The first rule of Finals Club is: you do not talk about Finals Club.

THE SOCIAL NETWORK

The Abridged Script

FADE IN:

INT. COLLEGE BAR - HARVARD

JESSE EISENBERG sits across from ROONEY MARA.

JESSE EISENBERG

I need to quickly establish that I'm an antisocial genius so that the audience won't feel too bad about not inventing Facebook first.  Also, I want to make sure we're having multiple conversations at once so nobody forgets this was written by Aaron Sorkin.

ROONEY MARA

Why are you talking so fast?  Is that a lame attempt to establish your character is smart?  What's next, saying you got a perfect score on your SATs?  And Sorkin didn't write the whole movie like this, did he?

JESSE EISENBERG

It's a two hour movie about Facebook, time is a precious commodity here, but as it happens, I did get a perfect score on my SATs, that's why I got into a real school unlike you.  And yes, the whole movie is like this.

ROONEY MARA

Wow, you're kind of a raging dickbag, I think I'm going to go ahead and dump you.  And I'm starting to understand why there weren't more 2-hour episodes of The West Wing; for Christsakes Sorkin, type something into your screenplay software without first hitting tab to start another line of dialogue.

JESSE goes back to his DORM and starts BLOGGING.

JESSE EISENBERG

Rooney Mara is a bitch.  And even though real life Mark Zuckerberg stopped the post there, I'm going to go ahead and add that her breasts are small to get the ball rolling on my characterization as a sexist asshole.  Hmm, sexism, that gives me an idea...

ANDREW GARFIELD

Hey buddy, I heard Rooney dumped you.  You should go win her back, just grab a 1-UP and defeat her seven evil exes.

JESSE EISENBERG

For the last time, I'm not Michael Cera!  Besides, I'm busy haxx0ring Harvard's network so I can gather pictures of girls for a site I'm creating that lets people rate people's faces.  Quick, what's that algorithm you invented to rate chess players?

ANDREW GARFIELD

Um, you mean the Elo rating system invented in the 50's?  You too good to Altavista that one?  Here, I'll draw it on your window so that we leave no "smart guys in college" cliches unturned.

JESSE continues procrastinating on his CS HOMEWORK and actually pays the money to register the domain name FACEMASH.COM, which starts with the word FACE so it must be RELEVANT.

ANDREW GARFIELD

What's with the high-energy background music blaring?  Oh, programming is what passes for an action scene in this movie, isn't it?

JESSE EISENBERG

All I hear is a bunch of rejected shit from With Teeth.  And you should just be happy a movie is showing KDE, Perl, Apache, Python, wget, and Emacs accurately.  Fuck vi, hataz!

INT. OFFICE - MODERN DAY

JESSE is in the middle of a LAWSUIT with ANDREW.  He talks to his lawyer's assistant, KAREN FILIPPELLI.

KAREN FILIPPELLI

...and then the Harvard network administrator pulled the plug after you got 2,200 hits in four hours, right?

JESSE EISENBERG

22,000, actually.  Yeah, that's how totally super awesome I am.

KAREN FILIPPELLI

Wowie!  Wait, but each time someone rated a picture, they made two requests to the server, one for the page and one for the new picture.

JESSE EISENBERG

Er, uh, yeah but still, pretty badass--

KAREN FILIPPELLI

So if everyone spent 10 minutes or so rating people, that's like 30 people. There are barely even 22,000 students enrolled at Harvard, dingus.

(pause)

And what does this have to do with Facebook?  For some reason, the audience paid 12 bucks to see a version of "The Pirates of Silicon Valley" with Facebook and I feel like we're letting them down.

JESSE EISENBERG

I was just getting to that...

INT. HARVARD COLLEGE

ARMAND HAMMER and ARMAND HAMMER approach JESSE.

ARMAND HAMMER

My twin brother and I have an idea.  It's a social network like Friendster and Myspace, but it's Web 2.0 using Ajax wikis microblogging, and RSS mash-up.  Microformats folksonomy.

ARMAND HAMMER

It basically lets people check out their old high school classmates and make sure their lives turned out shitty.

JESSE EISENBERG

Wow, that sounds like a -- wait, is your name actually Armand Hammer?  Jesus Christ, did your parents hate you?  Anyway, your idea sounds dumb but I'm going to use it anyway to build my own social network.

JESSE talks to ANDREW GARFIELD.

JESSE EISENBERG

Andrew, I need you to pay for servers for my newest site, Facebook.  In return I'll tragically stab you in the back.

ANDREW GARFIELD

Sounds good.  I'll help secure some advertisers so we can actually make money from this.

JESSE EISENBERG

No, we need to keep Facebook cool, and if there's one thing a Harvard Computer Science major knows, it's how to be cool!  The key is exclusivity and no ads!

ANDREW GARFIELD

You realize that modern-day Facebook is littered with ads and my grandmother's cat has a profile, right?

JESSE EISENBERG

Wait, I have a brilliant idea!

(php)

My masterpiece is complete!  All that it needed was Relationship Status!

ANDREW GARFIELD

The thing friendster has had for years?

JESSE EISENBERG

Yes, that thing.  Let's go get rich.

JESSE launches FACEBOOK and it is INSTANTLY POPULAR despite it's initial lack of FARM AND MAFIA-THEMED GAMES.

JESSE EISENBERG

Andrew, I'm moving to California to hang out with Justin Timberlake because he's cool and has short curly hair and fucks women with impossibly perfect asses.

ANDREW GARFIELD

I don't trust that guy.  I saw Janet Jackson's terrifying tit because of him.

JESSE moves into a house across the street from JUSTIN by complete COINCIDENCE THAT THE MOVIE WILL IGNORE.

JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE

I really like what you're doing with Facebook.  Speaking as the founder of Napster who nobody remembers, I'm a big fan of business ventures that have no revenue model.  And speaking of models, check out these Victoria's Secret models that are all over us!

JESSE EISENBERG

Holy shit, Palo Alto is like a bizarro land where hot girls are attracted to the creators of web sites!  Do high schools play Starcraft instead of Football here, too?

JUSTIN TIMBERAKE

Females: they're only good for fellating men who invent things, amirite?

Meanwhile...

EXT. UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE

ARMAND HAMMER, ARMAND HAMMER, and MAX MINGHELLA discover that FACEBOOK is now popular in ENGLAND.

ARMAND HAMMER

That asshole!  Let's sue his ass! Ogre hate nerds!

ARMAND HAMMER

Yeah!  Then we can be the movie's closest thing to a villain other than the main character!

MAX MINGHELLA

Which will distract everyone from the real villain: a legal system that in any way respects "herp derp I have an idea for some kind of social something using the intarwebs" as prior art!

ARMAND HAMMER

Why the hell was this scene filmed using tilt-shift photography?

DIRECTOR DAVID FINCHER

The same reason I used CGI to put your face on two different bodies instead of just casting twins: I'm David Fucking Fincher!

INT. FACEBOOK OFFICES - PALO ALTO, CA

ANDREW GARFIELD flies to visit JESSE.

ANDREW GARFIELD

Nice place, Jesse!  Isn't it funny how this whole thing started with an algorithm written on your window that actually had nothing at all to do with Facebook?  So what's this contract I just signed all about?

JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE

It says you've just given all your shares in the company away.  Here, I got you a present, open it.

ANDREW GARFIELD

Why are you holding that box so close to your crotch?  Hey, you aren't actually holding it at all!

JESSE EISENBERG

Sorry Andrew.  But don't worry, I'm sure the fact that you signed a binding contract without reading it won't matter to the legal system when you take me to court for being a bad fwiend.

ANDREW GARFIELD

Well, I dislike this! I want everyone here to know that I very much dislike this!

(leaves)

JESSE EISENBERG

Hmm, that gives me another idea for Facebook.  Ah, forget it, who would ever want that?

INT. OFFICE - MODERN DAY

JESSE, ANDREW, KAREN, and VARIOUS LAWYERS all finish listening to the story.

ANDREW GARFIELD

...so as you can see, I was Jesse's only friend, but he's a big meanie and I'm entitled to some compensation.

KAREN FILIPPELLI

That's it?  This is the story meant to "define a generation"?  It's just a movie about some little pisshole getting sued by his little pisshole friends.

ANDREW GARFIELD

But look at the broader irony!  The founder of the world's leading social network is a completely antisocial jerk just trying to get laid!

JESSE EISENBERG

Just ignore the fact that the real-life Zuckerberg is actually a pretty outgoing guy that had a girlfriend the entire time!

KAREN FILIPPELLI

All I've taken from this is that every time I poke someone on Facebook I'm making a 26-year-old asshole billionaire richer.

JESSE EISENBERG

Oh. Well maybe we need some heavy-handed shots of me looking all frowny to make the audience feel bad for me even though I spent the whole movie being an asshole.

FACEBOOK immediately goes into DAMAGE CONTROL MODE by putting ZUCKERBERG'S FACE in every possible MAGAZINE and TV SHOW so that the AUDIENCE assumes his lack of resemblance to JESSE EISENBERG means he's not an INSUFFERABLE DOUCHEBAG.

Hundreds of critics like this, inexplicably.

END

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