Danny Phantom Online Community

[Kismet]

DP3 Remix Presents:
Episode 0: Danny Phantom Origins

Tentative Plot Outline

Teaser: Vlad sabotages the public (press and backers) debut of the portal. (Darth-Frodo)
Act I scene 1a: Immediate aftermath of the accident, Tucker stays with Danny while Sam goes to get help. (Kismet)
Act I scene 1b: Sam tries to convince Jack and Maddie to come down to the lab. (Bluemoonalto)
Act I scene 2: Jack and Maddie take the unconscious Danny up to to a makeshift "hospital" in the Ops Center and check him out. (Firefury Amahira)
Act I scene 3: Danny wakes up in his own room, goes to the bathroom and discovers that he is invisible. He calls Sam and Tucker, asks them to come. (Mabaroshiwoou)

Quote:

Teaser: Vlad sabotages the public debut of the Fenton Ghost Portal.

Opening Credits

Act I Scene i. -- Immediate aftermath of the accident, still in the lab.

Act I Scene ii -- Meanwhile, upstairs, Jack and Maddie try to mollify their financial backer. Tucker or Sam come up to alert them to the accident.

Act I Scene iii -- Jack and Maddie determine that Danny may have some sort of contamination, take him upstairs to the Ops Center for treatment.

Act ! Scene iv -- Danny discovers that he’s invisible as he doesn’t see himself in the bathroom mirror.

Act I Scene v -- Maddie and Jack fend off angry neighbors who just read about the Portal in the morning newspaper. Apparently there have already been some minor ghost problems.

Act I Scene vi -- Danny, Sam and Tucker see a ghost for the very first time.

Act I Scene vii -- UNKNWON

Act I Scene viii -- Jack makes a speech at the dinner table, indicating how much he wants to dissect a ghost, scaring Danny into silence. (Possible distraction of Danny struggling not to float away from the table while Jack is speaking.)

COMMERCIAL BREAK

Act II Scene i --

Act II Scene ii --

Act II Scene iii --

Act II Scene iv -- 34 beakers are left in the lab, 34 beakers in the lab; if Danny goes intangible and drops one down, 33 beakers are left in the lab....

Act II Scene v -- Parent-teacher conference (Jack and Maddie with science teacher). Danny watches the cuts on his hands heal before his eyes. Jazz eavesdrops in the hallway.

Act II Scene vi -- Jack and Maddie can’t take Danny home, they have to visit their attorney about the mess with the angry neighbors and the portal. (Or something like that.) Jazz offers to take Danny home, but takes him to a psych clinic instead. They argue in the car, while Danny has intermittent invisibility problems— which ultimately get Danny stranded outside the clinic.

Act II Scene vii -- While walking home, Danny calls Sam & Tucker and arranges to meet them. Then he is attacked by Dash, accidentally escapes by floating. Eventually transforms in mid-air and takes first tentative flight.

Act II Scene viii -- Danny is attacked by a ghost and eventually is thrown to the ground, where he transforms back to human.

Denouement: Sam and Tucker find Danny where he fell. (We need some sort of closure here.)

Any other suggestions and deciding on the considerations I listed are more than welcome. If I forget anything in considerations that we haven't agreed on, let me know and I'll add them. Once we have our final decision, we can arrange it scene-by-scene, and divide the workload up.

IF YOU WANT TO HELP WRITE, make sure you have submitted the required audition here: Writer Tryouts (Ignore the crazy quality of the thread -- it's an eyesore, but it happened during the migration from Invisionfree to phpBB.)

Stories about DP Origins from FFN (Links provided by Kali Phantom)

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3789240/1/Real_Life
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2778592/1/The_Beginning
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3266576/1/
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2797099/1/He_Was_Just_14
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2445406/1/How_Does_It_Feel
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3014167/1/Machine_Mayhem

[Firefury Amahira]

I like Blue's idea, perhaps with the modifcation of Danny still winning in the end, but mostly due to the quick thinking of his friends. For this reason I think Klemper should be the main antagonist in the episode.

Also, for the purpose of streamlining the process, perhaps we should decide on one of the crew here to basically be the writing director or something for Origins? Likewise for the actual Remix episodes, we can bounce ideas around and once one starts to surface as the favorite, decide then on who's "in charge" of the episode, to collect the random ideas and flesh out the outline?

[imperfect]

jazz mentions "ever since the accident" danny has been acting weird. so jazz knows about the accident. But its nver said if they knew he was in the portal or not. I think at some other point it mentioned that he "blew up the lab" so maybe the trio lied and said "the accident" wasnt danny in the portal, but something a bit different. For what reasons i dont know. Im sure you guys could make one xD

[Bluemoonalto]

I'm going to have to play continuity maven here: Danny said in Bitter Reunions that the ectopusses were the first ghosts he ever fought. Let's not mess with that, even by splitting hairs.

There's no way that his parents didn't understand that "the accident" involved the portal. It's simple logic: the portal was inactive and Danny was fine; the portal was activated and Danny got hurt. Even though post hoc does not necessarily mean propter hoc, the correlation between the two events cannot be denied. They would have assumed that he got shocked and/or burned (let's do both!) by being careless during the power-up sequence.

By the way, I think Jack's speech should be more in line with the "catch one and dissect it" attitude he and Maddie had early in the show, rather than the "hunt and destroy them all" attitude that became more prevalent later.

Hey! Could we focus on Jack and Maddie? A "B" plot (oh, how I love a well-crafted story) with the Fentons struggling to convince the scientific community and/or their financial backers that they actually did it? And nobody believes them, even as the first ghosts start invading our world through that honking big hole? And Jazz is all "Hey! Mom and Dad! Your son is hurt, and all you care about is getting your results published!" This would tie in with her scornful attitude in Mystery Meat. And maybe we could bring Vlad back into the story in the 2nd act (behind the scenes, natch) where he is still trying to undermine their success.

And I'm sorry, but I'm still strongly behind Danny losing that fight. Surviving, but losing. Because winning (or even managing to frighten the ghost away) would be too much "business as usual" and would diminish the enormity of what he accomplished in the pilot.

[Kali Phantom]

Oooh, good idea about appointed a "writer coordinator", Fury! I'm not sure I agree about having Sam and Tucker help. They do seem pretty scared of the ectopusses in MM. However, if there's some way to work things so that Sam and Tucker aren't involved but it's still dumb luck that may/may not involve them, I'm for it.

Can I weigh in despite being an editor/thinker? Vlad should just have the cameo, since if we're taking this as Episode 0, which I think we might be, we don't want to ruin the surprise of Plasmius' vendetta in BR. Continuity-wise it's a good idea too, I think, since if Vlad pops up again there's a good chance he'll know something's going on with Danny, and in BR he's surprised by the transformation and treats Danny as a normal-if-Fenton boy before then.

I think Danny should get hurt enough to reinforce that ghosts are very dangerous, and enough that he hasn't been hurt that badly before, but mildly enough that the injuries sustained in later episodes are much, much worse, if that makes sense at all. Bruises, cuts, internal bleeding, concussion, cracked ribs maybe, but no major bones broken.

I'm more a fan of Blue's plot. Is that the general consensus?

[imperfect]

how is internal bleeding mild xD

also remember, danny in MM was the first ghost that jack and maddie actually see.
"HAHA GHOST KID!! iwas right, ghosts exists"

[Kali Phantom]

I meant more like massive bruising. Miswrote.

[Kismet]

@ Blue: Yeah, I think Danny should lose the fight, too. I also think Blue should be the writing director, since she seems to know how to throw all of this down. But I'm not sure about involving a B plot too heavily... I'm not sure how all of this is going to work out time-wise, but for the sake of that, I'm not feeling it.

@ Kali: I also think the Vlad thing should stay in the beginning, so that the revelation that Vlad Masters = Vlad Plasmius stays relatively shocking to the audience by the time Bitter Reunions comes around. And yup, seems like Blue's is the good one all around. I just wanted to stress how important I thought his parents being involved in Danny's healing process was.

[Bluemoonalto]

I'm confused. I thought we were writing this as if it were a flashback episode, looking back now (knowing everything that we know) at what happened then. In which case the viewer would already know all about Vlad's identity and the source of his hatred toward Jack. But some of what you are saying is making me think that you're viewing this as a pilot episode, in which case the viewers would know nothing. I think that would be a very different approach, and not a very attractive one. We would have to "introduce" all the characters from scratch, which would take up valuable time. And the show already has a very good pilot episode.

No time for a "B" plot? Bite your tongue! :wink: It's the episodes that lack a "B" plot that usually get described as "rushed," because it's the cutting back and forth between two plots that gives an episode depth and texture. Think about Maternal Instincts, which, despite all the exciting and dramatic things that happened to Maddie and Danny in Colorado, had plenty of time to tell the mirror-image "B" plot about Jack and Jazz fighting Vlad's creatures at home. Or One of a Kind, in which the ghost became a slave to the science project, and then the science project saved the day. And that episode even had a "C" plot involving Maddie's magazine article!

The key would be to find a "B" plot that would relate to, and even intertwine with the "A" plot. That's why I suggested Maddie & Jack's reaction to the success of their portal, because that ties back so well with Danny's predicament while at the same time giving them good reason to be woefully oblivious.

[Kismet]

Argh, I swear I replied to this hours ago. >_>

But the B plot sounds good to me if we can alot for time -- I was just onfused as to our methods of doing that, since we need to showcase so much. I don't think we should involve Vlad too heavily in the B plot, though, for the fact that I always imagined Plasmius being fairly internally efficient in his devious deeds. He doesn't poke much into others' business.

Yes, it's a flashback, but I think that retaining some suspense for future episodes (since we're trying to incorporate our stuff into the canon) is good.

[slifertheskydragon]

:/ I don't think Vlad should be a reason for Danny's ability-gaining "go-ghost"

He;s not even introduced until later right, and even then he found out that danny was the 2nd to become a halfa through a portal from deduction, not because he was a cause... or am I reading that wrong


Danny should've just opened the portal accidentally, and when he wakes up... well... he's probably traumatized cuz his hand's disappeared or something... and other things ivolving goin ghost...

There should just be generic ghosts that first come out of te portal... the ectopi should be 2 of the first, but they should alll loook beastly, non-human...

like document his struggle of the first days of ghost hunting

[Kismet]

The thing is that he doesn't really have the epiphany of being a ghost hunter until Mystery Meat -- "I think I've figured out what these powers are for."

Good point on Vlad's deduction v. knowledge, but that realization of his is so vaguely made that we can pull of Vlad turning the portal off. His presence later with the minor ghosts being sent -- that is where I'm iffy. The audience knows Vlad sent them, we don't need to tell them.

[Bluemoonalto]

I think we were working more toward Vlad "turning off" that poorly designed switch inside the portal as an effort to sabotage Jack's greatest achievement. (If one were being generous, one could even say that he was trying to prevent another person from being infected with ecto-acne and gaining ghost powers.) :twisted:

Hearing about the successful launch of the Fenton Portal after the fact, Vlad might assume that Jack or Maddie disconnected the power, saw that the switch inside the tunnel had been turned off, and just turned it back on again. Turn the power on again (remember how we saw Jack plug in the power cable in the credits?) and poof! The portal works.

"Ah well," says Vlad. "At least I tried." :roll:

He would never suspect (until he met Danny) that somebody would be so stupid as to go inside the portal and fool around with the controls with the power cables still connected. But of course, that's what happens when you let the kids play in the secret undergound lab. :wink:

Hence, Vlad didn't deliberately create another half-ghost-- but if he hadn't interfered, the Portal would have started up properly the first time, with everybody safe and sound on the outside. No accident, no ghost powers.

The problem with this scenario, something that has been nagging at the back of my mind for a while now, is... why would Vlad do such a half-assed job of sabotage? I mean, if it's something so simple that Danny could fix it just by accidentally touching the wall in the right spot, what's to stop Jack and Maddie (well, Maddie) from diagnosing and fixing the problem in a matter of minutes? If Vlad really wanted to sabotage the project, he should have done some serious but invisible damage in the portal's inner workings.

I'm going to propose an alternate teaser. I know this is like going back and reinventing the wheel, but I do believe that several valid points have been raised about "What did Vlad know and when did he know it?"

---

Darkness. Voices, garbled at first but gradually becoming clear. It's Sam and Tucker, desperately urging Danny to wake up. They are frantic with concern. Is he okay? What happened? What should we do?

Gradually, there is light. Everything is blurry. We can see their faces, hovering over us. We are in Danny's POV. His vision slowly comes into focus. He's on the floor of the lab, looking up at his friends. He groans and tried to sit up.

"He's alive! Danny, what happened to you?"

Danny looks down at his hands, which are transparent. The POV swings around so we can see his face as he cries out in fear!

---

Kind of cliche, I know, but hopefully the viewer would assume that this is the aftermath of a battle, and not recognize that it is a flashback until the very end.

[slifertheskydragon]

I still don't like the idea of Vlad being an "indirect cause" of Danny's origins...

I do see how the idea of "ghost hunting" didn't come until mystery meat...

in the intro didn't danny just push an "on" button?

Maybe in the beginning after danny gets his powers, he's attacked by rather than seeks after escaped ghosts like the ectopi while in human form, or rather when he least expects it and wonders why he's become a target for the ghosts.

:/

I remeber him also saying that the ectopi were two of the first ghosts he faught...

so i think that he's had the idea of becoming a superhero building up and establishing itself at the end

[Darth-Frodo]

I'm actually kinda tickled by the thought of Vlad being the indirect cause of the halfa that eventually becomes the ruination of all his plans and schemes. I think it's very fitting in the end, especially when taken in perspective with his attitude in the canonic season 3. Now for this project that doesn't really mean much and I don't know if Vlad necessarily went off the handle in Steve Marmel's notes as he did in say Phantom Planet, but there should be a final confrontation with Vlad regardless and that would add another intriguing layer to their already interesting relationship. Plus, it has that whole Oedipus feel to it, where you inadvertently create the thing that will be your downfall despite your efforts otherwise. True it's not exactly Oedipus, but it's close enough. But it's a literary device used successfully many times: Rowling uses it wonderfully in the HP series for one example. I know there are many more but my brain's not functioning too well tonight so forgive my off-beat allusions.

Now, I don't think it would be something that would ever come into play later in the series, since Danny and the other members of Team Phantom never know about the attempted sabotage and I don't think Vlad would ever allow himself to connect the dots. He may have subconsciously, but I think it might be one of those things that he refuses to admit that he knows. I'm seeing this as something that's more dramatic irony, where the audience knows it and not the characters, just to add another level of intrigue. Or we can have Vlad realize it later, if it fits in with whatever plot the new season 3 remix has, whatever works, but just based on Vlad's actions in the canonic seasons, I don't think he would have quite realized that he was the birth of his own undoing yet. That would be a much better revelation for the final confrontation.

Also, to go way way back (since I'm a slacker and haven't responded in a long time >.>) there needs to be something between Danny and his parents that gets him to realize that he doesn't want to tell him. I think something like that is very important to set up because whatever fear Danny has in telling them has to have a strong base if it's to last so strong for so long in the series. I think it has to be more than just their desire to dissect a ghost, but something else. Maybe they actually manage to capture a measly week one in the beginning (it wouldn't be too unrealistic considering Maddie's proficiency and they do need to get their functioning knowledge from something) and Danny sees what they do to it without a care. That would surely be traumatizing. Or, not to promote my own ideas by any means, but when I wrote my origin fanfic I used what I thought was a pretty powerful and frightening dream sequence as well as a discussion with his parents that isn't necessarily comforting. Those mostly focused on the sleepy Maddie admitting that ghosts aren't the same as they were alive and that they weren't the same people, that they had been twisted and warped by becoming a ghost and were now evil and corrupt. Then I had Danny realize that if they ever found out they would believe the same of him and would attack him, whether he was their son or not, because he believed they wouldn't necessarily see them as their son or not. I thought, and maybe I'm wrong, that this was a suitably powerful enough fear and realization for Danny to keep it a secret, especially with all the other things going on. This doesn't necessarily have to be what happens, but it's just an example of the kind of mindset that Danny should be in to make such a decision that he remains particularly staunch about for the rest of the series.

Just a few thoughts *shrug* I could be totally off the mark, but I blame it on psychology and the entire extra-large pixie stick I consumed...@_@

[slifertheskydragon]

WASNT SAM THE ESTABLISHED "REASON" DANNY GOT HIS POWERS?

As seen in "memory blank"

Let's leave vlad out please...

i think it should be like Danny's parents built it but couldn't figure out how to turn it on (they either forgot they installed the on/off switch or forgot where they installed it. I think this is Jack's fault.)

[imperfect]

well i kinda like the vlad thing, it adds a new twist that i havent see in an origin story before. I think it kinda fits with valeries eventual discovery of vlad being evil. He also "created" her. It also fits with danni because he literally created her. Its kinda of recurring theme. I think vlad being part of the reason for dannys ghost half kinda fits in a strange way.

also for why vlad turned the portal off instead of destroying it. Perhaps it was an ego thing. Maybe he was just finishing his portal, and he wanted to be the first with a working ghost portal. Seems very season one vlad. Not ploting to rule the world, just plotting to be better then jack in some way

[Darth-Frodo]

slifertheskydragon @ Thu 03 Jan, 15:13 wrote:

WASNT SAM THE ESTABLISHED "REASON" DANNY GOT HIS POWERS?

As seen in "memory blank"

Let's leave vlad out please...

i think it should be like Danny's parents built it but couldn't figure out how to turn it on (they either forgot they installed the on/off switch or forgot where they installed it. I think this is Jack's fault.)

I totally hear what you're saying about Sam being canonically the cause of Danny's powers, but with this Vlad version she'd still be the cause. She was still, after all, the one that urged Danny to go into the portal. The only interaction Vlad would have would be by sabotaging the portal to make it possible for Danny to go inside, but without Sam's urging he still never would have gone into it. So Vlad's a factor, but he's still not the direct cause. That honor still resides with Sam, regardless of whether Vlad sabotaged the portal or not.

Another thing I really don't fancy for about the whole 'Jack is incompetent and doesn't install a switch right' is really an insult to Jack. I know he appears to be clueless and stupid, but I have always been an advocate that there is more behind his seemingly oblivious attitude than people credit him with. Besides, to be able to build something like the portal or just any of the other ghost inventions (Fenton Ecto-Skeleton anyone? A genius Vlad couldn't even replicate) he'd have to have an expert knack at engineering, and absent-minded or not but I think he'd know how to install a switch. And I think both him and Maddie would check something like that before activating it.

As for how it happens, I think it makes more sense for Vlad to flip the switch off just before they're about to start the portal, after they did their final checks. It doesn't undermine Jack and Maddie's genius and explains why they wouldn't necessarily notice his sabotage until it's too late.

[Kismet]

Vlad did not sabotage the portal to make a halfa, he only did it to damage Jack's self esteem. It inadvertantly leads to the chain of events that eventually make Phantom.

[Darth-Frodo]

So...here's a good question. How do we make actual, official decisions about what we want to have in the episode, especially regarding items of controversy like this Vlad sabotaging the portal idea. Do we elect a head writer/project manager for the episode and, after listening to all the ideas and hearing both sides, makes an executive decision regarding what really happens or do we set up a poll and have majority rule?