While humans hide underground, robotic combatants on the surface fight World War 3. As the war ginds on, the robots send down progress reports. But the reports are lies, to keep the humans as prisoners.

SYNOPSIS:

Ostensible is an original feature-length script based on the short story "the Defenders" by Philip K Dick. The original story has fallen into public domain. It tells the story of Taylor, a human technician who helps the war effort against the People's Soviet Socialist Republic (referred to in derogatory terms as the PISSERS).

Taylor is called by his supervisor for a surface mission to check on the war’s progress. But when Taylor and his team reach the surface they are told by the automated combatants that the human must stay underground for their safety. The team discovers that the war effort is all a sham and that the humans have been lied to, to keep them safe. The team now has to find a way to overthrow the mechanical babysitters, and communicate with earth’s population below which has been cut off by a series of planned, tactical explosions. The mission is complicated by the appearance of a PISSER team that has landed in the USA to investigate the effectiveness of their own attacks.

PKD had an exceptional short story here, but then dropped his readers off a cliff with a forced or hurried ending. He either had reaced his word limit for the submission, or just didn't know how to end the story (which I would find hard to believe). This adaption is approximately 35% original material and extends the PKD short story into a viable and satisfying conclusion, in a style of which PKD would be proud. The tension between the USA and the People's Socialist Republic is amped up by the introduction of a malfunctioning leddy class which, unlike all the other classes, will kill.

Philip K Dick has had a number of stories made into films. Many film adaptations have not used Dick's original titles. They include Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, Paycheck, The Adjustment Bureau and A Scanner Darkly. Films based on Dick's writing have accumulated a total revenue of over US $1 billion.

About Deenur: In addition to completing 11 screenplays (3 under contract), I have written two novels (one for which I received a contract), and numerous short stories (two with a contract).

OSTENSIBLE