Movie "Jumpers" sux "The Stars My Destination" kicks @ss

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stars_My_Destination

I just rented the movie "Jumpers" 2008 recently, which blew, and racked my brain trying to remember the term used for the teleporting thing in SF and finally did-jaunting. I googled that and came up with The Stars My Destination and remembered the book and story which I read probably in the 6th grade.

A great excerpt from The Stars My Destination was in Heavy Metal titled as "Nomad" if I am not mistaken. It included the part where the main character was tattooed on the forehead with the word "nomad" by the outcast/shipwreck survivors. I especially liked the concept of science degraded to religion {like in politics today} that the asteroid belt rejects all adhered to {"It's scientific" yelled repeatedly while hitting you in the head with a hammer & writing down results for example}.

The illustrations which were squeezed into the text in jagged geometric shapes were great. This reminded me of the images my damaged brain {and enhanced at the time} conjured while I was reading and they seem to pop out of the text at the right moments.

"Jumpers" by contrast was a silly love story with few societal constructs challenged, other than teen aged alienation perhaps, with a G rating format.

thought I would include this in the movie rants.

Jumper, the original novel, is a pretty good YA sci-fi/teleportion book. From everything i've read, the movie has nothing to do w/ the original, but has, unfortunately, driven the author, Gould, to write a follow on based on the flic. Pity.

I saw Jumpers on a plane back from Europe just a few days ago. I actually saw it twice. There were no other films, except Horton Hears a Who, and I was bored still. No, it isn't good. It's bad. Bester is fantastic.

#1 - Dug,


A great excerpt from The Stars My Destination was in Heavy Metal titled as "Nomad" if I am not mistaken... The illustrations which were squeezed into the text in jagged geometric shapes were great.

Look for the graphic novel version of The Stars My Destination with art by Howard Chaykin. They published the excerpt you saw in Heavy Metal and then published the first half before... I forget. The company went bankrupt?

Anyway, in the nineties Byron Priess issued the entire thing for the first time. Beautiful book. It isn't a 'comic book adaptation', rather it is the complete text of the novel (as far as I remember. I read it fifteen years ago) filled with Chaykin's illustrations.

BTW: Yeah, Jumpers was pretty crummy. A shame too because the idea was such a good one. In the end it felt like it was the pilot episode for a TV series. It reminded me of the Nicholas Cage movie Next. Another terrific idea ground into a disposable action movie.

Bob's praise for Jumper has me wondering. Maybe I'll give it a read some time.

> In the end it felt like it was the pilot episode for a TV series.

Exactly so.

I'm sorry to hear Next went that way too.

I still have not gotten around to watching Paycheck or Next. I'm a fan of Philip K. Dick, but the only adaptation of his work I've seen since Minority Report (which I actually enjoyed) is A Scanner Darkly, which was basically a straight translation from page to screen. It was good, but not really spectacular. I'd watch the movie again, but I'd rather read the book again.

Jumpers looked pretty awful, but, as has been mentioned, the book is supposed to be good.

this is taken from Rick Osborne's notes, sans spoilers, on a LT discussion of the book (other LT summaries on the book do have spoilers so i picked out this one):
"This book is hard to rate and review because it's all over the map. (No pun intended, honest.)

Point: The Young Adult fiction aspect puts forth a large amount of teen angst.
But ... It's not unrealistic teen angst. Teens are angsty people.

Point: There's also a large amount of introspection and exposition.
But ... It's the first book in the series, and the narrator is figuring things out as he goes along.

Point: Abuse and terrorism and sex? Why not throw in Paris Hilton and anthrax and call it "Fox News Channel Presents: Jumper"?
But ... they are actually tied together pretty well. Sins of the father, the circle of violence, and all that. Subtext.

Point: It's too mature for early-teen readers. (If the film actually showed everything in the book it would easily be an "R" rating.)
But ... is it really? Is your early-teen reader really that sheltered? Are the Amish allowed to buy books about teleportation?

Point: It's too goofy and sci-fi for late-teen readers.
But ... I enjoyed it and I haven't seen my teens or in quite some time.

Point: The main character is kindof a nerd.
But ... so?

Point: It's not as action-packed/sexy as the film!
But ... that's true. If you want that, go read "Griffin's Story". Oh, and the book is funnier than the film. "
---------------------------------------------
better job than i would've done w/out a reread, at least.!

It's safe to read the book. It's an excellent teen adventure. Apparently the book was banned in some states in America (usually an indication of interesting writing), not sure why, as I thought the protagonist had quite a strong social conscience...

I haven't seen the movie. From the reviews, the only thing they kept from the book was the title.

The problem with Next is that they took the nifty idea of a man who can see two minutes into his future and failed to do anything with it.

I was expecting an action movie version of Memento or something like that. Instead it seems that seeing two minutes into your future gives you the Keanu Reeves-like reflexes necessary to avoid every bullet fired from a machine gun while walking directly toward the guy shooting.

On the upside Julianne Moore was very good and the shoot out near the end was worth watching. Not enough to make the film worth renting though. See Shoot 'Em Up instead.

well..it's NOT sci-fi, except in the sense that bob dylan constantly recreates himself and his embodiment..But Julianne Moore is terrific in the exploration of the bob dylan mythos, "I'm not There" - she does a DEAD on Joan Baez..so good, it's freaky.

I think Stars My Destination would make a great SF movie - full of action, some good ideas, short, but not when there was a movie with such a similar premise done so recently, even if it owes quite a lot to the original novel.

On the other hand, if this does any good in the box office, perhaps we might see Gully Foyle gracing our screens soon...

Why do we even bother thinking about it? When has a good sf novel made a good movie? The very things that made the novel could probably won't even transfer to the screen - and that's making the wild and implausible assumption that the adaptation will be faithful. Given Hollywood's lack of history in properly adapting genre novels, I'd sooner they stuck to original material. There's less room for disappointment.

#13 Yes. No good book survives the Hollywood process. All the intelligence, wit, soul (and frequently plot) gets sucked out and replaced with explosions.

#14 - No good book survives the Hollywood process. All the intelligence, wit, soul (and frequently plot) gets sucked out and replaced with explosions.

I think Frank Darabont and Stephen King would beg to differ. (Though I agree with that argument in principal.)

#4 Good suggestion jseger, but I think your idea was telegraphed to the book dealers. The cheapest copy I could find is $22 plus - a bit outside my current book budget. Good to know it exists , I will keep a lookout for it. thanks

"The Stars My Destination" is one of my favorite books for it's timelessness. While most speculative books show their age, Bester's genius makes you think TSMD could have been written yesterday. I have no problems with most (with exceptions to the "really-what-were-they-thinking" ones) silver screen adaptations of books (after all, they are adaptations not slaves to the written word) but I'd rather not see a film adaptation of TSMD being made. There's a prototypical essence in the book that might end up looking jaded even in the hands of a capable director.

#13

Um....

Damn you, I cannot think of any either. The only two good SF movies I can think of that were adapted from a book are Blade Runner, which changed the original PKD book immensely, and 2001, but it was written at the same time as the movie, so that doesn't really count either.

Surely someone can think of one movie that bears more than a passing resemblance to the subject source that was good?

Screamers (Second Variety), the Minority Report and Paycheck all bear some resemblance. So Do A Scanner, Darkly. Solaris, A Clockwork Orange, Logan's Run, The Boys From Brazil, A Boy and His Dog, The Thing, The Dead zone, Rollerball, Firestarter, Lifeforce, Jurassic Park, The Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy, The Postman, 1984, The Handmaid's Tale etc.

They aren't the same, but there is certainly resemblancing going on. :)

Jumper the book is good, not going to go near the film.

I love Truffaut's adaptation of Fahrenheit 451. I've never read the book but I understand it's not all that close to it.

I remember reading somewhere that Roman Polanski's adaptation of Rosemary's Baby is extremely faithful to Ira Levin's book. That he was so faithful to the book because it was the first adaptation he'd done and wasn't comfortable with what could be safely dropped.

I haven't read the book myself, so I don't know if my story is true or not and now I can't remember where I read it to provide me some back up.

How is it that everyone but me knew that Jumpers was going to be a suckfest? I was really looking forward to seeing this one. It really showed some promise.

I made the mistake of not checking out any critic's reviews. I was going to make a joke about 'I should have known that no movie starring Darth Vader is going to be good', but to be fair I enjoyed My Life As A House.

#21-- I've not read the book, but my sister has, and she tells me that the film is a remarkably close adaptation. I love the movie, it's a great horror film that contains almost no onscreen horror, yet still manages to creep me out. It's not sci-fi, though.

She also tells me that Stepford Wives (the original) is fairly close to the book, and I would consider that to be science fiction. Unfortunately, while I liked the first adaptation of the book, it was not spectacular, and the remake was utter rubbish.

Both books were written by Ira Levin.

Wasn't there some big feud between Forbes and Goldman over the script to "The Stepford Wives"?

Levin also wrote A Kiss Before Dying and The Boys from Brazil both were made into successful movies. The first, was filmed at least twice and IIRC both films were faithful to the book. I can't comment on the other, never read it or saw the movie.

22

We had read the book, then watched the trailer.

Rosemary's Baby was fairly close from long ago memory, but that is a horror story.

13,18,19 Yep, A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess was a great movie I thought when I saw it years ago. I read the book afterwards, also great, and to me it seemed as if the screenplay was nearly word for word from the book. Oddly I read that Burgress hated the movie.

One movie sticks in my mind as being better that the book, in this case, short story it was made from. Before I name it though I want to make it clear that the only good thing I would ever say about the movie is that it was better that the original. Damnation Alley. How can anything be worse that a movie where they take a top secret military prototype to a Detroit junkyard for parts and then get hit wit a tidal wave that washes them to New England you ask? Read the story.

Rosemary's Baby is very close to the book. There's a story I heard about this, possibly related by Levin, where Polanski couldn't get some minor detail (brand of shirt worn, I forget?) to match exactly, so he contacted Levin to ask if he could change that bit, very apologetically.

Not SF, but for me the first example of 'Good Book' and 'Good Film' that springs to mind is To Kill a Mockingbird.

#29 - Holden,

That's the same story I heard. I think my detail was that he wasn't clear which newspaper they read, but that may be my fuzzy memory. Sounds like we heard or read the same story anyway.

Too bad all writers don't get that sort of respect. We'd have much better movies.

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#31

No one said the movie should replace the book - reading is an experience that cannot be replicated in any other medium. Although there are some books that cannot be easily translated to the silver screen, I should be able to expect that the attempts to do so should make a decent job of it.

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For those with chronic belching, the doctor will look for signs or causes of excessive air swallowing. If needed, an upper GI series (x ray to view the esophagus, stomach, and upper small intestine) may be performed to rule out disease.

rant on topic off/ The da vinci code annoyed me (as a book) as much as anything i've ever read. Even though i knew i shouldn't take it "seriously" i couldn't get over being PO'd that something that shite was on top of the best seller list forever, it seemed. And the conceit that there was such a thing as a "harvard professor of symbology" just put me off the book from the start. The heroic prof could have been a semiotician, a philosopher, a linguist, an anthropologist.. whatever... and gotten the sexy French academician into his bed. But no, we were supposed to believe that a there's an academic discipline called "symbology" i suppose. That many of my reading friends recommended that book to me didn't help. /rant off topic on

For dumb fun i'll take stephen king; at least he can write decently. For smart fun, Pérez-Reverte (sic), Deighton, LeCarre.
god. i've turned this into guilty pleasure thread..now i'm trying to think of SF "guilty pleasure" authors: Orson Scott Card, perhaps.

I think someone mentioned what book{s} would make a good movie adaptation. Since I don't have the $$ to buy the movie rights I think the "Amber" series by Roger Zelazny Nine Princes in Amber being the first in a series would make a great cable series.

It is kind of a SF/fantasy sword fest with ravishing and ravished women where the setting changes between worlds/parallel dimensions the main characters can walk through. You have options of present day and whatever time you like in the other worlds. I have seen commonly used special effects that could be used with the flick so maybe that would keep costs down.

With a compelling story line already there and plenty of time for character development I would think the movie moguls could craft some entertaining fare from this six? {thin} volume series.

BTW does everyone agree that the most damnable disservice {though still enjoyable} to a SF classic have been the attempts at Dune? Had David Lynch made his version 10 hours long I would have been satisfied I think!

********Update**************
I just found out Roger Zelazny continued the "Amber" series at a later date. I read the first two novels and they are not as compelling or well written as the original texts. Kind of like Rocky VIII I guess! No problem for a screenplay writer to fix everything and make it into a series however if you want the heavy lifting of the storyline already done.

35> "BTW does everyone agree that the most damnable disservice {though still enjoyable} to a SF classic have been the attempts at Dune? Had David Lynch made his version 10 hours long I would have been satisfied I think!"

I agree about the length -Lynch would agree with you about the length. But the TV adaptations could go on my above list of "what's wrong with these? adaptations. I personally don't see how they did any damage to the main focus of the story in any significant fashion. Yet many maintain they made a mess of things. I just don't see it. I think they are fine adaptations, and succeed in main part because they are longer presentations than 2 or 2 1/2 hours.

Oh, and Fahrenheit 451 is another . I understand Bradbury didn't like it, but don't see a diminishing of his original concept in the film. That's a perfect example of people thinking "it's not exact so it's no good." I just reread that book, and the film still works for me.

#34

Nice to see someone else who agrees that the Da Vinci code was not all of that. Yes, the idea that Mary had Jesus' child was an interesting idea, but six hundred pages?

I cannot think of any reason to recommend that book - the action was tepid, it was poorly written, the huge world-wide conspiracy did not excite, and there was only one or two good ideas in there (hiding stuff in pictures, and Mary's son). The only reason I read it was because I got it as a present (any book you get as a present is never good, there is some immutable law about that)

Note for anyone who wants to write a bestseller - find a controversial idea about Christianity, make a poorly-plotted story out of it, add some obscure information that has no relevance to the plot whatsoever, mix in cliched characters, make the writing tedious but simple to understand, and watch the money roll in.

ummmm "Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb......" i'm soon to be RICH.
i was also tres annoyed because my one "solo" publication, rather than as a co-author, went to the journal Semiotica, which Umberto Eco had started way back when. I don't think the journal survived him...But i've had a warm spot in my heart for semioticians (as opposed to worthless symbologists) ever since.
(of all unlikely things, it was my thesis for my MLS degree)