glassner@cwruecmp.UUCP (Andrew Glassner) (10/18/83)
I have to disagree with the low ratings Brainstorm seems to be racking up on net.movies. I saw the film the other night and was quite impressed. I agree that the movie was choppy in places and lost coherency and continuity, but hey, the leading lady was dead when the film was being completed and then edited; they had to work with what they had. I expected another special-effects vehicle with enough plot to keep you there 'til the next round of visual gimmicks, but that wasn't at all what I found in this film. A couple of years ago in Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact there was a discussion in the letters column for a couple of months regarding the various genres of "science fiction." The genre that most of the recent hi-tech movies seemed to have fallen into is technology-oriented, rather than people-oriented. This is often called "hard" science fiction, and is exemplified by authors like Larry Niven and James Hogan. On the other hand, science fiction can say, "Given some new piece of technology (this is what makes it SCIENCE fiction!), what happens to the PEOPLE involved (their relationships, society, etc.)?" This is a much more humane kind of story, and for my money Brainstorm fit into this latter category. The film is basically asking (and answering) the question, "Now that we can record experience and pump it directly into another mind, what will happen to the people with access to this equipment?" The question isn't new; someone reported that Clarke wrote a story on this theme, and I recall a similar story that had a slightly different premise. A time-viewing device was invented, that let you examine history (like on a TV screen). Only the major universities had this equipment, and all information on it was suppressed by the government. The rationale was that this could cause damage to the society, and the story pointed out many kinds of bad behaviour that such technology could induce. People would get addicted to playing back favorable times (a la the tech and the sex loop), masochists would forever replay embarassing moments, rehearsing "I-should've-said's", etc. I LIKED Brainstorm. It looked at the EFFECTS of a piece of technology without getting hyped up over the technology itself. And the special effects were an integral part of the film; neither gratuitous nor the central focus. I'm on my way to see Zelig this evening (hot date!)... -Andrew Andrew (decvax!cwruemcp!glassner) Glassner