FADE IN:

INT. NEW YORK - EARLY 1900S

GUY PEARCE is scribbling equations on a chalkboard the way actors do, when he is interrupted by MARK ADDY.

MARK ADDY

I declare, Guy Pearce, you're so befuddled and absent-minded that you've forgotten your plan to propose to the love of your life tonight.

GUY PEARCE

(befuddledly)

Damn it, Mark Addy, don't you understand my incessant flusteredness is critical to accomplishing my life's work?!?

MARK ADDY

Which is...?

GUY PEACE

(absent-mindedly)

I've narrowed it down to either discovering the secret of time travel, or inventing Flubber. But I AM SO CLOSE!!

MRS. WATCHIT

Oh, go propose already, Guy!

(pause)

My character's name is WATCH...IT!!!! WATCH!!!!! GET IT?!?!?!?!!!! BECAUSE WATCHES TELL TIME!!!!!!!!!!!

GUY PEARCE

(flusteredly)

Alright, I'll go already.

EXT. PARK

GUY PEACE befuddedly proposes to SIENNA GUILLORY, who ACCEPTS! Just then a MUGGER arrives.

MUGGER

Hands up! This is a mugging.

GUY PEARCE

(befuddled)

No, THIS is a mugging!

(contorts face)

Oh I say what? Oh dear! I'm so befuddled and absent-minded that apparently I've never even heard of such things as crime and robbery!

MUGGER

Cut that crap out already or I'll start shooting!

DIRECTOR SIMON WELLS

Keep that crap up, Guy, or I'll STOP shooting!

GUY PEARCE

(eyes bugging)

Very well, I struggle befuddedly!

(flails at mugger)

The GUN goes off, killing SIENNA!

GUY PEARCE

Oh, drat.

INT. GUY'S HOUSE

GUY PEARCE

(obsessed)

I am so obsessed with building a time machine. Note I am not nearly so befuddled anymore.

The AUDIENCE notes this.

MARK ADDY

Guy, stop being obsessed already.

MRS. WATCHIT

Yes, we're quite concerned about you.

(pause)

WATCH-IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BECAUSE IN THEIR OWN WAY THEY CAN ALSO BE CONSIDERED TIME MACHINES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GUY PEARCE

Alright, I won't be obsessed.

They LEAVE him alone, after which he reveals his TIME MACHINE.

GUY PEARCE

This is one funky cool machine I've built. It has a sweeping elegance of design and an unmistakeable grandeur.

(pause)

You'd never think this is all leading up to a cheesy fistfight. Ah well.

He enters the TIME MACHINE and goes back in time.

EXT. PARK

GUY PEARCE rushes up to SIENNA.

GUY PEARCE

Thank goodness I've found you! Now all can be set right, even though you're going to think I'm a raving lunatic, especially when my past self can't recall any of this conversation. Hmm, it would have been far better for me to find MY past self and warn him; he'd obviously believe me and we'd also avoid inconsistencies in our behaviour. Oh well, this will work too, I'm sure.

(pause)

Sienna, wait right here in this exact spot.

SIENNA GUILLORY

Okay.

She is CRUSHED by a FALLING PIANO.

GUY PEARCE

Damn.

INT. GUY'S HOUSE

GUY PEARCE

(haunted)

Please notice my shift into Haunted mode. So far I've been unable to save Sienna, and for some reason refuse to attempt warning my past self, so I shall search for answers in the future.

He ACTIVATES the TIME MACHINE. Things outside start happening VERY FAST. For some reason he DROPS SIENNA'S PICTURE, and GRABS it with his hand OUTSIDE THE TIME BUBBLE, which according to later information should DESTROY HIS HAND, but it doesn't. We start to PAN UP, watching countless years of history unfold, none of which seem to involve ANYTHING being built around or on top of the TIME MACHINE for some reason. As we pan further up, AIRPLANES fly past, but still at regular speed, which means that in REALITY they are somehow flying at ONE MICROMETER PER HOUR and people on board are DYING OF OLD AGE. Finally GUY stops the MACHINE in the year 2030. He finds himself in a conveniently built ALLEYWAY.

GUY PEARCE

Ah, the future. Since this machine is my only link home and my only hope of ever saving the love of my life, I had better abandon it out in the open and go wandering off somewhere.

GUY finds a MUSEUM with an ORLANDO JONES hologram.

ORLANDO JONES

Hello. Hey, I've got a good Andrew Lloyd Weber joke.

GUY PEARCE

No, thanks. I'm going to look further ahead in time.

He DOES so, but finds the world thrown into CHAOS and DEVASTATION, which again, for some reason, does not affect the spot where the TIME MACHINE is.

GUY PEARCE

Oh my! Well I should certainly wander away from the machine THIS time!

He DOES, and is GRABBED BY COPS. He does not seem OVERLY CONCERNED, but luckily the COPS FALL DOWN and GUY returns to the MACHINE. As he does so we see that the MOON has been ripped apart in a cool way. GUY activates the MACHINE, but a SHOCKWAVE knocks him UNCONSCIOUS even though the MACHINE has proven itself UTTERLY IMPERVIOUS to no end of other outside disturbances. The MACHINE goes forward some 800,000 YEARS before GUY can deactivate it. He is found by SAMANTHA MUMBA, one of the ELOI.

SAMANTHA MUMBA

Wakey wakey, Guy! Can you understand my words?

GUY PEARCE

Why yes, I can. It's quite amazing, bordering on ludicrously impossible, that the language could survive unaltered through an oral tradition after 800,000 years!

SAMANTHA MUMBA

But don't forget, we also have some stone fragments with a few dozen words on them, that have survived being exposed to the elements for 800,000 years.

GUY PEARCE

Oh well then. Lucky for me, also, that the germs and viruses of 800,000 years in the future have evolved back into precisely the forms that they were in the early 1900s, so that they don't kill me instantly.

SAMANTHA MUMBA

Indeed! Anyway, let me show you my home on the side of a sheer cliff. It's awkward, but protects us from the Morlocks, who can climb sheer cliffs with ease.

The ELOIS show GUY their NEW-AGE HIPPIE ENYA-MUSIC VILLAGE. Suddenly a horde of MORLOCKS burst in, and re-enact some scenes from TIM BURTON'S PLANET OF THE APES.

GUY PEARCE

Oh no! Samantha, wait right here in this exact spot.

SAMANTHA MUMBA

Okay.

She is promptly CAPTURED BY MORLOCKS.

GUY PEARCE

Fuck.

ELOI KID

Don't worry Guy, I know where Orlando Jones is.

INT. CAVE

ORLANDO JONES

Hey! I'm still here.

GUY PEARCE

Remarkable. Do you have any ideas how to defeat the Morlocks?

ORLANDO JONES

No.

GUY PEARCE

Ah. Well, off to save Samantha Mumba!

EXT. OUTSIDE THE MORLOCK HIDEOUT

GUY PEACE

(action hero look)

Now I am a rugged action hero guy. Eloi Kid, wait right here in this exact...

ELOI KID

Fuck that! See you back at the hippie village.

GUY PEARCE

Hm, perhaps that's best. Well, I'm sure to be fine since I'm now carrying the shoulder-slung rope from the movie poster.

He DROPS the rope down a HOLE.

GUY PEARCE

Oops. Well, I still have my brilliant plan of wandering about until I'm captured.

He DOES so. He is brought before JEREMY IRONS.

JEREMY IRONS

Greetings, Guy. I hope you appreciate how we have painstakingly bred ourselves for 800,000 years to become Marilyn Manson. Oh, and we have incredible mind-reading powers.

GUY PEARCE

Yes, the black lipstick is a nice touch. Oh, why can't I save Sienna?

JEREMY IRONS

Because if you did, then you would not have built the machine. Without the machine, you can't save Sienna. It's actually not that hard to grasp, Mister Brainy Boy.

GUY PEARCE

So perhaps I could warn my past self, also giving instructions to build a time machine and then come back and warn me?

JEREMY IRONS

Yes, too bad there's not even a slight chance left to save her. Anyway, for some reason I've had your time machine brought here onto my personal hydraulic-lift thingie.

GUY PEARCE

(astonished)

But I left it lying unguarded in a field!! How could this happen?!?!?!!

JEREMY IRONS

Now that I've impressed you with my incredible mind-reading power, you may leave.

GUY PEACE

Okay, I will. But come over to the machine with me for a minute.

JEREMY IRONS

Very well. I, with my amazing mind-reading powers, will walk over to the machine with you.

GUY PEARCE

Now bend over a little.

JEREMY IRONS

Why certainly! What request could be more innocent.

SUDDENLY, GUY grabs JEREMY and hauls him INTO THE MACHINE, which he ACTIVATES. They have a CHEESY FISTFIGHT, ending with JEREMY falling OUTSIDE and DECOMPOSING. GUY looks out onto a FUTURE full of MORLOCK SCARY HEAD SCULPTURES.

GUY PEARCE

Geez, they really like to build giant scary heads. GINGRICH 802,030 A.D.!!!

GUY RETURNS to where SAMANTHA is caged up, and stuffs a WATCH into a GEAR of the MACHINE. They RUN past the MORLOCKS. The MACHINE EXPLODES, creating some bullshit kind of TIME EXPLOSION or something, which NOW suddenly has to follow the contours of the rock walls even though it's a TIME EXPLOSION, and DECOMPOSES the MORLOCKS even as they REACT and FALL in the same time-frame as GUY PEARCE and people OUTSIDE the TIME EXPLOSION, if that even makes ANY FUCKING SENSE WHATSOEVER. Anyway it KILLS THE MORLOCKS.

GUY PEARCE

Phew. Well, we can stop running now even though there's no reason to believe this time explosion will ever stop growing. In fact as far as we know, I may have just destroyed the Earth. Ah well. The important thing is that I'm happy.

EXT. FIELD

GUY is showing SAMANTHA MUMBA and ELOI KID where his house was. We also cut back to 1900s NEW YORK and see both scenes together.

GUY PEARCE

Yes, despite all the vast terraforming CGI we watched earlier, the ground where my house was has remained unaltered.

MARK ADDY

(in the past)

Geez, he's been gone almost a week.

MRS. WATCHIT

Yes, almost, but not quite, seven whole days! Clearly he's taking a week's vacation.

(pause)

Well, better sell the house and find a new job.

MARK ADDY

Farewell, dear friend! What a bittersweet end to such a tragic and haunted life, to have a week's vacation!! I throw my bowler hat in defiance of conventional thought, in the spirit of scientific arrogance that will lead us to destroy the moon and obliterate human civilization as we know it!!! How uplifting!!

AUDIENCE

Oh, NOW I get it!! Her name isn't "WATCH-IT", it's "WHAT-SHIT"!!!!!!! Ha ha ha!!! Because SHIT, in its OWN WAY, is a kind of TIME MACHINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

END