I’ll bring the crock o’ butter for the popcorn.
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Book’s good, too. (and Oblivion weren’t too bad, although Jack Reacher was truly dire).
Title of the film was shite, though - and from the packaging you’d think it was called Live. Die. Repeat.
I thought about trying to write a book once, then very quickly realized that what I’d end up writing would be (very) sub-Gibson cyberpunk rubbish that I’d consider utter tripe if it had been written by someone else. And the characterization would be sub-Asimov.
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That mechanic is reminiscent of videogames as recent as the raids in Destiny or as ancient as Space Invaders or Pac-Man, where if you die enough times to memorize the pattern, you can make it through unscathed, since the enemy AI is either so primitive (or nonexistent) and the spawn points so predictable, that there’s pretty much One Perfect Way to make it through. In some respects that’s kinda depressing, at least as videogames go (it depressed the hell out of me that Destiny was turning out that way, making it a super-repetitive grindfest… there’s a reason why I never played Space Invaders past 1983 or so), but weirdly, it’s sort of the way I write: as if there were One Perfect Solution to the story I’m writing, and I’m not so much creating it as discovering it. But that’s not what I plan to do this time! 
I do want to watch that one. Oblivion, too. I’ll take your advice and avoid Jack Reacher.
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At this point, there’s no compelling reason not to.
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I don’t know how long King’s been doing these (it’s been a while, though), but after they’d worked together on a handful of projects, my brother directed a couple of King stories from his (my brother’s) own scripts, which King authorized for that same princely sum of one dollar apiece. And these weren’t student films, but actual professional projects: Quicksilver Highway was a Fox TV-movie (and backdoor pilot) that was based on King’s short story “Chattery Teeth” and Clive Barker’s “The Body Politic.” And Riding The Bullet was an indie feature starring Barbara Hershey, David Arquette, Jonathan Jackson, Cliff Robertson, and Erika Christensen. Part of the logic behind that is that King simply doesn’t need the money anymore, but it’s still an incredibly generous gesture. And the fact that he lets film students do it as well is incredibly cool. I wish more writers felt comfortable doing that.
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I liked Oblivion once it got going but find myself trying to remember details and realizing it didn’t really have as much of an impact on me. Reacher? I didn’t even bother. Seemed like, well, one’s typical revenge against bad guy thing that I’ve seen too often before.
For me Edge of Tomorrow ended up being a lot like Drumline, where the marketing team hadn’t seen the movie and was selling a completely different movie that was a lot worse than the actual movie. Friends dragged me to the latter and I just loved everything about it in a way the marketing said I wouldn’t.
So I guess that means we need to not have a marketing team.
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How much does a marketing guy who doesn’t do any work get as a cut? I think I could do that.
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An all-female version of Mad Max.
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Mad Maxine?
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And 20 cats in the car, instead of the dog.
I’ve just realised that this idea would require a totally human character to leverage as being our point of view of the heroine’s transcendence.
Unless a method could be found that internalises her own humanity being overwhelmed by her new found powers. Talking to herself just seems crazy though, perhaps internally arguing with the genie. Nah, I like the downtrodden but still humane character idea better.
(Although, shades of Paprika (see this film! it’s the progenitor of Inception) and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (Also see!), both anime, representing strong female characters who internalise their own journeys (although I might be not fully remembering those tropes properly.)) (()())()()()(()())))((())))) Muh brackets’
I guess that (male?) character could embody the comedy relief, juxtaposed with the Macguffin/Genie’s perilous lack of humanity, and it’s encouragement to abandon the same. Which could also be absurd and humorous.
Could also provide a source of threat to our seemingly invincible heroine, if at some stage the change between realities is centred on the sidekick and affects them in some way.
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Of course, ultimately she would have to be responsible for choosing his death in order to transcend and save the rest of humanity.
That’s how it always works and would engender ideas of aloofness and potential god-like solutions to the trolley problem.
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It’s just like the ending of Pretty in Pink!
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My pop-cultural powers failed me, had to look that one up… reading wiki now buuut… you mean the alternate ending?
This is starting to also sound like Jet Li’s The One, where someone from the multiverse realizes if they kill off all the other versions of themselves they become stronger.
That said, I’d like to see this story from the perspective of one of three people:
1 - The incompetent photo editor who let this image get through,
2 - The spokesperson who has to tell the world that, yet again, there is no man on Mars out fixing the rover,
3 - The woman on Mars who knows that her hard work will never fully be known.
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I do believe he’s having a little fun on John Hughes’ behalf.
Me:
It’s an unsatisfactory resolution for a ‘social climber’?
