Project #176 and 177 - Scripts

I'm not crazy about commuting. It's anywhere from an hour to two a day contributing to global warming, but at least it's "me" time, and I get to think. Sometimes I chew on a project related problem (like how to re-build my flexible track jig with PVC pipe) and other times I just turn on the radio and listen to the inane morning shows, hoping for some Dire Straits or Tom Petty.
Sometimes I open the mental filing cabinet and pull out one of my scripts.
I have two scripts, one for a play and one for a movie. The play was the first I conceived of back when I was in amateur theatre. We did some Christmas Pantomimes - very British and a hoot to do. A couple of the other cast members were also big Arrogant Worms fans - the Worms being a Canadian comedy troup whose songs include "Carrot Juice is Murder" and "The Mounted Animal Nature Trail". We tried our best to get some of the songs included in the script - but no. So I merged the two - a pantomime featuring music from the Arrogant Worms. It's based on "The Last Saskatchewan Pirate" - a tale of a farmer pushed too far who resorts to piracy on the Saskatchewan river. The story has evolved over the years, but it's still pretty much the same. A good natured farmer and his family are threatened by the developement of a Mega Mart. They steal a parade float, sail across Canada and search for help. Of course there's a villian ( a bloated rock star ), a good fairy ( with a Blackberry and a Starbucks habit) a pantomime horse (Dobbin - the Mountie's horse) and all the Arrogant Worms songs I could cram in. It's still all in my head, except for an outline I wrote a few years ago while camping.
The other is an updated version of a book I read many times as a kid. "The Spaceship Under the Apple Tree" is one of those very nerdy fantasies about befriending an alien whose been stranded on Earth. Written years before "E.T.", it was probably one of my favourite books, along with "Rascal" and "The Great Brain". There were several sequels (all of which I now own, thanks to ebay). This one begs to be made into an animated film, and updated to the present. Young Eddie Baugh ( in the books his name is Eddy Blow - which I can't see using today) is a computer wizard, running his own ISP, with patents on several technologies pending. He has promised his father to spend a week in the country with his grandmother and help her organize the family farm's finances. In the country, Eddie runs afoul of some small time cyber crooks and encounters a strange boy from another world. There are, of course, pokes at having an obsession with technology, Microsoft, the Internet, and exciting chase scenes.
My only issue with it is it's a little remnicent of "The Iron Giant"... but then again, there are no original ideas anymore...
So one day I will sit down and get them on paper. At least the treatment. I'm not the greatest writer of dialog and it would probably come out sounding like anything George Lucas crafted in the past seven years (ie bad).
Everyone has a script or two inside them. "Snakes on a Plane" actually became a movie... go for it.