LSGL BRAINSTORM W 02.27.08 Premise: Work out act II of LSGL. Explore how to tell the history of the elders using a poetry of symbols, rather than a literal, linear narrative. Go wild with imagination. 1. things to convey through symbolic images I want to remind myself of the points to communicate in act II, so IÕm going to cutÕnÕpaste a list I generated in here... Actually, I think IÕm going to edit it to help get things straight. * The elders came to Earth a billion years ago. * The elders came from outer space. * The elders did not come to earth just recently. * The elders lived all over Earth, on many cities. * The elders lived in cities, not caves. * What is a shoggoth? * The elders created the shoggoths. * Shoggoths were slaves. * The elders created all life on earth. * The elders are geniuses. * There were runaway slaves * The elders controlled the slaves by telepathy * Sometimes the telepathic control broke down and slaves were able to escape * How did the shoggoths get the upper hand? * The elders gave the shoggoths intelligence in order to help fight a war * The elders have relationships with other space-faring species (?) * The elders put the seed of intelligence into the shoggoths * The elders made the mistake of moving underground * The shoggoths overwhelmed the elders in an enclosed space * The shoggoths are intelligent, too. * The shoggoths were not intelligent at first -- that was given to them by the elders. * The shoggoths slaughtered thousands -- even hundreds of thousands -- of elders. * The elders are capable of feeling: grief, pride, confusion, fear, anger, horror? * The cave is a place of secrecy and hiding. * The elders in the cave are disconnected from the majority of their species. * The elders in the cave were the few who saw the cataclysm coming * ...But they didnÕt know the nature of the oncoming cataclysm, only that their species would disappear (?) * The elders of the hive voluntarily left their bodies. * The elders in the hive have been asleep for 50,000+ years. * How did the elders in the hive know to get out of harmÕs way? 2. The visual space of symbolic memory Symbolic space, rather than being wide and flat, seems to me to be an infinite, deep, black void. The camera flies around, and can roll on the Z axis. The objects / memories that it turns its attention to may be approached at odd angles, and are likely to be canted even if the camera comes to rest. Most likely the camera should never come to a full rest -- being instead in constant motion, from one subject to the next. In essence, act II should be one long shot without cuts. An advantage of the Òblack void of memoryÓ is that there are few if any landscapes that need to be created. Memories are constructed largely in terms of actors and their relationships to one another. This may be problematic in terms of giving anything like establishing shots. Perhaps there are moments when we dissolve into an actual memory of an event, where thereÕs a setting? 3. Arriving on and leaving Earth We zoom in on Earth... The solar system is portrayed as concentric ellipses with tiny spheres moving in their orbits. As we zoom down to Earth, we recognize the familiar shapes of modern continents. The planet grinds to a halt, and time starts going in reverse... The planet backtracks on its orbit. Perhaps the elders think about the galaxy not in terms of points of light, but in terms of orbits and trajectories... So, if we were to start as far out as looking down at the Milky Way galaxy from above, what weÕd see is a tangle of lines, like a loosely knit coil of barbed wire, with an especially tangled bit at the middle. Hm. It might be difficult to make this read as a galaxy. From orbit around the Earth, we zoom down to a pulsing point on the globe to discover a city. From space, there are a number of these city markers distributed around Pangaea. Perhaps the cities are marked with dots that emanate pulsing radio waves. Perhaps there are lines that connect the points on the globe, showing that there are lines of commerce between the cities. Showing the elderÕs flight through space is perhaps unnecessary. By taking the cameraÕs POV, flying through space, itÕs implied that elders came from somewhere else, far away -- without having to explain how they got here. I really love this shot IÕve had from the beginning of the elders circling down from outer space on wings... But it probably raises more problems than itÕs worth, in terms of compelling me to explain later on where the eldersÕ wings have gone. In terms of shots I LOVE in act II, it seems to be ones that involve the wings. Circling down to Earth from outer space... And eating pills that allow the elders to grow wings -- then rising off the ground as an army... So far these are the two elements of spectacle that really make act II worth doing to me, personally -- although they just might not fit in the story. When the elders in the hive escape their bodies, I imagine silhouette outlines shooting upward from their bodies... Leaving trails behind, from their furthermost side points. Perhaps there are glowing seeds in the leaving silhouettes, to represent the eldersÕ five-lobed minds... Or perhaps there are radio waves associated with the silhouettes... Although, IÕm imagining that the silhouettes need to disappear before shooting away from earth -- it is the radio waves that interact with the beacon, triggering the transport. I sort of have in mind the way that the muses in ÒXanaduÓ took off from the ground, leaving light trails behind themselves. Just before the last elders leave earth, IÕm envisioning them in a circle around the beacon. Perhaps the camera is circling the enclave. Perhaps the elders are rotating around the beacon (rather like the carousel in LoganÕs Run). Maybe the beacon itself is rotating. Hm. Probably best to just have the camera in motion. However, I could see the ring of elders around the beacon being at an angle -- like how the electron circling an atomÕs nucleus might have an orbit thatÕs at a canted angle. I could also see the camera coming in at an angle, so the line of the beaconÕs laser appears to be 15 degrees off of vertical. When we see the elders escaping earth, the beaconÕs laser needs to shoot upward in synchronicity, then turn off as they disappear. 4. Running the deep history backwards What if we ran the story backwards in act II? What if we started with the elders leaving Earth... Then showed an angry ocean of shoggoths on the periphery of their circle... Then went back to the black ocean of shoggoths flooding the city, killing elders... Then go back to a runaway shoggoth joining the bacteria-like shoggoth population in the ocean... Then go back to the elders moving down from the surface city to the subterranean lake... Then show the spawn of Cthulhu flying at the camera from outer space... Then the shoggoths meeting and defeating them in the surface cityÕs hallways... Then showing two elders arguing, struggling with one another, and one putting a glowing seed of intelligence into a shoggoth... Then a shot of the great surface city, and the various cities on earth... A T-rex and pterodactyls carrying a giant stone... Lines of shoggoths carrying stones like Egyptian slaves carrying great blocks for the pyramids... A whole circle of elders with a shoggoth in the center, exerting their telepathic radio-waves to control it... A shoggoth shuddering and knocking down itÕs master... Escaping from the underwater outlet into the ocean (where there are only one or two shoggoths waiting at this point... The camera pulls back from Earth, out of the ocean and into space, and we see the elders spiraling down toward the planet as we back away. Cut. [Inserting a shot of the elders eating their flying pills and going to war feels necessary if weÕre going to have them flying earlier on.] 5. ShoggothsÕ attack as biblical flood Last night when I was looking through Dave McKeanÕs books of his Tarot images (major and minor arcana), there was a sculpture that was worked into one of his photographs that inspired me... It looks like a great flood hitting a city, breaking through architecture, columns and arches toppling. It seems to me that this is what the final assault of the shoggoths should be like. Rather than just having individual shoggoths which look like overgrown amoebas or paramecium going into hand-to-hand combat with the elders, I want a black flood of biblical proportions... Not just pouring through openings in the wall -- smashing masonry, like a tidal wave falling upon a Greek city. (Is there a scene in Clash of the Titans where Poseidon smashes a greek city with water? Or am I thinking of a shot from a film about Atlantis from the 50s/60s that I havenÕt actually seen, except in clips?) [For the book: I imagine as the shoggoths are heading toward the city, thereÕs a moment of warning, where the lake suddenly starts rising, flooding the room, because the shoggoths are coming upstream... Then the lake turns dark -- or better yet, bright with glowing eyes -- and a tidal wave of black blood hits the city dwellers.] The shoggoths donÕt tear off elder heads in the final assault -- they smash into them like a torrent. (Tearing off heads might happen earlier in the film, though, as part of a runaway slaveÕs escape.) 6. Yith visual I could imagine actually making a visual reference to the Yith in this film... The silhouette of a Yith descends from the top of the screen, an elderÕs silhouette rises from the bottom of the screen... The cross over one another, and glowing stars for brains switch between bodies... The silhouettes return to the same sides of the screen from whence they came. 7. More symbolic Even if I tell the story of the elder thingÕs demise backwards, this is still essentially a literal narrative. I want to try to come up with visuals that are more symbolic. Portraying the shoggoth horde as an ocean surrounding the hive... As if they isolated on an island... That seems like the right direction. Imagine a head-shot of an elder, and in front of it, the Earth rotates like a small pearl. Communicating the eldersÕ dominion over earth. A shot using the Òanasazi frogÓ style, where the dot of an elderÕs eye transforms into the Earth. A shot of rows and rows of anasazi frogs in lines (grid pattern), and a wave of black snot washing over them. A shot of the elderÕs city, where the 2D representation explodes into 3D space in pieces (using the AfterEffects render > explode effect). Capture video footage of pouring / splashing liquid... Milk or white paint onto black fabric / black fabric... Or into a bucket in a darkened room, where the only light source is on the falling liquid. Invert the colors to make the white black, and the black white... Key out the white, so thereÕs just a black splashing shape... Or a green splashing shape... With the texture of boiling sugar? A Cthulhu-esque demon floating in the black void with an undulating shoggoth blob... Which engulfs the spawn. Cyclopean blocks of stone appearing from nowhere, popping into existence, building themselves into a tower... The camera is flying upward at a quick pace, trying to keep up with the self-assembling building. A circle of elders standing in the black void around a large glass sphere, inside of which a shoggoth is suspended mid-air. The elders use their radio-wave telepathy, going in and out of X-ray style... A glowing seed of intelligence descends from above into the shoggoth... Perhaps the shoggoth goes from peaceful to seething -- or perhaps it goes from seething to peaceful? As the shoggoth gains intelligence, an eye opens. Perhaps itÕs video footage of a human eye opening (my eye). Or perhaps itÕs a CG eyeball, and the eye simply, suddenly, dilates. Maybe when the beaconÕs lightning shoots upward, we follow the beam out into space and see it head toward another planet -- indicating that the elders have gone somewhere else. When the elders give the shoggoths intelligence, maybe an elder reaches into their own head (while in X-ray mode?) and pulls out its own brain to put into the shoggoth... Or maybe it touches the radio waves coming from its mind and pulls a seed of radio waves away for the shoggoth, which the shoggoth absorbs. An interesting, gory option: The whole group of elders pluck out their own eyes and contribute them to the stew that becomes the shoggoth! How do I convey that the shoggoths are hiding in the ocean? Apply some warping to the image, so that it has the texture of old glass? Have schools of fishes swim by? Billowing towers of seaweed? How do I symbolically convey that the shoggoths have a secret space for themselves? Mental and physical? That theyÕre gathering strength of numbers? ...What if after seeing the shoggothÕs eye open with consciousness we fade to a silhouette of an elder exploding in blood -- a vision of the hatred in the shoggothÕs mind. What would a city of elders look like if the walls of the buildings dissolved away and we just saw all the beings floating in space? (I think something like this was in one of the X-men movies, depicting what itÕs like to be Professor Xavier, mentally traversing the planet.) 8. Shoggoth special effects IÕve had a couple of different ideas about how to illustrate the shoggoths on screen... A) Place a pool of india ink on a white dry erase board. Place some vegetable oil in that puddle. Use a straw to blow at the oil. When compositing, invert the black and white. B) Make strips of cloth... Long ribbons... Film them fluttering, being blown by a fan. (Sort of like the BBC logo. C) The corn syrup / flour / black tempera mix didnÕt work very well in a water tank... But maybe being dipped into the water could do the trick... Hold all the corners and edges, so that itÕs a pocket being dipped into the tank. Dip it up and down, twirl it... Trying to simulate jellyfish motions. Fingers inside the pocket might allow a little bit of puppet-control-action. Ribbons in the water tank might also be interesting. D) Drop droplets of india ink into a moistened sink. Take that footage of the ink spreading out and in LightWave lay the image down flat, as if itÕs on the floor. Distort the plane that the image is on so that it appears to be a shaggy-edged butter pat. Using the image to simulate bumps could also help make it more three-dimensional. E) In LightWave, use meta-balls to create fairly smooth globules, like the blobs inside of a lava lamp. This might be particularly useful if thereÕs a shot where the shoggoths are standing around passive. Maybe when theyÕre at rest, they donÕt spread out on the floor -- but actually become semi-erect, standing up like a rising blob in a lava lamp. F) Just plain streaks of tempera or india ink running down a white dry erase board or a piece of white paper. (This is probably most useful if you want the Òblood running down the wallsÓ look.) G) Throw a bucket of white fluid (milk?) across a black backdrop. Conversely, throw a bucket of black fluid across a white backdrop. Even a liquid thatÕs merely tinted, not fully opaque, might be useful if the contrast is turned up high enough. H) Place a drop of ink in a petri dish or pyrex pie plate (or use the oil and ink concept). Apply a vibrator to the container. 9. Shoggoths as blood and flood [ÒBlood and floodÓ -- thatÕs a nice phrase! Perhaps a chapter title?] OK, so in thinking symbolically, itÕs important to think in terms of metaphor and poetry. IÕm liking the idea that the shoggothsÕ final assault was like a tidal wave crashing down upon the elders, like it was a biblical flood -- and then the elders in the hive have a sort of NoahÕs Ark. LetÕs go farther with this notion of the shoggoths as water. IÕm hearing dripping water in my imagination. IÕm thinking about how the first shoggoth was just a dot of fluid. IÕm thinking about the repetition of runaway slaves escaping, how itÕs like droplets collecting in a bucket. IÕm imagining how as the shoggoths gain strength, we might see images of larger amounts of fluid spilling across the screen (perhaps as a segue between scenes?) Now, IÕm thinking about the origin of the shoggoths... IÕve portrayed it as something where the elders had a blob of protoplasm trapped in a vacuum chamber... Which makes the shoggoths rather like test-tube babies. Imagine instead that first droplet of fluid that became the first shoggoth as a droplet of blood from an elder. ItÕs a stronger image -- more visceral -- to portray the elders as having shaped the shoggoths from their own actual lifeblood. It makes the shoggoths feel much more like children, rather than Frankensteinian monsters being assembled from dead bits. The shoggoths werenÕt created from inanimate matter -- they were shaped from the eldersÕ own life force. ...ItÕs a good enough concept, it probably belongs in the actual story -- not just a poetic metaphor. This then suggests that when the elders drown at the end of it all -- or rather, are *crushed* beneath the force of the tidal wave -- that they are perishing in an ocean of their own blood. ...Bad blood. ...Poisoned blood. ...The poisoned well. ItÕs interesting to look at the shoggoths as alchemical combination of elements... Particularly corporeal elements. Their body is made of the eldersÕ blood. [It makes me think of the last supper: this wine is my blood, this bread is my body.] Their intelligence is made from the eldersÕ brains... Which might be represented by either radio waves, glowing star-like seeds, or the eldersÕ own eyeballs. ...Sort of like ÒWhat are little boys made of? Snails and puppy dog tails.Ó What are shoggoths made of? Blood fluid and brain waves... The sound of a flood, and the pulse of a radio signal. 10. Breaking the rule of monochrome color in Act II Pretty much from the start, IÕve had it in mind that act II is all in black and green... A monochrome color scheme, indicating that what we are seeing is a mechanical transmission of sorts -- separating this act from the bookends on either side of it. But what if I broke that self-imposed rule? What if I used a variety of color in Act II? I might be making things more difficult for myself -- but I could also make more use of the color-coding that IÕve established: Humans are flat neon-red, shoggoths are boiling blood red-black, elders are associated with the green of their glowing eyes. The outside blizzard and the initial ice cave are cool, topaz blue. Specifically, IÕm imagining when the creator-elder pricks its own finger and brings out a droplet of blood, it would be a sort of pine/emerald green... Then when the elders apply their psychic forces to it to transform it (?). it could transition from green to black to red -- thus becoming shoggoth. IÕm also thinking about how I could have a sequence where we see that the first droplet of life transforms into a tadpole, into a fish, into a lizard, into a dinosaur, etc... Demonstrating that all life came from the elders -- and not just from the elders, but from permutations of the shoggoth. The shoggoth is big brother to us all! [Heh. In the book, itÕd be comical to have a shoggoth see the clownish ape-men and mentally refer to one of them as Òlittle brother.Ó] 11. Bubbles Oh! The shoggoths arenÕt just any kind of fluid -- theyÕre *boiling* fluid. I could see using the bubble-texture of the boiling sugar to create some interesting transitions... Like sort of suggesting that these bubbles are infant shoggoths... Segueing the bubbles into the emergence of more bacterial shoggoth blobs. Similarly, as the history builds to a climax, perhaps I could have the shoggoth textures become increasingly violent. Maybe the early shoggoths are more peaceful, solid blobs of goo -- itÕs only later on that they get really worked up. By the same token, the early shoggoths might be more spheroid -- whereas the later shoggoths are more shaggy-edged, like how ink spreads out when dropped into a wet sink. 12. Evolution ItÕs a somewhat hackneyed image... But itÕs worth noting that showing an evolutionary morph -- from fish to reptile and beyond -- could convey the passage of time. IÕve been intent on using plate tectonics to convey just how far back in time the elders arrived... But one of the problems IÕve run into is that if you start with Pangaea, people donÕt know what theyÕre looking at -- the world looks like an alien planet, and thus actually misdirects interpretation in a way thatÕs not helpful. Furthermore, when a map is wrapped around a globe, you can only see about a third of the surface clearly at any one time. This makes it even more difficult to identify what it is that youÕre looking at... And then, if the globe is actually morphing while it spins, itÕs very hard to find a reference point to latch onto. ItÕs just chaotic. 13. Poetic transformation So IÕm beginning to see some of the poetic transformation of the shoggoths... From drop of blood to tidal wave flood... Transformed by the addition of radio wave intelligence... Moving from smooth lava lamp blobs to boiling shaggy-edged horrors. I suggested an image of the shoggothÕs awakening thatÕs based on an eye opening (I canÕt help it -- eyes are an image thatÕs rooted in me as an artist!)... And an image of an elder thingÕs silhouette exploding, to convey the shoggothÕs sense of murderous hatred. Hm. IÕm not sure how IÕd make the elderÕs silhouette explode in a wet splat -- but I might be able to use the AfterEffects ÒexplodeÓ effect for this purpose. The shoggoths undergo a transformation -- but what about the elder things? What is their personal, poetic transformation? I donÕt automatically know -- so IÕm going to have to chew through this. 14. The character/basic nature of the elders It seems to me that the eldersÕ basic nature leads them to be hunters and to claim dominion over all that they have created. It suggests that theyÕre arrogant -- and yet, I want the audience to also understand them as pioneers and scientists. The elders have a fatal flaw, which is a failure of empathy -- always seeing the things that they have created as beneath them, inferior. ThereÕs a way in which this sounds like a parent that canÕt understand that its child has grown up. The notion that the elders are the parents of us all is fertile -- it ties into the idea that theyÕre Ògods,Ó which is promised in the title of the film. Showing that the elders created us too, via a sped-up evolution sequence -- that would actually do a lot to seat them in the position of gods. Thus far, theyÕve seemed like powerful aliens who could create life... But that they made US too -- that makes them OUR gods. It displaces any notion of a Judeo-Christian god, instead making our creators these strange 5-sided invaders. As far as the book goes, I really like the notion that the elders escape earth by using a Yithian device that requires imprisoning the creatures from another time which they displace. It seems like the elders damn themselves one last time, repeating their fatal mistake of thinking that they simply because they have immense power they must be invulnerable to the attacks of inferior species. However, this is not something that can really be communicated within the scope of LSGL -- so I must be wary of setting up confusion about the hiveÕs escape from Earth. 15. Associating the elders with an element The lightning that the beacon shoots from its nozzle is a good image to work with. Lightning is the weapon of Zeus. It suggests that the elders are sky gods. (One more reason to work in the wings!) Originally I was thinking that eldersÕ weapons of war were to shoot lightning -- again like Zeus throwing lightning bolts. I changed my mind and decided I wanted them to shoot rings -- but the sense of electricity is still not far away. Electricity... Like the spark of life -- at one point I suggested that the granting of life/sentience to the shoggoths might involve some sort of electrical sparks as part of the technology. Hm -- another recurrent image: rings. The elders use ring guns, and they also have radio waves emanating from their minds when they use their hypno-telepathy. Consider how expanding rings are like ripples -- which relates to droplets falling into a bucket of water. IÕm sort of playing this clip back and forth in my mind, forward-reverse-forward-reverse: a droplet (the shoggoth) falling into water and causing ripples -- then the ripples (the elders minds) going in reverse, and the droplet leaping back up out of the bucket. Transformation of metaphor... The drop becomes the flood... The spark becomes a bolt of lightning? Lightning strikes and causes fire (or boiling)? Lightning wanes into mere sparks? ...Are the elders quick to temper? Do they go about all their business at a moderate, even pace? Ripples bounce off of surfaces -- like repercussions. Hypothetically, I could try to capture the light and dark rings caused by light shown through rippling water. I seem to recall that thereÕs a procedural texture in LightWave/Modeler that simulates ripples... But nothing that can easily simulate ripples bumping off of surfaces. When the elders give sentience to the shoggoth, perhaps we see the radio waves that emanate outward from their minds momentarily go in reverse -- so that the intelligence appears to be absorbed by the shoggoth. Hm. A possible variation on the radio waves concept would be to have the elders receiving radio waves from around them, absorbing the rings... Nah. It makes more sense for them to be sending than receiving. Electricity might transform liquid by turning it into a gas, steam, a cloud. Might the elders be associated with heat, fire, steam? What about shadows? (Shadows are always good when you want to play around with symbolism -- like mirrors.) If IÕm using a black void as my storytelling space (hm -- sort of like a black box theatre), then thereÕs nothing to cast shadows onto -- unless I somehow create an artificial fog and volumetric lighting. I havenÕt played with it much in LightWave, so itÕs hard to visualize whatÕs possible. Lightning is related to light... I could push the elders in the direction of being sun gods, having beams of light passing through my black void, creating interesting illuminations of their delicious organic forms. The beams of light might be suggestive of lines of time, extending off into infinity. This approach would push me toward using 3D models for the elders, rather than Òanasazi frogsÓ -- and I keep trying to avoid using 3D models, because theyÕre so difficult to model. IÕve explored (a little) a connection between the elders and geometry... Although, in the book version of this story, IÕve made a stronger connection between the spawn of cthulhu and the use of astrophysical geometries to cast spells and reshape reality. I guess what IÕm thinking of right now is the Òanasazi frogÓ look... How itÕs in part meant to imitate the giant drawings in Peru, which were supposedly messages meant for ancient astronauts. Could I somehow tap more into that visual language, using symbols that look familiar because theyÕre actually Peruvian or Mayan? Egyptian and Aztec hieroglypics are both very recognizable, so I donÕt want to use them... But if I bothered to do some research, the art of the Mayans or Incans might have some useful images. Similarly petroglyphs from American Indians and Australian Aborigines might prove inspirational. If IÕm associating elders and shoggoths with different elements, what if the elders were associated with earth and clay? Shoggoths are clearly associated with water -- and I took a look at having elders associated with air... But what can you do to transform the air except have a great rain? Or maybe have building storm clouds, and then a downpour? Neither of these seems to really fit the elders. But with earth... They go from outer space to becoming subterranean dwellers. ItÕs that retreat into themselves that finally does them in, since the shoggoths are unbeatable in enclosed spaces. Wet clay can become dried and cracked -- a good textural shift. The eldersÕ city is supposed to be made of great stone slabs... But the look of it is also somewhat like adobe -- is it perhaps even the Anasazi that IÕm thinking of, who have those multi-story adobe houses in a shallow cave thatÕs on the side of a cliff wall as you go up into a canyon (mysteriously abandoned if I recall)? ThereÕs an interesting connection between earth/dirt/mud and creating life, since the biblical god of Moses, Mohammed, and Jesus (western culture essentially) is supposed to have created Adam from dirt -- Adama = dirt/earth in Hebrew. I can see this idea of the elders retreating into themselves, just as they retreat into the earth... Sort of becoming their own prison guards... Good thought about slavers, that the harder they grip their fist, the more theyÕre trapped by the very danger they have themselves created. ThereÕs a sense of the elders fighting with their back to the wall, painting themselves farther and farther into a corner. ThereÕs also a sort of feeling that the eldersÕ vital juices are drying up, like water leaving mud and leaving it cracked. It might be neat to add a cracked mud texture to the abandoned city. 16. More about the eldersÕ relationship to blood A similar metaphor would be that of meat going bad... If the elders gave the shoggoths life from their own blood, then as the elders age, they become increasingly anemic. A withering disease, where the elders are progressively losing muscle mass and becoming weaker. Ooh: The elders might be the Òblood giversÓ! In the book version, this might even be a name that they call themselves -- or that the shoggoths call them. The elders give blood to create life... And then when they get into war, they are wounded, and lose more blood. Their blood is spilt. Maybe we can get some rivers running with blood... Maybe there are some ideas here about how the elders gave blood to create life on earth -- so they donÕt mind spilling it. The elders are sort of like the brain of planet Earth, with arteries of their blood extending across the globe, in the form of species that theyÕve produced. It would be interesting to draw a clear connection between the blood leaving the elders in the act of life-creation, and seeing the eruption of new species through evolution. The notion that all life on earth is part of the elderÕs own blood, circulating through their collective body. Remember that the elders are hunters and carnivores -- thereÕs a strange sort of *auto-cannibalism* to all this. The elders bring about their own doom -- which also makes it rather as if theyÕve eaten themselves... Or rather, evolved the very species that will replace them.. As if the shoggoths are the next version of the elders, and the snake eats its own shed skin (or its placenta). Chronos eating his children -- then the children killing the parent. I havenÕt really explored the parenticide angle. But, now that I think more about it, it could be pretty powerful to segue the evolution morph clip into showing the elders actually hunting these animals and eating them. IÕve sort of shown why the elders created the shoggoths -- because Pharaoh needed slaves to build his pyramid. But that keeps things fairly clean... Whereas showing the elders eating their creations adds in an interesting carnal flavor. IÕm not sure if it makes the gods more horrible, or if it makes their actions more morally neutral. As carnivores, the elders have a right to eat to survive -- but so too do their prey have a right to fight back. Questions about the sentience of their slaves sort of boil down to ÒdonÕt eat/exploit too high on the food chain!Ó 17. Civilization / savagery It seems to me like there needs to be a tension between the ÒcivilizedÓ elders who can create life and the ÒsavageÓ elders who hunt and consume other animals. When I think about Òcivilization,Ó the primal image that comes to mind is walls. The straight geometrical lines of buildings, the line of a surgical knife that performs vivisection, the line that defines a boundary between two concepts, the box that compartmentalizes one part of life from another. The elders are known for their use of arches in architecture... But itÕs also sort of interesting that they are the first species on earth to live their life inside of rooms, separating themselves off from nature. Hm. If I hadnÕt already animated the beaconÕs Òmagic mirrorÓ screen as being green, I might consider having everything in the realm of the beaconÕs transmission being red -- a history of blood. Having the elders escape Earth by leaving their body is a fascinating final separation of mind and body. ItÕs interesting to have the elders be both hyper-carnal carnivores, and also hyper-intellectual scientists. 18. What do the elders WANT? I sort of imagined something of the eldersÕ ultimate motivations when I was contrasting them with CthulhuÕs spawn... The elders want to experience and taste the universe, serving it by analyzing it -- and in the process vivisecting it. Vivisection sums up the eldersÕ approach to science. But after colonizing Earth, they donÕt seem to do anything proactive. The war with the spawn comes to them -- theyÕre reactive. The shoggoths want freedom from enslavement... After theyÕve been given sentience. IÕve come up with a reason for the elders to give the shoggoths intelligence -- they became useful intelligent tanks during the war -- but otherwise... Laziness is a boring fatal flaw to watch play out! I want to watch the elders pursue their self-destructive agenda (whatever it is) actively, right to the end.