Buoyed with success from 'Transformers' Michael Bay does preliminary notes on his planned remake of Casablanca

The plot needs more characters. Like, the police squad that follows the French captain around all the time. We're gonna need a whole load more of those guys. We don't need to know much about them, and they don't need to be particularly deep or well-formed, but they need to be there. One of them should be Hispanic, and another should be like some kind of nerdy white guy. They might get killed off by the end, but the audience will have probably forgotten them by then.

Really, this whole plot is far too complicated. I mean, I've got a lot of respect for the source material, but let's face it, it's pretty difficult to follow. Let's say that the two main characters haven't met before, then that'll save on complicated plot exposition. Or we could sum that up in some kind of opening monologue. With special effects!

That black guy on the piano needs to be way louder. How will people notice that he's black? He needs to have lots of lines that end in words like "day-um!" and play upbeat, hip hop music. In fact, let's just lose the piano altogether, he can rap. Actually, I was starting to worry that there wasn't really a need to have him in the film at all, but I like him a lot more now. He's louder, he's more insensitive, he's more believable. Exactly like all the black people I know. They're going to love this.

I like these characters, but I think they could be cooler. Like, how about if they all know martial arts? Rick could be some kind of martial arts master. In fact, the bar could be a martial arts bar. Or, whatever they call those things they train in. You know, yo-yos.

Oh, also, I want to avoid the casting decisions made in the first film. I don't want anyone over thirty in this movie. Young people are our key demographic, and they hate adults. Also, all the actors need to be totally hot. That or they're comic relief, in the background somewhere.

You know what we need here? A political figure, who by the end of the film will take up arms against the bad guys. Audiences love that. It can't be a plane or a shotgun, that's been done... how about a chainsaw? That's perfect. He can be Rick's best buddy, and governor of Casablanca. We can shoehorn him in near the start, no problem. He should initially be a bit of a stuffed shirt, but turn out to be an ultimate bad-ass.

Something's been bothering me about the time setting here. I mean, we're back in the middle ages or something, right? How can we drop in lots of cultural references to the Internet to make sure the film is modern and upbeat? How will anybody relate to any of these characters unless they have Paypal accounts? Also, unless we crank up the moderniser a bit we won't be able to have any kind of highly believable computer hacking sequence (you know, with cool graphics swirling all over the place), which frankly, is unacceptable. We're going to have to set it in the present day, no question.

So apparently some fans of the original are complaining on bulletin boards that I'm not doing justice to the franchise, or something. They reckon I'm ruining it because I'm changing too much? Yeah, like anyone's going to buy more 'original' Bogart dolls. Duh. Okay, well just to pacify these freaky purists, let's hire Claude Raines back to do a voiceover, or something. Better yet, let's CGI him into the background somewhere in one of the shots, circulate a picture on the Internet, then cut that shot and include it as an Easter egg in the DVD. Man, they're suckers for stuff like that.

Oh right, the Nazis. That's why it's set back then. Okay, replace the Nazis with al-Qaeda terrorists or something. Oh, that totally works! They can go around blowing stuff up! That'll look so cool.

So with all this action, we'd better show the consequences. Like... one of the main characters gets killed. Doesn't matter which, I'll pick one later. Probably not the one with the kids, that'd make it all too depressing.

What? Rick doesn't end up with the babe at the end?? You've got to be kidding me. Seriously, I'm changing this right now.

This film is going to be so awesome.

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