Escape from L.A.

A pounding, metallic beat begins. Twists of sound in a tightrope rhythm. The snap of a military snare drum.

SUPERIMPOSE: "1998"

A DARK TABLEAU - CITY STREET - LOS ANGELES - NIGHT

Graffiti-smeared walls. Fires raging. Automatic weapons fire. Shadowy figures dash through the southern California night.

A LINE OF POLICEMEN - NIGHT

They stand like sentinels. Black uniforms. Battle helmets. Gleaming military assault weapons. Bullet-proof shields with large emblems: the American eagle against a red background, and in bold letters underneath, "THE UNITED STATES POLICE FORCE".

A GLOWING HOLOGRAPHIC MAP

Of Los Angeles, on the coast of southern California.

SUPERIMPOSE: "1999"

The map of L.A. now glows a dark red.

EXT. DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES SKYLINE - DAY

A hot summer's day. Heat ripples distorts the towering shadowing buildings in the dense smog.

Suddenly we are hit by the loudest, booming, rolling concussion you have ever heard. The buildings begin to shake, swaying wildly. The Bonaventure Hotel implodes, collapses inward in the thudding, slamming freight train of an earthquake. The 4-level Interchange as the Santa Monica Freeway shatters, crumbles, pulling exit ramps, cars, trees, and nearby buildings with it.

SEQUENCE OF RAPID CUTS

Buildings shaking. Streets buckling. Cars rolling, crashing. People running. Gas mains exploding. Buildings convulsing and dropping like tinder against an inferno.

THE SANTA MONICA PIER

As the tsunami sweeps in from the ocean, smacking into the shoreline like the hammer of God, plunging us into darkness.

HOLOGRAPHIC MAP

Of the United States. A line tracks along the Mexican border, like the Berlin Wall.

WHAM!

A TORCH-LIT LANDSCAPE - NIGHT

The ruins of L.A. Rubble, smoke, a lethal wasteland. An army of terrifying figures climbs atop a mountain of debris. They raise their weapons into the night sky.

ZOOM INTO A HOLOGRAPHIC MAP OF L.A

An unrecognizable L.A. After the big one. Surrounded by water, L.A. is now an island off the new western shore, tilting on the edge of the continental plate.

A red line tracks along the mountainous areas surrounding the island, defining the perimeter of the armed fortress. Police firebases and gun emplacements are indicated in the San Gabriel Mountains.

ZOOM INTO L.A.

From the glowing, outlined canyons come the cries of rage of a million lost souls.

BLACK SCREEN

SUPERIMPOSE: "2013 - NOW"

EXT. DARK OCEAN - NIGHT

TRAVELING SHOT low, across the top of the water's surface. Climb up the side of a massive, rusted supertanker, abandoned, years ago. Break over the railing to reveal a gigantic neon sign which screams "NEW LAS VEGAS." The supertanker has been transformed into a floating resort.

The camera increases speed, moves past huge billboards displaying gigantic glitzy ads:

"NUCLEAR NIGHTS IN HAVANA" - an extravaganza with fabulous showgirls and laser recreations of Fidel's final night.

"MUSEUM OF NIGHT CLUB ARTS" - a virtual reality tour featuring legendary Vegas entertainers.

"FREE ENTERPRISE WORLD" - a virtual Disneyland for the whole family.

Now camera flies low through glittering streets and back alleyways filled with gamblers, neon and glitz.

EXT. ALLEY - NEW LAS VEGAS, 2013 - NIGHT

An alley strangled with tourists, gamblers, hookers, hustlers, and con men - professional expatriates from the West mingling with excited visitors from all over the world.

SUPERIMPOSE: "NEW LAS VEGAS OFF THE COAST OF SEATTLE THURSDAY 0330 HOURS G.M.T. "

A Salesman with a chin-mike speaks non-stop, unintelligible Chinese. A frenzied crowd gathers around him, waving money, placing bets.

Two men sit at either end of a long table. They are in deep shadows, facing each other. We only get glimpses of them: One fat. Mirrored sunglasses. Chinese. His fingers tap on the table. A cockroach scurries past. Ammo belts. A sheathed combat knife the size of your arm. .45 automatics in holsters.

The other, dressed in black. An eye-patch. Dangerous. A flash of two six-guns in holsters. A futuristic gunfighter. The cockroach dashes past his fingers. WHAP! He squashes it.

The crowd goes nuts, placing bets, yelling and screaming in a dozen languages.

The salesman places three different shaped, clear shot glasses in front of the two men. Then he leans over to...

A VAT OF POISONOUS SNAKES. He reaches in, grabs a cobra, pulls it out. The cobra hisses and squirms. Deftly, the salesman continues to talk non-stop into his chin-mike as he milks the cobra venom into the first glass.

He pulls out an ice-pick, jabs it into the snake's throat, and bleeds a thick green-white liquid into the second glass. Finally, he slits open the cobra with a large knife, and cuts out the heart and liver. Tossing aside the dead snake, the salesman squeezes the heart and liver with his fingers. The juice drips into the third glass.

Now the salesman stirs the glasses. The poison is clear. The blood is milky-green. The heart and liver are red. He places the glasses on the table between the two men.

The two men stare at each other, motionless. The crowd continues placing bets at a fevered pitch. A titanium white tube floats above the center of the table. A laser beam of light shines from one end.

The salesman leans over and flicks on side with his finger, sending the tube spinning on its axis like a bottle, the light circling the room before stopping on the fat man's forehead.

The fat man reaches slowly toward the glasses. His hand shakes slightly. He hesitates. Finally he takes the glass with the red liquid (the heart and liver), lifts it to his lips, pauses, then gulps it down.

The crowd explodes. More bets.

The salesman leans over and spins the light tube again, this time it lands on something black, an eye-patch. Pull back to reveal a man with an eye-patch.

The man with the eye-patch reaches forward, his hand paused between the remaining two glasses. He takes the one filled with milky-green blood and downs it fast. The crowd roars.

One glass left. The two men stare at it intently.

The salesman spins the light tube with more force than before. It circles again and again, slowing down, speeding up, finally stopping on the fat man.

The salesman begins yelling over the din of the crowd, shouting at the fat man. The fat man reaches for the glass of clear poison. His trembling fingers hover above it. Then he quickly withdraws his hand.

The crowd reacts, boos, as...

The man with the eye-patch smiles. A slightly, cynical smile. And without hesitation, he reaches out, grabs the glass of poison, and drinks it down. The crowd surges forward, but the salesman stops them with a sweep of his arm. All bets are off.

The two men stand from the table. Take several steps away toward the end of the alley. Stand facing each other. Two gunfighters.

Flashes of the two men. A piece of a black military boot. A hand positioned over a six-shooter. Mirrored sunglasses. A sweaty, trembling lip. And the eye-patched man's one good eye, blue and clear, staring - hard and calm as a sunny day...

The draw. It happens in an instant. The alley thunders with gunfire. The guns buck and flash. Then silence. The two men stand there for a beat, until one of them, the fat man, slumps, falls face first into the alley, dead.

The crowd goes completely ape shit as SNAKE PLISSKEN emerges from the shadows of the alley, holsters his guns, grabs his take of the money...

SNAKE PLISSKEN. Long hair. A black eye-patch. A tight-lipped grimace. The impression of coiled aggression and intense cynicism. The toughest, most dangerous man on planet earth. A legend.

PLISSKEN strolls out of the alley into the crowd. He counts his money, pockets it, as a cigarette girl approaches him. PLISSKEN stops her, pays for a pack of cigs. As she eyes him...

CLOSEUP OF PLISSKEN'S ARM

... the cigarette girl touches him, pricks his skin with her fingernail. A drop of blood appears.

PLISSKEN turns, stares after her, as the sound of helicopters rises from above in the night sky. The crowd suddenly starts to disperse.

Helicopter searchlights blast down on the street. PLISSKEN is suddenly caught in the glare. He starts to move away...

KACLANG!

Out of the blackness above a huge steel net drops out of nowhere. The net slams down on top of PLISSKEN, trapping him, driving him down to the pavement with its weight... PLISSKEN struggles inside the net as black figures - United States Police Force Officers - rush toward him, grab the net, tightening it. More cops move for him as we SLOWLY FADE TO BLACK...

SUPERIMPOSE: "L.A. FRIDAY 1900 HOURS"

EXT. CONTAINMENT WALL - FIREBASE SEVEN - L.A. - NIGHT

Searchlights sweep down across a column of policemen marching past a concrete wall. Camera begins to crane up the wall. Sound of roaring turbines. The howl of the Santa Ana wind.

Camera reaches the top of the wall. Armed police troops stand on the battlements. Across what looks like an ocean is L.A. The view is from the Newhall Pass.

Hidden by the Santa Monica Mountains, L.A. glows in the distance with a hundred fires. Smoke surges from the jagged horizon. Above, the sky is an angry orange.

ANOTHER ANGLE - TOP OF THE WALL

Res sensor lights glow in evenly spaced intervals. Searchlights sweep into the darkness. Cannons are in place every 200 feet, manned by police guards.

EXT. SAN FERNANDO SEA - NIGHT

Water stretches into blackness. This was once the San Fernando Valley, but now it's all underwater. Pieces of debris - tops of buildings, the tail of an airplane, a radio tower - stick up above the surface. We can make out the letters of an old, half-sunken sign: "SAN FERNANDO VALLEY MALL"

EXT. THE WALL - NIGHT

The wall stretches to the northwest up to the Santa Susanna Pass. Portions of the 118 Freeway arch up out of the water.

EXT. FIREBASE SEVEN - BEHIND THE WALL - NIGHT

Firebase Seven is a fortified base camp in the San Gabriel Mountains. It is a sprawling police complex with low concrete bunkers, gun emplacements, satellite communications, vehicles, troops, the works. ON A LARGE ASPHALT FIELD, opposite the main complex is Rotor City - row after row of black, multi-bladed, totally evil police battle helicopters parked like giant bugs on the ground.

A throng of policemen gather at the edge of Rotor City yelling and cheering, their fists in the air. Cops with camcorders videotape the event. A police anchor reports...

A MASSIVE 7-ROTORED, 40-BLADED HELICOPTER TRANSPORT comes slamming down out of the black sky and lands. The growing crowd of cheering cops goes nuts like fans at a football game. They slap hands, dance wildly.

INT. COMMAND HQ - MAIN CONTROL ROOM - NIGHT

A mammoth room filled with high-tech instrumentation. A glowing holographic map of L.A. fills one wall. Most of the control personnel have left their work stations and gather around TV sets all showing the Police Channel: a view of the helicopter transport sitting on the asphalt and the cheering crowds at the edge of Rotor City.

A tall, steel-faced officer sits at his desk. This is Firebase Commander MAC "BIG DOG" MALLOY. Hard, battle weary features. BRAZEN, a section Lieutenant, comes up.

Malloy rises from his chair, steps to a nearby TV set, watches the scene from the Police Channel.

EXT. ROTOR CITY - NIGHT

The crowd of cops is growing to a frenzy of wild anticipation.

The door of the helicopter transport slowly lowers like a drawbridge. Out of its black belly comes...

SNAKE PLISSKEN. A steel collar is clamped around his neck. Eight lengths of chain stretch to eight armed guards who escort Plissken down the ramp. Plissken is bruised, badly beaten and tortured, his face a mess, but he doesn't seem to care. A line of battle-ready cops stand with their guns aimed right at Plissken's head as he is marched into camp. An army of camcorders move ahead of the Police Anchor as he scampers along in front of PLISSKEN, interviewing him.

Celebrating cops cheer as Plissken is lead to...

A SIGN ABOVE A CONCRETE BUNKER - DEPORTATION CENTER

The bunker has one large opening, into which hundreds of deportees march. Guards in towers monitor the condemned as they trudge out of fenced-in containment areas, down walled corridors to the bunker entrance.

The deportees are minorities, the poor, prostitutes, pimps, thieves, adulterers, atheists - the Morally Guilty, outcasts of society. Single mothers carry babies. Teenage runaways huddle together. There are abortion doctors, drug dealers, pornographers, the prisoners of a massive cultural war.

As Plissken is marched toward the entrance, a loudspeaker blares out:

A great cheer goes up from the cops as the Police Anchor conducts his interview...

Plissken's face remains so impassive as to be almost blank.

INT. SODIUM VAPOR CORRIDOR - DEPORTATION CENTER - NIGHT

A glowing, vaporous-orange corridor. More cops gather to watch Plissken as he is escorted into the bowels of the Deportation Center.

INT. CONCRETE HALLWAY - DEPORTATION CENTER - NIGHT

Deeper into the Deportation Center. Camera tracks along the deportees, some bleeding, some wrapped in rags. Plissken, the Police Anchor, camcorders and the armed escort move through the dark, low concrete passageway.

The Police Anchor leans in as close as he dares to Plissken's face.

STEEL-WALLED HALLWAY - DEPORTATION CENTER - NIGHT

Steel walls. Deeper into the Deportation Center. The deportees here are in worse shape. Some appear to be dead. Plissken and his entourage continue along, as the speaker echoes a pre-recorded message...

Plissken and his entourage pass deportees kneeling and praying in front of cloaked cleric cops, government holy men. Beyond, through opened doorways, see Death Row deportees being strapped into futuristic electric chairs.

Plissken's expression is blank.

The guards move Plissken through a doorway, and the huge steel doors slam shut on the Police Anchor and the camcorders.

INT. CORRIDOR - PROCESSING AREA - NIGHT

Malloy, Brazen, and a 3rd man, tall, charismatic, grim, move urgently along a corridor.

INT. CONCRETE CELL - NIGHT

The cell door slams shut. Plissken turns around. Writ and leg irons. He looks around.

In the concrete cell he sees a simple table with an overhead light above it. A watch lies on the table. Plissken shuffles over, picks up the watch, examines it.

The cell door opens. Malloy, Brazen, and the 3rd Man enter the room unarmed. The door closes.

Malloy and Brazen move forward, to the edge of the light. The 3rd Man stays back in the shadows by the door.

Malloy looks back to the 3rd Man in the shadows...

Malloy raises a control unit, pushes the button. The lights go down and a computer-enhanced image appears on the wall...

INT. PROTOTYPE DEFENSE LAB - SURVEILLANCE CAMERA

From the point of view of a surveillance camera. The lab is huge. Banks of processors, disk drives, test bays, prototype assembly areas. High tech. A group of government officials is being given a tour. Utopia, 17, the President's daughter is among them. Pretty, virginal, she wears a "True Love Waits" button on her flowered dress.

Plissken continues to watch the image on the wall...

The 3rd Man reacts as the image in front of Plissken changes...

INT. MAIN CABIN OF 747 - CAMCORDER

From the point of view of a camcorder. Utopia stands inside the main cabin of a plush, government 747. In one hand she holds a black anodized box the size of a transistor radio with a button on top. In the other, a machine gun.

Inside the surveillance room the President stares grimly as Malloy presses a button. Suddenly the image in front of Plissken spreads out all around him. He is in a virtual reality re-creation.

INT. MAIN CABIN OF 747 - VIRTUAL REALITY

Plissken stands manacled in the main cabin. A group of secret service men and congressmen watch as a flight attendance operates a camcorder. He's videotaping Utopia as she rants into the camera. She's pent up with such anxiety she's like a panther in a cage.