"A Sound of Thunder" Movie This Summer

Syberghost writes "Ray Bradbury's classic short story "A Sound of Thunder" is being released thus summer as a movie. It's directed by Peter Hyams, who's done the time travel thing before, but it appears that some of the major characters from the Bradbury story aren't in the credits."

Comments

A whole movie?

[mikeophile]

Here's what the Man himself has to say.

Re:A whole movie?

[TheWanderingHermit]

Check the date. It's August 29, 2002. I wonder what he thinks about it now -- after seeing all the changes and the last script version.

Re:A whole movie?

[nomadic]

He also says there's a remake of Fahrenheit 451. WHY? Damn Hollywood.

Re:A whole movie?

[ozzy_cow]

Currently my film "A Sound of Thunder" is being filmed in Czechoslovakia

Out of all the people that still think that Czechoslovakia is still one country, I would not expect Ray Bradbury be one of them... I mean cmon! They separated in 1993! Czech Republic and Slovakia godamn it! Two very different countries with different languages, goverments and culture.

Re:A whole movie?

[SEE]

Oh, yes, sure, Czechosolvakia ceased to exist . . . in this timeline. Who knew stepping on a snail would have such an effect?

Re:A whole movie?

[castlec]

I wouldn't exactly say they have two seperate languages. Officially, yes they have two seperate languages, but in actuality, most of Eastern Europe is the same language with different dialects. It's no different than someone from the midwestern US compared to a deep southerner, mild difference in usage, mild difference in vocabulary, and mild difference in pronunciation.

Re:A whole movie?

[h4rm0ny]

Heh! I used to go out with a girl from the Czech Republic. Believe me, the first time I accidentally called it Czechoslovakia was the last time I accidentally called it Czechoslovakia.

Not something Americans need to worry about. Everyone can tell where they're from. *Ahem*

Re:A whole movie?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bohemian --> hot womens + good beer

Re:A whole movie?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't exactly say they have two seperate languages. Officially, yes they have two seperate languages, but in actuality, most of Eastern Europe is the same language with different dialects.
And where are you from, you smartass? Yes, Czech and Slovak are quite similar but Czech and Polish, (I speak both, but that's different matter), Rusian, Serbian are quite different, the differences are like say between Spanish and Italian. Would you say that both are just dialects of latin? There are many similarities but dialects...come on.

Re:A whole movie?

[ShavenYak]

Maybe they're doing some filming in each country, and it was easier to just say "Czechoslovakia" than "the Czech Republic and Slovakia". Or maybe Ray's getting senile.

Re:A whole movie?

[Dick Faze]

Trust me, we're not worried about it, we'll call it whatever we want.

Re:A whole movie?

[Eponymous Mallard]

Shouldn't that be the GNU/Czech Republic?

-The Eponymous Mallard-

Re:A whole movie?

[elconde]

Czech and Slovak are indeed very similar. I would be very surprised if someone from Bratislava couldn't go to Prague at strike up a conversation with the bartender.

However, this idea that "most of Eastern Europe is the same language with different dialects" is naive to say the least. In many cases these languages fall within the same language group. The Slavic languages, for example, consist of Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, Bulgarian, Czech, Slovak, Polish, Russian, and a few others. But the difference between, say, Bulgarian and Polish is much more than a mild difference in vocabulary, usage, or pronunciation.

And there are many other languages besides those falling within the Slavic group. Romanian is a Romance language more akin to Italian than to any of its neighbors. The Baltic languages which include Lithuanian and Latvian bear no resemblance whatsoever to Estonian, even though the three countries border one another. Estonian (as well as Hungarian) does not even fall within the Indo-European language group!

The languages of Eastern Europe form a much more diverse class than the English dialects of the United States. I find ignorance to this fact much more distressing than Bradbury's reference to the former nation of Czechoslovakia.

Re:A whole movie?

[castlec]

czech, slovak, russian and polish are all very, very similar. i can hear it with my own ears. pardon me for not being more specific on my reference to eastern europe. when i move to another part of europe, i'll let you know what my experiences are.

I hope...

[HughDario]

they don't accidently harm any animals in the making, wouldn't that be a shame?

Re:I hope...

[Wavicle]

I'm sure nobody would really notice if they killed a butterfly...

Cool!

[isNaN]

Yes!

This is awesome! I have been waiting for a sci-fi remake of Sound of Music! Finaly!

Re:Cool!

[daeley]

I had the opposite problem and thought at first this was a "Days of Thunder" sequel. No where near as impressive. Unless it was set in the future and had an F-Zero tie-in of some kind, of course. :)

Re:Cool!

[aaronrp]

"My God. The hills... The hills are ALIVE!!!!!"

Is this Really the Same Story?

[TheWanderingHermit]

I just read the synopsis in the link.

To me, the original story was a great short. The ending was perfect and there was a great timing to everything.

But to make it movie length, it sounds like the bulk of the plot in the movie takes place after the ending of the story. If you want to make a story about time travel changing the present, why ruin a great short by turning it into a preface to another story? Why not just come up with a simple reason history is changed and THEN tell the story about dealing with the changes?

I love Ray Bradbury's stories. There's a wonderful sense of timing, rhythm, playfulness, poetry, horror, and fun. It sounds like some of the most important elements of what makes a Bradbury story so good are being ignored here.

Maybe, instead of wasting the time and money to see this, I'll find a DVD of Francois Truffaut's adaption of Farheinheit 451 and watch that instead.

Re:Is this Really the Same Story?

[HarveyBirdman]

To me, the original story was a great short. The ending was perfect and there was a great timing to everything.

Really? Even Bradbury admits he fumbled it. The written language changes, but all that happens to an election is that a different person wins? Huh?

Someone ought to do a good Martian Chronicles. I think you could still pull it off with current knowledge if you just move the Martians underground, and use an effed up Earth as the impudence for the colonization.

Re:Is this Really the Same Story?

[TheWanderingHermit]

Maybe the language change would change more, maybe not. It's a short story.

I read it for the first time in 8th grade and hadn't re-read it for decades (not that I avoided it, but I'm not much on re-reading -- except for Shakespeare). It had such a strong impact on me I that I remembered most of it, almost scene-by-scene.

To me that's effective. If it weren't, I'd have forgotten it like I did most of the stories in that anthology, but this story made such a strong impression I remembered many parts of it clearly for decades.

I write myself, and I would feel that any story I wrote that had that strong an impact on a reader was a definite success. Maybe some technical details were wrong (who knows -- we don't have the experiece to be sure), but any story that can leave an impression that lasts for decades is worth recognition.

Re:Is this Really the Same Story?

[mm0mm]

When the Hollywood picks up a novel and makes a film based on it, the film version becomes a separate entity from the novel. Keep in mind that the director will make the film according to HIS interpretations of the same story we've read. In addition the studio, producers and director will alter the settings and the story line in the way they want to so that the film becomes more suitable for their targeted audiences. It is extremely rare for a director to have enough (political) power during the development stage to maintain the authenticity of the novel. As a result, the finished film will be losely resembling to the book.

The author of the original novel is usually credited ambiguously as "story by" or "based on." Actual writing for the film is done by an army of screenwriters and script doctors, who will receive little credits (if they are lucky!). The only reason the studio gives credit to the author of the novel is so that they won't be involved in legal troubles. Well-known writers with a household name also have added value for the marketing of the film.

When you see a film based on a novel, don't expect to see what you read in the original novel --because no film director can beat what your imagination can create. Films hit your vision. Novels speak to your heart.

Re:Is this Really the Same Story?

[TheWanderingHermit]

The credits "story by" and "based on" are two entirely DIFFERENT credits, with different meanings. "Based on" means the script (or outline) is based on a story, novel, poem or other work that was pre-existing and (except in a few cases) was written for it's own sake, and not intended to be part of the process of making a movie. If I write a novel, even if I am hoping it will be turned into a movie, and a producer buys rights and someone else does all the writing form then on, I'd get a "based on" credit.

"Story by" means someone wrote the story for the screenplay under contract. I'll use ST: Next Gen as an example (I'd doing this because I came very close to selling to them and had essentially an open door to pitch to them until G.R. died and some things got reshuffled -- it's a TV show, not a movie, but the points are the same). When I pitched a story to Trek, if they bought it, they would likely pay me for the story. I'd write up a story (NOT a screenplay), broken down into acts to give the general outline of the story, along with some sense of the timing of the plot. If I'm lucky, and they think I can do it, THEN they'd offer me the chance to write the script. If you look at the credits on ST:TNG (and many TV shows), often there is a credit "Story by" -- that means that writer wrote the story, but (in most cases) someone else took that story (or outline) and actually wrote the script.

It'd be possible for one person (called Author) write a novel, a producer to buy rights, and assign a writer (called Adaptor) to write a story outline to base a script on, and to pay yet another writer (called ScreenWriter) to write the script. In true Hollywood style, they'd probably hire yet another writer (called Rewriter) to re-write the script (whether it needed or not). The credits would be something like:

Based on the novel by Author.

Story by Adaptor.

Written by
ScreenWriter
And
ReWriter

I can't remember for sure, but I think "&" was used to indicate to writers working together (like "Jane & John Doe") and "and" was used to distingiush between writers that worked on different drafts.

Re:Is this Really the Same Story?

[mm0mm]

Thanks for the info. I wasn't so clear about writers credits in details, as I am not on that side of the business. It sounds somewhat complicated.

I've heard from people I know, though, that writer's credits are often regarded too lightly despite their creative contributions to the story and hours they spend. Hollywood needs to pay more respects to writers, IMO, because all the film making begins on the keyboard (or with a pen and paper!).

Re:Is this Really the Same Story?

[TheWanderingHermit]

If you're interested in some good background on Hollywood from a writer's perspective, read up on J. Michael Straczynski's posts in r.a.s.t.b5.moderated or any of the other archives. JMS is the brain behind Babylon 5 (for those that don't know). He points out the many ways writers are screwed over, but he also demonstrated, by his own career, how that can be overcome.

Actually, it's not that producers regard the credits lightly, it's that they don't want to give them out. I remember a discussion on the 'net once about how someone said they'd be eager to write something for nothing more than credit. They didn't realize that credit is a big thing to Screenwriters beyond just getting their name on the screen. For example, to get in the Writers Guild of America, you need to have done a certain amount of "professional" work. I forgot the details, but I think it could be 2 scripts of 1 hour TV length, or 1 feature film. Since much of the industry runs on fear (and the need to outdo everyone else), people can be very stingy on letting people get credit. It can be used later in negotiations and to help one advance in a career. If you're a Hollywood producer, you don't want a write to move up, otherwise you'll pay them more the next time, and might have to make other concessions.

All this mess is a big reason why, after Trek shifted, I gave up on trying to write for TV or film out there. While the Trek people were pretty cool and not as weird as others, that was an isolated situation. Instead I busted my butt for years and will soon have my own production company (built on the company I have now). I'll be able to write my scripts and produce and direct them on my own terms. They won't be on the big screen (at least for a while), but they'll be what I want and there won't be a team of writers/producers/directors 2nd guessing everything I write. There'll be no test screenings to force re-editing and the whole cast and crew will focus on nothing but making the best production possible. When it's done, we distribute it on DVD.

It's not the level of fame and money I'd get from a studio, but it means I'll be one of the few writers alive who can write what they want and make sure it gets put on screen the way it was intended, not the way it'll be after a dozen people piss on the script like a dog does on a tree to say, "I'm here, look at me!"

Re:Is this Really the Same Story?

[Ateryx]

Several years ago, TVLand used to have the Alfred Hitchcock hour on around 10pm. To my surprise one day the episode was "I Sing the Body Electric". It was only about 45 minutes of show which is reasonable for his short stories. Hitchcock mastered it wonderfully, I just hope whoever is directing Sound of Thunder trys to keep w/ begining of story best they can.

As a side note, even if the movie sucks I hope it does well... I'm just hoping for a short of "Fire and Ice"

Re:Is this Really the Same Story?

[Simon Garlick]

You want to know what the movie is going to be like?

One word.

"TIMECOP"

Re:Is this Really the Same Story?

[91degrees]

I really doubt that it's going to be hugely recognisable that it's the same story.

Much like Total Recall diverged from "We can remember for you wholesale" after the first act, I would expect that the similarity will be that someone goes back in time on a dinosaur hunting trip, and manages to change the future.

Any further similarity will be purely unintentional.

Re:Is this Really the Same Story?

[Angostura]

All it would have taken for US written English to have changed would have been for 1. Someone else other than Caxton to have popularized mass printed literature (of for Caxton to make different choices about the spellings he chose 2. Chambers to have made different choices about his reform of US spelling, or someone else to have done the job. I suspect we are already in the alternative timeline. No-one here would ever vote for someone called President Keith.

Re:Is this Really the Same Story?

[thegrassyknowl]

But to make it movie length *snip*

I was fortunate to be involved in a Rock Eisteddfod Challenge piece performing an interpretation of this story. 8 minutes was the perfect length; enough time to really tell the story through a combination of dance and drama and not have to try and stretch it thin.

I would post a link to a site with pictures, but I don't really want to /. a good friend of mine.. I'll try get his permission to mirror it and post a link to the mirror.

Re:Is this Really the Same Story?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry we've found it.

Re:Is this Really the Same Story?

[Anonymous Coward]

Man I wish I'd seen that. There were several radio adaptions of Bradbury's stories back in the 1940s and 1950s, most of which were quite excellent. More recently there was the low budget Ray Bradbury Theatre. It used to appear in reruns on USA (the cable network). And I just barely remember seeing The Electric Grandmother when I was a kid.

Re:Is this Really the Same Story?

[B'Trey]

I think there are much bigger weaknesses than that only the winner of the election changes. The changes that occur come about because Eckel steps off the path and kills a butterfly. However, if changes that small affect things, then the entire safari would change things. An animal sees the metal path they errected and changes its course to get around it. It escapes death (or alternately, find it) because it's in a different location when a predator comes by. The T. rex sees the hunters and charges toward them. It altered its path and steps on a butterfly or mouse that it otherwise would not have. When the shoot the T. rex, it falls in a slightly different location and takes out a tree branch that it otherwise would not have struck. There's a birds nest full of eggs on that branch that tumble to the ground and never hatch.

In short, the idea that staying on a path and killing an animal that's about to die would change nothing but simply stepping off the path would alter things doesn't hold water. Any intrusion into the environment is almost guaranteed to change things.

That being said, it's still a great story.

Re:Is this Really the Same Story?

[corbettw]

While the Trek people were pretty cool and not as weird as others

Just a guess, but I think that's probably a completely unique comment. I can't imagine it ever having been written before you just did.

Re:Is this Really the Same Story?

[kerrbear]

the idea that staying on a path and killing an animal that's about to die would change nothing but simply stepping off the path would alter things doesn't hold water. Any intrusion into the environment is almost guaranteed to change things.

That being said, it's still a great story.

I agree with your logic entirely, and that is exactly why I found this story to be poorly made. This and other Bradbury stories irritate me to no end because of their lack of logic and silly premises. Just the idea that these hunting expeditions would be allowed to occur in the first place when the potential for harm is so great, makes this, to me, one of the dumbest stories ever written.

I'm not dissing anyone for liking these stores. They are only stories after all, but I personally cannot abide this kind of sloppy reasoning. I'm glad Bradbury isn't in charge of a scientific organization.

Re:Is this Really the Same Story?

[TheLink]

Actually I wonder whether there can really be a past to travel back to. Why should there be one? Something moves from A to B. Unless God makes regular backups for us to use, why should there be a past?

BUT if there's a past, present, future all at once, then time travelling would be like getting part of a beam of light to bend back to interfere with the beam of light.

Paradoxes will be resolved. There will be dark spots where the light interferes destructively, and so on. Don't see why you would remember things being any different or notice any changes.

Unless of course, the mind/consciousness has a part that's not totally within the system. But if so it won't be fun if your mind was orphaned into "eternal darkness" just coz the bit you were messing about with interfered destructively. You better be sure your mind has some better place to go...

Re:Is this Really the Same Story?

[B'Trey]

Actually I wonder whether there can really be a past to travel back to. Why should there be one? Something moves from A to B.

There's a very question as to whether saying something moves from A to B through time makes any sense. The question of the fundamental nature of time, and why there's an arrow of time (past to future) is unanswered but what we know or strongly suspect is highly counter-intuitive.

There's a good layman's discussion of the issues in the September 2002 edition of Scientific American.

Re:Is this Really the Same Story?

[TheLink]

"why there's an arrow of time (past to future)"

But is there one?

Something moves from A to B. Repeat for salt grains in salt shaker. Measure it by the how many times something else takes to move from C to D and back.

The part to explain is where if you move really fast, everything slows down relative to those observing from elsewhere.

Re:Is this Really the Same Story?

[d34thm0nk3y]

Also, there was a Twilight Zone based on or written by Bradbury. It was about some robot grandma. I didn't like it all that much....

Re:Is this Really the Same Story?

[sparkywonderchicken]

Just wait for the 4 dvd special edition with alternative endings and lot's of stuff in czechoslovakian or czech or slovakian or....

Re:Is this Really the Same Story?

[Noxx]

Respectfully, I think you may be missing the point of SciFi. Granted, good Science Fiction should be as accurate and technically feasible as possible, however as I see it the main purpose is to illustrate a danger or stupid idea in such a way that anyone can learn from the mistake without having it actually occur. You can spend hours picking over why they shouldn't have had metal paths, etc but at least you're thinking about the repercussions of time travel...which was in fact the purpose of the story. With a bit of luck and a few butterflies, maybe 200yrs from now some Senator will stop and think before accepting money in exchange for his vote in favor of time travel safaris. :)

Re:Is this Really the Same Story?

[B'Trey]

The point of good SciFi is to tell a good story. Period. Otherwise, it's simply propoganda.

Good SciFi, like all literature, should explore the human condition. That may very well include expositions about the dangers of certain technologies or social trends. But those are side effects - a property of the story rather than the purpose for it.

Second, science fiction must be as accurate and technically feasible as possible. Otherwise, it isn't SciFi - it's fantasy.

Re:Is this Really the Same Story?

[Anonymous Coward]

No-one here would ever vote for someone called President Keith.

Ri-i-ight.
Just like noone would ever vote for someone named "Female Pubic Hair."

Re:Is this Really the Same Story?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll be able to write my scripts and produce and direct them on my own terms. [...] When it's done, we distribute it on DVD.

Slasher flicks, eh?

oh wonderful

[nomadic]

Considering what they did to I, Robot, I've got a bad feeling about this.

Re:oh wonderful

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean you are not going to get jiggy with this movie?

Re:oh wonderful

[incubusnb]

if you mean, make a Blockbuster movie that will convince non-geeks to buy and read his books, thus creating a bigger income, and a larger fan-base

then yes, thats exactly what their doing

Re:oh wonderful

[Crypto Gnome]

Considering what they did to I, Robot, I've got a bad feeling about this.

Not to mention Do androids dream of electric sheep and Supertoys Last All Summer Long

Seriously folks, has there *ever* in the history of Hollywood been a movie-from-a-scifi-novel which didn't actually rape-and-pillage the story in some way or other?

Re:oh wonderful

[nomadic]

Oh yeah? Anyone want to take bets that there will be a novelization based on the movie, i.e. an I, Robot written by someone other than Asimov?

Re:oh wonderful

[Anonymous Coward]

What is it with 14 year old k-rad hacker dudes that attract really bad hate propaganda for shock value? Can't we push back to the 80s with the commodore 64 bbs and calling eachother vagina blood farts and skateboard our way to coolness?

Re:oh wonderful

[nomadic]

There have been very, very few. Francois Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451 for example. 2001 for another (even if you don't consider it "based" on the 2001 novel, it was based on the short story "The Sentinel").

And actually I don't even mind them changing the story, as long as they do a good job. Like I think Blade Runner is an amazing movie. Yes, it's a completely different story than the book, but I don't think the story in the book would have translated into a movie that well. But the recent fad to turn brilliant, intellectual science fiction novels into action movies is just depressing.

Re:oh wonderful

[dfung]

Seriously folks, has there *ever* in the history of Hollywood been a movie-from-a-scifi-novel which didn't actually rape-and-pillage the story in some way or other?

Well, 2001: A Space Odyssey comes to mind for me, although I guess one could easily argue that 2001 is not an adaptation of Childhood's End, but an original screenplay with a couple of elements lifted from the short story. And I guess it's a short story instead of a novel too.

But 2001 is a quality piece of sci-fi, don't you think? I personally really like Blade Runner as well as an anti-utopian view of the future, but it's not particularly impressive from the story point of view.

Re:oh wonderful

[badboy_tw2002]

Good luck finding people to criticize Blade Runner. Most adaptations of books definately take liberties with characters, plot points, theme, tone, etc. because you're creating a different work of art (art is used in its loosest terms here :) What you're seeing on the screen is often the collaborative vision of a bunch of people (screenwriters, directors, actors, producers, art directors, cinematagrophers, special effects artists, and more) of what the book can realize on the big screen.

A lot of time the realities of the process can mess stuff up a lot, and often times commercial, moral, or political interests can REALLY mess stuff up. But there have been some good adaptations out there, even in sci-fi. I doubt many would argue 2001: A Space Oddessy is a terrible movie. The latest Lord of the Rings accomplished an excellent rendering of the story to the screen and probably saw the biggest jump in Tolkien's readership. There have been many successful conversions that have convinced me to pick up the book, and discover new authors. Sci-fi definately has its troubles because serious sci-fi loses a lot of its social commentary in favor of action and aliens. The fact is though nothing in a movie can take away from the original book (aside from a gaudy tie-in book cover), so if you don't like it, don't watch it and recommend others read the book instead.

I guess to summarize, you never really get a 1:1 translation of book to movie, and there are varying degrees of raping and pillaging to be done to a story. Sometimes (GASP) the movie version even cleans some things up and improves on where the book is.

Re:oh wonderful

[Valdrax]

How high do you think the percentage of moviegoers will be that match the following criteria:

A) Like this butchery of a movie enough to seek out related material.
B) Is inclined to read and to enjoy SF.

I think the intersection of all of these is going to be very, very small -- especially to the people who come away from the movie having learned that robots are dangerous instead of that robots can be made safely.

Re:oh wonderful

[Jardine]

Seriously folks, has there *ever* in the history of Hollywood been a movie-from-a-scifi-novel which didn't actually rape-and-pillage the story in some way or other?

There was a movie called Harrison Bergeron that I consider better than the Kurt Vonnegut short story it was based on. Of course, it was a short story rather than a novel.

Re:oh wonderful

[gavinR]

could easily argue that 2001 is not an adaptation of Childhood's End

Indeed, because it definitely wasn't. You're thinking of The Sentinel.

(Also, Childhood's End is a novel, not a short story.)

Re:oh wonderful

[TychoBrahe]

Well, 2001: A Space Odyssey comes to mind for me, although I guess one could easily argue that 2001 is not an adaptation of Childhood's End, but an original screenplay with a couple of elements lifted from the short story. And I guess it's a short story instead of a novel too.

As another poster noted, 2001 wasn't based on Clarke's Childhood's End, but did have its roots in Clarke's short story The Sentinel. Additionally, the movie 2001 wasn't an adaptation of the book 2001 so much as the other way around. As I understand it, both were produced more or less concurrently, though the idea for the movie was first. Finally, Clarke and Kubrick worked together on producing the movie, so the difference between their stories is relatively small.

Anyway, Sagan's Contact is another decent book-to-movie adapation. There were several changes in the movie from the book that I think made the movie worse, especially those that affected the themes of both stories. Despite these negative changes, the movie was watchable and didn't "rape and pillage" the original story.

Re:oh wonderful

[martinX]

At the risk of personal injury, I have to say I really didn't like Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep, yet I loved Blade Runner.

Re:oh wonderful

[87C751]

Seriously folks, has there *ever* in the history of Hollywood been a movie-from-a-scifi-novel which didn't actually rape-and-pillage the story in some way or other?

The Andromeda Strain. Aside from adding a non-glamorous female and changing the type of final destruct mechanism, it was the closest match I've seen. Interestingly, Crighton didn't write the screenplay. He did write the screenplay for Jurassic Park, which was one of the worst adaptations I can recall. I wondered for months why he would have chosen to shoot himself in the foot like that.

Re:oh wonderful

[foistboinder]

Seriously folks, has there *ever* in the history of Hollywood been a movie-from-a-scifi-novel which didn't actually rape-and-pillage the story in some way or other?

How about A Clockwork Orange?

Re:oh wonderful

[OwnedByTwoCats]

2001, the book, and 2001, the movie, were developed at the same time. Clarke joked in "The Lost Worlds of 2001" that the movie should have credited the screenplay to Kubrick, based on the book by Clarke, and the book should have been by Clarke, based on the movie by Kubrick.

Re:oh wonderful

[ccp]

2001, the book, and 2001, the movie, were developed at the same time.

You're right, but 99% of "2001" came from "The Sentinel" and "Childhood's End", two previous works from A.C.

Cheers,

Re:oh wonderful

[erik_flannestad]

I thought the french movie "Confession d'un Barjo" based on the PKD book, "Confessions of a Crap Artist," was quite enjoyable and fairly true to the source.

Also, thought "The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" was the best adaption of PKD's ideas (uncredited) that I've seen. Beats the heck out of all the adaptions except possibly the above.

Re:oh wonderful

[MalachiConstant]

I'm a huge Vonnegut fan (note the nick) and I enjoyed the Harrisonn Bergeron movie, but it got me thinking.

Sci-fi in general and short stories in particular were a very different medium at the time he wrote that. It had a sort of formal, removed point of view that doesn't translate at all well to a modern movie version. It's the same problem I see with trying to make a Heinlein story into a movie, at least his earlier stuff. These stories were written to explore Big Ideas and generally paid little attention to character. What was Harrison really like in the story? He was just a symbol really, he had no personality, and you can't make a movie with a character like that.

And like the Sound of Thunder you can tell the whole story in about a minute, so if you're going to make a movie of it you have to make it out of whole cloth, and while you're at it create personalities for all the characters. In the end there's almost nothing of the original story left.

Aldiss' "Supertoys" story bears almost no resemblance to A.I. 2001 bears little resemblance to The Sentinal, but in that case you had the original author turning it into a movie and it turned out great. I don't understand why these moviemakers are trying to turn two page stories into full length movies, unless it's just the name recognition, or perhaps they just buy the rights and use the title to avoid lawsuits, since the original story is where they got the idea for the movie from.

I'd rather they hacked parts out of a novel rather than write a whole story "based" on a short story. Or just use the short story, don't worry about sticking to it and use a different title.

Re:oh wonderful

[CaptainAvatar]

Well, you are entitled to your opinion, but aside from sharing the very broad theme of mankind getting boosted up to the next stage of evolution with the help of extraterrestrials, Childhood's End and 2001 are otherwise very different in form and tone. The events in "The Sentinal", at least, pretty much forms a single basic plot element of 2001 and is the acknowledged starting point for it. But it's mere hyperbole to say 99% of 2001 is from these two works. Even leaving aside the plot elements which do not appear in the earlier works (the Dawn of Man, the mission to Jupiter, the monoliths), surely HAL alone is more than 1% of 2001 (whatever that means!) ??

Re:oh wonderful

[CaptainAvatar]

Urgh. You mean like Bram Stoker's Dracula, by Fred Saberhagen and James V. Hart? That just makes me cringe every time I think of it.

Re:oh wonderful

[Anonymous Coward]

what their doing

"they're".

Re:oh wonderful

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering that Asimov is currently dead, I don't see how a novelization of the movie could be written by him.
Even if he were alive, I doubt that he'd write the novelization.
He already did it with "Fantastic Voyage", and, IIRC, his reaction to dealing with Hollywood types was "Never again!".

Re:oh wonderful

[some guy I know]

Good luck finding people to criticize Blade Runner.

Well, the scene where he looks around the corner in the photograph was pretty lame, IMO.
Also, Ford's nasally voice-overs didn't really help.

And re your comment on LOTR: the books were 'way better, and the big CG fight scene with the giant elephants went on far too long.

Re:oh wonderful

[Anonymous Coward]

has there *ever* in the history of Hollywood been a movie-from-a-scifi-novel which didn't actually rape-and-pillage the story in some way or other?

I thought the movie "The Ten Commandments" was better than the book, especially that babe in the diaphinous dress. (Of course, the Bible isn't Science Fiction; it's pure Fantasy.)

Re:oh wonderful

[badboy_tw2002]

Yes, and I thought that Tolkien put in one too many elf ballads, therefore the books suck completely. Because, really, you can judge an entire work by one thing you don't like, right?

Re:oh wonderful

[ccp]

surely HAL alone is more than 1% of 2001

Touché, you're quite right.

Cheers,

Re:oh wonderful

[Anonymous Coward]

That was just an example.
Actually, all of the big fight scenes went on longer than they needed to.
Other things:
Gimli seems to vary in height quite frequently.
The same is true for the halflings.
Some of the supposedly funny moments (like the dwarf-tossing scene, or where they competed to see who could kill the most enemies) went flat for me.
There was far too much left out.
The movies were too long.
(I know that the previous two complaints sound contradictory, but they aren't.
He put too much stuff in in some areas, and left too much stuff out in other areas.)
Some of the special effects actually detracted from the story (Sauron being a big, glowing catseye that casts a spotlight, for example).
etc., etc., etc.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Hi! I'm a butterfly!

[Emot]

Stoming on me will destroy the future. Probably. See, we don't really know one way or another if stomping on me while you're out romping around in the mesozoic forest ranges and shooting teerexes in their big dumb heads an attosecond before they die of way-natural causes will undo the entire space-time continuum or if things will just go on as they were before you put your inexpensive, Chinese-made knockoff Jungle Boots onto my delicate, fragile little exoskeleton.

See there friend, if you flatten me silly, there will be absolutely no way to tell if you've changed the future irreparably! As the changes you've wrought have taken place way way way long time ago in the superpast, well before you and the rest of your crazy civilization were concieved and born, these changes existed before you went back in time to stomp on me and maybe change the entire history of forever!

Who knows! All I know is that I'm a butterfly and that I like nectar. Yum nectar!

(effa why eye, Mozart in Mirrorshades was better)

Re:Hi! I'm a butterfly!

[marko123]

I've got a queer eye for the butterfly.

Re:Hi! I'm a butterfly!

[Anonymous Coward]

concieved and born

"conceived".

Heh, I remember hearing about this one...

[Erik Fish]

Ray Bradbury has shed light on the situation that resulted in Renny Harlin departing from the A SOUND OF THUNDER movie project.

"The original story is about a man who travels back in time to look upon dinosaurs, only to be ran off the safe designated path by one of them. There, he steps upon a butterfly, altering the entire timeline to come. [Harlin said,] 'Why don't we take the butterfly out of SOUND OF THUNDER?' Can you believe that? When I heard it, I whooped with laughter. I said, 'Oh my God,... if you wanted to be accurate about being stupid, this was it.' So they fired him, and we've got a new director now."

Smart move, but I'm not sure that the guy who directed "Timecop" and "Sudden Death" was the right choice for a replacement...

My money is on the upcoming "Fahrenheit 451" directed by Frank Darabont.

Re:Heh, I remember hearing about this one...

[nomadic]

My money is on the upcoming "Fahrenheit 451" directed by Frank Darabont.

Mine isn't. What the hell's the point of making a new Fahrenheit 451? I mean, I like to think Truffaut's version was pretty damn adequate.

Re:Heh, I remember hearing about this one...

[l0ungeb0y]

" I'm not sure that the guy who directed "Timecop" and "Sudden Death" was the right choice for a replacement"

Yeah... and by applying that logic you could say that the guy that directed Bad Taste and Meet the Feelbes probably wasn't the best pick to direct LOTR...

I'd give the guy a chance... some people just make the pictures they can get signed on for, for all you know this guy's just been waiting for a decent screenplay with the right producers to make his "masterpiece".

Re:Heh, I remember hearing about this one...

[Temsi]

Yeah... and by applying that logic you could say that the guy that directed Bad Taste and Meet the Feelbes probably wasn't the best pick to direct LOTR...

I take exception to that comparison.
Those were his first two films.
Hyams has a long resume of movies ranging from bad to worse.
At least Jackson had Heavenly Creatures on his.

Re:Heh, I remember hearing about this one...

[Lord Bitman]

I liked Kurt Wimmer's version.

Re:Heh, I remember hearing about this one...

[incubusnb]

actually, My Money would be on the upcoming "Ender's Game"

if done right it could very well generate a best selling Movie. although i still havn't figured out how they're gonna create a convincing Battle room

back on Topic, Timecop and Sudden Death where great for what they where meant for, Summer action movies with lots of explosions and special effects. but your right about the Director being a Bad choice for what should have less of an emphasis on action and more of an emphasis on story

Re:Heh, I remember hearing about this one...

[nomadic]

AKA Brave New Fahrenheit 1984.

Re:Heh, I remember hearing about this one...

[10Ghz]

Actually, I think Meet the Feebles and Bad Taste are great movies. True, they had minimal budget on both (Sometimes I wonder whether they had any money at all when they made Bad Taste), but that doesn't change the fact that they are good movies. Not for everyone, sure, but good movies regardless.

Re:Heh, I remember hearing about this one...

[dj245]

I think the director might be on to something. You see, the butterfly is a bit of a cliche. I've heard of that paradox, and I haven't even read the original story, whatever it is. It would be like making a movie about a guy killing his grandfather. Everyones heard of the paradox, we need something new and completely unexpected, something gaurunteed to not be suspected to be a paradox. Maybe killing a small invertebrate or anthropod like a lobster or something? oh wait.

Re:Heh, I remember hearing about this one...

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, the other problem is that fat bastard Michael Moore has now ruined the title, by calling his slanted political crap "Farenheit 9/11". Now when the movie comes out, everyone will just think it's either (a) moore's piece of shit or (b) a SEQUEL to moore's piece of shit.

Re:Heh, I remember hearing about this one...

[Anonymous Coward]

The butterfly is a cliche because of Bradbury's story, you idiot.

Re:Heh, I remember hearing about this one...

[Lars T.]

So he made two Van Damme movies you can watch without being in constant pain (maybe because VD doesn't play twins).

Re:Heh, I remember hearing about this one...

[CaptainAvatar]

But Hyams did Capricorn One and 2010 - neither of them great, but still worthy SF movies, better than 90% of the dreck that passes for SF in the cinema. Even Time Cop had its virtues, as I recall - the time travel aspects were handled quite well.

On the other hand, given his track record, it's fair to say A Sound of Thunder is unlikely to be brilliant. A decent job is about the most we can expect.

Re:Heh, I remember hearing about this one...

[Temsi]

2010 had the benefit of great source material, but it still sucked.

Capricorn One I thought was great when I first saw it... but of course I was like, eight at the time.
I saw it on cable not to long ago and I thought it was complete rubbish. The idea was OK, but it was just simply a bad movie.

Timecop did NOT handle time travel aspects well at all, there were logic holes big enough to fly a fleet of space shuttles through.
I remember being seriously pissed off after seeing it because it insulted my intelligence as an audience member. I tried watching it again recently on cable, and I had to stop. Not even looking at the beautiful Mia Sara and Gloria Reuben made it bearable.

Re:Heh, I remember hearing about this one...

[Anonymous Coward]

by applying that logic you could say that the guy that directed Bad Taste and Meet the Feelbes probably wasn't the best pick to direct LOTR

What made the LOTR movies was the good-to-great acting and the exceptional special effects, not the mediocre directing.

Re:Heh, I remember hearing about this one...

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems that Mr. Harlin is one of the producers of this movie.

Mirrors

[karmatic]

Mirrors:
http://www.sba.muohio.edu/snavely/415/thunder.htm

http://www.hollywood.com/movies/detail/movie/41586 6

Based off prior experience, IMDB should be fine. I don't know about the other sites, though.
While I'm at it: Red Vs. Blue Ep33 HiRes.

Re:Mirrors

[Anonymous Coward]

Could you PLEASE stop stealing bandwidth from Akamai customers? Remember, customer 1601 is PAYING for that. Your little website redirect is fooling no one (except the moderators, apparently).

Your prior bandwidth theft, in just the last 24 hours:

• here
• here
• here

karmatic - thief and karma whore....

Re:Mirrors

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is not the redirect.

The point is that you are making Akamai customers pay for this bandwidth. Everyone knows how Akamai URLs work.

Re:Mirrors

[karmatic]

Actually, I didn't - thanks for helping me improve my script.

At least now, it will cache things properly. Kudos.

For those who don't want to read the story:

[{8_8}]

Quick summary: Story takes place in 2055 where time travel is possible and occurs on a daily, regulated basis. Time Safari Inc. offers hunting safaris to any point in the past. You pick an animal, they give you big guns, send you back in time and you shoot your animal dead. Hunters are kept on anti-gravity paths in order to prevent them from changing history through the so-called butterfly effect (stomping on a blade of grass may wipe out Texas in the future, etc.)

The actual story is simple. A hunter goes back on a T-Rex safari, panics and runs off the path. He kills a butterfly in the process. The safari returns and finds the future changed for the worse. The end.

Re:For those who don't want to read the story:

[Soko]

AGhhh! You've just fucked up my timeline, as I was supposed to read the whole story from the link! Think before you post about the future!

Soko

Re:For those who don't want to read the story:

[John Miles]

Quick summary: Story takes place in 2055 where time travel is possible and occurs on a daily, regulated basis. Time Safari Inc. offers hunting safaris to any point in the past. You pick an animal, they give you big guns, send you back in time and you shoot your animal dead. Hunters are kept on anti-gravity paths in order to prevent them from changing history through the so-called butterfly effect (stomping on a blade of grass may wipe out Texas in the future, etc.)

Um, so what would be the difference between a hunter who steps on a blade of grass, and a dinosaur not stepping on a blade of grass because it was capped by some asshat with an elephant gun? Both events would logically have the same potential to skew the future, if not more so in the latter case!

This plot sounds about as well-thought-out as most Hollywood opuses these days. Like another poster suggested, I'm not sure the distinction between Renny Harlin and Peter Hyams is what's going to make the difference here, somehow.

Re:For those who don't want to read the story:

[Christian Claiborn]

Ah, but there Bradbury's ahead of you. The dinosaur is about to die; it's microseconds away from the tar pit when the hunters do the shooting. The idea is that the dinosaur's causal chain is over, anyway, and the hunters are just getting in some no-cost target practice. The repercussions of gunshots in the primeval forest are not handled. You could complain about that, if you weren't worried that you might be accused of being no fun.

Re:For those who don't want to read the story:

[John Miles]

True, but you just can't escape the fact that the act of shooting the dinosaur is going to affect causality. You're going to knock it an inch or two out of balance, causing a ripple in the tar, and there goes that blade of grass.

Bradbury is a god of SF and all that, and the Butterfly Effect is a really interesting and influential concept... but IMHO it's coming to the screen too late to pass the "yeah, but" test. There are a lot of people giving Bradbury a free pass who would take the Wachowskis all the way to the Supreme Court if they could.

Re:For those who don't want to read the story:

[SEE]

The original story goes to some length about the change-minimization efforts they go to. The central precaution is that the hunted animal is killed where and moments before when it would have died anyway.

Implicitly, it assumes that while time is fragile, under the normal elaborate precautions it's resilient enough that any changes don't reach the point of being noticed by anybody coming back.

Explicitly, it's far more concerned about damage to animals than to plants (so no blade of grass is a bit of an overstatement; the path is more to save the insects that might be crushed underfoot).

Re:For those who don't want to read the story:

[Anonymous Coward]

I was reflecting on the duty we have not to
disturb time lines. I wonder how the French
are holding up these days? Their engineering
marvel of an airport collapsed, killing at
least five whole people. If a butterfly can
have such a profound affect on timelines, one
shudders to think what a fucked up future the
French "engineers" have made of things.

Re:For those who don't want to read the story:

[1u3hr]

And for those who do want to read the story.

Re:For those who don't want to read the story:

[miu]

There are a lot of people giving Bradbury a free pass who would take the Wachowskis all the way to the Supreme Court if they could.

There are huge differences in the circumstances of Bradbury and the Wachowskis. "The sound of Thunder" was a well written short story that was all about its concept, it did not try to be anything more than what it was, but still managed to become (along with "All you zombies") one of the definitive stories of time travel. "The Matrix trilogy" is a pretentious load of religious fantasy with a sci-fi veneer. Had the Wachowskis left off after the first Matrix it would have been given the same sort of free pass that Bradbury received and remained a minor classic.

Re:For those who don't want to read the story:

[Alioth]

The genius of the story, as written, is that it ends with the same sentence that it started with.

Re:For those who don't want to read the story:

[Uncle Ira]

No, it doesn't. Read it again.

Re:For those who don't want to read the story:

[hoggoth]

But see, that's the second, often overlooked, 'point' of the story. History was changed by a minor alteration, and nobody back in the 'future' knew anything was different. Perhaps these safaris are ALWAYS messing up the timeline and nobody realizes it!

Re:For those who don't want to read the story:

[TheLink]

I dunno. I kind of found someone's theory about the Oracle upgrading Neo using her cookies interesting. Observe Neo's abilities after each cookie.

I figure the Oracle knows humans have some things they don't. So maybe after a few cycles (reloads) of hybridization (oracle+smith(+plenty)+neo) the Oracle would have herself upgraded satisfactorily too.

Pretentious? Maybe. I personally found it quite entertaining.

In this case, so what if it's changed?

[HarveyBirdman]

Wasn't the original story rather unsound in its time travel mechanics?

It's the one where they go hunting the dinosaur, right? And one guy crushes a butterfly and changes history. They get back to the future and the written language is completely changed, but the result of an election merely flips, as if the written language could changed, and there'd even BE an election, much less with the same two candidates.

I even recall an interview with Bradbury where he admitted the ending was not very well thought out.

There's a much better short story (I forget who wrote it) where they send a spherical probe back in time, and a project scientists is talking to reporters. The probe bounces back and forth in history, and each time we go back to the press conference, the people slowly change from humans to weird alien creatures. At the end of the experiement, the speaker declares, "See? Nothing is chnaged!"

Re:In this case, so what if it's changed?

[TheWanderingHermit]

Hey, it's just a short story.

And Ray Bradbury has always been more interested in the "poetry" of what he writes. It has a wonderful impact and is a good story. Do you want to mess up all that (the timing, the pacing, the setup, theme, and everything else), but insisting he spend more time on making it perfect?

If it was a matter of physics, that's one thing, but when you consider that we don't even know WHAT effects changing a timeline would really have, is it really necessary to pick on details like that?

Re:In this case, so what if it's changed?

[pilkul]

Even more seriously, time is supposed to work around paradoxes in Bradbury's story, but the ending still involves a contradiction. Why are the characters that went back in time able to tell that the writing system had changed? Wouldn't their minds change as well from the timeline change, since they have seen only that writing system since they were born?

I'm not too fond of this story. The prose is extremely purple, the election business feels contrived, and the ending is cute but artificial (what does Travis have to gain by murdering the guy? The new world isn't bad enough already without being put into jail?). I've seen worse time travel stories (*cough* *cough* recent film also involving a butterfly), but I've also seen much better. Like that Simpsons halloween special where Homer accidentally builds a time machine while attempting to repair his toaster :).

At any rate, this story isn't long enough to make a feature-length film, so I expect the film won't have that much to do with it anyway.

Re:In this case, so what if it's changed?

[krymsin01]

Yeah, but it wasn't really necessary of Turing to thinking about about general computing machines when they didn't exist when he was around, was it?

Re:In this case, so what if it's changed?

[Nasarius]

Yeah, but it wasn't really necessary of Turing to thinking about about general computing machines when they didn't exist when he was around, was it?

Computers are physically possible. Time travel, as far as we know, isn't.

Re:In this case, so what if it's changed?

[Jeremi]

as if the written language could changed, and there'd even BE an election, much less with the same two candidates

It just goes to show that while things like spelling may be arbitrary, a two-party system will always end up providing us with the same awful choices. Who would have guessed that Bradbury was capable of such subtle political satire?

Re:In this case, so what if it's changed?

[Highlander]

The "much better short story" you mentioned sounds interesting. Do you have any additional hints that might help me find it?

H

Re:In this case, so what if it's changed?

[Crypto Gnome]

A sad but true fact is that my SciFi collection is SO wide and deep that I *actually know* the story he's referring to (and yes, it's a *very* good read).

Actually, the sad part is that FOR THE LIFE OF ME I *cannot* remember either the author or the title.

Re:In this case, so what if it's changed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Backwards time travel, that is.

Re:In this case, so what if it's changed?

[chgros]

No only the ending is "unsound", but the whole premise.
Killing a butterfly probably doesn't have more effect than spraying paint on a dinosaur...

Re:In this case, so what if it's changed?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've read that one too, and what's really sad is that I can't recall the title or author of it either. It was in one of these anthology collections of science fiction. I've probably gotten rid of it, though it may be hiding in my closet.

I remember that each time the probe went back it would destroy a molecule, or jog things subtly, and each time the effects were bigger when it came back...

Re:In this case, so what if it's changed?

[ghostlibrary]

It's "Brooklyn Project" by William Tenn, aka Philip Klass, anthologized in "The Road to Science Fiction" Volume 1 or 2 or 3 (I forget which), and probably anthologized elsewhere.

This post brought to you by Insomnia[tm].

Re:In this case, so what if it's changed?

[Snuggly_Soft]

It's Vol. 3. http://users.ev1.net/~homeville/isfac/t126.htm#A27 07 It's got Dick's "We can remember it for you wholesale" in there...sweet.

Re:In this case, so what if it's changed?

[Anonymous Coward]

What about...

The Greg Egan story where people receive memos from their future selves is better, because it turns out to be a LIE as most time travel stories should. It's a really nasty lie too.

Or, the story with time viewing, where people are desperate to see past events, even though it turns out that the technology has an inherent limit well within living memory? So you get spies using it (to see the near-present), and people endlessly mourning over lost moments in their own lives. I can't even remember who wrote that...

And not to be missed, the Time Chasers episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000. The best time travel story ever. Or not, but it has Crow!!!

Re:In this case, so what if it's changed?

[CkB_Cowboy]

The best "Time Travel + Butterfly = Horrible Consequences" type story is "Meddler" by PK Dick, It's in Vol 1 of his Collected Short Stories.

That's how this kind of story should be done!

But, of course, Dick was the -master- of the Time Travel short story.

- Cowboy

Re:In this case, so what if it's changed?

[HarveyBirdman]

I dunno... If we're going to pick on Star Wars and Star Trek for their errors, we should not play favorites, and takes even the old masters to task when they fumbled. ;-)

Re:In this case, so what if it's changed?

[TheWanderingHermit]

Or, the story with time viewing, where people are desperate to see past events, even though it turns out that the technology has an inherent limit well within living memory? So you get spies using it (to see the near-present), and people endlessly mourning over lost moments in their own lives. I can't even remember who wrote that...

That sounds like a story by Asimov. I can't remember the title, but the lead character has a fixation on Carthage and has heard about time viewing, but is frustrated that the gov. won't accept his proposals to study Carthage, so he hires a scientist to make a viewer for him on contract. It's only after the viewer is complete that he finds out it loses resolution as it goes farther back in time, so there's a limit to how far back they can see clearly. His wife, who has never let go of the loss of their son in a house fire, gets the device, and keeps replaying his death and gov. agents come knocking on his door. He tells them they've already made sure their results would be published so the gov. can't stop them and destroying their machine won't do any good. The agents point out to him the past that can be viewed includes events as recent as a millisecond ago, and now he's given people a tool to watch suspicious spouses and to look in on anything happening anywhere in the world -- resulting in no views of Carthage that he wanted, but in a world without privacy.

Re:In this case, so what if it's changed?

[Lars T.]

Reminds me of a story I once read 20 years ago - IIRC it was "The Man Who Walked Home" by James Tiptree, Jr. A catastrophe ends in timetravel - and vice versa.

Re:In this case, so what if it's changed?

[ccp]

I dunno... If we're going to pick on Star Wars and Star Trek for their errors, we should not play favorites, and takes even the old masters to task when they fumbled. ;-)

Well, when SW and ST, put together, begin to approach the quality of the "Martian Chronicles" or "The Illustrated Man", we'll be inclined to cut them some slack ;>)

Cheers,

Re:In this case, so what if it's changed?

[JCCyC]

The story is called "The Dead Past", indeed by Asimov.

While googling around, I found out it was dramatized in an Outer Limits-like British TV series.

Huh?

[jsimon12]

Don't get me wrong, AWESOME story one of my all time favorites. But lets be honest here, it is a SHORT story, and if I remember correctly it is a DAMN short story. So how is this being made into a full length movie we are talking about a maybe 10 page story? Oh well at least the basis is good, should be pretty hard to screw up a classic like this.

Re:Huh?

[nlh]

Oh you'd be surprised how easy it is to screw up just about anything in Hollywood. :)

I assume when they say they're making a movie out of the story, it really means "we're using a really cool story as a basis/theme/idea for a pretty lame blockbuster feature film".

Re:Huh?

[prockcore]

. But lets be honest here, it is a SHORT story, and if I remember correctly it is a DAMN short story. So how is this being made into a full length movie we are talking about a maybe 10 page story?

A lot of Stephen King short stories are made into great movies. The Stand, Shawshank Redemption, Running Man, Secret Window. True, they're longer than 10 pages, but they made good movies even though they're not true to the book.

Re:Huh?

[ptlis]

I don't think The Stand will ever be considered a short story...

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Stand was orignally a short story. The short was about a group of kids during the start of the superflu epidemic.

Re:Huh?

[prockcore]

I don't think The Stand will ever be considered a short story...

You're right, I mixed the titles of the story (The Body) with the movie (Stand By Me)

I meant Stand By Me.

hey, wait a second

[SuperBanana]

Currently my film "A Sound of Thunder" is being filmed in Czechoslovakia

[thinks back to last movie he watched in the theater, and the MPAA PR piece lecturing him about stealing food from Joe American Movie Worker's baby's mouth]

What's wrong with this (pardon the pun) picture?

Re:hey, wait a second

[SEE]

Ah, you see, you saw that PR piece in the other timeline, the one where Czechosolvakia ceased to exist on the first of January, 1993 .

Re:hey, wait a second

[Too Much Noise]

Here's a thing that's wrong - Czechoslovakia stopped existing as a country a while before 2002 ( it split in 1993, to be more precise).

On the other hand, the Man was 82, we can cut him some slack about not being up to date with country names.

Yeah, and quite a lot of movies seem to be filmed outside the US recently (remember LOTR?). Lots of reasons, too - cheaper, better scenery for the purpose and so on. The other movies look like they have the outdoors scenes filmed in NYC anyway ^_^

Re:hey, wait a second

[Dun Malg]

Currently my film "A Sound of Thunder" is being filmed in Czechoslovakia

[thinks back to last movie he watched in the theater, and the MPAA PR piece lecturing him about stealing food from Joe American Movie Worker's baby's mouth]

What's wrong with this (pardon the pun) picture?

Heh. To add insult to injury, the guy apparently doesn't know that Czechslovakia is no more a country than Prussia would be. They're filming in the Czech Republic. Sheesh. Doesn't this guy remember the whole cllapsde of the warsaw pact thing?

Re:hey, wait a second

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, "mglw'nafh"!

I thought you said "ng'lwm'apfh", and was wondering why Cthulhu was making pizzas in his sleep!

Re:hey, wait a second

[complete loony]

So It's ok to download this movie from the internet then?
wait, hang on there's someone at the door, BRB ...

Re:hey, wait a second

[Lars T.]

The fact that few "American" movies are made in the US for quite some time now? Heck, Canada is becoming to expensive.

Uh, this doesn't bode well.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

I'm still a bit fuzzy on the physics that forces 2 versions of a person to merge into a blob of evaporating protoplasm.

I mean, the "you can't touch yourself" thing, besides the innuendo value of it, is just plain stupid. Over a period of years, how many of the same atoms are likely to be in a person? 3, maybe 4%? Hell, an atom that was part of you 10 years ago might be in the doorknob. All van damme would have to do is ring the doorbell...

Anyone want to guess how much of the Bradburyism will survive in this new movie?

PS Someone please tell me van damme hasn't been cast....

Left in the past

[Phazz666]

The makers of the time travel films don't seem to realise that another movie like this is just infringing on the copyrights of time travel movies before it. Back to the future was good for its time but the concept of time travel should be left in the past.

Re:Left in the past

[Valar]

Remember, copyright law only applies when protecting the interests of the big industry associations (protecting their ability to produce more money from the same old formula). It is downright unamerican to suggest that they could be used to protect anyone else, including authors, song writers, and artists.

Re:Left in the past

[Phazz666]

As Arnie says "I'll be back"

Clue number one

[Earlybird]

It's a short story. Adapting a short story into a full-length feature film that remains faithful to the original story takes more talent, artistry and loyalty to the source material than anyone in Hollywood is willing, or able, to provide. This could still turn out to be a good film, of course; they don't always screw up. Although chances are they will.

Re:Clue number one

[Anonymous Coward]

Suit yourself, paycheck was a more faithful adaptation than total recall.

Re:Clue number one

[kalidasa]

No need to post this anonymously, it's quite true. Total Recall was at best the disneyworld ride version of "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale." Paycheck was a slightly worse film, but a slightly better adaptation. Blade Runner, on the other hand, *as released* was a poorer adaptation than either - though there are lots of wonderful subtleties that owe their presence to the book and don't impact your understanding of the film unless you've read the book - and yet is far and away a better movie than either.

Re:Clue number one

[Earlybird]

• Total Recall was at best the disneyworld ride version of "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale."

Total Recall may not be faithful to the plot of the source material, but it is certainly is quite faithful to the tone of the story and of Dick's early work in general (at least if you ignore Verhoeven's annoying penchant for gratuitously graphic violence). Total Recall is also the only adaptation which had the decency to admit that it was merely inspired by the original story -- those are the very words used in the opening credits.

Time Travel in Movies

[shikra]

Time travel has been a popular theme in movies nowadays. However many have failed to address the paradoxical effects of time travel, which is how your actions in one time affect the consistency of another.

Some movies choose to ditch this issue completely, Twelve Monkeys immediately comes to mind, which resorted to the use of a Time Loop to hide the real issue. The movie adaptation of H.G. Well's The Time Machine was a tad better IMHO but not without its flaws.

Donnie Darko was a much better film in the aspect of consistency, so much that it has managed to spawn a rip-off, the cheesy and overrated The Butterfly Effect

Re:Time Travel in Movies

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

Actually, the first Terminator was pretty good with time travel, the best part being where Reese has some cheesy Polaroid of her, and talks about wondering what she was thinking when the shot was taken, and we find later, when the picture is taken, she was thinking of him (OK, so mushy, but still consistent). Terminator II had no problem destroying the timeline, creating a paradox where in the present, they destory the inspiration for teh future, which would send them to the present. I never saw Terminator III, even the thought of a naked Terminatrix couldn't bring me to rent it, so don't know how it's handled.

Re:Time Travel in Movies

[Mathness]

However many have failed to address the paradoxical effects of time travel, which is how your actions in one time affect the consistency of another.

Not really, since virtual nothing is known about time travel, it is possible that it is not logical. Hence traveling back and offing yourself, might not be a paradox, even if it sounds like one.

Re:Time Travel in Movies

[Maserati]

Rent T3, I really liked how everything came full circle.

Re:Time Travel in Movies

[Anonymous Coward]

Terminator II had no problem destroying the timeline, creating a paradox...

Partly agree. They could have 'saved' the timeline in T3, if they wanted to. For instance:

Skynet sends back a special "terminator". It looks just like the scientist guy that dies in T2, and it carries with it a spare Terminator arm and chip. Basically, it picks up where the guy left off. It's is "special" in the sense that it is organic in nature, and can fully pass as human. It also has a remarkably intuitive mind (at least, for a machine).

Meanwhile, in the future, before destroying the time machine for good, the humans send thru another Ah-nold Terminator to destroy the other one. Ah-nold tried to get close enough, but can't, so he teams up with Sarah and John. Working together, Ah-nold has the scientist-terminator in his sights... he pulls the trigger... and a truck pulls into the path of the bullet. He fires again, and a construction crane just happens to swing its boom in the way of the shot.

Long story short, every time Ah-nold tried to kill the other 'terminator', he fails due to some freak accident or happenstance. He keeps trying bigger and bigger methods (sniping, to tossing grenades, to blowing up the guys car, to knocking down a building, whatever), but the scientist-terminator keeps being 'saved' by luck... or is it fate?

Once the scientist-terminator finds out he's a target, he tries running. But he's just as baffled by these near misses as Ah-nold is. He puts his inutition to use and finally relizes- he CAN'T be killed. Skynet exists in the future, because it was Skynet that sent him back. For Skynet to exist in the future, the research that developed Skynet must happen now. He (it?) is the one who did that research. Therefore, he cannot be killed. Armed with this knowlege, he faces off against Ah-nold, who (either not realizing, or just not accepting the logic) keeps trying to kill him. Guns jam when pointed at the scientist, but fire freely when pointed elsewhere. Grenades are duds if they land near him, but explode when he's out of range. A Mack truck aimed straight at him suddenly blows a tire and swerves to just miss him. Ah-nold is damaging himself in his effort to get the scientist. Finally, Sarah/John arrive, and the scientist explains to them what is happening:

The past as they know it cannot be changed. It is the foundation the present is build on. The future, on the other hand, CAN be changed, by changing the present. But remember, now IS THE PAST to the terminators. And since it is their past, it cannot change. The terminators call a truce.

But one of the comments John overhears makes him start thinking. The known past (ie, the Present)cannot change, but there is a loophole- no one can know everything about the past. And that's a lot of wiggle room.

Now, all through the movie, interspersed with the scenes from the 'present', are short scenes from the future, showing John Conner taking flak from his advisors for some of his decisions. In particular, his decision to detour to an abandoned mine instead of following the retreating(?) machines. He orders his men to break into the mine, where they find a huge cache of weapons, ammo, food, etc. This find will make the difference between losing and winning the war.

In the present, John relises a way he can use that loophole. You see, he'll buy, beg or steal all the weapons, food, equipment, etc he can get, and store it in an abandoned mine. Then, when the time is right, when he needs it in the future, he'll retreive it, and it'll make the difference between losing and winning the war....

Re:Time Travel in Movies

[vidarh]

Twelve Monkeys definitively definitively did not make use of a time loop. A time loop refers to time repeating for one or more individuals, but in twelve monkeys, the main character doesn't loop - he is purposefully sent back to different times and places, and his earlier selves are still there (at the end, for instance, when we see him seeing himself). It doesn't match the Wikipedia entry you refer to.

The thing with Twelve Monkeys is that we get to know so little about the future/present/whatever, that we don't really know whether anything gets changed, and so there is very little basis for saying anything about it's tretment of time travel.

Re:Time Travel in Movies

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't exactly say that 12 Monkeys avoided the issue -- it purposefully turned it on its head. It is the future which influences the past. Watch Twelve Monkeys again.

Re:Time Travel in Movies

[Anonymous Coward]

We DO know about it.
Cole's travel back to WW1 was well documented (thats why Railly "has the strangest feeling about him") even before he went back there (in his own time stream).
We don't know anything about an unaltered timestream, where Cole never went back, for comparison purposes. However, thats part of the point of the movie... that there IS no alternate timeline.

Re:Time Travel in Movies

[Dr. Manhattan]

many have failed to address the paradoxical effects of time travel

Oh, plenty have. Heck, I have.

Short version: If you go back in time, you either can change the past, or you can't. If you can, the only logically consistent explanation is that you've created an alternate universe. ("Change waves" and other such malarkey don't add up.) So it's not really time travel, it's basically travel into alternate universes.

On the other hand, if you are travelling into "the" past, the past that gave rise to you, then you must "already" be there, and be part of that history. In this case, all of time can be thought of as one static four-dimensional sculpture, and normally we only see one 3D slice of it at a time.

The former seems to be consistent with quantum mechanics. The latter is consistent with general relativity. Unfortunately, QM and GR are not consistent with each other, and no one has a clue how to reconcile them yet. Until we do, or find a way to do practical time travel experiments, we won't know which model really holds.

Re:Time Travel in Movies

[WuphonsReach]

We don't know anything about an unaltered timestream, where Cole never went back, for comparison purposes. However, thats part of the point of the movie... that there IS no alternate timeline.

Indeed, part of the "fun" of 12 Monkeys is that nothing Cole or Clair do can change the outcome of the coming plague. They can't stop it from happening, the only goal is to gather a pure sample so that the future's future can be changed.

Re:Time Travel in Movies

[Anonymous Coward]

"Change waves" and other such malarkey don't add up

What makes you say that? Seems every bit as consistent as invoking alternate universes, or the static 4D sculpture single universe. In fact, it's really sort of a special case of the latter. James Hogan isn't perhaps the greatest hard SF writer, but "Thrice Upon a Time" seems to have this particular variant covered.

The "paradox" comes from the fact that you're trying to have your cake and eat it, too, when you declare that "time" is a dimension of that static 4D sculpture, yet you can somehow move in "time". Those are two different concepts given the same name. If you're moving in "meta-time", it need not have any effect on "time". If you're moving in "time" proper, then either your movement was preordained and nothing really changes (the Twelve Monkeys view), or you have a paradox. But the latter is paradoxical only because without "meta-time" you have no way to refer to events "before" you go back in time and events "after" you kill your grandfather. The paradox isn't a property of time, it's a property of the language used to try to describe it.

Re:Time Travel in Movies

[Dr. Manhattan]

The "paradox" comes from the fact that you're trying to have your cake and eat it, too, when you declare that "time" is a dimension of that static 4D sculpture, yet you can somehow move in "time".

Go read the page. There's no real contradiciton there. Consider a flip-book animation. Each page is one 2-D slice of a 3-D 'universe'; you get an illusion of time by only seeing one slice at a time. Now, all the ways we can think of to move back in time (black holes, Tipler cylinders, etc.) involve warping up space something fierce. What if you made a flip-book mobius strip? I.e. the 'static sculpture' contains some paths where items can flow 'around' back to 'before' they left, that's all.

Besides, if time isn't in some sense a physical exent, how could you 'travel' along it? If the past doesn't physically exist to travel to, how could you ever get there?

'Meta-time' (on my page I call it 'hyper-time', same difference) is only necessary to have room for alternate universes. E.g., a 4-D arrangement of 3-D flip-books. If you don't have alternate universes, you don't need the concept.

The paradox isn't a property of time, it's a property of the language used to try to describe it.

And the 'change-wave' idea is a result of trying to apply 'normal' ideas of time to a situation where they fundamentally don't apply. Consider - how many seconds per second does the change-wave move? From a given point in time, how do you tell how 'far' the change-wave has 'advanced'? You need a hypertime to describe it, and at that point you might as well just have alternate universes. What happens when the wave gets to the time travel event itself? Why doesn't it flow 'back' along with the time traveller and undo the change that spawned it?

Simpsons Reference

[cant_get_a_good_nick]

Did anyone else think of the Simpsons episode (some Halloween special) where Homer goes back in time, and steps on stuff, and changes the future (present)? One path had him in the world where they didn't have a word for doughnuts, so he ran screaming. He left, and then it started raining doughnuts. At the end everything was normal, except his family had lizard tongues. Mmm, raining doughnuts...

Re:Simpsons Reference

[SEE]

Well, not I. But when I saw that Simpsons bit, I knew it was a reference to Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder".

Re:Simpsons Reference

[Anonymous Coward]

Duh,

I guess that it had to be mentioned, but the "alternative future" closest to the story is the first one where Ned is the unquestioned leader of the univerise. Now sit back, and let the hooks do their work.

Re:Simpsons Reference

[jmcwork]

If I remember correctly, during one trip back, Homer sneezes, all the dinos around him topple over dead and he says "Oh, I bet I'm going to pay for that" (paraphrased)

Good Twilight Zone

[martinX]

I always thought it would maje a good (or great) Twilight Zone story, but there would have to be some big padding to make a whole movie.

It may end up like the "Running Man" by Richard Bachman (aka Stephen King), in that the written story was good, the movie was good but they didn't actually have much in common. Bit like Blade Runner really...

Re:Good Twilight Zone

[AndyChrist]

Good fucking god, lets hope it's more Blade Runner than Running Man.

What pisses me off is that there is NO FUCKING WAY that "Running Man" would EVER be properly adapted now. I won't say anything more than "9/11," to avoid spoilers

Kinda like "Rage" and Columbine.

I think it made an impression on most people.

[khasim]

From that one story you have hosts of other authors refering to "butterfly effects" and "quantum butterflys".

That's not a simple accomplishment given the length of the story. But then, I like a lot of his stuff.

Re:I think it made an impression on most people.

[MillionthMonkey]

From that one story you have hosts of other authors refering to "butterfly effects" and "quantum butterflys".

And of course, there is Chaos Butterfly.

Re:I think it made an impression on most people.

[Penguinshit]

Actually, Butterfly Effect was a term originally coined to describe chaos theory as it regards weather.

Re:I think it made an impression on most people.

[ScottMaxwell]

From that one story you have hosts of other authors refering to "butterfly effects" and "quantum butterflys".

The term "butterfly effect" derives from the work of Edward Lorenz, a meteorologist who was an early researcher into chaos theory. (In a way, Lorenz was the first chaos theorist -- James Gleick's excellent book Chaos: Making a New Science tells the story in detail.)

Lorenz has said his choice of metaphor was not influenced by Bradbury's story (he hadn't read it). Indeed, he first phrased the idea using a seagull, not a butterfly.

So the term oughta refer to Bradbury's story, but it doesn't. :-)

Re:I think it made an impression on most people.

[steveha]

I read a funny SF short story, where they made a little robot butterfly, and had it flap its wings just so. In accordance with chaos theory, they were now able to control the weather.

I believe the story was written by Laurence Janifer.

steveha

Re:I think it made an impression on most people.

[ttocs_47]

Lorenz has said his choice of metaphor was not influenced by Bradbury's story (he hadn't read it). Indeed, he first phrased the idea using a seagull, not a butterfly.

But the Lorenz Attractor looks like a butterfly from certain angles, and not at all like a seagull!

Re:I think it made an impression on most people.

[Walrus99]

So the flap of a butterfly ballot in Palm Beach County can cause the thunderstorm which changes and election. Maybe Ray Bradbury wasn't so far off.

Re:I think it made an impression on most people.

[ACPosterChild]

So, the question is, "Did he change 'seagull' to 'butterfly' after hearing of RB's story?"

they ruined the story

[Temsi]

Has anyone read up on this?

Not only have they completely missed the point of the story, they've come up with some lame ass idea in order to make an action film out of it.
The story additions don't make any sense - he wipes out humanity, so they must go back to fix it? Well, if he wiped out humanity, who is it that's going to go back exactly? And if he wiped out humanity, that's a paradox! He would have to exist in order to go back and screw up the timeline.
Of course, they solve this by using a "time wave" which hasn't caught up with our time yet (then, how did were they able to travel back?).
But if it hasn't caught up, how come their reality is "markedly different"?
This is a classic screenwriting short cut. This is the writer forcing the story to serve his master (director, producer or simply his own ego) rather than letting the story play itself out based on the setup and the characters. This is just a plot device not meant to be thought about too much... well, that's fine in a Britney Spears movie, but we're talking Bradbury here. This is a science fiction story. Science fiction stories are meant to be thought about. That's the whole point! They're not about ray-guns and futuristic technology. They're metaphors for things in OUR lives. They're about people, not technology. The technology is just a tool.

Of course, having seen the horrible Timecop, I know just how much Peter Hyams cares about logic and people in his movies, so this is not a particularly surprising turn of events.

However, I will not be spending a dime to see this movie. This is something I will download and proudly announce to the world that I did so just to protest the butchering of the story.

I would gladly shell out $10 to see this story on the big screen, if it was done by ANYONE other than Hyams, who seems to have a particular fetish for destroying Science Fiction as a genre (Capricorn One, Outland, 2010, Timecop, The Relic, End of Days). This guy hasn't made a single tolerable SciFi movie, and THIS is the guy filming one of the great sci-fi short stories of all time?

Re:they ruined the story

[OzRoy]

All of that is assuming that time is a single linear "piece of string" so if you travell back in time and change something you effectivly cut the string and everything that existed after that point disapears including yourself.

But if time was more like a branch you could travel back in time along your branch, change something and create a new branch that time travels along. You still exist because you travelled back along one branch, but the flow now travels down a new branch instead of your original branch. Therefore there are no paradoxes, and everyone is happy.

If time travel is possible I really cannot imagine the universe being so fragile as to instantly destroy itself if a paradox occurs.

At least, thats how I view it.

Re:they ruined the story

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you be willing to take the risk if it is that fragile? :)

Re:they ruined the story

[Temsi]

And in that you are correct.
However, if it branches out, then your timeline (the one you came from) would remain intact.
Here that is clearly not the case.
Which is why the idea of a "time wave" which catches up with your timeline a little bit... just enough to make you notice that it's different, but not enough to completely wipe out humanity, thereby giving you "time" (isn't that ironic) to undo the damage, before the "time wave" fully catches up wit you. No doubt the scientists in the film will be able to calculate exactly when that happens, just so they can give us the suspenseful third act leading to the climax, when a scientist has to disable a device, right before the counter reaches zero, by cutting either the red or the green wire - but it's dark and he only has night vision goggles which makes them look the same.

The branching theory is a nice alternative in order to "fix" the grandfather paradox. In fact, evidence exists suggesting parallel universes, so if we assume for sake of argument, that you could go back in time, and you killed your own grandfather before your father was conceived, thereby erasing your existance and creating the paradox, then YOUR universe might not be the one affected... you could in fact have enabled events taking place in a parallel universe, not your own... but I'm just speculating now...

Of course, the universe wouldn't self destruct if a paradox occurred. Rather, "nature" would prevent you from causing a paradox. Thereby, you wouldn't be able to kill your grandfather, for whatever reason. Nature would see to it.
If the nature of the universe allows for timetravel, then I'm sure there are limitations as to what effect it can have on the rest of the universe.

Re:they ruined the story

[Silburn_Luke]

Just to nitpick. Capricorn One isn't a science fiction movie, its a conspiracy thriller and, as a conspiracy thriller, its not at all bad.

Regards
Luke

Re:they ruined the story

[blancolioni]

And if he wiped out humanity, that's a paradox! He would have to exist in order to go back and screw up the timeline.

A paradox? In a time travel movie? Say it ain't so!

This is something I will download and proudly announce to the world that I did so just to protest the butchering of the story.

Is it showing my age to yearn for the days when protestors actually had to make sacrifices?

Re:they ruined the story

[Buzz_Litebeer]

Well, you could always take the stance of "pastwatch: the redemption of christopher columbus" which figures that there is actually only one time line, but if yuo went back in time, you would exist there, and thus exist in time at that point, but by going back you would obliterate the entire future.

You could easily go back, kill your grandfather, then go back to the original time you started, just, in the new timeline you would never have been born, but since you existed you would not have been obliterated.

IE, in pastwatch redemption, they send back 3 people to alter the landing of christopher columbus in the Americas, by doing so, the instant they all go back, the time from which they came disapeared, immediately, to have never existed except as memories.

Kind of hard to explain ;-)

Hollywood Vs. Books

[edoc]

Someone needs to go back in time and stop all these Hollywood production companies from picking up the rights to every book/classic movie on the planet and making dry/predictable over budgeted remakes/sequels. I will obviously have to see the movie too make a final judgment however I would say the majority of remakes/sequels lately have been pretty poor quality.

Time Paradox's

[GrpA]

From my childhood reading of science fiction, I always remember Sound of Thunder(Bradbury) and Let the Ants Try(Pohl). Both had a profound effect on my way of thinking.

I spent many days as a young kid wondering if it would be possible to change history - after all if you changed the future, would the future you have gone back into the past at all?

I learned the answer many years later in electronics. In electronics, it's called "Negative Feedback"... ie, take the output signal and feed in back into the input... The output affects the input, but the signal still continues.

Now I wonder on how such a simple well thought out story can possibly change the future by altering the way people think and view the world.

Still many of Ray Bradbury's original stories still occupy parts of my idle thoughts even this much later.

That this man's writing has affected my thinking for so long and has permeated my thoughts enough to consider things I may have never considered otherwise is reason enough to see how the movie turns out...

GrpA.

Re:Time Paradox's

[FluxInductor]

In "Negative Feedback" the output at time 't' is subracted from the input at a slightly LATER time, and contributes to the output of the whole system at a time later than 't'. So the "future" never comes back to change the past. Its just that the very recent past output of the system modifies the present output.

Re:Time Paradox's

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, though a noncasual filter does look basically equivalent to time travel (or something similar) to a person who can only view the output.

(Example: you're listening to what seems to be live radio, and a word that a caller uses is censored... but the -bleep- sound started before he even said the word.)

Now, you can implement a noncausal filter using a delay line... and if you can view the input and the output, then it's pretty clear that there's no real time travel going on.

---

But I think negative feedback is a totally separate issue. That is a matter of engineering, i.e., what the filter is designed to do. You use negative feedback in practice so that the system is stable and predictable.

R is for Rocket

[dylan.ucd]

for anyone else who enjoyed this story, check out the book that it was published in: R is for Rocket.

although 'A Sound of Thunder' is one of my favorite Bradbury stories, right up there with 'There Will Come Soft Rains' -- I think that the entire 'Maritian Chronicals' will forever be my favorite.

Re:R is for Rocket

[martinX]

Something Wicked This Way Comes.

Unbelievably good

[SolidCore]

Unbelievably good, with a shocking conclusion. Ray Bradbury is already a name well-known in the Household of Good Fiction, but he outdid himself with this one. Superb reading from a great author!Can't wait for the movie

Re:Unbelievably good

[urmensch]

rah rah, shish boom bah!

You should consider

[m1chael]

these kinds of movies, adaptions, not true to novel. They are like 'based on a true story' movies. So embrace them, while embracing your wallet.

No Surprises, really.

[Crypto Gnome]

but it appears that some of the major characters from the Bradbury story aren't in the credits

Yet another SciFi film who'se *only* relationship to the novel of the same title is

{cue drumroll}

The Title.

About the "Credits"

[gbulmash]

...it appears that some of the major characters from the Bradbury story aren't in the credits.

Don't imagine that because a character isn't listed on IMDb 4.5 months before release, the character isn't in the film. IMDb rarely has complete credits this far before release. I'm surprised the Slashdot editors let such a silly claim through.

I'm sure the folks at IMDb appreciate that you take their listings so literally, but they try to get a title into the database as soon as it's confirmed that the film is actually greenlighted. That initial listing may have nothing more than the studio, writer, director and one or two stars. Then they add more credits and other info as they become available.

I know people there. They won't have "full" / "official" credits until they get them from a studio source (a month or two before release), a press kit (a week or two before release), or if the studio is still afraid of the Internet (and some are), they get the full credits after the film is released, usually from dedicated users who sat through the credits in theaters, scribbling furiously.

- Greg

Re:About the "Credits"

[prockcore]

Don't imagine that because a character isn't listed on IMDb 4.5 months before release, the character isn't in the film. IMDb rarely has complete credits this far before release. I'm surprised the Slashdot editors let such a silly claim through.

It doesn't? Damn, and here I had my hopes up for a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with only Charlie and Willy Wonka.

Re:About the "Credits"

[Syberghost]

Don't imagine that because a character isn't listed on IMDb 4.5 months before release, the character isn't in the film. IMDb rarely has complete credits this far before release. I'm surprised the Slashdot editors let such a silly claim through.

Perhaps they let it through because multiple different sources agree. Or hadn't you done as much research as I did before you flamed me?

Re:About the "Credits"

[Syberghost]

Don't imagine that because a character isn't listed on IMDb 4.5 months before release, the character isn't in the film.

To expand on my response, in a less flip manner:

I assumed no such thing. The reason I stated that those important characters aren't in the credits (in any source I checked, which is several, but surely not all) is because it tends to suggest they aren't important characters in the film.

I'd be very surprised if Eckels isn't in the film, for instance; but clearly, he's not an important character.

This supports the notion that the events of the short story make up only the beginning of the film, which indeed appears to be the case.

Talent, baby

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the producers is Moshe Diamant who not only produced but also wrote Simon Sez, a film with Dennis Rodman as male lead. let that sink in.

Moshe knows quality.

No one I trust more than Moshe to do justice
to a Ray Bradbury classic..

First link in article is to a copyright violation?

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

Well, Harlan Ellison wouldn't like it at all!
But at least I could read it again.From the story:

TYME SEFARI INC.
SEFARIS TU ANY YEER EN THE PAST.
YU NAIM THE ANIMALL.
WEE TAEK YU THAIR.
YU SHOOT ITT.


Wow! Bradbury predicted IRC!

Trillogy?

[ron_ivi]

Parent wrote: "...But lets be honest here, it is a SHORT story, and if I remember correctly it is a DAMN short story.....should be pretty hard to screw up a classic like this."

I think you just supplied your own answer. Seeing how well Shrek 2 did ( shreds box office record Top weekend ever for animated film Earns $125.3 million in 5 days ), they'll turn this into a trilogy. Think Sound of Thunder Reloaded.

Re:First link in article is to a copyright violati

[J_Omega]

Hehe, I was thinking just about the same thing.

71m3 53f/\r1 1|\|c.
53f/\r15 2 |\|3 y33r 1|\| 73h p/\57.
...

Please forgive me, that I've attempted such a poor elite-speak rendidtion. For those of you who can do better, I'm sorry that you can.

It's been on TV already!!

[Kulilin]

As a matter of fact, this story has already been adapted to TV. I can't remember the name of the show but it must have been The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits. It's hard to say because show names are sometimes changed here (Spain).

I know I watched it some ten years ago --maybe even longer ago.

feh.

[Jamie Zawinski]

I guess I'm the only one here who thinks the original story was just not very good at all? Not only doesn't it follow its own internal rules about time travel in any logical way, I also don't think the writing is any good.

Given that, the "Time Cop" guy probably wasn't an inappropriate choice.

Re:feh.

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. I just read the story, and I was not impressed. Granted, it would have been much more interesting had I been alive when it was first published, but I wasn't. Consequently, this is just a story: not a classic as so many here seem to believe.

Re:feh.

[Anonymous Coward]

I just read the story for the first time, and I have to agree. For starters, the fact that the T-Rex falls a tad before it otherwise would have done could just as easily cause *it* to kill some other creature that otherwise would have survived (or vice-versa).

Having just read up on the Gaia Hypothesis, I expect it would take some pretty major change in the past to have any noticable affect on the present. The idea that a single butterfly getting killed would make any noticable difference 60 million years later is pretty ridiculous, and as the parent poster pointed out, the specifics of what changed in the story are pretty inconsistent, as well.

Not that I could have written a better story when I was 30 (or likely now, for that matter), but then, I don't make my living at it, either.

Re:First link in article is to a copyright violati

[Bob Cat - NYMPHS]

Real geeks do it in software.

|

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/games/leet.html

R341 933|0 !7 1n $0f7w4r3.

Positive: It's been on TV already!!

[Kulilin]

Here!!

It seems it was not The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits after all.. It was on Ray Bradbury Theater .

Re:Positive: It's been on TV already!!

[martinX]

I suppose it's only fitting that it's on Ray Bradbury's TV show after all :-)

But..

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not qualified to run mucks!

Well, yes, but -- no.

[uhlume]

Much as I love and respect Ray Bradbury's writing, and much as I wish your claim were true, it simply isn't: most of those references to "butterfly effects" you cite actually relate to Chaos Theory, and apparently are attributable to none other than Lorenz (of Attractor fame) in the title of a 1972 talk entitled "Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil set off a Tornado in Texas?"

Re:Well, yes, but -- no.

[kalidasa]

The problem with the sub-title, though, and with Lorenz's remarks about the phrase "butterfly effect" is that the subtitle of Lorenz's talk reads like it is an allusion to an already-current idiom. (As well, I'd swear the whole expression occurred in something I had read dated before 1972). So I'd remain open minded about whether Lorenz is right about where the phrase came from.

If at all possible...

[Phekko]

...please stop making comments about movies that aren't yet out here behind god's back.

Karma Whoreing and Wikipedia Helping

[CGP314]

Czechoslovakia

Czech Republic

Slovakia

On a personal note, I was in Prague last year, and it's really a beautiful city. Dirt cheap too.

10 pages? Still using fisher price font?

[SmallFurryCreature]

Anyway the answer is there. The movie doesn't stop where the story stops. The sound of thunder is presumably the sound of the gun firing. But that doesn't have to be the case. It could be the sound of a security guards gun blowing travis (the safari leader) away as travis tries to kill the tourist.

And from there until the end of the the movie. Will it be bad? Without a doubt. The entire attraction of Sound of thunder is its shortness. No endless battle, no leaping plotholes, no silly motivations. Provided you don't stumble on how stepping on a butterfly can effect just language and an election the story is remarkably simple and effective.

Making it as the opening of a full movie might just totally ruin it.

Re:10 pages? Still using fisher price font?

[Anonymous Coward]

The sound of thunder is presumably the sound of the gun firing. But that doesn't have to be the case. It could be the sound of a security guards gun blowing travis (the safari leader) away as travis tries to kill the tourist.

Yeah. Or maybe it's raining, and that sound really is thunder. lol...

Fahrenheit 9/11

[Anonymous Coward]

He's also annoyed that Michael Moore is playing off his title:

"He can't have my title," said Bradbury. "We've got an important film coming out, the book's having its 50th anniversary in October. If he wants his movie to be an homage to me, why not title it, 'Bradbury, where the hell are you now that we need you?'"

Re:Fahrenheit 9/11

[Blue Stone]

He's also annoyed that Michael Moore is playing off his title

If anything, I would have thought Moore's success with his movie would lead to wider interest in Farenheight 451, as it gets referred to by media pundits here and there.

*Sigh* A story of time travel ...

[AhBeeDoi]

...from a man who fears flying.

Re:*Sigh* A story of time travel ...

[Black Jack Hyde]

William Gibson isn't exactly Linus when it comes to technology, but he's managed to put out some pretty good stuff.

Nationalistic Insults

[Anonymous Coward]

One recurrent topic of discussion on Slashdot is the cultural quarrel between the United States and Europe. As an example, some American (or one portraying oneself as such) may run a joke on France, or may accuse Europeans of being "weenies" or not supporting democracy and civil rights. Some European (or one portraying oneself as such) may accuse Americans of lacking culture, or of being warmongers.

The effect of such trolls is compounded by the immaturity and lack of political culture of many participants, who comment on foreign events they scarcely know about according to clichés seen in the mass media.

Next, a blockbuster based on a Basho haiku

[dpbsmith]

Oh, gimme a break. "A Sound of Thunder" is an exquisitely crafted short story that is based on a) an idea, and b) nicely constructed verbal imagery. It works by stimulating the imagination.

It's a pretty solid meme. I know quite a few people who remember "that story about the time-traveller who steps on the butterfly" but cannot remember the title or author. (Do you think Edward Lorenz might have had a fading engram of the story in his mind when he came up with the title "Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil set off a Tornado in Texas?"

I can see it working quite well as (say) a half-hour radio play, but there's no way to make a movie out of this without losing everything in the story that made it great.

It would make a much sense to make an action blockbuster out of a Basho haiku, or a Broadway rock musical from a Zen koan.

A Gun for Dinosaur

[Anonymous Coward]

A similar story was written by L Sprague DeCamp and was dramatised by the 50s NBC SciFi radio series, Dimension X (later to be X minus One)

In this story, time travel has been researched and a university allows hunters to go and hunt dinosaurs for a large amount of money (to help their funding)

One hunter takes a dislike to the two guides and plots to kill them in the past, and as usual messes with the time continium and comes out dead.

Wait a minute...

[Gudlyf]

...so are you telling me that l33t 5p33k is all because of a damned butterfly?!

outland

[not_a_product_id]

hmmm. And wasn't Outland just High Noon set in space? (I might have the title of the western wrong there). I rather liked it though. Timecop on the other hand...

Re:outland

[Silburn_Luke]

Dunno about Timecop (never seen it) but yeah, Outland is High Noon in space. Still I think that setting it in space (a mining base on a moon of one of the outer gas giants isn't it?) and having things like EVA suits and rayguns (I don't remember - do they have rayguns?), tips it over to the science fiction side I think. Its not the subject matter of the film, but the whole scenario for the story presupposes a significant space-based industrial sector (at least) and the consequent implications for launch technologies, life support, space operations etc etc which are a long way in the future.

By contrast CapOne is set in the present day (for the film) or an unremarkably different very near future and entirely focuses upon themes and situations which are pure post-Watergate conspiracy thriller.

Sure the Macguffin of the story is a faked Mars landing which is somewhat SF-nal, but even that is based on existing at the time technology (Apollo lifters like in Stephen Baxter's 'Voyage') and so doesn't imply, depend or concern itself with speculative advances in all sorts of technological and scientific fields. At best it can be characterised as a "What if?" alternate history rather than a futuristic speculation. Given all that, its not *much* more SF-nal than 'Apollo 13' - its got about the same amount of future tech in it as 'Deep Impact' had (relative to its time).

But splitting hairs on where SF (or even sci-fi) begins is a mug's game, so I'll shut up now.

Regards
Luke

The Sound of Musical Thunder Days

[AnonymousKev]

Now my brain hurts. After reading these posts, I have a vivid mental picture of Julie Andrews and Tom Cruise driving a race car through the Alps to escape Nazis. They accidentally collide with the Ark of the Covenant and are sent back in time where they accidentally win the Cro-Magnon Indy 5[*]. The resulting time ripples ensure that Jeff Gordon becomes a World Champion Horse Jockey in a world where monkeys have evolved from horses.

---
[*]Yes, just 5. According to "Clan of the Cavebear, cavemen couldn't count past 5.

agreed!

[Tibor the Hun]

agreed!
here's hoping that the leading man is van damme, or possibly hugh jackman, keanou reeves, or russel crowe!
it would be nice if they just mish-mashed "jurassic park" with "butterfly effect" and feed the drivel down our throats!

by the way does anyone else think that making the robots evil in "i robot" was a stroke of genius, the likes of which we haven't seen since star wars ep 2?

Asimov stories

[OwnedByTwoCats]

I think grandparent poster has it correct. I noticed a similarity between the demons in Childhood's End and the monolith in 2001. And the role they play in the course of human destiny.

Ray Bradbury Theater

[Uhlek]

As some of you may remember, this was also remade into an episode of the (usually) fantastic Ray Bradbury Theater.

I'm really wondering how long it'll be before it gets released on DVD. [/hopeful]

Re:Ray Bradbury Theater

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember, that was one of my favorite episodes of Ray Bradbury Theater!!!

This begs the question: Why would Bradbury ok a full length feature version of this when he's already taken that short story and adapted it to to a TV episode of his show?

It doesn't make sense to take a Bradbury SHORT story and turn it into a movie, unless he is looking to cash in!

Besides, I can't see how this would be turned into a 90-minute adventure...either:
1.) More intelligent/sci-fi storylines are added to the main premise

or

2.) It becomes a stupid action flick (I expect this)

Brade Lunnah

[bandy]

BR took a one-sentence description of DADoES and spun a movie from a quarter of that sentence. The only good thing the movie has done is to make more copies of DADoES available.

Problem with the story

[idesofmarch]

Couldn't the fact that the dinosaur was killed in a different spot on the ground affect history just as much? Who knows how many butterflies it crushed when it fell, and how many other butterflies it failed to crush a few yards away? I cannot believe he safari company did not think of this, as they went to extremes to preserve history in every other way. Things like this really bother me, as you can tell.

Flawed story, Flawed movie

[darkjohnson]

I almost worked on this - the script was AWFUL and way weaker than the short story. There is no logic to the premise and they successfully transferred that to the script. But..with the right amount of effects and marketing it'll probably break even.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

[crimson30]

You liked Something Wicked This Way Comes?

I thought it was quite the struggle to get through... and I haven't read any Bradbury non-short story material since.

I think the parent has it right: Martian Chronicles is easily the best.

Note to would-be time travellers:

[SamSim]

Chaos theory is such that very tiny changes that far in the past would have VAST alterations to the future. We all know how an unmeasurable change in a local weather system - say, the change caused by you waving your hand in the air a bit, or, classically, a butterfly flapping its wings - can add up to the point where the world's weather in a month or a year's time will be completely different from what it would be like if you HADN'T made that change. Sensitive dependence on initial conditions, dig?

So simply staying on antigravity paths wouldn't do you much good. You're still interacting with the past and still therefore changing the future by a HUGE amount. Different people would be born, different histories would play themselves out. You'd return to a world which doesn't even know who you are...

Re:America

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but being "American" can sometimes refer to both Canada/USA/Mexico and not necessarily USA

A Gun For Dinosaur

[Cruciform]

If anyone is familiar with the works of L. Sprague de Camp, he also penned a classic story of going back in time to hunt dinosaur, and what happens when one of the hunters decides to kill his expedition.

Bradbury's story was published in 1952's 'R is for Rocket', while de Camp's published in Galaxy Science Fiction in 1956.

I wonder if the similarities were intentional or accidental, seeing as both were well known in the "sci-fi" genre at the time.

October, Not Summer

[filmguru]

According to the IMDb (the alpha and the omega of movie sites) the film is slated for an October release in the US, not summer as originally reported. --FilmGuru

Re:America

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but being "American" can sometimes refer to both Canada/USA/Mexico and not necessarily USA.

Only if you are from Canada or Mexico. No one else in the world gives a shit about your inferiority complex. And no, people from Ecuador are not Americans either.

I'd much rather see The Probability Broach

[Bob_Robertson]

L.Neil Smiths book would make a great movie. With ready made sequels too.

time travel short story

[Anonymous Coward]

Another interesting story in the same sub-genre has to be Asimov's "The Winds of Change" - definitely not an action story but certainly full of possibilities in the area of political intrique. While not a classic, still a good read. With the right cast it could be a very creepy or alarming thriller/suspense movie.

Doesn't Count...

[Anonymous Coward]

...when rape-and-pillage are the story.

Thank you, I'll be here all week. Try the Ossobucco.

Bradbury Was Such a Hack...

[Anonymous Coward]

...using the old "crushes a butterfly and changes the future bit". Duh, that was the source, nimrod.

Reminds me of a high school kid's reaction to seeing a Shakespeare play; "Yeah, it was pretty good, but why did Shakespeare use so many cliches?"

Re:First link in article is to a copyright violati

[Syberghost]

As submitter of this story, I hereby declare your comment to be the funniest yet. Well done, sir.

Life imitates Art

[Anonymous Coward]

The original ending of Bradbury's story might not have much zing in the modern era. After all,
the real effect of trampling that butterfly was not just screwing up english spelling, but throwing the presidential election to an anti-intellectual militarist nut. Whereas in Washington, we have...

And it's sort of odd that this disaster was linked to a butterfly ballot. Humm.

Bradbury too?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isaac Asimov was afraid of flying, and AFAIK he never flew in an airplane. Are you thinking of Asimov, or was Bradbury also afraid to fly? Was this (or other irrational or questionable fears) a fear among any other classic SF writers?

I think it all boils down to

[Anonymous Coward]

Lack of imagination.

Re: Bradbury's "sloppy reasoning"

[some guy I know]

This and other Bradbury stories irritate me to no end because of their lack of logic and silly premises.

Bradbury doesn't write Science Fiction; he writes Science Fantasy.
There is a lack of rigorous logic in Science Fantasy, whether it has to do with time travel, people colonizing Mars, or firemen burning books.
What makes Bradbury's stories compelling is their visual imagery, the poetry of the prose.
When I read Bradbury, I suspend not only my disbelief, but my strict sense of logic as well.
He is the only author (that I can recall) that is capable of making me do that.
When I am reading Bradbury, I am not myself.
That is his genius.