qz thoughtsThe Timekeepers of Eternity
In 1995 a miniseries was made from a Stephen King short story, The Langoliers. The miniseries was essentially a three hour movie in two parts, and the DVD release just presented it as such. It's got the usual things that bother me about King, like a character based a bit on himself and a psychic kid. It also suffers from the "we need three hours of content" TV miniseries issue, so the story drags.
The gist of the story is on a red-eye flight from Los Angeles to Boston most of the passengers, and all of the active crew, disappear. The plane continues on autopilot until, a dead-heading captain takes over. A good chunk of the film is the people trying to figure what happened, then some time realizing there's danger, and finally how to undo what happened.
The author stand-in mystery writer provides much of exposition, but it's pretty much all speculation. A self-important and obnoxious businessman provides the name for threat, based on childhood tales his father told while psychologically abusing the kid. One character describes these "Langoliers" as "The timekeepers of eternity" during a bit of padding.
Eventually some of them get back to LAX, and take care to stand out of the way for a safe return to reality, thinking nothing of the huge plane they left right outside the terminal.
That businessman, Mr Toomey, provides a good deal of the conflict when not worrying about the Langoliers. During his attempts to control his emotions he spends the time tearing paper into small strips. This is even used by other characters to recognize Mr Toomey has been around when the torn paper is seen.
In 2021, Aristotelis Maragkos decided to remake the film by reediting the original Tom Holland directed version. Maragkos titled his work The Timekeepers of Eternity and it is more Mr Toomey focused and much tighter, a mere sixty-two minutes.
But the remarkable thing about Maragkos's edit is that it is paper based. He printed the frames, in black and white, on paper and tears and crumples them to fit the story. Split screen edits, for example are archieved with a torn sheet on top of another sheet. The Langolier monsters are no longer mid-budget 1995 CGI "beachballs with teeth", but are now balls of crumpled paper.
(The direction King provided to Holland for the look was "beachballs with teeth". That fits the size, but to me seeming more like walnuts with metal buzz saw teeth. The crumpled paper balls have no visible teeth but seem more intimidating.)
This paper version improves on the original in every way and is an excellent example of experimental film. As a mild spoiler, the ending is different in this one. The film stops before they reach LAX with the implication that they never make it. I believe this is minor since the process and the journey are the good parts. And it's not explicitly said that they don't make it.
The director sells this film, but not on DVD or Bluray, no, you can buy it on used VHS tapes, where the first hour has Timekeepers recorded on top of whatever was there before.
43 million in bond money out of 50 million.
