Posted on 08/05/2004 10:54:11 AM PDT by Conservomax
Wait until you see the 'Sound of Thunder' trailer.
http://imdb.com/title/tt0318081/trailers
It looks to me like a combination of Jurassic Park and Timecop.
The story was written about 50 years ago - most pop culture ideas of Time travel and its effects come from the story, including those put forth in Jurassic Park.
Looks almost as good as The Core.
Don't worry.
After A Sound of Thunder, There Will Come Soft Rains.
I would like to see them try to make that one into a blockbuster. That would make a good short film, I think. Too bad Kubrick is dead.
I don't think anything will compare to the Simpson's take on this anyway. Homer goes back in time and when he comes back it's raining donuts. Priceless
BITS
It looks slightly better than LAND OF THE LOST.
I hate to say this in front of y'all, but as a big Ray Bradbury fan, but I think it looks good. They took the idea behind the short story, and expanded it to an action flick. Of course it was all added: teh original story was what, 8 pages? 16?
An interesting note: the story is the antithesis of Asimov's Foundation. In Foundation, Asimov asserted that events could be forecasted with such perfection that a team of researchers in one era could lay the groundwork for the entire course of history through thousands of years, only needing little periodic tweaks to control things. In Distant Sound, Bradbury argues what became known as "The Butterfly Effect" long before the movie of the same name: Any change of events, no matter how tiny, will cause phenomenally huge effects as time procedes further.
Fortunately, Ridley Scott is still alive.
The best part about that Simpsons parody is that he inadvertantly builds a time machine while trying to fix the toaster.
That single joke is genius on so many levels.
What's really funny is that they've taken the sting out of the title.
***SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN'T READ THE SHORT STORY***
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After one of them panics, runs off the path and steps on the butterfly, they go back to their present and find that the world has changed and a fascist dictator has just risen to power. The guide raises his rifle, points it at the coward who's changed the past and the last thing the coward hears is "The Distant Sound of Thunder."
So it seems like they've added on to the story after that point, while invalidating the title. Funny. Could be good, I'll wait and reserve judgment.
While I'm not sure that I would go quite as far Asimov, I definitely disagree with the "Butterfly Effect" thesis. I believe that probably 98-99 percent of regular everyday events are essentially meaningless in the grand course of history.
Of course if one of those really important things were to change even just a little, it could have most dramatic consequences.
What's the name of the story with the guys trapped on Venus trying to find the "Sun Dome" that would make an excellent movie.
Oh, that story. I used to read all his books when I was a lot younger and was trying to figure out which one this thread is about.
I imagine they would have to add something to stretch it into a full length movie.
Wasn't it a short story in "The Illustrated Man"? I believe the Rod Steiger movie covered it a little.
This is, of course, nonsense by any standard. The point of chaos theory is that a tiny change could result in a major effect, but only in a system that is inherently unstable. In real life, chaos can be harnessed to increase stability.
That was just a movie of various short stories. The actual short story was in 'R Is For Rocket', according to my lookup sources.
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