Missing Link(2019)

Submitted by Tornado Dragon

SHORT VERSION:
Lionel, Adelina, and Susan find Shangri-La and discover it to be populated with yetis, but the societal elder tells Susan that he has no place amongst them because he has associated himself with humans, whom they despise because they feel they have no respect for the natural world. Susan, Lionel, and Adelina are then imprisoned in a pit so they cannot tell the world about Shangri-La. As Lionel complains about how he will become the laughingstock of the Optimates Club for this, Adelina sets him straight, telling him that that club will never accept him because they don’t like him, respect him, or believe what he believes, then challenges him to prove that he is a great of a man as he claims to be. To that end, Lionel goes up to Susan and tells him that he still has to honor the deal he made to take him to where he belongs, since it is clearly not here, and then he tells him that they are getting out of here.

Susan throws Adelina up top and she helps him and Lionel get out, but they are spotted by the yetis as they are escaping and get chased by them. They manage to beat them to the ice bridge that connects the society with the outside world, but they find a shotgun-wielding Lord Piggot-Dunceby, as well as Collick and Stenk, waiting for them in the middle of it, the former being dead set on preventing Lionel from showing off Susan and Shangri-La to the world for fear that it will cause a breakdown of the Optimates Club’s doctrine. Lionel soon tells Piggot-Dunceby that he has outgrown his desire to join his club, considering his new friendship with Susan to be a far better prize, and he adds that Susan is more of a man than Piggot-Dunceby will ever be. Already mentally unstable, Piggot-Dunceby goes totally nuts and starts hitting the bridge with the butt of his shotgun to try to destroy it and kill Lionel and his comrades, but Susan grabs his weapon and throws it into the deep pit below the bridge. The bridge then falls apart, and Piggot-Dunceby and Collick plummet to their deaths first, after which the protagonists have a hair-raising struggle with Stenk at the exit end of the bridge that ultimately sees Stenk fall to his doom, too. Once back on solid ground, Lionel offers Susan a partnership in his investigations, and Susan accepts. Susan then throws some insults at the yetis before they all depart.

The trio return to civilization, where Adelina decides to go off on her own adventure, but not before hinting at the romantic attraction between herself and Lionel. Lionel and Susan end the movie embarking on a new journey to Fiji to find Atlantis.

 

LONG VERSION:
Lionel, Adelina, and Susan (the human name the Sasquatch had earlier chosen for himself as a tribute to a prospector he befriended in the past) reach the village in Tibet where Gamu resides so they can get directions to Shangri-La from her, since she is the only one who knows where it is. When they meet with her, she sees what Susan is and agrees to give them the location, but she has her granddaughter guide them there due to the fact that she is too elderly to do it herself. Unfortunately, while Lionel and company are en route, Stenk confronts Gamu with gun drawn to get the location as well, but with him are Lord Piggot-Dunceby and his assistant Collick, the former having decided to come because he is dead set on keeping Lionel from showing off his discovery of both the Sasquatch and Shangri-La to the world, fearing that it will cause a breakdown of the Optimates Club’s pro-imperialist, ultra-conservative doctrine. When the antagonists begin to threaten the life of her young great-grandson, Gamu capitulates and gives them directions.

Gamu’s granddaughter only leads Lionel, Adelina, and Susan as far as the base of the same high peak shown on the map drawn by Adelina’s late husband Aldous, leaving them to continue on without her. After a long climb, the trio reaches a mesa and spot yeti tracks in the snow, which they follow until they reach an actual yeti. Unfortunately, the yeti is then joined by two more that are armed with spears, and they take the trio through a pass in the mountain that leads to a large temple surrounded by an incredibly deep pit and connected to the land by a single bridge made of ice. They are brought inside and into a throne room where the societal elder is seated on her throne, and after some repartee between her and Lionel, Lionel makes it clear that the only reason he, Adelina, and Susan are here is that Susan wants to be accepted into their society. The elder takes the trio out behind the temple and shows them Shangri-La down below, and she remarks how it is unsullied and precious to the yetis. She then tells Susan that he has no place amongst them because he has associated himself with humankind, whom she and the rest of the yetis despise because they feel they have absolutely no respect for the natural world. She then has her guards imprison Susan, Lionel, and Adelina in a pit so they cannot leave this place and expose its secrets to anyone.

The heartbroken Susan lies on the floor, and Lionel complains that he will be the laughingstock of the Optimates Club again for this. Adelina tells Lionel to look at Susan, because his dream has been crushed, and yet all he can talk about is himself. Lionel selfishly asks her about his dreams, and Adelina replies by asking why he would wish to join the Optimates Club given the fact that they do not like him, respect him, or believe what he believes, to which he answers that it is because they said he couldn’t. Adelina remarks that he and Susan now have something in common: They wish to belong in all the wrong places. Lionel tells her that she could never understand, to which she replies that it is clear that the only legend he really cares about is himself; he has never been interested in anyone but himself, and yet, he is surprised that he always ends up alone. He tells her that she has him all wrong and he is better than she thinks he is, so she thus challenges him to prove it because she thinks that the great Sir Lionel Frost is just a myth. Lionel goes up to Susan and tells him that he still has to honor the deal he made to take him to the place where he belongs, since it is clearly not here, and then he tells him that they are leaving before helping him to his feet.

Susan throws Adelina up to the top of the pit, and she knocks out a guard posted there before assisting her comrades with getting out themselves. Unfortunately, as they are fleeing, they run into the throne room, getting the attention of the elder and the guards. The trio manages to outrun the guards, and Lionel cuts off a rope from a banner and ties it around the waists of him and the others before they start crossing the ice bridge, knowing of the long climb back down that they will have to make. However, they are met at the halfway point by Piggot-Dunceby, Collick, and Stenk, and Piggot-Dunceby is armed with a shotgun. Piggot-Dunceby tells Lionel that he can’t allow him to go any further, then scornfully insults him for associating himself with apes and women before saying that he will never be a member of his club. Lionel answers that he agrees with him, but he doesn’t care because he has “evolved”. Piggot-Dunceby derisively laughs at him before replying that Lionel does want to be one of them, for they are great men, and great men shape the world. Lionel admits that he used to think that way, too, but now he thinks that the world shapes us. Piggot-Dunceby then decries him for being willing to cast aside everything for an “abomination” like Susan, but Lionel tells him that Susan is more of a man than he will ever be, and what’s more, he considers Susan a friend, which he regards as a far better prize than any fellowship with the Optimates Club. He then defiantly tells Piggot-Dunceby that if he wants to harm Susan, then he will have to find a way through him first, which Adelina backs him up on.

Piggot-Dunceby – whose mental stability has already proven to be very questionable – then goes full-on bonkers and tells Lionel that he can keep his missing link and his lost world, for he will see to it that no one will ever know of his discovery or even remember his name, then starts to repeatedly smash at the ice with the butt of his shotgun in order to destroy the bridge. Susan steps up and grabs the gun, calls Piggot-Dunceby a bad man and throws it away. The bridge then starts to really come apart, and the protagonists start running to the other side of it while the center of it gives way under Piggot-Dunceby and he falls to his doom. As the bridge continues to crumble, Collick also falls to his death, but Stenk successfully reaches the other end thanks to having gotten a head start on everyone else. Lionel, Adelina, and Susan barely manage to avoid death thanks to Lionel grabbing hold of the edge of the last of the bridge, but Adelina and Susan are left dangling below him. Stenk then approaches Lionel and tells him that he still intends to put an end to him and the others, and he is doing it out of personal pride rather than the paycheck. Lionel confuses Stenk by trying to remind him what pride comes before, which enables him to grab Stenk’s leg and yank him over the edge, but Stenk manages to keep from falling all the way down himself. A hair-raising struggle then commences between the four characters that ends with Susan grabbing hold of a huge icicle under the end of the bridge to keep his friends from falling, and a sizeable piece of it breaks off the bottom and strikes Stenk – who was hanging on to Lionel – and sends him to his demise far below.

Susan manages to get topside and pull Adelina and Lionel up safely, and Susan thanks Lionel for standing up for him. When Adelina asks Susan what he will do now, he replies that he doesn’t know, so Lionel offers to make him his partner in investigations, and Susan accepts. Adelina then draws their attention to the yetis and their elder on the other end of the bridge, and Susan blows a big raspberry at them before shouting a few parting insults about them and their utopia as Lionel and Adelina force him towards the exit. We next see the trio on a ship that just docked in London, and Adelina has decided to go on her own from here. She tells Susan that he has seen the world and he must remember every moment of it, and when Lionel asks her what she saw, she replies that she saw proof (of how Lionel is a great man). Lionel moves in to kiss her, but she gently halts it, telling Lionel with a wink that he is a great man, but she deserves greater. She then says that she will be going on a solo adventure now solely for her own interests, then says farewell.

Susan is then shown reading in Lionel’s office when Lionel excitedly enters with a skeletal mermaid that he says is the Fiji mermaid, and he tells Susan that it might provide the vital clue he needs to locate Atlantis. They soon head out the door to begin their journey to Fiji.