Recently, I have begun working on a new creative writing project as a fun side-hobby, which has some overt Catholic elements in it. In earlier years, I have made fan outlines for a hypothetical movie series adapting the Resident Evil (a.k.a. Biohazard) video games, a hypothetical live-action remake of Disney’s “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”, and a hypothetical alternate ending to “Game of Thrones”. However, this is the first time I am writing up outlines for my own story, which is not based on a preexisting work.
For now, my project’s working title is “The Eve of Guadalupe”, and it would be dark animated historical fiction series centered around Mexico during the fall of the Aztec Empire and the Virgin Mary’s eventual appearance to Saint Juan Diego as the Lady of Guadalupe. The title is meant to have a double-meaning, referencing both transitional time leading up to the Lady of Guadalupe’s appearance and Mary’s title as the “New Eve”. The main character would be a Native American man (currently planned to be of the Huexotzinca), who is orphaned as a toddler during an Aztec raid on his village, then adopted by an Aztec warrior wanting to atone for the unnecessary killing of his parents. As his story unfolds over four seasons, he would witness and almost experience firsthand the full evil of Aztec human sacrifice, leave his life in the Aztec capital to find his original people (like a mix between “The Prince of Egypt” and “Apocalypto”), uneasily unite with the conquistador Hernán Cortés to overthrow the Aztecs (similar to the multi-layered conflict in “The Last Kingdom”), confront his own people’s and the conquistadors’ ability to also descend into savagery, save the life of an Aztec peasant who turns out to be the future Saint Juan Diego, suffer under of later rule of corrupt Spanish colonial leaders, lead an attempted rebellion against the Spanish (which unfolds like “The Last Samurai”), and go on a journey similar to Ben-Hur where the Virgin Mary helps him through his final adversities and gives him the faith to convert to Catholicism at last.
Also, each season of the hypothetical animated series would have a share of detour episodes, centered around other characters and/or time periods, in order to weave in other stories that initially seem disconnected but turn out to be relevant to the central story’s plot, themes, and world-building. Most notably, I plan to have the first three seasons feature episodes centered around Jesus and Mary during the Gospel’s events. That way, by the time the Virgin Mary starts appearing in Mexico during Season 3’s finale and Season 4, it feels like a long-anticipated crossover event between the Native American protagonist and a fictional portrayal of Mary which the audience has already become invested in. Regarding the tone, style, etc., the hypothetical show would also take notes from gritty adult animated properties like “My Last Day” (basically a YouTuber’s anime-style short retelling “The Passion of the Christ”), Genndy Tartakovsky’s “Primal”, Netflix’s “Blue Eye Samurai”, and possibly even the Japanese manga/anime franchise “Berserk”.
Needless to say, this has been taking a lot of time and research just for me to begin plotting out the list of fictional and historical/biblical characters, plus the timeline of events for the four hypothetical seasons. Nonetheless, I am curious to see how it turns out, once these outlines are complete enough to share with friends, family, etc. Hopefully it will also make for a good spiritual exercise for me in addition to being a creative exercise. 🙏
