How to Make a SciFi Original Movie

At the moment I currently have my lap top pulled up in front of an easy chair, a bowl of popcorn in my lap, and another gem made by the creative geniuses at the SciFi SyFy* Network:  "High Plains Invaders".  Now for those not keeping up with their studies of old American Westerns, the name "High Plains Invaders" might mean absolutely nothing to you.  But to me, its a brilliant pun made off of the 70s movie, "High Plains Drifter".  Where "Drifter" had Satanic parallels and deep symbolism, "Invaders" had robot aliens attacking and rock farms.  "Drifter" had beautiful scenes of America's sun-scorched Southwest, where "Invaders" has the dreary grey mud that can only be Romania.  And where "Drifter" had the brilliant anti-villain stylings of Clint Eastwood, "Invaders" had the guy who played Piccolo in the live-action adaptation of "Dragonball Z".  So all in all, I think SciFi has created a far superior movie here**.

You've probably never seen a SciFi Original Movie before.  And that's a word in your favor.  Nobody on Earth can possibly be so stupid as to watch these things unironically.  If you're committed to the religion of irony, you've probably seen every single SciFi Original already, and so know exactly what to expect:  cheesy effects, bad acting, bad scripts, bad directing, bad locations, and well... bad everything.  Actually every sucks about these movies, which is what makes them so perfect for our ironic tastebuds.  Nothing is more ironic than enjoying something that can be patently proven to be absolutely terrible in every single way, right:?  Oh no, you can take one ironic step farther than that!  You can make a horrible SciFi Original Movie!  Such sweet sweet irony.

However, making a SciFi Original Movie is a complex process, involving a very large number of steps.  Well, no, its a very arbitrary number of them, which I will outline now:

1. Pick a Catchy Name:  All SciFi Originals begin just as names.  You find something that sounds properly awesome and go from there.  Somewhere out there somebody thought of "Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus" and wrote the screenplay from there.  I can see him now:  "Hmm...  Sharks are cool, Giant Octopuses are cool.  Why not combine them?  Oh wait, sharks are a little small to fight a giant octopus, so I should add a teaspoon of Mega to this, just to balance things out."  And wallah, a motion picture is born.

Well, "High Plains Invaders" had gotten me in the mood for an alien-themed Western picture.  Don't worry that I'm obviously stealing the idea of another Original Picture, nobody who makes, watches, or produces these movies will ever care.  Despite the word "Original" being in the brand name, originality is neither required or wanted for these things.  So let's do brainstorm a few names, shall we?

• "The Good, The Bad, and The Thing From Another World"
• "Once Upon a Time in Alpha Centuri"
• "No Galaxy for Old Men"
• "Butch Cassidy and the Neptune Kid"
• "3:10 to Pluto"
• "The Martian Who Shot Liberty Valence"

Let's go with "The Good, The Bad, and The Thing From Another World" because I like my titles long.

2. Find a Wash-Up Actor for Advertising:  It doesn't matter who, exactly.  Just as long as they have enough star power that somebody over forty might possibly recognize them.  There isn't much to advertise when these movies are being made, so you need D-List star power so the SciFi announcer has something to say.  So when SciFi needed a main villain for "Locusts:  The 8th Plague", David Keith was just drunk and hungry enough to sign up.  Once upon a time David Keith was in the Stephen King film "Firestarter"... those days have long since past.  For "High Plains Invaders", SciFi went with the guy who played Piccolo in the "Dragonball Z" movie.  I think once upon a time he was on "Buffy" but does anybody care anymore?  In Hollywood you either become a star, or circle the drain until you're either doing a SciFi original movie about giant flies or possibly do porn.

So let's say you're Eric Roberts.  Once, in possibly another life, you did "The Pope of Greenwich Village" with Mickey Rorke and your career was on fire.  Then your sister Julia came along, stared in "Pretty Woman" and stole your career.  Yeah, you got a bit role in "The Dark Knight" twenty-five years later, but its not like you're ever going to get real work again.  So why not appear in "Cyclops"?  People will be far too busy laughing at the unbelievably terrible special effects for anybody to notice your performance.  Its not like anybody cares about Eric Roberts anyway, right?

So for "The Good, The Bad, and The Thing From Another World", though my first choice would be the delicious Rachael Leigh Cook***, I think her career has a chance of recovering from the unjustly panned "Josie and the Pussycats" (an Official Planet Blue recommendation).  She'd never sink low enough to appear in our movie.  So let's instead go with somebody truly hopeless:  Kirstie Alley.

3. Location, Location, Location:  Don't even think of filming in the United States, we can't afford union hang-ups amongst the production crew.  In fact, we probably won't be able to afford Canada either.  Romania maybe.  But I'm setting my sights even lower:  Belarus.  For extras, simply liberate a few lost souls left-over from the Communist gulags.  And this is doubly useful in the case of any cast or crew member talking about "health benefits" or "animal rights".  Let's see how they like their animal rights once they're squeezing coal and trying to make diamonds while the NKVD beats them.  Kirstie Alley might gain a few hundred pounds on the plane ride over, so a stay in the gulag might lean her up a bit.

Don't worry that Eastern Europe looks exactly nothing like either the old west or outer space.  Nobody cares, and in fact they like your movie better if it makes absolutely no sense.  Half your profits are coming from the ironic crowd after all. Since this movie is taking place in the Old West, be as anachronistic as possible - they like that.  Accidentally include a peasant's tractor in a few shots.  Make sure you work with reflective materials so that the audience can see the crew members and camera.  SciFi Original Movies don't work on Suspension of Disbelief, instead they work on "Suspension of Belief":  if the audience believes for a single second that any part of your movie is at all realistic, they will get bored and change the channel.

4. Screenplay, Acting, Filming, Set Design, Editing, Special Effects:  Don't waste too much time here.  None of these things are important for a SciFi Original Movie.  Also, make sure your movie ends in an explosion somehow.

5. Prepare For the Sequel:  If enough people buy the DVD, there just might be a "The Good, The Bad, and The Thing From Another World 2" in your future.   Or if they don't, it will probably happen anyway.  The SciFi channel doesn't care.  Something has to come on after "Ghost Hunters:  International", so why not our movie?

For the sequel, make sure you dump the entire cast.  Don't just be coy with continuity and only replace the actors who died in the first one.  No.  Make sure your movie in no way connects on any level with the original.  No characters may return, not even the villains.  No locations may be reused, no plot points recycled, and nothing should make any sense.  If there are fans of the original movie, make sure you piss them off as much as possible in the sequel.  A happy fanbase is a bored fanbase.  Remember they can always change the channel.  So read amateur blogs on the Internet.  Find exactly what made people like your movie in the first place.  Then make sure none of it appears in any form in the sequel.  If they mention something they specifically don't like, include it in spades in the sequel.

If by any chance you happen to get the greenlight for "The Good, The Bad, and The Thing From Another World 3", just film your son's birthday party and get him to dress up as a cowboy and have your aunt show up in an alien suit.

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* Inspired by SyFy's bold step of changing their name into a sillier-looking homophone, I will now be changing my name to Blu Hywinde.  "The name 'Blue Highwind' has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that, as opposed to the general public and the female audience in particular".  (Even so, somehow I simply cannot bring myself to type "SyFy".  It makes me feel used and prostituted.)

** In all honesty "High Plains Drifter" is a disgusting movie and you should never watch it.  It isn't bloody or gore-filled like "Saw", but its plot is the disgusting thing.  Beyond taking place in a town filled with cravens and double-crossers who are easily as bad as the villains, the main hero is as awful as anybody else.  Clint Eastwood (who directed the movie) is once again playing his "Nameless Nearly Silent Cowboy", an emotionless badass who usually waits all movie for no apparent reason to defeat the bad guys.  He wanders into a town, finds it had a problem, kills some thugs, waits around for awhile, then kills the main thug, The End.  Not the best formula, but a good formula:  works brilliantly in "Fistful of Dollars".  And "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" is the greatest movie ever.  Of course here, I think he's less an antihero and just straight-up Satan.  For example, fifteen minutes into the movie, after killing some thugs like the cowboy movie formula demands, Eastwood rapes some woman who gives him a bit of lip.  Did you hear that?  He rapes her.  And nobody in the entire town cares.  They joke about it.  And then, if just to throw the cherry on top of this entire hideous plot thread, Eastwood's victim falls in love with him.  So no matter how amateurish "High Plains Invaders" might be, its certainly a less sickening movie than "Drifter".

Seriously 70s, what the Hell was wrong with you?  No wonder why the 80s invented political correctness.  If you want a real subversion of the Cowboy Movie formula, try "Unforgiven".

*** Off topic:  Will you marry me, Rachael Leigh Cook?