"
[email protected]" <
[email protected]> wrote in
news:
[email protected]:
> Anyway, I kind of doubt
> they dropped Tyler for scientific reasons, rather that he was a
> hot potato.
I didn't mean to suggest he was dropped for scientific reasons, but for
better storytelling. Once again, this is a movie about the brain and the
nervious system, not bicycle racing. The racers are the vehicle they use to
tell the story, but not the story itself. And the story can be told with or
without Hamilton.
> But my larger point is that although Tyler's bust made it harder
> for them to make the film they envisioned, dropping him down
> the memory hole might not have been the right decision. Maybe
> they _could_ have changed the focus of the movie.
See, here's the problem with a movie like this....IMAX is hugely expensive,
and the audience is limited, with no future DVD release or international
market to help recoup expenses. So, what's a film maker to do? Well, as is
the case with most of the productions, they have grants and corprate
sponsors. In this case the grant came from the National Science Foundation,
and the deep corprate pockets were those of Ortho-McNeil Neurologics. Can you
imagine going to them and saying, "Ya know that nice movie about the brain
you gave us all that nice money for? Well, it's about something else now."
No, I can't either. Likewise most of these movies wind up showing in science
centers where they like nice, simple stories that are long on science and
don't tackle a lot of thorny social issues like doping.
> That's why
> I gave the example of Errol Morris. But it probably isn't what
> the producers of an IMAX movie are looking for.
Exactly.
