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[starreview]
Classification: Alternate Reality
A Sound of Thunder is the movie version of Ray Bradbury’s famous short story. This short story is responsible for the term “the butterfly effect”… and now that I’ve told you that, you can probably guess the movie’s entire plot. The movie version is slightly different from the short story, though the basic idea is the same.
A couple of decades from now, in 2055, a company perfects a technology that enables sending people back in time. Primarily intending the technology to be used for money making, they offer a tourist package to wealthy people: pay a hefty fee, and go back with a tour guide on a great dinosaur hunting adventure.
As a side note, one can’t help but wonder why the inventors of this technology simply cannot go back a few days and – oh, I don’t know – buy lottery tickets that with the winning numbers (which are already known in the present). Nonetheless, this is generally a legitimate premise.
Back to the plot: there are two types of risks for the company. The first is that someone may get hurt: dinosaurs are exceptionally dangerous creatures, and even with a highly trained team, something can still go wrong. The second is subtler: during a trip to the past, there is a risk that something may be changed that will propagate through time and affect the present in catastrophic ways.
In order to ward off this dangerous possibility, the company has a very specific set of rules on how the tourists and personnel should act: they are only allowed to walk on a designated path, which is heavily monitored by the security personnel. Furthermore, they are only allowed to shoot a specific dinosaur that is already known to have died in the near future. Thus, they believe the timeline would be preserved.
But something goes wrong: when a tyrannosaurus rex fails to die, a client panics and leaves the approved path. Fortunately, the security team takes over and nothing bad happens. Everyone then quickly returns to the present, and are relieved to see all is as it should be. Phew!
But not long afterwards certain things begin to change… and not just once, but multiple times. A careful investigation finds that when the client went off the path, he accidentally stepped on a prehistoric butterfly-like creature, which is found, dead, on the tourist’s shoe. Apparently, this started a cascade of events that has enormous ramifications on the present. I won’t spoil the rest – you’ll have to see the movie to find out!
Bradbury’s short story is a classic, in particular since it illustrates a subtle point very well. In the story, someone accidentally steps on a butterfly, and when he returns everything is completely different – the entire society is transformed. In my opinion, this is really how the story should be told. However, since translating this story into film will only take 20-25 minutes, the movie drags the point much, much longer.
Even worse, the movie turns this rather imaginative premise to an action/horror movie… and not even a good one! Although the acting was not bad, the plot dragged way too long, the effects weren’t that good, and – well – it wasn’t that interesting! I don’t intend to spoil the movie, but the final scene was unintentionally comical (it was probably supposed to be horrific!). Really gave me a good laugh.
In summary, an okay action/sci-fi movie, if you have nothing else to do. Otherwise, skip it.
If you’ve seen this movie, please vote below:
I attend the San Diego Comic-con almost every year and when I saw the ads for this film I cringed. The move came out, tanked, and was on the DVD shelf in a week (or something close to that time).
Being a fan of Bradbury, and looking at the mixed success of Hollywood’s other attempts at his work, I waited until this came onto T.V. Even at that, I called my cable company and demanded they refund me two hours for the waste of my transmission resources.
Now please understand, I am not against taking the basic idea of an intelligent writer and turning it into another story. “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (original) is a classic and nothing like the original print version. “This Island Earth,” “War of the Worlds,” “Forbidden Planet,” all took an original idea and molded it into compelling stories far from the original author’s intent. However, just because you have a new idea for an old plot does not mean it is good. And even if it is, it still takes talent to make a good movie, both in front of and behind the camera.
The movie might have done better if they had removed Bradbury entirely. The idea of observers traveling in time for recreation is not the exclusive domain of Bradbury. This version changed the entire idea of the short story so tweek it some more and remove Ray’s name. It would have then been another scifi/ monster movie that we could laugh and enjoy, instead of cringe.
Just a thought.
Thanks Andrew! 🙂