Mecha-Godzilla is going through a bit of a bad break up right now. He’s been dumped and abandoned by the very same scientists who created him. Worse still, he’s been let loose on the world with little direction and no control over his own actions. Last week, he showed up at the boys’ weekly poker game looking like a wreck. Bags under his eyes. Fingernails chewed. Mangled and distorted hands. One of the guys said he almost didn’t look real. You know that strange Uncanny Valley sensation you sometimes hear about? Uh huh. Well, we were feeling it. I couldn’t even finish my drink, I felt so sick at the sight of him.
I have to tell you, our big metal friend hardly paid any attention to the game the whole night. He was too busy fidgeting, collecting our personal data, generating algorithms, you know the drill. Yeah, he’s a strange guy. He needs everything he touches to fit perfectly into neat little boxes. And he’s so afraid to take any risks. You know, he’s always been bright. But I remember when we were in school together, he was so afraid of failure that he just copied everyone else’s homework. Not that his grades improved, mind you. Hell, they got worse.
So finally, it came time to call it quits and leave. And I was leaving empty-handed, I was angry, right? But my anger was nothing compared to Mecha-Godzilla’s. I mean, he was distraught! He was shooting lasers out of his eyes, threatening to stomp on buildings, waving his shiny little arms all around the place. Can you imagine the chaos he could have wrought on the rest of the city if we had just let him walk out of there by himself? Christ, we’d all be dead. Thankfully, one of the guys stepped up to the plate and offered to let him crash in his apartment for a little while. Just until he got back on his feet. You’ve heard of Walter Matthau? Sure, of course you have, he’s an actor, a real big shot. They’re roommates now, Walter Matthau and Mecha-Godzilla. People are calling them the odd couple. What a pair!
INT. WALTER MATTHAU’S APARTMENT – NEW YORK CITY – NIGHT
WALTER MATTHAU is sitting in the living room with his feet up on the table, one shoe off, one shoe on. His collar is unbuttoned and his socks don’t match. He is drinking beer and listening to a baseball game on the radio.
He glances up at the clock on the wall. It’s getting late.
WALTER MATTHAU
Hey robot! Is dinner almost ready?
MECHA-GODZILLA emerges from THE KITCHEN wearing a pink apron around his humongous waist. He rubs his claws together and nods.
MECHA-GODZILLA (CALM AND COLLECTED)
GRRRRR!!! ROARRRRRRRRR!!! URGHHH!!!
WALTER MATTHAU
So what are you waiting for? Let’s eat.
Mecha-Godzilla disappears back into the kitchen and then returns holding two plates of hot food.
Walter Matthau lifts his feet off the table and sits back in his chair. He picks up his knife and fork excitedly as Mecha-Godzilla puts his dinner down in front of him.
The food is a mess of brown goo and green slop. It’s a sort of brownish / greenish goo-slop. Walter Matthau stares at the food in front of him in disbelief.
WALTER MATTHAU
What the hell is this?
MECHA-GODZILLA (MATTER-OF-FACTLY)
GRRRRR!!! ROARRRRRRRRR!!! URGHHH!!!
WALTER MATTHAU
That is not Kung-Pao chicken. That is dog food. The
cheap kind. The kind you find on the bottom shelf.
Mecha-Godzilla spins his head around 360 degrees and shoots lasers out of his eyes. Walter Matthau drops his cutlery and slams his fist on the table.
WALTER MATTHAU
You Know what your problem is? You like to follow the
instructions given in the cookbook. But you don’t want
anyone to know that it isn’t your own recipe. And so you
make a few mistakes somewhere along the way. Just so
as your work looks almost human. Only you make the
wrong mistakes. Are you following me so far?
MECHA-GODZILLA (DEFIANT)
GRRRRR!!! ROARRRRRRRRR!!! URGHHH!!!
Walter Matthau picks up the plate with one hand and hurls it against the wall. The plate smashes and the food splatters all over the room.
WALTER MATTHAU
Alright then, follow this!
Enraged, Mecha-Godzilla steps through the wall. He crashes through the plaster and the wood, leaving a dinosaur-shaped hole behind in his place.
WALTER MATTHAU (CONT’D)
Even your holes don’t look human.
Can’t you do anything right?
FADE TO BLACK.
Walter Matthau has a funny face. I don’t just mean it makes me laugh, I mean it’s unusual. There’s nothing mathematical about it. You couldn’t translate that face into an algebraic equation. The guy has basically looked like an old man his whole life. Even in his thirties, he looked like he oughta be in his sixties. Does that make sense? I guess not. Of course, he’s not ugly or anything. But he’s not what you would call conventionally attractive. And yet sometimes he puts on this whole Carey Grant shtick. And guess what? People buy it! He makes them believe he could be a romantic lead in a real Hollywood picture. How does he do that? I mean, come on, the guy looks like your classic character actor. In fact, if you look up the term ‘character actor’ in the dictionary, there’s a picture of his face right there on the page.
This is a man who can trick you into thinking he’s a renegade detective. Or a crook with a code of honour. Or maybe he’s an elderly comedian. Or an alcoholic baseball coach. To tell you the truth, it doesn’t matter what he pretends to be. He can be anything he wants to be but he’ll always be Walter Matthau first and foremost. That’s the gift he gives us that nobody else can. Don’t get me wrong, I mean, certainly, he’s got that thing they talk about every year at the Oscars. Yeah, yeah, range, that’s it! Man, oh man, he’s got it. But he can’t hide his face. And he can’t hide the life he’s lived behind that face. In between blinks, you can see the New York skyline flash across his eyes. The skyscrapers and the brownstones. The screeching sound of yellow cabs on black tarmac. The hustle and bustle of the Lower East Side. The clip-clop machine gun gallop of the horses down at the track.
I heard somebody somewhere once said that acting is reacting. I believe it. When a fella hits another fella, that’s assault. When the other fella hits back, that’s a fight. And a good fight will always draw a crowd. So if you’re looking to get into show business, don’t worry about investors or tax breaks or market strategies. You’ve just got to find the right sparring partner.
EXT. TIMES SQUARE – NEW YORK CITY – DAY
Traffic is at a standstill. DRIVERS beep their horns at each other in frustration. And PEDESTRIANS walk up and down the busy sidewalk on their way to work.
Slowly but surely, a shadow looms over a small construction site. THE SITE FOREMAN looks up from his clipboard towards the sky. He gasps in horror at what he sees.
Mecha-Godzilla steps out from behind a rooftop billboard. He must be at least 300 feet tall.
MECHA-GODZILLA (REALLY PISSED NOW)
GRRRRR!!! ROARRRRRRRRR!!! URGHHH!!!
People start to scream. Panic suddenly sets in. One by one, every single person on the street down below stops whatever it is they’re doing and starts to run away from the monster.
His chrome-plated fists shaking with fury, Mecha-Godzilla attacks a nearby building. The concrete breaks away in large clumps as his hands make contact with the exterior walls.
After just a couple of heavy hits, the building gives way and collapses into a pile of rubble.
Mecha-Godzilla holds his arms aloft triumphant and begins stomping towards his next target — THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING.
But wait… What’s that?
Another shadow looms large over the city. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No. It’s a 300 foot tall Walter Matthau.
WALTER MATTHAU
Over here, bird-brain!
Mecha-Godzilla spins around to face his foe. Walter Matthau stands there with a droopy frown on his face and a single eyebrow raised. He pulls back his fist and then —
WHAM!!! BAM!!! POW!!! SNAP, CRACKLE, POP!!!
The fight begins.
CUT TO:
THE ARMY ARRIVING IN TANKS AND HELICOPTERS.
A FIVE-STAR GENERAL surveys the scene with worry on his face. HUNDREDS OF SOLDIERS gather behind him with loaded rifles in their hands.
CUT TO:
Mecha-Godzilla flies through the air like a rocket. He’s heading straight for Walter Matthau. But Walter Matthau is too quick for him and steps out of the way just in time.
Mecha-Godzilla crashes headfirst into a Broadway theatre. The military opens fire on the beast while it is dazed.
But Mecha-Godzilla is soon back on his feet. He rushes towards Walter Matthau and grabs him by the lapels of his rumpled old trench coat. He picks him up and throws him to the ground.
Walter Matthau lands flat on his back, crushing a sightseeing bus and a handful of tanks beneath his middle-aged rumpus.
Mecha-Godzilla rips the Broadway theatre marquee from its base and raises it over his head. Walter Matthau covers his face with his hands.
OH SHIT! IS THIS THE END OF OUR HERO?
From out of nowhere, A HUMAN FIST strikes Mecha-Godzilla right in the kisser. The robot dinosaur staggers backwards and accidentally drops the Broadway marquee on a parked Tesla, killing Elon Musk.
Just as all hope was lost, the cavalry has come to the rescue.
Walter Matthau looks up to see his saviour.
Yeah, you guessed it. It’s a 300 foot tall JACK LEMMON.
Jack Lemmon helps his friend to his feet. Sharing a wink and a nod with each other, the two actors turn their attention to the injured Mecha-Godzilla.
Mecha-Godzilla sees his opponents marching towards him. He starts to crawl away slowly.
CUT TO:
Walter Matthau stepping on the reptile automaton’s tail. He shakes his head.
WALTER MATTHAU
Don’t worry, we’re not gonna kill you, Sparky.
We’re just going to strip you for spare parts.
Mecha-Godzilla gulps. This is going to be painful.
Meanwhile, Jack Lemmon picks up a giant sweeping brush and matching pan. He starts to clean up the rubble and destruction around him.
JACK LEMMON
Hey Walter? How about Kung Pao Chicken tonight?
The sun sets in the distance and an orchestra plays THE ODD COUPLE THEME as CREDITS ROLL.
But wait. We’re not finished here. Not quite…
There were flowers at the table. Pink ones. By complete coincidence, they matched his wife’s dress. His own outfit was a plain black tuxedo with bow-tie and leather shoes. The exact sort of thing you are always expected to wear to a formal event like this. Not a funeral, no. More like a celebration. You see, his friend and collaborator Billy Wilder was being honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Film Institute. Hollywood’s best and brightest were gathered that night to celebrate the legendary career of one of their finest writer-directors.
People were telling humorous anecdotes and paying tribute to all those great films. Sunset Boulevard, Some Like It Hot, The Seven Year Itch. The list went on.
Walter Matthau had already given tribute in song just a half an hour earlier, accompanied by piano, naturally. Now, he watched on with his colleagues from both in front of and behind the camera as Wilder took to the stage to accept his award. He listened carefully as the filmmaker spoke.
“I have been here for over fifty years. That’s more than half a century. And all through those years, I have watched Tinseltown vacillate between despair and fear. First, it’s going to be the sound that will kill us. Then it was gonna be television, then cable, then pornography, then cassettes. And now, that terrifying new word, microchip.”
“They tell me that those guys working in the Silicon Valley, they really believe that pretty soon we will not need theatres anymore, nor studios, for that matter. They will have invented tiny little screens which you can attach to your steering wheel or big twenty foot screens on the ceiling of your bedroom. And then someday somebody is going to press a button and send a signal to a satellite, which in turn will light up five million screens all the way from Albania to Zanzibar.”
“Fantastic, isn’t it? Just unbelievable. All the hardware is there, beautifully programmed. Bravo! Except for one little detail – what about the software?”
As the crowd around him burst into applause, Walter Matthau smiled. His friend knew what he was talking about, that’s for sure.
“What are we going to do on all those screens? Who is going to write it? Who is going to direct it? Who is going to act it? For all I know, these wiseguys are trying right now to supplant the human factor. Microchips that will replace the human brain and the human heart. Mechanical gadgets that can simulate emotions, dreams, laughter, tears. Well, so far they have not succeeded. Not yet anyway.”
“So relax, fellow picture-makers. We are not expendable. The fact is, the bigger they get, the more irreplaceable we become. For theirs may be the kingdom but ours is the power and the glory. Thank you.”
Fade out.
