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Ga'Hoole SECOND PASS cover

The cover of the screenplay

The Legend of The Guardians 2007 Draft (original file name "Ga'Hoole SECOND DRAFT") is an early draft of the movie script that was shared with Fandom user BrochJam by an anonymous individual on May 30, 2022 through email. The screenplay is written by John Orloff, who would remain the principle screenwriter for the rest of the production.

The script details an earlier iteration of the movie which resembles the books far more than the final movie, using much of the characters' original dialog verbatim. Notable is the inclusion of the characters Skench, Spoorn, Octavia and Trader Mags, and the exclusion of Nyra. Surtr, or Metal Beak, remains a villain, but St. Aegolius and the Pure Ones are separate entities.

Summary[]

The movie opens with Noctus telling the story of "Great Battle of Stormfast Island", with Noctus' voice overlaying footage of a fierce owl battle in a snow storm. The battle is being fought between League of Kiel and the unnamed army of Surtr, referred to in the script at "Surtr of Jarnaxa". Surtr wears one battle claw and in the opposite claw wields "a metal rod, the top of which holds shiny flecks of metal trapped in a clear amber rock."

Noctus (V.O.) - He possessed a terrible new weapon... And any owl-- friend or foe, that Surtr points his rod at suddenly goes “yarp”-- that owl FREEZES and sucks their wings back in their bodies, causing them to simply stop flying. They fall below the clouds to their deaths. No one knows what exactly this dreadful weapon was, but surely it wasn’t of earth, tree or sky... And so, the tide of the great battle changed against the League of Kiel...

Noctus goes on to tell of how the warrior Lyze makes Surtr lose his helmet and rod, and the two battle face to face. Lyze wins against Surtr, and Surtr falls into the mist. The camera cuts to the present day, showing Noctus in his family's hollow telling the story to his children Soren, Kludd and Eglantine. Marella and Mrs. Plithiver are there as well. When Soren asks what happened to Lyze after the battle, Noctus offers the following -

NOCTUS: Well, no one knows for sure. Me, I like to think he went to the Great Tree of Ga’Hoole, where he took the sacred oath all the Guardians of Ga’Hoole take: To speak no words but true ones, to make strong the weak, to mend the broken, vanquish the proud... to protect all owls, unseen, unheard, unknown to any but themselves...

Kludd is highly skeptical, believing the legend to be fairytales, and Soren feels doubt as well. The scene then cuts to Kludd and Soren learning to branch, and much like in the final movie, Noctus is frustrated at Kludd's impatience and Kludd is annoyed at Soren's natural talent as a flier. Noctus and Marella go hunting after this scene, and Soren yarps his first pellet in the presence of Kludd, Eglantine and Mrs. P. Mrs. P tells the children she is going to Hilda's to get milkberries in case Noctus and Marella can't find enough food and slithers out of the hollow. Kludd asks Soren if he'll come out and practice branching with Kludd, and Soren is stunned that Kludd is genuinely asking for his help. Soren agrees, but while he is distracted, something makes him lose balance and fall. He hits Kludd on the way down, making him fall as well.

Kludd turns to Soren, furious. But there’s something else in his expression... maybe guilt? Did he push Soren? We didn’t see, but we suspect...

Soren attempts to fly back up the tree, to no avail. Suddenly, a hungry raccoon ambushes the two, and the scene plays out very similarly to the Tasmanian Devil scene in the final movie, with Soren fighting the raccoon and Kludd scurrying away. However, the raccoon is then confronted by two full grown owls who swoop in - a Long-Eared Owl named Stark and a Boreal Owl named Dank. Stark and Dank appear to replace the role of Jatt and Jutt, although the reasoning for this is unclear, as Jatt and Jutt also make an appearance later in the script.

Differences from the final movie[]

  • The draft is set in North America or somewhere in england.
  • Soren and Kludd are attack by a Raccoon instead of a Tasmanian Devil.

Differences from the books[]

This section is a work in progress.

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