MAKING ANGELS
screenplay by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
A Kabbalah based Matrix movie.
LOGLINE: A Jewish videogame wreaks mystical havoc at a Christian game
company.
Synopsis:
Manny Weizman codes his Rabbinical class work into a videogame using
advanced Kabbalah. The Principal of his Brooklyn Yeshiva expels Manny for
playing instead of learning, whereupon Manny hurls a jump drive at the
Principal. "You can go to hell and take the stupid game with you!"
In the subway, he emits a soulful prayer for help. Within hours, he lands
a job with a Christian videogame company. Manny must develop a Kabbalah
based videogame from scratch. Before long, his efforts begin to warp
reality and stir evil forces against the Company. With explosives planted
in the offices, Manny must beg help from his old Principal to subdue those
evil forces. The office blows up. Though people die, each evil deed
miraculously but logically generates a good result.
MAKING ANGELS
A family drama
When is a game not a game any more?
When playing it warps reality.
Manny Weizman, expelled from Rabbinical college for arrogance, prays for
help and within hours lands a programming job at a Christian game company.
Even the CEO doesn’t know the template for their best selling games
contains a hypnotic component.
The next day the Company gets a commission to build a videogame based
on Kabbalah and assigns Manny to lead the project. Financially, it’ll save
the Company.
Stretching his meager knowledge of Jewish mysticism, Manny produces game
levels on Charity and Truth. While testing, he does not see invisible
angels fly out of the screen but his sense of reality wobbles every time
he wins the game.
Then he finds himself blurting out inconvenient truths to his pregnant
wife.
He knows the Kabbalah premise that every deliberate act fulfilling a
Commandment produces an angel. But how can fulfilling a Commandment
vicariously have the same result as an actual deed?
The Company insists the game start with a Level on Hatred. Manny complies.
Beta testing Hatred stirs animosity in everyone remotely connected to the
project.
He can’t control what he’s unleashed.
Finally, with anti-videogame activists occupying the offices they’ve
rigged with explosives, Manny must admit his ignorance to his old
Principal, ask for his help against hatred, and risk his life to save his
pregnant wife.
The dreaded explosion miraculously spares many lives, and Manny’s second
child is born in the rescue helicopter. Never knowing of the subliminal
code, Manny returns to the Rabbinical college willing to learn the basics
before advanced Kabbalah. The life goals of the founders of the game
company are fulfilled in a most peculiar way.
Jacqueline Lichtenberg is a widely published fiction writer represented by
Sharon Jarvis at Toad Hall, Inc. signatory to the Guild.
