iewers first meet Hannon Fuller (Mueller-Stahl) when he
asks Ashton (D'Onofrio), the bartender at the art deco Wilshire Grand
hotel, to deliver a letter to his friend and protege, Douglas Hall
(Bierko). Fuller then goes home to his wife in 1937 Los Angeles, whereupon
his consciousness is zapped back to the reality of 1999.
Fuller is actually the head of a mysterious corporation that has created
the mother of all computer simulations: a virtual 1930s L.A. with fully
formed "units"--representations of people--who conduct their lives unaware
that they exist only as electronic pulses.
Fuller's innovation is that a person can "jack in," or download his or her
consciousness into one of the units, in effect entering the simulated world
and experiencing it in all its sensual reality. Fuller is on the verge of revealing a deep secret about this reality when he is brutally murdered. Hall awakens to find bloody clothing in his apartment, and to find himself the chief suspect of a dogged L.A.P.D. homicide detective (Dennis Haysbert).
Both, meanwhile, are surprised when a woman appears claiming to be
Fuller's long -lost daughter, Jane (Mol). Hall decides the answers to this riddle must lie in the simulation. With the help of techno-nerd Whitney (D'Onofrio again), he risks his own sanity by entering the simulation.
Once inside, he finds himself inhabiting the body of a man named
Ferguson. He sets off across 1930s Los Angeles, encountering Fuller's
doppelganger, a Pasadena antique dealer named Grierson, and Whitney's
double, the bartender Ashton.
He finds out that Fuller had been "jacking in" frequently to this
artificial world and had made an unsettling discovery. When Hall/Ferguson
asks Ashton about the letter, Ashton grows violent, and the two
fight--until Hall is suddenly pulled out of the simulation.
Back in present-day Los Angeles, Hall finds himself strangely attracted
to Jane, as if he's met her before. "Deja vu is usually a sign of love at
first sight," she tells him. Meanwhile, the evidence is piling up that Hall
may have murdered his mentor, Fuller. Why can't Hall remember? And why is
there no record of Jane's existence anywhere? Hall must return to the past in order to find the answers he fears.
"None of this is real."
Adapted from the SF novel Simulacron-3 by Daniel F. Galouye,
The Thirteenth Floor is a serious and handsome rumination on the
nature of reality and identity in the tradition of SF films like Dark
City,The Matrix and Blade Runner. (Hall's apartment is
identical in many respects to Deckard's in the latter film.)
Intriguingly, however, the film plumbs the past rather than the future,
and makes clever use of dual characters (skillfully played by D'Onofrio,
Mueller-Stahl and the others) to erect a hall of mirrors from which there
seems to be no escape.
The Thirteenth Floor was co-written by Ravel Centano-Rodriguez
and German director Rusnak, who shot second unit on Godzilla. It was
co-produced by Roland Emmerich of Godzilla and Independence
Day fame and financed in part by the German government. The German
influence is most evident in the chilly, Modernist present-day sequences,
which are all sharp edges, blue shadows and backlit characters.
Ironically, it's the virtual world of Depression-era Los Angeles that
feels most real in this film. The 1930s era virtually pops off the screen, all desaturated sepia tones, rich curves, warm fabrics and sweaty bodies. The film's production designers clearly spent most of their energy in recreating this lost city, judiciously mixing real locations with computer graphics. The result is breathtaking, especially for viewers who have
spent time in L.A. The effectiveness with which the filmmakers evoke this
period and place deepens the irony of Hall's quest for the truth behind
reality.
Beyond the look of the film, the plot contains enough curves and feints
to keep most viewers guessing, although it's pretty easy to figure out what
Fuller's deep secret probably is. Even so, the twists keep the film
engaging, though its pace is slow for an SF actioner, right up to the
too-happy ending.
Mol has too little screen time, and her function (through a subplot that
defies logic) seems mainly to add a note of romance to Hall's predicament.
Bierko, though credible, seems a little bland to hold the center of this
movie. But D'Onofrio (Men in Black) energizes the film whenever he's
onscreen, alternating menace and befuddlement.
rom submarines and cybernetics to space stations and satellites,
speculative authors have regularly predicted significant technological and
social innovations well before such progress actually occurred. In fact,
during the 1800s, proto science fiction scribes like Mary Shelley and Edward
Everett Hale allowed readers to glimpse the perils and promises
of the coming century. But what impact, if any, did these projections (and
similar divinations by latter-day writers such as H.G. Wells and Arthur C.
Clarke) have upon modern society?
The History Channel investigates that question on In Search of History:
The Truth About Science Fiction. This special incorporates excerpts from
vintage books, archival film footage, and interviews with contemporary
novelists, educators and scientists into an hour-long examination of the
prophetic nature of speculative literature and, to a much lesser extent,
movies.
Insights from experts including Harlan Ellison, Larry Niven, Forrest J.
Ackerman, Eaton Collection curator George Slusser and Amazing Stories
editor Kim Mohan augment numerous examples of inventions that were originally
envisioned by SF seers. Various aspects of outer-space exploration are also
scrutinized, along with controversial earthly topics like vivisection and
cloning. The program concludes by touching upon as-yet-unrealized advances in
time travel, faster-than-light propulsion and cryonics.
Fiction today, fact tomorrow
Whether skillfully extrapolating from existing industrial scenarios or
simply guessing what wondrous secrets the future might hold, SF writers and
filmmakers have often provided their audiences with amazingly accurate
representations of--to borrow a phrase from Wells--"Things to Come." By
exposing viewers to a wide array of these prognostications, The Truth
About Science Fiction provides a thought-provoking overview of the
genre's frequently unacknowledged impact on society.
The program cites many instances of technological prescience, including
Karel Capek's 1920 play R.U.R., which introduced the term "robot" into
the English lexicon, and the phenomenal foresight of Hugo Gernsback's tale
Ralph 124C 41+. The success of the latter work supposedly led, at
least in part, to the establishment in 1926 of Amazing Stories
magazine, with its famous subhead "Extravagant Fiction Today...Cold Fact
Tomorrow."
Regrettably, The Truth About Science Fiction omits some important
details. Star Trek, although admittedly derivative, has arguably
impacted the development of at least a few modern implements and ideologies.
And the program could have indicated that SF offers much more than stories
that simply predict the future. However, even with these weaknesses, the show
is perceptive and informative, presenting viewers with a long-overdue
historical look at the importance of speculative fiction to modern
civilization.
