FUTILE COMBAT

FUTILE COMBAT: In our defence, the summer of 2003 was abnormally hot in the UK.  After weeks of maddening humidity with barely a sniff of a breeze, the heat simply drove us insane.  As a result, this story was conceived during a period of temporary lunacy on our parts.  And it shows.  We make no apology for the deliberate silliness of this story.

CONCEPT: The original idea of futile combat was to make a spoof of the popular beat 'em up genre of video games.  In such games, tournaments are often hinted at and yet never seem to take place.  The characters are always one dimensional and rarely deviate from a strong stereotype.  We just had to spoof that! 

STORY: Upon his deathbed, the mighty warrior, Tytanus bequeathed all his worldly belongings to his only child, Ivor, with the exception of one thing.  His world famous weapon the Coquina Tytanus.  The coquina, a stone with the power to control and manipulate the elements, was passed down to his old friend along with his last request.  He requested that a tournament be held where warriors and heroes from all around the world could meet to do battle for the right to wield the mighty stone.

And so, a mighty tournament was arranged.  Word spread and warriors from across the globe did indeed head for the tournament in their droves in the hope of winning the coquina.  Some set out for the right reasons and some set out for selfish reasons.  One even set out from Belgium but got horribly lost on the way and was never seen again. 

Futile Combat follows the personal trials and tribulations of four competitors and their sidekicks as they make their way to, or train for the mighty tournament.  Made up of four individual, interwoven tales, all the characters don't come together until the end of the penultimate episode .  Four tales, one story, a million silly scenarios.

CHARACTERS:

SIR VISTABINT AND THE SQUIRE.

What tournament would be complete without a knight?  Correct.  Beat 'em up tournaments never have knights involved.  Well, ours does, so there.  

Sir Vistabint is a knight to the royal household in the kingdom of Farhaway.  Very much in love with himself, the only person he doesn't look down on is his king.

When news of the tournament spreads to Farhaway, the king sends for Sir Vistabint and orders him to enter the contest to win the coquina for his country.  At once, Sir Vistabint sends for his squire, a lad of sixteen whom he belittles, humiliates and treats worse than a dog.  Once the squire has made all the preparations for travel, the two of them set out on the king's new invention.  Given the new contraption rather than a horse, Sir Vistabint feels humiliated, something he happily takes out on his squire.  Wishing he'd never applied for the post as Sir Vistabint's assistant, his squire can't wait for the mission to be at an end.  Stuck with the king's invention as his mode of transport, nor can Sir Vistabint.

SIR VISTABINT:

AGE: 30.

TALENTS: WOMANISING AND SWORDSMANSHIP.

THE SQUIRE:

AGE: 16.

TALENTS: COOKING, CLEANING AND IRONING.  

TOBY.

Every beat 'em up game since the dawning of time has featured a token old man and a token black person.  Well, our next move was obvious.  Meet Toby, two stereotypical token gestures in one overweight package.

Toby is a good person.  He's a man who cares about his fellow human being and feels very much at one with nature.  Having been quite a good tournament fighter in his younger years, Toby is asked to enter the tournament by two rich strangers who covet the coquina.  With the promise of lots of money to pay for a sickly young girl's operation, Toby agrees to take part and heads away to the tournament.

As he heads to the tournament, Toby befalls one disaster after another and everyone he meets either tries to rob him or deceive him in some way.  Little by little, his faith in mankind is whittled away until he eventually explodes.

TOBY:

AGE: PAST IT.

TALENTS: EATING AND STAFF DUELLING.
RIYUMI AND NUNOO.

Every beat 'em up game needs beautiful women, as does every futile fantasy story.  Thus, meet Riyumi and Nunoo Aikandi. 

Since leaving their home town eight years previously to avoid being forced to marry, beautiful sisters, Riyumi and Nunoo have wandered from town to town.  Having perfected her combat skills, Riyumi supports them both by working as a freelance heroine.

Upon hearing about the Coquina Tytanus, Riyumi heads excitedly for the tournament knowing the precious stone will make her work a million times easier.  Sadly for her, the tournament is quite a distance away and her younger sibling, Nunoo, is far from enthusiastic about the walk.  Being at "that age", her only interests are food and boys and she isn't slow in complaining.

As if Nunoo's complaints aren't enough for Riyumi to contend with, along the way she's constantly attacked by Rivelle, a young woman who swore revenge on her for something she can't even remember doing.  Suffice to say, her journey is an eventful one.

RIYUMI:

AGE: 23.

TALENTS: UNARMED COMBAT AND LOOKING SEXY.

NUNOO:

AGE: 16.

TALENTS: COMPLAINING AND BOY-SPOTTING.
NIGEL AND MAURICE.

Ah, yes, the master and his apprentice.  Another classic beat 'em up scenario. 

A resident of the town where the tournament is to be held, the halfwit, Nigel manages to escape a mugging and runs into a strange man who claims to be familiar with his family.  Distrusting at first, Nigel turns down the man's offer of martial arts training.  When his house is burgled later that day, however, he changes his mind and takes the stranger up on his offer.

Being a clumsy oaf, Nigel makes many mistakes along the way to learning to fight but his new teacher, Maurice, is extremely patient, tolerant and understanding.  He has to be!

After a mishap strewn education into the battling arts, Nigel is entered into the tournament.  As the home town boy and the crowd favourite, the pressure on the dim-witted weakling to succeed is great.

NIGEL:

AGE: 18.

TALENTS: WOOD CARVING AND SLEEPING.

MAURICE:

AGE: OVER 40.

TALENTS: MASTER OF ALL FORMS OF ARMED AND UNARMED COMBAT.

EMBARRASSING CONFESSION:

This story was originally written in script form and submitted to Channel 4 television.  They subsequently sent it back telling us they don't make TV shows!  Their advice was to send it to a production company along with a warning that it'd probably cost far too much to make anyway.  We took the news extremely well and the fact we haven't submitted scripts to a television company since is purely co-incidental...ish.   

DOWNLOADS:

FUTILE COMBAT 2024 REWRITES  (.PDF FORMAT)

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