Space Invaders Movie Treatment!

Space Invaders was an arcade game created by Tomohiro Nishikado for Taito in 1978.  The game was iconic with it’s six bit graphics rendering the invaders in various shapes.  The trick was to maneuver your tank behind bunkers to blast away at the invaders as they relentlessly descend in waves.  The bunkers that are slowly destroyed by the rain of blasts by the space invaders.  This is all to the music that increases it’s pace as you whittle down the invader numbers.  They race across the screen and the music keeps pace making you anxious at the fast approaching invaders. All the while a UFO passes over the alien fleet and you can shoot it down for bonus points..  

There was a Space Invaders Part II released in 1980.  There is a new version of the game, Space Invaders Frenzy, with a 117” screen with two player controls in the shape of laser guns.  Arcades have the game with tickets to be won from game play.  You can target the invaders with a laser target that sweeps over the screen.  It has a retro robot voice that is new.  The aliens in retro graphics explode with modern effects. It appeared in the video game alien invasion film, Pixels (2015).  The treatment here is intended to be set in the alien invasion movie era with a diverse cast, but with modern action and effects. It is set in New Jersey like the Orson Welles broadcast of War of the Worlds (1938).  

1953, post-war New Jersey, an old Sherman tank Stormy Weather is about to be decommissioned at an army base with Captain Mark Reynolds as commander.  A scientist has detected what he thinks is an alien invasion in an observatory.  He believes it is a threat since there is no message or warning.  The scientist, Dr. Luis Molina, and his daughter Ellen are able to warn the base which prepares to fight the invasion.  The tanks are rolled out and are destroyed by the fast moving space ships.  Stormy Weather manages to clip one before its cannon and most of the crew are destroyed.  Reynolds survives and takes the scientist and his daughter to the crash site of the space ship.  He manages to shoot the alien pilot who wields a laser gun.  They find a power core and a cannon which the scientist says can be adapted for Earth weaponry.  

The group goes to find others to help with the modification.  They find an African American cook, George Hall, who is depressed over not being able to serve.  They load the core and cannon in the cook’s truck and haul it to the base.  Luis and Ellen modify the alien technology onto Stormy Weather which has been renamed Clear Skies.  The new tank crew is ready for the next wave; Ellen is the driver (she drove tractors on her family’s farm), George is the loader, and Luis watches the core.  Clear Skies rolls out, uses bunkers for cover, and is able to knock out the first wave of invaders.  Several waves start to descend, blasts tear up the base, the army regroups with cannons and tanks.  Reynolds orders the tank to the countryside.  He has spotted a mothership.  The cannon fire fills the skies as the invasion fleet descends.  Ellen and Reynolds share a brief kiss for the victory, but Reynolds orders the tank evacuated before it is destroyed. 

They take cover into the hills.  The mothership hovers over the hills and the group manages to enter the ship.  They battle the aliens until they reach the command center.  The alien commander says that they brought war to the Earth because they believed it to be the natural condition of the humans.  Ellen explains that Earth is trying to learn to be peaceful. The alien commander tries to shoot her, but he is killed by Reynolds. Luis tries to sabotage the controls, but Reynolds instead drops grenades.  They escape as the mothership explodes.  The invasion fleet is in chaos and picked off by the army cannons before fleeing into space.  Luis is sad that they lost the alien technology.  George replies that it is good that advanced weaponry will not be around to keep the wars going.  Reynolds and Ellen kiss as the medics and techs race to check on the heroes.  The end.  

#SpaceInvaders, #StormyWeather, #CaptainMarkReynolds, #EllenMolina