The Abridged Script
FADE IN:
INT. DARK, SUPERSATURATED HOUSE
EMILY BROWNING and her SISTER mourn the loss of their mother in SLOW MOTION. Their stepfather, GERARD PLUNKETT, cackles and twirls his moustache at EMILY.
GERARD PLUNKETT
Your mother left all of her money to you, so I need to kill you. But instead of kill you, I'll lock you in your room while I kill your sister. But instead of kill her, I'm going to stand in her doorway and look back at you while she runs away. But after all of that, everyone gets killed. Also the cameraman seems to think I'll be raping her, so that might be happening.
EMILY BROWNING
What? I can't hear anything you're saying over the shitty cover of "Sweet Dreams" blaring on the soundtrack. Jesus, who the hell recorded this crap?
(checks)
Oh.
EMILY steals the GUN GERARD SHOULD PROBABLY HAVE USED TO ACCOMPLISH HIS CURRENT GOAL OF MURDER and tries to stop him.
GERARD PLUNKETT
Ha! Your bullet missed me, hit the lightbulb behind me, then somehow killed your sister who was nowhere near it!
EMILY BROWNING
I guess Zack Snyder's understanding of physics is at about the same level as his understanding of film.
INT. MENTAL INSTITUTION
GERARD has EMILY committed to an insane asylum. An orderly, OSCAR ISAAC, takes her.
OSCAR ISAAC
The doctor who does lobotomies will be here in five days. The resident psychiatrist, Carla Gugino, would never approve such a thing so I'll go ahead and forge her signature.
GERARD PLUNKETT
Great, just make sure Emily never has a chance to tell Carla, since she just heard this entire conversation and could therefore easily save herself.
OSCAR ISAAC
No problem. Emily will never talk to Carla aside from their daily meetings.
GERARD PLUNKETT
Great. Wait, what?
CARLA GUGINO
Môj prízvuk je ve?mi trápne.
INT. BROTHEL
EMILY closes her eyes and imagines a fantasy-world for herself as a coping mechanism.
JENA MALONE
I have short hair and I'm spunky, so I'll be your only friend until you can win everyone else over.
ABBIE CORNISH
I'm a bitch. I don't like you or your stupid face.
JAMIE CHUNG
I'm Asian, and I don't seem to have any personality traits beyond that.
VANESSA HUDGENS
And I will take absolutely any film role I'm offered if it doesn't involve singing in a high school.
JENA MALONE
Let me show you around. Flip that switch so I can explain things while sitting on a rotating bed for no reason. Anyway, in your fantasy, you are a prostitute. You will be forced to dance for fat, dirty, smelly men until they get big boners that they put inside various parts of your body as you cry.
EMILY BROWNING
Holy Christ, I'm literally the worst person in the world at constructing escapist fantasies.
ABBIE CORNISH
Just so we're all clear, what's going on back in the reality of the insane asylum is that orderlies are raping the shit out of us, right?
JAMIE CHUNG
If I say yes, do we lose our PG-13 rating?
ABBIE CORNISH
Yes.
JAMIE CHUNG
No?
JENA MALONE steals some FUCKING DISGUSTING UNSWEETENED BAKER'S CHOCOLATE and as a result nearly gets, naturally, raped. EMILY saves her so they become BFFs.
CARLA GUGINO
Emily, now you must pervorm dance.
EMILY BROWNING
Hmm. I probably should have mentioned during my audition for this movie that I can't dance.
DIRECTOR ZACK SNYDER
WE HAVE TO GO DEEPER!
EXT. FEUDAL JAPAN
In yet another layer of FANTASY, EMILY shows up in a DARK SAILOR MOON OUTFIT and battles some CRAPPY CGI MONSTERS with SWORDS and then GUNS and then SEX APPEAL.
EMILY BROWNING
Action scenes don't need purpose or a sense of actual danger, all they need is CGI and slow-mo!
SCOTT GLENN
Emily, to escape you will need a key, a map, a lighter, and a knife, plus a fifth thing that will be kept secret to create arbitrary drama.
EMILY BROWNING
I'm on it, complete figment of my imagination!
SCOTT GLENN
Actually, I'm a figment of your imagination's imagination!
INT. BROTHEL
EMILY finishes dancing.
JENA MALONE
Holy cow, you're an amazing dancer!
VANESSA HUDGENS
Maybe if we say it enough it can make up for the fact that we didn't show it at all!
JAMIE CHUNG
That dance was so phenomenal that I'd be really pissed if I had to miss it in order to watch a completely pointless overstylized fight scene in a mind-blowingly shitty movie instead! That's how good it was!
EMILY BROWNING
Alright here's the plan. We're going to escape. I will distract the guards with my dancing--
ABBIE CORNISH
--which, just to reiterate, is actually you getting plowed by orderlies--
EMILY BROWNING
--while you girls steal various objects of little value but great importance. I'll write them down on this chalkboard, because four nouns are too much to remember for my pwetty widdle pigtailed head.
EMILY proceeds to RAPEDANCE for MAXIMALLY DISGUSTING MEN while fantasizing about a broad spectrum of diverse settings ranging from SEPIA-TONED WAR MOVIE to SEPIA-TONED LORD OF THE RINGS.
SCOTT GLENN
Alright soldiers! You need to disarm a bomb, codenamed "Kitchen Knife" because this movie was written by a 10th grader. Make sure you girls work as a team, whatever the fuck that means in the context of a single person's imagination!
JENA MALONE
Hold on, I need to put on my combat armor. Which will protect me as well as my thigh-high stiletto boots, a miniskirt or a pair of panties?
EMILY BROWNING
I'm starting to get the impression that Zack Snyder is the kind of guy who thinks pornography is "empowering" to women because the girls get paid slightly more than the guys ejaculating on their faces.
INCEPTION FOR IDIOTS continues pandering to GEEKS by stealing from every shitty ANIME, VIDEO GAME, and MOVIE that has ever been fiercely defended in an INTERNET FORUM.
DIRECTOR ZACK SNYDER
I couldn't decide what kind of movie to make so I made ALL OF THEM!
EMILY BROWNING
You're calling this a movie? I thought it was just 8 music videos pasted together.
Suddenly, EMILY gets CAUGHT and JENA gets STABBED. OSCAR ISAAC gets VANESSA HUDGENS to confess the whole plan.
OSCAR ISAAC
This is for betraying me!
(kills Jamie Chung)
And this is for staying loyal to me!
(kills Vanessa Hudgens)
ABBIE CORNISH
Well this is fucking depressing. Great fantasy, asshole.
EMILY BROWNING
You can still escape. I just realized I'm the mystery fifth thing and you're actually the main character.
ABBIE CORNISH
I guess your first clue was that you didn't have a single spoken line until the 20-minute mark.
ABBIE escapes.
INT. MENTAL INSTITUTION
EMILY finishes getting lobotomized by JON HAMM.
JON HAMM
Hold on a second. She looked at me kind of funny when I hammered an icepick through her eyeball into her brain. Nobody ever does that, something is amiss!
CARLA GUGINO
You're right! My signature was forged! Unnecessary lobotomies and rape are one thing, but I draw the line at impersonation!
OSCAR ISAAC
Wait, this isn't what it looks like! Unless it looks like I'm helping run a mental institution that would have been shut down decades ago if this were in any way realistic, in which case it's exactly what it looks like.
ABBIE CORNISH escapes, despite it making more narrative sense for JENA to.
ABBIE CORNISH
It was so nice of Emily to let me be the star of the movie in the end even though she's on the front of all the posters!
SCOTT GLENN
Congrats, you're now the star of one of the most idiotic and exploitative action films of all time.
ABBIE CORNISH
Shit, you're right. I feel like I've been sucker-punched.
(pause)
Oh, now I get it.
END