The lights in the theater are dimmed, and on the screen in front of the audience appears the word 'Happiness' in big white letters. Silence. Suddenly, the band begins to play Strauss' Domestic Symphony, and the screen comes to life with sentimental and nostalgic images. A man and a woman in Victorian wear stare out underneath a parasol at a sea of deep green. A mother picks up her child as they walk through a museum hallway filled with sublime pastoral renderings. Sunset, a young man and woman sitting in the back of a truck in a field of wheat. The young woman, ribbons in her hair, leans her head onto her fellow's shoulder. A tea party full of young women in bright sundresses. A house in the suburbs, the milkman arriving at the door.
Silence again. In white letters the screen reads 'Father.' Wotan's Farewell fills the room. Still images of John Wayne, Robin Williams, Homer Simpson flash on the screen. John Wayne behaves sternly, he punishes, he protects, he defends. Robin Williams jokes, he plays, he pretends. Homer Simpson makes mistakes, he makes up, he mends.
Anthony Hopkins as Odin presides in all his glory on the screen, punishing his sons, comforting his sons. The final image before the screen goes dark is of a nondescript child sitting on the knee of a man in blue jeans, a man who is too great and immense to be captured in the photo.
The screen goes black before cutting to illustrations from Now We Are Six. Christopher Robin plays with his toy soldiers and skips his rope as Arnold Bax's Oliver Twist Suite fills the ears of the audience. Christopher Robin drags his bear down the stairs, he lies down on a picnic blanket, he walks with his umbrella in the rain, scampering about the enchanted places of Sussex. The music switches to Schumann's Kinderszenen, and intermittently the illustrations are interrupted by the word 'Me,' flashing too quick to notice at first, and then slower and slower until the illustrations have stopped and the audience looks only at the word 'Me.' The music stops. Silence. 'Me.'
'Me' becomes 'Mother' and there is music, Wagner again, with one of the girls from the symphonic band singing as the character Fricka. A woman reaches into an oven, mittens over her hands and grabs a pot roast, and in one continuous take walks to the next room over and sets it on the table for her family who are full of grateful and shiny smiles. Cut to another scene of another woman reaching into another oven for another pot roast and in another continuous take sets it in front of another very grateful family. Repeat, another woman, another oven, another pot roast, another family. Again and again.
The screen reads 'Family' now, The Domestic Symphony resumes, and the screen cuts to emerald grass, a well-dressed couple and their two children skipping about a field as a red-and-white checkered picnic blanket sits waiting for them in the background with a bottle of champagne and a pot roast and a tray of muffins. The same family rush down a busy street, pushing along a baby in a stroller, their lives now more full of joy. The same family sit in a car, bobbing their heads along from side to side in unison as they sing with the radio. The family sit in the audience of a crowded theater, watching as the oldest daughter plays a Rhinemaiden in the school play, her developing young body tastefully draped over with a silken garment. She sings with the two other Rhinemaidens as they lounge over the fake boulders on the center stage. Suddenly, lumbering over from offstage comes a short and hairy young man, the play's Alberich, rubbing his palms together. Cut to a symmetrical shot from the inside of the threshold of a house, the milkman stands on the doorstep, setting down his wares. Though no sound comes from the screen, from his face it is obvious he is making a pass at some unseen character whose perspective the audience is seeing. Suddenly, the father of the household enters the frame from behind the milkman, lifts him up by his collar and drags him across the yard and onto the sidewalk, locking the door of the white picket fence.
The music grows threatening, becoming Prokofiev's Wolf theme. The milkman lies on the sidewalk, dusting himself off and then stands up. The camera zooms into his face as he stares menacingly at the house. White words against a black screen read 'Enemy.'
Bela Lugosi as Dracula. Lon Chaney Jr. as the Wolfman. Alec Guinness as Fagin. Every cinematic interpretation of Gollum flashes by in quick succession. Dale Russell's statue of the Dinosauroid. Kashchey the Immortal. Tamerlane. Stalin. The Ferengi. The Xenomorph. The Predator. Comic panels of murder and mutilation from Alan Moore's From Hell. Leatherface. Lord Summerisle lifts up his hands in the air as the innocent policeman is burnt to death behind him.
The music becomes Mussorgsky's Night On Bald Mountain. The bombing of Dresden. Scenes from Helm's Deep. Thousands of Orc warriors beat their chests to savage bestial rhythms. Two Russian soldiers rape a sobbing young woman with blonde hair on the outskirts of a rural village. Scenes of Mongol hordes sweeping through the countryside on horseback, wreaking havoc and destruction. Huts of straw burnt to the ground, the screams of children echoing. Looters and rioters during a blackout, hurling garbage through windows. The wails of a newborn in pain are heard as a scene from A Serbian Film plays on the screen. Faces slashed with scalpels. Firing squads. Leering, wobbling, close-up handheld footage of Princess Diana's mangled carcass. More handheld footage, in which George H. W. Bush transforms in a horrifying series of skin-splitting contortions into a ten-foot reptile being and rapes a young woman. Kennedy's twitching and bloody body gropes spasmodically at his horrified wife's chest. A professional surgeon dances on TikTok holding a large slab of a patient's flesh. Footage from the inside of the Hindenburg. A Vietnamese child screams and melts in flames as its mother is raped and beaten by GIs. Machine gun fire cuts through crowds of people. The Falklands war. The bombing of Hiroshima. Silence. Darkness.
The darkness continues for many minutes. The symphonic band plays a low and continuous note. A family sits at a table, dressed plainly, without smiles.
Suddenly, Riddle's voice comes from all directions on the theatre's sound system:
"The day will come when mankind will birth no more stars."
A symmetrical shot from in-between a woman's legs at an oven containing a pot roast. Slowly, the symphonic band begins to play the opening notes of Thus Spake Zarathustra. The shot fades into another, the woman's legs becoming the doorframe, the pot roast becoming the leering milkman. Riddle speaks again:
"The day will come when man knows not love nor creation nor longing. 'What is a star?' He will ask."
The shot fades back to the woman's legs and to the pot roast. In a hard cut, this becomes a woman's legs bent in the air, her vagina towards the camera, as she gives birth to a child. Strauss' fanfare sounds from the symphonic band in celebration of this triumph. Riddle now shouts at the audience:
"Behold! I show you the Superman! He is this lightning! He is this madness!"
Through a series of cuts, the baby becomes Flash Gordon, Luke Skywalker, Thor, He-Man, Captain America, Aquaman, and dozens of other heroes before finally becoming Riddle himself!
The music becomes Siegfried's Funeral March. Riddle stands proudly in the middle of a field. Before him is a greatsword driven through a stone and anvil, with lightning bolts etched into its hilt. The milkman walks into the field to pull the sword from the stone and anvil. After some struggle, he is unable to. Riddle approaches the sword and easily pulls it from its resting place, splitting in half the stone and anvil as he does so! He lifts the sword to the heavens, and the clouds swirl around him! A surge of lightning descends from on high and completely envelops him!
The milkman cautiously approaches the smoking crater left in the wake of the lightning. The milkman falls back in surprise as Riddle emerges unscathed but divested of clothing, clutching still the enchanted blade which now crackles and seethes with energy! The milkman is on his knees as he weeps tears of awe. Riddle points the sword down at the milkman's face, as lightning begins to surge forth from its tip.
As the milkman crisps and turns to cinders, all the monstrosities from earlier are superimposed over him in reverse, rewound and undone. The bad things are no more! Riddle is unhappening them!
Riddle points his sword at the nearby ruins of a house. The lightning comes in a mighty blast from the blade, and restores it. The paint is fresh, the flowers are blooming. The family from earlier in the film emerge from the doorway, stretching their limbs as if awakening from a long dream.
Riddle sends the lightning forth a final time, pointing now at the camera. A surge of images flood the screen: Christopher Robin, John Wayne, pot roasts and picnics in the park… Riddle has restored the land! Things are good again!
The camera shows Riddle's face smiling down at the audience before fading to black. The music fades. The audience is happy.