[OT] Brain Froze during "Time Machine" help please

[Berandor]

You all know why it was so close to the original book? Because the great-grandson of H.G. Wells was the director......

But is it close to the original?

From what I've heard of it, it sure don't sound like it. But not having seen it, I'm not sure of course.

Berandor

 

[Virginia Wilde]

The only way to make it perfect would be to make it three hours longer, but then no one but me would watch it, 'cause it'd be four and a half hours of intellectual psychobabble, and moviegoers usually want mindless action.
Look at A. I......great movie, but two-thirds of those who've seen it want to grab Spielberg by the collar and scream "WHAT DOES IT MEAN?!" over and over.

 

[WizarDru]

The only way to make it perfect would be to make it three hours longer, but then no one but me would watch it, 'cause it'd be four and a half hours of intellectual psychobabble, and moviegoers usually want mindless action.
Look at A. I......great movie, but two-thirds of those who've seen it want to grab Spielberg by the collar and scream "WHAT DOES IT MEAN?!" over and over.

Actually, they wanted to scream 'What were you THINKING?', but that's another story.


Does 'The Time Machine' have much to do with H.G. Well's book? Not that much really.

Was it Fellowship of the Ring quality? No, it wasn't. This is a good time-wasting movie, and if it hadn't been released so close to LotR, maybe expectations would be more reasonable about it. This is a summer blockbuster that wasn't released in the summer, to me.

Was it bad? Certainly not, IMHO.

Some of the complaints I'm hearing are the same I heard about LotR:FotR...which mainly translates into "It's not the way I envisioned it." It's a valid personal criticism, but has nothing to do with the quality of the film. And let's be honest, here: adapting one of the oft-done SF classics one more time, it's going to go in a different direction for several reasons. First, culture tastes change. When the story was written, we had a much different political and sociological view. What was considered valid story conventions then are not so considered such now. Second (and this has been hashed a jillion times concerning FotR), it's a different medium. Different rules apply.

This movie had some great material in it, and a solid, if somewhat unassuming story. It could have been fleshed out more, it could have done more with the premise....but that doesn't affect that fact that it was a good, solid adventure film with lots to like.

Guy Pearce did a pretty good job, IMHO. Orlando Jones and Jeremy Irons took their relatively miniscule parts and ran with them, stealing their scenes quite effectively. Mark Addy was a teeny bit jarring, but did his part well (jarring to me, that is, because of 'The Full Monty'). The visual of the moon was, at the least, shocking to me. It was very effective. The elloi village was a great visual, and there was some nice cinematography.

I'm somewhat dismayed at the general negative reviews of the film, honestly. Everyone I know who saw it enjoyed it, so I'm not sure what was so dislikeable. Did the film have some rough spots? Sure. I didn't like the camera work in the chase scenes, for example. I would have preferred an additional scene showing Hardtegen trying to save Emma a few more times (or better, him mentioning it to Mark Addy's character, rathering then belaboring the point), just to drive home the Temporal Causality issue. But overall, I really enjoyed the film. YMMV.

 

[Villainy]

By the way, has anyone heard about minority report, the new Speilberg film? It's an adaptation of the Bradbury story about the psychic computer who predicts murders....and predicts its own murder by a (innocent) man who, after he is arrested, 'escapes' from prison, only to be ordered by the computer itself to kill it.

Actually, its a Philip K Dick short story about a group of mutants who can each predict a version of the future, and therefore are "in charge" of the government.

The Tom Cruise character works for the cops and arrests criminals before they commit the crime, and then is later hunted down for a crime he hasn't committed yet.

Basically comes down to the question of, "Would someone still commit a crime if they knew in advance they were going to do it?"

 

[Virginia Wilde]

Interesting. There was a Bradbury story about the same thing with the same title.

 

[bondetamp]

This of course is why I cannot GM Mage any more. Even play for that matter.
Time is my favorite sphere. I am pretty decent in using it and avoiding paradox. I have broken GMs who thought they could handle my use of it.
Then smart alecks want to try and use my sphere againist me. HA I broke them quite quickly.

But how?

Seeing how you can't travel backwards in time, most of the unpleasant paradoxes should be avoided.

Or haven't I givven this enough thought?