Why, well, those of you who know me a bit better, or have read some of my earlier articles, will quickly make the connection. I’m a science fiction, fiction and action lover and I love good movies. And this one was awesome! Not just because of the story, which thankfully, hasn’t changed much from the comics, but more because of the way it was filmed. Do you remember the movies Sin City, 300 or Kill Bill? The scenes are filmed in the same style and in my opinion, this adds to the overall quality of the movie not only from the visual perspective, but also from the point of the storyline. It’s really unbelievable how much you can achieve by smart placement and movements of the camera, to make details you want the watcher to be aware of, stand out. Moreover, the actors did a good job as well, especially Jackie Earle Haley in his role as Rorschach.

And now for a bit of history. It’s interesting to know, that the production of this movie started about 20 years ago and was accompanied with failures since then. Through past two decades, the production rights changed many hands, and even more directors and screenplay writers. Many have tried to adapt the story for the movie, but whenever they tried, they couldn’t come up with a satisfactory result. Until at last, Zack Snyder, the director of 300, took over what was left and decided to retain the original story and give it a go. But the troubles continued, with further litigation from other studios who tried to make this movie before and the story is far more complicated than this short description makes it look. Wikipedia has a short excerpt on this issue, further down, below all the other info on the movie. For comic enthusiasts, here is also some info on the original comic series.

The Metaverse is an enhanced version of the internet, an actual visual representation of everything that happens online today and even more. Each person has his own avatar, with which he is able to interact online, walk along the Street and even own buildings.

The story of the novel concentrates around Hiro Protagonist, a hacker and world’s best sword fighter and Y.T., a fifteen year old Kourier, who try to track down the creator of the Snow Crash, a virtual drug, that is able to crash the computer and your brain system simultaneously. This drug, in it’s virtual form, is however effective only on hackers, because it transmits a crash signal in the form of a binary code to the visual canal of the recipent, which only they can read, causing irreparable consequences to their minds.

Since I don’t want to spoil your reading enjoyment, I won’t divulge into further details of the story. But I’ll add only one interesting curiosity. Thanks to the wide popularity of the book at the time of it’s release, the word avatar, which was introduced by Stephenson, is since then used as the standard definition for the visual representation of a person in the internet.

Rip Cantrell is a student working with a seismic group in Sahara, when he suddenly spots a shining piece of metal in the middle of the desert, which turns out to be a saucer, that is, according to professor Soldi, who is an archaeologist, buried there for over 140.000 years. This discovery is of course quickly spotted by the US military who send its UFO force to seize the saucer. But they are not alone. The second richest man in the world, Richard Hendricks has also dispatched his own group of soldiers to bring him the vessel. And just when it seems that Hendricks will be able to steal the Saucer from Rip, he and Charley Pine, a US air force pilot, take off in the saucer from the scene, right in time before the local army, who also joined the game, was able to get their hand on this precious machine. And this is where things get complicated, when extortion, hiding and decisive action from individuals take place. A story that really keeps the adrenaline in your veins and leaves you with asking for more. And there is more! There is a second book, named The Conquest, which was released in 2004. I haven’t read it yet though, because I couldn’t find it in my local library.

The whole story is very fascinating and all, but since I’m a science fiction lover I also demand answers to the opened questions! And there were many in the book. From the colonization of the Earth, to the contents of the encyclopedia which was found on the ship, but was just briefly mentioned, to their common technology knowledge and the home planet of that civilization. … Yeah, I need to get the second book.