JAWS MEETS BAMBI (Take 30)

by L. David Wheeler, who's silly enough to admit to writing the following.

SCENE OPENS in INTERIOR OF SMALL HOTEL ROOM, lit dimly by BEDSIDE LAMP. Camera pans to BACK OF MAN, face unseen. Removes COAT, drapes over CHAIR. Loosens TIE. Camera zooms to head/chest view, pans to view FACE. Man YAWNS, then SUCKS IN AIR, revealing TELLTALE BRIDGEWORK.

JAWS continues loosening tie. RAPT KNOCKING at door. JAWS, startled, GLANCES QUICKLY AROUND, grabs REVOLVER from under PILLOW, then STARES MENACINGLY at DOOR. Slight, nearly noiseless GROWL escapes his lips. JAWS slowly walks to DOOR, OPENS it ajar to length that CHAIN allows. Camera frames to JAWS' view: YOUNG WOMAN with long, wavy SCARLET HAIR whose body appears to be constructed ENTIRELY OUT OF CLEAVAGE.

SCARLET WOMAN (uttering breathily): Hello -- Mr. Jaws?

JAWS (suspiciously yet intriguedly): Mmm, yahs?

SCARLET WOMAN: I'm Bambi. Mr. Scaratelli from the agency sent me over. (one beat) He said you were past due for a bite.

(SLIGHT SMILE crosses JAWS' FACE as he reaches to UNFASTEN CHAIN and SET-FRAMING MUSIC BEGI --

No!

Nonononononononono!!!!

Jaws-Bambi porn?!? Have I sunk this low? Apparently my muse is a crack whore.

Every night for a month, every night, I stare at the laptop screen or the blank paper before me. Do I start my Crimean War epic? Do I work up my sitcom treatment about a midget cop from the Hood and his partner the Evangelical Druid? Do I even write Lara a damned poem?

No. Because every night for a month, I'm bidden, inexplicably, irrevocably to heed the voices, the incessant, keening, insistent voices that shriek three words, ever and ever: Jaws meets Bambi. Jaws meets Bambi! JAWS MEETS BAMBI!!!!

I thought writing a little trifle about the fawn lapping water at the stream only to be eviscerated by the killer shark from Hell would be enough. A little exercise to be worked out and tossed aside. But the next night, the voices were back. Louder, more insistent.

JAWS MEETS BAMBI!!!

Some of them weren't too bad. I was kind of fond of my story about the aged buck and shark meeting up at a Home for the Aged Anthropomorphic Non-Humanoid Fictional Characters, where the crueler residents like Cujo called the shark "Gums." And my psychological think piece about Bambi the deer's dreams haunted by visions of a tireless, vicious killer of the depths -- and Jaws' dreams likewise haunted by visions of a little deer wobbling about on an icy pond. A touch meta, but it worked ...

No, it didn't. Because I hear it still.

JAWS MEETS BAMBI! JAWS MEETS BAMBI!

Jaws has been the Spielberg shark -- and that's a lawsuit and a half waiting to happen -- as well as a young, soulful street-gang second-in-command with braces; an office worker who never shuts up with graphic stories about her fiance (untrue) and her medical conditions (all too true); and a sled. (We'd only learn Jaws was a sled in the final scene. Of course I realize it's been done before, do you think I'm an idiot? It's never going to be published or released, it's a damned EXORCISM, don't you GET IT ... who am I talking to? Ummm, no one. myself. ummm ...

Bambi's been the Disney deer -- and that's a lawsuit and six halves waiting to happen -- and all manner of nubile young women of loose virtues, because, quite frankly, if your name's "Bambi" and you're not a nubile young woman of loose virtue, you'd better be a deer. Well, to change it up, I threw in an utterly nonconvincing drag queen.

I even tried to play with it a bit: "Jawas meet Babar." Because Lucasfilm would never sue anyone, of course.

JAWS MEETS BAMBI!!!

But a porn movie following the illicit adventures of a minor henchmen from a couple of the more forgettable James Bond movies? (Nobody liked "Moonraker," right? I mean, come on.) That's a couple lawsuits and halves waiting to happen: the Fleming estate AND MGM. Whoopee!

I can't take it anymore. I think I'll need a bigger boat.

Kinda wobbly, aren't I?

And again, it starts.

JAWS MEETS BAMBI!
JAWS MEETS BAMBI!
JAWS MEETS BAMBI!
JAWS MEETS BAMBI!
JAWS MEETS BAMBI!
JAWS MEETS BAMBI!
JAWS MEETS BAMBI!
JAWS MEETS BAMBI!
JAWS MEETS BAMBI ......

Bambi Vs. Jaws

By Marcy

EXT – FOREST POND – TWILIGHT

It is winter, and Bambi’s friends are laughing at him as he attempts to walk across a frozen pond. His limbs are splaying about as he struggles to keep his footing. Below the surface, a dark shadow follows the fawn’s every slip-slidey move.

BAMBI
Hey Thumper! Watch This!

Bambi attempts to do a triple Salchow. His hoof cracks the ice.

That’s al the shadow needs.

A great white shark explodes through the ice, gobbling Bambi in one gigantic chomp. The bunnies and skunks run screaming for the shelter of the forest.

The shark descends back into the pond.

JAWS
Mmm … Venison.

(scene)

Director Commentary: “I felt that the original versions of these two movies weren’t fully realizing the vision I had in my head. So we went back in with CG and completely redid the scenes to better reflect what I would have wanted these movies to be, had I actually directed them. We also took out much of the original dialogue and replaced it with stilted, cliché dialogue, and made sure the actors had absolutely no chemistry through my directing. I realize there may be legions of fans whose very lives and imaginations were forever altered by the original versions of these films, but that’s just not good enough for me. Our next project will be the prequel to “Jaws vs. Bambi” – “Spawn of the Fawn” – in which we will discover what Bambi’s father, the king of the forest, was like as a snot-nosed kid. He’ll be befriended by a strange, obnoxious, completely superfluous character who will be sure to annoy the hell out of loyal fans of the original films. Oh – and there will be a lame scientific excuse for how Bambi and his father acquired their ‘powers.’ So stay tuned!”

- George Lucas