possible screenplay based on the new Phantom of the Mall. Character A wakes up in the morning to a wall screen glowing with assignments: topic of the day, social calls, activity schedule, locations, transit options ... all neatly spelled out. He goes through the day, through the sparsely populated city, interacting as planned. Relationships are somewhatb formal, a bit flat, not terribly emotional or intimate, going through the motions. There are holographic figures occasionally here and there, foreshadowing the later appearance of acid reign. It is not yet spelled out yet ... on day two or three, there is only a blank screen in the morning ... we get hints of boozers before this, and so on, restaurants with food but no one ever eats, they only drink beverages, etc.
There are other characters, socalled friends (social calls) with some variations among them - different low level jobs but, like on the tv show Friends, every poor worker has a nice apartment! This is how it happens when it's all fake. The world is 'off' in the sense that it's not quite right, and also in the end we begin to see that it is being systematically shut down. Settlers who become aware of the truth of their situation are reprogrammed into alcoholics. This way a) they are numbed to their condition and b) no one pays them any mind. 'Boozers' is an alternate working title
Holographic hawkers selling everything from toothpaste to salvation and everything in between ...
the theme and topic of the day are provided by The Daily Sphairos - readings from a book of rules. There are 16 themes and 256 topics within it, ranging, in a cycle, from unity to strife (belonging to alienation) and back again.
in the streets, shops and restaurants there are groups of 4, 2 and single individuals, standing around, sitting around, chatting, gesturing, ordering, going through normal activities. in later scenes they appear more and more translucent. eventually we discover, along with the protagonist, during the progression of his transformation from 'sleeper' to 'boozer', that these characters are holograms, filling up space, substituting for 'the people' who are to come.
during early 'social calls' we meet 'friends' ... we later see one of these as a boozer. protagonist is originally dismayed and repulsed. that person becomes a more genuine friend in the latter stages when P himself becomes a boozer
he is becoming outcast from the original group, but outcast is only a transition to belonging again to a new group. the sleepers don't call themselves that. they call the boozers boozers. the boozers don't call themselves that. they call the sleepers sleepers.
17 scenes for the outline. 1 for each stage in the Sphairos, beginning with unity, and ending again with New Unity.
Protagonist initially resists his degradation - but there is nowhere else to go, there is nothing beyond the New Town settlement, only the desolate unsettled off world.
He begins to see disturbing figures - Acid Reign, first appearing as a sort of homeless bum, then seeming more of a prophet, eventually more of a saint, as P moves into that sphere of influence (so to speak)
Settlers of every age, color, shape, size and gender interact interchangeably. The only difference is behavioral, those who conform vs those who start acting weird. These are shunned as they begin showing signs of it
As he begins to 'see thru' the holograms, he begins to be shunned but does not know why. He is not conscious of changes in his behavior. How do the others seem to know he is decaying? Then the directives cease coming to him. At some point he gets angry, he resists, he is frustrated, acts out .... to no avail. there will be a 'striking' scene - a climax of sorts - where he pummels a socalled friend, with his fists, then with a crowbar, to no effect at all, and with no consequences either. after that, he runs to the edge of the city, where he finds the desolate planet. here we may have some flashbacks (or more flashbacks) to the early days, when this same collection of settlers originally colonized the terrain and built the city with their own hands, before settling in to their retail clerk phase ... should be quite a contrast, and you will recognize faces from earlier scenes (the waitress, the bus driver etc ...). at this outer edge, after these flashbacks, maybe a hologram of acid reign pops up, or Doctor Null ... ?
in the end he is brought over, to where all of them will eventually end up ... as the world is slowly turned off
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