#Also considering a fun new idea for the Tribe Cat who defeats One Eye

[bonefall]

Okay I’m fixated on this too much, but how do they know Tom’s soul is gone? Do they see it being eaten? Imagine existing as a ghost for one second after being crunched just to get eaten again

They don't! Only Clear Sky was there when One Eye ate Tom, and he probably didn't stick around to the end of the gruesome ordeal.

One Eye said something about the taste of his soul, and Skystar knew something was very wrong. It clicked, in that moment, that One Eye wasn't here to bring him power. Or the revenge he wanted against all the cats who had humiliated him, and 'killed his cats' at the First Battle.

He was being fattened up for slaughter. And that's when he decided he needed to work with the others, to get rid of the threat he'd invited into the forest.

#BB!DOTC #The story I want to tell in Thunderstar's Justice is about the line between revenge and justice #And how Thunder considers this #When Skystar continues to be a threat but he's offered power for getting rid of him... does that taint his victory? #And is justice a thing to be won? #If he was to deny Skystar's help in getting rid of One Eye just to keep his pride... what WOULD that make him? #Where does spite end and self-defense begin? #Not here. He concludes #Also considering a fun new idea for the Tribe Cat who defeats One Eye #But let me think about it a bit more #But bottom line is that Sun Shadow is going to have a JUICY moment #better bones au

[rin-the-shadow]

Rin Plots Cats from the Trailer

Because apparently this is where the brain is going to go during all this. Obviously, this is negated by what ultimately ended up happening with the movie, but for the longest time, this was how I assumed it would go:

Overture plays as we pan over several cats going about their daily lives/waiting for the humans to turn their lights off/making their final preparations, then eventually it focuses on a white cat who’s making her way down the street.

Victoria’s new to the ball, probably some of the others are too, but she’s specifically traveled to get to there, so no one has seen her before and she knows of their customs but may not have been exposed to them directly. Probably asks a lot of questions she should already know the answers to and the other Jellicles at first are a bit like “seriously? even if it’s your first, you should know this stuff” but then they just kinda roll with it. On the way, she meets other newbie Quaxo, otherwise known as Mister Mistoffelees, who is like, really new at the whole magic thing, and there aren’t a lot of other magical cats out there so she’s a bit prone to asking questions she probably shouldn’t, and somewhere in there it comes out that he’s considering trying for rebirth because he’s not really sure he’s a good fit for his magic.

Also on the way, they’re accosted by some of Macavity’s henchcats. Mistoffelees manages to slip by pretty easy because magic, but Victoria has more trouble and so they end up giving her trouble about going to the ball. This is where we get our first hint that Macavity’s planning something.

Then opening number finally, “The Naming of Cats” is dropped because it breaks the fourth wall, the ball and the choice is probably mildly overexplained, we get more scenes with dancing cats, plus some occasional hint-dropping about like “oh, you think she’ll try for rebirth, you think he’ll try for rebirth” and the like. Grizabella shows up and of course Victoria immediately wants to know if she’s going to try it, but everyone’s like “no, stay away, she left the tribe and so she can never come back in” which doesn’t make a lot of sense to her but okay she guesses. However, Victoria ends up following after her and so sometime during the Bustopher Jones number, some of the cats pick up on her being missing.

LOTS OF LOUD CRASHING and stuff! Oh dear, Macavity’s up to something! The cats are hiding, but of course Mistoffelees wants to go find Victoria, so he slips off to go look for her. Turns out, she’s run into Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer who drag her into their cat burglar antics but as it would happen they’re a bit better about leaving the scene of the crime after it’s over. Cue added rescue subplot with Mistoffelees trying to get Victoria out of the house, but probably in the end both of them have to get rescued by Munkustrap. And he’s all like, “Look, don’t go running off newbies, it’s frickin’ dangerous out there for a Jellicle.” 

But he can’t be mad for too long because Old Deuteronomy is showing up. So she shows up, choice gets emphasized again, the cats party. Didn’t see any indication that they were doing Pekes and Pollicles in this one, so probably Macavity makes some racket around this part, maybe he breaks the fourth wall to explain that he’s going to make this a ball they never forget, but he’s never seen by the Jellicles. So then the cats party some more because this is how they’re dealing with things now. Victoria maybe questions if they should be partying when this guy’s obviously a threat, but in the end, what can they do?

Taylor Swift Cat doping everyone on catnip probably helps too.

But then OH NO! Grizabella’s back. Older cats are pulling the younger cats away again. Everyone scatters or maybe she never quite makes it all the way back into the ball. Maybe she’s just like, hiding out on the sidelines just out of range or whatever. She tries to imitate their dancing but it doesn’t work and then she sings the shortened version of Memory. Unknown to her, Deuteronomy hears it, but she’s too old to be able to get to her before she stalks off.

Old D’s thinking of what she saw, and maybe she drops some hints that she has a good idea of who her choice is going to be. She tries to impart this to them using the song “Moments of Happiness,” which the cats discuss using their words because this is a movie adaptation.

More cats are singing and doing their introductions. Victoria, probably the audience surrogate by this point if she wasn’t set up as that before, is still a little like okay why are we still singing? but she’s also just kinda going with it at this point. But then BOOM Macavity! and he actually attacks this time. So he casts a spell on the cats and takes Old D. Which of course leads to his song.

Then pad it out with a scene where the cats go to look for Old D, but then Macavity appears again like, “Hey, look, no big deal. Just a bit of harmless fun. Look, I’ll even give her back to you!” And at first everyone’s like “Yay! We got our leader back” but someone probably Munkustrap or Demeter is like okay but that’s not like him at all.... So then there’s probably an extra scene of Demeter’s uncovering that it’s actually a shapeshifted Macavity because this is a movie so he’s going to shapeshift.

Then cat fight. Probably it will stay as just a duel between Munkustrap and Macavity instead of the rest of the Jellicles joining in, but maybe some of the younger ones do and have to be held back by the older ones like no, you’re like barely a year old, you can’t fight that. Or maybe some of the others do join in and he’s finally like “screw this, I’m outta here” but maybe he actually gets definitively defeated because movie.

Somewhere in all this fiasco, that’s probably when we double down on the whole rebirth thing again like look, Victoria, this is why I have to go for rebirth because magic cats are like him or something like that. Or maybe it kinda got dropped at this point and doesn’t really get brought up because the scriptwriters forgot or didn’t realize this would be a place they could double down on it.

But anyway, Macavity’s defeated or else metaphorically exited stage left. Yay! Just one problem. How are we supposed to find Old D? 

Tugger being Tugger, he’s like hey, look guys there’s a kid with magic like right here, I bet he can figure it out. And Mistoffelees is kinda doing an internal fuuuuuuuuu----- right about now but they’re desperate and you got Tugger belting this song out so over the song you kind of have him growing into the confidence of his usual role even though he’s also kind of thinly veiling mortal terror at the whole thing. So stuff happens, he does his trick and brings Old D back, probably that gets padded out somehow or other, and Tugger’s like ey yo, this kid’s done the thing! and Misto realizes he never needed to try for rebirth because Be Yourself Aesop! So now that subplot’s resolved! Yay!

That just leaves one thing remaining. If no one here’s going to try for rebirth, who’s left? Cue Grizabella! And at first they’re like ugh not you go away, but Old Deuteronomy is like, “No guys you have to hear her out because I’m the leader and I say so.” So they do, she sings her song, and probably Victoria and maybe Sillabub if she’s been given enough arc/her entire arc wasn’t given to Victoria join in to encourage her when she falters. They’re also the first two to accept her back, then everyone accepts her and Old D is like “Yup, made my choice.”

So Grizabella gets sent to the Heavyside Layer, and as the cats watch her ascent, Munkustrap points out that Old D was probably intending to choose her almost the whole time, so why didn’t she go ahead and do that earlier? At which point Old D probably explains something about how she needed to be accepted back into the tribe before she could be properly chosen or something like that.

The cats watch as she fades away, and then slowly, they return back inside wherever they were partying as the sun comes up. Lingering shot on Misto and/or Victoria as they go back inside, then fade.

The Ad-Dressing of Cats would be played over the closing credits because movie.

#obviously this isn't what happened #but this was how i thought they would do it from the trailers alone #taylor swift doping everyone on catnip would have 'explained' why they got so hyped up during the big dance number #rin predicts movie plots #rin makes up stuff #cats the musical #cats 2019 movie adaptation thing #cats #probably someone at some point would outright explain that macavity wanted to take over leadership from old deuteronomy #rin parodies random crap #long post #like i probably wouldn't include tons of extra explanation for everything #but that's what i assume they would have done #because this is movie and the era in which we overexplained frickin' beauty and the beast #so we can overexplain anything #and now I kind of want to make this thing into a thing #but first i must gain animatics skills #or doodle comics or something #i don't even know why i want this i just want it