I, BULBOUS 2: THE SEQUEL

STARRING:

NICHOLAS CAGE as ANTON FORSYTHE THE THIRD
ANGELINA JOLIE as THE LOVE INTEREST
DANNY GLOVER as THE MAGICAL MR. BLEEKER
ROBERT DOWNEY, JR. as LIEUTENANT BRYCE DREGGS
RODNEY DANGERFIELD as YOU
JOHN CLEESE as BRIGADIER GENERAL CLIVE T. CRUMPETS

AND

LORD BULBOUS, LIZARD KING OF THE LAOBANS as LORD BULBOUS, LIZARD KING OF THE LAOBANS

SAIGON, 1966

We FADE IN on ANTON FORSYTHE THE THIRD. A hotel room. FORSYTHE is profoundly unconscious, sprawled out Christwise on a starchy white but nevertheless seedy-looking bed. FORSYTHE is wearing a clown nose. His face is painted white, accented with pinkish frills. In the noonday heat, goopy flows of makeup have begun to trickle down between the thick brown fibrils of his copious neckbeard. He is wearing a novelty-sized shoe on his right foot. The other novelty-sized shoe is on his left hand. He holds by the neck in his shoeless right hand a fifth of bottom-shelf whiskey, empty. FORSYTHE, sprawled out Christwise in his tighty whities, is doughy in the gut and very pale all over, but you can just kinda tell that he possesses that creepy old man strength that enables your dad to kick your ass in arm-wrestling even though he's, like, 65 years old or some shit. The room is suffused with piss-colored light. A knock at the door.


         CORPORAL
Sergeant Forsythe?
    (knocking)
Sergeant Forsythe!

         FORSYTHE
    (groaning, rolling over on his stomach, stomping the alarm clock several times with the heel of the novelty-sized shoe upon his left hand)

         CORPORAL
    (knocking)
Sergeant Forsythe!

         FORSYTHE
    (mumbling in his sleep)
... out of the fugging car ... all of you ...

         CORPORAL
Sergeant Forsythe! Open up, sir.

         FORSYTHE
    (still mumbling)
... goddammit, I said everyone ... especially you, Boppo ...


CUT to CORPORAL standing in the hallway with his ear pressed to the door. CORPORAL turns to a pair of MPs offscreen and makes that YOU KNOW THE DRILL FACE. Nodding, the MPs bust the door down with a bamboo battering ram.


         FORSYTHE
    (bellows indistinctly)


CUT to GENERAL CLIVE T. CRUMPETS's office, some hours later. FORSYTHE, de-clowned and sloppily uniformed, is seated at the supplicant end of a desk strewn with TOP SECRET manila envelopes. GENERAL CRUMPETS is pacing around the office. FORSYTHE, hungover, is wobbling back and forth in his chair like a slightly deflated I, BULBOUS Inflatable Children's Punching Bag (COUPON AVAILABLE on p. 522).


         CRUMPETS
Tell me, Sergeant Forsythe.  
    (pitching a TOP SECRET manila envelope onto the desk)
How do you know this man?

         FORSYTHE
    (fingers trembling with the onset of THE SHAKES, unbrasses the envelope and removes a glossy black-and-white photograph - he squints)
I can't say I know either of them, sir.

         CRUMPETS
Off to a bad start, Sergeant. For one thing, that is a photograph of you, taken just last week. For another, there is only one of you in the photograph.
    (pitching a second TOP SECRET manila envelope onto the desk)
Now tell me. What do you make of this?

         FORSYTHE
    (unbrasses the envelope and removes a thick stack of glossy black-and-white photographs - he squints at the first one)
It is a photograph of what looks to be a neck, a cleft chin, a mouth, and a nose.

         CRUMPETS
Correct. Next photograph, please.

         FORSYTHE
A forehead, sir.

         CRUMPETS
Very good, Sergeant. Next one, please.

         FORSYTHE
More forehead.

         CRUMPETS
And the next one, please.

         FORSYTHE
Still more forehead, sir.

         CRUMPETS
Yes. We could be here counting forehead 'til the cows come home. But if you'll flip briskly through the stack, I think you will agree that what you hold in your hand are no fewer than 47 photographs of one man's continuous and ever-expanding forehead.

         FORSYTHE
    (after some hesitation)
Is this British humor, sir?

         CRUMPETS
No, Sergeant. You know full well that I'm not much in the way of jokes. You, on the other hand, have quite the reputation for, how shall I say, clowning around.


FORSYTHE's left eyeball twitches involuntarily.


         FORSYTHE
I'd like it if you kept your nose out of my private life. Sir.

         CRUMPETS
    (chuckling)
Ah, yes. Why, of course. But then, I'm not the only one who has trouble – how shall I say – keeping his nose.
    (reaches into his pocket, producing a little red rubber clown nose. He tosses it upwards and catches it in midair.)
I suppose you'll be wanting this back?


FORSYTHE's left eyeball twitches involuntarily. CRUMPETS smirks and sets the nose down on the desk. It rolls off the ledge, falls to the floor. FORSYTHE snags it on the third bounce and slips it into his pants pocket.


         CRUMPETS
I daresay that's enough expository badinage for now. Let's get on with the show, shall we? Now, I trust that it is safe to assume that you do not recognize the man in those 47 photographs I just showed you, and that indeed you have never in your entire life known a man with a cranium so expansive as to require 47 photographs just to capture one part of it. But I can assure you that even though you have never met this man or indeed anyone like him in all your days spent clowning about this earth, you will soon get to know him well enough.

         FORSYTHE
With all due respect, sir - who is this freak and why is the size of his head any of my concern?

         CRUMPETS
We received this manuscript in the mail last week.
    (unlocking a TOP SECRET desk drawer, produces a TOP SECRET ROUGH DRAFT of I, BULBOUS and lets it land with an epic thud in front of FORSYTHE)


FORSYTHE begins reading, flipping vigorously back and forth around the book, PROFOUND ANNOYANCE seeping from the cracks of his hangover.


         FORSYTHE
    (some minutes later)
This is terrible.

         CRUMPETS
Terrible how?

         FORSYTHE
I dunno. It seems like a bunch of postmodern metafictional tripe to me.

         CRUMPETS
Ooh! Postmodern metafictional tripe! That's my boy. Say, were you a lit major in Clown College?


FORSYTHE's left eyeball twitches involuntarily.


         FORSYTHE
Sir, why are you showing me all this?

         CRUMPETS
Because we require your services, Sergeant.

         FORSYTHE
What is it this time? A birthday party? A bar mitzvah? Ten dollars an hour. Maybe I can cut it down to eight with the military discount.

         CRUMPETS
Oh, I'm afraid we're looking for a bit more of an - explosive performance this time around. Although, now that you mention it, my granddaughter is having a birthday in the fall - and don't you know, she just loves clowns.


FORSYTHE's left eyeball twitches involuntarily.


         FORSYTHE
Who's the target?


CRUMPETS offers a cigar to FORSYTHE, who demurs. CRUMPETS lights one for himself, paces over to the window and draws the blinds shut, casting a kind of pre-expository pall over the room.


         CRUMPETS
Eight months ago, he disappears into the jungle. Vanishes without a trace. After six days of fruitless searching, his men finally give him up for dead and return to base with the grim news. He had been an exemplary soldier - achieved the rank of colonel a mere three weeks after enlisting. During that time, he added four Purple Hearts to his treasure trove, eight Silver Stars, three Distinguished Service Crosses, and the US Army Medal of Honor. With a uniform like that, Sergeant, he could've moonlighted at TGI Friday's.

         FORSYTHE
Sir?

         CRUMPETS
It's called an anachronism.

         FORSYTHE
...

         CRUMPETS
Three weeks later, we receive word from Recon that they've located our man in the depths of the jungle, ten clicks north of the Cambodian border. They were on a routine civilian-napalming mission when they spotted him. He emerged from the bush, sent the men a messenger, and the messenger gave the men a message to give to us. Then he (the Colonel, I mean) disappeared again. That's all we know about the encounter, though we're quite certain something else - something rather profound - transpired. The men returned to camp white as sheets. Most of them have since been - discharged.

         FORSYTHE
Why didn't they bring him back to camp? I mean, why didn't they drag him back to camp?

         CRUMPETS
Let's just say the Colonel made it abundantly clear that he didn't want to leave.

         FORSYTHE
...

         CRUMPETS
...

         FORSYTHE
So what was the message?

         CRUMPETS
The message was -
    (pausing)
         - "I am your father."

         FORSYTHE
...

         CRUMPETS
...

         FORSYTHE
Like, all of their fathers? Er. All of their father? The father of all of them, sir?

         CRUMPETS
Oh, I'm quite certain there's no way to be quite sure. For all I know, he could have been referring to you.

         FORSYTHE
...

         CRUMPETS
...

         FORSYTHE
Well. Er. Anyway. Anyway, so what? The guy sounds like a classic Section 8 to me. So he went batshit crazy and ran off with the gooks. He wouldn't be the first.

         CRUMPETS
And he shan't be the last.

         FORSYTHE
You're damned right he ... shan't. But with all due respect, General, I'm a demolitions expert. And a clown, on the weekends and at children's birthday parties and bar and bat mitzvahs and the occasional quinceañera. With all due respect, sir, I don't see what the hell this has to do with me.

         CRUMPETS
He is dangerous, Sergeant. He is a very, very dangerous man. You see, Sergeant Forsythe, the Colonel has changed. He is no longer the same person. I'm inclined to say he's scarcely a person a'tall. For one thing, his head has gotten a lot bigger. Very much bigger indeed. You might even call it ... bulbous.

         FORSYTHE
    (sifting through the 47 photographs, muttering to himself)
... bulbous.

         CRUMPETS
For another thing, the Colonel has not ceased to be a soldier. God only knows whose side he's fighting on. Still worse: he has abandoned the traditionally accepted and agreed-upon conventions of ... gentlemanly warfare.

         FORSYTHE
General, I don't know if you've been paying attention, but this war ceased to be gentlemanly a long fucking time ago.

         CRUMPETS
He has abandoned traditional - weaponry, Sergeant.

         FORSYTHE
    (snorting)
Traditional weaponry. So let me get this straight. No swords? No muskets? No A-bombs? No napalm? No Willy Peter?

         CRUMPETS
He is using fiction, Sergeant.

         FORSYTHE
Fiction?

         CRUMPETS
Yes. Fiction. And from what I understand, you were a lit major back in Clown College.

         FORSYTHE
No, sir. You made that joke five minutes ago but I can't really tell at this point whether you honestly think I majored in literature at Clown College or not.

         CRUMPETS
Oh. Right-o. Well, then. Have it your way.

         FORSYTHE
...

         CRUMPETS
...

         FORSYTHE
So, fiction.

         CRUMPETS
Yes. Fiction. Sergeant Forsythe, are you at all familiar with the term "cargo cult?"

         FORSYTHE
No, sir.

         CRUMPETS
Well, Sergeant, that makes two of us. Have you perchance read Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad?

         FORSYTHE
No, sir.

         CRUMPETS
Good on you, then. Have you seen the 1979 film Apocalypse Now, directed by Francis Ford Coppola?

         FORSYTHE
No, sir. As it is the year 1966 at present, I am afraid I do not yet have the existential means of watching that particular film. Sir.

         CRUMPETS
Oh, pity, that! Bloody smashing film, that.

         FORSYTHE
...

         CRUMPETS
...

         FORSYTHE
So. Fiction.

         CRUMPETS
Yes, right-o. Fiction. As I said, the Colonel has abandoned the traditional means of waging war. The gentlemanly means of merely dismembering, or permanently disfiguring, or paralyzing, or - if all goes well - actually killing another human being. I'm afraid he is going straight for the jugular.

         FORSYTHE
The juggler, sir?

         CRUMPETS
The brain. The mind. The soul. The heart. Whatever you choose to call it. In any case, the very seat of consciousness. It seems the Colonel is writing a book.

         FORSYTHE
A book, sir?

         CRUMPETS
Yes. The worst kind of book.

         FORSYTHE
What kind of book is that?

         CRUMPETS
The book you were just reading.

         FORSYTHE
...

         CRUMPETS
...

         FORSYTHE
So you're telling me this Colonel of yours fucks off into the jungle, his head expands to 47 times its original size, and then he sits down and decides to start writing his memoirs?

         CRUMPETS
Oh, his head is quite probably larger than 47 times its original size. Those are merely the 47 photographs we have on file. And these are no memoirs, Sergeant Forsythe. This is a work of literature that threatens the very existence of literature itself.

         FORSYTHE
Sir, this all sounds very serious, believe me, but didn't the novel die a long time ago?

         CRUMPETS
Wrong. You are absolutely wrong about that, Sergeant. The novel is far from dead. It is merely under attack from all sides. Under attack from a subversive ideological enemy hell-bent on world domination. And the novel, Sergeant Forsythe, must be liberated. And it is we who must liberate it.

         FORSYTHE
Sounds familiar, sir.

         CRUMPETS
It's all been done.

         FORSYTHE          
Sir?

         CRUMPETS
It's all been done. Do you believe that?

         FORSYTHE
I don't know, sir.

         CRUMPETS
Believe that.
    (pacing)
Like yourself, Sergeant, I once had literary ambitions. How I loved to get my quill wet and watch its oily ejaculate streak across the parchment like so much black lightning. But that dream, those childhood dreams of authorship died stillborn. They were killed by a man named Tristram Shandy.

         FORSYTHE
    (indicating the stack of photographs)
Fathead, I presume?

         CRUMPETS
    (patronizing smirk)
No, Sergeant. The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. It is a book. Have you read it?

         FORSYTHE
Haven't even heard of it, sir.

         CRUMPETS
Good. See to it that you don't. For you see, Sergeant - in those salad days of my youth, I was under the mistaken impression that there were things left to be done in the realm of literature. Narrative tricks to be deployed. Bawdy jokes to be made. Taboos to be violated, lines to be crossed, readers left to annoy. But no: well before I first put quill to parchment, well before I had read my first book, well before I was even born, it had all already been done without my knowledge, without my permission - it had all been done by Tristram Shandy - and that in the 18th century! So I burned my manuscript. I stuffed my quill in a hat. I fed the ink to the dog, for I didn't much care for the dog, you see, and anyhow, I knew then what no man should ever know: that it has all been done.

         FORSYTHE
...

         CRUMPETS
It's all been done, Sergeant.
    (chuckling, then chuckling perhaps a bit too loudly for comfort)
         It's all been done!

         FORSYTHE
    (uneasily)
Well. General. Well, General, if it's all been done, then - what's the harm in doing it again?

         CRUMPETS
    (claps his hands together)
Precisely, Sergeant. Precisely. There is no harm. There is no harm in it a'tall. There is no harm in singing, though the song has been sung a million times. There is no harm in loving, though the script is always, always the same. There is no harm in killing, though the killer and the killee both wind up dead in the end. Repetition is not our curse, but our destiny. We are not the first to live, and we shan't be the last to die. And in between, there is naught to do but rinse, wash, repeat. Keep in mind, Sergeant, that we are not the first to invade Vietnam.

         FORSYTHE
...

         CRUMPETS
...

         FORSYTHE
So where does Fathead fit into all this?

         CRUMPETS
He intends to deprive us, Sergeant.

         FORSYTHE
Deprive us of what exactly, sir?

         CRUMPETS
He intends to deprive us of the freedom, of the power to repeat and shamelessly repeat ourselves on and on forever.

         FORSYTHE
And how does he intend to do that?

         CRUMPETS
That rough draft you see heaped before you - all 3,972 pages of it - when it ceases to be a rough draft and becomes a manuscript, it will already be too late. The damage will already have been done. None of us will ever want to do anything ever again. All will be ruined.

         FORSYTHE
Ruined ...
    (hesitantly)
         ... because the book will be that good?

         CRUMPETS
    (puzzled)
On the contrary, Sergeant. Ruined, because the book will be that stupid.

         FORSYTHE
...

         CRUMPETS
You might laugh now. But I have seen the future, Sergeant, and the future is grim. I, BULBOUS must be stopped. He must be stopped. And neither he nor it will be stopped with laughter alone, Sergeant Boppo. I mean, Forsythe.


FORSYTHE's left eyeball twitches involuntarily.


         CRUMPETS
Now, you mentioned something about a military discount?


CRUMPETS slides a manila envelope containing a not-insignificant quantity of United States Dollars across the table.


         FORSYTHE
    (peeking inside the envelope)
What men can you give me?

         CRUMPETS
I have already assigned you Briggs, Riggs, Greggs, Dreggs, Scruggs, Scroggins, Loggins, Tulowitzki, and Bleeker.

         FORSYTHE
Bleeker? As in The Magical Mr. Bleeker?

         CRUMPETS
    (nodding)

         FORSYTHE
Last I remember, he was a professional magician.

         CRUMPETS
Last I recall, you were a part-time clown.


FORSYTHE's left eyeball twitches involuntarily. He takes the money and rises unsteadily from his chair.


         FORSYTHE
I'll do it. But I'm going to need a metric fuck-ton of C-4.

         CRUMPETS
    (smirking)
I'll see what I can do.


FORSYTHE plucks the clown nose from his pocket and puts it on over his regular human proboscis. He takes three steps towards the door, then turns around and salutes CRUMPETS, albeit rather sloppily.


         FORSYTHE
General.

         CRUMPETS
Sergeant.


Exeunt FORSYTHE.