“One small step for a mole, one giant leap for mole-kind!”
Finalised Story
Co-written with Ying Zhi and Hin Ye.
Click here to go to Storyboarding Final master post.
Logline
A rejected scientist rediscovers his childhood dream of being an astro-mole thanks to an unexpected encounter.
Extended Sypnosis
A peaceful lush green forest is first introduced. The camera continues to pan down… down… down…
A few hundreds and thousands of metres below the surface, a civilization of sentient moles thrives underground. But first, we are brought to a space observatory. A scientist bursts out of the observatory into the rainy outdoors as jeers and laughs follow him out. He trips, scattering the papers clutched in his hand and dislodging his thick black-framed glasses. A box of his belongings is thrown out, labelled with his name – Cule.
Alone, Cule the mole collects his life’s work and leaves. As he does, a paper flutters down into a puddle – a childish drawing of a mole planting a flag on the earth. Cule looks at it defeatedly, and leaves.
Flash-forward – the moles live completely underground and are oblivious to the world above them. Cule is now merely an ordinary office mole, wearing a tie and office suit is walking home from work. He passes a TV display, which is broadcasting the MoleNews. A news reporter is talking. Cule sees himself being featured shamefully on the news as he is kicked out of the science community, tripping and falling as he stumbles his way out of the building in embarrassment.
Cule looks down, dragging his feet as he continues to walk along the pavement.
As he walks, a young mole approaches him. He expresses excitement in Cule’s scientific exploits, but Cule is not interested. The young mole insistently shows him a drawing he did – it had always been his childhood dream to see Cule’s plans come to pass. Cule hesitates, but walks away in the end, a parallel to the way he had given up on his dreams before.
However, the young mole is insistent – from that day, he begins to follow Cule around, bugging him at every juncture: in the toilet, at work, in the supermarket, on the streets. In the end, Cule snaps and angrily tells the young mole off, slamming the door and shutting the young mole out. He retreats into his room, where old posters of his dream to travel ‘to infinity and beyond!’ are stuck onto the walls.
He dejectedly approaches his desk. At this point, a piece of paper flutters down with a loving note from his parents. Cule begins to recall his young self, how hopeful and idealistic he was, and how his parents had loved and supported him… this gives him strength.
He puts on his glasses again, and goes outside. The young mole looks up with hope in his eyes…
Time skips forward, and we see a news reported before a huge machine, a rocket. The rocket tunnels up and out to the cadence of victorious music.
Boom.
On the surface, Cule exits from a manhole cover to see tall skyscrapers blocking a blue sky. The mole population watching the event on their home televisions are astounded. He takes out a mole flag and plants it on the ground.
“One small step for a mole, one giant leap for molekind.”
