ARC OF THE PHOENIX
A science fiction satire based on characters created by Dan O'Bannon, John Carpenter and Bill Taylor
Synopsis:
A former fuel technician – who 60 years ago accidentally blasted off with a long-lost explorer mission – is rescued from drifting, frozen in deep space, given a hero's welcome, and placed in command of a new mission to intercept an extra-terrestrial entity that is way beyond his pay grade.
Comps:
Interstellar meets Being There.
Confessional:
John Carpenter’s 1974 film Dark Star has long held a fascination for me.
My Super 8 filmmaking friends and I would quote the movie back and forth. Nigel, I recall, had the soundtrack album on vinyl with Carpenter’s synthesizer score, sound effects and dialogue. I visited Benson, the sleepy Arizona town mentioned in a song from the film, and for years I drove around LA with a quote from that song on my car's license plate.
My obsession with the film belied the film's shady origins. It is a student graduation film, later expanded to theatrical feature, as a tongue-in-cheek parody of serious-minded science fiction epics. But it is imaginative, amusing, cunningly designed, colorful, entertaining and endearing. And a while back it inspired me to take a wild swing at an improbable idea: a sequel!
While it's true my story is an unauthorized sequel to Dark Star, that film borrowed from a number of sources, notably Ray Bradbury’s 1949 short story Kaleidoscope. I was also inspired by Stanisław Lem’s Pirx the Pilot stories, and Harry Harrison’s Stainless Steel Rat.
With all that in mind, I decided to launch my script out of the airlock and onto the Internet.
Brace for hyperdrive below.
