So, I've recovered from my ER weepiness..! But I have had a while. :-)

What have I done since I last blogged? Quite a bit, actually. Though it has been, erm, 5 days. So...

On Thursday I went to see Minority Report. I wasn't totally amazed by it, though it had some great touches. I'd been expecting it to be the next Blade Runner, but it was no-where near that.

Actually, I had a few problems with it because of the time travelly aspects. (Let's face it, the entire plot depended on that working, so...) I know my friend Ali feels kind of the same, so here goes. (Maybe I'm just being stupid, I don't know...!)

Highlight the following if you don't mind plot related detail! Why, if the three are seeing the future, can the future be changed? I mean, when he went to see the guy he was supposed to kill, he still ended up killing the person. Because that was what had been seen. Although not quite in that way. If you know what I mean. But the whole point of the system was that the future could be changed. So they were seeing things that were never going to happen. Trying to get my head around that is proving to be difficult! And don't get me started on gripping onto cars with sticky palms or something. And that eye guy. His revenge was making everyone think Anderton bought tank tops?

That said, a lot of the futuristic touches were great. Although the product placement made me laugh. Oh look, a Nokia laptop! Oh look, a Bulgari watch! Oh look, a Lexus car! And so on.

So many Sci-Fi "epics" these days are glossy but have no real depth. No real plot. Not when you analyse them. Unless I've changed and am no longer capable of liking a certain type of film.

I was a bit scared that that might be the case, actually. I thought I'd rewatch something I hold in high regard, just to make sure I still think it's great. So I rewatched Twelve Monkeys. Which is one of my favourite films. There's so much detail, it's so complicated, that every time you watch it you get a layer deeper. And I've watched it a lot of times...! This time round I went through another barrier. It went a bit like this. Bam! Wow! Why didn't I see that before? Am I stupid?

If you've watched it, maybe you understand what I mean. If you haven't, you probably won't get it. It's probably not to everyone's tastes. Some people probably don't like being make to think (and it will make you think!). But it's worth persevering with. Oh yes. :-)

Anyway, the point I was making was that it's insanely complicated, but when you get down to it it makes perfect sense. How many time travel stories make perfect sense? Michael Crichton's novel Timeline was a complete mess from a logical time travel standpoint. And I normally enjoy his books loads. He took two "ideas" of time travel - the type where you go to a different timeline, and the type where everything happens on the one timeline (and so it's already happened and so the future can't be changed) - and mashed them all together. Eep.

Even Bill and Ted dealt with time travel in a more believable way, for crying out loud!

I know Minority Report wasn't time travel as such, but surely it should have had rules to it. Or maybe that's just me.

Maybe people who make films these days are afraid to take risks. Blade Runner was never a huge box office hit, though it has a huge cult following these days. It's too dark, too grim, too... inaccessible. The same with Twelve Monkeys. Too many people start watching it and think, "What on Earth is this horrible film about? I don't get it!". It's the same disease that's hit books - chick lit, the Bridget Jones effect.

Is this the end for intelligent, gritty, cinema?

I hope not.

Wow, and that was just Thursday! Heh.

posted by Fiery Fred @ 10:23 PM