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A Sound of Thunder (film)

2005 film by Peter Hyams

A Sound of Thunder is a 2005 film about a scientist sent back to the prehistoric era who strays off the path and causes a chain of events that alters history in disastrous ways.

Directed by Peter Hyams. Written by Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer and Gregory Poirierbased, based on the short story of the same name by Ray Bradbury.
Evolve or die.taglines

Sonia Rand

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  • Well, you're a hunter, so shoot me.

Charles Hatton

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  • History is not a class struggle, it is a vision struggle. It's people like me trying to get free from narrow-minded pricks like you. Nothing moves without us, we're the goddamn engine.
    • To the government inspector Dr. Lucas just after his facility has been seized by the government
  • Today you stood shoulder to shoulder with Columbus discovering America. Armstrong stepping on the moon, Brubaker landing on Mars. You are true pioneers on the very last frontier: Time.

Others

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  • John Wallenbeck: I haven't seen any wildlife yet. We could be in downtown Pittsburgh, for all I know.

Dialogue

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Sonia Rand: I don't have time for stupid idiots.
Travis Ryer: Well, why don't you make some time. How about we stop with the insults, because it is starting to get on my nerves.
Sonia Rand: You think I devoted my career to designing an amusement park ride for rich men to compensate for their little willies by shooting prehistoric animals, is that what you really think?
Travis Ryer: No, what I think is that if you were a guy, someone would have probably knocked you on your ass a long time ago.
Ted Eckles: My gun doesn't work.
Payne: Believe it or not, that's a safety feature. They're all tied to Travis' gun. It won't fire until he fires first.
Ted Eckles: Why the hell not?
Clay Derris: To keep clients from shooting things they shouldn't.
Payne: Hey, Derris, how about we don't mention this in our report?
Clay Derris: No harm, no foul.
Payne: Appreciate it. You know, I'm not really that big of a dick. I just to like to talk.
Travis Ryer: Some things to remember us by: A safari suit, boots, helmet and a holo-disk so you can relive the jump. And I suggest you take an especially close look at this disk, Mr. Wallenbeck.
John Wallenbeck: Why's that?
Travis Ryer: Well I can't be certain until I review it myself, however, I'm pretty sure it was your shot that brought him down.
John Wallenbeck: [laughs] Well, yeah.
Ted Eckles: [about time travel tourism] It is awfully expensive.
Christian Middleton: What's the point of being rich if you don't buy things other people can't afford?
Travis Ryer: We cannot have accidents.
Payne: While I was a physics major in college, we studied something called the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. It proves that there is no such thing as zero tolerance. It doesn't exist. You basically can't be 100% sure of anything no matter how hard you try. Accidents... happen.
Travis Ryer: We can't have accidents.
Ted Eckles: You sure we should be doing this?
Christian Middleton: There's a six-year waiting list. We paid double to cut to the head of the line, and you want to slink home? You gonna spend the rest of your life with balls the size of BBs?
Ted Eckles: What the hell.
Christian Middleton: They're so big I can hear them clanging.

About A Sound of Thunder (film)

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  • When I was the president of the Urbana High School Science Fiction Club, this would have been my favorite movie. But the movies have changed and so have I and today there is something almost endearing about the clunky special effects and clumsy construction of A Sound of Thunder. The movie is made with a gee-whiz spirit, and although I cannot endorse it I can appreciate it. There’s a fundamental difference between movies that are bad because they’re willfully stupid (“Deuce Bigalow, European Gigolo”) and movies that are bad because they want so much to be terrific that they explode under the strain.
    A Sound of Thunder may not be a success, but it loves its audience and wants us to have a great time. The movie is inspired by a famous short story by Ray Bradbury, arguing that to travel back in time and change even one tiny element in the past could completely alter the future. In that it is firmly Darwinian, and indeed if the common ancestor of all primates had died without reproducing, where would that leave us?
    In the movie, a greedy entrepreneur (Ben Kingsley) charges millionaires a small fortune to travel back in time, kill a giant prehistoric reptile, and return with a video of themselves. In theory this will not change the present because (a) frozen liquid nitrogen bullets are used, which will evaporate making no difference, (b) the targeted beast is selected because in another second it would have died anyway, and (c) the travelers never leave anything behind.
  • For the film it was necessary to not only create a recognizable Chicago of the future, but also have it destroyed and transformed into a primal jungle through four stages as the world changes to a different evolutionary timeline. Julian Caldow was tasked with the conceptual work on what the city of Chicago would look like in the future. Black Mountain Studio in Stuttgart, Germany, created futuristic buildings from scratch, which were then comped into the familiar landscape. A program developed for the telecommunications industry to assist in placing towers within Chicago had an extensive database that was tapped for building details. Real downloads from scans of the city generated an accurate three-dimensional city plan. This optimized the shooting schedule, allowing the filmmakers to know when and where to shoot and selectively adjust the camera for the real layout. Knowledge of the real widths of the actual streets helped in choreographing the bat chase sequence. The tarmac could be dressed to look like the road should at this point in the movie. Camera and car speed could also be tested in advance of shooting. Sebastian Greese and Michael Landgrebe worked as lead artists and Robert Kuczera modeled for Black Mountain.

Taglines

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  • Evolve or die.
  • Some Rules Should Never Be Broken.

Cast

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