Oh man so get this. I was just minding my own business in a totally normal summer snowy tornado, when I was attacked by a demon bear! Now I can’t remember a thing and am in a weird hospital for mutants. Do you remember what happened in The New Mutants?
Pop Quiz Hot Shot!
1) In the opening of the film a young girl witnesses her town destroyed under mysterious circumstances and ends up in a strange hospital. Why is she purportedly in the hospital?
2) There are five patients at the hospital. What can they all do?
3) How are the patients kept at the hospital?
4) So what’s the deal with the bear necklace?
5) In the end who actually ran the facility and what was to be Danielle’s fate if not for her magical imaginary bear?
Bonus Question: Just as I finish my seventh rewatch of The New Mutants (I feel like there are some subtleties I’m still not getting!) my agent calls me up, furious. What does he want?
Answers
1) She’s in the hospital because she’s a mutant. Further, she is a mutant who is considered to be a danger to herself and needs some guidance before being allowed in wider society. They know this because the owner of the facility (Professor X?) can sense mutants the instant they develop powers and during the catastrophe her mutation revealed itself.
2) Anya Taylor-Joy can teleport and manifest a sword to kill people, Maisie Williams can transform into a wolf, Charlie Heaton can blast off like a rocket, Henry Zaga can control solar energy, and Blu Hunt can create illusions based on people’s fears … wait is this like a better version of the film Fear?!
3) There is a dumb looking force field that kind of looks like fire. Initially it looks like maybe it is created by an electronic or technological means. But then it is revealed it is created by the doctor on campus and she can create other smaller force fields as well.
4) The bear necklace was given to her by her dad. Because when she was young she was afraid of the dark. So to get her to go to sleep, he told her the legend of the bear and how the demon bear lives within us and something something whatever. The point is it is to remind her about how little she was when she was born and to never be afraid … wait, that doesn’t sound like it makes sense.
5) The Essex Corporation which, in the comics, was a villainous corporation who exploited mutants as mercenaries. This was a staging facility to condition and prepare mutants for becoming killers. Unfortunately for Dani her power of illusion was deemed too dangerous and so she was scheduled for termination, but then she saves herself by manifesting her own fear: a giant demon bear.
Bonus Answer: Oh shoot, I forgot I was watching The New Mutants over and over in order to write a sequel. What idea can I regurgitate? I’ve blown my advance on collecting all of the copies of the Apple II classic Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego in a misguided battle against Father Time. You see, back in the day, I used to play that game on the old puter, and I feel like it gave me a love of geography which I’ve since lost. Recapturing that thirst for learning, that durstig Geist, that decades of university then work has slowly ground out of me, just might be the key to my eternal (intellectual) life. I had such promise, and now what am I? A man who writes fictionalized accounts of being a hack screenwriter in a Hollywood that doesn’t exist? Bah! But perhaps, to once more battle against the great villain of our time, Carmen Sandiego, and to come out on top will remind me of what it means to learn something and know something for that most beautiful of reasons: the desire to learn and know. Let me tell you a story, it isn’t a short story, so settle in. It begins … oh, sorry, you do actually need a sequel to The New Mutants as soon as possible or else the studio will come looking to claw back my advance and ruin me? Ugh, fine. Well, everyone knows we ain’t getting Anya Taylor-Joy, but I think Maisie Williams would be in our budget, and everyone loves an origin story. But let’s give it a funky twist. We open in New Orleans, 1983, Wolfsbane is in hiding, and what better place that New Orleans to not get noticed. But she’s noticing something, her street urchin friends are going missing one by one. And as she investigates she discovers that Dracula (yup, a Marvel character) is in town and is attempting to rule the most mystical of cities as his new vampiric haven. In the end Wolfsbane frees her captured friend, and while perhaps not defeating Dracula, she grows into her alter ego and gives him a good run for his money. And who’s that in the stinger? You best belieb it is Blade.
Boom. Phew, I think The New Mutants Origins: Wolfsbane just saved me from a years long battle that would assuredly have ended my definitely totally real screenwriting career.
Bad Movie Twins 