Plot: Roy Hobbs (Robert Redford) is a baseball star whose career is presumed over when he is shot and nearly killed by a female serial killer. Nearly two decades later, he triumphantly returns to the big leagues.
Familiar Ending: In the last game of the season, injured and with his special bat broken, Hobbs steps up to the plate and hits a home run that shatters a stadium light. Hobbs is showered with sparks as, in slow motion, he rounds the bases to win the pennant. Original Ending: In the original Bernard Malamud novel, Hobbs strikes out…on purpose. Game over, no pennant. A little boy later confronts him and accuses him of throwing the game. Hobbs weeps, indicating that the rumor is true. Producers changed the ending because they wanted to make an uplifting baseball movie, not Malamud’s depressing story about a broken man.
PRETTY WOMAN (1990)
Plot: Wealthy businessman Edward (Richard Gere) hires Vivian, a hooker with a heart of gold (Julia Roberts), to spend a week with him. They fall in love.
Familiar Ending: They have a fight, and Vivian leaves. But
Edward finds her apartment and serenades her with a recording of an opera they’d attended together. They kiss, make up, and live happily ever after.
Original Ending: In the first draft of the script, Vivian has a drug problem and agrees to kick it as part of the weeklong deal. They fall in love, but Vivian doesn’t give up the drugs. Edward throws her out of his car. No reunion. Director Garry Marshall liked J. F. Lawton’s script, but thought audiences might not. So he had Lawton change it to a more traditional love story—one with no drug problem and a happy ending.
CLERKS (1994)
Plot: Convenience-store clerk Dante (Brian O’Halloran) endures idiotic customers, a fine for selling cigarettes to a minor, and a dead man in the bathroom during the course of his day on the job, when all he wants to do is play a hockey game on the roof. Familiar Ending: Dante closes up shop after a long, crazy day that he wasn’t even scheduled to work and goes off to enjoy the night with his best friend and fellow clerk, Randall.
Original Ending: This was director Kevin Smith’s first movie, and he says that he didn’t know how to end it. His first attempt: As Dante is locking up the store for the night, a man enters the store, empties the cash register, and shoots Dante, who bleeds to death.
FIRST BLOOD (1982)
Plot: The Vietnam War is long over, but it left veteran John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) emotionally disturbed. Homeless and hitchhiking, he gets hassled by a small-town sheriff. He escapes into the forest and starts waging a guerrilla-style war on the town. Familiar Ending: Rambo surrenders to his old commanding officer, Colonel Trautman (Richard Crenna).
Original Ending: As in David Morrell’s original novel, Rambo is cornered by Trautman and, emotionally devastated, begs for his murder to avoid capture. Trautman refuses; Rambo shoots himself. Stallone saw it at a screening and hated it. He threatened to block the movie’s release if the hero died, and had enough clout to force the filmmakers to change the ending. Rambo lived.
THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY (1998)
Plot: Ted (Ben Stiller) tracks down his high-school prom date, Mary (Cameron Diaz), with whom he is still in love, enduring humiliating and painful tribulations along the way.
Familiar Ending: Ted and Mary fall in love, despite challenges from Mary’s stalker as well as her other ex-boyfriend.
Original Ending: Ted and Mary fall in love. Immediately after, Ted gets hit by a bus. He lives, but a bystander finds his severed foot in a storm drain. Directors Peter and Bobby Farrelly felt they’d already pushed the gross humor as far as it could go and took a more commercial way out: a happy ending.
TOILET TECH: BABY EDITION
Here at the BRI, we never get tired of reading about new bathroom
inventions. But it turns out that they’re not all yucky fart-and-
odor-related appliances (although those are pretty funny) .
Some are actually kind of cute…like these.
THE BABYKEEPER
Inventors: Sisters Tonja King and Elisa Johnson of Wood-inville, Washington, who sell the product through their company, Mommyssentials
Product: A baby carrier—that’s especially useful in public restrooms
How It Works: The Babykeeper is a wearable device designed for carrying babies 6 to 18 months old. It’s worn over one shoulder, with the baby sitting in a harness on the wearer’s hip. But the amazing part about it is that if Mom has to use a public restroom toilet, the device comes off and—using the two straps ending in hooks—it can be hung from the top of the restroom partition wall. So the baby just hangs there while mom does her business. Cost: $39.99.
THE TUMMYTUB
Inventor: Childcare providers in the Netherlands
Product: A small clear container on a colorful stand
How It Works: The TummyTub is simply a small, bucket-sized tub on a short stand that purports to mimic the conditions inside the womb, thereby making the transition from womb to the outside world easier. The baby is placed into a few gallons of warm water up to his or her shoulders, making it feel, according to the TummyTub Web site, “warm, reassured, and secure.” (Of course you have to keep the baby’s head out of the water so he or she doesn’t drown.) And the tubs are see-through—so it’s like seeing inside your tummy! TummyTub is currently used in maternity hospitals all over the U.K. Cost: about $50.
THE NITE TRAIN’R
Inventor: Koregon Enterprises, Beaverton, Oregon
Product: A moisture-activated alarm system
How It Works: This is designed for kids with bedwetting issues. It consists of a washable plastic pad that is worn inside the child’s underwear or pajamas at night. It’s connected by wires to a small plastic box that attaches to the child’s pajama top or t-shirt. If the sensors come into contact with just a few drops of urine…it gives the kid a shock! Just kidding—the plastic box actually beeps out an alarm, hopefully waking the child and allowing him or her to high-tail it to the bathroom. The manufacturer promises that your child can never be electrocuted by the Nite Train’R, because it’s powered by harmless 9-volt batteries (not included). Cost: $69.99.
THE WEEBLOCK
Inventor: Sozo, a baby products company based in Unionville, Connecticut
Product: A colored sponge shaped like a men’s athletic “cup,” but it’s for babies—boy babies
How It Works: If you’re a parent of a boy, or if you’ve ever had to babysit for very young boys and had to change their diapers, then you’re probably familiar with what one might call the “Sudden Geyser Effect.” Weeblocks were invented with that in mind. They’re colorful, cuplike, vinyl-covered sponges that you place over your baby boy’s geyser-spouter while you’re changing his diaper. They really work, they’re machine washable—and they come with cute sayings on them like “Whiz Kid,” “Li’l Squirt,” and “Captain Blast Off!” Cost: $10.
OLD NEWS
In 2009 the state of Iowa changed the name of its Department of Elder Affairs to the Department of Aging. Though the new wording is more politically correct (“elder” or “elderly” is now considered inappropriate), the state is thinking about changing it again due to protests over the acronym formed by the new name: D.O.A.
3-D TV
All you need to see in three dimensions are two slightly different images, one for
each eye. Simple, right? Yet getting uncomplicated, inexpensive, and realistic
3-D TV into our homes has turned out to be a lot harder than it looked.
HELP ME, OBI-WAN!
Since the invention of television, there have been countless claims about promising new technologies. Amazing new improvements!…but always sometime in the future. Many of the predictions have come true—color TV, video players, HDTV—but many more have not. The prime example: three-dimensional TV. Over the years, engineers and marketers have periodically announced impending breakthroughs to give depth to our TV screens. Almost invariably, though, the methods proved unwieldy, unworkable, expens
ive, or unsatisfactory—good for a novelty broadcast or two, and then, having been found lacking, put back on the back burner again. Here are some of the most promising failures, near misses, and almost-rans…so far.
STEREOSCOPE 3-D
• The Possibility: One of the ways 3-D TV could work would be to send separate images to each eye using two tiny TV screens.
It’s not a new idea. Using two still images to create a 3-D effect has been around since Sir Charles Wheatstone invented the stereoscope in the 1840s, a technique that used side-by-side cameras to take nearly identical photographs, which the viewer would then look at through a binocular apparatus. These viewers were a huge hit over the next few decades, allowing people to see 3-D images of distant places and historic events. Disaster photos from Civil War battles and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake were especially popular.
It didn’t take long after the invention of movies for somebody to try a cinematic version of Wheatstone’s invention. British film pioneer William Friese-Greene, who filed the first 3-D movie patent in 1890, designed a modified stereoscope with two reels of film that had to be perfectly synchronized in order for the effect to work properly. In a fate that would be shared by many 3-D schemes, there is no evidence that Friese-Greene’s idea ever actually made it to the production stage.
ViewMaster 3-D viewers, which appeared as children’s toys in the 1940s, used the same idea as Wheatstone’s invention. So why not adapt it for video?
• The Problem: To adapt it for TV, each viewer would require two tiny television screens showing two separate, synchronized video signals. Watching a movie or football game as a group experience would be difficult; the headgear would be uncomfortable and expensive.
• The Result: Something like this has actually been tried successfully in a few arcade video games, including Sub-Roc, a 1983 submarine game by Sega in which you look into a “periscope.” But rather than two TVs, there was a high-speed shutter that quickly alternated the correct image to one eye and then the other. In other words, if the video speed were 30 frames per second, each eye’s shutter would open and close 15 times per second, alternating so that the correct 15 frames would go to each eye. Still, the technology is expensive and clunky and will probably never make it to home television.
RED-GREEN ANAGLYPH
• The Possibility: This method predates television. In 1915 Edwin S. Porter presented a public demonstration of short depth-enhanced movies of actress Marie Doro, belly dancers, and Niagara Falls using the red-green anaglyph method. He was 40 years ahead of his time. 3-D movies wouldn’t become a commercial success in theaters until the mid-1950s. And then it became the first “successful” method of getting 3-D on television. As long as viewers had a color TV and those red-and-green glasses, it was possible to broadcast the 3-D movies that had been prepared for movie theaters.
• The Problem: Viewers had to have a color TV at a time when television was broadcast in black and white, and many people complained that the red-green glasses gave them headaches. And, when seen through the glasses, the 3-D image appeared black and white (or red and green), not in true color.
• The Result: The 3-D movies of the 1950s turned out to be a short-lived fad. By the time color TV became common, viewers weren’t much interested in watching black-and-white movies, whether in 3-D or not. Although later attempts allowed something like color TV, the limited spectrum was unsatisfying.
POLARIZED-LENS 3-D
• The Possibility: When Edwin Land invented polarized lenses in 1936, he saw the possibility for using them to view 3-D movies. The lenses let in light vibrating in only one direction and blocked out the rest. He figured out that if he projected two different images on the same screen using polarized lenses at different angles, glasses with the similar alignment could route a separate image to each eye. The system worked, and because it allowed full-color images, it became the most popular method of presenting 3-D in theaters.
• The Problem: TV is another matter. There’s no known way to send polarized images through a TV screen.
• The Result: Nothing.
PULFRICH-EFFECT 3-D
• The Possibility: For this one, credit German physicist Carl Pulfrich in 1922. He discovered that low light makes your eyes see things a split second slower than bright light. So if you cover one eye with a dark lens and look at a 2-D video, the darkened eye will always be a split second behind its brightly lit partner.
The Pulfrich effect allows a 3-D method that depends on an interesting optical illusion. It can be rendered easily on existing TV technology and in full color. It has produced convincing 3-D images for a Rolling Stones concert special, some commercials, a shark documentary on the Discovery Channel, and special episodes of Doctor Who and 3rd Rock from the Sun. Although broadcasters have sometimes provided decoder glasses, all you really have to do is put a dark sunglasses lens over one eye.
• The Problem: The objects on the screen must be constantly moving sideways in the correct direction and at the right speed. If you watch something made for Pulfrich viewing, you’ll quickly notice that the subject or the camera is always moving sideways. (The movement can cause motion sickness in some viewers.)
• The Result: It’s had very limited usage. Producers have learned that Pulfrich 3-D is best used in small doses—for example, in one song in the Rolling Stones concert, or short dream sequences in 3rd Rock From the Sun.
Still, you can get the effect right now with football games, nature shows, car races, or any program that provides predictable sideways movement across the screen. If it’s moving left across the screen, darkening your left eye will make it see the object slightly to the right of what your right eye sees. This discrepancy tricks your mind into interpreting the object as if were popping out from the 2-D screen. Done right, the effect can be pretty impressive.
COLORCODE (AMBER-BLUE ANAGLYPH)
• The Possibility: ColorCode, a brand name owned by a Danish company, uses the same idea as red-green anaglyph. The difference is in the color of the lenses: ColorCode uses amber and dark blue instead of red and green. This system was first used on TV in a highly publicized 2009 Super Bowl commercial for Monsters vs. Aliens in 3-D, and in an episode of Chuck. What’s striking is how different the images in each eye are: The amber lens lets in the yellows, reds, and greens, while the blue lens darkens everything into twilight shades of blue. Still, despite the contrasting images, your eyes and brain somehow make it work. The amber allows a wider range of colors than red-green anaglyph, so the effect is full-color. Viewed without glasses, the image looks almost like a normal 2-D video, with just a fuzzy yellow-blue halo around objects on the screen.
• The Problem: ColorCode still requires glasses. The difference between what’s seen by each eye is pretty extreme, which could be a recipe for eyestrain or headaches for some people.
• The Result: If you have to wear glasses, it’s not bad. In fact, it’s the best, most practical method for 3-D TV so far. And since it’s the method used for recent 3-D cartoons released by major movie studios, its future on DVD is guaranteed.
3-D TV WITHOUT GLASSES?
• The Possibility: Convinced that few people actually like wearing 3-D glasses, several manufacturers have been working to create a practical 3-D TV system that will stand alone. The methods of directing a different picture to each eye include lenticular lenses that angle two different images from the same screen (used in the 3-D illustrations you sometimes see attached to magazine covers and DVD cases) and parallax barriers (a fancy name for a slitted material that allows each eye to see only half of the pixels on a screen). Other systems use eye-tracking systems that automatically follow a viewer’s eyes.
• The Problem: It’s insanely expensive, and most of the systems require you to sit with your head in exactly the right place, without moving. There’s no reason to believe that Hollywood is going to release content formatted to play on systems for the few people willing to spend $25,000 or more for an eyeglass-free 3-D syst
em.
• The Result: These expensive systems are probably suitable only for novelty advertising displays that show films customized for that one specific use. (Ironically, an equally practical, inexpensive, glasses-free 3-D system could be accomplished by projecting two images side-by-side on a wide-screen TV and having viewers cross their eyes until the two images overlap.)
HOLOGRAPHIC TV
While we’re dreaming, let’s go to the next step. Forget flat-screen 3-D; the holy grail of TV technology is 360-degree holographic images in the round—just like in Star Wars—that you can watch from any side. Impossible? Never say never. Many futurists predict holographic TV will be a reality by 2018. With most such predictions, the future is always “just around the corner,” yet it seldom seems to come. But who knows? If we keep predicting that we’ll have holographic TV within 10 years, one of these decades there’s a decent chance we’ll be right.
MAKE YOUR OWN 3-D VIDEO
1. What you need: a video camera and one lens from a pair of sunglasses.
2. Sit on the right side of a bus, train, or car and aim your camera at the window.
3. Watch the video on a TV, holding the lens from the sunglasses over your right eye.
4. Voilà! Amazing 3-D!
UNCLE JOHN HELPS OUT AROUND THE HOUSE
Some tips and tricks from the BRI’s “Home & Garden” section.
Uncle John's Endlessly Engrossing Bathroom Reader Page 33