Atlantis is rising at DreamWorks

I guess I’ll be the one to disagree with you 790. This sounds pretty great to me. At least, this film has potential, right? I think so. But it could very well end up a steaming pile like so many other movies with great potential. I won’t hold my breath either, but I hope so.

I too, would really like to see a great Atlantis movie. But almost more than that, I want to see a great movie loosley based in the premise of a lost, underground society. I’ve got a great idea for a story.

Set during 1960. Location is Rapture, a fictional underwater dystopian city. The history of Rapture will be shown in brief flashbacks in the opening scenes of the film as the main character is exploring this discovery and trying to find out what happened here. Quick rundown of Rapture: Secretly built in 1946 on the mid-Atlantic seabed, Rapture was entirely self-sufficient and powered by submarine volcanoes.
Rapture was envisioned as the solution to what it’s creator saw as increasingly oppressive political, economical, and religious authority. The city was populated by those whom the creator believed exemplified the best in humanity. He wanted Rapture to become an “Eden,” a concept furthered by the resources ADAM and EVE (to be described later), which are named after the biblical inhabitants of Eden. During the early 1950s, Rapture’s population peaked at several thousand, though an elite emerged, discomforting many of the inhabitants.

ADAM was developed: basically stem cells harvested from a previously unknown species of sea slug. It further upset the social balance. ADAM’s prevalence greatly accelerated genetic engineering research, creating a plasmid industry that sold everything from a cure for male pattern baldness to skills like telekinesis, with non-passive types like the latter requiring a serum, EVE. In order to improve ADAM yields, Rapture scientists created the “Little Sisters,” young girls, each with a slug embedded in her body. Although initially just ADAM “factories,” during the war that later broke out, they were repurposed via mental conditioning to extract ADAM from the dead, and recycle it within themselves. At the same time, the scientists created “Big Daddies”, armed and highly enhanced humans in diving suits, to defend the Little Sisters as they worked.

For several years, Rapture was what Ryan originally intended it to be: a paradise of freedom and wealth. But ultimately, the very reason it was created – a hatred of authority — caused the city’s downfall, and the ideals the creator had envisaged to be corrupted and lost. To keep his utopia a secret, creator passed a single law: contact with the surface was prohibited. This edict made smuggling profitable, resulting in the formation of a small black market. This market came to be dominated by a man with just as much determination as the creator: a former mobster and accomplished con-artist. Unlike the creator, however, the con artist wanted control. His wealth, combined with his monopoly on the ADAM and EVE research, soon gained him enough power and followers to challenge the creator for control of the city.

Chaos ensues, the city falls. It gets pretty cookie cutter from there to the point where a diving party discovers the desolated city and they try to figure out what happened, while defending themselves from the mutated inhabitants.

For video game fans out there, you will recognze this as the basic plot from the Bio Shock game. I played it and thought it was an awesome story. And the game was beautiful. It truly would make a great story. If anyone is interested, check out the wikki page on the game to read the story of the game. It would be so cool to see it as a movie. They could make it stand alone (And basically tell the story as the game does, through flashbacks/dream sequences/visions of the past.) Or they could make a franchise out of it (Start from the beginning of Rapture. The first movie would end with the downfall of Rapture. The second would be all about the first exploration party, what they discovered, the “villains” they fought. If they wanted to make a third, they could add stuff in to the first and second films to set that up) The key is to not be “married” to the game’s story. Change things around a bit if they need to. Just make a great movie.

What do you guys think?

I know. I did it both ways too. I’m really glad to hear about that though. I had heard a bit about it a while ago, but it had been so long since I saw anything legit, I gave up on it. I really hope they do it justice.

I guess those producers haven’t given anyone a reason to trust their work yet, but I will continue to hold out hope that the internet and sites like MovieGuys begin to actually influence Hollywood decisions. So the producers that always seem to get the great projects with massive potential (Orci in particular) will see what the masses hate about what they do, and then fix it.

Really, I don’t understand why more writers/producers/directors don’t listen to what the internet movie community has to say. So many problems could be easily corrected before a movie is released. And a better movie would get more money!