THE DEVIL'S COVENANT ANORAK PAGE

Yes, it's two hours long. Yes, it's the biggest QMovie ever, in more ways than one. Yes, it is the best. So, like Star Wars, I've devoted an entire page aside to finding those mistakes, plotholes and other such anoraky things. Read on, f00ls...

The Eyes of The Fiend

Thanks to my buddy Squeaky for spotting this. When Sassy shoots the Fiend jumping towards the screen, she doesn't actually hit it. The actor controlling the Fiend presses a key binded to an impulse which makes him do a fake gib, or FiB. This means that the actor carries on going past the screen for a split second, and in that time I snapped the above picture so you can see what I mean, with the eyes circled. It becomes pretty noticeable when you know. Which you do now.

Deathly Promotion
In General Ravell's first scene (with Kell on the balcony), he makes a small speech blunder. Listen to the sound here. As you can hear, he mentions Sgt. Colt and Cpl. Hawker. Or does he? He refers to Colt as CAPTAIN Colt. Perhaps Colt was promoted after his zombie-like demise. Here's StarFury for the actual reason:

I gave the actors a good deal of leeway in how they wanted to do their lines... with Bill [Benners, voice of Gen. Ravell] I was especially lenient, since he's just so damn good. As for the Sgt./Captain error, I can only guess that Bill must have accidentally got them mixed up. No biggie, since, as I said before, he's just so damn good. :)

Fearless Marine

Thanks loads to Jerry The Cow who was involved in the acting for DC and knows loads of mistakes. Take a look at the above pic and notice the arrowed marine. In the movie, if you watch him, he doesn't seem very panicky at all, even though Ravell said that they panicked. This particular marine stood his ground like the brave man he is. Here's the real reason from JTC:

What it in fact is, is good ol' JTC being lagged to all hell. About 5 seconds after Starfury yelled "cut!" my character backpedaled for a good 20 seconds ;)

Knee Deep In The Dead

Thanks to Jerry The Cow again. Corpses are everywhere - well, at least in this scene. As you can see in the pic, someone apparently forgot to NOCLIP out of the level before respawning, resulting in that dead body being there.

Follow That Script
The original screenplay released after Devil's Covenant shows many differences to the actual movie. Altered lines, changed scenes, missing lines - here's a full list of all of the differences I found (in order of appearance), with StarFury around to explain the differences:

Several lines of Professor Ceylon's dialogue was cut from the movie. It wasn't actually essential, so it isn't really much of a miss.

the footage we ended up filming was missing a few important cuts to fit that extra footage in, and one of those lines was also missing as well (the guy who did them, Brian Carter, was unavailable to do another recording session after the first). Instead of scrapping his lines (which were great) and getting another voice actor to do 'em, I just cut the extra lines and cleaned up the scene.

Captain Kell has much more radio dialogue in the opening scene than was present in the movie.

wanted to adjust speed here... Ceylon and Kell couldn't spend ALL day chatting with a couple of Fiends waiting impatiently to gnaw on Ceylon's hide, as I realized once I looked at the filmed scene.

The tank strolling past in the background while Drifter hides on a wall was not in the screenplay - it looks nice, though.

Yup, that was one of those completely 'spur of the moment' decisions by yours truly during filming.

A little red light to signal a silent alarm was supposed to go off when Drifter entered the computer room. Did you see it?

nope, it wasn't there. Why you ask? I was just learning how to build levels at the time I built the computer set for filming (it was one of the first scenes we filmed, right after the Prison scene) and I didn't yet know how to use trains. So, the red light got nixed.

In the screenplay, Drifter says to himself, "Now to get this helmet off." before removing his visor. He doesn't in the movie.

Never could come up with a skin for Drifter where he has decent looking hair (all the normal hair colors had already been taken up by Mack, Sith, and Kell, and any more would look repetitive). So, after the scene was filmed, I changed the helmet removal to a quick visor retraction. Same type of effect, but easier to do (no new model animations, which we were incapable of doing at that time, required).

The scene between Ravell and Kell on the balcony was never intended to be filmed on a balcony, but in Ravell's office, with Ravell looking out of the window. The chopper taking off wasn't scripted either.

Greb could never quite figure out how to fit in a window in an office that would give a panoramic view of the base (all were either too low, giving no view, or saw too much, giving alot of gray areas). Finally, we settled on switching the scene to the balcony. Yet another instance where my original idea didn't mesh with practicality.

Goon Leader (Simms) wasn't supposed to start firing when the lights went out, but he did.

Chalk that up to an overzealous CountFragula. :)

Goon Leader's death and Goon 2 being caught by Grimjack were in the wrong order. Also, Goon 2 was meant to dodge a grenade from Grimjack - there was no grenade.

That's right... I switched the segments up when messing with the scene in post-production, still not quite sure why--I guess I thought it just looked better that way. The dodging grenade was originally in there... but the segment ended up too fast, badly filmed, and badly model acted, so I took it out (the actual action scene was cheesy enough).

The ogre illusion that Angel casts to fool the prison guard was meant to look like any old ogre - not like Grimjack. Because of this, it must have confused many viewers. It certainly confused me.

didn't at that time know that you could use multiskin with other models besides the player--the prison scene was the very FIRST scene we filmed, and we were still learning alot. Couldn't figure out a way to change the skin post-production, and I figured the new skin for Grimjack in all the other scenes was more important than a normal skin for a couple of seconds... couldn't figure out a way to hack that into compliance, unfortunately.

Angel also says "That was easy enough." in the screenplay after dispatching of the guard. Not in this movie, sister.

Ivy just never got around to doing that line--hence, it's absence. (would you have noticed it missing without the script? :)

After Angel tells Drifter that it takes a little more than a five-mile walk to tire her out, Drifter replies with, "Huh, don't I know it!" At least, he does in the movie. This is one of the few instances of lines being added to the script. Was that line meant for a little extra humour? We'll never know.

Intended to be both extra humor and to fill what I felt was an unexpected silence inbetween the move from the tunnel fork to the door of the Pegasus. If I felt something would work better in the movie that I'd written in the original screenplay, I didn't hesitate to change it (this is common in Hollywood--the director's vision during filming variates from the writer's original conception in his screenplay, and changes are made). Since I was the writer and director, thankfully I didn't get in any argument with myself over the changes.

In the movie, before Drifter hits Sith with his axe to get away, there is a white flash, where StarFury can be briefly seen in the flash. This is an important effect, as it shows StarFury's intervention to save them. In the screenplay, StarFury's appearance isn't mentioned. This would make it look like Drifter saved them by axing Sith - I think it'd take more than that!

Huh, I thought I DID put that down somewhere in the screenplay... must have forgotten. Well, if it comforts you guys at all, I did plan on including it from the beginning...

In the screenplay, after StarFury has healed Drifter, StarFury says that he has healed Drifter's wounds. Fair enough. However, in the movie, Drifter gets edgy after coming back to life, and asks, "Who the hell is this guy?", to which StarFury replies, "Easy, Drifter, I'm not here to harm you.". (This was snipped from Ravell's flashback later on, with "Michael" replaced with "Drifter".)

Jake 'Egoman' Dobbs, who did StarFury's lines, did the original line 'I have healed his wounds' but it somehow disappeared off my computer--and he was never available to do another recording session before the Quakecon release. Thus, I had to make a quick 'hack' doing a new line for Drifter and splicing in 'Drifter' in the place of an already established line for StarFury 'Easy, Micheal. I'm not here to harm you.' Good catch on that splice, BTW!

Don't ask me why, but in the screenplay, StarFury called Drifter by his first name, Aric. However, in the movie, he constantly calls him Drifter instead. How the fudge did that happen?

This is the biggest change of them all: an entire action scene was axed from the movie, on the grounds that the way the sky mirrored itself would look too 'cheesy'. It looks pretty good, from the screenplay, and would provide a rare piece of action in the mostly dialogue-orientated Devil's Covenant.

To this day I wish we'd managed to get that scene filmed--but trust me, if you'd seen the way the chopper scene ended up looking with that wacky Quake sky, you'd have laughed your asses of, not been amazed. Also, the main and most important reason we never filmed that scene was that we simply didn't have enough model actors to do it--the most we ever had on the server at any one time was five (that was for Scene 4, with Sassy). In 95% of our scenes, we had 3 actors or less to draw upon (and got around that only barely with the hacked hologram code I spliced in) so filming Scene 7 was a technical impossibility. It's a damn shame too.

The landing 'hatchthingie', as it's described in the screenplay, of the Iron Maiden, is supposed to retract after Sassy and company walk out of the ship. It doesn't.

Chalk that up to the fact that not only do I suck at making levels, but since nobody else was available to do it I had to make EVERY level for the movie (with the exception of the Alien Temple and I_fort) in a short amount of time, while simultaneously editing all the footage, directing, scheduling and running filming sessions, finishing skins, adding new QC effects, and, oh yeah, passing my classes in college. :)

You know those four lights that turn on at Cinder's place when Sassy and co approach? That shouldn't happen. Perhaps StarFury realised that there would be very little light there to see anything, so he added the lights. (Side note: the four lights are controlled via switches in a room outside the level.)

I had no idea what that set would look like pre-production--I seem to remember planning the lights from the very beginning, but my memory is a little fuzzy on that...

Interesting screenplay changes when the Phantasms take on Cinder. In the screenplay, Greblaja and Drysocket kill Cinder. In the movie, Drysocket is replaced with Bloodshed. Cinder says "Four of you, eh? Are you that frightened of me?" in the screenplay. StarFury must have noticed that there were only two Phantasms in the scene, and changed it. Cinder was supposed to try and fire at the Phantasms with his gun, causing it to lock. This would prompt Drysocket to say, "Weapon's lock is a bitch, isn't it?", to which Greblaja replies, "Sure is. That poor man." In the movie, however, the Phantasms levitate Cinder into the air. Bloodshed says the much smarter "Levitation's a bitch, isn't it?". Cinder is then supposed to run at them with an axe, to which they fire lighting at him and he dies a normal death. Instead, he goes, "No, wait!" and FIBs. Kinda different, huh?

way different... once again, what I'd originally come up with just didn't come out in terms of technicality. Raising Cinder into the air and gibbing him was a thing I came up with on the fly during filming of that scene, and I think it works better. As for the switch from Drysocket to Bloodshed, Drysocket was already long inactive by that time (even though he was our first member outside of the War Council and a strong Phantasm loyalist) so his role got trimmed a bit to fit in Bloodshed, who was a newer but very useful loyal Phantasm and model actor. I just wanted to get him in the movie somewhere.

This is new to me. Another whole action scene was completely axed from the movie. Fifteen actors (that's a lot, BTW) were supposed to be involved, and the scene carries on from the other missing scene. This one, from the look of the screenplay, looks even more interesting - it's a pity that StarFury didn't want to include it.

It's not that I didn't WANT to include it... once again, technical issues arose. Remember, the max we could field was 3 model actors... can you imagine trying to pull off a scene requiring fifteen with that amount of manpower? Ain't happenin... ;) If we had DC to film over again, with about 3 months more time, and five times the model actors we had, we could get those scenes in, but what are the chances of that happening?

At the start of the scene after the above, there are supposed to be choppers etc flying around. I didn't see any.

Hmm, were there? D'oh!

When Sith is testing Mack, he says that Shubb-Niggurath manages to send an email every now and then. In the screenplay, she sent a postcard. I suppose email's a bit funnier.

Bill's ad-libbing... I let it stay because I liked it.

When Raven pops up at the end (after Drifter is reincarnated), a group of marines with them are supposed to aim at him, causing Angel to tell them he's on their side. In the movie, there are no marines, and Drifter says, "Another one?"

Actor limitations again... Marines had to get axed. Oh, and BTW, here's a bit of triva for you... would you believe that that entire scene (outside the temple) was filmed solely by ME, i.e. as director, filmer, and model actor? I had a four computer LAN set up near the end of the filming of DC (during the summer) and on this LAN, completely by myself, I filmed the outside segment, the sithdies segment, the office segment (sans Cyberdemon, which was already done), some of the Scene 9 action sequence, and the 'goodbyes' segment. Try operating four mice and four keyboards simultaneously sometime... it's wacky. :)

There's supposed to be a final scene, after Ravell says it's 'not the end of the world', where we can see the Iron Maiden and the Pegasus fly off through space. Perhaps it was too impractical?

Didn't have time to get around to building that set what with everything else I had to do--also, this was before I got my new computer (remember all of DC was build/edited on a p 133) and my computer (or rather, Virtus Deathmatch Maker) simply wasn't capable of putting two such complex brush models (Iron Maiden and Pegasus) into one map without crashing during the build. Sigh...

All the way through the screenplay, Mack is listed as 'last name unknown', when it isn't. His last name is Mackenzie.

Yup, Kyler Mackenzie. I think I hadn't come up with his name in the first few scenes, and left it listed as last name unknown for consistency with the rest of the script. If I remember correctly, I don't think Angel's last name, Rollins, was mentioned in the script either--for the record (and according to the end credits) her full name is Jamie 'Angel' Rollins.

Phew!

Yup. :)

Elevating Experiences
The following few come from StarFury himself. This sounds more like Wing Commander 3 than Devil's Covenant. When the group go to the elevator after reading the hieroglyphs, they stand in front of it, yeah? Truth is, they couldn't see it. That elevator wasn't there originally - it was added to the map in post-production. The six people were just facing a blank wall. With elevators in mind, watch the bit directly after that scene. The six walk off the elevator. Well, three do. Then a pause. Then another three do. Reason? Lack of actors. Careful old Starfury filmed three actors walking off the elevator, cut it, the actors changed costume, and walked off again. Inventive, I suppose.

Welcome To The Office Of Fun
Apparently, if you go onto the office map (pstreet5.bsp), with the Devil's Covenant progs.dat sitting pretty in your directory, set NOTARGET on and walk into the office, the cast of Devil's Covenant will be standing around. Honest. They're all monsters (that's why you need NOTARGET, f00l), since barely any had to move at any one time. So, StarFury ingeniously had a set of switches operate lifts and doors, to remove the moster actors when the characters were required to move. When you play around with it, I suppose it looks rather strange...

Drop Your Weapon! Maybe Not
Drifter's in prison, with his gun in hand. What? But that's mad! Well, there's a little excuse. That was the very first scene to be filmed, and the crew hadn't quite fathomed how to remove the weapon yet (this came later in production). They never got around to filming it again, mainly because of time constraints and the fact that it was pretty well done first time round. So the excuse is, he kept his gun, but lost the ammo. Still kinda dangerous, I think.

It's Like Running Up A Slide
Is it possible to run up the 'hatchthingie' on the Iron Maiden? I fucking can't.

Have you spotted something in DC that's worth an appearance on the DC Anorak Page? If so, please email me at psyk@tv13.demon.co.uk.