ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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The posts which start with Thinking Outside the "Plot"! and Let's Create a Sequel! are the ones I spend the most time on, because I enjoy doing them so much!

Sometimes it takes hours just to modify the jpegs to illustrate the post.

Below are three examples of such posts, and I'm hoping to at least get a few encouraging words from the members who enjoy the concepts, even if they aren't yet ready to add some new ideas.

So . . . enjoy, gentlemen!_
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Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)

Let's Create a Sequel!
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~ A Question for the Members: Could a sequel to this popular classic resolve the question many of us have; how could there be just ONE creature? If he's the last of his kind, shouldn't the movie have made that sad fact part of the drama?

~ Here's what I came up with.: How about a third sequel that follows Revenge of the Creature, and it involves another expedition to the Amazon jungle . . . which takes the surgically altered gillman back home?

Why, you may asked?

Because they rescued the poor guy from the beach at the end of the third movie when he seemed to be so lonesome for the watery depths that he was about to go into the ocean — even though he didn't have gills anymore!

And if that isn't a dramatic opening for this movie, my name isn't Bud Brewster!

Target Earth (1954)

Let's Create a Sequel!
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~ A Question for the Members: Could a sequel to this somewhat disappointing movie make better use of the more interesting aspects of the concept?

~ Here's what I came up with: The idea that alien invaders sent an army of robots to take over one American city sounds a bit silly. But I did some research and came up with an interesting idea.

The invaders are said to be from the planet Venus, because (according to Richard Denning) it's the planet most likely to harbor life similar to Earth.

Well, I found this when I Googled the question, "When did we find out how hot Venus is?" I got this.
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The high surface temperature of Venus was discovered by radio astronomers in the late 1950s and confirmed by the Mariner and Venera probes.
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I discovered that the Venera probe was launched in 1970. I also found this fascinating fact.
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Venus may have had a shallow liquid-water ocean and habitable surface temperatures for up to 2 billion years of its early history, according to computer modeling of the planet's ancient climate by scientists at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York.
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Rather than just dismiss the misinformation about Venus in this 1954 movie, I have a better idea.

Suppose Venus actually did have an Earth-like environment for millions of years — and still had it in the 20th century!

Suppose a race of Venusians evolved a high level of intelligence, and as their technology advanced, they experimented with increasingly powerful sources of energy, most of which are far beyond our technology.





At the peak of their civilization, they believed they had safely harnessed an incredibly source of energy, and they used it extensively all over their planet.





Furthermore, they were confident that their advanced weapons would allow them to easily conquer Earth.

Riding high on their inflated opinion of their intelligence and their technology, the Venusians sent a small group of spacecraft to study Earth from high orbit, gathering the intelligence needed to plan their conquest.

But before their mighty fleet of warships were launched for the invasion of Earth, the awesome power source the Venusian thought they safely controlled suddenly caused a global catastrophe which wiped out their entire race and their civilization!

As a result, Venus became the hellish planet we see today, a planet scorched to the bed rock, devoid of life, and enveloped in poisonous gases.





The story presented in Target Earth is about an attack by the small fleet of Venusian ships that were in space at the time of the planetary cataclysm — the only survivors of that incredibly advanced race.

The small fleet desperately needs to conquer Earth (or some section of it), because their home world has become a raging inferno.





This explains why the invasion in the movie is limited to one city!

The Venusians hope to establish a beachhead on Earth and then gradually expand their territory. Their ships are not capable of sustaining them indefinitely, and they'd rather not have to live out their lives on them.

So, they need to have a base of operations on Earth while they strengthen their limited resources.

The movie clearly states that the American military were severely outgunned when the attacked the aliens. For that reason, both we and the Venusians would eventually agree to a cease fire until we could devise an effective defense.

But of course this would give the Venusians a chance to build their defenses here on Earth!

This low-budget movie ends when we discover a way to stop the robots — but the Venusian ships would still be in orbit, and they would learn from their mistake concerning the robots' Achilles Heel

In fact, the final line in the movie is a statement by one of Army officers who said that if the Venusians had used "a certain kind of metal" in the robots' faceplate, the sonic weapon which defeated them would not have worked!

Tobor the Great (1954)

Let's Create a Sequel!
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~ A Question for the Members: Since Tobor proved that he was capable of piloting a rocket in the movie's final scene, would a movie with him as the pilot'/navigator of a mission to Mars be an exciting idea for a sequel?

~ Here's what I came up with.: Imagine a spacecraft on its way to Mars, manned by a combination of humans and robots. One of the robots is Tobor —
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— and the other one is similar to the Mars rovers, but well articulated with several arms and (like the new-improved Tobor I created above) is capable of speech!

The mission is to investigate photographic evidence of artificial structures on the surface of Mars . . . but not ancient ruins that would indicate the presence of a lost Martian civilization! These structures were recently built! A series of transparent domes contain cultivated areas.

Are they part of a secret Russian colony on Mars? Or were they constructed by Martians who have been living under the planet's surface and who have now reemerged?




Actually it turns out to be neither! They're aliens from another star system! In a sense, they've invaded Mars!

The human/robot crew of the Mars mission have to establish communications with the aliens and determine if they're a threat to Earth.

That's all I've got so far. I'm hoping some of you guys will have fun adding new elements to the story.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)