The Abridged Script
FADE IN:
EXT. MAYAN TEMPLE THING - THE PAST
Spanish Conquistador HUGH JACKMAN explores a HIDDEN TEMPLE GUARDING THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH when BOOBY TRAPS go off and PRIMITIVE TRIBES ATTACK!
HUGH'S CONQUISTADOR BUDDIES
Ack, it's a shitty Indiana Jones knockoff! RUN!
HUGH JACKMAN
(cosplaying Aragorn)
What? No, don't- Aw, fuck, guess it's up to me to single-handedly defeat all the Mayans! For FRODOOOOOOO!!!!
The MAYANS pick up HUGH and set him down on the other side of the temple where he was trying to go.
HUGH JACKMAN
Huh? What the shit kind of fight was that? Oh, well, off I go to find the secret of immortal life, hidden behind the EPIC BOSS MAYAN CHIEF!
MAYAN CHIEF
Blah blah religious jargon blah.
(subtitled)
I WILL DESTROOOOOY YOOUUUUU!!!!
HUGH JACKMAN
AWWWW YEEEEAAAAH! An epic duel between a master swordsmen and our courageous hero, JACK UP THE TESTOSTERONE, this is gonna be-
EXT. SPACE - 2500 A.D. (THE FUTURE)
HUGH JACKMAN is now BALD and MEDITATING in his pajamas while floating in a bubble with a dying tree in space.
HUGH JACKMAN
What the hell?
RACHEL WEISZ
(appearing as a ghost or hallucination or something)
Hugh, it is I, your long-dead lover. I have come to guide you into a series of flashbacks through your past, with many artful metaphors and flashy gold lights. Come, let our journey into eternity begin.
HUGH JACKMAN
Sure, but first I need to inform the audience what life is like in a future spaceship bubble, without addressing questions like "Where do I pee in here?"
HUGH walks around, eats some bark, draws a bit, does some kickboxing, and informs the audience exactly how dull and uninteresting life in a futuristic space bubble is.
HUGH JACKMAN
Okay, now we can get started. FLASHBACK-TIME:
INT. RESEARCH CENTER - THE PRESENT
HUGH is an ANIMAL SURGEON for the WORST-LIT SURGERY OPERATIONS CENTER IN AMERICA.
HUGH JACKMAN
See, I'm trying to cure cancer in monkeys. This is important to me because Rachel Weisz, my wife, is dying of cancer. I guess I'm planning to stick her with whatever works on a monkey, because the FDA can grill my dick.
ELLEN BURSTYN
Hugh, you've been injecting monkeys with unknown compounds! You're a loose cannon, I'm taking you off the case! Hand in your syringe and sneeze mask on my desk!
HUGH JACKMAN
Hey Ellen, what do scientists use to store samples of things?
ELLEN BURSTYN
Why, they use... Oh God... THIS ROOM IS FULL OF REFRIGERATORS NOOOOOO
(runs screaming from room)
HUGH heads home to BATHTUB-PORK RACHEL WEISZ.
RACHEL WEISZ
Mmm, yeah, let's get those nipples in the frame, look at how amazingly beautiful I am.
HUGH JACKMAN
Gee, Rachel, you're perfect. Utterly flawless. It's like the director wants to marry you or something. What a weird way to meet, "I was filming her naked face-mashing Hugh Jackman."
DIRECTOR DARREN ARONOFSKY
Well I'M not the one doomed to sink into a destructive downward spiral, because I'm not starring in a Darren Aronofsky movie.
RACHEL WEISZ
Hugh, I'm writing a book. I wrote it in ink with perfect calligraphy in a hand-bound hardcover on my very first draft, because I'm so perfectly perfect like that. Will you read it?
HUGH reads RACHEL'S BOOK, which is about...
EXT. SPAIN - THE PAST
In a dramatic political struggle, STEPHEN MCHATTIE dominates SPAIN with CREEPY EXECUTIONS and SELF-FLAGELLATION. Only resident badass HUGH JACKMAN can sneak into the palace and assassinate him!
HUGH JACKMAN
Hell yeah! Something interesting!
QUEEN RACHEL WEISZ
Sorry, most of this stuff got scrapped when Brad Pitt left the movie.
RACHEL pauses to apply some more perfect 14th-Century lipstick from L'Oréal.
RACHEL WEISZ
I'm sending you to the Mayan Jungle for Eternal Life. I will live forever with you, guy-I-don't-know-very-well-but-is-hot-so-who-cares. Also,
(mashes face into camera)
I'm wearing a dress like a TREE... Surrounded by decorative carvings of TREES... The hairs on my neck are like those on the BUBBLE TREE...
RACHEL WEISZ
(present-day version)
I'd like to suddenly interrupt and tell a long story about a man who DIED and turned into a TREE, while I'm DYING.
HUGH JACKMAN
Then we'll cut to me in space... Talking to the DYING TREE... like it's SOMEONE I LOVE...
QUEEN RACHEL WEISZ
WHAT COULD THIS ALL BE HINTING AT?!
STEPHEN MCHATTIE
Hey, should someone tell Clint Mansell his soundtrack's been stuck in a loop for the past hour?
CLINT MANSELL
That's kind of my thing, man.
HUGH heads to the MAYAN JUNGLE, eventually reaching the awesome flaming sword battle from the beginning.
HUGH JACKMAN
(unsheathing claws)
Okay, NOW we get to see how this battle turns-
INT. HUGH'S HOUSE - PRESENT
HUGH JACKMAN
Hey!
RACHEL WEISZ
Sorry, I started writing my beautifully-bound historical epic without thinking up the last chapter, so I'm going to make you write it for me. Romantic, right?
HUGH JACKMAN
I'm scared, Rachel. I'm scared people will call this movie pretentious and shallow, then swoon over the unbelievably terrible 2012 remake because it had blunt, saccharine voice-overs.
RACHEL WEISZ
You mean Cloud Atlas? The movie people thought should get a "Best Makeup" Oscar even though Korean Hugo Weaving looked like Jason Voorhees? HA HA HA PEOPLE THOUGHT THAT DESERVED AN OSCAR, HA HA HA OH MY GOD I CAN'T BREATHE
RACHEL has a seizure and falls to the ground. HUGH rushes her to the HOSPITAL, where she delivers another long story about another man who DIES and turns into a TREE.
RACHEL WEISZ
They planted a SEED... on his GRAVE... and he turned into a TREE... OMG GET IT?!?!?!
She is CRUSHED TO DEATH by SYMBOLISM.
HUGH plants a seed on RACHEL'S GRAVE, in WINTER under a foot of snow, the best time for planting seeds.
INT. SPACE BUBBLE - FUTURE
BALD HUGH JACKMAN floats through a COSMIC NEBULA which looks OCCASIONALLY FAKE, but it is PRACTICAL EFFECTS and therefore 1000 TIMES BETTER THAN CGI, UGH, LIKE, I'M SO TIRED OF CGI IN MOVIES, IT'S RUINING STORY AND CHARACTER YOU KNOW, GRAVITY WAS JUST A FANCY COMPUTER PROJECT, BOYCOTT PIXAR FOR KILLING HOLLYWOOD, DAWN OF THE APES WILL DESTROY ACTING FOREVER
But OMG BRADLEY COOPER AS AN ALIEN RACCOON RIDING A MONOSYLLABIC ENT, MUST SEE RIGHT NOW I'M SO EXCITED AHHHHHHHH CGI RULES!!!!!
HUGH JACKMAN
Uh... anyway, I made myself stop aging, put my tree-wife in a bubble ship, and floated towards a dying star so the tree can live forever.
RACHEL WEISZ
(hallucination)
That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. The REAL explanation is the "future" part of this movie is actually the last chapter of the book I made you finish, and you gave it this ending!
HUGH JACKMAN
Rachel, that theory makes absolutely no fucking sense. It doesn't align with the Conquistador story at all and doesn't explain why I keep having hallucinations of you. Or why I have an American accent, for that matter. People don't actually think-
RACHEL WEISZ
According to the people who believe this theory, since this movie apparently has fans (wait, really?), anything that doesn't make sense about it is because you're a bad author.
DIRECTOR DARREN ARONOFSKY
(smiling so wide his lips snap)
Now, do you motherfuckers actually think the explanation to my movie is that most of it was written by a shitty author who didn't know how to end a story?
HUGH JACKMAN
Well when you put it that way...
The BUBBLESHIP arrives at the star XIBALBA which is not-quite-literally A CARTOON. But the tree DIES before it gets there.
HUGH JACKMAN
Noooo! If only I'd been fast enough, the tree would have... uh... Was I planning to throw the tree into a supernova? Is that my "Cure for Death?" God this is stupid.
QUEEN RACHEL WEISZ
I'm the Queen now, because this costume is too pretty to wear just once. You must let yourself die so the tree can live!
HUGH JACKMAN
Again, I'm right next to a star about to explode into a fucking supernova. I think we're all going to be dead in a few seconds. But I'll gladly spend my last moments pretending I'm the son of Glinda the Good and Professor X.
RACHEL WEISZ
(dreamy)
Finish it... Finish the last chapter...
HUGH JACKMAN
Fine, I'll write an ending in my head, as the camera VERY OBVIOUSLY zooms into my mind, which half the internet seems to have missed.
RACHEL WEISZ
(squinting)
Can't blame them. One-third of the theater is shielding their eyes from all the blinding light. The rest of the theater is empty.
INT. MAYAN TEMPLE - THE PAST
The MAYAN PRIEST is FINALLY about to DICE HUGH UP, when suddenly...
HUGH JACKMAN
I AM GLOWY FLOATING BUDDHA! OOOOOOH!
MAYAN PRIEST
Hugh. What the hell. What are you doing.
HUGH JACKMAN
I HAVE BECOME MAGIC LEVITATING GREEN-SCREEN MONK! WHOOOOA!
MAYAN PRIEST
(kills self)
This ACTUALLY HAPPENS.
HUGH enters the MAGIC GARDEN ON A HILL, the type of hill you can climb up without walking through booby-trapped Mayan temples. He finds THE TREE OF LIFE!
HUGH JACKMAN
Wha- It's a tree? It's not a fountain? You mean there aren't any fountains in this movie? Why did I even sign onto this?
TREE
You can stick your dagger into me and drink the white sticky fluid I discharge. Ew, what?
That ALSO ACTUALLY HAPPENS. HUGH drinks from the TREE and turns into a bunch of flowers, which, yes, ALSO ACTUALLY HAPPENS.
HUGH JACKMAN
Now I can spend eternity being eaten by worms, ingested into victims, then transferred into pigs before decomposing back into-
RACHEL WEISZ
THAT'S the ending you gave my story? It accomplished nothing! The conquistador had no character arc, the Game of Thrones stuff is now irrelevant padding, and-
HUGH JACKMAN
How's THIS for a goddamn ending?!
The supernova EXPLODES and DARREN ARONOFSKY vomits GOLD SPARKLY DIARRHEA everywhere and CLINT MANSELL blows up the AUDIO TRACK and HUGH JACKMAN turns into BIG BANG MAGIC FERTILIZER and possibly TIME TRAVELS because SUPERNOVAS give TIME TRAVELLING POWERS according to yet another DUMB POPULAR FAN THEORY. Roll credits!
RACHEL WEISZ
This isn't a real movie, is it?
HUGH JACKMAN
But it is! It's an overlong, dialogue-heavy compilation of poorly-paced shots, rapidly aging special effects, unconnected plot points, and a confusing ending that doesn't answer any questions! Was it good?
CRITICS
Booooo. What a pretentious piece of crap. What lazy writing and directing.
(pause)
Unless Stanley Kubrick did it. Kubrick TOTALLY INTENDED his movies to have all those flaws, which makes him a genius auteur instead of a hack. Hail Kubrick!
CRITICS vomit a FOUNTAIN of golden PRAISE over KUBRICK while ARONOFSKY learns his lesson and never makes a ridiculous nonsensical Biblical-themed cult movie EVER AGAIN.
END