http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWnAqFyaQ5s&feature=related

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1371111/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_Atlas_(novel)

I'm not much of a reader. This is one of the few books I've read more than once, and without a doubt one of my favorite stories ever.

The trailer looks epic. The movie could easily be split into two parts (and could even have more of an effect that way)... I don't think it does, but I do hope it's at least a good 3 hour long treatment.

October 26, 2012. can't wait.
(sorry if repost.... I searched.)

8/20/2012 11:52:36 AM

One of my favorite books, but I am concerned about the film-ability of it. Also, Tom Hanks and Halle Berry are questionable/distracting as movie stars

8/20/2012 1:06:37 PM

Looks very interesting. I like just about everything with Hugo Weaving in it.

8/20/2012 1:57:08 PM

this trailer blew me away a few weeks ago. I'm really intrigued to see the feature.

8/20/2012 2:01:33 PM

Quote :

"Looks very interesting. I like just about everything with Hugo Weaving in it."

agreed on both accounts, Hugo Weaving is probably at the top of my list right now

8/20/2012 2:48:43 PM

omfg the scope of this story is immense... will be shocked if they pull it off as well as the trailers imply

8/23/2012 8:51:24 PM

i get that impression too, how is this not a 6 hour movie?

8/23/2012 9:12:57 PM

the trailer looks like a sci-fi version of Crash

ugh

8/23/2012 9:19:41 PM

a white man and a black woman hug

crash

8/23/2012 9:22:52 PM

into me, baby

8/23/2012 11:10:01 PM

heres another trailer, cant wait to see this. I finished the book a few weeks ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQFAPeaJOf8

10/1/2012 11:05:34 AM

Wow, never heard of this until reading this thread. Very interesting, I think? Not ready to run to the movies to see this, but I certainly find the story interesting and the trailer to be pretty cool. Not knowing the back story of the novel though, I might wait and see how the reviews come out for it before I decide to hit the theaters or wait to Netflix it.

10/1/2012 11:28:57 AM

^^how was the book?

10/1/2012 11:39:26 AM

it was good, seeing the trailer (and using IMDB to see whos playing who) definitely helped me keep the storylines straight.

From the movie synopsis I've read, the movie is going to make the connection between characters (past,present,future) a little more obvious than the book did. Which I think is a good call

10/1/2012 11:48:47 AM

currently reading the book

10/1/2012 4:36:47 PM

for those who enjoyed the novel, i highly recommend Black Swan Green by the same author

10/1/2012 5:05:23 PM

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/58719

Quote :

"It is difficult to write about CLOUD ATLAS, at least for me, without delving into personal aspects of my life. Earlier in the week, after coming out of that film, I was almost physically compelled to spit something out within an hour of seeing the movie, and I believe that to have been a mistake. I was so overwhelmed by the experience of it all that I couldn’t think rationally or critically about what I had seen."

I too am moved by the trailer, the first one more so than the second. But wow.

10/1/2012 5:59:52 PM

SOON...

i don't really like the "hey-lets-paint-this-white-guy-to-look-asian" idea. and he's apparently not the only horrible-looking iteration.

[Edited on October 21, 2012 at 9:22 PM. Reason : ]

10/21/2012 9:21:43 PM

I have -extremely- high hopes for this movie .... not sure how i feel about that

10/21/2012 10:07:04 PM

Book was great.

I wouldn't be opposed to seeing a more obvious connection between timelines, so I'm pretty pumped for the movie.

10/22/2012 11:38:52 AM

can we discuss the book or do we need to wait til the movie comes out?

10/22/2012 11:47:38 AM

For those of you who have read the book, how different is the plot from that of The Fountain, starring Hugh Jackman?

I've seen the trailer for this and the previews, in some ways, remind me of that story a bit.

10/22/2012 12:27:11 PM

Warning spoilers (kinda):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ubk647t944A

The actors talk about how awesome the movie is. I'm very pumped for this

10/22/2012 1:19:57 PM

i haven't seen the fountain, but just glancing at the wikipedia article it seems like it's the same two characters existing over the course of several centuries. cloud atlas is kind of like that, but it's characters from 6 short stories, and not all of them are reincarnations of people from preceding short stories. i kind of understood it as a few of the same souls being "born" to different bodies though not necessarily being the same person, per se. i think the movie adaptation will probably bring those comparisons out because the same actors portray different characters. i didn't envision dr. henry goose from the first story as having the same appearance or being the same person as zachry from the sixth story, but maybe that was the deal and i just didn't pick up on it. and halle berry's character in the third story is supposed to be the reincarnation of a male character writing letters in the second story, yet she's also cast as the woman said male character is having an affair with. i don't know. there may be a lot i didn't pick up on the first time through. i did find it difficult to keep some details straight because the way the stories are told is like

1 2 3 4 5 6 5 4 3 2 1

so by the time i was getting around to the second halves of the short stories there were some names and other things i had forgotten about.

10/22/2012 2:31:57 PM

yeah, the only thing that really connected the characters throughout the book was a birthmark. but even that wasnt explicitly stated, and didnt appear in each story. At least not that I can remember

[Edited on October 22, 2012 at 3:44 PM. Reason : asdf]

10/22/2012 3:44:15 PM

i don't remember it being in adam ewing's journal, and i can't remember whether or not robert frobisher says anything about it, but i know luisa rey, timothy cavendish, sonmi and meronym all had it, though timothy's might've been different. the other thing was that half the short stories aren't supposed to even be "real" within the context of the overall story, so the whole reincarnation theme wasn't even actually a thing, i don't think. and wasn't zachry's story actually that book that was written by the guy who gets thrown off the roof in timothy cavendish's story? or am i wrong about that? actors playing multiple roles in the movie just makes less sense if they're trying to imply that meronym and luisa rey are the same person or something.

the more i think about this book, the more i start to think i actually have no idea how it was all supposed to have played out.

[Edited on October 22, 2012 at 4:04 PM. Reason : .]

10/22/2012 4:02:12 PM

Quote :

"so by the time i was getting around to the second halves of the short stories there were some names and other things i had forgotten about"

+1

Quote :

"dr. henry goose from the first story as having the same appearance or being the same person as zachry from the sixth story"

wasn't zachry around 19 yrs old as well?

10/22/2012 5:46:36 PM

yeah he was around that age. isaac sachs was fairly young too. halle berry is luisa rey and meronym, who were supposed to be like 25 and 50, respectively. not that you can't make actors look older or younger than they really are, but it just doesn't make a lot of sense to me to cast halle berry as both of them when their physical descriptions weren't terribly similar.

10/22/2012 5:59:47 PM

Actually, I was a little disappointed to learn that the same actors were jumping across storylines. I never considered the characters were visually similar.

The connections between the stories were already there; now i fear they may have made it uber obvious to the point where it becomes lame.

I'm reserving judgement, but I am still super excited.

10/22/2012 8:40:06 PM

and i don't remember any dialogue in the book similar to the kind of stuff tom hanks says in those trailers. other than the birthmark i think frobisher was the only character who really said anything that hinted at a sort of connectedness.

and for anyone who read the paper version, in timothy cavendish's story does he refer you to a part from zachry's story that's supposed to be a page out of "knuckle sandwich"? there's a kind of link to it in the kindle version

10/22/2012 9:14:11 PM

Wait, what? I've read it (on paper) three times and don't remember that. Spoiler alert: I could be totally wrong.

10/22/2012 10:34:58 PM

yeah, it's at the part where dermot's brothers tell timothy to bring a box of cash at 3 o clock and one of them says "dermot did a nice little paragraph in his book. on loan defaulters," which is followed by "i refer the curious reader to this page of knuckle sandwich..." and if you click "this page" in the kindle version it takes you to the part where zachry is talking about burying the babbit.

10/22/2012 10:55:15 PM

speaking of "babbit," I didn't know what the hell he was talking about for a page or two

10/24/2012 7:07:12 PM

Saw this last night. I haven't read the book, so kind of went into it blind. Was a bit confusing at the beginning with all the different stories, but it comes together quite nicely as the movie went on. Quite a few people in the theater thought it was awful and were confused about everything...two people even left maybe 60% of the way into the movie. It surely requires your attention and makes you think (movie has stuck with me all day thinking of the parallels between stories), but I can see for some people the movie just isn't for them. Overall, I thought it was pretty good. Not the best movie ever, but it's worth seeing.

10/27/2012 6:46:27 PM

It's interesting to me that the first wave of reviews were glowing, and the second wave are mediocre-to-awful.

10/27/2012 6:48:56 PM

I saw it last night and give it a 3/5

They "added" a lot of things out of left field not mentioned in the book that makes me want to re-read it with some movie bias and some things out of left field that were just "WTF ok whatever"

I'll re-watch it again sometime when I'm not trying to recover from fever/flu symptoms

10/27/2012 6:59:05 PM

It wasn't without its problems, but overall I really, really liked it. The biggest things that bothered me were: [[[[spoiler alerts folow!!! highlight to read]]]

Ol' Georgie's appearance. Looked awfully Hot Topic-y. Also, the complete lack of mention of Ol' Georgie stonin' Zachry's soul. Also, I always thought Zachry was a kid (or teen) when he meet Meronym. Never had any remote inkling that they boned down later on or had any romantic feelings whatsoever. Also the absence of Vyvyan's daughter, who plays a minor but meaningful role in Black Swan Green.

10/27/2012 7:17:35 PM

Also Neo Seoul whaaaaat? That shit is Neo So Copros and you know it.

10/28/2012 12:49:26 AM

Saw it yesterday. I have zero knowledge of the book.

It's basically 5 short bad movies strung together for 3 hours.

Stay away. I think this movie is going to be a big flop from a commercial perspective. They spent $100 million dollars as an independent film and made it an R rated movie. R rated movies typically make a lot less money than PG13. Talk about a financial risk those backers made.

[SPOILER]


A big portion is a reversed Blade Runner plot.


[/SPOILER]

[Edited on October 28, 2012 at 10:27 AM. Reason : .]

10/28/2012 10:24:42 AM

Saw it last night, without reading the book there were some parts that I struggled to connect while watching the movie.

Overall I enjoyed it though

10/28/2012 11:11:58 AM

I saw it today with no prior knowledge or reading the book.

- What was the connection with the 1973 storyline and the 2012 storyline? I could see the connection between all the other storylines pretty easily.

- Did anyone else feel like subtitles were necessary during the post-apocalypse scenes (it was like 100 yrs after the "Big Fall" as they described it)? . I was mostly able to figure out what they were saying but I really had to strain to understand. I do like that they changed the speech though, it's believable that after a long time of isolation, local dialects would take over. The only thing was that because of the speech difference I just had a hard time following --

-Who was it that Halle Berry was using the satellite dish to contact for rescue? Off-planet human colonies? Why did her people need rescuing? I thought they mentioned that they were unable to survive but I couldn't figure out why. Why were her people so advanced and Tom Hanks' tribe so primitive?

- What was with the Tophat guy that Tom Hanks kept seeing (Hugo Weaving) telling him to kill her and stuff? Was it just some kind of inner voice or was there more to it?

10/28/2012 11:51:56 PM

Quote :

"- What was the connection with the 1973 storyline and the 2012 storyline? I could see the connection between all the other storylines pretty easily."

in the book timothy cavendish reads the luisa rey story, so i kind of had a hard time figuring out what was real and what wasn't. luisa rey being a fictional character would mean that robert frobisher and adam ewing were also fictional, but i think frobisher said he thought ewing's journal was a forgery anyway. and as i said the other day, the kindle version has a link to zachry's story from timothy cavendish's story, which would also mean that the post-apocalyptic hawaiian future was also fictional, and that had a connection to sonmi 451, so then that would suggest that timothy cavendish's story was the only one that was "real." but the paper version apparently didn't make that link between timothy cavendish and zachry, so i don't really know.

Quote :

"- Did anyone else feel like subtitles were necessary during the post-apocalypse scenes (it was like 100 yrs after the "Big Fall" as they described it)? . I was mostly able to figure out what they were saying but I really had to strain to understand. I do like that they changed the speech though, it's believable that after a long time of isolation, local dialects would take over. The only thing was that because of the speech difference I just had a hard time following --"

it wasn't easy to read either

Quote :

"-Who was it that Halle Berry was using the satellite dish to contact for rescue? Off-planet human colonies? Why did her people need rescuing? I thought they mentioned that they were unable to survive but I couldn't figure out why. Why were her people so advanced and Tom Hanks' tribe so primitive?"

i don't remember if she was trying to contact anyone or not in the book. i didn't really figure out why she was living with the hawaiian people. i probably need to read the book again though. i feel like there was something related to medicine or disease or something. there wasn't really an explanation about the technology gap. all that's really suggested is that it's been a couple centuries since "the fall," and i guess a small number of people must've been able to maintain control of technology from the korean civilization. it doesn't really need to be explained. something happened and there aren't many people left in the world who know what it was.

Quote :

"- What was with the Tophat guy that Tom Hanks kept seeing (Hugo Weaving) telling him to kill her and stuff? Was it just some kind of inner voice or was there more to it?"

the top hat guy is old georgie. i don't think he was supposed to have been real, so more of an inner voice. there were stories about him, but my understanding was that it was just basically primitive people making shit up. and looking at the other characters that were depicted by hugo weaving in the movie, there was no indication to my knowledge that bill smoke, nurse noakes, boardman mephi and old georgie were supposed to be the same person or whatever. and maybe that wasn't the point, but that's kind of what i'd assume they were trying to say based on the trailer. the author said that all but one of the main characters are reincarnations of the same soul, but that's made obvious in the book by the birthmark. what's not made obvious is dr. henry goose being the same soul as zachry.

to me the movie seems like they're trying to make a bigger deal out of the whole interconnectedness thing, and i didn't really find it to be as significant while reading the book. but maybe the issue is more of me not being perceptive rather than the people who made the movie trying to make something out of nothing. and everything i'm saying is based on the trailers, so maybe i should go see the movie or something.

[Edited on October 29, 2012 at 1:18 AM. Reason : .]

10/29/2012 12:51:18 AM

^Now that you reminded me, I do remember that Cavendish had a book written by the kid who like mystery novels in his study. I think the kid's last name was Gomez or something like that, but at one point he said "You should write a book about this!" to Luisa Rey so that connects all of the stories.

Also, I'm a little confused about the whole reincarnation deal. Each main character in each time setting had the birthmark right? So that would imply that whoever has that birth mark is the reincarnated soul. But then wouldn't the actors portraying different people mean it is the same soul? For example, it's implied that every character played by Tom Hanks is the same soul, but the composer from the 1930s and Luisa Rey both had the same birthmark, so do they have the same soul? But then again, the guy playing the composer was also the guy playing the record store employee.

10/29/2012 9:05:12 AM

Quote :

"to me the movie seems like they're trying to make a bigger deal out of the whole interconnectedness thing, and i didn't really find it to be as significant while reading the book. but maybe the issue is more of me not being perceptive rather than the people who made the movie trying to make something out of nothing. and everything i'm saying is based on the trailers, so maybe i should go see the movie or something."

I watched it last night, and this was very much how I felt.

I did not read the book. The movie was well done and I was entertained. Towards the end though, I really started to get the sense that the movie was trying to be more than it was. It played up the concept that the trajectory of society is formed by individual action. However, the movie's approach to karma felt very ham-fisted. The directors clearly wanted us to take something from the movie, but when the entire point is that our crimes/kindnesses are punished/rewarded and we "are all one", reincarnation cheapens that moral lesson.

Leaving the theater, I heard people saying things like, "that was too deep for me!" I can't agree. I thought that the movie tried to show a rich world or timeline, and perhaps the book did exactly that. In the end, it felt shallow - the richness was spread too thin and the message lacked a certain provocativeness that I would hope to see. Oh, great, you're against human enslavement. So brave.

[Edited on October 29, 2012 at 9:57 AM. Reason : ]

10/29/2012 9:54:22 AM

Quote :

"I do remember that Cavendish had a book written by the kid who like mystery novels in his study. I think the kid's last name was Gomez or something like that, but at one point he said "You should write a book about this!" to Luisa Rey so that connects all of the stories."

this is different in the book. cavendish gets a manuscript written by a woman that turns out to be the luisa rey mystery. found this from an entertainment weekly review:

Quote :

"In the novel, renegade publisher Timothy Cavendish receives, in manuscript form, the novel Half-Lives: The First Luisa Rey Mystery– which is, in fact, the third story in Cloud Atlas. Half-Lives is written by an author named Hilary V. Hush, and there’s nothing to indicate it’s based on a true story — which means that Luisa Rey’s story is fictional, or anyhow, “fictional” within the fictional world of Cloud Atlas. This implication may have been one metaphysical bridge too far for the movie, which shows Cavendish receiving the same manuscript from an author named “Javier Gomez.” Gomez is played in the Luisa Rey segments by Brody Lee, a young boy who — lest we miss the link — is prone to saying things like “Gee, this would make a great mystery novel!”"

so maybe they changed it to make it less confusing? i don't know.

Quote :

"For example, it's implied that every character played by Tom Hanks is the same soul, but the composer from the 1930s and Luisa Rey both had the same birthmark, so do they have the same soul?"

this is what i was talking about. robert frobisher, luisa rey, timothy cavendish, sonmi 451 and meronym all had the birthmark, so they were supposed to have been the same soul reincarnated. no one played by tom hanks had the birthmark or showed any obvious signs of being reincarnations. timothy cavendish was an old man during the present day though, so if luisa rey had been real then they both would've been alive at the same time, and timothy probably still would've been older. it'd be nice to get some kind of clarification on that from the author, but maybe you're just not supposed to think about it too hard because it doesn't really affect the theme of the story negatively.

[Edited on October 29, 2012 at 10:31 AM. Reason : .]

10/29/2012 10:29:42 AM

Quote :

"i don't remember if she was trying to contact anyone or not in the book. i didn't really figure out why she was living with the hawaiian people. i probably need to read the book again though. i feel like there was something related to medicine or disease or something"

I forgot what she was looking for in the observatory. Seems like it was just to explore. I think she was really just living with them to learn their ways. In the movie, I thought I heard a line that made me think they were in Japan It's definitely Hawaii in the book.

The Prescients' dark skin helped them survive:
Melanoma and malaria belts advance northward at forty kilometers per
year. Those Production Zones of Africa and Indonesia that supply Consumer Zones are now
60-plus percent uninhabitable. Corpocracy’s legitimacy, its wealth, is drying up -Somni

I don't know what was up with Meronym's radiation poisoning. It wasn't in the book; she lived perfectly well on the island.

Quote :

"i don't think he was supposed to have been real, so more of an inner voice"

He's the devil. They valleysmen can hear ghosts/spirits.

Things from the movie that I did not get/remember from the book:
Frobisher and Sixsmith are lovers
Seer Rhee banging Yoona
Fabricants as sex slaves/objects (I thought this was strange in the book )
Cavendish banging his sister-in-law

10/29/2012 8:33:41 PM

Quote :

"Things from the movie that I did not get/remember from the book: Frobisher and Sixsmith are lovers Seer Rhee banging Yoona Fabricants as sex slaves/objects (I thought this was strange in the book ) Cavendish banging his sister-in-law "

I haven't seen the movie yet, but those were all in the book. Granted, they weren't obvious or vital to the plot but they were there in some form.

10/29/2012 9:07:18 PM

Quote :

"CLOUD ATLAS is a cloudy, dope induced, fuzzy philosophical nightmare. It offers no hope and a lot of tedium. Its politically correct, pagan worldview promotes reincarnation, the transmigration of souls, lust, homosexuality, and self-centered freedom with no limitations. Christians and Christian values come under attack, as do oil companies. Also, there’s strong foul language, gruesome violence, explicit nudity, and some lewd behavior. CLOUD ATLAS has a good cast, but it’s hard to believe the average moviegoer is going to appreciate this convoluted, depressing, lewd, politically correct tale."

[Edited on December 28, 2012 at 2:30 AM. Reason : yikes]

12/28/2012 2:21:19 AM

LOL, where is that review from? Christian Times Magazine?

12/28/2012 10:10:26 AM

So being politically correct is a bad thing?

12/28/2012 10:30:29 AM