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Published On: May 10, 2004 06:50 PM
Total entries in this category:
Published On: May 10, 2004 06:50 PM
The Dream
I had a pretty odd dream last
night. I don't actually remember too many specifics from it
...
I had a pretty odd dream last night. I don't
actually remember too many specifics from it (or at least, I can't really
explain them concisely), but the format of the dream, I think, is interesting in
itself.
To start with a bit of explanation, last night while at a friend's house we had watched two movies that were just released to DVD this week: Kung Pao, a silly parody of kung fu movies (using technology to incorporate an old kung fu movie with new footage) by the guy who did Thumb Wars and its sequels; and the new remake of The Time Machine, starring Guy Pearce from Memento. (The remake has terrific special effects and visuals, and a great score. The story seemed to suffer a few gaps ... it almost seemed like an editing problem more than anything else.)
Anyway. I got home after midnight, checked a few messages online, then went straight to bed, where the two movies I'd just watched sort of got combined into one dream. Well, not exactly: It wasn't a kung fu movie with time travel, but elements of each story seemed to show up ... and to make it weirder, the whole thing became an epic, multi-generational animated feature film produced by DreamWorks. Very specifically.
The story involved a far-flung future, millenia after our society had fallen apart and been pretty much completely erased, and existing people lived at a cultural level close to the Middle Ages or earlier. (Like the year 802000 in The Time Machine.) Introduce a baby, a young girl, found orphaned on the seashore (echoing the 'chosen one' idea parodied in Kung Pao). The girl grows to young adulthood, nurtured by her foster parents. The middle of the story, muddled of course by dream-logic and dream-imagery, basically had a lot to do with the girl having grand ambitions to help her society advance and regain some of its former grandeur; and also her romance with a young man, who happens to be a king in another land across the sea.
Ultimately, she determines it's in the best interest of both her goals and her romance to leave her family and take a one-way trip across the ocean to marry him. When she gets there, though, she finds her king has gone somewhat mad (as kings often seemed to do) and is busily executing people he perceives as traitors. The girl realizes, sadly, that her grand ambition to help society is not to be; but even as she's realizing this, her ladies-in-waiting bring her a baby, a young boy they found orphaned on the seashore.
From here the dream goes into this odd montage, showing not only the boy as a young adult, but an entire string of such characters, generations of them, each of them feeling that they have failed to accomplish their goals, and yet all of them gradually progressing through stages of culture, through Renaissance and Victorian and modern-day society ... indicating, somehow, that as every one of them takes a tiny step, collectively everyone progresses in great leaps and bounds. Hans Zimmer-directed orchestra and choir swells; roll credits.
Anyway. It was only a dream, and rife with dream-logic, and didn't always make sense. But it was an ambitious dream; if most run-of-the-mill dreams have a budget of somewhere around $20million, I'd suspect this one ran in excess of $100million. And it seemed to carry a strong message in its finale: However frustrated or depressed you may feel, even a small step is still a step forward.
I'll be expecting an email from DreamWorks any day now.
To start with a bit of explanation, last night while at a friend's house we had watched two movies that were just released to DVD this week: Kung Pao, a silly parody of kung fu movies (using technology to incorporate an old kung fu movie with new footage) by the guy who did Thumb Wars and its sequels; and the new remake of The Time Machine, starring Guy Pearce from Memento. (The remake has terrific special effects and visuals, and a great score. The story seemed to suffer a few gaps ... it almost seemed like an editing problem more than anything else.)
Anyway. I got home after midnight, checked a few messages online, then went straight to bed, where the two movies I'd just watched sort of got combined into one dream. Well, not exactly: It wasn't a kung fu movie with time travel, but elements of each story seemed to show up ... and to make it weirder, the whole thing became an epic, multi-generational animated feature film produced by DreamWorks. Very specifically.
The story involved a far-flung future, millenia after our society had fallen apart and been pretty much completely erased, and existing people lived at a cultural level close to the Middle Ages or earlier. (Like the year 802000 in The Time Machine.) Introduce a baby, a young girl, found orphaned on the seashore (echoing the 'chosen one' idea parodied in Kung Pao). The girl grows to young adulthood, nurtured by her foster parents. The middle of the story, muddled of course by dream-logic and dream-imagery, basically had a lot to do with the girl having grand ambitions to help her society advance and regain some of its former grandeur; and also her romance with a young man, who happens to be a king in another land across the sea.
Ultimately, she determines it's in the best interest of both her goals and her romance to leave her family and take a one-way trip across the ocean to marry him. When she gets there, though, she finds her king has gone somewhat mad (as kings often seemed to do) and is busily executing people he perceives as traitors. The girl realizes, sadly, that her grand ambition to help society is not to be; but even as she's realizing this, her ladies-in-waiting bring her a baby, a young boy they found orphaned on the seashore.
From here the dream goes into this odd montage, showing not only the boy as a young adult, but an entire string of such characters, generations of them, each of them feeling that they have failed to accomplish their goals, and yet all of them gradually progressing through stages of culture, through Renaissance and Victorian and modern-day society ... indicating, somehow, that as every one of them takes a tiny step, collectively everyone progresses in great leaps and bounds. Hans Zimmer-directed orchestra and choir swells; roll credits.
Anyway. It was only a dream, and rife with dream-logic, and didn't always make sense. But it was an ambitious dream; if most run-of-the-mill dreams have a budget of somewhere around $20million, I'd suspect this one ran in excess of $100million. And it seemed to carry a strong message in its finale: However frustrated or depressed you may feel, even a small step is still a step forward.
I'll be expecting an email from DreamWorks any day now.
Posted: Wed - July 24, 2002 at 08:39 PM