"For a moment I thought we were in trouble"

[VGNonly]

[unblock]

1. Great movie, but also a case study in changing attention spans

I saw the movie more than a few tubes as a kid ages ago. Thought it was one of the best movies ever, and no doubt it's an excellent movie.

But then I saw it again, maybe 15 years ago, after my attention span had been sized down considerably because of all changes of modern life, and... what used to be brilliantly timed dramatic tension had become just long stretches of boredom waiting for the next dopamine/adrenaline hit....

[Walleye]

2. "Can't swim? Shit the fall is gonna kill us anyway."

Can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought of that

[unblock]

3. Think ya used enough dynamite there butch?

Some great lines in that movie.

[Rincewind]

7. " Rules? In a knife fight?" nt

[Harker]

4. I've assiduously maintained my attention span.

My wife's twenty-seven year old son, though he made it through John Frankenheimer's "The Train", was derailed by the structure of the film, and seemed to take from it nothing of its spirit...

He seems to think old people should hurry up and die so he can have their things.

What effect did your understanding of having changed have, unblock? I think it's great that you mentioned it.

[unblock]

5. Maybe "attention span" isn't quite the right concept

In the sense that I could still sit through the entire movie. It's just that as a kid, in the long scenes of quiet horseback riding and such, I remember the feeling of tension, ominous danger, they had to keep moving because the trackers were relentless.

Wondering "who are those guys?" And how to give them the slip and so on. It was exciting, nervous-making, tense drama. Those long scenes were important to the feeling that they were being chased and chased with no let-up.

When u saw it years later, those parts weee just boring, I had been trained to expect movies to be non-stop action.

[Harker]

6. Ah, I understand... thanks for the thoughtful reply! n/t