ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

________________________________



Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)
________________________________

Let's Create a Sequel!
________________________________

~ 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!





Let's assume that Jeff Morrow survived his apparent death at the hands of the creature after his character, an unscrupulous scientists, tries to blame his own murder of Gregg Palmer on the former gillman (now just a lungman, like the rest of us).

In this manner, Jeff Morrow avoids prosecution for his crime.

However, Morrow (for his own selfish purposes) argues that the creature's violent actions were justified because of the poor treatment it had received at the hands of humans. And he claims that the creature's actions also indicate that it possesses more intelligence than previously suspected.

Because of this, the creature is afforded more humane treatment than it had previously received, and it is also provided a series of rudimentary lessons in human behavior to stimulate its ability to interact with people. The lessons are surprising successful, and although the creature has no vocal cords (other than the ability to roar every now and then), it rapidly learns sign language and begins to communicate with the humans.

Deprived of his ability to breath underwater, the creature forces himself to learn how to swim like humans. He spends each day learning to swim in the ocean, and by dong so he manages to burn off the fat which developed after his aquatic outer skin was burned off and surgically removed.

As a result, he slims down considerably and he stops resembling the beefy Mr. Don Megowan. He gets his slim physique back and looks more like Rico Browning again — with a little help from me and Paint.net . . .











As his communication skills improve, the creature tells the humans about how a tribe of Amazon natives attacked his hidden aquatic community of "gill people" who lived in the Amazon river, deep in the jungle.

These natives managed to captured him, and after he's bound and carried away from his remote lagoon in the jungle, he sees the Amazon natives apparently slaughtering his family and the other members of his community!

After living in captivity for several months, many miles from his home lagoon, he finally escapes . . . but when he returns to the Black Lagoon, none of his species remained there.

Hoping that some of his aquatic people survived and will come back, he remains there for several years. Sadly, they never did.

When the human expedition eventually arrived at the Black Lagoon (in the first movie), the creature made a few misunderstood efforts to establish friendly relations with them. But instead of this, they hunted him ruthlessly!

Completely unable to communicate with the humans, the creature made repeated efforts to show that he was intelligent — including the tree he pushed over to block the lagoon, and his advances towards the female . . . without ever seriously threatening her, despite her reaction to his frightening appearance.





This unfortunate series of misunderstandings continued to produce tragic results until the poor creature was horribly burned and surgically stripped of both its aquatic outer skin and its gills, which forced him to use his vestigial lungs to breath!





The final straw was the conflict between the humans, one of whom attempted to blame the murder of a colleague on the creature!





But as the creature continues to perfect his communication skills he gains a clearer understanding of the situation, and he cooperates with the humans' plans to use him to locate any remnants of his lost community.

Actually, however, his own plans are to rejoin his people and insure that they learn how to protect themself from the brutal nature all the humans they've encountered so far.
________________________________________________

I think my version of this story provides this proposed sequel with the depth and intelligence the previous movies have always lacked. I apologize to all the fans who feel the three movies are fine just the way they are — especial to Mr. Tom Weaver, who is devoted to the creature trilogy.
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

______________________________________________

Well, those are logical explanations for the creature's condition — but he still looks all wrong to me.
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)