At
the bookstore this afternoon, my attention was directed towards a
book in the discounted history section. The book was simply titled
“Lincoln in 3-D”, and was a photo book of period 3-D photography.
Naturally, the title alone made my brain conceptualize of a motion
picture based upon the book. I suppose on the one hand I shouldn't be
surprised, there's been a number of nouveau
takes on our
sixteenth president. Outside of the recent Spielberg picture, there
was “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”. So in keeping with modern
times, how else can we use the great emancipator for fun and profit?
Let
us begin with the actual trailer for the smash movie: “Lincoln in
3-D”. Never
before has the motion picture screen known such excitement! Millions
spent! Three years in the making! You won't believe your eyes when
you see “Lincoln in 3-D”!!! Redundancy pictures is proud to
present a once in a lifetime IMAX experience! You'll swear that you
can actually reach out and touch the stovepipe hat! You'll thrill as
you can feel the man's beard inch closer and closer to your face!
Warning: No one will be seated during the signing of the emancipation
proclamation! “Lincoln in 3-D”! A technological triumph, a movie
that will stay with you forever! Please don't reveal the secret
ending to your friends! “Lincoln in 3-D”! Coming soon!
Now
that we have Lincoln as a vampire hunter, and Lincoln as a 3-D
superstar, the obvious next role for Honest Abe is that of action
hero. Perhaps a film that is somewhat reminiscent of “Die Hard”?
The trailer would start off with some bombastic narration. In
a land, torn apart by a civil war, one man will try to rescue his
wife. While keeping the country from falling apart. Lincoln
makes a good will trip down to the south, at the invitation of an
open minded plantation owner. While the party for the president is
being thrown, confederate terrorists kidnap Mary Todd Lincoln, and
cause general mayhem.
Shots
of all kinds of excitement would follow this. Barns blowing up,
people running in a panic, people holding rifles at each other. Then
on top of the roof we'd see Abe Lincoln crawling around on the roof
of the mansion in an undershirt, trying to drop cloth sacks full of
gun powder down the chimneys. As he scoots along he will be overheard
saying “Yeah, come down to the south! We'll get together, have a
few laughs...” The trailer then cuts to a shot of all the windows
getting blown out of the mansion. The narrator would then say: This
Summer, Abe Lincoln in: “Not Without My Mary”.
Where could one
possibly go from here? We've had Lincoln the vampire hunter, Lincoln
the 3-D IMAX experience, and Lincoln the action star. The next
logical progression would be to have Abe Lincoln as a sort of
superhero. The success of all these Lincoln themed films would make
needy television executives rush in a blur of activity to create
their own Lincoln franchise. Modern TV lore tells that you must have
a show that will appeal to everyone, and if you can do it as cheaply
as possible all the better. Hence, the show would be a Lincoln-ized
remake of an older TV favorite.
The show's
opening sequence would begin with Lincoln being shot at Ford's
Theater. A voice over would begin. “Abraham Lincoln. President. A
Man barely alive.” We would see the president being rushed into a
shockingly modern looking medical facility. A man would speak.
“Gentlemen, we can rebuild him, we have the technology.” A
radically shocking form of tech based on studies from Thomas
Jefferson's secret notebooks. “We can make him faster, stronger,
better than he was before.”
We would then see
our sixteenth president, being outfitting with all kinds of steampunk
looking objects, this would then dissolve to a shot of Lincoln
running through a field in slow motion, stovepipe hat and all.
Lincoln would then jump over rows of cattle, all to a “shananana”
sound effect. We'd see Lincoln smash his way though walls to free
slaves, and lift full grown horses over his head. “This fall,
Abraham Lincoln is The Six Million Dollar President.” It would be a
smash hit, and the spin off would be “The Bionic Mary Todd”.
This is just a
few ways to modernize ole Abe for a modern audience. It's amazing
that with today's technology and creativity, it's just a short hop
from “Lincoln in 3-D” to “The Six Million Dollar President.”
If odds are that I've somehow just created the genre of Steampunk
Presidential Fiction, all I ask is for some credit.
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