Backstory - The Village

[In honor of M. Night Shamy's The Village being released on DVD next week, I present a deleted scene below. If you plan on seeing the movie, you should not read this scene, as it will spoil the movie's surprise(s). If you're sad now that you don't have anything to read, go to this site and watch the flash video. Then keep watching as the lady just keeps staring at you and blinking. And try not to think about where I found the link (actually, it was via lindsayism, which I read at Jeff Johnson's recommendation). If you've already seen the movie, read on...]

WALKER: My name is Edward Walker, and I have an idea.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 1: What is it?

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 2: Is it something that will help us deal with the emotional pain stemming from the murder of our loved ones?

WALKER: Well, yes, I hope so.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 2: I'm listening.

WALKER: Well, as you may have heard, I'm very rich.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 3. You don't look so rich.

WALKER: I am. Really, really rich. My dad was a billionaire. Weren't you guys listening when I shared my pain with the group?

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 4. Sorry.

WALKER: So. My family is exorbitantly rich, and I was thinking I could use some of that money to buy an enormous tract of land - a nature preserve - and we could all live in there.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 3. That's going to ease our emotional burden? Moving?

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 5. What the hell?

WALKER: Listen. Hear me out. We could all live in this protected area, away from all of the bad people in modern society -- away from the violence, away from the guns. We would be our own separate unit, see? And since we all know the pain that evil causes, we would only be good to one another.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 6. Couldn't we all just move in to the same apartment complex and be good to each other?

WALKER: No, I think we have to totally separate ourselves from the modern world.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 2. How could we totally separate ourselves, though? We can't make our own electricity or our own gasoline.

WALKER: Right, I know. That's why we would have to do without some things.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 1. Do without electricity?

WALKER: Yes. And gasoline, and cars for that matter. Pretty much everything that makes modern life so convenient.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 2. Let me get this straight - you want us to, like, go camping? Forever?

WALKER: Right. Like that. Except that we'll build houses for shelter instead of tents, and we'll have to eat only what we can grow -- I can buy some livestock with my fabulous wealth, and we can eat them, too.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 4. So it's actually worse than camping - it would be like living in the Middle Ages.

WALKER: Close - I was actually thinking we would live like it was the turn of the century. And no one would be the wiser, because we will scare our children from ever leaving the village.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 5. Our children?

WALKER: Sure! We'll live there for generations!

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 1. We're going to scare them from leaving?

WALKER: Yeah - I figure we can make up stuff about creatures in the woods. I mean, I've read about it before in my history texts. We'll say there's creatures out there that will kill you if you leave the village. And we'll say they are attracted to the color red. We'll call that "The Bad Color". And, I'm getting a little ahead of myself here, but yellow will be "The Safe Color". And sometimes we'll go around in creature costumes to give some weight to the myths we spread around. Those kids will shit!

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 3. Why is red "The Bad Color"?

WALKER: Think about it, I mean, red just seems pretty evil, doesn't it?

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 5. Well, it does seem the most dangerous color, but doesn't that mean that we couldn't have any red clothes for ourselves?

WALKER: Right. No red clothes for anybody. No red anything. But remember - we'll be living very basic lives, so it's not like you'll have that many possessions; most of the material things you love won't be coming with you to the village. Not only will you not have your favorite red things, you won't have most of your favorite things, period.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 2. Geez. I'm just trying to take all this in...

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 3. I hear that. Sounds like it would be really hard to live like that! I mean, we'd have to become farmers, basically. The only things I've ever grown -- I mean, besides flowers or grass -- was some vegetables in my garden. Tomatoes, mostly.

WALKER: Yeah, see! We've done this sort of thing! We've all grown tomatoes before, right?

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 5. But aren't tomatoes red?

WALKER: Ah. Good point. So we can't grow tomatoes. Unless we pick them before they're ripe.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 1. Gross. That's gross.

WALKER: No tomatoes, no red onions, no red peppers, no radishes. Am I forgetting something?

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 3. Apples are red -- some of them, anyway.

WALKER: Right. So there can't be any red apples in our village. Good thinking.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 4. You know what's NOT good thinking? This little village idea of yours. Do you really think it's a good idea to start an agrarian society without the color red? We're knocking out half of our food supply here!

WALKER: Not true. We've only mentioned 3 or 4 foods, I think.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 1. Um, what about cherries?

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 2. Strawberries.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 3. Red plums.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 4. Cranberries.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 5. Raspberries.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 6. Red potatoes.

WALKER: Motherfucker! Potatoes! I was banking on lots and lots of potatoes!

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 2. Hey - didn't you say something about livestock? Because pigs are usually pink.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 3. And chickens have red on their heads.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 4. Same with turkeys.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 5. Hey, yeah -- if a cardinal flys into the village, are we going to have to shoot that thing down and bleach it or what?

WALKER: Of course not! We won't have any guns in the village! Remember? A world without violence?

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 5. Oh, shit. Yeah.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 2. So back to those animals -- if we're going to eat beef, that's red, too.

WALKER: Damn. And I love beef.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 4. This is stupid. Let's just switch colors from red to something you find less frequently in nature. Purple comes to mind.

WALKER: Purple? Are you fucking kidding me? Who gets scared of purple?

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 1. Hey, man, YOU need to settle down. It's your dumbass idea we're trying to fix.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 3. What do we do at sunrise and sunset? There's purple and red in the sky at those times.

WALKER: Fuck. This is hard. Let's just go, and we'll figure it out as we go.

FUTURE VILLAGE ELDER 6. Well, you're the rich guy, you know best.

ALL: Go, village!