I call it "Kill Count"
Topic: Music and Video
I have an idea for a music video.
The music is from
Blue Man Group. It's a secret track. I don't even know what it's called. It's not even listed on the album on which it is featured. See... it's a
secret. I put the CD (it's an enhanced CD, for your computer as well as for your CD player) into the computer drive, hoping there'd be something there to help name it. No joy. There's lots of other good stuff on there too. Buy this CD. You'll be glad you did. It's called "
The Complex," and the song of which I'm thinking is the very last song on the album. After you hear "Exhibit 13," let the player go on. The clue is that this track is 11:21 long, and at about 4:35, you'll hear the sounds of the
tubulum. It turns into a very cool Spaghetti Western sounding song that needs to be heard. It's one of the best pieces on the album, and hiding it was criminal, and would result in dire consequences in order to repay their debt to society, if there weren't so many other good things on the album that redeem themselves of this crime. Their debt is repaid by the same vehicle through which it is incurred. That's practically Zen.
Despite the western sound it has, for some reason I'm thinking of an anime video sort of thing, taking place in outer space.
Opening scene: closeup of the hull of a one-man heavy fighter, showing the kill count of the pilot. It should be a very, very impressive number of kills. Camera pans over the hull, still up close, but slowly panning back to show more and more of the ship, hull markings and military insignia. Possibly the pilot's name. Next, we see a closeup of the engine cowling... the guns, still panning to the front of the craft, around the other side as we see more of the ship, until finally we see the rear, and the engines kick into actinic blue life, hurling the ship forward into space.
Scene: outside of ship as it flies along. Impressive maneuvers through a planetary ring, the ice and rock creating quite an amazing, beautiful, and dangerous obstacle course. After a bit of this, the craft reaches the "upper" surface of the ring, where the dust is thick, and the ship leaves a rooster tail of backwashed and ignited dust behind it.
As it passes one of the larger rocks in the ring, suddenly a small beacon begins to blink a red light. Signals are sent, indicated visually by expanding concentric circles (that old standby for animation of transmitted radio waves) to other nearby sensors, which also come to life and perform similarly. Camera switches to show the first beacon, then it and another nearby as it comes to life. Then several at once. Finally, a very large transceiver gets the signal, and emits a signal. It is received by a large station. Switch to a monitor image, where the original craft is displayed as it moves away from the dust. A red light is blinking in one corner of the monitor. A long, slender alien hand extended from off camera depresses a switch (on which we see alien writing) on the console, which also blinks red once this is done.
Switch to another screen, on which we see the same alien writing, also blinking red. A collection of gangly, wiry aliens stops what they are all doing and looks at the screen. They scramble. We see them run into a hangar, and climb into their own heavy fighters, whose shapes match the kill count silhouettes on the hull of the lone pilot's craft. As one of them climbs into his fighter, we close up to him, and see his kill count is even more impressive than the opening image. These silhouettes match the shape of our hero's craft.
They launch. We see an internal radar screen of one of the alien craft, showing the planet and Our Hero's location. Switch to a similar radar screen on Our Hero's craft, on which he sees the pursuing craft, Delta Formation.
The pursuers catch up easily, and burst up from the planetary ring's dust and ice. They launch a barrage of missiles, which the lone pilot evades extremely narrowly, and by clever flying and use of countermeasures. He fires back from rearward missiles as his own craft's engines roar and launch him at roughly eight billion times the speed of light, or so it should appear. The alien craft dodge easily. It looks bad.
He fires two more rearward missiles, at each of the lead's wingmen. Both missiles are a bit to the outside of the formation, and each pilot dodges... inward. They are flying too closely, and hit each other. Each ship is damaged and drops from formation, exploding inside the planetary ring. We see this from a perspective showing that in the background, and the Lone Pilot's kill count on his hull in the foreground. As the alien fighters are destroyed, the kill count increases by two, the images momentarily flaring up on the hull in bright orange light, and settling into the skin of the hull. Meanwhile, the launched missiles continue toward the ships trailing the wingmen. The other ships dodge, and take positions as new wingmen.
The fighter, now moving at near light speed, has turned toward the planet's star, hoping the aliens lose him in the glare. We see glare screens lower over the lone pilot's canopy. Unfortunately, we see the pursuer's canopies go opaque. The pursuit continues.
Still diving toward the sun and dodging energy beams and missiles, the lone pilot lifts a plastic cover from a very dangerous looking button. Using his rearward camera screen, he waits until what he deems to be the right moment, and hits the switch. This is a very desperate move. The switch is labeled "Quantum Singularity Release."
From the back of the craft, a sphere with a mirrored surface is released. Moments later, with the releasing ship safely away, the surface fades and we see a globe of black void. The lead ship's instrument panel goes red, and the lead pilot dodges, the sphere narrowly missing his amazing kill count. The wingmen react, but the starboard man is only watching his lead, and not his environment. In an impressive utter lack of anything, he is sucked into the sphere as an elongated starship, and disappears. The kill count increases by one more.
The pilot is not happy... the black hole was his last-ditch hope. Now, it's all him. He points toward the horizon of the star, as his ship gets hotter. Missiles launched by the pursuing ships detonate from the heat now, and are useless. All three ships are glowing orange. The pursuers are gaining.
Suddenly, the Lone Pilot dips close to the star, and hits a switch labeled "Ion Booster." He holds the toggle for a moment, then releases it as he pulls back away from the sun. The lead pursuer's eyes go wide, and he tilts away to one side. The wingman is a bit slower, and a solar flare suddenly leaps up in a wave of pure plasma, disintegrating his craft instantly. The kill count goes up by one yet again.
The dodge has cost the pursuer a lot of distance. He begins searching for his target, and finds it just as a red light on his control panel blinks a warning. Cut to panel of the Lone Pilot, who has a similar light, with the words "Target Locked" on it. He is returning fire, pointed directly at the alien. A pod drops from the ventral side of the ship, which releases a cluster of a dozen or so missiles. They leap at the alien ship, which dodges and deploys countermeasures. The missiles detonate harmlessly in the chaff.
An impressive dogfight scene ensues, in which we see Immelmans, loops, and dives. Energy bolts glance off of either ship's hull multiple times. Finally, after the Lone Pilot goes into a flat spin, he shuts down the thrusters and stabilizes. The pursuing Ace is a long way ahead of him now, and turns toward him. The alien stops, and each pilot finally has an opportunity to consider each other from a distance.
Split screen closeup, showing on either side each craft's kill count, which now equal each other. Long shot, showing both ships. Each ship's engines flare, and the craft hurtle toward each other in a game of cosmic "chicken."
Missiles are launched, energy beams fired. At the midpoint between the two ships, the missiles find each other, and detonate. Enormous explosion. Both ships fly into it, impact seemingly unavoidable. There's a huge detonation from within the first fireball. For a moment, nothing more is seen.
Then, the lone pilot's ship appears from the other side, blackened and scorched from the heat. A closeup shows extensive damage, sparks leaping from his console. Damage indicators on a ship's diagram are blinking. The camera pans down to an indicator blinking the words "Systems Stabilizing" in orange, which changes a moment later to green words stating "Systems Stable." The view pans upward to the pilot's face, eyes closed, unmoving. Suddenly, he takes a deep breath, and exhales a sigh of relief. The camera pans outward, back down to the kill count, and we see one more silhouette flare into being. Camera holds on that image, fade to black.
I think that would look totally cool.
I'd watch it.
Posted by roguespidor
at 1:49 PM EST
Updated: Tuesday, 7 December 2004 1:56 PM EST
