Saving Lolita

Navy SEAL Commander Rip Tide is in charge of implementing a below-the-radar impossible mission force. He's an old school kinda John Wayne cowboy who gets things done but isn't very PC about it, especially with the ladies. After a botched up clandestine assignment that gets his foot blown off, he's reassigned to work with an old acquaintance: Professor Dylan Mare. They used to train dolphins for the Navy. It included teaching them how to be suicide bombers. Tide didn't like that part and got himself transferred. Now he's back and discovers three things: 

1) Mare has seen the light too and no longer uses cetaceans of any form to kill themselves for Uncle Sam. 
2) Mare's daughter Ariel is all grown up and is worthy of Tide making a fool of himself over and she's strong enough to put him in his place.
3) Professor Mare has learned to... talk to the cetaceans. He's invented an electronic device that allows them and us to communicate effortlessly (you can listen to an audio storyboard to get the tone of that interaction below).

That device is key to getting an orca called Johnny to work with them and the Navy on any future operations because Johnny has told them flat out if they want his help or the cooperation of any other orca or dolphin Lolita has to be freed first.

Freeing Lolita involves the covert loan of a Navy heavy-lifting helicopter, a nighttime assault on the aquarium, and a state-of-the-art solar-powered e-catamaran to hide Lolita and Johnny on their long journey to Puget Sound via the Panama Canal. 

Not all goes well, of course. In fact, thanks to Russia's expertise at hacking, one of its nuclear submarines is waiting for them on the Pacific side of the Panama Canal to hijack the technology including the orcas.

Luckily Tide and Ariel's courage, Johnny's fearless protect-the-pod-at-any-cost instincts, and Lolita's 50-years of pent-up hatred and need for revenge, prove to be too much even for the big bad Russian Navy as its sub sinks. Although the cat is demasted in the ensuing battle and nearly sunk, the orcas team up to tow the listing vessel and its battered crew up the Pacific coast into Puget Sound. Lolita and her family find each other, welcoming her back by leaping out of the water, over and over again around the cat. Ariel unexpectedly reaches up and kisses Tide. He responds with a long, lusty kiss before both are drenched in cold saltwater. The two turn and see Lolita and Johnny treading water, looking at them and laughing. Tide and Ariel look at each other and start laughing too.

You can learn more about the history of captive orcas and the process used in writing the screenplay at http://bit.ly/2gZUyxD