Glorious Revolution

Synopsis

Glorious Revolution's backstory begins in the year 2039. In order to save the Earth from reckless consumerism and runaway climate change, the militant wing of the Green movement installs a coordinated world-wide dictatorship.

Countries have been abolished; instead, the world has been divided into regions, each ruled by a Judge, who in turn is elected by each of the region's 300-strong Council for the Betterment of Earth (aka the Elite). In order to protect the Earth's surface, the regions attempt to place their populations underground. One region, AU16, due to its relatively smallish population has succeeded in this goal.

17 years into Region AU16's dictatorship (the year now is 2056) there are some among the ruled population who refuse to live in subterranean communes. Four of these are captured and face execution for violating the Earth’s surface.

During the trial, it becomes obvious the Judge, who is incognito and whose gender is unknown, is stalling the execution of one of them: Tracy. The question of whether or not to execute Tracy goes on for days until the question is put to rest when the Judge wins over the Elite in favour of sparing her. However, the other three prisoners are not so lucky and are destined for the "Frying Pan".

Once Tracy is set free, she attempts to save them. She becomes a proxy for the battle of minds between the Judge and Geraldi, an elderly head-strong prisoner, who, realising she has inordinate influence over the Judge, coaches her on how to pressure the Judge to spare them.

The Judge and Tracy have several meetings. In one of them the Judge gives the reason for sparing Tracy's life: unknown to her, she had once saved the Judge's life. Eventually the prisoners have their sentences commuted to life – Geraldi excepted, as he is accused of being the Great Denier, the regime’s most despised renegade.

Tracy tries to save Geraldi’s life by providing evidence he is not the Great Denier. Eventually, by dint of her proven inability to lie even if it means her life, she succeeds. But Geraldi is not satisfied with his life-sentence and pressures Tracy to plan his escape.

Geraldi escapes and Tracy is sentenced to immediate death by a substitute judge. However, some of the Elite rebel. When joined by two of the most influential Elite, Tracy is spared the "Frying Pan".

The last scene shows Geraldi is the Great Denier.

(To be continued in Glorious Counter-Revolution).

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17 July 2023: Two Notes from the Author

# 1. I'm proud to announce that a rewrite of Glorious Revolution has been completed today (17 July 2023). The result is a thoroughly professional screenplay that reads well: errors in syntax have been corrected; storyline inconsistencies have been identified and rectified; poorly expressed dialogue and action paragraphs have been improved; some scenes have been deleted and others shortened; and, finally, characters have been further delineated. If you have — previous to this rewrite — read Glorious Revolution, I can almost guarantee reading it again will be a more rewarding experience.

# 2. Though somewhat self-standing, Glorious Revolution, is actually the first of two screenplays. The sequel, titled Glorious Counter-Revolution, is incomplete at 28-pages. Some of the sequel’s projected strands will be the capture of the Judge by counter-revolutionary forces, Tracy’s despairing attempts to save the Judge from execution and Tracy meeting her long-lost father. But central is Tracy’s confliction over whether to support the Judge’s regime or to stand with Geraldi, the counter-revolutionists and her father. At this stage and for some ten years now, I find it hard to re-engage with the story. I really don't have a good reason for this — it could be because other projects have interested me more. It may come to the situation — in the foreseeable future — that Glorious Revolution is all I can offer. My hope is that should a producer be interested in Glorious Revolution — and is prepared to go into production with it — that another screenwriter may be hired to complete Glorious Counter-Revolution. Please accept my apologies for starting a project I seem able only to complete the first part.