PAY C H E C K Not e s : Differences between the book and the film In the film The story takes place in Seattle Michael Jennings Rachel Porter Rethrick et Jennings are friends and they become enemies during the story Rethrick et Rachel sont juste liés par le travail Rachel and Michael are a loving couple and they help each other during the film Before the trip of two years, Michael makes a smaller job during two months 20 items (glasses, lighter, motorcycle key, spanner, door key, trombone, newspapers of future, bus token, deodorant, piece of paper with numbers, code key, watch, crosswords, ring, cigarettes, coin money, bullet, matchbox, magnifying glass, metallic ball) We know some little things of what was his job. Who he knew, the place where he was, etc Jennings knows the location of Rethrick s industries The FBI follows Jennings and tries to catch him before Rethrick s men In the book The story takes place in New York Jennings (any mention of his name) Kelly (Rethrick) Jennings isn t acquainted with Rethrick. Only by his job which he doesn t remember Rethrick and Kelly have a blood relationship (father - daughter) Kelly helps Jennings but finally she betrays him because she want to help his father No comparison with the film 7 items (code key, ticket stub, parcel receipt, fine wire, half a poker chip, green strip of cloth, bus token) We don t know anything about what happened during the two years, as Jennings Jennings must search where the factory is. The Security Police (SP) follows him 1
Different ends In the film The film ends after the destruction of the time scoop. Rachel and Michael saddle together in the flower shop of Michael s best friend. Finally Michael remembers that he didn t use all the items and read the numbers on the piece of paper. It s numbers game and he finds his ticket under a coop. They will be rich! In the book It ends after the betrayal of Kelly. She has hidden the pieces of evidence of the existence of the time scoop. But he saw this and a metallic arm appears to catch the parcel receipt of the place she hide the proof. Finally Jennings knows he has won and he will be allowed to control the society and he says All of us, you me and your daughter. Settin g: The story takes place in Seattle, in the U.S state of Washington. We don t know the year of the story, it isn t mentioned. In the story, we are in the future. This world is like our world but in the Rethrick Company, we can see a different world of technology, for example: the time scoop or the laboratory of the biology. The main character is Michael Jennings (Ben Affleck), a computer engineer who has had part of memory erased during two years. He s in love with Rachel Porter (Uma Thurman), a pretty biologist who works in the Rethrick Company, the same place as Michael. They re going to live a relationship during the three years. James Rethrick (Aaron Eckhart) is the boss of Rethrick Company. It s him who proposes to Jennings the job. He s the naughty man in the story. 2
There are 4 secondary characters in the story. Shorty (Paul Giamatti) he is Michael s best friend. It s him who erases Jennings s memory, he works in the Rethrick Company too. There is John Wolf (Colm Feore) he s Rethrick s right-hand man. There are also Agent Dodge (Joe Morton) and Agent Klein (Michael C. Hall) they work for the FBI and are looking for the place of Rethrick Company, and arrest Rethrick and Jennings because they think that Rethrick and Jennings kill William Dekker, a physicist. Su m m a r y : Michael Jennings went to work during 2 months for a company, which name s Nexime. He invented a new machine but all rights are reserved to the company, because he was paid to work and then his memory was erased. He went to a friend s wedding, (James & Sarah Rethrick) and he met a woman, whose name s Rachel Porter. She s biologist and she worked to Rethrick s company. They taught a bit and then Michael went with Jimmy to his office. Rethrick proposed to Jennings to work with him during 2-3 years. He ll receive a lot of money if he agreed but his memory will be erased. Michael agreed. So a few days after, he went to Allcom (Rethrick s company) and he must drop off his personal effects. Then they injected him a chemical product, which must erase his memory. He met one more time Rachel and began to work. He regained consciousness in Rethrick s office. He told him that all is over. Three years had past and he must go to look for the money at Reddy Grant bank. So he went to the bank but he received the envelope with his personal effects. But instead of his personal effects he received 20 items, which are: glasses, lighter, motorcycle key, spanner, door Key, trombone, newspapers of future, bus token, deodorant, piece of paper with numbers, code key, watch, crosswords, ring, cigarettes, coin money, bullet, matchbox, magnifying glass, metallic. And he didn t received the money because he had gave up of it a few weeks ago. Then began a big pursuit, because the police was looking for him because of the murder of a scientist (William Dekker) and because the government would like to know what Allcom was doing. And Rethrick 3
and his right-hands men are too after him because the time scoop didn t work anymore, because of Jennings. So thanks of the items he could ran away from different situations, in which he might be killed. And bit by bit he became aware of that all that happened is not a struck of luck and that he had all of this anticipated. He remembered a bit of his work and of the time scoop too. He discovered thanks of newspaper of future that the time scoop will destroy all the humanity, because if anyone can see his future, he hadn t a future anymore. So with the help of Rachel, who is his girlfriend now, they infiltrated Allcom to destroy the machine. He repaired the time scoop thanks of the crossword and saw one more time his future. He must be shot in the laboratory. And then he schemed the machine with the items so that it destroyed it-self. Finally he must confront his destiny, but when he must be shot, the life gave him a second chance. So he could save him-self and he could life with his love, Rachel. At the end he discovered that he had won 80 millions of dollars on the lottery. So he didn t receive his money at beginning but he could save his life, live with his love and finally be rich too! Plot: In the movie, we are directly immersed in the action. There isn t any introduction, we learn what had happened step by step during the story. At the beginning all is a bit confuse and there is a big ellipsis and all what had happened is learn with flash-backs and with the items, which are like a puzzle that Jennings must put together. The climax is at the end when the time scoop explode, because we don t know if he will survive. The switch it s when Jennings must be shot, and instead his killer, appears Rachel with the police. It s like a second chance for him. And the twist is when he found the lotto s ticket. Because despite everything he had save his life and he s rich anyway! EX T R A c t S : The choosing extract is on time 1: 08 :50 to 1 :13 :43. The extract takes place in the middle of the movie when Mike has found Rachel. We have chosen an extract which is completely Hollywood with no connections to P.K.Dick vision, because the movie is based on the short story of P.K.Dick, but his vision is completely 4
transformed. We would like to show you an explicit example on how Hollywood has transformed this short story. The scene is a track race, Mike is riding a motorcycle with Rachel and he is chased. In the short story, Jennings isn t a real hero. He is very clever and this saves himself from the death; but in the movie, he is very strong and he is a hero. In the extract we shown, he is a very good motorcycle driver. Explosion and track race in American movies are very common things. This track race doesn t exist in the short story. The short story is science-fiction, but the movie is science-fiction and action. AR G U M E N T: First we found that the film was better than the book even if there was less P.K.D style. The couple Affleck-Thurman is beautiful and there are more romance, action, rebounding. If you like the Hollywood s kind of film, you will like this one. 5