Transplants
Transplants
The “Aliens and Bruce Willis” concept, which turned into my Being There screenplay. Original idea Thursday morning about July 31, 1998.
Stranded space aliens have been laboring secretly for 130 years to perfect the process of transplanting themselves into human bodies. They are now ready to put the plan in action.
The hitch is that the process proves disastrous unless the human organism is compliant. The human psyche tends to reject transplanted intelligences. The trick is to persuade people to willingly give up their bodies — in other words, their lives: to somehow make it worth people’s while to vacate themselves so that something from outer space can take them over.
The aliens think they have found a way to do exactly that. With the aid of a crack Madison Avenue defector, they have planned one of the biggest product launches in history, using proven marketing techniques.
We get a glimpse of all that as the movie begins. we see a refitted warehouse staffed by the most decrepit, ugly, patched together gathering of rejects and losers and near-suicides you’ve ever seen. These are the 40 or so aliens left from the original 333 castaways. Their human bodies are the best they could appropriate. Some are very, very old, sustained by unearthly medical aids.
It is winter in a bleak midwestern city, and we learn that the takeover is planned for 17 days from now. “Humans are so dis-spirited and unimaginative, our success is assured,” croaks one of the leaders.
Somewhere in the country, a very dis-spirited middle-aged man stumbles from his car, hungover, and staggers into the woods. He readies himself to end himself. He appears to be stalling, but the mosquitoes are eating him alive, so he musters his courage and lifts the gun to his head.
“What a miserable fucking life,” he says.
Think Bruce Willis.
“No!” cries a small voice. “Please, please, please, don’t waste yourself.” It’s such a small voice he fancies it must be a mosquito, or booze delirium, or that he’s finally lost his mind. He tries again to kill himself. Again the interruption. The voice is telepathic, but it’s accompanied by a grunt.
Bruce parts the foliage, his pistol aimed at a very scared pig. “Are you communicating with me telepathically,” asks Bruce intolerantly.
“Yes,” grunts the pig. The grunt is very much a pig grunt, but the voice is that of a woman. Bruce thinks he has lost his mind, wants to shoot the pig and then himself, but the pig bites him, squeals like a girl, and runs. A spirited chase ensues, ending with man and pig sprawled in a creek laughing.
Bruce gets the pig cared for by a vet, then heads back to his home 300 miles away. The pig gradually emerges from amnesia, remembers being someone’s wife and mother. They visit the house she remembers, sees the kids, the husband — and the new wife. Bruce asks a few questions, learns the woman of the house disappeared two years ago.
Following slender clues, the strange pair heads cross-country. The pig gradually remembers how she came to be a pig. Some hideous travelers found her in despair over a secret cancer diagnosis and tried to convince her to bequeath them her body if they could give her 10 years of perfect health with her family. She agreed, but at the last minute changed her mind, and ended up in the body of a nearby pig.
Riding together, eating together, having strange perils together, sleeping together, Bruce and the pig begin to fall in love, and to discover themselves in deeper ways.
The clues lead them to Cincinnati, and they infiltrate the alien headquarters, picking up further clues.
The big product launch is to take place during tomorrow’s Super Bowl. Where else?
Bruce and the pig get separated, and though he loves that pig, Bruce feels compelled to place the world first, and he sets out to save humanity from itself. Various battles and chases ensue.
The aliens take over the stadium in as un=alarming a way as possible. With all the world watching, they deliver their pitch. They can grant freedom from cancer, from aids, from Alzheimer’s, from depression — and from a hundred other maladies — and even grant a much-extended average lifespan. All that earthlings have to do is accept these gifts — and agree to an alternating time-share within their bodies. Seven days on, seven days off. Details to be worked out to the convenience and satisfaction of all concerned.
To sweeten the offer, the aliens bring out two dozen or so great men and women the world thought it had lost forever. Freshly awakened from years of sleep, all their injuries and ailments healed, one by one the beloved greats of the past 100 years appear.
John F. Kennedy, Elvis, Mother Theresa, Selena, Buddy Holly (played by Gary Busey’s dead-ringer son). Gandhi, F.D.R., on and on, — such a wealth of heroes and favorites that it’s mind boggling. Capped off with — beyond anyone’s wildest dreams — Abraham Lincoln himself.
The whole world is swooning. All we have to do at this point is allow the aliens to begin their operations unimpeded.
As the world is on the verge of succumbing, a small, thin figure emerges from one of the aliens’ Winnebagos, dashes forth in a mad, athletic way, and kills two or three alien leaders.
It’s James Dean, a rebel with one hell of a cause. Holding a gun to the top alien’s head, Jimmy speaks into the microphone. “Let me tell you people something. Life’s too short, no matter where you cut it. I don’t care if you live to be two hundred and twenty-four years old. I don’t care if you got all the bucks and houses in the whole fucking world. You gotta be yourself. You gotta say I’m the guy behind the wheel, for better or for fucking worse, and nobody drives my car but me!”
It’s enough of a distraction for Bruce to get free from his captors and cause some major damage. The aliens show their true colors, now, as they hide behind one another, giving one another up to save themselves. Creatures without dignity or love. The idea we could share our bodies with such morally repulsive monsters is sickening.
One of the aliens is the body of Bruce’s pig friend. She holds a weapon to him. Bruce can’t bring himself to kill her. He lets her put her gun to his head. Bruce is now right back where he started.
“No,” cries the pig. “Don’t waste him. Don’t waste us.”
The aliens sees she’s the last of her species. Perhaps she feels loneliness and shame for the first time. Perhaps something of her host’s human compassion has seeped into her.
She points the gun at the pig and fires. Bruce falls on his beloved pig, hugging it.
“It was the only way,” says the pig.
Time has passed now. Bruce drives through the bleak countryside again — another bleak winter. His car has a blowout.
He plods through a drab, depressed town. A car splashes mud on him.
Trying to buy a beer, he realizes he left his wallet in the car. He plods on up the sidewalk.
He rounds the corner. There, in a tidy little yard in front of a tidy house is a child playing in the grass. And then its mother appears — his pig, back in her own body.
“What a miserable fucking day,” says Bruce.
“Well guess what else. The washing machine broke, and Jimmy ground your good watch up in the dishwasher.”
Bruces chews on it for a few seconds.
“I’d say that sounds just about right.”
[unfinished] ~ July 31, 1998