DVD Talk review of 'Dark Mind'
01-17-09, 09:49 PM
#1
New Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jan 2009
Posts: 1
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
DVD Talk review of 'Dark Mind'
I read Justin Felix's DVD review of Dark Mind at http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=31882 and...I am also an inventor (23 US patents), almost old enough to have noticed the McCarthy era “in the present tense.” Inventors like Paul are created in cinema, for example in "The Man Who Fell To Earth," and there are plenty of people in the world with “dark minds,” but you don’t find anything like the “Dark Mind” plot going on in the real world. Now understand, I love sci-fi, and I’m not put off by fun sci-fi technology that happens to violate the laws of physics. But when it comes to character development, or portrayals of historic eras, I ask for a shred of credibility, which this film lacks on both counts.
Why? A basic premise in both “Dark Mind” and “Man Who Fell …” is that "if you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door" (thanks but no thanks, Ralph Waldo Emerson.) Now I’m taking that “world beating a path” to include the KGB beating down your door, but sorry, it doesn’t work that way. A corporate manager is threatened by an invention coming from outside his or her own R&D team, because the manager’s boss is likely to ask: “Why didn't your people come up with that? You've had years to work on that, and a budget that I've defended in front of the Directors, and you're telling me that some geek with no budget, working by himself, has a working prototype???” The manager’s first response is generally denial, and if the inventor overcomes that, then the manager will probably hide both the inventor AND THE INVENTION from superiors. Why? Because without the inventor’s help (which would be an embarrassment), even with a stolen working prototype, the manager’s team, the product of years of small incremental improvements to the company’s core technology, will probably be incapable of turning the radical new invention into manufacturable hardware. When an invention reaches the working prototype stage, maybe 20% of the work is done. One reads news reports about exceptional cases where the idea, by itself, has cash value – take the intermittent windshield wiper for example. That’s rare and doesn’t apply to complicated inventions like Paul’s “box” (whatever that is.) As for the KGB and it’s present-day counterparts, intelligence organizations are really dumb when it comes to identifying technology that’s worth ripping off.
Don’t get me wrong, successful inventor-entrepreneurs have plenty to be paranoid about – but not closet inventors like Paul. Another quibble: It’s really hard for a person, working alone, to come up with something resembling Dexter’s Laboratory. Unfortunately for the world of drama, what’s exciting about radical inventions is usually perceptible only to those trained in the technology. The sad truth is, showy technology is generally the stuff of cartoons, the distorted portrayals of PR hype, and creative sci-fi.
Now it is possible for someone like Paul to be genetically afflicted with paranoia, so on that basis I “willingly suspended disbelief” and went along with the early part of the film, but where the film took me was not remotely credible, and therefore not interesting.
A far more interesting paranoid inventor was created by author James Park Sloan in “The Case History of Comrade V” (see http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,877728,00.htm.) Sloan’s novel would present a very interesting challenge for a screenwriter. I take pride that Sloan derived his inspiration for that character from myself.
Why? A basic premise in both “Dark Mind” and “Man Who Fell …” is that "if you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door" (thanks but no thanks, Ralph Waldo Emerson.) Now I’m taking that “world beating a path” to include the KGB beating down your door, but sorry, it doesn’t work that way. A corporate manager is threatened by an invention coming from outside his or her own R&D team, because the manager’s boss is likely to ask: “Why didn't your people come up with that? You've had years to work on that, and a budget that I've defended in front of the Directors, and you're telling me that some geek with no budget, working by himself, has a working prototype???” The manager’s first response is generally denial, and if the inventor overcomes that, then the manager will probably hide both the inventor AND THE INVENTION from superiors. Why? Because without the inventor’s help (which would be an embarrassment), even with a stolen working prototype, the manager’s team, the product of years of small incremental improvements to the company’s core technology, will probably be incapable of turning the radical new invention into manufacturable hardware. When an invention reaches the working prototype stage, maybe 20% of the work is done. One reads news reports about exceptional cases where the idea, by itself, has cash value – take the intermittent windshield wiper for example. That’s rare and doesn’t apply to complicated inventions like Paul’s “box” (whatever that is.) As for the KGB and it’s present-day counterparts, intelligence organizations are really dumb when it comes to identifying technology that’s worth ripping off.
Don’t get me wrong, successful inventor-entrepreneurs have plenty to be paranoid about – but not closet inventors like Paul. Another quibble: It’s really hard for a person, working alone, to come up with something resembling Dexter’s Laboratory. Unfortunately for the world of drama, what’s exciting about radical inventions is usually perceptible only to those trained in the technology. The sad truth is, showy technology is generally the stuff of cartoons, the distorted portrayals of PR hype, and creative sci-fi.
Now it is possible for someone like Paul to be genetically afflicted with paranoia, so on that basis I “willingly suspended disbelief” and went along with the early part of the film, but where the film took me was not remotely credible, and therefore not interesting.
A far more interesting paranoid inventor was created by author James Park Sloan in “The Case History of Comrade V” (see http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,877728,00.htm.) Sloan’s novel would present a very interesting challenge for a screenwriter. I take pride that Sloan derived his inspiration for that character from myself.
