EXT. PRINCETON UNIVERSITY - DAY - THE RV
is entering the campus drive.
EXT. - INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED STUDY - THE RV
pulls in front of the building and stops. Madden steps out and looks around.
 MADDEN |
Institute for Advanced Study, Institute for Advanced Study - hey, do they even have a football team? |
Dr. Mellinger comes out of the building and rushes over to Madden.
MELLINGER|
Mr. Madden, so glad you made it -- and none too soon. I'm Dr. Mellinger. |
He shakes Madden's hand.
MADDEN|
Glad to meet ya, Doc. Sorry I'm late, we got a little lost -- they've torn up the turnpike. Now you have to exit the turnpike, fight your way through the traffic in downtown Newark, then find the turnpike again -- let me tell ya, it's like trying to run on the Steelers on third and short and they know you're comin' right up the gut, they just know it. |
MELLINGER|
Yes, well, I'm not much of a football fan, but I'm glad you made it. You see, we've got to get started. We're facing a deadline that we cannot miss. |
MADDEN|
What kind of a program you got here, Doc? I mean, when the President of the United States asks you, personally, to take over a team, you don't think twice about it. But what's the Institute for Advanced Study, anyway? I thought this was Princeton. Hey, did Princeton win any games last year? |
MELLINGER
MADDEN|
Oh, that's right, you're not a football fan. Hey, that's okay. You're a doctor. The world needs doctors more than it needs football fans -- right, Doc? |
MELLINGER
 (getting impatient)|
Look, we must get started, Mr. Madden. |
MADDEN|
Call me John. The last time someone calls me Mister Madden is the first time they meet me. Hah! |
Madden slaps Mellinger on the back, sending his glasses flying on the ground O.S.
MADDEN
(continuing)|
Oops. Sorry. I'll get them. |
Madden steps O.S. and we HEAR the CRUNCHING sound of eyeglasses being stepped on by a three hundred pound man.
MADDEN (O.S.)
(continuing)
INT. COLLEGE CLASSROOM - A LITTLE LATER - MADDEN
and Bubba, Butkus, The Boz, The Fridge, and Csonka are seated at relatively miniscule school desks.
BUTKUS |
I don't get it. Why are we here? |
THE FRIDGE
MADDEN|
Hey, I don't know why we're here, but it's gonna be some team from the looks of it. |
There's a KNOCK on the door and Mellinger, Denton, Sashimi, and Brickhouse enter.
MELLINGER|
Gentlemen, may we come in? |
The scientists walk to the front of the class.
MELLINGER
(continuing)|
Let me introduce everyone. I'm Doctor Mellinger -- this is Doctor Brickhouse, Doctor Sashimi, and Doctor Denton. Is everything all right, gentlemen? |
MADDEN|
Sure, Doc. I was just telling the guys that we've got the makings of one heck of an old timers team, if that's what this is all about. |
MELLINGER|
Well, no, not exactly. But it is a team. |
CSONKA
SASHIMI|
There is no rest of it. This is it. |
MADDEN|
This is it? What are we playing -- six man football, like they do in Texas? |
MELLINGER
BUBBA
BUTKUS|
Yeah. What bunch of idiots would try to take us on in a game of football! |
They all have a good laugh.
MELLINGER|
Well, in a way, gentlemen, you are going to be "playing" the Third Reich. |
MADDEN
MELLINGER
SASHIMI
DENTON
BRICKHOUSE
MADDEN
MELLINGER|
Look, it's quite simple. Your mission is to rescue Albert Einstein from the Nazis, get him out of Germany safely, and deliver him, and his papers, to Princeton, New Jersey by September the eighth, nineteen thirty-three. |
There is a stunned silence.
MADDEN|
But, wait... I thought Einstein did get out of Germany. |
MELLINGER|
Yes, he did. Thanks to you brave men. |
There is more stunned silence, broken when the time-challenged Doctor Julius comes flying into the room, babbling away to no one in particular.
JULIUS
(to himself)|
I have just discovered helium, or is it cesium -- seize that man! Brought to you by Bab-O. And I will see to it that this city is safe. |
Julius exits as fast as he entered.
THE FRIDGE
MELLINGER|
That is, or was, Doctor Julius. |
THE BOZ
MELLINGER|
No problem, really, except that he's living approximately one week in the past. Just ignore him, please, and -- whatever you do -- don't talk to him. |
BUBBA
Mellinger pauses to look around at his fellow scientists and receives their somber, nodding assent to answer the question.
MELLINGER
(gravely)
DENTON
(looking at his watch)
MELLINGER|
Of course, let's continue. Doctor Sashimi, take over please, and men -- listen carefully. As the letter you received made clear, this is a mission of supreme national importance. The future of this country -- as well as its past -- depends on you. Doctor Sashimi? |
SASHIMI|
Thank you, Doctor Mellinger. |
(to team)|
Men, I'll tell you right off, this is going to be the most complicated, complex, confounding, confusing, convoluted caper ever attempted in the annals of human history. Forget about football. Forget about your athletic careers. Think about heroism. Think about heroes. Who were your heroes, men? Your father? A fireman? A brother? A sister? Your mother? An astronaut? A -- |
THE FRIDGE
(interrupting)
SASHIMI|
I was speaking rhetorically. Anyway, what I want you to think about is, well, now I forgot what it was I wanted you to think about, so I'll turn it over to my colleague, Doctor Brickhouse, who will explain the technical aspects of this mission. Listen carefully, men. Doctor Brickhouse? |
The very distracting Dr. Brickhouse steps forward.
BRICKHOUSE|
Men, you are going to go through a brief, but rigorous, training camp, and then, at precisely nine forty-two AM Eastern Standard Time on the thirty-first of August, you will enter a long, cylindrical neutron tube, you will be bombarded with anti-matter traveling at twice the speed of light, you will be transported back in time to the year nineteen thirty-three, to a pre-arranged location in Germany, and you will proceed with a carefully worked out game plan to rescue Albert Einstein from certain state arrest by the ruling National Socialist Party -- the Nazi government -- headed by none other than Adolf Hitler. Is that clear? |
There is a long pause of either astonishment, or bafflement, or disbelief, or a little of each.
BRICKHOUSE
(continuing)
The Fridge raises his hand.
BRICKHOUSE
(continuing; to The Fridge)
THE FRIDGE|
Yeah, just where is the cafeteria on this campus? For the life of me I couldn't find it. |
BRICKHOUSE
(reacts, then to Sashimi)|
Where's the cafeteria, Doctor Sashimi? |
SASHIMI|
Let's see, you've got to cross the campus almost diagonally, and it's next to the music labs I think. |
MELLINGER|
Actually, Doctor, the men won't be using the cafeteria -- we're having all their meals prepared for them here, at the Institute. Security reasons. |
BRICKHOUSE
After a couple of beats, The Fridge raises his hand.
BRICKHOUSE
(continuing)
THE FRIDGE
BRICKHOUSE
THE FRIDGE
BRICKHOUSE
MELLINGER
(a little frustrated)|
Once again -- all your meals will be prepared here, at the Institute. We have to do it that way. No one must know what goes on within these walls. |
(to Csonka)
CSONKA
(lowering his hand)|
Oh, no, sorry -- he asked what I was gonna ask. |
MADDEN|
Hey, I have a question. I thought you couldn't go faster than the speed of light. I thought that's the fastest you could go. |
MELLINGER|
Well, yes, in fact that's what was originally thought, but -- here, let me ask Doctor Denton to explain it -- he's the world's leading authority on quantum physics, particle theory, and relativity. Doctor Denton? |
Denton steps forward.
DENTON
(to Mellinger)
(to Madden, et al)|
Albert Einstein postulated that, if you had two trains on parallel tracks and one were traveling at the speed of light and the other were traveling slightly faster than the speed of light, the slower train would actually appear to pass the faster one. He was saying that, if you could travel faster than the speed of light, that time would start to reverse itself. |
MADDEN|
So let me see if I have this straight. If Deion Sanders is traveling at the speed of light, and Jerry Rice is traveling at twice the speed of light, it would seem like Deion is going twice as fast as Jerry -- instead of the other way around, like you'd expect. |
DENTON
MADDEN
(satisfied)
MELLINGER
(waits a beat)|
No? All right then. From this point on you will speak to no one about anything, until the mission is over. You'll be shown to your quarters where you will be issued watches, synchronized precisely with the atomic clock in Denver, Colorado. Training camp begins at six AM. See you then. |
They stand, but are stuck inside the desks. As they struggle to extricate themselves we
|