Opening scene - Forget the whole background story from the film. Nothing is worse than showing off all your goods in the first 2 minutes of a film, i.e. - Michael Bay's Transformers. This starts off in what seems to be present day. But there's no date or year mentioned. We just know that we're in the modern world. Let's establish the characters and develop them a little, first. 2 brothers are engaged in a training session at Travis Air Force Base in Northern California. Brothers are Raleigh and Joe-Shmoe. Let's just call him Josh. Although they're brothers and they're wicked competitive and very skilled as seen in their flying styles. But they're very close, as well. After the training session, Raleigh and Josh are changing in the locker room (eye-candy for the girls) and discussing what an important evening it's going to be and that Josh better not be late. Josh asks, "You think she's actually going to say 'yes' to you?". "Of course," Raleigh answers with an arrogant smirk. Then they can talk about some brotherly love stuff and how Raleigh is so happy that his baby brother is going to be his best man, yadda yadda mushy mushy stuff. Then Josh asks if their brother, Anders will be there tonight as well. Raleigh looks deeply disappointed and answers no, that their brother has to work late tonight. Cut to next scene Night time. Raleigh and his girlfriend, Yuri are taking an evening stroll with the Golden Gate Bridge all lit up as the back-drop. They talk about something trivial. Raleigh suddenly lags behind, takes a knee, and proposes. Yuri is ecstatic and says yes. Smooch, smooch, smooch. Scene fades out with their silhouettes against the Golden Gate Bridge. Cut to next scene Still night time. Josh is waiting with Anders at a restaurant. Raleigh and Yuri walk in, it's a big surprise that Anders is there, everyone is happy as they sit down at their table and start talking about the proposal, the ring, the wedding, etc. It's during this time that shows the interaction between the 3 brothers that they're all very close, but especially Anders and Josh, even though Anders works in the private sector. Suddenly, the ground starts shaking like mad. Vases are falling, dishes are smashing. Women start screaming. It appears to be a really bad earthquake. The shaking continues for another 20 seconds as people hide underneath the tables until it stops. Things settle down and become quiet for a couple of minutes. People come out of hiding. The shaking starts again, but this time continues on and doesn't stop. Raleigh says, "this is one hell of an aftershock". Anders, who is a seismologist answers, "this is no aftershock....." No sooner does he finish that sentence when there's this monster-sounding roar that shatters all the glass in the building. The shaking continues and it's apparent the building is starting to collapse. Raleigh yells for everyone to run and get out of the building. The 4 make a mad dash for the exit, but so do the 100 other people in the restaurant. Raleigh and Yuri are holding hands but amidst the chaos they are separated. Yuri falls down and gets trampled as Raleigh and his 2 brothers are swept away by a human tide of panic-stricken people. The brothers are pushed outside of the building before they can gather themselves together. Raleigh immediately says he's going back in to get Yuri and heads towards the door. He's followed by his brothers and they enter the building, when suddenly the whole building collapses under what appears to be a giant clawed foot. It's hard to tell because it's black and dark. Camera pans out to San Francisco at night. This gigantic black silhouette-monster is trashing the city, destroys the Golden Gate (just like they wanted in the original movie), and continues to trash the Bay Area. And the Kaiju doesn't stop until the entire place is leveled. It then returns to the ocean. Meanwhile, back at the restaurant. Raleigh wakes up. He's partially buried under some rubble, but he's able to get out with just a broken arm. He digs Josh out, who's still alive but hurt. They find Anders, unconscious. Josh initiates CPR but he's bawling in the process seeing his brother like this. Now we're throwing some emotional investment in to this. Raleigh gets up and digs around for Yuri. He finds her, but she's already dead. He starts crying like a little girl. Scene fades out. So now we've established a background. 2 brothers left: both have lost a close brother, and one lost his fiancée. Both have emotional baggage, they've shared a deep emotional and traumatic experience and so have strong "drift compatibility." Now Raleigh and his brother can have a deep-seeded hatred for the Kaiju, not just the "hey, we're pilots and so we're badass rockstars" mentality. Now it's personal and there is some emotional investment. They have the batman mentality.
END Chapter 1. Months later they can show that the brothers have recovered and back in good health. The people of earth are trying to figure out what in the world happened. As the military investigates, the two brothers are given their patrol assignments.
