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Timeline (2003)

 
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Bud Brewster
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Joined: 14 Dec 2013
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Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Sun Jun 07, 2015 4:22 pm    Post subject: Timeline (2003) Reply with quote

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Richard Donner directed this ambitious time travel yarn that presents a different kind of time machine than we're used to seeing. The time travelers are sent back by the machine -- they don't take it with them -- and the process has a very adverse affect on the bodies of the travelers.

The story focuses on the concept that changes in the past cause the entire timeline to be rewritten from the point of the change and continuing into the future.

Nothing new there.

What is new are the 14th century battles we get to see when the characters become involved in some very serious French history. This one is highly recommended.

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


Last edited by Bud Brewster on Fri Dec 23, 2022 6:25 pm; edited 9 times in total
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Bud Brewster
Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)


Joined: 14 Dec 2013
Posts: 17018
Location: North Carolina

PostPosted: Fri May 19, 2017 4:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

I'm surprised that this two-year-old thread still has no replies!

Admittedly I didn't say much about the movie, but that gives other members a chance to add some interesting things about this enjoyable movie.

Meanwhile, I'll add a few trivia items from IMDB (the text in blue), along with the trailer.
________________________________

Michael Crichton, author of the same-titled book off which this movie is based, disliked this movie so much that he refused to license any more movies based off of his novels. Nobody would gain the movie rights to a Michael Crichton book until Steven Spielberg, long-time friend of Michael Crichton, bought the rights to 'Pirate Latitudes' after Crichton's death.

Note from me: I like this movie, and I suspect the reason Michael Crichton disliked the finished film had to do with what is described in this next trivia item. It's extremely long, to I condensed it.

The film was originally slated to be released in the fall of 2002, however the studio was not happy with the Richard Donner's cut of the film . . . Donner was then forced to re-cut the film by Paramount . . . which also prompted another release date by the studio to March 2003. Paramount . . . was again unhappy with Donner's second cut of the film that he had delivered . . . Donner was forced to re-cut the film once more and the film was again delayed to an unspecified date . . . The final cut of the film would be 116 minutes from its original 136 min cut . . .

Note from me: Being forced to cut out 20 minutes of the film, parts of which were considered crucial to the story by both Donner and Crichton, is probably why this this movie earned about half its budget.

The problem of language is ignored in the film, having a French speaking character. In the novel, however, it is stated that -as in reality- people in 1357 did not speak modern English or French, but Occitane, a language which Marek is fluent in, according to the book. Also, the novel describes some high-tech translator devices the characters put in their ears, which also is absent in the movie.

Note from me: Star Trek used the concept of the "universal translators", but they never employed the simple idea of ear buds to deliver the English translations to the Federation crewmen. This would have made much more sense than just having the aliens suddenly start speaking English, while the series explained this to the audience as the result of those universal translators.

The obvious problem is that the Star Trek universal translators are speaking English out loud while the aliens ought to be speaking their own language out loud at the same time!

The obvious solution to this confusing situation is to have hi-tech ear buds which not only deliver the English translation directly into the ears of wearers, they simultaneously do what noise-cancelling headphones are capable of — mute the voice of the aliens so that the Federation personal can't even hear it!

And how, you may ask, do the aliens understand the Federation personal who are speaking English?

That is accomplished with more hi-tech magic by the ear buds: their mics pick up the English words being spoken by the wearer, but they mute those words as the leave the speaker's lips! The speaker hears what he's saying in the normal manner, but the ear buds project the alien translation to everyone present, so that the aliens hear the message in their own language! Very Happy

Admittedly this would be very tricky to do in the TV series, so they chose the simple solution — just let the aliens speak English (via the unseen universal translator), and ignore the sticky details. Laughing

If your thinking this seems like a lot for these little 23rd Century ear buds to do, bear in mind that Arthur C. Clark wrote a short story in the early 1950s as part of the anthology Tales from the White Heart, in which he described an electronic device that could counteract the sound produced by an entire symphony orchestra during a performance and create absolute silence!

_____________

Now you can buy these, which fit comfortable over your ears and do exactly what Clark described in his imaginative science fiction story!
Very Happy

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______________ Timeline (2003) movie trailer

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_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


Last edited by Bud Brewster on Fri Dec 23, 2022 6:34 pm; edited 5 times in total
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Custer
Space Sector Commander


Joined: 22 Aug 2015
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Location: Earth

PostPosted: Sat May 20, 2017 6:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's a few years since I listened to the 6-hour audiobook, on four cassettes — I see Audible has the unabridged version now, at over 17 hours. It seemed an entertaining story at the time, but you'd have to be pretty drastic to get it down to a 136 minute movie, let alone cut it to under two hours.
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alltare
Quantum Engineer


Joined: 17 Jul 2015
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PostPosted: Wed May 24, 2017 12:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bud Brewster wrote:
If your thinking this seems like a lot for these little 23rd Century ear buds to do, bear in mind that Arthur C. Clark wrote a short story in the early 1950s as part of the anthology Tales from the White Heart, in which he described an electronic device that could counteract the sound produced by an entire symphony orchestra during a performance and create absolute silence!

Now you can buy these, which fit comfortably over your ears and do exactly what Clark described in his imaginative science fiction story!
Very Happy

Well, not exactly, Bud. While they operate on the same principle as Clarke's sound blocker (combining the original sound with its inverted waveform), the upper practical limit of frequency response of these headphones is generally 300 to 400 hertz (If published at all, you'll usually find this info in fine print in the back of the owner's manual). The lowest frequency of human voice is about the same. So "noise cancelling" headphones are largely ineffective for blocking human voice, yapping dogs, or any other sounds of higher frequencies. However, they do work pretty well for blocking engine noise from cars and airplanes, machinery noise, and other low frequency sounds (When I turn on my Sony headphones in a completely quiet house, I always become aware of background noises that I never noticed until they disappear. Things like the refrigerator, air conditioner, etc.).

Many years ago, electronic piezoelectric car mufflers were introduced that operated similarly. High power ceramic transducers would invert and add car exhaust noise for a low restriction free flowing exhaust system.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Wed May 24, 2017 5:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Thanks, alltare! Very Happy

I don't own noise cancelling headphones, but the first time I heard of them I thought of the Arthur C. Clark story and was delighted by the idea that science was catching up with science fiction!

The concept that I presented in my post above (earbuds with mics what pick up a foreign language, convert it to English, cancel the noise of the other language while feeding English to the wearer) is just part of a concept I presented in another unpublished series of stories I wrote for my students when I was a teacher.

It's called The Fabulous Adventures of Me!. Two time traveling 5th grades (one from the present, one from 2058) visit various eras to learn history directly from history (like Ice Age Indian tribes, Native American tribes, etc.).

While doing so they're assisted by two smart-phone-size devices they wear on their belts, and these devices do several miraculous things to help them blend in flawlessly with the cultures they visited!

The two devices are named "Gidget and Gazmo" (the first one with a female voice, the second with a male voice.) The names were given to me years ago on a Sunday morning during a church sermon in which a Georgia preacher with a deep Southern accent delivered a message about how complicated our lives have become because of all the "gadgets and gizmos" we all have in our lives today.

Fortunately for me, he made a funny verbal slip and said "gidgets and gazmos", instead of what he meant to say.

And I sat bolt upright in my pew when I realized that these were the PERFECT names for the mini-computer "Guardians" my two 5th graders carried around in the stories I was writing for my 5th grade students!

The two Guardians offer guidance and protection for the two time-traveling 5th graders, answering their questions, translating languages for them (in and out), projecting holographic images around them so they look exactly like the people in the cultures they're visited, and even protecting them with force fields when they were in danger! Very Happy

The students in my classes received personal copies of the 20+ chapters I wrote of The Fabulous Adventures of Me!, which they kept in 3-ring binders, and I read each chapter aloud to them in our reading groups.

I'm not sure The Fabulous Adventures of Me! should be published (it doesn't really have a climax . . . yet), but I know it's a great story, and I'm very proud of it!

_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


Last edited by Bud Brewster on Wed Jun 15, 2022 2:53 pm; edited 2 times in total
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Zackuth
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Joined: 31 Jul 2015
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 03, 2017 10:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I really enjoyed this movie! I ended up buying the book and enjoying that as well. I do watch this quite often and I have read the book a couple of times. I never understood the low reception to the film. I didn't know that 20 minutes were cut from the movie and I want to watch a restored version.
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Robert (Butch) Day
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PostPosted: Fri Aug 24, 2018 8:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bud Brewster wrote:
The obvious problem is that the Star Trek universal translators are speaking English out loud while the aliens ought to be speaking their own language out loud at the same time!

The solution that was used in Dune (Universal 1984) is more 'real': speak into a microphone and the receiver hears your voice plus an almost simultaneous translation.
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