[continued from previous message]   
      
   film's credits say it is based on the "novel story" "The Golden   
   Man". There is no such novel, just a twenty-eight-page short   
   story. I read it in Judith Merril's anthology BEYOND THE BARRIERS   
   OF TIME AND SPACE. In the introduction to the story, Merril says,   
   "The theme [precognition] is handled here, with unusual dramatic   
   impact, by a young West Coast writer of exceptional promise."   
   Well, the anthology *is* from 1954.   
      
   But little of the story is left. Nicholas Cage has precognition,   
   but none of the back story is there, and Cage bears no   
   resemblance, either in appearance or in personality, to the   
   character in the story. Which is a pity, because the back story   
   seems particularly relevant to today's world. The plot is also   
   totally different. In fact, all that is left is the idea of   
   precognition (which Dick is better known for in "The Minority   
   Report", the film of which also made major changes to the original   
   story).   
      
   This is not unusual in films--taking a story and removing almost   
   everything from it when it is made into a film, or rather, a film   
   is made "inspired by" the story. This is why, by the way, that   
   whenever I am asked which of my favorite novels I would like to   
   see made into a movie, my answer is, "Please, God, none of them."   
   Not to mention that a novel is too long to make into a movie   
   without removing a lot. A better length is a novella, or even   
   shorter. As an example, I recently watched LAST AND FIRST MEN. It   
   would have fit right into the "Wavelengths" track at the Toronto   
   International Film Festival, a track devoted to the experimental   
   and avant garde, which Mark and I tended to avoid. A narrator   
   (Tilda Swinton), but no actors, and a lot of slow panning over   
   structures, landscapes, monuments, and who knows what, all in   
   black and white. And it covers only the Eighteenth Men in any   
   case. Lord knows what Olaf Stapledon would have made of it. [-ecl]   
      
   ===================================================================   
      
                                        Evelyn C. Leeper   
                                        evelynchimelisleeper@gmail.com   
      
      
              Diets come and diets go but the girth abides.   
                                              --Mark R. Leeper   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)