Ok, I stumbled across a guy online last night named FabFunk who, through a friend, had access to the January 2005 version of the Snakes on a Plane script. He’s agreed to do a little script review for us right here. There are spoilers ahead, but I’ll put them after the break so you won’t have to read them if you’re not interested.

Here we go, a Snakes on a Blog exclusive, the first ever script review of Snakes on a Plane:

So I have a friend who works in Los Angeles seasonally, and he usually gives me the lowdown and occasionally sends me some cool scripts, Last season, he sent me “The Fountain” (brilliant), “Jarhead” (great), “Stranger Than Fiction” (overrated) and “Failure To Launch” (fucking torture).

But it’s been awhile since he sent me one, so imagine my girly glee when I checked my mail and found Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon’s script for “How To Survive A Robot Uprising”. But there was another script there, one that made me forget that there was even an outside world, and for an hour, I sat down, entraced by SNAKES ON A PLANE.

Spoilers ahead.  Stop now if you don’t want to read them.

There will be spoilers, but I’ll try to shy away from the third act…

The script I had was dated January, 2005, but it had the names of all credited rewriters, from original scribe John Heffernan, with rewrites done by David Loucka, Sheldon Turner and Chris Morgan, with further notice to Sebastian Guittierez.

The script starts out with a vicious hit witnessed by Sean Jones, a youngster that apparently is being played by the shirtless fella from ‘Wolf Creek’. He escapes with his life, but the criminal in question is lethal Eddie Kim. Being that Hawaii isn’t that big a place, Sean is a key witness, and Kim will do everything in his power to shut him up.

No snakes yet.

But before anyone can get to Sean, NEVILLE FLYNN does. He’s described as “whipsmart and Mitchum-cool” and he’s the hero of this piece. He asks why Sean didn’t tell anyone, but Sean knows full well that YOU CAN’T TRUST ANYONE. Neville is the exception, being that he’ll be played by Sam Jackson. Neville gets Sean to testify, but for that, they’ll have to fly him to Los Angeles.

So we’re now on the plane, and our female lead is Claire. I think this might be Rachel Blanchard. Her co-workers include slutty Tiffany and very fey Ken (every time this character sashays, there should be a mystical whoosing sound followed by the scripted “knowing glances” each character shares). The passengers aren’t divided by class this time, though- first class has been closed off for Sean and Neville, so everyone has to sit together.

Included amongst this colorful cast is:

-Cash Money, a popular gangsta rapper, and his bodyguards Two-Ton and Big Leroy.

-Mercedes, a Paris Hilton clone down to the tiny dog in her purse, somehow allowed onboard.

-Tyler (Kenan Thompson) and Ashley, a happily married couple who make Xanax jokes.

-Cowboy Rick (David Koechner), all horny big boots from Texas who coins the term “sky candy”.

There are a few others also, all of whom end up in varying degrees of snake fodder (including a Chinese guy who PUNCHES SNAKES OUT). It won’t matter, essentially. Because once they’re all introduced, they’re forgotten in service of this film’s real stars.

The intro couldn’t be more perfect. In a jump scene, we hear a HISSSSS. It turns out to be an angry cat. However, the cat is shut up by an even louder HISSSSS coming from a mysterious package.

However, with heavy weather causing turbulance, it looks like the snakes will be but one of many problems

Enter the SNAKES. The script gives them names (but sadly, no lines) like HANNIBAL and SCARFACE (although the real star is the 20 foot KONG that shows up in the third act). Their first order of business is dispatching the horny couple screwing in the bathroom, but they waste no time in taking it to the people. And these snakes have multiple skills too- a few screw with the plane’s innards, causing many a malfunction. And in the big money shot, the flight gets so rough that the oxygen masks come down in unison. But instead of masks, IT’S SNAKES!

I won’t spoil anything else for you, aside from the halfway point of the film, which a new character is introduced. STEVEN PRICE is the Jack Bauer of the snake world, racing against time to collect the anti-venoms for each snake bite on that plane.

He and the rest of the cast have such ridiculously awesome dialogue. Fey Ken gets to fire off, “Taste this, you bitches!” And Sam Jackson has a bunch of fiery, inspiration speeches, such as this one…

“You don’t know me well, Claire Miller. I spend every day dealing with people who do terrible things to one another. So I have very little faith in the human race as a whole. But I have faith in you.”

Anyway, this thing is jam-packed with snake action and tons of gnarly snake and human kills, with an ending that harkens back to those old airplane dramas of the seventies. I can’t wait, because this is the first time in awhile where there will be truth in advertising. If you were looking for a high octane, exciting, awesome snake-plane movie, this is for you.

Call me Fabfunk. And check my blog.