio’s suggestions to improve the film. But problems were mounting. The studio was asking them to move scenes with the shell-dwelling characters from the end of the film to the beginning to excite the audience. Lucas did not agree.?
According to?Matthew Robbins, his collaborator and classmate at USC School Of Cinematic Arts, “The executives didn’t see the harm in what they were trying to force George to do. George was going crazy. He said they didn’t have the right to do that.”
They were at a standstill. Lucas needed the studio to release the film, but he wanted audiences to see it his way.?
So what was Lucas to do? He had to formulate a plan, one which involved stealing his own movie!?
Lucas, with his friends, snuck onto the Warner lot where the movie was being edited. He parked a van near the projection room, with the idea that once the work-print was shown to executives, he would steal the?work-print out of the projection room so they wouldn't try to hire other editors to finish it.?
So the movie played and Lucas sat and listened to notes. Meanwhile, his friend, future Hollywood legend Walter Murch, went to the projection room and posed as the editor there to pick up the film. The projectionist gave him the cans, picture, and sound without a question.?
Murch put it all in the van, and then when Lucas was done with his contentious meeting, they drove off the lot with it together!?
Of course, Warners could not edit it then, but they were still behind the movie's release. They didn't push it at the box office, and the movie flopped... but critics and audiences who saw it loved the film.?
It garnered rave reviews and signaled a comeback for interest in science fiction on the big screen, even without making a lot of money.?
But the effect of?THX-1138?changed all of cinema in another more psychological way. See, after Lucas' film was rejected for being too bleak, dystopian, and for having a niche audience... Lucas set out to make a crowd-pleaser... which became?American Graffiti.?
That movie did gangbusters for 20th Century Fox and made Lucas the talk of the town. It allowed him to pitch another science fiction film. This one wouldn't have a niche audience this time. It would incorporate some of the things he learned on?American Graffiti?but have the daring futuristic ideas of?THX-1138... and it would be called?Luke Starkiller...
But hey, that was just his first idea.?
Eventually, we wound up with?Star Wars, which brought science fiction back into popular culture and changed the American blockbuster.?
George Lucas On American Zoetrope & How THX-1138 Got Made
"Novel [alien] Virus"
SCIENTIST WARNS ABOUT ALIEN VIRUSES FROM OTHER PLANETS
THAT'S JUST WHAT WE NEED.
https://futurism.com/neoscope/scientist-warns-alien-viruses-planets
A 1969 book and a 1971 major motion picture:
"The Andromeda Strain" is a 1969 techno-thriller novel by Michael Crichton...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Andromeda_Strain
Chilling tale about a US research satellite carrying a deadly extraterrestrial microscopic organism that crashes into a small town in Arizona. A group of top scientists are hurriedly assembled in a bid to identify and contain the lethal stowaway.
Based on the novel by Michael Crichton.
Scientists Surveyed People About Space. The Comments Are Out of This World.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvndxz/scientists-surveyed-people-about-space-the-comments-are-out-of-this-world
75 percent said it is likely that we will detect microorganisms beyond Earth in our solar system (49 percent said “very likely”) while 77 percent said it is likely that we will detect microorganisms elsewhere in our galaxy (52 percent said “very likely”).??
“The broad recognition of the possibility of life in the solar system has implications for how we conduct space exploration,” said Boley, who noted that it also underscores the need for planetary protection measures designed to prevent cross-contamination between Earth and other worlds.
Space germs from other planets could pose threat to human immune systems, scientists warn
Amino acids found on meteorites are harder to fight than those on Earth
Your Immune System Is Unprepared To Deal With Space Germs, Suggests New Study
Immune recognition of putative alien microbial structures: Host–pathogen interactions in the age of space travel
An even more challenging situation would be if truly alien microorganisms will be present on these solar system bodies: What will be their pathogenic potential, and how would our immune host defenses react?