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Timeline: Trailer Up and it looks pretty solid! (1 Viewer)

WillG

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Interesting, but just from the trailer, I can see that some liberties from the book have been taken. I don't recall anyone's "Father" needing to be rescued in the book. Was Crichton involved with the movie in any way, (Producer, Screenplay)?
 

Phil Florian

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I don't know if it was anyone's father, but there was a Professor that needed rescuing. I couldn't finish the book, sadly. All of Cricton's stuff reads like the screenplays they will end up being (in fact, "Timeline" rights were bought before the book was published!) and that isn't a good thing. The original book for "Jurassic Park" was an amazingly fun book and had a lot in it. The movie had to cut a lot but it worked as an adaptation. The second novel was horrible because it was obviously written to be a movie and it read like that. Gah. I may try it again before the movie because the premise is a hoot, but gosh he is a bad writer. Say what you want of the prolific King, he still knows how to write a book. Cricton on the other hand...feh.

Phil
 

WillG

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I have to disagree with you there. I hardly think he has become a bad writer. I know I finished his latest nover "Prey" within a couple of days, so obviously I'm still interested in his writing. Hollywood or not, he keeps you reading. "Jurassic Park" Certainly wasn't the first movie to be made from one of his books. And it wasn't the first movie that he was involved in. He already had a few films that he directed himself under his belt. And another thing is that many of his film adaptations were so different from his books anyway. "Jurassic Park" the movie had alot missing that was in the book. "The Lost World," even though I won't argue was a payoff, the Book and Movie only had one part in common. "Sphere" came close, storywise but the movie was executed poorly. So even though, as you put it, his books are reading like screenplays, the movies definately don't turn out to be carbon copies. I mean, at least each novel has a different story, unlike, I guess you could say, his rival in their heydays, John Grisham where the description of practially every one of his novels starts out with "A young Memphis Lawyer"
 

Magnus T

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Looked like your typical summer blockbuster to me. Here today, gone tomorrow. Anyway, cool to see Richard Donner directing something other than a Lethal Weapon sequal.
 

Phil Florian

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While Jurassic Park wasn't his first novel to be filmed, it was the first that really put his name on the map and in people's homes. I doubt there were many current moviegoers prior to JP could tell you about Andromeda Strain or Coma or even the Great Train Robbery or at least wouldn't be able to put Cricton's name to it. Post JP, he got all sorts of name recognition that allowed him to do some great stuff (ER, for example) and not-so-great stuff (to me, any of the novels that came after JP). I think his style devolved into pedesrian fair, at best. Believe me, Grissom is no better to me. Grissom and Crichton are, to me, just writing for the movie they know will inevitably be made. To me, that is. If people still enjoy it, groovy. It just doesn't work for me.


Phil


PS I love the Army of Darkness referrence...too funny.
 

Kenneth English

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I may try it again before the movie because the premise is a hoot, but gosh he is a bad writer.
It's not that Crichton's a bad writer, he's just more interested in plot than character. He's like Agatha Christie -- he can come up with the most awesome, twisty, intricate stories but peoples them with cyphers. Oh, well. As far as I'm concerned this isn't a fatal flaw because he's a terrific storyteller one way or the other. I'm re-reading The Andromeda Strain right now and it's just as good as I remember.

Anyway, Timeline looks interesting. Even if it does star Paul Walker...
 

Phil Florian

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Yah, Fax Machine. One prop I will give the book (and I will try it again as people giving props to the man piqued my interest again) is his concept of time travel. Not to give anything away, an engineer friend when discussing the concept of time travel posited a point that the book brings out (but I never finished so I didn't see where they went with it. The point was since time travel involved sending a perfect copy into the past, the original doesn't leave. Because, if you have the technology to make a perfect replica of something (which is needed to disassemble then reassemble a person) why destroy the orignal. Like the Fax machine concept...a copy is sent, but what happens to the original? In the book, it is destroyed, if I recall. Is the "original" aware of this? In effect, a perfect clone of you is created in the past but the original doesn't end. Lots of metaphysical questions abound. Jeepers.
I was jazzed that I had heard the concept before and was intrigued enough almost to keep up with it. I guess what bothered me about it was how easy the travelers became embroiled in the local politics of the past. Like a poor man's version of "Connecticut Yankee" with dinosaurs. Okay, no dinosaurs, but still. Will give it a try again.


Phil
 

Mikel_Cooperman

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I finally watched the preview and thought it looked pretty good but I am not understanding why they made the professor the person they went after into someones Dad now.

Paul Walkers delivery of some of the lines in the trailer were pretty bad. I think he keeps getting hired because of his hunky looks because it sure isnt his acting talents.
 

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