Can I Take that Back?

The other night I watched the first Bourne movie (the Bourne Identity) on DVD and they have interviews with director Doug Liman and screenplay writer Tony Gilroy. Tony Gilroy is a talented writer of all the Bourne screenplays, plus many others, with many award nominations and one win. But even such a smart insider as he says something in the interview that, in hindsight, is silly.

Remember, the Bourne Identity was filmed in early 2001. Then came 9/11. As a thriller movie involving the CIA and explosions, it had to be rethought after 9/11. Apparently, in the original movie, the final battle at the Paris CIA safe-house had some big explosions. This was changed to a "less explosive" ending with a great shootout between Matt Damon and the CIA operatives. Explaining why they did this, Gilroy says:

"Everyone pretty much accepted that explosions is movies are over, that there would probably never be another film that had an explosion in it."

I will go out on a limb here and state that this turned out to be wrong. :-)

Now, Gilroy was obviously overreacting here. But this should remind us that 9/11 was shocking and, at least for a short while, did change a lot of things. I worked by San Francisco Bay, right under the main landing route to SFO. I still remember the shock of not seeing the routine of commercial airplanes slowly coming in to land, but instead watching missile-armed Navy fighter jets patrolling the skies.

Now, other people said silly things about the movie too. CrankyCritic's review:

Matt Damon does fine in a role that may have had more punch to it pre 9-11. As we said above, sometimes luck is bad. The Bourne Identity novel was first of a trilogy. We doubt you'll see the rest of 'em on the big screen.

Hmm, many of us did see the rest of them. To the tune of $288 million and $442 million.


As for the movie, I still enjoy it. And it's probably my favorite of the Bourne movies, though all are good. I agree with this review that seeing the action through the eyes of Marie (the fine actress Franka Potente) really heightens the drama and conflict.