Slashdot Mirror
Renegade Reverse Engineering - John Woo Style
MankyD writes "Just saw the trailer to a new John Woo film over at apple.com called PayCheck. Written by Phillip K Dick of Blade Runner and Minority Report, its a story about a top notch reverse engineer (Ben Affleck) who, after a quick memory wipe, finds trying to piece together the mystery of his past. It's also got Uma Thurman as the female lead. Unfortunately the website isn't up and running yet, and the premise of the movie seems a little far fetched, but this still ought to be a fun one."
If you like far fetched hollywood plots that have no basis in reality. Wait, this is slashdot, of course you do! Hollywood always has to sensationalize and dramatize everything to a point where it doesn't impart any knowledge or insight to the viewer.
Of course, there is the arguement that films such as this one offer an escape from reality so that the viewer can relax and forget all the day to day shit that they have to deal with. But I lost all faith in hollywood when I saw keanu reaves restart some chick's heart in the matrix reloaded, I couldn't help from bursting out in laughter in the middle of the theater.
Visualize the world of wine
Who in their right mind would want to watch a Ben Affleck movie?
I mean, did you see "Gigli"?
Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
its a story about a top notch reverse engineer who, after a quick memory wipe, finds trying to piece together the mystery of his past... Unfortunately the website isn't up and running yet
Duh! They wiped his memory and his website too.
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
Did anyone else see "Ben Afleck" and stop reading?
No.
Could it possibly better than Swordfish? Only if Uma shows off her Thurmands like Halle showed off her Berries.
What happened to boycotting the MPAA?
Tentatively titled Gigli 2
Oh please, don't give me this kind of movie all over again. I saw swordfish when he was constructing the "worm" using those damn 3d cubes, it made me want to vomit. I just don't like this ... totally out of reality .. hollywood film.
I'll give it one thing, it had a neat opening. I enjoyed it. The computer was totally full of cpus though, weird.
Just a rant, ignore it as you will.
I actually liked this story by Phillip K. Dick. His works have been getting more attention since Minority report and I wonder if more of his stories will be put on the big screen.
god i so hate that guy. he cant act. why does he keep getting work? it makes no sense. hes the new tom cruise of movies i will not see.... god i ahte that guy!!!! ala southpark i call him assface.
tv: " that new movies staring ben afleck"
ben: " hehe thats me "
god how i hate him!
Stop! You had me at "Uma Thurman as the female lead."
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
In Soviet Russia, reverse engineers YOU!
Looks ok, standard action movie I guess with a few futuristic tech. scenes for novelty. :/
Affleck is far from my favourite though
Quote from the trailer;
'Michael Jennings (Affleck) is not a secret agent, he's an Engineer!'
rofl.
Amusing seeing hollywood try and sex up reverse engineering, the geek crowd must bring in some serious $$$.
generic
It's "Philip K. Dick, whose novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was adapted by Ridley Scott into the brilliant sci-fi movie Blade Runner, and whose short story Minority Report was turned into a steaming pile of crap by Steven Spielberg."
I am a believer of momentum and curves.
...Ben Affleck is a master at reverse engineering??? I'm sorry I can't stop laughing. I can picture him "thinking really hard", "staring at the screen", "putting the pieces together", etc. God, this should be a good one, I can't wait.
Can he reverse engineer JoLo's booty?
It's Cheque damn it!
Philip K. Dick is awesome, but I've always kind of been on the fence about John Woo and Ben Affleck. I'll probably bow down to the hollywood Gods and go see it. However, I'll go hoping for the best and expecting the worst.
That was Dogma.
Also, Kevin Smith has pretty much sucked ass since then.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
Sounds a little like the sleeper hit of 2001, Memento. I'm a fan of John Woo and Philip K Dick, but it'll be tough for them to top the coolness of this film.
So we now try and slashdot servers before they are even up?
Ben Who?????
http://www.imdb.com/bottom_100_films
...a story about a top notch reverse engineer (Ben Affleck) who, after a quick memory wipe, finds trying to piece together the mystery of his past.
After seeing Gigli, I wished for a quick memory wipe.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
I know I've read Dick's original short story on which this movie is based. I went through a Dick phase about a decade ago and read all of his short-story anthologies. But whenever I try to remember the details of this story I keep getting my wires crossed and all I can think of is the short story about the captured spy they keep cloning and torturing to death, while releasing one.
So what is the plot of the short story "Paycheck"?
> Phillip K Dick of Blade Runner and Minority Report
Like the Slashdot crowd doesn't know who PKD is... (not to mention it's "Philip" with one "L"). Sorry to Troll but I'm a fan...
so why is this?
I do not understand.
This sounds like Memento. Maybe instead of a polaroid and tattoos, they will use a pda or cell phone with acamera for him to remember what happened.Or not.
Although the Uma aspect is tantalizing. :-)
HonigHere's the IMDB listing for the movie.
According to the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, the story originally came out in 1953. (It's one of the Dick stories I haven't read yet.) Dick always was waaaaay ahead of the curve. (Anyone else notice how dead-on the youth-culture extropilations of Time Out of Joint were?)
Maybe we can hope for John Woo to return to his previous form of Hard Boiled and The Killer.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
shut up, ben affleck is an amazing actor, have you not seen Gigli yet?!?
C'mon guys, I can see the ad for this movie if I go to the Apple trailers site, a site dedicated to advertising. I don't need to see ads posted as news on this putatively news site. Given the size and interests of /.'s readership, I understand why studios and production companies want to start phoney "grassroots" buzz about their films here, but do the editors really have to accept the story submissions?
Wake me up whenever "Art School Confidential" or "Clerks 2" is released.
the life of real reverse engineers isn't so exciting.
I expect this to suck.
Yep, subject says it all...
You should have titled your post "How to make a pathetic attempt at a troll on SlashDot."
Try to be, umm, subtle next time?
Either the MPAA is evil and you are boycotting them, or give them free advertising to millions of readers on the front page of /. and shut the hell up. You can not have your cake and eat it too.
was that a g5 in the begining of the trailer? man i know i'm a geek when that gets me hooked =)
here is a direct link to the full size vid:1 a1a1aaa2198c627970773d80669d84574a8d80d3cb12453c02 589f25382f668c9329e0375e81787e85abb28970c7aee1d8de e67ca3297fa65/paycheck_m480.mov
http://a772.g.akamai.net/5/772/51/30378f1c0dfafa/
-=20
me doesn't live for do [DEPRECATED]
Written by Phillip K Dick of Blade Runner and Minority Report, its a story about a top notch reverse engineer (Ben Affleck) who, after a quick memory wipe, finds trying to piece together the mystery of his past.
First, dear god someone get me a supercomputer so I can begin to parse that atrocious sentence.
Second, Ben-Lo's (aka Bennifer) career is done, I don't know why anyone would cast him in anything - he's made a joke of himself.
At the end he figures out he was the male lead in Gigli and re-wipes his brain.
four-oh-four
could you imagine how many people would love to see it?
Spend time outside or something. There's so much more to life, and the Universe, than movies. I blame Slashdot, I blame ThinkGeek, and I blame everyone and anyone who's ever dramatized actors or rockstars or athletes. What ever happened to using one's brain? Society is heading down the tubes. Where are family values? Where are the American jobs?
Uh-huh. I bet you don't own a television, either, do you?
I use Macs for work, Linux for education, and Windows for cardplaying.
Did anyone else notice that the trailer used "Fluke - Zion", which is the Rave/Love Scene music in Reloaded? I mean, this movie was out a few months ago, and that music was the centerpiece of the scene...
It is supposed to be comedy, the first in Jon Woo's US career. It's also the second comedy for Beniffer after DareDevil. Glad it made you laugh.
A story about putting together a puzzle loosely based upon the "hip" technologies and buzzwords doesn't work...
Didn't with Hackers
Didn't with swordfish
Won't with this movie...
It's only in the trailer stage, and already they spew a huge 20+ inch flatpanel with 6 CPUs at us... Most reverse engineers sit on a 486 with a 14" green CRT sucking down Jolt, if they aren't in a federal prison that is.
I have had the opportunity to read the script a few months ago. It should be a great flick as it was fun to read and really kept my attention throughout. When I read it, I was told who the leads where but I didn't know Woo was directing. Now I really can't wait to see it.
Prospecting Stinks. Stop Wasting Time on Cold Calling.
His movies and books are always far fetched and extraneous, but they always turn out well. Remember the only good arnold s. movie? Philip k. dick. his movies always rule, and this one will be no exception.
...if one is not to eat it?
Rofl. Just rofl.
Do actors/actresses make too much money? I don't think so. Isn't it better that the money go to them instead of the greedy studio companies?
If the treatment of Minority Report is any indication, the plot of the movie won't actually have anything to do with the plot of the short story, but here goes...the story is about this huge secret corporation that hires engineers on a short term basis, then wipes their memories at the end of the contract term. But there's a contract term that states that the engineer can request an alternate form of compensation other than money. In the story, the hero (Ben Affleck...) wakes up after his memory wipe to find that instead of money his pre-memory wiped self opted for a bag of seemingly useless junk. As the story unfolds the pieces of junk coincidentally come in handy the save the hero's life, etc. Bit by bit, he puts the pieces together to unveil a vast conspiracy involving time travel. Read the story to find out the rest (I recommend getting the compilation "The Philip K. Dick Reader", which among other things includes this story and Minority Report)
PKD has been dead 21 years, doomed in life to being treated like a hack and in death to having his work mutilated by hacks. Hollywood has a knack for picking up only the most superficial details and missing the creepy paranoid subtleties that make the fiction so memorable. Of the half-dozen efforts to date, only "Screamers" (relatively obscure low-budget effort) and parts of "Blade Runner" are even modest approximations of the works upon which they are based. I have low expectations for "Paycheck": one of his earliest short stories, too long and clumsily plotted compared his masterpieces of the 60's and 70's. I fantasize about what a first-rate director could do with "Martian Time Slip", "Man in the High Castle", or especially "A Scanner Darkly". As long as crap star vehicles with the likes of bozos like Affleck continue to get greenlighted, fantasy it will remain.
come on.... we see way to many films with this guy and frankly he has gotten on my nerves...
and talk about bad casting?
does anyone here look at afleck and think he's worthy of being a hacker?
did anyone notice the helicopter flyover of seattle in the trailer? is it a swipe at redmond giant microshiat?
Well, if its going to make it in the theaters its going to have to have a chase scene in NYC, but who is he going to be running from?
My question is, who is going to play the DMCA?
Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the
Been a little while since I read it, too, but here's the gist of it:
A guy works for a large company for a period of time. When he leaves the company, his memory of the entire experience is wiped and he gets the pay he negotiated for himself prior to starting the job. He was expecting a large sum of money, but instead gets a handful of objects. He then proceeds to get into multiple situations where one of the objects is exactly what he needs to get him out of a jam, and eventually he pieces together what he was doing during the period of time that was wiped from his memory.
It's in Volume 1 of The Collected Stories of Philip K. Dick, featuring "The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford."
~Philly
its a story about a top notch reverse engineer (Ben Affleck) who, after a quick memory wipe, finds trying to piece together the mystery of his past.
I'm sure many of the audiences will want to get their memory wiped clean as soon as they exit the theater and forget BenA's wonderful memorable performance, a.k.a. "acting."
Just my opinion, but it is not possible for me to suspend belief long enough, or well enough, to ever believe that Ben Affleck is "l33t".
Total mis-casting.
Next thing you know, someone will get the idea to cast a retarded Texan in the role of President.
Doves flying in slow motion through flame-engulfed doorways.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
Any university offering a degree in this field?
First Affleck ruins Jack Ryan, and now they're turning him loose on a Philip K. Dick story?
Does the studio think they're going to lure women into a sci-fi flick just so they can cream their jeans when "Ben" is on the screen?
Someone, PLEASE, start working on "Reindeer Games II" to keep him away from the GOOD scripts!
[...] bullshit! 'Cause I (Ben Affleck) wasn't WITH a hooker today! Ha haaa! ... or... was I...? Maybe if I check my blog...
How is this new? I think this kind of movie has been done before, many times. Maybe the main character might have a different job this time (reverse engineer), but otherwise this storyline has been covered. Only recently, we had "Memento" with Carrie-Ann Moss. Hey, even the future California governor made one.
Any insider tips on how this movie might be interesting?
You need to install an RTFM interface.
A - also) It's got Ben Affleck in it.
Either one would be enough to ruin it. Both, together? There are two possibilities: it'll stink worse than Daredevil, Swordfish & Gigli combined, or the combination of such evil crapiness will flip the "sucks" bit and Uma Thurman will cause it to not suck at all.
"...I blame Slashdot, I blame ThinkGeek, and I blame everyone and anyone who's ever dramatized actors or rockstars or athletes..."
./ headlines that dramatized actors, rock stars and athletes. Let me see if I can guess them:
I must've missed the
RMS: Rock, Music, Sex!
Darl McBride Wins Oscar for Best Actor
Linus Torvalds Takes Up Jogging
I can see why you're upset. I'll wait til the dupe before I pass judgement myself.
"Watch your cornhole, bud."
"And Linux is an example of how depraved we have become. Thieving IP from hard working companies and mocking them when they stand up for their rights. May Jesus smite Open Source sinners once and for all."
The movie business is about the only thing booming right now. Lots of jobs as PAs, construction workers for sets, teamsters, etc (just watch those dumb MPAA ads). And they pay well! But seriously, not all Hollywood movies are trash...Pirates of the Caribbean was actually pretty damn good.
Where are these tubes?
Actually, that sounds like a cool idea. There is of course the machinima genre, but it would be cool to hava a GNU/Movie tool or development environment rather than using game engines, which seem to be a little too limited to really make advanced movies. Does anyone know of any ongoing projects in this direction?
The stars that shine and the stars that shrink
in the face of stagnation the water runs before your eyes
> from the memento-with-two-pistols dept.
Hemos beat you to it, man...but then again, with privilege comes pre-emptive commenting
A Better Tomorrow I & II, Bullet in the Head. I suspect this one's gonna suck like it was a Hollywood film. Kill Bill however sounds much more deserving of my Sth Pacific Peso's.
Stopping myself...Abort (core dumped)
In fact, some of the things that the audiences I watched MR with really loved were inspired more from the story Paycheck than the story Minority Report. The precog doing just the right things in the mall to escape capture against all odds. Straight from Paycheck.
I'm looking forward to this one.
(C) Kaki Sain, 2011. By reading this, you have illegally copied my property to your brain.
No, not, "Where to we stand on the matter of the MPAA?" Where do I stand and where do you stand on the matter of the MPAA?
I would urge everyone to, when then find themselves facing the dilema of whether or not to financially support the MPAA, to not just say, "Oh, isn't that funny; yesterday we hated them, and today we will support them," and shrug off the matter.
If you generally accept the business practices of the MPAA and member studios, peace be upon you, but I can offer you nothing further. If not:
Continuing financial support of these studios by purchasing admission tickets leaves room to send no message other than the message that you accept their content, that you accept their social practices, and that you accept their business practices. The ticket stub does not feature a check box reading, "While I am financially supporting the MPAA and member studios, I am profoundly disturbed by social and business practices," by which you can send any message other than than your consent, your acceptance, and your appreciation.
Films are not food, water, or shelter; they are not medicine needed for your dying significant other. If you find the social and business practices of the MPAA and member studios to be profoundly disturbing, then you have no excuse to continue to financially support these entities.
This is little different, in principle, than the situation with clothing and other apparel made by workers who are seriously physically, socially, and economically exploited. In both cases, seriouslly exploitive and morally reprehensible institutions and laws exist in the society in which these attitudes and practices exist and occur, and it is these very institutions and laws which explicitly enable and endorse these attitudes and practices.
Yet, there is more. Not only when you purchase admission tickets and personal media do you provide financial support to the MPAA and member studioes, but when you do so you also publically advocate the cultural acceptance of their social and business practices by openly expressing your consent, acceptance, and appreciation as you publically provide your financial support. Because you have no excuse, other members of society have reason to draw no other conclusion than this.
Please ask yourself, "Do I financially support and thereby publically endorse the MPAA by purchasing admission tickets because their content is superb and without doing so I would feel unfulfilled and suffer a serious degredation in the quality of my life, or do I financially support and thereby publically endorse these entities foremost because, although I find their social and business practices to be profoundly disturbing, going along with existing cultural norms prevalent in my social and peer groups is easier than changing them, or fighting them?"
.sig Realistic fines for copyright in
Wow!, The web site was slashdotted before it even existed.
Sigs are dangerous coy things
Ben Afflec,Matt Damon garbage. Can't stand those guys. Wheres J Lo ? God ....I am gonna puke.
Don't want to go too offtopic. Not the software Reverse engineering.
Will it have two adversaries face off pointing their guns at each other and smiling? Will the guns then be empty?
Will it have the adversaries come at each other while the camera zooms in on the convergence point?
Will it use wire-fu?
Will the screenplay be written by an ADHD ten-year-old?
Will it run Linux?
(okay, that last one doesn't have anything to do with John Woo films, it just seems to be a requirement for this site...)
davejenkins.com |
You mean unlike Face/Off, The Matrix movies or the Terminatormovies??? You must be a big fan of documentaries...
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
For reference to other movies, Minority Report was published in 1954, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale (Total Recall) published 1965, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep (Blade Runner) published 1968, Second Variety (Screamers) published 1953, Impostor published 1953.
Personally i really enjoy the cheesy wit that most of his short stories are innundated with, and am looking forward to Paycheck, despite my apprehension with Ben Affleck (god, that jaw!).
If you want to read PKD, i think his best stuff was from the late 60's early 70's. The short stories from the 50's and early 60's feel like quick thoughts that PKD was shooting out on the fly, stuff he was thinking through on his way to later full thoughts. His stories after the mid-70's (there aren't many) are too ethereal and "out there", almost to the point of being unreadable. And for a very different sort of work by PKD, read Confessions of a Crap Artist.
Disclaimer: I've read a substantial amount of PKD, but as he was such a prolific writer, i've read nowhere near all or even most of his work.
As for John Woo, I've enjoyed his style in Face/Off and Broken Arrow, and in both he had to overcome the Actor Wraith John Travolta (lately seems to act so bad that he sucks the acting ability out of others). Hell, Hard Target even had some style thanks to John Woo, and it's a Van Damme movie. Presumably he'll be able to work through Ben's jaw as well.
It's too bad the rumours of John Woo doing a TMNT movie aren't true.
-f
www.blackant.net
She's what, like 60+ now??? She was in '60s Bond movies!!
Eventually, because of his reverse engineering, Ben Affleck gets arrested by the FBI -- but not after twenty minutes of gratuitous John Woo-style explosions, culminating in the hand grenade explosion which has an equivalent fireball as igniting twenty-five barrels of gasoline and highly combustible oil filled with iron and aluminum powder. His arrest seems to stem from the fact that he reverse engineered the wrong product and got tied up in court on a DMCA violation. Fast forward through five or ten minutes of boring courtroom dialogue with umpteen mentions of "circumvention of a device", and the judge hands down a stiff 25 year sentence to Affleck for violation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. Before he is carted off to prison, a cheesy love scene ensues between Affleck and Thurman. The lead editor hasn't yet decided whether to keep the prison love scene in the movie though. Anyway, it all wraps up with the credits rolling to a techno soundtrack with John Woo's name whored all over the credits.
Rating: 1.5 stars out of 5
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Ben Affleck ... whyyyyy ... cannot understand. Perhaps that's why I make software and not movies.
I would prefer Tom Cruise in this one. He has been really good in his (scifi-oriented) movies lately.
class he-man extends man!
I've been knowing (and doubting) about this project ever since it was confirmed, especially given the male lead (I have already decided that when my cat, Chuck Norris, is dead the next one will be called Ben Affleck) and John Woo's slow and pathetic descent from the epic style of his Hong Kong classics to the worst of Hollywood action trash.
And yet, each time he puts a new movie out the door I have faith, and I go see it on opening day, even though I know M:I-2 and Windtalkers are going to suck I go there faithfully because I'm a fan of Hong Kong directors and of John Woo!...
So yeah, I'm waiting for this one with, to say the least, apprehension. I watched the trailer like everyone else, and so far it looks neither good nor bad. So I'm crossing my fingers and praying to Linus that, for once, it'll be good.
Though, in all sincerity, hope is bleak.
All I know is that a director friend of mine got mighty pissed off when he heard of it. He wanted to adapt that story.
I carefully avoid seeing any Steven Spielberg movies, but I'm not persuaded that Ridley Scott is anything brilliant either. Most of the good dialog in Blade Runner was improvised by the actors, who found Scott's klunky script unperformable.
God, where is Billy Wilder, now that we really need him?
Pics of filming
Aren't they violating the DMCA by "promoting reverse engineering"? Even though in this case "reverse engineering" probably means pointing a gun at somebody to force him to hand out the source code (which will probably be some sort of flashy 3d-virtual-reality-computer-animated-crap).a ys, sue 'em, I say, SUE 'EM!!
Anyw
(Sorry for yelling!)
Is this the movie where Ben buys J-lo a huge artificial diamond ring, er..processor?
"Paycheck" is included in The Philip K. Dick Reader, which also contains "The Minority Report," "Second Variety" (the inspiration for the movie Screamers), and "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" (the inspiration for the movie Total Recall). "Paycheck" was one of my favorite stories in the collection, and I look forward to the movie for that reason, if no other. When I first read it, I even remember thinking that it would translate well to film. Farfetched? Sure, but that's half the fun of PK Dick's stories. It's entertaining and, like most of his best stories, keeps you wondering what the hell is going on right to the end. If you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend it.
three days of the condor, total recall and other films about amnesia.
"I can't remember anything and why is everyone trying to kill me".
Sheesh, I vaguely remember black and white movies with that as a theme.
IMDB seems to think Ben plays an electrician!? I find the idea of Ben playing "top notch engineer" about as convincing as Elizabeth Shue playing a nuclear physicist
-- it must be true, it's on the internet.
Obviously, Uma Thurman as... Hillary Rosen!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
.. further shows Ben Affleck isn't trying to follow in the footsteps of Matt Damon. I swear.
I think this might fall somewhere in between Scanners and Total Recall for PKD movies given the feel I get from the trailer. Ben Affleck and the HK action Woo brings isn't the right combination for a stellar Dick flick. I'd feel better with a proven pair like Woo and Cage. Minority Report and Blade Runner relied on the settings and special effects. Arnold isn't the best actor but Total Recall was pretty good based on effects and story. The thing that bothers me is that the setting in the trailer wasnt futuristic. Why is he on a motorcycle and driving intbetween trucks? Perhaps it's not supposed to take place that far into the future but they manage to have invented mind erasing technology. Let's just hope that it's better then Impostor. Maybe I'll be surprised because, yes, I will go give it a try.
this sounds like the worst remake of 'Total Recall' we're likely to see. I guess Arnold is too busy playing politico to play the lead, and Hollywood is too busy thinking up happy endings for American films to think up new story lines.
On the other hand, this one is written by Philip K Dick, who hasn't led us astray yet (I don't think he had any role in choosing Little Tommy Cruise for the lead in Minority Report).
if you'd like to download the trailer to watch later, just view the source and search for "paycheck-sref.mov" then replace that with "paycheck_m480.mov". if you want, you can download the paycheck-sref.mov file and run strings on it to find other resolutions to download. enjoy!
What's wrong with letting us know what movies to pirate off the kazzalite?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
There is no reverse engineer in the story.
"Electrical wiring. I'm an electrician. Television, rockets, computers. That sort of stuff."
I can see where a bunch of "action" stuff could be shoved in. The electrician is a common character in PKD's stories.
He had his memory wiped as part of a contract working for a large company. The goverment is a Police State, except that corps are still individual entities. The SP (special police) want to know what Jennings (the main character) was doing working there. Through the fortune of having a "care package" of seemingly random object left for him by himself (before his memory was wiped), he is able to figure out what is going on and do what he needs to do.
If they stick with the story...
Maybe we DID take the blue pill. You wouldn't remember anyway.
A more realistic trailer would involve something like this:
(*) actual trailer quote
>|<*:=
I won't let my kids watch movies, and I certainly don't watch them either. TV's one thing (Discovery channel, etc.) but I'd rather they read information and learn via the Internet or books than stare at some drug-using immoral Hollywood "stars" as they stumble through their lines on screen while we pay $9 for a ticket and $5 for a Coke and $6 for popcorn
Hahaha, because "the internet" is so great for the mind. Certanly better then "movies.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
A Philip K. Dick story far fetched? Surely you jest!
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
IIRC, this engineer (don't think he was a reverse engineer) gets into a contract with a highly secretive corporation. The deal is that he works for them for like 2 years, gets paid a truckload of cash but gets his entire memory of the experience wiped out.
The story starts as he wakes up with this 2 years memory blank. He's told that he opted for a handful of trinkets as paycheck instead of the $$ just before undergoing the memory wipe. At first he's pretty pissed off against his former self. But he quickly realizes that some of these trinkets (wire, bus stub, poker chip...) prove incredibly useful.
It dawns on him that his former self had a master plan in order to (i) survive and (ii) (re)discover a truth worth far more than the $.
All in all, it's a pretty nice story. The unnerving feeling that he is remote controlled is mitigated by the fact that he is the remote controller. One of the good short stories by Dick. I hope Hollywood doesn't destroy the best ideas like Spielberg did in Minority Report.
It would be nice to be sure of anything the way some people are of everything.
... if B.Affleck would play a role in there!
Well, maybe a little chance if he'd play a troll who 'd get beheaded in the first 30 seconds.
No content here.
sorry, but the world's best reverse engineer doesn't look like that, and isn't fit like that.
I've just (coincidentally) finished this story, from the first (very excellent) collection of P.K.D. short stories, "Beyond Lies The Wub". I've ordered the remaining 4 books in the series on the strength of that.
The book concentrates on the individual's loss of power in the face of the tension between omnipresent government and big business.
Our hero, Jennings, an electronics engineer signs a two year contract with Rethrick Industries - a catch being that all knowledge of his two years with them will be surgically removed on leaving. This is pretty much where the story starts.
On attempting to collect payment at the end of his mysterious contract he is presented instead with a bag of apparently "trinkets": bits of wire, tickets, a broken poker chip etc. He is told that he (before his memory was wiped) supplied the items to be given back instead of the money. He's obviously not pleased.
However as the story progresses these "trinkets" become far more valuable than money ever could...
And there I shall stop.
I enjoyed the story. I'm 3/4 of the way through "Beyond Lies The Wub" and at the end of almost every story I end up thinking "Ooh, XYZ really ripped off some of these ideas for this film or that book".
What amazes me about Dick is how stories written in the 50's haven't dated, either socially or (often) technologically.
In "Wub" there is a very interesting preface by Dick himself and some extra context set in a posthumous introduction by Roger Zelanzy a friend of his.
If you haven't read any of his stuff before (I hadn't) then this collection is a great place to start.
If you listen carefully to the music in the begining of the trailer you can hear part of the soundtrack to Solaris. I wonder if they can reverse engineer some of George Clooney's talent into Ben Afleck?
Gobble, gobble. yeessh.
It's set around thanksgiving time, he falls into a pen of turkeys and is torn to shreds. Gobble, gobble.
Yeah, I went through a dick phase myself a while back. I think it's called puberty. Still pops up from time to time, though...
Doh! :P
All due apologies are offered to the humor impaired.
--------
If I can own an idea, does that mean I can legally claim some portion of your soul once I tell you that idea? Or even if you just come up with it on your own? Heck, who needs contracts written in blood...
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Sounds like the cue for a geek protest to me... hordes of engraged sci-fi fans standing outside cinemas waving 'You don't know Dick' signs.
Did anyone else recognise the opening theme as a cheap sample from the Solaris soundtrack?
Compare for yourself
Geez...judging solely by the rate of book-to-movie conversions you'd think Philip K Dick was the only Science Fiction author who ever put pen to paper. Okay he was good and all that, but there have been many many good science fiction authors then and since. This just reflects a maddening lack of imagination on Hollywood's part (oh what a surprise).
There was an Outer Limits episode called "Blank Slate" (synopsis: http://www.theouterlimits.com/episodes/season5/58. htm)
Basicly this guy has no memories and is carrying them around (in "injectable" form) in his pocket, but he can only take so much at a time (with intervals in between). So, as the show progresses, he finds out more and more who he is.
the hacker will be some buffed, good looking cool dude who gets the chicks. I know its fiction but come on. Was anyone convinced that Hugh Jackman was a hacker in swordfish. I mean he used toi be a hacker but now he works the oil fields.
'Pumping is hard...gloibens'
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
Ben Asslick, star of the critically abashed Gigli, in Johnny Mnemonic 2.
they're trying to make geeks cool for movies!
You can get to the movie trailes far more quickly by going to quicktime.com. Incidentally, shouldn't Gigli have been called Paycheck? Cuz that's all it apparently was for Ben and Jennifer.
Actually, this ine sounds like one of his shorts I read that went like this: Guy wakes up with no memory of the last two years. He has no memory 'cause the company he worked for wiped it out so he couldn't talk to the government/competitors about what he worked on.
When the protagonist gets his paycheck, instead of getting money, he gets a set of unusual items (half a poker chip, a coin, some wire), which he find out, as the movie (oops, I meant STORY) goes on, he can use to find out what he was doing (the poker chip gets him into a club to hide from pursuers, the wire lets him hotwire a car, etc).
Ultimately, he winds up finding out that the company was making a "time scoop" to see into and pull items out of the future. He used this, before his memory was wiped, to gather the items he sent to himself in the present.
or is this poetic license - someone actually holds this title? i thought it was a verb, not a noun...
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
In this one, he's a smart criminal.
"Lord, grant that I may always be right, for Thou knowest that I am hard to turn" -- A Scots-Irish prayer
oh man, I saw "Paycheck" and I was hoping it was that Johnny Paycheck bio-pic I've been waiting for.
"Give a Monkey a brain and He'll swear he's the center of the universe."
Ben Affleck, forgets who he is, (goes for crazy mini chase through Paris streets), saves the day.
Where have I seen that before?
Look at least one good thing comes from the movie...if nothing else....Ben gets to ride a BMW R1150R Rockster...
I haven't seen the trailer, but I imagine they are going to turn this into another action thriller with lots of chase scenes. I've read a few P.K. Dick books and they are not, first and foremost, action flicks. Dick's books tend to be situational dramas with occasional, short, intense bursts of action. Blade Runner is the only P.K. Dick based movie that came close to the spirit of alienation and disjointed reality that is P. K. Dick (although many liberties were taken with the details).
I'm waiting for someone to make a real P. K. Dick movie based on A Scanner Darkly or Ubik or .
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
"ankle biters" has made it to dvd, a thrilling scifi movie involving vampires and including an all-midget cast.
Johnny Mnemonic meets Memento.
"Population 1,656"
What are they going to have to script J. Lo in the movie too... Those two should just stop acting before they get any worse... oh... I must be to late...
Bourne Identity....... BTW,just finished the book.Excellent.
Wanted : A Signature.
reverse as in "back up"
engineer as in "train engineer"
So to Ben Affleck, reverse engineer = back that caboose up.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
"You want a toe? I can get you a toe by three o'clock... with nail polish."
From the trailer: "He's not a secret agent...he's an engineer!" My question: are they more scared of the engineer, or less so?
I like Jet Li as well, but as proof of his (or his agent's) bad career choices, check this out: he turned down the role of Seraph in Matrix Reloaded, a part that was pretty much written for him, to do that stupid film with DMX or whomever. How lame.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Predictably, what is most absent from both Dick adaptations is the more philosophical edge. In Minority Report in particular the whole issue of the implications of alternate possible futures devolves to a mere plot device.
And sigh, yes, where IS a director consistently interested in the speculative genre? Spielberg seems to have some designs on that mantle, which is a shame since he's such a ham-handed, cliche driven director. Where's our sci-fi Alfred Hitchcock?
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
And "Lord of the Rings" the movie was, I think, not penned by Tolkien. Yet there may be a strong resemblance. But hey, you probably think that's just a coincidence, because he's been dead almost... well, lots of years.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
But you're right, once American producers get ahold of something, it goes thru the comittee process and get's vanillified/homogenized and made into visual wallpaper/mush. That's why you have to avoid the big name releases and see smaller films that have much more character/personality...
..........FULL STOP.
Whaddaya mean, since? Hell, Dogma would have been watchable if Smith hadn't gotten incredibly full of himself and decided to leap up and down, screaming "message!" every six and a half minutes. Note to all filmmakers: entertain first and foremost, scratch your pubic "message!" itch later.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Far fetched? A PKD story adapted by John Woo and it's far fetched? Say it ain't so!
You can't be serious. Where did you hear that?
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I like Jet Li as well, but as proof of his (or his agent's) bad career choices, check this out: he turned down the role of Seraph in Matrix Reloaded, a part that was pretty much written for him, to do that stupid film with DMX or whomever. How lame.
You can't be serious. Where did you hear that?
Saw it on the IMdB. I know, I couldn't believe it either.
Trivia from The Matrix Revolutions
Interesting Facts from IMDB.com - The Matrix (1999)
The role of Neo:
Ewan McGregor was offered, but turned down, the part of Neo.
Will Smith was approached to play Neo but turned it down in order make Wild Wild West (1999).
The role of Morpheus:
Val Kilmer was at one time attached to play Morpheus.
The role of Trinity:
Carrie-Anne Moss twisted her ankle while shooting one of her scenes but decided not to tell anyone until after filming, so they wouldn't re-cast her.
The role of Seraph:
The role of "Seraph" was originally written specifically for Jet Li. When Li declined, the role was then changed to a female and offered to Michelle Yeoh, who turned it down due to scheduling conflicts.
Just goes to show you the crazy roulette-like decisions some of these actors make.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Mostly. Dogma was definitely a bad sign, but I could sit through it.
I actually walked out of the theater with Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
Uma makes J-Ho look like a shaved Rat. She is far hotter then that phat ass skank from the bronx could ever dream of being.
as in: the poor man must be.
"Act like a dumbsh3t and they'll treat you like an equal"
Slashdot: MPAA sux!
Slashdot: Oh look, a new movie!
Fucking hypocrites.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Total Recall is the only movie that captures the essence of Philip K. Dick, and it does that DESPITE the fact that Arnold is mis-cast as the protagonist. (Dick's protagonists are usually working-class stiffs, not Austrian body-builders). Nevertheless, the cartoonish world of Total Recall is the closest thing to a real PKD experience on screen, IMO.
Why won't this guy go away?
I don't know anybody who likes this guys acting...literally, nobody.
sure, I'm a smale sample, but Out of about 100 people, you would think 1 person would lke his acting.
proves the old adage "The real talent in hollywood is not acting,it's picking a good script"
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
danopwm dlkjos axsa. ascadew lamenessfilter. blah blah.
After returning to comfirm the facts of the story, we learned that the shooting, were in fact, not what the people who saw the movie wanted to happen to J.Lo and Bens characters, but to J.lo and Ben.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Don't forget, she's not just a nuclear physicist, she's also a quantum biologist.
A man who can't pronouce "nuclear arsenal" shouldn't have one -sig ends here.
The TV show JAG used to do this. Most of their action and setting shots were either DOD promo stuff or clips from Viacom (or whoever's) vast library of past action scenes.
I imagine it saved them a bundle.
Then they reused one of the main scenes from Clear and Present Danger and people noticed what they were doing.
"You would have to kill me and prop me up in the seat of my car with a smile painted on my face to get me to go near Hollywood." -- PKD
Ironic, considering eleven of his stories were made in to films for TV or Cinema.
in affleck's defense, at least had the gumption to go on national television and read (in good humor) gigli reviews outloud.
Sorry, I just can't see what people like about Kevin Smith's movies. They lack any kind of decent narrative or interesting characters (Jay? Silent Bob? I mean, sweet jayzus...). Chasing Amy was to movies what Howard Stern is to radio: a whole lot of shock with a few flashes of entertainment, but overall a dissatisfying experience that leaves you feeling dirty all over.
In its original form, and in "Mystery Science Theater 3000"
It's more well known under the classic title "Overdrawn at the Memory Bank".
It's a very good B-List movie, worth taking note of!
I'm sure this one, however, like the recreation of "Minority Report", will probably rock the blockbuster.
For all 3 of the 9 people that will ever read this and get it, ROCK ON!
"Yeah...it was the numbers that were irrational, not the murderous cult of vegetarians...." -- Hippasus of Metapontum
So far as I know, Scott does not claim much or any script input into Blade Runner.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
I remember an episode of DS9 where miles o'brian delivers the classic line "i'm not a soldier....i'm an engineer!" moments before he hits a button on his tricorder making the room explode. That's right up there with my favorite obrian moments, right next to him sitting on the foot of his bed, looking back at himself just waking up in bed, and the two copies of himself smacking their foreheads and saying "i hate temporal anomolies" in unison. heheh.
Everyone better be careful about slamming Smith on the internet... apparently you didn't see the end to Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back... where the dynamic duo go around and kick the ass of everyone that talked trash about them on the internet...
If you hear someone knocking at your door -- look out!
Is it true "Uma" is short for "Useless"?
That trailer is so perfect, so spectacular in every way.
I love you Ben, you almost make me forget about...
Tacos.
Sounds like the same concept, only in the correct order...
damn... thats fscking funny!
In sixth grade in the Cambridge, MA public school system, my teacher was Chris Affleck - yep, his mom. I forget which subject got the shaft so we could watch her boy climb into sleeping bags with half-naked old men (to save the captain of the Mimi from hypothermia, of course), but I still remember the Voyage of the Mimi's cheesy theme music. Chris was for the most part a great teacher, and when Ben's career started to take off I was excited to be able to say I learned from his mama. With his last few movies being so crappy, that's one less thing I brag about
I mean... come on, Swordfish and Antitrust didn't suck that much...
Oh.
Wait.
They did.
My gf watches this show on Bravo, something about paparazzi, basically lots of clips of stars being stupid. She says they cought Affleck in his car with a copy of "Directing for Dummies" on the seat next to him. He tried to stuff it in the glove compartment when he saw the cameras.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Read 'Starmaker' and 'First and Last Men' and every sci-fi book/movie ever made will seem like a ripoff, and he wrote those in the 1930s! Very prophetic, especially the near future part of 'First and Last Men.' Also some very interesting preface material, he was writing under the growing cloud of fascism.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
There was also a French movie adaptation of PKD's novel Confessions of a Crap Artist, called Confessions d'un Barjo.
Unfortunately, while Hollywood loves his short stories, they can't stomach the dark endings, so they're spruced up a la "Minorty Report". Seriously, do you think PKD would ever have had his mutants living a normal life in the remote Canadian forests, eh?
One of his favorite dark endings was humanity being supplanted by something clearly unthinking and as nonhuman as possible. See The Golden Man and The Father-Thing. Or even better, The Hanging Stranger. Yeah.
Believe me, when we see an ending like what PKD would have actually intended, Hollywood will have frozen over.
Those spineless nebbishes couldn't stomach his insane vision while he was alive; they water it down after his death.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca