DreamMOVIE #8 "Turn That Beat Around. . ."

My movie was influenced a little by Wild Zero, even though I've never seen that movie.

Age of Rock​

In 1981 the world of music was in upheaval, Disco was on it's last legs and Heavy Metal, Rap, and Punk Rock were starting to carve out their own niches in young minds everywhere. Music was evolving again and its future was looking bright.

Then came Senators Jerry Locke and Ron Grippe.

They came with evidence showing the negative effects that these new forms of music had on people including increased aggression, several scientists led by Dr. Hans Liebner spoke out saying that the results couldn't be duplicated in follow up experiments. Shortly after that Dr. Liebner turned up dead in an ally, a victim of a "mugging". The scientists stopped speaking up after that.

The Senators quickly gained support from several powerful political circles and had soon created the Federal Committee on Decency (or F.C.D.). First they were just putting parental advisory stickers, soon they began to force radio stations to heavily edit their songs, those stations that didn't comply were fined sums so large that they had to close their stations. F.C.D. soon began fining the record companies unless they edited their artists, and certain musicians were banned from live concerts. Innovation was now a liability, Disco made a comeback, former Heavy Metal bands were now Hair Metal bands their CDs were now 30 minutes of power ballads. The final nail in the coffin was the rise of the most blue-balling, whiny music yet: New Wave.

Fast forward to 2008, record companies are now in the F.C.D.'s pocket, the already mediocre New Wave, Hair Metal, and Disco have been joined by boy bands, Emo bands and glitzy pop stars, and Senators Locke and Grippe are now running for president. In the city of Detroit we meet the protagonists: Johnny, your average 21 year old college student, his somewhat geeky brother/roommate Stephen, and their quiet friend Scott.

We join the trio at night as they go to a bar, the bouncer recognizes them and lets them in. They go down several flights of stairs and end up in an underground battle of the bands, and their band Goon Squad is up next. They play (Johnny on bass and vocals, Stephen on guitar, and Scott on drums), after their song Goon Squad meets up with their rivals: rapper Maddox, and DJ's Atomic and Fusion, all three make up the group Vandal. After some good natured banter Vandal takes the stage but before they can start the concert is raided by F.C.D. agents who fire tear gas into the crowd. In the chaos Vandal and Goon Squad escape, Johnny is pissed (apparently this isn't the first time this has happened) and wants revenge, Scott and Stephen, Maddox, Atomic and Fusion agree.

The next scene is a live concert by pop idol group 2 Phine, she is taking a break in her dressing room in between sets. Suddenly Goon Squad and Vandal bursts in with their instruments (Scott just has his drum sticks) to tie up the girls and hijack the concert. However the girls start to kick the guys' asses with phenomenal strength, one starts to choke Stephen so Johnny whacks her across the face with his bass. When the girl turns around the skin on her face has been ripped off revealing a robot underneath! The robot starts to viciously attack Johnny, seeing this Stephen gets angry and his eyes start to glow. Across the room Scott is cornered by two 'bots, feeling fear his eyes start to glow. Stephen strums his guitar and lightning shoots into the bot, Scott hits the two bots with his sticks and they break apart after a after a few seconds from the vibrational shocks he caused. The rest of the artists figure out their own powers in a similar way, Johnny's voice combined with his bass can control minds (and melt robot A.I.), Maddox has a similar power with his explosive lyrics, and the DJ's can create their own music and beat blasts through their movements. After the fight Goon Squad and Vandal go to 2 Phine's company Conquest Records to find answers.

End part 1
 
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Part two.

Goon Squad and Vandal now have to musically battle their way to the top floor of the company using their powers to out rock the evil robot bands: The Disco Guidos (robots programmed to be from the Jersey shore), the Hair Metal band Whytemane (not really robots, but they are sellouts which is worse), Emo group Crye (robots that try to bring others down through whiny lyrics), the Boy Band Awesome Job!(they are dangerous harmonizers), and the New Wave band Nostalgia (the most powerful, and the richest bnd in the world). After some really cool musical sequences which have a lot of face melting, Goon Squad and Vandal have cornered the Executive who, when cornered by their awesomeness, spills his guts. It is revealed that everything that what happened to rock is the design of the Senators Locke and Grippe: Aliens who are using robots to brainwash the masses with crappy music in preparation for an invasion.

For the movie's climax Goon Squad and Vandal force the Executive to fly them to Washinton D.C. where they confront the Senators at a campaign rally. When they start to play the Senators lose their disguises and become some kind of tentacled Lovecraftian nightmare that hypnotizes the audience into attacking the bands. Vandal gets to work controlling the crowd and breaking the hypnotism while Goon Squad takes on the big bad alien. There is an epic rock battle with Goon Squad coming out on top, when the alien dies Goon Squad calmly turns to the newly freed crowd and proceeds to finish the greatest concert of all time. The future looks bright.

The Good Guys

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Shia LaBeouf as Johnny the bass player/lead singer, I believe that Shia would handle this role very well. He's the kind of guy that you wouldn't mind leading your band.

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Sam Huntington as Stephen the dorky looking guitarist, he starts out without much confidence in his abilities but grows over the course of the movie. I picked Sam mostly because of his performance in Detroit Rock City.

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Joseph Mazzello as Scott, a guy who has trouble expressing himself and his drumming suffers for it. However, once he accesses his potential his skill rises dramatically.

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Lupe Fiasco as Maddox, fast rapping Lupe is who I was thinking of when I thought of the part. He obliterates the competition with his Go Go Gadget Flow.

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Daft Punk (sans outfits) as DJs Atomic and Fusion, they let their beats do the talking with their ability to create music blasts through movement.

Bad Guys

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Dwayne Johnson as Senator Locke, the eye candy and more public of the two, he uses his charms and connections to get what he wants.

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Gary Busey as Senator Grippe, the "man" who makes it happen from behind the scenes, less vocal of the two, but probably more dangerous.

Steve Buscemi as the Record Executive, type casting I know but I don't care.

The soundtrack will include songs from The Vines, Wolfmother, Lupe Fiasco, Daft Punk, Jay-Z, The Fratellis, Avenge Sevenfold, and more!
 
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Not to knock anybody else's entries (or to suggest that mine is somehow superior to the others), it feels like everybody is interpreting the musical requirement a bit too literally.

The rules called for music to be a significant part of the concept; that doesn't necessarily mean that the protagonists should be a band, or even a musician. And even then, why should it have to revolve entirely around making/producing music?

As it is, Entropy offered some great suggestions early on in the thread that featured music as a crucial theme, but didn't limit themselves to the narrative tropes of being a musician.

Still, none of the submissions are really weak ideas; they're just not treatments that immediately appeal to me.

Iceshadow's treatment is potentially fun, but i'd need to see a full cast, and possible visual cues, before I can really decide whether it's something I can get excited about.

I dunno... I guess I was just hoping for something different from what's been posted, so far.
 
Alright guys, I'm going to call this round closed at 5:00 (central time) and then open up voting. If you have an entry, you have about three hours to get it posted. At this moment in time though, your candidates are--

SSJmole
Langsta
Compound
moonmaster
thee great one
Iceshadow
 
Round closed. Start voting.

EDIT:

On another note, I had a really lucid Kid A-esque dream last night that I'm going to post up in the weird dreams thread.
 
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*happy and also excited*

I have no idea what to do for the next round though.
 
compound said:
Not to knock anybody else's entries (or to suggest that mine is somehow superior to the others), it feels like everybody is interpreting the musical requirement a bit too literally.

The rules called for music to be a significant part of the concept; that doesn't necessarily mean that the protagonists should be a band, or even a musician. And even then, why should it have to revolve entirely around making/producing music?
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I agree.

Not to box these things apart, but I find the concept of a pop/rock film about pop/rock stars featuring a pop/rock musical component to be the kind of overtly self-referential stick that pop & rock musicians ALREADY do on a regular basis.

David Bowie does it, the Gorillaz do it, Radiohead does it, hell even the Pumpkins had a largely abandoned idea about "Glass and the Ghost Children" to conceptually tie in with their post-Machina work.

It feels like to create a self-referential musical examination of the pop & rock career as famewhoring entertainment and artistic commentary is already the province of musicians dabbling in film narratives ALREADY.

The best pop musical motion picture on the planet - Moulin Rouge - had nothing to do with that kind of stuff.
 
ourchair said:
I agree.

Not to box these things apart, but I find the concept of a pop/rock film about pop/rock stars featuring a pop/rock musical component to be the kind of overtly self-referential stick that pop & rock musicians ALREADY do on a regular basis.

David Bowie does it, the Gorillaz do it, Radiohead does it, hell even the Pumpkins had a largely abandoned idea about "Glass and the Ghost Children" to conceptually tie in with their post-Machina work.

It feels like to create a self-referential musical examination of the pop & rock career as famewhoring entertainment and artistic commentary is already the province of musicians dabbling in film narratives ALREADY.

The best pop musical motion picture on the planet - Moulin Rouge - had nothing to do with that kind of stuff.
Click to expand...

:(

My fault I guess for trying to be different and swimming up cliche creek.
 
He PM'd me last night about his round coming up. He knows exactly what he's doing and will probably have the new round up by tonight.
 
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