Repertory Draft: The Beyond Pluto Thread

Beyond Pluto

Written and directed by: Chris Olson
Starring: Gael Garcia Bernal as Cordwainer-6653
Franka Potente as Rachel-1801
Kurt Russell as Orson-0001
Robert Downey, Jr. as Harlan-0425
Catherine Keener as Ursula-0707
Robert Duvall as Jules
Aishwarya Rai as Parmita-7635

In Beyond Pluto, Gael Garcia Bernal stars as Cordwainer-6653, known as Cord to his friends. He lives in an oppressive dystopian society in which no one is allowed to go beyond the borders of the City, a sprawling, highly advanced but technologically stagnant urban center that stretches for miles and miles in every direction, and is completely enclosed from the outside world. Cord is employed as a radio technician, monitoring the conversations of the City’s populace, constantly searching for signs of dissent or rebellion. He reports all his findings to his superior, the officious and uptight Harlan-0425 (played by Robert Downey, Jr.)

Cord’s nights alternate between wasting long, dull hours away in front of an interactive entertainment console, and engaging in rote, loveless purely recreational sex with his co-worker, the beautiful but sad Parmita-7635 (Aishwarya Rai). Despite her obvious disinterest, Cord confides in her that he constantly dreams of someday escaping the confines of the City, and he wants her to come with him, even though he does not know how to make this happen.

During one routine day at work, Cord picks up a strange transmission, one that is broadcast in a language he has never heard, though it sounds oddly familiar, and that is coming from somewhere outside the City. Cord soon discovers that the signal is most likely emanating from somewhere very far away, though he cannot pinpoint its location. Before bringing this to the attention of Harlan, Cord decides to take his findings to one of the senior workers, the matronly Ursula-0707 (Catherine Keener). She agrees to look into his findings, and eventually determines that the signal is coming from the furthest reaches of space. She withholds this information from Cord, but passes it on to Harlan, who then alerts the City’s head of security, Orson-0001 (played with steely menace by Kurt Russell).

Cord suddenly finds himself a fugitive from the law, and goes on the run. He pleads with Parmita-7635 to come with him, but she refuses, and calls the security forces to come retrieve him. Cord escapes, and makes his way into the lower levels of the City, which is more or less the slum district. While there, he meets the lovely and mysterious Rachel-1801 (Franka Potente), a prominent member of a growing underground resistance movement. She manages to convince her comrades to take Cord in, and protect him from Orson and his men. They do, and Rachel agrees to help him unravel the secret behind the mysterious signal, and thus uncover exactly why it is considered so dangerous to the status quo.

Their search eventually leads them to Jules (Robert Duvall), the oldest living man in the City, nearing his 150th year of life, and the only person still alive who actually knows what the City’s overseer’s have been hiding from the populace; that they are all actually living aboard a massive generation ship that departed an environmentally ravaged and war torn Earth over 200 years ago, en route to a distant habitable planet that can sustain human life.

Armed with this dangerous knowledge, Cord and Rachel attempt to alert the populace to their bizarre situation, but Orson and his men are hot on their trail, and the two young rebels are forced to flee once again. Eventually, Cord and Rachel learn that the signal is actually a beacon that is emanating from a human colony that somehow reached the planet ahead of them. Even worse, though, they discover that they might not reach their destination, as the technology that runs the ship is falling into disrepair, and their life-support system is on the verge of failing.

Just a starter at the moment, more to follow...hopefully:

Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Adlai McNamera: A fixer/private eye with cybernetic arms and legs scraping a living out of flooded overbuilt Los Angeles
Gary Cole as Mr. Simon Creary: The CEO of Terracon Systems with many secrets locked away
Ed O’Neill as Smithee: McNamera’s landlord who shoots the breeze about days long passed
Wendell Piece as Det. Ronnie Cottomeyer: The cop on McNamera’s trail
Michael C. Hall as Collins: An assistant to Creary who is clearly not the man who he appears to be
Amy Ryan as Dr. Killian: McNamera’s cybernetics technician
Rosario Dawson as Elle: McNamera’s on again/off again business partner and occasional love interest


In somewhat near future, the city of Los Angeles is flooded and overbuilt and within that city is a man trying to eke out an existence. His name is Adlai McNamera (Gordon-Levitt) and he ends up in a journey that will traverse worlds all the while not leaving the bounds of Earth.

Beyond Pluto

Written by Andrew Niccol

Starring:
Michael Hogan -- Col. Nathaniel Jarvis
Philip Seymour Hoffman -- Virgil Davis
Brian Cox -- Ellison Reed
Eric Bana -- Dr. David Fuller
Edward Norton -- Erasmus Jennings
Gwyneth Paltrow -- Regina Alston
Tilda Swinton -- Pioneer 10

It's the year 2053, and Virgil Davis can't sleep. A strange voice haunts his dreams, almost singing to him. "I am coming home to take him home," it says, over and over. At the same time, scientists led by Dr. David Fuller detect a faint signal from the edge of the solar system, a signal that matches the telemetry from the Pioneer 10 probe, last heard from fifty years earlier. No one knows how it's managed to return to our solar system. The signal sounds eerily like the sing-songy voice in Virgil's dreams.

Meanwhile, Ellison Reed, a well-known science fiction writer, is struggling with his next novel. He's on the phone with someone, apparently hashing out a plot point that's been giving him some trouble. We only hear his side of the conversation, but he finishes the call and starts writing, seeming to have gotten some guidance.

Elsewhere, Col. Nathaniel Jarvis sits alone in his home, pouring himself a drink from a bottle of scotch. Pictures on the wall show a much younger Jarvis as an astronaut, and he's reading a yellowed newspaper with the headline "THE LAST ASTRONAUT?". The picture beneath the headline shows him readying for a mission. He shuffles over to the window and looks forlornly up at the stars.

Virgil talks to a doctor about his dreams. He looks exhausted. The doctor can find nothing physically wrong with him beyond lack of sleep.

Dr. Fuller's crew notice the signal from Pioneer getting stronger, which should be impossible -- it's trajectory was taking it away from Earth, there's no way it could have turned around and come back the way it came. And no human has been sent into space since 2030, when economic and social concerns spelled the end of the costly manned spaceflight program. Erasmus Jennings, well-known vid reporter, wants to break the story, but Regina Alston, the media liason for NASA, is hesitant to do so before they know more of what's happening. Jennings ignores her concerns and runs the story anyway.

Ellison is on the phone again. He's complaining that he hasn't come up with a convincing reason for his protagonist to do something. The conversation once again ends with him returning to his keyboard to write.

Jarvis holds a model of a Saturn rocket. He's drunk. He angrily throws the model against the wall, shattering it. "Men were meant to go into space, not machines!" he bellows, and staggers out of the room, leaving behind the broken pieces of the model.

By this time, Virgil has seen Jennings's story. Virgil sees an image of the probe and almost collapses from the loudness of the voice in his head. He tracks down Jennings and begs him to take Virgil to NASA.

Jennings does so, but Alston wants nothing to do with him. She's upset with Jennings for letting the story out, and now NASA is being inundated with questions, questions she has no answers for. She's about to throw the pair out when Virgil rolls his eyes back and begins "speaking" in the voice he's heard in his dreams. Dr. Fuller hears the song and recognizes it as the signal they've been receiving.

Ellison is writing again. He stops, and rises to get a cup of coffee. He passes a calendar on the wall, and we can clearly see the date on it is 2035.

Jarvis, in his Air Force dress uniform, walks into NASA headquarters, and it's obviously a newer version of the building we've seen in previous scenes. He's immediately recognized and asked if there's anything that can be done for him. He just stares around blankly and asks to be taken home.

Meanwhile, Dr. Fuller has brought Virgil into the control center. Virgil immediately doubles over in pain as the voice in his head gets louder and louder.

Ellison is writing, and we finally see what he's writing: "The sound in Virgil's head grew, storm waves beating against a shore, ebbing away only to come back stronger."

Jarvis is being gently escorted out by NASA security. He shouts "No, no, I want to go home! Ellison, tell them I want to go home!"

Virgil begins shouting, "Ellison! You know what you have to do!"

Ellison's writing: "As if in answer, a faint glow bloomed around Jarvis, a caress of light."

Jarvis begins to glow, then vanishes....

... and appears next to Dr. Fuller and Virgil. Virgil looks up at him, and smiles, the pain washing away from him, the song silenced. At the same time, Jarvis's eyes go wide, and he begins to smile as well. A member of Dr. Fuller's team shouts that somehow, Pioneer 10 is in orbit around Earth. Jarvis says, "Let me talk to her."

Pioneer 10 speaks to Jarvis, offering to take him home. The voice is ethereal, soothing, and Jarvis is nearly in tears as he talks to it. "Yes," he says, "take me home." The faint glow surrounds him again, and he's gone. The probe has also vanished. Virgil sleeps soundly on the floor.

Ellison is writing. The phone rings, and he answers. "Oh, it's you. Yes, very nearly done, just an appropriately profound denoument." He pauses. "I ... I don't know how to thank you." Then we finally hear the voice on the other end of the phone -- and it's the same as that of Pioneer 10: "No. It is who thank you." The call ends. Ellison slowly puts the phone down, and goes back to the keyboard. He thinks a moment, then writes, and we hear a voice-over of the words he writes:

"Sometimes a wish is a curse, and we become a slave to it. It holds us in its thrall, tempting us by almost coming true, only to dash away just out of reach.

"But sometimes... sometimes, when it feels we've had enough, it comes back to us, as if it had been waiting to know our heart was pure, our intentions true. And then it can take us anywhere we want it to. Even into the impossible.

"Even beyond Pluto."

He smiles. He scrolls to the top of the document, and we see the book's dedication: "To my friend Nathaniel Jarvis, the Last Astronaut. 1979-2032. May the heavens welcome you home."

In this Re-Quel of Pluto Nash, Chiwetel Ejiofor takes the role made famous by the late Eddie Murphy on the continuous adventures of our favorite hero. Cirian Hinds will play the Robot formerly played by Randy Quaid and Carla Gugino steps in as the new love interest.

This time, Pluto would have to go beyond the limits of the solar system looking for an alternative energy source to foil plans of mining the entire moon by the new Energy Commissioner David Sthratairn.

Maria Bello and Nathan Fillion play 2 black ops government agents trying to stop Nash and his quest. Newcomer Chris Evans plays God. Who'll be at the edge of the Solar System. He could use a ship.