It might be that I've been up too long, or that possibly, I've been up too long, but whatever it is, this project doesn't seem to make sense to me. As I lay here, I seem to think it is saying that we get in a battle with elephants and they force us to live in the oceans. But... That doesn't make sense to me cause, we could just kill the elephants... It's not like they are particularly deadly animals with lots of technology... or Are they? I'm not real sure. If you could help me to come to grips with this project, please do. My head hurts...
I've just gotten and read a copy of the DREAMWORKS 2000's MAMMOTH ...screenplay. I hesitate to call it a 'screenplay,' because, though it is formatted like a screenplay, most of it is art direction and story-path ideas... not a lot of it is actually fleshed out into dialogue. Nevertheless, the gist of it is there, and I have some corrections and additions to my earlier report:
* The director is a man named Todd Burch. I've never seen his work before, so if you know who he is, share share share!
* Science fiction author Orson Scott Card has had some input on the project and appears to be an active participant in the script-making process. Todd Burch appears to be the main scriptwriter.
* An idea being considered now involves the humans fleeing to underwater colonies instead of outer space after the war with the mammoths and elephants. The rationale being that, once future generations of humans have been living successfully off-planet, they would have no motivation to return to Earth. The underwater scenarios allows the mammoths to play proactive antagonists, and the quest to re-animate Aglan (the lead mammoth character) would have more meaning, as the humans would be in immediate peril.
The dialogue that exists is pretty good, definitely not children's-movie fodder. There are some really gory scenes during the war, too. I wonder how this movie will turn out... I predict that it will be the next cult classic.
And then we have this report...
Die-Hard Cynic here with (I hope) an exclusive scoop. A buddy of mine is a marketing exec at Dreamworks SKG, and he's been telling me about an upcoming DREAMWORKS 2000 project (20th Century Fox isn't the only company getting a name overhaul!). The project is MAMMOTH (probably just a working name), and it is going to be an animated movie done primarily with CGI. The project's premise sounds weird, but kinda cool: it follows the story of a yet-to-be-named wooly mammoth who is growing up just at the start of the first Ice Age. He is frozen in an ice rift and cloned in the 21st century. This may pique your interest, but that's only a small part of the story! The 21st century mammoths don't play much of a part in the movie, as it accelerates to the far future, where energy-infusion technology (vague technology that allow damaged cells to regrow) allow scientists to 'resurrect' the original frozen mammoth from the dead. This mammoth is then sent out as an emissary to the planet where mammoths have thrived for years - Earth. It turns out that, 5000 years ago, mammoths forced humankind into space, setting them back technologically hundreds of years. Mammoth minds turn out to be terribly intelligent, and they 'awaken' the elephant and horse species on Earth, band together, war with mankind, and win. The human-sent first mammoth returns to Earth to lead both the mammoth and the elephant peoples, and end the war between the mammoths and the humans.
This is going to be a movie seemingly aimed at children, but will most likely be rated R for violence and language. I predict that it will also be an epic, the premise sounds slightly absurd but very ambitious, and maybe, just maybe, workable if they pull it off JUST RIGHT.
More later if I get any information!
