Synopsis - Invasion of the Fifth Dimension

ACT I

We embark on a series of cascading events that could only take place in a world of stupid people. Ned has attached rockets to a parasail and is about to take it on a test run, but he hasn’t thought everything through. His drunken friends take off in the boat attached to the rig, and he flies high until the rockets start. They take him crashing over trees, then break away altogether. He falls a hundred feet to the highway, where he’s dragged half a mile by a stupid guy in an SUV. The stupidity continues until traffic on the highway is ground to a halt with drunken gawkers passing by, eager to see the gore. 

 

Cut to Rusty Cannon’s talk show as he grills another wimpy liberal, who tries in vain to get a word in edgewise. Off-air, Rusty battles with his sister, who has cancer but refuses his help. Cut to Nelson Paxel at home with his sun-withered mother, who can’t stop fighting with her black boyfriend Carlos. At work, Nelson deals with girlfriend Diedre who has nothing for him but complaints. Cut to President Carr who enjoys waging futile wars in far-off third world countries and refuses to listen to reason. It’s a world of stupid people.

 

But everything changes when Rusty finds a DVD hidden behind a faucet in a men’s room. It’s titled “Message from the Fifth Dimension.” Nelson finds one on the bus, Banister, the President’s PR guy, behind sugar packets at a restaurant. Millions more throughout the world find the DVD in similar ways. Nelson inserts the DVD in a player and weird smoky patterns appear on the screen.

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ACT II

Nelson hits play, and a strange person named Roy Thode appears, sitting in a bland room, facing the camera. He looks and acts like a normal human being, but his image is rimmed with a yellow-green glow and when he turns his head, he sometimes appears two-dimensional. Roy tells us he is from the fifth dimension and he’s testing out a device that enables him to communicate with us three-dimensional people, and that we are their slaves. Then, the video turns white and stops. People throughout the world are dumbstruck after seeing the video. They’re not sure what to make of it, but they all feel something very profound has happened.

 

Cut to World’s Stupidest Criminals in progress, featuring CCTV video of a robber shooting himself in the foot, and then through the head. Rusty talks over another defenseless liberal promoting socialized medicine, then has lunch with an industry lobbyist, who asks him how he likes his new Cadillac. The people who found the first DVD are then drawn to find a second in the same place. Roy apologizes for his previous DVD ending at such an unfortunate moment and uses PowerPoint slides to bring the talk down to our level. 5D people control 3D people by implanting thoughts in their subconscious to keep them in a constant state of fear and confusion.

 

Cut to a stupid newspaper headline the next day, “Human Race Controlled by Aliens.” Cut to people being interviewed and reporters ginning up fear, and mobs buying Roy Thode merchandise. But the suggestions made by Roy appear to be working. In the Oval Office, Carr lays into Banister for calling his photo op on a battleship a cornball stunt. Rusty walks out on a surly guest who tries to get him to agree to ground rules. Nelson is changed forever when he witnesses cops beating Carlos to a pulp.

 

Another DVD appears. This time Roy hides his device in a lunchbox to show nonbelievers what goes on in his dimension. While attending a meeting of 5D elders discussing a new strategy to increase fear in 3D people, one of them discovers the lens in the lunchbox and the DVD ends abruptly.

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Midpoint

Newspapers headlines claim, “Humans cattle for 5D Invaders,” and “Aliens breed fear into humans!” On his show, Rusty disagrees with an “expert” on extraterrestrial beings, and the network fires him for taking a liberal stance. And Carr fires Banister for clarifying what facing your fears means. At a taco joint, Nelson lectures Carlos and his mother about their constant fighting. Nelson has seen the light and Diedre is excited. He tells Diedre how to start a Roy Thode movement, suggesting we can fight back against the fifth dimension by not reacting to fear.

 

The next and probably last DVD shows Roy in 5D prison. Roy has decided to help 3D people by sending them positive suggestions. He tells the 3D audience to do the same. In the 3D world, it’s called prayer. Rusty’s sister dies, further fueling his resolve. In the parking garage, he drives a metal rod through the engine of his Cadillac to exact revenge. In a defunct furniture store Rusty joins Diedre and hundreds of others in chanting, “Stop it now!” They coalesce in their mission to fight the fear that causes so many stupid acts, as Carr prepares his next stupid act – sending troops in to capture an evil dictator. On a mountaintop, Nelson meditates. In his mind, he rises through the layers of his psyche, and comes face to face with Roy himself, transcending to the fifth dimension.

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ACT III

On an army base in Magumba, troops have gathered for the big drive, and Carr gives the orders to attack. Back at the furniture store, Nelson appears. He tells them of his encounter with Roy and that the battle in Magumba has started and is deteriorating fast. With great difficulty he convinces everyone that the solution is prayer. They buy it and start to pray, and somehow, they break through some barrier and violet clouds rise from the store.

 

In Magumba, the battle is at a stalemate. But slowly, we see a transformation as everyone recognizes the futility of continuing the battle. One by one, soldiers lower their weapons and emerge from their hiding places, joined by the loyalists. At the furniture store, a crowd watches Carr as his teleprompter goes blank. When he continues, he reads about how both sides have laid down their guns with neither side declaring victory. The crowd cheers! In Magumba, loyalists help army soldiers repair the damage and show them where to get espresso.

 

Roy climbs the mountain again and has one last conversation with Roy before he dies. Nelson asks Roy what fifth dimension people believe is their reason for living. Roy says, “I don’t know. To control you, I suppose. Good question.”