Okay guys I've been hard at work on this and it seems I have a story structure that I'm fairly satisfied with. I know it's been a while and I haven't shown much but the scope of the project just keeps on growing.
I've combined a few ideas into a central concept that the story is more like a comic with live action elements, starting out with a main title reveal as a comic front page cover.
Basically I'm planning to use motion comic style segments for exposition that wasn't there before – for flashback sequences that work further into the backstory each time and reveal more of the events that in turn lead to the start of the proper story.
I AM still working on a Grindhouse / Exploitation style for this thing so above all else it has to be FUN, I'd just prefer if it also made sense, and if it comes across as a little preachy, I'm okay with that.
This should also be useful since I plan to reintroduce ideas from the early games, the id design documents and the early screenplay that didn't make it into the finished film.
1 Olduvia is not on MARS – it is on EARTH.
There is mention of Olduvai in the film – I believe this carries over from earlier versions of the script where the final reveal was that they had been on EARTH the whole time and the human race was living on some other world. What is interesting is that Olduvai gorge in Tanzania is commonly referred to as "The Cradle of Mankind."
Olduvai is used in the science-fiction movie Doom as a name of research facility on Mars. It was built around the ancient subspace gateway, linked with a similar device that was excavated on Earth. The plot is based on the theory that life on Earth originated from Mars.
I'll be scrapping this idea since it's BEEN DONE in other movies and stories about Mars. It's a cliché in storytelling even though there is nothing to prove or even suggest it. And it has no real impact on the story of Doom anyway.
This begs the question of what happened on EARTH which is still a concept with a few holes i'm plugging. And hopefully there will be a nice nod to doom II: Hell on Earth in there somewhere...
2 the UAC is not just another cliché 'evil' corporation.
This sort of thing gets boring and the scientists in the film seem to have no clue what they are messing with – In my sequence of events they had to infect their patient [Stahle] in order to test whether their c24 cure was working. And it does work, they just didn't get a chance to test it before Stahle broke loose and went on a rampage. This helps make sense later when Sam injects John with the c24 serum and his wounds are healed and everyone else who was infected was mutated – in this way I can remove the utterly stupid plot point of the virus choosing whether it mutates the host based on their demeanor.
3 The ARK
having a name like that makes sense but in the actual film it has to be coincidence since the prologue tells us the humans have no idea what happened to those that built it.
The teleportation itself with be coloured to more closely resemble those from the original games and the interior will be a token wormhole style view similar to that seem in Doom 3. Basically green with bright yellow and white flashes.
4 UAAF
In the film when they arrive at Olduvai, Portman says “why can't UAC rent-cops-deal with this bullshit” - which I'll have to remove since now they basically ARE the UAC rent-a-cops. One of the original ideas for the early games was that the marines would have been working for the United Aerospace Armed Forces. As far as I can tell I just need to remove all mention of “RRTS” in dialogue and maybe throw uaaf into some on screen text.
5 Tei Tenga
Since the dead planet is EARTH I needed the 'home' planet to be someplace else - Tei Tenga is a fictional moon or planet where Doom was originally supposed to take place during its first and third episodes, according to Tom Hall's preliminary design document for the game.
There's probably much more but off the top of my head those are some major set pieces I am working with. If I have time i'll try add some recent pics later...