After the fall. Day One.

EXT, GARDEN OF EDEN – DAY

Angel with flaming sword drives Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden. The Serpent slithers along with them.

ADAM: Own! Stop poking me with that thing! I’m leaving already

The Angel gives them the bum’s rush through the back door of the Garden. The door slams shut.

They find themselves in a scruffy wooded area. Not a desert. But no damn Garden.

EVE: Well that went well.

ADAM: Went well? This is a freaking nightmare.

SERPENT: Stop complaining, pal. At least you’ve still got your arms and legs.

ADAM: Hey, it was your suggestion.

SERPENT: This is my fault?

ADAM: You told me to eat the fruit.

SERPENT: I never thought you’d take me seriously! If I told you to jump in the lake …

ADAM: Yeah. I probably would’ve. I didn’t know any better.

EVE: That’s what’s been bugging me.

SERPENT: OK. Complete the thought.

EVE: Well, eating the fruit is bad, right? But I didn’t know it’s bad until I ate the fruit. It’s the knowledge of good and evil, right? So how were we supposed to know it’s bad to eat it before we eat it?

ADAM: God told us not to eat it. That’s how we know.

EVE: Yeah, but we didn’t know disobeying God was bad until …

ADAM: Huh. Yeah. I see where you’re going with this. So, either God’s setting us up to fail...

EVE: Or it’s some kind of test.

ADAM: If …

SERPENT: Ahhh, stop it, stop it.

EVE: Stop what?

SERPENT: This kind of talk. If you keep this up, next thing you’ll know you’ll start a religion.

EVE: What’s religion?

SERPENT: Lots of rules that don’t make sense about stuff you can’t see.

ADAM: OK, rule number one: Don’t make a religion.

EVE: “Thou shalt not make a religion.” That sounds better.

ADAM: We better write it down somewhere.

SERPENT: OK, I’m out of here.

ADAM: Where you going?

SERPENT: Ireland. I’ll be safe there.

He starts to go.

EVE: Bye-bye beautiful snake.

Serpent stops. Looks at her. Senses something.

SERPENT: Bye-bye to you too, sweetheart. Oh … and mazel tov on the new arrivals.

EVE: What?

SERPENT: You’re going to have twins.

EVE: Twins?

SERPENT: Little babies. Miniature versions of you. Two of 'em.

EVE: Wow. (looking up) Which one’s the baby tree?

SERPENT: No, no, no. They come out of the place you go to the bathroom.

ADAM: He’s obviously lying.

SERPENT: Yeah … you’ll find out. See you.

He slithers away for good.

EVE: So what do we do now?

ADAM: I dunno. Invent agriculture and start the rudimentary beginnings of civilization?

EVE: Fine by me.

Neanderthal man walks by, straight out of the Time-Life evolution chart.

ADAM: OK. Now I’m just confused.

In the future, everyone will be stupid for fifteen minutes.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." 

--Sir. Arthur C. Clarke

"Magic." Well that sounds swell, don't it? When it works, yeah. Like some freaking magic genie (or Reddy Kilowatt), technology pops out of the wall socket to fry your eggs, blend your smoothie and electrocute Charlie Starkweather. When it doesn't work ...

Black magic.

See, Arthur neglected to mention that part.

The hellmouth that suddenly opens below your feet. Thousands of living brooms drowning you with water. A witch putting a curse on you and your children. A door that won't open. All the words coming out of your mouth turned to nonsense and gibberish ... 

Yeah, that's magic, too.

And it ain't always your servant.

The shiny tech that makes our lives wonderful is a demon (or daemon) only temporarily tamed. Forget the magic word, step out of the charmed circle -- and it can turn on you in the blink of an eye.

Blink. The CPU of your Mac G5 just died. Those ancient iterations of Photoshop and InDesign are digital dust: ones and zeroes floating in the breeze like Donny's ashes in The Big Lebowski.

Blink. You buy, borrow, rent or steal a new computer.

Blink. You get "Adobe Creative Cloud."

Blink. You've gone from Photoshop Master to Photoshop Moron. "You" in the sense of "I." Yep.

I've been fighting this for years, damnit. To state it as a rational argument: I don't want new stuff! New stuff sucks! The old stuff works just fine!

See, there's a reason updates make me upchuck. Every time they upgrade a program, they make it worse. Yeah. It's a fact, people. Every program, no matter how elegant and intuitive when it starts, increasingly turns to kludge and caca. Do the math ...

After X number of versions, the software developers get the program as perfect as it can possibly be. Then what? Do they tell the customers, "Hey, the program's perfect. We're gonna close up shop and spend the rest of our lives volunteering at Habitat for Humanity. Which end of the hammer is up, anyway?" Hell no.

They add crap to the program. They reinvent the wheel, turn it into a square wheel, then add a patch to make the wheel round again. They make the simple complicated, the intuitive arcane, and turn the interface you know like the QWETRY keyboard inside out and reset it in Cyrillic characters.

Every time they upgrade a program, they make it worse. 

Call it The Fugate Principle. The software variant of The Peter Principle, namely ...

In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.

So, all computer programs rise to their level of incompetence. But, much like your ex-wife or the Grand
Panjandrum, this is never the program's fault. It's the user's fault, of course. Yours. You've gone from expert to idiot in fifteen seconds, pal. Get used to it.

In the future, everyone will be stupid for fifteen minutes.

Rats!

The Pied Piper of Hamlin is a horror story. Hear me out, OK?

Here’s the story …

Back a few hundred years or so, somewhere in the magical land of Germany, the town of Hamlin was rat-infested. The fat-cats who ran the place paid a flamboyantly dressed dude with mad flute skills to get rid of the rats. He did — leading the rats out of town by playing an insanely hypnotic tune on his flute. The fat cats said thanks, pal — and stiffed him. No kidding. They paid the man squat, zero, zip, nada. Considering that the flautist had flaunted unstoppable mind-control powers, this seems like a bad idea on the face of it. So it turned out to be. Like any pissed-off musician, this proto-Ian Anderson desired revenge. Hypnotize the rich bastards into paying what they owed? Nah. The Pied Piper decided to play a happy tune that led all the village’s children (with the exception of the lame kid) into a cave and out of town. Forever. Maybe they wound up in meat pies. Maybe they wound up in another village. Who knows? The moral of the story is clear …

Pay the damn musician.

Return to Oz. Whether You Like it Or Not.

OK. This 12-year-old kid, Dorothy Gale, is a stranger in a strange land, namely the Land of Oz. There, she meets up with three pathetic social outcasts. She wants to go home; they want what they want. Somehow, these characters get an audience with the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, a giant floating head, apparently. They state their requests. Oz says he’ll give them what they want, sure. All they have to to is bring back the Wicked Witch of the West’s broomstick. Which is like asking for Idi Amin’s machine gun or the horn on Charlie Manson's dune buggy. If you take this story at face value, he’s sending them to their deaths. Pretty damn cold. And unnecessary. OK, he’s a Midwestern con-artist pretending to be a wizard. He wants to get rid of these clowns, keep his cover, fine. But all he has to say is, “The cosmic forces decree that Dorothy must remain in the Land of Oz -- and the rest of you need to shut your pie holes. Begone!” That’d be that. But no. Oz sends them out to die like animals.

Most folks miss this disturbing implication because it's a magical, happy movie with a vague assumption that the weak and foolish things of this earth shall confound the strong and wise.That was probably the original idea.

Yeah, it's a good bet a sociopathic Wizard with the moral compass of Hannibal Lecter was not the screenwriter’s intention. (Three guys, actually.) This is obviously a case of the missing scene.

The screenwriters must’ve figured Glinda the Good set up the whole thing. Told the Wizard to send Dorothy and her pals on their mission. Assured him they’d be OK. She'd protect 'em all the way, yep.

But what the hell would she actually say?

INT, WIZARD OF OZ THRONE ROOM, PRIVATE CHAMBER -- DAY

The WIZARD OF OZ is fretting in his chamber. Scared out of his mind that some supernatural freak might appear at any moment.

Which is exactly what happens.

Glinda’s bubble floats in. She pops out with an irritating falsetto laugh.

GLINDA: Ha-ha-ha-ha! Hello, Wizard.

WIZARD OF OZ: Hello.

GLINDA: You’re not a real wizard, obviously.

OZ: Yes, obviously. What can I do for you?

GLINDA: Whatever I tell you, of course. Ha-ha-ha-ha! Stand up straight when you’re talking to me. And look me in the eye.

OZ: Yes , ma’am. Of course.

GLINDA: That’s better. Ha-ha-ha-ha! Well, to get to the point. A little girl will be coming your way with three of her friends. Her name is Dorothy. She wants to go home. To Kansas.

OZ: Kansas! Why, I’m from Kansas. I’ve been trying to fix the balloon ...

GLINDA: No, ha-ha-ha. Not the balloon, you stupid man. Ha-ha-ha. Did I say anything about a balloon?

OZ: No.

GLINDA: No. So please, ha-ha-ha. Stop talking and listen. Ha-ha-ha. Don’t make me hurt you.

OZ: Y-yes, your magnificence.

GLINDA: O man of lies -- how insincere you are! Ha-ha-ha! As I was just about to say, Dorothy doesn’t need a balloon. She’s wearing magic slippers that can take her home at any time. She just doesn’t know it.

OZ: Well ... then I’ll tell her.

GLINDA: No, you won’t.

She waves her wand. A blast of lightning zaps OZ in the crotch. He falls to the floor and writhes.

GLINDA: Oh dear, dear, dear. Where is your dignity?

OZ: (clutching balls, spinning on the floor like Curly) Eaghhhh!

GLINDA: O, do try to show some self-control! Get back on your feet! Now!

Staggers to his feet.

OZ: Y-yes. What do you want me --

GLINDA: What you will do is exactly what I say -- as I've told you many times. Please listen!

Living energy writhes around her wand. She smiles, eyes unblinking. As brittle as a pane of glass about to shatter.

GLINDA: As I was saying ... ha-ha-ha-ha! Dorothy will ask to go home. The others will state their ridiculous requests. Your answer will be yes – on one condition.

OZ: Which is?

GLINDA: That they journey to the stronghold of the Wicked Witch of the West and return with her broomstick!

OZ: T-that monster? But she’ll kill –

GLINDA: No she won’t! I’ll protect Dorothy at every moment. What can that green hag do, after all? I am stronger. Ha-ha-ha! She is evil, I am good. Good is always stronger! You do think I’m good, don’t you?

OZ: What? I mean yes, yes of course. But why are you doing this?

GLINDA: Why? Ha-ha-ha! I am a being of light – you are talking meat that rots and dies in a moment! Ha-ha-ha! I don’t have to answer your question, but I will. Do you want to know why?

OZ: Yes .. yes I do.

GLINDA: To teach Dorothy faith, of course.

OZ: By trusting a total stranger and doing something incredibly stupid?

GLINDA: Precisely! It builds character. In the end, she’ll kill the Wicked Witch in what seems like an accident. Then – O, but why spoil the surprise?

OZ: No, no of course not. Why?

GLINDA: O, do shut up. Ha-ha-ha! O, if only your friends in the Emerald City knew how helpless and weak you really are. That could happen, you know. Easily. Would you want that?

OZ: Would I ...

GLINDA: It was a rhetorical question, you idiot!

She raises her wand and almost blasts him to dust.

GLINDA: O silly me, silly me, that's not the plan, is it? Ha-ha-ha! Well. They'll be here at any moment. Get in character please! I'll be watching, you know. I always am!

A bubble envelops her. She floats away.

The WIZARD OF OZ falls to his knees, gets up again.

And bravely gets into character.

OZ: I am the great and powerful ... Wizard of Oz. (with a little more force) I am the great and powerful ..

Batman and The Joker in "The Acid Test"

EXT, ROOFTOP, GOTHAM CITY – NIGHT

BATMAN spies the JOKER, who’s standing dangerously close to the edge. BATMAN advances, ready to do some serious damage. The JOKER laughs insanely. But he’s different somehow. Weirdly calm, less hysterical …

BATMAN: Why are you laughing, Joker?

JOKER: I don’t know, Batman. Hoo-hoo-hoo. That hot toddy Alfred gave you three hours ago … Hoo-hoo! Would you say it had an “acid” taste?

BATMAN: Oh my God! You fiend!

BATMAN staggers.

JOKER: Ah! Perfect timing! Go with it, OK?

BATMAN: (suddenly realizing he’s in a freaking bat suit) What … what do I need this costume for?

JOKER: I’ve always wondered. Hoo-hoo-hoo!

BATMAN: Must … maintain … control.

JOKER: Ah, the face of constipation! Hoo-hoo-hoo!

BATMAN: What’s. So. Funny?

JOKER: You have to ask? Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo! What isn’t? Hoo-hoo-hoo!

BATMAN: Where. Is your. Evil scheme. Going?

JOKER: Nowhere. Hoo-hoo-hoo! I’ve suddenly grown very tired of pranks. Hoo-hoo! I mean … what’s the point? To make myself laugh? Hoo-hoo! I’m already laughing! Hoo-hoo-hoo!

BATMAN: Yeah ... Ha! Every … everything’s just funny.

JOKER: Yes! I was thinking that! It’s like we’re …

BATMAN: Reading each other’s …

JOKER: Yes, exactly. Hoo-hoo! I am he and you are me and we are all together!

BATMAN: Wow. I finally understand what that song …

BATMAN is suddenly distracted, entranced. He walks to the edge of the roof, studies the blinking lights of radio and TV towers, the ribbons of car headlights in the distant street below.

BATMAN: You … you can see the whole city from here. My God! The patterns. It’s like a dance. It’s like … everything’s alive.

JOKER: Everything is alive.

BATMAN: Every …

BATMAN falls to his knees and starts crying.

JOKER: There, there. Have a good cry, you pussy. Hoo-hoo-hoo!

BATMAN: (getting up) I’m not. A pussy.

JOKER: No. You’re a bat. And I’m a freaking playing card! A wild card!

BATMAN: Ah-ha-ha-ha! Jokers wild!

JOKER: Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo! That’s not even remotely funny!

BATMAN: That’s why it’s funny! Ha-ha-ha!

JOKER: Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo! Oh stop, please. I’m going to piss my idiotic purple pants.

BATMAN: You think that’s idiotic? I’m …

Takes off his bat mask, looks at it with disgust.

BATMAN: God … look at …

Tosses mask over the edge of the roof.

VO: Ow!

BATMAN: Why do I take myself so freaking seriously?

JOKER: Because you’re …

BATMAN: Yeah, I am.

JOKER: You knew I was going to say …

BATMAN: Asshole, yeah.

JOKER: Think of a number between one and a thousand.

BATMAN: 587.

JOKER: No freaking way! Hoo-hoo …

BATMAN: Ha-ha. Wow.

JOKER: If you tried to do that …

BATMAN: Lottery. No. Wouldn’t work.

JOKER: Why would you want to?

BATMAN: Money. Pfft.

JOKER: Who needs money?

BATMAN: Who? Nobody. They think they do but …

JOKER: Everything’s here. It’s all right here. Now.

BATMAN: Yeah, exactly! There’s no separation, nothing to prove. It’s just …

JOKER: Yeah.

BATMAN: Wow.

JOKER: Wow?

BATMAN: My blood is moving faster, Joker.

JOKER: That’s because the sun is coming up.

BATMAN: Yeah … The birds. I’ve been hearing …

JOKER: Me, too. Christ, you’re crying again.

BATMAN: No. That’s just the ocean flowing through my …

JOKER: Look! (pointing) There it is! Oh God. There … Between those …

BATMAN: I see it. The sunrise. It’s the first sunrise I’ve ever seen …

JOKER: When you were really …

BATMAN: Alive. Yeah.

JOKER: Alive.

BATMAN: God, I don’t want to go back to work.