Take away the questions
Discover Magazine has a list of eleven Rules for Time Travelers, which seems pertinent given the double whammy of Lost and the new Star Trek.
I’m largely on board with most of their recommendations, particularly the idea that there are no paradoxes. I’m not talking scientifically here — I honestly have no idea how to crunch the numbers to prove this point. But in terms of fiction, and screenwriting in particular, I’d argue you need to actively crush any talk of paradoxes or impossible conundrums. They will grind your story to a halt.
I did a little work on Minority Report, a Scott Frank adaptation of a Philip K. Dick story which is enjoyable for its combined Frank-Dickness. Minority Report doesn’t deal with time travel, but rather its pushy cousin called precognition — knowledge of the future. In the story, police use precognition to stop murders before they happen.
But! But! How do you know the murders were going to happen? You changed things. So for every crime, you would need to prove that the soon-to-be-killers were absolutely, unquestionably going to do it. Which seems impossible.
I argued that you couldn’t just answer those questions when they came up. You had to take away that whole class of questions, early and forcefully.
Here’s the scene I wrote:
WITWER
But it’s not the future if you stop it. Isn’t that a fundamental paradox?
Jad sets the sphere down on the table, needing both hands to explain this.
JAD
You’re really talking about predetermination, which happens all the time.
Unseen by Jad, the sphere is starting to roll towards the edge of the table, building up speed.
JAD (CONT’D)
In fact, it’s easy to demonstrate...
At the last moment, Witwer catches it. Everyone smiles.
KNOTT
Why did you catch that?
WITWER
Because it was going to fall.
FLETCHER
You’re certain?
WITWER
Yes.
JAD
But it didn’t fall. You caught it.
Witwer smiles a little, starting to catch on.
JAD (CONT’D)
The fact that you prevented it from happening doesn’t change the fact that it was going to happen.
WITWER
It’s the same with the murders.
FLETCHER
The precogs are showing us what’s going to happen unless we stop it.
(In the final movie, it’s Tom Cruise’s character (Anderton) rather than Jad who provides the explanation. And that’s an understandable change: you want your hero to feel in command of the facts.)
In any script, look for scenes in which characters answer questions, and try to find ways to take the questions away. Often, that means backing up five or ten pages, well before the audience has started to formulate their concerns, and finding a way to visualize (or better yet, physicalize) the problem.
The first Jurassic Park does this well, with the animated science lesson setting the ground rules and chopping down poles upon which red flags might fly. Likewise, the first acts of most horror movies are largely devoted to creating situations in which the characters can’t simply escape or call for help. The more artfully it’s done, the less you notice the setup.
Nor can comedies waste time addressing audience concerns. Groundhog Day churns through a number of possible solutions to Bill Murray’s dilemma in a montage that makes you feel certain that he’s tried everything, whether you’ve thought of it or not.
Don’t answer questions. Get rid of them before they’re asked.
UPDATE: The weird thing about running this blog for 5+ years is that I sometimes forget which questions I’ve answered, and which anecdotes I’ve given. I wrote this post an hour ago, but it covers a lot of the same ground as last year’s longer and better essay on How to Explain Quantum Mechanics. Credit for consistency, I guess.
Articles
May 20th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
There’s one time travel question I simply cannot get rid off though…
Why don’t Lorraine and George McFly realize that their son Marty looks exactly like the guy who helped them becoming a couple in the 1950s? Is this the biggest time travel movie mistake ever made or did I miss out on something? Hopefully, somebody can help me, please!!! ;)
May 20th, 2009 at 2:07 pm
Has this post has traveled to the future?
personally I love scenes like the one you wrote above, an intellectual tickle. I remember that scene when I saw the movie and thinking, “yeah, that’s good enough for me…moving on!”
May 20th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Hahaha, to the update.
But MAN that scene rocked! Seriously one of the scenes I remember best from Minority Report — and considering my terrible memory, that’s a huge compliment.
May 20th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Thanks for this. It’s good to understand how to prevent a script delema before it even starts.
Funny enough, the scene you wrote, and the scene in which Lois Smith explains her involvement (and kisses Tom Cruise), are the only parts of the film I really liked. The rest seemed like a whole bunch of question posing (and not answering) scenes. Like, why does the doctor that Tom Cruise helped put in jail, help Tom by changing his eyes AND make him a sandwich! You would think after he has Tom in such a vulnerable position he would toss the eyes out the window. Also, why doesn’t the “Pre-Crime” unit change the access codes so Tom’s character can’t get in with his old card (I’ve been “let go” by my share of jobs and every one of them either took my access cards back, or deleted me from the system that day…and I wasn’t charged with any pre-crime murder!) I guess they didn’t read this post :)
Thanks again John, RTA
May 20th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
@ Sarah:
It may very well be that Marty McFly of 1985 was named after the Marty of 1955 in honor of his memory. Why they’d wait to honor him with their second son, we’ll never know.
I think the surest answer, besides fading memories, would have to be that they do not consider it a possibility that they could be connected in any way. And it only heightens the irony that we know so much more than they, who are blind that their lives are completely than what they could have been.
Hmmm, was Back to the Future the inspiration for Quantum Leap? Setting right what once went wrong.
May 20th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
that’s a great explanation via that scene. Very clever.
I remember watching that scene in the theater and completely getting it. Years later, I find out you wrote it, cool.
May 20th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
John, can you expound a bit more on true paradoxes (things that are both true and false at the same time) … I may be simple, but the explanation they gave confused me …
What and why can’t it exist, in simple terms?
May 20th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
I’m probably going to sound like a jerk here, but the snippet you posted is someone asking a question and getting an answer. It doesn’t really get rid of a question, it just takes care of it early on. Unless you’re talking about getting rid of the audience’s questions.
I think the big lesson from this and the “Jurassic Park” scene is that you need to establish the rules of the film’s universe in the first act.
May 20th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
The article got me thinking about the Terminator series.
In the first film, the future is resolutely decided. Nothing can change what’s coming, and arguably, sending someone back in time to protect Sarah Connor is unnecessary.
In the second film, not only is the audience led to believe that the future can be changed, but we’re also given a paradox that the terminator from the first film was the inspiration behind skynet.
In the third film, we return to the conclusion that the future cannot be altered, merely… delayed?
I don’t think there’s anymore time travel after that, but it’s an interesting change from film to film.
Also, for an AWESOME look at the Many-World-Interpretation, please find the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode called “Parallels.”
May 20th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
@Grant:
It’s bundling together a huge batch of questions and killing them at once. “For purposes of our story, precognition is like gravity. You don’t have to understand it to accept it.”
@Chris:
Continuing that thread, The Sarah Connor Chronicles was essentially many-worlds. Derek and Jesse realized they were from different timelines. And there was an element of predermination as well: You could stop SkyNet from manifesting in its original form, but it ultimately would somehow.
May 20th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
John,
God bless your post, because it allows me to segue into a question I have wanted to ask you for some time on your blog. Perhaps you can address it here?
Since you are a fan of Lost, a screenwriter, and a technophile, what is your particular opinion of the execution of Season 5 of Lost, as well as the time travel in Star Trek.
I think Star Trek was artfully executed, but I don’t know if I agree with the writers’ presupposition that time travel and a ‘harmony of canon” was the only way to tell a new story while preserving the Trek Universe. I was hoping that they would find a more elegant way in the third act of the movie to reconcile their excellent story with the same universe/timeline. It felt like they took an easy way out.
I think that if you are going to dip into that risky narrative well, you better have an ingenius way out. Perhaps the Nolan brothers as worthy of such a task, but Kurtzman and Orci?
I mention this because I find this “lazy” writing style also evident in Fringe and Transformers — two other projects that this team created. The whole CUBE STORYLINE in Transformers did not resolve in an elegant and logical way, and it seems like these writer’s don’t think we will notice because of their emphasis on momentum, pace, and action.
Worse, they are now the go-to writers for the modern tent pole action movie as they embody the modern studio approach — to pander to the widest demographic at the expense of good storytelling.
I enjoyed the execution of Star Trek so much that it was only later that the bitter aftertaste hit me.
On a similar note, Lost is neck-deep in the paradoxes of time travel, and according to the Lost blogosphere, this has resulted in a season that was generally ineffective in maintaing a coherent narrative. The Lost producers want to have it both ways: determinism AND free will. I wish they make a concrete choice.
I don’t expect you to badmouth Damon Lindelof or Orci/Kurtzman, but I thought that your intellectual John August brain would have some strong opinions on the subject. I appeal to the higher geek in you.
My take? I applaud Lindelof for making the brave choice to go the time travel route, and the writing team over there is doing an admirable job considering the heavy mythology and TV work schedule to deal with. Until we know what they do with their final season, the jury is still out. But Star Trek, on the other hand, has no excuse.
May 20th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
I loved that scene as well. It’s a great way to take something that’s very talk centric and putting it out there as something that is action centric. I had some other stuff typed up to make it sound like I was contributing and not just blowing sunshine up your ass but really just wanted to say that that scene is fantastic.
May 20th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
Wow, that’s beautiful writing. So slick. I’d like to be that good.
May 20th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
And if you can’t avoid or explain, there’s always the cleverly self-referential, as in this bit from the Sarah Connor Chronicles (from my bad memory, sorry):
[Man approaches Jesse at bar] Man: Whatcha drinkin’? Jesse: I don’t know. Man: You don’t know what you’re drinking? Jesse: There’s booze in it, some sugary crap, and ice. Man [to bartender]: Can you get her another one…whatever it’s called… [to Jesse] How do you order it? Jesse: Just like you did. Man: But it’s gotta start somewhere, right? I mean you can’t just sit down and ask for that right off…? [change of subject :)]
May 20th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
Here’s another way of taking away the questions, you bury them underneath other questions.
Take LOST, for instance.
What the hell is that black smoke thingie… Wait, are those numbers magical, because it doesn’t semm like… Whoa! Is that the main character’s father who was dead a few weeks ago? Nevermind, they are taking all of the children! Why…? Wow! Jacob is now Locke!
How can any screenwriter like that… is beyond me.
Even 4-years old children know that stories require a beginning, something in-between and an ending.
Lost hasn’t figured out that last part yet.
Sorry about the /rant mode. But I think it’s something pertinent, considering the subject. I mean…
Don’t answer questions. Get rid of them before they’re asked = right
Don’t answer questions. Get rid of them after they’re asked = wrong.
May 20th, 2009 at 8:35 pm
@James
Re: Star Trek. I’d rather see the new film series take place in a universe where anything can happen and anyone can die and new twists are around every corner. They made the best and smartest decision in keeping the new franchise in an alternate reality. Some of the exposition and Nero’s motivation is a total mess, but it’s the most fun genre movie to come around in years and I don’t understand the people who are nitpicking it.
May 20th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
@ James
“The Lost producers want to have it both ways: determinism AND free will. I wish they make a concrete choice.”
Just a Q…isn’t one of the main themes of Lost that very question? Free will vs Fate/Destiny? If the writers chose to go with one over the other, then isn’t the show over?
May 20th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
@Chris (#5) Hmmm, was Back to the Future the inspiration for Quantum Leap? Setting right what once went wrong.
I wouldn’t be surprised, since Donald Bellisario’s series do tend to appear shortly after a major movie exploring a similar theme or plot.
Bellisario was IIRC co-creator (with Glen Larson) of the original Battlestar Galactica; its similarities to Star Wars are obvious (to say the least). Then there’s J.A.G.; no doubt in my mind it was inspired by A Few Good Men, both involving lawyers in the military. NCIS is a spinoff of J.A.G. that combines the military setting with the police procedural of the CSI franchise.
And there may be other examples with which I’m not familiar.
May 20th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
John, I have always loved that exchange in Minority Report. But it seems to me that the exchange, in the context of the film as a whole, raises at least as many questions as it answers. Put simply, what happens when the sphere can catch itself? If Tom Cruise sees himself committing a crime, should not the very act of seeing his own future cause him to act in ways that prevent that future from ever happening? And yet the movie goes in the opposite direction, such that Cruise’s vision of his own future causes him to fulfill that future through his subsequent actions.
May 20th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
I had this discussion with a NASA scientist. We concluded that a specific outcome may well be predetermined, but the ins and outs of how that outcome is reached can vary. This model allows for both fate and chance to co-exist. Think of it as a ball being shot, bouncing around, and finally getting lost in a pinball machine and you get the picture…
May 21st, 2009 at 2:44 am
Interestingly enough, I saw both Star Trek and Terminator: Salvation tonight, and while I won’t go into spoilers, it’s important to note (to me, at least) that Star Trek seemed to follow the first rule of time travel not only directly, but acceptably. It’s explained, we can move on.
Terminator, on the other hand, is a paradox, but more than that, it never explains the paradox or the consequences of violating it.
On the third hand, while Back to the Future is ridiculously paradoxical in many ways, we understand the consequences. Marty starts to fade away. It follows its own rules, whether they are possible in the real world or not, which is very important when we get down to our “movie logic.”
What I mean to say is that Star Trek handled its time travel satisfactorily and Terminator did not.
I love this conversation, just FYI, BTW.
May 21st, 2009 at 7:51 am
A show like LOST is a bad example in my opinion as the show revolves around the characters finding the answers to the questions and when they do, we do too.
Some people seem to be mistaking the point I think. It is okay to have (important in alot of cases) questions as long as we’re searching for the answers together (viewer.characters) and these things are resolved by movie/season/series end.
What we can’t do is have huge gaping plot questions unanswered like in the Minority Report and Jurrasic Park examples or say if we never learn how Bruce Banner becomes the Hulk or never see that Peter Parker gets bitten by a spider etc.
May 21st, 2009 at 11:31 am
Re: paradoxes in time travel, I don’t think you can always get rid of the questions. The main paradox is the grandfather clause. That’s the one that basically states that if I were to go back in time and shoot my grandfather before my father was conceived, then I wouldn’t have been born, therefore I couldn’t have gone back in time to kill my grandfather.
The only way out is what the Star Trek team chose to do, which was to posit an alternate reality, which is bizarre in the extreme considering how many years the various Star Trek franchises have been running, but I understand why they wanted to do it.
An example where the Star Trek writers did do away with a question was the whole Red Matter thing. What’s red matter? Who knows?
Those writers represent something I think is very dangerous to modern movies. The notion that logic and ridiculous coincidences don’t matter as long as you keep the viewer’s mind occupied with stuff happening on the screen every second. In Transformers there was no time to question why the map/spectacles, which were so important through much of the movie, were in the film at all when the bad guys simply followed the military boys to their destination. They never used the map, and the glasses were never heard from again.
In Fringe, characters appear in places they couldn’t have possibly known about, doing things they shouldn’t know how to do.
In Star Trek, Scotty was found on an ice planet that Jim was only sent to because of this alternate timeline. Then he came aboard and became the main engineering honcho because apparently they don’t already have engineers aboard starships.
May 21st, 2009 at 11:32 am
This seems pretty relevant, I suppose–an article I had published about a well-written Act One or set-up, whatever you wanna call it, and the example I use is Back to the Future. Good, efficient seed-planting in the early scenes without sacrificing momentum and we don’t ever feel too much like we’re being explained to. Plus, time travel. All relevant…
Here ya go, for any who may be interested:
http://www.bananawho.com/2009/05/back-to-the-future-an-ode-to-act-i/
May 21st, 2009 at 11:47 am
John,
I guess you did your job with that scene, because people seem to like it, but here’s why it doesn’t work:
It equates two fundamentally different things, human behavior and falling objects. In order for them to be comparable, we have to assume that either falling objects can, but don’t, choose not to fall, or that humans, like masses in a gravitational field, have no free will.
Since the former is fundamentally absurd, and the latter would basically destroy the movie (it would be unjust to imprison anyone for actions outside of their control), I assume neither is the case; so the question remains unanswered, and the scene is merely misdirection. Deft, but nothing more than sleight-of-tongue.
I don’t remember if the pre-criminals were being convicted of murder or pre-murder or what, but it would make more sense to simply prosecute them for something they did do, like attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon. Of course, the police would have to wait, but that would be required anyway, since our legal system gives defendants the right to confront their accuser and it seems doubtful that Agatha would do much testifying.
Minority Report is overall very poorly written and I’m sorry to hear that you had anything to do with it.
May 21st, 2009 at 1:36 pm
Real paradoxes aren’t very exciting. Take Russell’s Paradox (proposed by philosopher and mathematician, Bertrand Russell) for example:
Imagine a collection of things, say apples. In mathematics that collection is called a set. A normal set is one that isn’t a member of itself. Since the set of all apples isn’t itself an apple then that set is normal. However, the set of all things that aren’t apples is abnormal because it is a member of itself (i.e., it isn’t an apple). But if you think about the set of all normal sets (i.e., the set of all sets who aren’t members of themselves) you will arrive at a paradox. If the set of all normal sets is normal then it must contain itself (thus making it abnormal). However, if it doesn’t contain itself then it must be normal and therefore must be included in the set of all normal sets (i.e., itself), thereby making it abnormal. Feel free to take your time and let that all sink in.
The real point of my mentioning this is that this paradox caused some serious problems in the mathematical community. How did they get around it? They ignore it. With axiomatic set theory they just changed the rules so that it becomes a non-issue. If that’s a good enough strategy for mathematicians then it should be just fine for us writers.
May 21st, 2009 at 4:08 pm
@ Mark
You’re wrong. Articulate. But wrong. The scene does not compare falling objects to human behavior, but gravity to precognition, as both – according to the universe of this story – are laws of nature.
May 21st, 2009 at 5:36 pm
That was always my favorite scene in the movie! I thought it was a very clever way to explain everything.
May 21st, 2009 at 9:17 pm
A true precog would have realized that it was going to be caught and that there was no chance of it falling.
Or someone might have prevented it from being caught. Who? Potentially a precog at the table.
I got plenty more. Crap, my girlfriend just dumped a tub o’ popcorn on my head.
May 21st, 2009 at 11:03 pm
@ Mark:
Of COURSE the scene was misdirection! That’s the idea! Distract the audience with what they’ll temporarily accept as a valid explanation and get on with the story. They’ll be able to ponder the implications of precognition and free will as they’re leaving the theater. (By the way, an implied lack of free will wouldn’t “destroy the movie,” nor would it stop cops from arresting people.)
John:
What’s interesting about Lost is that it has tried to do exact the opposite of what you suggest: instead of taking away the time travel question — can you change the future, or can’t you? — it has purposefully left it there all season. I’d love to hear whether or not you think they made it work.
May 22nd, 2009 at 3:25 am
I don’t understand your example. Didn’t we already know everything that is “explained” in this scene from the opening sequence? The precogs cry murder, Anderton gets the message and stops the husband from killing his wife and her lover in the nick of time – if he hadn’t been there, the husband would clearly have gone through with the killing. And in this scene we learn that if you don’t stop the killing from happening, it will… actually happen? The scene seems to just reiterate stuff we already know.
@John “For purposes of our story, precognition is like gravity. You don’t have to understand it to accept it.”
That’d be fine if Minority Report was an episode of Medium, where you know the vision will come true and the trick lies in figuring out how. But after “explaining” how precognition works for the purposes of the story, Minory Report tries very hard to convince me that… precognition may actually NOT work the way it’s been explained and that Anderton may have a shot at not committing the murder.
May 22nd, 2009 at 6:01 am
I’ve personally enjoyed on Lost the way they sometimes use Hurley as a proxy for the audience. He gets to ask the obvious questions that we’re all thinking. In general, though, I don’t think Lost has been very good at squashing questions by laying ground rules (and maybe that’s very intentional).
May 23rd, 2009 at 8:10 pm
@Johnny Hartmann
It’s true that the scene is comparing gravity to precognition, but I don’t see how you can deny that it is, in doing this, also comparing falling objects to human behavior.
If you like, I’ll say it’s comparing gravity regarding wooden balls to precognition regarding human behavior. It’s the human behavior part that’s important. If it was precognition regarding dice rolls or coin flips I would have no problem.
@Michael
I thought the idea was to address questions or questionable aspects of the movie in an intelligent, effective way–or as John says, to “kill” the questions–not to treat the audience like children.
What I was left pondering as I left the theater was how a movie with such numerous and gaping plot holes escaped development.
Also, I didn’t say it would stop cops from arresting people–it wouldn’t, as they would have no more volition than the murders–just that it would be unjust.
May 24th, 2009 at 10:30 am
Precognition accurateley predicts the future. Human behavior is part of that. So is the weather. It applies to all things. Just like gravity. The point is, the scene does not compare the two, it uses one to illustrate the other. It’s about the shared principle that both are predetermined. A ball will fall (as gravity will pull it towards the earth). And the future will happen (as predicted by the precogs).
May 24th, 2009 at 10:01 pm
John,
Great link, since I’m about to start work on a time-travel script while between projects.
In general, I definitely go out of my way to directly address any questions which will invariably come up. Whenever there’s a “plot hole” like these, I always wonder why someone doesn’t just ask the main character this very question and have him/her address it (just like in Minority Report).
May 25th, 2009 at 6:50 am
Danny Rubin (the guy who wrote Groundhog Day) was asked to write in a “gypsy curse scene” to explain why Phil was stuck repeating the same day over and over — but thankfully it never made it to the screen. Some questions need to be dealt with proactively, and some just need to be ignored.
May 25th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Ben,
You create the rules of your universe and then you abide by them.
Back to the Future was careful to lay down its own rules. You can’t do X, but you can do Y. If Marty doesn’t repair the timeline, he will fade from his photograph and from history. In a clever twist, by repairing the past, Marty was able to improve his future timeline as well. And we all go along because the author was consistent to his universe and the tone of his piece.
It is the same with Minority Report. They lay out the science fiction premise and we go along for the ride. When the paradoxes get written into the plot, it does become VERY complicated. Nevertheless, form follows function, and those time travel pecadillos are part and parcel of the Minority Report premise and execution.
Star Trek is not hinged on a time travel premise. Quite the contrary. Standing on the shoulders of endless amounts of preexisting mythology and content, we have a social contract with the filmmakers that we are going to get more of the same, albeit, updated with modern special effects and JJ Abrams’ savvy rock and roll attitude. Lo — we have come to bear witness to the early years of Kirk and Spock. In essence, we bought a ticket to see the Starfleet Academy days.
We learn only at the mid-act climax that the current timeline we have been watching is an altered one. Then, though a vulcan mind meld, we are treated to confusing exposition about RED MATTER to explain this.
Then they follow that bit of chicanery with yet more. Fine. We ASSUME Kirk has to right what went wrong. That will surely the timeline, save Vulcan, etc. so that cosmos is the same and those wonderful Next Generation episodes can still happen down the line.
Not so fast. Well, our ASSUMPTION is wrong. In a very unsatisfying scene between Spock Prime and New Spock, we realize that this is a new timeline. Forever. In the old one, Kirk’s father lived to old age. In this one, he dies heroically to save his son.
Does speculative quantum mechanics make this possible?
Sure. Is it good storytelling? No.
Now you might say, “Well, I will swallow that bitter pill so that I can have real suspense. If I know they all live, why will I then watch?”
Well, Ben, it is an ORIGIN story. There are inherent limitations on the form. Don’t we know Darth Vadar’s future plans when he is a boy? But we bought a ticket to Phantom Menace anyway. This is not a story limitation, per se, but a grand opportunity to show turning points. When did Kirk find his leadership, or Spock his ability to suppress emotion?
The movie succeeds when it plays with these story points. Bones begins by adoring Spock, only to detest him the moment Spock turns on Kirk. Great. So that is the origin of their feud!
Only, wait… it isn’t. Because this is the drastically new timeline. See what I mean? You can’t have it both ways. But the movie did, and then just ended as a springboard for new sequels.
Now having said that, I totally dug the movie for the most part. Star Trek was a fun genre movie. In fact, in Imax, it is downright magical.
But you just can’t have it both ways. We can’t be delighted to find out the origin of Star Trek lore only to throw it out and present an alternate reality…
If you watch the movie a second time, as I did, you will basically see that:
The time travel plot is illogical. Red Matter is never explained except as the most simple of McGuffins. The Bad Guy was very cliched and uninteresting.
Finally, I couldn’t help but notice that this was more of a Star Wars movie than a Star Trek film, down to the production design and tone. It’s homages to Star Trek were of the most superficial nature: “Damnit, I’m a doctor, Jim!” Yet beasts, cantina scenes, and non-stop action abound.
Fortunately for me, I like both Star Trek and Star Wars. But I also call a movie as I see it. I was not emotionally satisfied with this story, and I feel it’s amazing reviews have yet to take into account the lack of elegance with which this particular time travel choice was executed.
May 25th, 2009 at 9:50 pm
@Johnny Hartmann
“Precognition accurateley predicts the future.”
The truth of the movie–and the reason for this scene–is that precognition does not always accurately predict the future. If it did, then either the prevention of foreseen murders would be impossible, or the visions would be of the precrime agents swooping in to stop the murder. Neither is the case.
“The point is, the scene does not compare the two, it uses one to illustrate the other.”
OK, fine, it uses the comparison (“It’s the same with the murders”) to illustrate. Quibbling is unproductive.
May 25th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
@ Mark
I’m not going to get into a discussion about time travel paradoxes. This is about screenwriting. And the scene is about demonstrating the premise of the film: pregogs are showing them what’s going to happen unless they stop it. In doing so, the scene preemptively answers the question: How can you be so sure it would have happened? Well, how can you be so sure the sphere would’ve fallen. It’s really not that complicated. Whether the precogs ARE always spot on or not is not the issue. Jed and his peeps believe they are and so the story unfolds…
And no, it’s not “the same as with murders”. Murders don’t fall off tables do they?
May 26th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
@Johnny Hartmann
“I’m not going to get into a discussion about time travel paradoxes.”
I don’t believe I’ve mentioned either time travel or paradoxes.
“And the scene is about demonstrating the premise of the film: pregogs are showing them what’s going to happen unless they stop it. In doing so, the scene preemptively answers the question: How can you be so sure it would have happened? Well, how can you be so sure the sphere would’ve fallen. It’s really not that complicated.”
I agree that it’s not complicated. One can be sure the sphere would’ve fallen because such things are governed by defined physical laws. Human behavior does not follow such a deterministic trajectory; therefore, the analogy is inapt.
“And no, it’s not “the same as with murders”. Murders don’t fall off tables do they?”
I don’t know if you didn’t read the scene or didn’t see the quotation marks, but I can’t believe you posted this.
May 26th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
@ Mark
If you’re ten years or younger, I apologize. But your arguments are not only flawed, they are also repetitive. And you’re getting abrasive (it means bitchy). Enjoy your Power Rangers.
May 27th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Don’t answer questions. Get rid of them before they’re asked.
Oh man thanks so much for that! From now on I’m going to make sure I think about that before I write anything. So simple & so smart.
May 27th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
@Johnny Hartmann
Name-calling with a side of misplaced condescension? Good luck with that. And your unnecessary parenthetical definition is even incorrect! Delicious.