The thing that seperates this site from any others is that fact that I was
willing to actually bid on the script on eBay and fork over good money to
get the steaming hot pile of dog poo. What's more, I actually forced myself
into reading all 104 pages. And let me tell you, there is a lot of more
crap that could have appeared in that crappy movie. Here's a list of a few
things I picked up on.
- The script does not start with the dictionary definition of
a mutantor or with the Emma flashback. Instead,
it has Jubilee (aged 13 in this movie) watching a propoganda film in class
about what to do about the mutant problem. It's a terrible scene, though.
I mean, it'd be cool if this was maybe in the middle of the movie or was a
cartoon, but the way it is set up, I'm glad they cut it.
- A few pages later, there's a scene of Jubilee at home and her
mom and dad are discussing the discovery of her being a mutant. It's almost
exactly like what happened in the first episode of the X-Men cartoon, actually.
- There's a scene with Skin on an airplane headed for Xaviers and
he drops a computer disk on the floor. There's a sleeping man next to him
that's in his way of grabbing it, so he uses his skin to grab it. It's a great
scene. It was probably just cut because of either time or budget.
- The movie doesn't end with Buff in a uniform or with a card game.
Instead, Jubilee reconciles with her family and Skin meets up with Kayla,
the girl he met and had that dream about, again.
- A lot of work goes into establishing Skin as a computer expert
in the script. For example, a small scene cut from the movie was Angelo’s
brother Tito giving Skin a new piece of computer gear which may or may not
be stolen (Tito denies it).
- One thing that really annoys me about this script is the fact
that Eric Blakeney, the writer, likens all the teen hotspots to movies that
take place in the fifties. The fair is said to be right out of Grease
and, when the kids are in town, all the kids cruising down town are compared
to American Graffiti. I don'tknow, it might just be me, but if these
kids are living in the 90's, why would you want things to be similar to that
of the 50's?
- A small note should be made that Jubilee, in the script, is playing
a fictional video game at the mall called Road Kill, which is described briefly
as a violent road race game. It was obviously replaced for commercial reasons,
as Virtua Fighter was a sponsor of the movie.
- Something very strange I found was that the X-Men and Charles
Xavier are actually directly mentioned in the script. Quoting directly from
a cut line of Emma’s, “Students at the Academy are trained to develop their
mutant powers under the auspices of our benefactor Charles Xavier. Graduates
can move into any various “X” programs: some do research, some do intelligence
work with X-Force, and some go on to join the X-Men.” The obvious reason
for cutting lines like these would be to severe any ties of Gen X to the
X-Men movie which was in pre-production at the time.
- The kids are described when they’re introduced to look like they
do in the comics. For example, Mondo in his first scene is “a massive Samoan
wearing an open Hawaiian shirt and cutoffs.” Monet is mentioned to be Algerian
and rich. There is even a small, brief line that infers that Skin has gray
skin (something about his skin being pasty looking). Buff looks pretty much
exactly as she is in the movie, but Refrax is described as having long hair.
- There is a cut classroom scene in which Emma has the kids read
a short story. As they read it, the kids are supposed to mark down on a piece
of paper each time their attention is broken, as “the average reader can’t
hold his concentration for more than ten or twelve seconds” (the story is
two minutes long). It’s supposed to help strengthen the mind. The only one
who manages not to have any marks on his paper is Skin.
- When the kids are introduced to Cerebro, there’s a mentioning
that there are “thousands of mutant readings in the city of Los Angeles” and
that “something’s going on in that city that doesn’t sit well with Cerebro.”
I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be a joke or a reference to something,
as the writer, Eric Blakeney, seems to like to incorporate a lot of comic
references.
- When the kids go to town, they go to a mall. At the mall, Monet
buys a whole lot of clothes. After the cashier rings everything up, she tells
him he’s made a mistake. After the scene where Jubilee walks in on Buff
changing, we cut back to find the cashier done re-ringing everything up to
find that Monet was right.
- A small missing scene features Skin running into Banshee right
before Jubilee and him try out the dream machine. Probably it was cut for
time.
- After their dream trip late at night, Jubilee and Skin keep falling
asleep in class or during lunch. During this cut scene, there was a piece
of dialog by Banshee in class that annoys me. He states that the X cell has
enzymes. Um… sorry, but I took freshman biology, and cells don’t have enzymes.
I don’t know, it just annoys me.
- The script also gives more info on why mutants can do easily visit
the dream dimension. This line comes from Skin quoting Emma’s book during
his and Jubilee’s library research scene. “The mutant chromosome is composed
of other dimensional elements, not found on our atomic table. For this reason,
all mutants exist partly in a multi-dimensional universe.”
- For those of you who paid attention while watching the movie,
you may remember that it was mentioned that Buff had the ability to run as
fast as a speeding car. Strangely, though, we never saw that in the movie.
In the script, there is only one use of it. After she over hears Refrax talking
to Mondo at the fair about accidentally getting a peek at her thigh, Buff
runs back to the Academy crying. It actually would have made a nice addition
to the movie; I’m not sure why it was cut.
- Not only are the X-Men mentioned in the script, but also it seems
the Hellions existed as well, as Emma and Banshee have a conversation about
how she regrets what happened to them.
- In the script, everyone realizes Skin is missing before he visits
Jubilee in her dreams.
- Strangely, in the script, Tresh’s boss, Robert Ralston, doesn’t
die from falling out the window. Apparently, in the script that really was
just a dream. It’s actually a good thing they cut this small bit of information,
as it makes the dream realm much deadlier if you can really die in it.
- The kids all get their uniforms before going to fight Tresh.
Well, that is absolutely everything different or unique about this script
I could remember or find. Although this is a huge list of differences, for
the most part the movie matches spot-on with the script. I’m not sure how
many other drafts after this one were written, but I would not be surprised
if they had shot with this version and simply left a lot of this material
on the cutting room floor during editing.
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