Comments on: Michael Crichton (1942-2008)

By: autodidact

autodidact — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 16:01:39 +0000

Crichton was, as Wolfe might say, a man in full. He was a medical doctor, novelist, screenwriter, director, producer, an eternally curious and humorous man. He explored deserts, ancient temples, climbed mountains, dived into the depths. What a life he lived in a relatively short 66 years!

Yesterday I picked up State of Fear at the library, and how strange it was to come home and hear the news on the radio that he had died. As a novel, State of Fear might leave something to be desired. But he surely was onto something, pointing out the chaotic and unpredictable nature of complex systems. The public simply does not know how much utter guesswork has gone into the proclaimation that CO2 is ruining the planet. He was brave to go against the flow and attempt to reveal the details that call into question our headlong rush to attempt to control something that is fundamentally uncontrollable.

MC, I salute you!

By: rwcass

rwcass — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 15:06:13 +0000

McTiernan got in trouble with Pellicano a few years later while shooting his “Rollerball” remake. “Die Hard” is so good that it makes you wish McTiernan could've kept up that career momentum for longer than he did. After “Last Action Hero” bombed, he said he was afraid he wouldn't get hired to do anything outside the action genre again, and for the most part he was right.

I didn't notice any actors' faces being hidden in “The 13th Warrior.” I think the action scenes were intentionally shot in low light for stylistic effect, but it's just hard to tell what's going on, partly because the Viking characters are never defined that well as individuals, so you're not sure who's being attacked, who's chasing who, etc. The first time I tried to watch the movie was in 2003, on a subpar DVD player that made the TV screen look almost pitch-black in those action scenes. When I tried to watch the movie again in 2007, on a better DVD player, the screen wasn't pitch-black, but I was still confused by most of the film. McTiernan's action scenes, like Spielberg's, are generally easy to follow.

By: autodidact

autodidact — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 15:01:39 +0000

By: rwcass

rwcass — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 14:06:13 +0000

By: Jack Feerick

Jack Feerick — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 11:35:36 +0000

Frankly, I don't know that it matters; all the stuff that made EATERS OF THE DEAD an interesting read was unfilmable anyway. A film can really only show *what happens,* but the whole effect of the book depends on *how* the story is told. It's very much a literary exercise.

Although I suspect Dunphy is right about the strategic murk covering stand-ins.

By: DwDunphy

DwDunphy — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 09:53:43 +0000

I forget what the DGA definitions are, whether you have to have 40%, 60% or slightly higher to maintain your credit, but I'd suspect that any scenes where primary characters are unnecessarily hidden by shadow and such are Crichton. It's just a guess, but there might have been a moment between switching directors where the film was considered dead in the water, and cast members might have been released and unable to return.

I'm wondering if, during this period, McTiernan was into his shenanigans with Anthony Pellicano.

By: RIP Michael Crichton « Life Begins at 41…or maybe 43

RIP Michael Crichton « Life Begins at 41…or maybe 43 — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 05:13:32 +0000

[...] Came across the news in PopDose while looking for something else entirely: Michael Crichton (1942-2008) [...]

By: rwcass

rwcass — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 02:20:35 +0000

I'd be curious to know which parts of “The 13th Warrior,” the film adaptation of “Eaters of the Dead,” were directed by him and which parts were directed by John McTiernan, who was dismissed when Crichton and the studio didn't like what they saw in a rough cut. McTiernan got final credit as director, and the movie has a small cult following, but I couldn't make heads or tails of it. So much of it is shot at night, in low light, that it's hard to tell what's going on.

By: DavidMedsker

DavidMedsker — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 00:05:53 +0000

I was a big fan of Prey, his nanotechnology-run-amok book from a few years back. That would make for a fun, if expensive, movie.

By: Jack Feerick

Jack Feerick — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 23:16:21 +0000

Crichton was never much of a stylist, and his late-life descent into right-wing crankitude (esp. STATE OF FEAR, a book-length screed of global-warming denialism masquerading as a novel) was disappointing – but I'm still fond of EATERS OF THE DEAD, a deeply strange, mock-scholarly, sideways retelling of BEOWULF. It's a fascinating stylistic departure, an ambitious European-style metafiction, utterly unlike anything else he ever wrote.