Wildfire

The film opens with a panoramic of the sweeping, sun-baked ridges of the Ozarks. Smoke billows from a deep mining pit in the valley with a green hue spiraling out of the greenery below. It's ominous and foreboding.

We cut to black and transition to the year 1888, where we hear boisterous commotion before opening up to a courtroom where we meet an older Dr. Horatio Harris walking in to take his seat at the bench and we hear a voice that we assume to be the opposing counsel ask him a question.

"Dr Harris...Dr. Harris, you and Dr. Thorne contributed to the calamity that we are facing today. What have you done with the Wildfire?" 

We then transition back to 1884 to the town of Marmaros, Missouri where a slow paced tracking shot through the mining village ends at the workbench of Dr. Horatio Harris, as he is fine-tuning a mechanical winged device. Covering in luminescent green liquid that bubbles as Harris mixes chemicals with vapors allowing energy outputs. We see in a newspaper that Dr. Silas Thorne (Dr Harris's old partner) has become a millionaire mining the Marvel Cave of Branson, MO using the green-emitting energy device that is powering Harris's flying machine. The camera then transitions through the newspaper image in black and white of Dr. Thorne to color to pick up up walking to meet with Abby Lynch, a prominent cartographer of the Ozarks.

Abby reports that there are several concerns regarding continuous use of the Thorne-Harris creation known as Wildfire to continue mining as she has been able to detect anomalies and an increase temperature change to the surface that raises concern that the Marvel Cave may be unstable for further access. Dr Throne dismisses Abby, and wrongly assumes she was sent by Dr. Harris, his former partner, to try and stop him as Harris never agreed with what Throne was planning.

We transition back to the early 1870s, where both Harris and Throne are having a deep conversation about science, innovation, and the future. They share ideas and a mutual respect for one another. Harris is an optimist while Throne is a pragmatist. Their split is over the pursuit of riches where Throne partners with East Coast big-business (families akin to Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, etc) in order to farm the Ozarks for minerals held deep within the subterranean surface that are priceless. In order to mine further though, Throne steals several of Harris's concepts before framing him for the same crime and Harris is ostracized from the scientific community, forever alone.

We transition back to 1884 where Abby Lynch arranges a meeting between Harris and Thorne in their former hilltop workshop. This is the first time in over a decade they have met. The scene is tense and riveting, with Abby revealing that her family has a cipher that maps acoustic and structural frequencies of the subterranean limestone in the Ozarks. Throne believes that the "Wildfire" will be able to contain the anomalies in the limestone save the town. A psychological confrontation occurs, as Thorne offers Harris a choice to partner with him again to see their life's work led to the saving of the town. Harris reluctantly agrees to the partnership.

The scene shifts back to the opening courtroom where the prosecutor questions Harris's motives in partnering with Throne. Is it out of jealously of his former partner's success, or was it purely for himself? Or was it for genuine scientific intrigue? The usual optimistic Harris questions his own feelings as the camera pans to Abby now revealed to be sitting in the courtroom as she flashes to a scene of the town of Marmaros ablaze.

We then cut to Dr Harris and Dr. Throne working in their lab on perfecting the Wildfire. Dr Throne looks at the flying contraption that Harris had been working on and another philosophical debate ensues regarding wealth inequality and whether or not small towns like Marmaros should be considered expendable if it means rewarding millions with unlimited energy saving potentially millions of lives in the future.

We transition away from the conversation to Abby who uses her cipher to go into the Ozarks only to discover that Thorne has secret, unmapped steam-drills running into the Marvel Cave, causing the calamity her cipher was picking up. His intention is not to save the town, but to destroy it for emeralds buried deep within the grounds below.

Then we transition back to the Harris-Throne debate as they continue their conversation via horse drawn carriage as they arrive at one of Dr. Throne's drilling locations, where Throne knocks Harris unconscious and begins the drilling with the Wildfire he stole secretly from the lab, which he knows will destroy the town in the pursuit of these emeralds of energy.

We flash back to the courtroom where Abby is watching as Harris attempts to answer the crossfire questions as the tension rises.

We then cut back to Marmaros ablaze, as Throne has already began his drilling causing the anomalies to erupt several parts of the surface of Marmaros. Abby finds Harris as he awakens as the prosecutor voices continue to hammer questions to Harris in the present day as we see Abby and Harris attempt to return to the lab. Harris tells Abby that he has a prototype device that can release an elixir that will stop the 'Wildfire' - but it needs to be released from the air.

They eventually reach the Wildfire when they encounter Throne standing in front of it. He tries to convince Harris one last time that this is for the greater good, but as the city burns behind Harris, he lunges at Throne and the two encounter a brief fight before Abby lands the finishing blow on Throne and the two take off in the flying machine.

We cut back to a riveting answer in the courtroom from Harris as he explains that humanity's strength is when we care for those who can't care for themselves.

The flying machine travels a similar path to the attraction, incorporating a high speed dive into a river canyon and navigating a 180 degree inversion through the burning valley, releasing the elixir onto the town, stopping the Wildfire in its tracks. As they make their way through the valley and the Wildfire dissipates, the townspeople watch as this mythical flying machine glides through the air as the hero of the night. The underground blast is successfully contained. The town of Marmaros sinks quietly into the ground, creating a valley town, and Thorne's industrial empire is buried beneath the stone where he thought all of humanities answers would be. Harris and Abby embrace in a newly found friendship and potentially budding relationship.

We are back in the courtroom where the prosecutor asks where his flying machine is now? Harris smiles and it cuts to black.