"TIME GENTLEMEN PLEASE" FADE IN: A nondescript street. MIKE and GEOFF stand outside a building. GEOFF is half-humming, half-singing 500 Miles by The Proclaimers and tapping his feet. He is Scottish. MIKE Geoff, why are we just standing here doing nothing? GEOFF Mike, we are indulging in that time-honoured tradition among lego folk – standing around waiting for something weird to happen. MIKE Oh, right. Has anything happened yet? GEOFF Not yet. MIKE I still say the tiger would win. GEOFF Mike, I’ve explained this before. The outcome of a fight between a shark and a tiger would depend entirely on the arena of combat. Granted, if they were fighting on land... What’s that? We begin to hear a distant sound, gradually getting louder. The sound resolves itself into a long scream MIKE and GEOFF look around for the source of the noise as YELLOW plummets to the ground behind them. He is dressed in the style of a classic space man. As he hits the ground, MIKE and GEOFF turn around to see what the noise is. The spaceman sits up and shakes his head to clear it. He stands and looks around him. MIKE and GEOFF look up as we hear another distant sound. This time it resolves itself into two screams. The spaceman also looks up. At the last possible moment, the spaceman takes a step backwards as two more spacemen, RED and WHITE, hit the ground. YELLOW ignores his comrades as they dust themselves off and steps round them to address MIKE and GEOFF YELLOW Greetings, friend. My colleagues and I are travelers in time. Tell me, what year is this? MIKE looks blank for as long as it takes to indicate that he’s not too sure himself, then turns to GEOFF GEOFF It’s 2002. YELLOW 2002? Marvellous! Gentlemen, this is a momentous occasion! Our time machine has flung us through time from 1981 to the very dawn of the 21st century! We are pioneers at the very edge of the last great frontier, pushing back the boundaries of science and mathematics! Oh, they laughed back at the lab, but we showed... GEOFF What time machine is that then? YELLOW, RED & WHITE look at each other, then around on the ground as the whistling sound of something really quite heavy falling at speed becomes audible and begins getting louder. They all look up and step out of the way of the time machine as it crashes noisily to the ground. It makes a soft “pinking” sound for a second or two, then with a creak, falls apart. YELLOW Hmm. YELLOW, RED & WHITE look at the broken time machine, then at each other. RED kicks at a runner and something falls off. YELLOW I wonder if you’d be able to direct us to the nearest matter transportation pod. MIKE The what? YELLOW You know... a teleportation unit? GEOFF I don’t think they’ve been invented yet. YELLOW Oh. Could you give us a ride in your hover car? GEOFF No hover cars either, I’m afraid. YELLOW Personal jet packs? GEOFF Sorry. Um, there’s a bus stop just over there. YELLOW Are the buses driven by robots? GEOFF I’m afraid not. YELLOW It’s the year 2002, mankind is gazing out at the dawn of the new millennium, and you’re telling me people still get around on buses? Has anything at all happened in the last 20 years? GEOFF Well, they knocked the Berlin wall down, leading to the unification of East and West Germany... then there was the collapse of communism in the soviet union... giant space mutants invaded the Earth and now stalk the planet feeding off mankind. At this point, and over the next couple of lines, a MUTANT appears just in shot, sniffs around, then swipes RED and retreats. GEOFF Oh, and we have reality tv. YELLOW Reality tv? Crunching sound off-camera GEOFF They put cameras in a house, then people move in and you get to watch them on tv while they... do stuff... in the house. YELLOW GEOFF That’s about it. Off-camera, the MUTANT makes a “ptui” sound and RED’s helmet bounces into shot. It remains out of sight of the characters. YELLOW I was rather hoping for something a bit more... y’know... space-age. WHITE looks around to see where RED has gone. He starts to raise his hand and is about to say something to YELLOW when the MUTANT reappears, more confident now, and swipes WHITE GEOFF Oh! They started making Star Wars movies again. More crunching off-camera YELLOW Really? Marvellous! GEOFF Well, I wouldn’t get too excited... Another “ptui” and a helmet bounces into shot. This time, it into view of our characters. YELLOW Hey! MUTANT reappears as YELLOW turns to see where the helmet came from. He too is swiped in much the same way as the previous two. MIKE & GEOFF watch the off-camera mutant as we here the now-familiar crunching and see the helmet roll into view. GEOFF You know, the weird thing is that I made up the part about the space mutants. FADE OUT... ENDING 1: SIMPLE Black, following fade out MIKE But who do you think would win in a fight between a shark and a lion? GEOFF You are such a jackass. MIKE I think the lion would win because sharks don’t have legs. GEOFF Please stop talking now. END ENDING 2: BTTF Fade back in to GEOFF fiddling about with the broken time machine. GEOFF Let’s see what we can do with this... More tinkering, until the time machine is fixed and GEOFF gets in the pilot’s seat. MIKE leans over to have a look. MIKE What’s this for? The time machine disappears in a shower of special effects. Close on MIKE just staring into space, occasionally looking around. Wide again. The time machine rematerializes, but this time it looks more futuristic and is hovering (why not make it easy on myself). GEOFF is still piloting, but is now wearing a more futuristic outfit. GEOFF Mikey, you gotta come back with me! MIKE Where GEOFF Back to the future! END ENDING 3: MONEY Fade back in to GEOFF fiddling about with the broken time machine. GEOFF Do you know what this means, Mike? If we can get this fixed up, we could use it to make a fortune on the stock market. Heck we could just travel forward to next week and get the winning lottery numbers. We can be millionaires! All we have to do is keep it under our hats and make sure no-one else finds out... Fade out Caption: The next day... Spinning newspaper effect leads to the front page of the Daily Tribune, which reads “DIM MAN INVENTS TIME MACHINE”. The subheading reads “Scientists baffled”