Ok, let's talk film. News on the Terminator front. The synopsis of Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins is now available to read. It's linked below, so read it if you please but note that it is difficult for me to understand because the Terminator series has bounced around time so much that it really is hard to keep track. I am quite sure that it is even hard for the writers to keep track about what everything is because the Terminator's notion of time travel has become convoluted through the three films. Don't believe me? Well, then feel free to prove me wrong, but I doubt anyone can tell me the whole three film span of the Terminator without stopping and backing up just a bit.
In short, the Terminator was send back in time to kill (bad Arnold Improv) SARAH CONNOR. But then two or three more Terminators were sent to kill her son years later. The future changed about three times in the films. I am for certain not bagging on these films at all. They are good films. Though today we will talk about the nature of doing a time travel movie, what works and what does not. I thought about this to some degree a while ago when Deja Vu hit the screens last year. To my knowledge of film, that is the only time travel film that is in the vast ball park of getting the theory of time travel right.


Which first brings us to the theory of time travel. Does it exist? There are different methods of real time time travel, if it does exist, in real life scenarios. Fascinatingly none of them contain a DeLorean. Not that there is anything wrong with that, Back to the Future is a great film, heck a bunches, they are all great films, but the idea of time travel has really yet to be explored to its fullest in Hollywood. I know. I know. "But, Jeff, Jeff! There have been so MANY time travel movies!" Actually no there hasn't. Below is the list of the biggest movies with the genre time travel:

Terminator
Addendum to Terminator
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
Back To The Future
Back To The Future II
Back To The Future III
Millennium
Star Trek Introduction
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Star Trek: Generations
Star Trek: First Contact
12 Monkeys
Addendum to 12 Monkeys
Flight Of The Navigator
Army of Darkness
Lost In Space
Peggy Sue Got Married
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey
Frequency
Planet of the Apes
Kate and Leopold
Somewhere In Time
The Time Machine
Minority Report
Happy Accidents
The Final Countdown
Donnie Darko
Harry Potter and
the Prisoner of Azkaban
Deja Vu

If you look closely at this list, its a short list. More that half of these movie have time travel scenes but are not full blown time travel movies. So why has not Hollywood taken advantage of this short list? Easy to explain. It takes A LOT of hard work to NUMBER ONE sell such and idea NUMBER TWO to write an original idea that doesn't involve a DeLorean or a stationary time machine with revolving gears and ratchets. I looked up the number of VAMPIRE films made and it lists to over 200. So it seems Vampires are easy, time travel is hard.

So the remainder of this article will be for the writers out there, I want to tell them what it takes to write a good time travel story. Deja Vu was a good time travel story because it focused on the elements of real time travel. The only real way to travel through time is using a worm hole. If you have ever seen Contact with Jodie Foster, you will see the science of wormholes and time travel done very scientifically. Deja Vu with Denzel Washington is also done scientifically and tries to be entertaining, yet it is a drama.

So there is a loophole here. If a writer (you) can take that idea of wormhole time travel and make it fun and engaging, I think you could have yourself, a good sellable script. Vampire free. Below I have linked an article on time travel theory relating to film. Yes you can use other means of time travel to make a time travel story interesting, but why not go the scientific route with a fun story. Its a good idea says me.

David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button's trailer is out now and I must say it looks really cool. It stars Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett and is about a man that ages backwards. It sounds like a flawed non interesting idea, though the trailer shows it as a character study along the lines of Forrest Gump. The curious thing about the film is he still starts out as a baby, but a really old baby. It looks really creepy. I just thank God its not like Mork and Mindy where Johnathan Winters was a cry baby old man. At least here it seems biologically believable.

Marvel studios is saying that all its future comic book movies will be rated PG-13 across the board. I guess they want to keep all the teens able to buy a ticket. I think it may be a wise idea. Sometimes the rating prohibits a film from making more money by cutting out a large movie going demographic like the teen audience. Harold and Kumar 2 underperformed at the box office because it was rated R on a weekend where a lot of teens went to the box office. So it is a very good idea to tone some films down in order to perform better at the cinema. Especially when DVD is a platform to UNRATED films anyway. A PG-13 film release and a uncensored DVD is great way to cash in twice. I think that is what Marvel may be looking at. That is what Harold and Kumar missed the boat on. Too bad for them.

So my weekend recommendations for this Rainy Memorial Day Weekend is go see Indiana Jones. It is such a wonderful film. I loved, loved, loved, loved, loved it. It was sooooo good and felt like seeing a old friend after years. I can't say you will love it, but I loved loved it. Also on video is National Treasure 2. See that. That is good also. Have a great Memorial Day Weekend and until Monday, let's talk film!

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1197277-terminator_salvation_the_future_begins/news/1730171/
http://www.iesb.net/index.php?option=com_ezine&task=read&page=1&category=1&article=4936
http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=45392
http://www.mjyoung.net/time/index.htm