Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Okay... looks like THE TIME MACHINE is the latest casualty of the new sensitivity in Hollywood in the aftermath of last Tuesday. There's a story that ran on zap2it.com yesterday which says the film was moved the day before the WTC attacks.
I'm not buying it.
Truth is, there's a horrific sequence in the film involving an attempt to do some terraforming on the moon. The explosions are miscalculated, and the moon is literally blown out of its orbit, causing huge pieces of it to rain down on New York. When I reviewed the screenplay, I mentioned the moment (which is not at the end of the film, despite what zap2it.com says) and called it "jaw-dropping." On the page, it certainly was. However, there's no way this sequence can be included in the film now. No one would want to see it, and Dreamworks would have a nightmare of a time explaining it.
This film's been plagued with bad buzz for months now, anyway, what with a month of Samantha Mumba's footage being reshot at Spielberg's request and Simon Wells being replaced by Gore Verbinski for a while. And now this. Maybe it's fitting that the film is opening now on the same day as another troubled SF remake, ROLLERBALL. Should be a spectacular weekend to witness, especially if both films are as problematic as we're hearing. The outraged cries of SF fans will echo coast-to-coast.
See you then.
"Moriarty" out.
