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"A Sound of Thunder" Movie This Summer 273

Posted by Hemos from the producing-the-stories dept.
Syberghost writes "Ray Bradbury's classic short story "A Sound of Thunder" is being released thus summer as a movie. It's directed by Peter Hyams, who's done the time travel thing before, but it appears that some of the major characters from the Bradbury story aren't in the credits."
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"A Sound of Thunder" Movie This Summer More

"A Sound of Thunder" Movie This Summer

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  • A whole movie? (Score:5, Informative)

    by mikeophile ( 647318 ) on Monday May 24, 2004 @12:05AM (#9235025)
    Here's [raybradbury.com]what the Man himself has to say.

  • I hope... (Score:4, Funny)

    by HughDario ( 741581 ) on Monday May 24, 2004 @12:06AM (#9235030)
    they don't accidently harm any animals in the making, wouldn't that be a shame?

  • Cool! (Score:5, Funny)

    by isNaN ( 45985 ) <`moc.liamg' `ta' `nossealc.naitsabes'> on Monday May 24, 2004 @12:08AM (#9235039)
    Yes!

    This is awesome! I have been waiting for a sci-fi remake of Sound of Music! Finaly!
    • I had the opposite problem and thought at first this was a "Days of Thunder" sequel. No where near as impressive. Unless it was set in the future and had an F-Zero tie-in of some kind, of course. :)

  • Is this Really the Same Story? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TheWanderingHermit ( 513872 ) on Monday May 24, 2004 @12:08AM (#9235042)
    I just read the synopsis in the link.

    To me, the original story was a great short. The ending was perfect and there was a great timing to everything.

    But to make it movie length, it sounds like the bulk of the plot in the movie takes place after the ending of the story. If you want to make a story about time travel changing the present, why ruin a great short by turning it into a preface to another story? Why not just come up with a simple reason history is changed and THEN tell the story about dealing with the changes?

    I love Ray Bradbury's stories. There's a wonderful sense of timing, rhythm, playfulness, poetry, horror, and fun. It sounds like some of the most important elements of what makes a Bradbury story so good are being ignored here.

    Maybe, instead of wasting the time and money to see this, I'll find a DVD of Francois Truffaut's adaption of Farheinheit 451 and watch that instead.
    • To me, the original story was a great short. The ending was perfect and there was a great timing to everything.

      Really? Even Bradbury admits he fumbled it. The written language changes, but all that happens to an election is that a different person wins? Huh?

      Someone ought to do a good Martian Chronicles. I think you could still pull it off with current knowledge if you just move the Martians underground, and use an effed up Earth as the impudence for the colonization.

      • Re:Is this Really the Same Story? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by TheWanderingHermit ( 513872 ) on Monday May 24, 2004 @12:34AM (#9235148)
        Maybe the language change would change more, maybe not. It's a short story.

        I read it for the first time in 8th grade and hadn't re-read it for decades (not that I avoided it, but I'm not much on re-reading -- except for Shakespeare). It had such a strong impact on me I that I remembered most of it, almost scene-by-scene.

        To me that's effective. If it weren't, I'd have forgotten it like I did most of the stories in that anthology, but this story made such a strong impression I remembered many parts of it clearly for decades.

        I write myself, and I would feel that any story I wrote that had that strong an impact on a reader was a definite success. Maybe some technical details were wrong (who knows -- we don't have the experiece to be sure), but any story that can leave an impression that lasts for decades is worth recognition.
      • All it would have taken for US written English to have changed would have been for 1. Someone else other than Caxton to have popularized mass printed literature (of for Caxton to make different choices about the spellings he chose 2. Chambers to have made different choices about his reform of US spelling, or someone else to have done the job. I suspect we are already in the alternative timeline. No-one here would ever vote for someone called President Keith.
      • I think there are much bigger weaknesses than that only the winner of the election changes. The changes that occur come about because Eckel steps off the path and kills a butterfly. However, if changes that small affect things, then the entire safari would change things. An animal sees the metal path they errected and changes its course to get around it. It escapes death (or alternately, find it) because it's in a different location when a predator comes by. The T. rex sees the hunters and charges towa

    • Re:Is this Really the Same Story? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by mm0mm ( 687212 ) on Monday May 24, 2004 @12:50AM (#9235209)
      When the Hollywood picks up a novel and makes a film based on it, the film version becomes a separate entity from the novel. Keep in mind that the director will make the film according to HIS interpretations of the same story we've read. In addition the studio, producers and director will alter the settings and the story line in the way they want to so that the film becomes more suitable for their targeted audiences. It is extremely rare for a director to have enough (political) power during the development stage to maintain the authenticity of the novel. As a result, the finished film will be losely resembling to the book.

      The author of the original novel is usually credited ambiguously as "story by" or "based on." Actual writing for the film is done by an army of screenwriters and script doctors, who will receive little credits (if they are lucky!). The only reason the studio gives credit to the author of the novel is so that they won't be involved in legal troubles. Well-known writers with a household name also have added value for the marketing of the film.

      When you see a film based on a novel, don't expect to see what you read in the original novel --because no film director can beat what your imagination can create. Films hit your vision. Novels speak to your heart.

      • Re:Is this Really the Same Story? (Score:5, Informative)

        by TheWanderingHermit ( 513872 ) on Monday May 24, 2004 @01:16AM (#9235305)
        The credits "story by" and "based on" are two entirely DIFFERENT credits, with different meanings. "Based on" means the script (or outline) is based on a story, novel, poem or other work that was pre-existing and (except in a few cases) was written for it's own sake, and not intended to be part of the process of making a movie. If I write a novel, even if I am hoping it will be turned into a movie, and a producer buys rights and someone else does all the writing form then on, I'd get a "based on" credit.

        "Story by" means someone wrote the story for the screenplay under contract. I'll use ST: Next Gen as an example (I'd doing this because I came very close to selling to them and had essentially an open door to pitch to them until G.R. died and some things got reshuffled -- it's a TV show, not a movie, but the points are the same). When I pitched a story to Trek, if they bought it, they would likely pay me for the story. I'd write up a story (NOT a screenplay), broken down into acts to give the general outline of the story, along with some sense of the timing of the plot. If I'm lucky, and they think I can do it, THEN they'd offer me the chance to write the script. If you look at the credits on ST:TNG (and many TV shows), often there is a credit "Story by" -- that means that writer wrote the story, but (in most cases) someone else took that story (or outline) and actually wrote the script.

        It'd be possible for one person (called Author) write a novel, a producer to buy rights, and assign a writer (called Adaptor) to write a story outline to base a script on, and to pay yet another writer (called ScreenWriter) to write the script. In true Hollywood style, they'd probably hire yet another writer (called Rewriter) to re-write the script (whether it needed or not). The credits would be something like:

        Based on the novel by Author.

        Story by Adaptor.

        Written by
        ScreenWriter
        And
        ReWriter

        I can't remember for sure, but I think "&" was used to indicate to writers working together (like "Jane & John Doe") and "and" was used to distingiush between writers that worked on different drafts.
        • Thanks for the info. I wasn't so clear about writers credits in details, as I am not on that side of the business. It sounds somewhat complicated.

          I've heard from people I know, though, that writer's credits are often regarded too lightly despite their creative contributions to the story and hours they spend. Hollywood needs to pay more respects to writers, IMO, because all the film making begins on the keyboard (or with a pen and paper!).

          • Re:Is this Really the Same Story? (Score:4, Interesting)

            by TheWanderingHermit ( 513872 ) on Monday May 24, 2004 @01:57AM (#9235424)
            If you're interested in some good background on Hollywood from a writer's perspective, read up on J. Michael Straczynski's posts in r.a.s.t.b5.moderated or any of the other archives. JMS is the brain behind Babylon 5 (for those that don't know). He points out the many ways writers are screwed over, but he also demonstrated, by his own career, how that can be overcome.

            Actually, it's not that producers regard the credits lightly, it's that they don't want to give them out. I remember a discussion on the 'net once about how someone said they'd be eager to write something for nothing more than credit. They didn't realize that credit is a big thing to Screenwriters beyond just getting their name on the screen. For example, to get in the Writers Guild of America, you need to have done a certain amount of "professional" work. I forgot the details, but I think it could be 2 scripts of 1 hour TV length, or 1 feature film. Since much of the industry runs on fear (and the need to outdo everyone else), people can be very stingy on letting people get credit. It can be used later in negotiations and to help one advance in a career. If you're a Hollywood producer, you don't want a write to move up, otherwise you'll pay them more the next time, and might have to make other concessions.

            All this mess is a big reason why, after Trek shifted, I gave up on trying to write for TV or film out there. While the Trek people were pretty cool and not as weird as others, that was an isolated situation. Instead I busted my butt for years and will soon have my own production company (built on the company I have now). I'll be able to write my scripts and produce and direct them on my own terms. They won't be on the big screen (at least for a while), but they'll be what I want and there won't be a team of writers/producers/directors 2nd guessing everything I write. There'll be no test screenings to force re-editing and the whole cast and crew will focus on nothing but making the best production possible. When it's done, we distribute it on DVD.

            It's not the level of fame and money I'd get from a studio, but it means I'll be one of the few writers alive who can write what they want and make sure it gets put on screen the way it was intended, not the way it'll be after a dozen people piss on the script like a dog does on a tree to say, "I'm here, look at me!"
    • Several years ago, TVLand used to have the Alfred Hitchcock hour on around 10pm. To my surprise one day the episode was "I Sing the Body Electric". It was only about 45 minutes of show which is reasonable for his short stories. Hitchcock mastered it wonderfully, I just hope whoever is directing Sound of Thunder trys to keep w/ begining of story best they can.


      As a side note, even if the movie sucks I hope it does well... I'm just hoping for a short of "Fire and Ice"

    • You want to know what the movie is going to be like?

      One word.

      "TIMECOP"

  • oh wonderful (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nomadic ( 141991 ) <nomadicworld@ g m a i l . com> on Monday May 24, 2004 @12:10AM (#9235049) Homepage
    Considering what they did to I, Robot, I've got a bad feeling about this.
    • Considering what they did to I, Robot, I've got a bad feeling about this.

      Not to mention Do androids dream of electric sheep [amazon.com] and Supertoys Last All Summer Long [amazon.com]

      Seriously folks, has there *ever* in the history of Hollywood been a movie-from-a-scifi-novel which didn't actually rape-and-pillage the story in some way or other?

      • Re:oh wonderful (Score:5, Interesting)

        by nomadic ( 141991 ) <nomadicworld@ g m a i l . com> on Monday May 24, 2004 @02:15AM (#9235482) Homepage
        There have been very, very few. Francois Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451 for example. 2001 for another (even if you don't consider it "based" on the 2001 novel, it was based on the short story "The Sentinel").

        And actually I don't even mind them changing the story, as long as they do a good job. Like I think Blade Runner is an amazing movie. Yes, it's a completely different story than the book, but I don't think the story in the book would have translated into a movie that well. But the recent fad to turn brilliant, intellectual science fiction novels into action movies is just depressing.
      • Seriously folks, has there *ever* in the history of Hollywood been a movie-from-a-scifi-novel which didn't actually rape-and-pillage the story in some way or other?

        Well, 2001: A Space Odyssey comes to mind for me, although I guess one could easily argue that 2001 is not an adaptation of Childhood's End, but an original screenplay with a couple of elements lifted from the short story. And I guess it's a short story instead of a novel too.

        But 2001 is a quality piece of sci-fi, don't you think? I persona

      • Re:oh wonderful (Score:2, Insightful)

        by badboy_tw2002 ( 524611 )
        Good luck finding people to criticize Blade Runner. Most adaptations of books definately take liberties with characters, plot points, theme, tone, etc. because you're creating a different work of art (art is used in its loosest terms here :) What you're seeing on the screen is often the collaborative vision of a bunch of people (screenwriters, directors, actors, producers, art directors, cinematagrophers, special effects artists, and more) of what the book can realize on the big screen.

        A lot of time the
      • Seriously folks, has there *ever* in the history of Hollywood been a movie-from-a-scifi-novel which didn't actually rape-and-pillage the story in some way or other?

        There was a movie called Harrison Bergeron that I consider better than the Kurt Vonnegut short story it was based on. Of course, it was a short story rather than a novel.

      • At the risk of personal injury, I have to say I really didn't like Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep, yet I loved Blade Runner.

    • ...please stop making comments about movies that aren't yet out here behind god's back.

  • Hi! I'm a butterfly! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Emot ( 700249 ) on Monday May 24, 2004 @12:14AM (#9235064) Homepage
    Stoming on me will destroy the future. Probably. See, we don't really know one way or another if stomping on me while you're out romping around in the mesozoic forest ranges and shooting teerexes in their big dumb heads an attosecond before they die of way-natural causes will undo the entire space-time continuum or if things will just go on as they were before you put your inexpensive, Chinese-made knockoff Jungle Boots onto my delicate, fragile little exoskeleton.

    See there friend, if you flatten me silly, there will be absolutely no way to tell if you've changed the future irreparably! As the changes you've wrought have taken place way way way long time ago in the superpast, well before you and the rest of your crazy civilization were concieved and born, these changes existed before you went back in time to stomp on me and maybe change the entire history of forever!

    Who knows! All I know is that I'm a butterfly and that I like nectar. Yum nectar!

    (effa why eye, Mozart in Mirrorshades was better)

  • Heh, I remember hearing about this one... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Erik Fish ( 106896 ) on Monday May 24, 2004 @12:17AM (#9235077) Journal

    Ray Bradbury has shed light on the situation that resulted in Renny Harlin departing from the A SOUND OF THUNDER movie project.

    "The original story is about a man who travels back in time to look upon dinosaurs, only to be ran off the safe designated path by one of them. There, he steps upon a butterfly, altering the entire timeline to come. [Harlin said,] 'Why don't we take the butterfly out of SOUND OF THUNDER?' Can you believe that? When I heard it, I whooped with laughter. I said, 'Oh my God,... if you wanted to be accurate about being stupid, this was it.' So they fired him, and we've got a new director now."

    Smart move, but I'm not sure that the guy [imdb.com] who directed "Timecop" and "Sudden Death" was the right choice for a replacement...

    My money is on the upcoming "Fahrenheit 451" directed by Frank Darabont [imdb.com].

    • My money is on the upcoming "Fahrenheit 451" directed by Frank Darabont.

      Mine isn't. What the hell's the point of making a new Fahrenheit 451? I mean, I like to think Truffaut's version was pretty damn adequate.
    • " I'm not sure that the guy who directed "Timecop" and "Sudden Death" was the right choice for a replacement"

      Yeah... and by applying that logic you could say that the guy that directed Bad Taste [imdb.com] and Meet the Feelbes [imdb.com] probably wasn't the best pick to direct LOTR...

      I'd give the guy a chance... some people just make the pictures they can get signed on for, for all you know this guy's just been waiting for a decent screenplay with the right producers to make his "masterpiece".
      • Yeah... and by applying that logic you could say that the guy that directed Bad Taste and Meet the Feelbes probably wasn't the best pick to direct LOTR...

        I take exception to that comparison.
        Those were his first two films.
        Hyams has a long resume of movies ranging from bad to worse.
        At least Jackson had Heavenly Creatures on his.
      • Actually, I think Meet the Feebles and Bad Taste are great movies. True, they had minimal budget on both (Sometimes I wonder whether they had any money at all when they made Bad Taste), but that doesn't change the fact that they are good movies. Not for everyone, sure, but good movies regardless.
    • actually, My Money would be on the upcoming "Ender's Game"

      if done right it could very well generate a best selling Movie. although i still havn't figured out how they're gonna create a convincing Battle room

      back on Topic, Timecop and Sudden Death where great for what they where meant for, Summer action movies with lots of explosions and special effects. but your right about the Director being a Bad choice for what should have less of an emphasis on action and more of an emphasis on story

    • I think the director might be on to something. You see, the butterfly is a bit of a cliche. I've heard of that paradox, and I haven't even read the original story, whatever it is. It would be like making a movie about a guy killing his grandfather. Everyones heard of the paradox, we need something new and completely unexpected, something gaurunteed to not be suspected to be a paradox. Maybe killing a small invertebrate or anthropod like a lobster or something? oh wait.

  • For those who don't want to read the story: (Score:5, Informative)

    by {8_8} ( 31689 ) on Monday May 24, 2004 @12:18AM (#9235082) Journal
    Quick summary: Story takes place in 2055 where time travel is possible and occurs on a daily, regulated basis. Time Safari Inc. offers hunting safaris to any point in the past. You pick an animal, they give you big guns, send you back in time and you shoot your animal dead. Hunters are kept on anti-gravity paths in order to prevent them from changing history through the so-called butterfly effect (stomping on a blade of grass may wipe out Texas in the future, etc.)

    The actual story is simple. A hunter goes back on a T-Rex safari, panics and runs off the path. He kills a butterfly in the process. The safari returns and finds the future changed for the worse. The end.

    • Re:For those who don't want to read the story: (Score:5, Funny)

      by Soko ( 17987 ) on Monday May 24, 2004 @12:36AM (#9235158) Homepage
      AGhhh! You've just fucked up my timeline, as I was supposed to read the whole story from the link! Think before you post about the future!

      Soko
    • Quick summary: Story takes place in 2055 where time travel is possible and occurs on a daily, regulated basis. Time Safari Inc. offers hunting safaris to any point in the past. You pick an animal, they give you big guns, send you back in time and you shoot your animal dead. Hunters are kept on anti-gravity paths in order to prevent them from changing history through the so-called butterfly effect (stomping on a blade of grass may wipe out Texas in the future, etc.)

      Um, so what would be the difference betwe
      • The original story goes to some length about the change-minimization efforts they go to. The central precaution is that the hunted animal is killed where and moments before when it would have died anyway.

        Implicitly, it assumes that while time is fragile, under the normal elaborate precautions it's resilient enough that any changes don't reach the point of being noticed by anybody coming back.

        Explicitly, it's far more concerned about damage to animals than to plants (so no blade of grass is a bit of an ov
    • And for those who do want to read the story. [muohio.edu]
    • The genius of the story, as written, is that it ends with the same sentence that it started with.

  • In this case, so what if it's changed? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by HarveyBirdman ( 627248 ) on Monday May 24, 2004 @12:19AM (#9235084) Journal
    Wasn't the original story rather unsound in its time travel mechanics?

    It's the one where they go hunting the dinosaur, right? And one guy crushes a butterfly and changes history. They get back to the future and the written language is completely changed, but the result of an election merely flips, as if the written language could changed, and there'd even BE an election, much less with the same two candidates.

    I even recall an interview with Bradbury where he admitted the ending was not very well thought out.

    There's a much better short story (I forget who wrote it) where they send a spherical probe back in time, and a project scientists is talking to reporters. The probe bounces back and forth in history, and each time we go back to the press conference, the people slowly change from humans to weird alien creatures. At the end of the experiement, the speaker declares, "See? Nothing is chnaged!"

    • Hey, it's just a short story.

      And Ray Bradbury has always been more interested in the "poetry" of what he writes. It has a wonderful impact and is a good story. Do you want to mess up all that (the timing, the pacing, the setup, theme, and everything else), but insisting he spend more time on making it perfect?

      If it was a matter of physics, that's one thing, but when you consider that we don't even know WHAT effects changing a timeline would really have, is it really necessary to pick on details like tha
    • as if the written language could changed, and there'd even BE an election, much less with the same two candidates


      It just goes to show that while things like spelling may be arbitrary, a two-party system will always end up providing us with the same awful choices. Who would have guessed that Bradbury was capable of such subtle political satire?

  • Currently my film "A Sound of Thunder" is being filmed in Czechoslovakia

    [thinks back to last movie he watched in the theater, and the MPAA PR piece lecturing him about stealing food from Joe American Movie Worker's baby's mouth]

    What's wrong with this (pardon the pun) picture?

    • Re:hey, wait a second (Score:3, Informative)

      by SEE ( 7681 )
      Ah, you see, you saw that PR piece in the other timeline, the one where Czechosolvakia ceased to exist on the first of January, 1993 [odci.gov].
    • Here's a thing that's wrong - Czechoslovakia stopped existing as a country a while before 2002 ( it split in 1993, to be more precise).

      On the other hand, the Man was 82, we can cut him some slack about not being up to date with country names.

      Yeah, and quite a lot of movies seem to be filmed outside the US recently (remember LOTR?). Lots of reasons, too - cheaper, better scenery for the purpose and so on. The other movies look like they have the outdoors scenes filmed in NYC anyway ^_^
    • Currently my film "A Sound of Thunder" is being filmed in Czechoslovakia

      [thinks back to last movie he watched in the theater, and the MPAA PR piece lecturing him about stealing food from Joe American Movie Worker's baby's mouth]

      What's wrong with this (pardon the pun) picture?

      Heh. To add insult to injury, the guy apparently doesn't know that Czechslovakia is no more a country than Prussia would be. They're filming in the Czech Republic. Sheesh. Doesn't this guy remember the whole cllapsde of the warsaw p

    • So It's ok to download this movie from the internet then?
      wait, hang on there's someone at the door, BRB ...

  • Clue number one (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Earlybird ( 56426 ) <{slashdot} {at} {purefiction.net}> on Monday May 24, 2004 @12:29AM (#9235127) Homepage
    It's a short story. Adapting a short story into a full-length feature film that remains faithful to the original story takes more talent, artistry and loyalty to the source material [imdb.com] than anyone in Hollywood is willing, or able, to provide. This could still turn out to be a good film, of course; they [imdb.com] don't [imdb.com] always [imdb.com] screw [imdb.com] up [imdb.com]. Although chances are [imdb.com] they [imdb.com] will [imdb.com].
  • Did anyone else think of the Simpsons episode (some Halloween special) where Homer goes back in time, and steps on stuff, and changes the future (present)? One path had him in the world where they didn't have a word for doughnuts, so he ran screaming. He left, and then it started raining doughnuts. At the end everything was normal, except his family had lizard tongues. Mmm, raining doughnuts...

  • Good Twilight Zone (Score:3, Interesting)

    by martinX ( 672498 ) on Monday May 24, 2004 @12:33AM (#9235142)

    I always thought it would maje a good (or great) Twilight Zone story, but there would have to be some big padding to make a whole movie.

    It may end up like the "Running Man" by Richard Bachman (aka Stephen King), in that the written story [amazon.com] was good, the movie [amazon.com] was good but they didn't actually have much in common. Bit like Blade Runner really...

  • they ruined the story (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Temsi ( 452609 ) on Monday May 24, 2004 @12:42AM (#9235176) Journal
    Has anyone read up on this?

    Not only have they completely missed the point of the story, they've come up with some lame ass idea in order to make an action film out of it.
    The story additions don't make any sense - he wipes out humanity, so they must go back to fix it? Well, if he wiped out humanity, who is it that's going to go back exactly? And if he wiped out humanity, that's a paradox! He would have to exist in order to go back and screw up the timeline.
    Of course, they solve this by using a "time wave" which hasn't caught up with our time yet (then, how did were they able to travel back?).
    But if it hasn't caught up, how come their reality is "markedly different"?
    This is a classic screenwriting short cut. This is the writer forcing the story to serve his master (director, producer or simply his own ego) rather than letting the story play itself out based on the setup and the characters. This is just a plot device not meant to be thought about too much... well, that's fine in a Britney Spears movie, but we're talking Bradbury here. This is a science fiction story. Science fiction stories are meant to be thought about. That's the whole point! They're not about ray-guns and futuristic technology. They're metaphors for things in OUR lives. They're about people, not technology. The technology is just a tool.

    Of course, having seen the horrible Timecop, I know just how much Peter Hyams cares about logic and people in his movies, so this is not a particularly surprising turn of events.

    However, I will not be spending a dime to see this movie. This is something I will download and proudly announce to the world that I did so just to protest the butchering of the story.

    I would gladly shell out $10 to see this story on the big screen, if it was done by ANYONE other than Hyams, who seems to have a particular fetish for destroying Science Fiction as a genre (Capricorn One, Outland, 2010, Timecop, The Relic, End of Days). This guy hasn't made a single tolerable SciFi movie, and THIS is the guy filming one of the great sci-fi short stories of all time?
    • All of that is assuming that time is a single linear "piece of string" so if you travell back in time and change something you effectivly cut the string and everything that existed after that point disapears including yourself.

      But if time was more like a branch you could travel back in time along your branch, change something and create a new branch that time travels along. You still exist because you travelled back along one branch, but the flow now travels down a new branch instead of your original branc
      • And in that you are correct.
        However, if it branches out, then your timeline (the one you came from) would remain intact.
        Here that is clearly not the case.
        Which is why the idea of a "time wave" which catches up with your timeline a little bit... just enough to make you notice that it's different, but not enough to completely wipe out humanity, thereby giving you "time" (isn't that ironic) to undo the damage, before the "time wave" fully catches up wit you. No doubt the scientists in the film will be able to

  • Hollywood Vs. Books (Score:4, Funny)

    by edoc ( 772148 ) on Monday May 24, 2004 @12:51AM (#9235212)
    Someone needs to go back in time and stop all these Hollywood production companies from picking up the rights to every book/classic movie on the planet and making dry/predictable over budgeted remakes/sequels. I will obviously have to see the movie too make a final judgment however I would say the majority of remakes/sequels lately have been pretty poor quality.

    • Talent, baby (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      One of the producers is Moshe Diamant who not only produced but also wrote Simon Sez, a film with Dennis Rodman as male lead. let that sink in.

      Moshe knows quality.

      No one I trust more than Moshe to do justice
      to a Ray Bradbury classic..

  • Time Paradox's (Score:5, Insightful)

    by GrpA ( 691294 ) on Monday May 24, 2004 @12:52AM (#9235218)
    From my childhood reading of science fiction, I always remember Sound of Thunder(Bradbury) and Let the Ants Try(Pohl). Both had a profound effect on my way of thinking.

    I spent many days as a young kid wondering if it would be possible to change history - after all if you changed the future, would the future you have gone back into the past at all?

    I learned the answer many years later in electronics. In electronics, it's called "Negative Feedback"... ie, take the output signal and feed in back into the input... The output affects the input, but the signal still continues.

    Now I wonder on how such a simple well thought out story can possibly change the future by altering the way people think and view the world.

    Still many of Ray Bradbury's original stories still occupy parts of my idle thoughts even this much later.

    That this man's writing has affected my thinking for so long and has permeated my thoughts enough to consider things I may have never considered otherwise is reason enough to see how the movie turns out...

    GrpA.

  • R is for Rocket (Score:3, Informative)

    by dylan.ucd ( 612417 ) on Monday May 24, 2004 @01:08AM (#9235280)
    for anyone else who enjoyed this story, check out the book that it was published in: R is for Rocket.

    although 'A Sound of Thunder' is one of my favorite Bradbury stories, right up there with 'There Will Come Soft Rains' -- I think that the entire 'Maritian Chronicals' will forever be my favorite.
  • but it appears that some of the major characters from the Bradbury story aren't in the credits

    Yet another SciFi film who'se *only* relationship to the novel of the same title is

    {cue drumroll}

    The Title.

  • About the "Credits" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gbulmash ( 688770 ) <semi_famous&yahoo,com> on Monday May 24, 2004 @01:31AM (#9235356) Homepage Journal
    ...it appears that some of the major characters from the Bradbury story aren't in the credits.

    Don't imagine that because a character isn't listed on IMDb 4.5 months before release, the character isn't in the film. IMDb rarely has complete credits this far before release. I'm surprised the Slashdot editors let such a silly claim through.

    I'm sure the folks at IMDb appreciate that you take their listings so literally, but they try to get a title into the database as soon as it's confirmed that the film is actually greenlighted. That initial listing may have nothing more than the studio, writer, director and one or two stars. Then they add more credits and other info as they become available.

    I know people there. They won't have "full" / "official" credits until they get them from a studio source (a month or two before release), a press kit (a week or two before release), or if the studio is still afraid of the Internet (and some are), they get the full credits after the film is released, usually from dedicated users who sat through the credits in theaters, scribbling furiously.

    - Greg

    • Don't imagine that because a character isn't listed on IMDb 4.5 months before release, the character isn't in the film. IMDb rarely has complete credits this far before release. I'm surprised the Slashdot editors let such a silly claim through.

      It doesn't? Damn, and here I had my hopes up for a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory [imdb.com] with only Charlie and Willy Wonka.
  • Well, Harlan Ellison wouldn't like it at all!
    But at least I could read it again.From the story:

    TYME SEFARI INC.
    SEFARIS TU ANY YEER EN THE PAST.
    YU NAIM THE ANIMALL.
    WEE TAEK YU THAIR.
    YU SHOOT ITT.

    Wow! Bradbury predicted IRC!

  • feh. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Jamie Zawinski ( 775 ) <jwz@jwz.org> on Monday May 24, 2004 @02:29AM (#9235523) Homepage
    I guess I'm the only one here who thinks the original story was just not very good at all? Not only doesn't it follow its own internal rules about time travel in any logical way, I also don't think the writing is any good.

    Given that, the "Time Cop" guy probably wasn't an inappropriate choice.

  • Flawed story, Flawed movie (Score:4, Insightful)

    by darkjohnson ( 640563 ) on Monday May 24, 2004 @10:23AM (#9238092) Homepage
    I almost worked on this - the script was AWFUL and way weaker than the short story. There is no logic to the premise and they successfully transferred that to the script. But..with the right amount of effects and marketing it'll probably break even.

  • A Gun For Dinosaur (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Cruciform ( 42896 ) on Monday May 24, 2004 @11:05AM (#9238591) Homepage
    If anyone is familiar with the works of L. Sprague de Camp, he also penned a classic story of going back in time to hunt dinosaur, and what happens when one of the hunters decides to kill his expedition.

    Bradbury's story was published in 1952's 'R is for Rocket', while de Camp's published in Galaxy Science Fiction in 1956.

    I wonder if the similarities were intentional or accidental, seeing as both were well known in the "sci-fi" genre at the time.

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