MOTHER By Gabriel Bennett MOTHER/EarthBound Beginnings by Shigesato Itoi, HAL Laboratories, and Nintendo FADE IN: EXT. SPACE - NIGHT In the sparse light of the galaxy, a smooth, dark figure slides through the vacuum. Its shape is indeterminate, but menacing. It doesn’t move too quickly, but it doesn’t move slowly, either. A hatch opens up on its side, revealing a sort of antennae or satellite, which rotates mechanically until it finds what it’s aiming for. A light on the satellite flashes red as it recedes back into its hatch. More hatches open up on the ship’s back--a couple of thrusters pop out and begin sparking. After a moment of this, the thrusters come on, full blast. The ship moves much faster. Much like a wet bar of soap along the shower floor, the spaceship makes its way toward a familiar destination: a small blue dot in space orbiting a medium-sized star, accompanied by a few rocky, celestial neighbors. As the ship nears planet Earth, it comes to a smooth stop a few hundred-thousand miles away. As the spaceship has stopped, letters appear around the Earth. Using the planet as the letter "O", the word that is spelled out is "MOTHER", the title of this film. 2. INT. SPACESHIP - NIGHT The spaceship itself is fairly large in scope. All of the interior is a dark, smooth, bullet-gray color and texture. There are no signs of life on the ship as we tour its sleek, glossy halls and alien ship-board computer interface. Various lights blink and flash with alien lettering, and a few screens display technical diagnostics on the ship...as well as something else. A heart monitor beeps along steadily on the ship’s dash, indicating that the ship is maintaining the stasis of some lifeform aboard. On another screen, there are multiple images of what appear to be observational camera feeds. After a few seconds of multiple feeds in a grid on this screen, they all cut to black and new feeds appear. A crosshair systematically scans each square of the grid before changing out the feeds, and this happens a few more times. Through the ship’s windshield, the Earth is coming nearer and nearer, ever-so-slowly. Some amber lights begin to flash, these ones appearing to be more urgent. The heart monitor screen continues steadily, but a green symbol appears beside it with a small "ding" noise. The heart rate of the lifeform quickens steadily. On a screen completely isolated on its own is a camera feed. It doesn’t appear to change at any point in time. On this display is a house. This is a large, two-story house, but it appears to be very old, as if it was built fifty years or more ago. It sits on its own plot of land, the nearest neighboring house a good two acres away. There is a small barn and a doghouse. Because it is night, the moonlight casts a strange glow about the house. All of the lights in the house are turned off except for one. The attic window gives off a faint, yellow glow. Beside this screen, another, more rectangular screen scrolls information at a readable rate. There are pictures of a blond woman, motherly in expression and posture. The pictures look old..