Cloud Atlas - Wachowski's movie with epic story

What I liked the most about the book is the fact that, in the end, the overarching plot wasn't nearly as complicated as it would make you believe in the beginning. As a matter of fact, I'd go as far as saying that there isn't really a plot at all. The whole book reads like a 500 page warning about what went wrong in history, what is going horribly wrong right now, and where we'll end up if we don't change our ways soon. It also greatly describes how easily power corrupts people. I really hope that the movie doesn't over-emphasise the hints of reincarnating souls too much, because that's not really what the book is all about.

yep. human history.. sigh ;_; while it isn't all bad... considering the brutality of our past and present... we should all be deeply ashamed of our existence as humans.

I've just found this description of the movie on the apple trailers website:
I sincerely hope that's just promotional talk because that was not what the book was about at all. Hyped for it nonetheless though.

Based on the book, I wouldn't say it's so much drama as a story about the nature of humankind, and how across our history, we fall into the same pitfalls and traps and ways of thinking that cause us to harm and enslave one another. It would be a little depressing, but it also shows how as individuals we redeem our race by our ability to love one another and stand for what is right.

UK setting, it didn't feel distinct at all

Well what would you not do if you couldn't not do it?

Tom Hanks was at times good, at times a money hungry evil person. I thought people more or less maintained their personality over the years... Does this have to do with karma and redeeming oneself?

I don't recall him being evil in that sense which story was that in? The story plot and mechanic is similar to karma. It's trying to show how actions can ripple through and affect others in time. If you pay attention you can see how everyone's event affected one another like the old man biopic adventure(trapped in nursing home which turned into a "film" seen with Tom Hanks starring in it which is shown by the other clone) affecting somni (questioning her life and stopped acting like a drone) which affect the revolution leading to the post apocalyptic tribe state of the future. Most of the easter eggs found help link everyone together(only one unsure is how the journal of the Pacific lawyer in the eighteen century affected the gay composer) . Interesting story despite it deviating away far from the actual theme of the book

It's not really important. For obvious* reasons Hollywood played up the whole reincarnated-souls thing, which was only important in the book as a symbol and not as a plot device. It doesn't matter if Tom Hanks A did one thing and Tom Hanks B did another thing later. What matters is that when people act, if always effects the world that comes after them, even if only in imperceptibly small ways. Everyone acts, everyone affects everything, and those effects are what make the world the way it is right now, for better or for worse.

*because they assume the general public would be too dense to figure out anything subtle.

My recent adventures have made me quite the philosopher, especially at night, when I hear naught but the stream grinding boulders into pebbles through an unhurried eternity. My thoughts flow thus. Scholars discern motions in history & formulate these motions into rules that govern the rises & falls of civilizations. My belief runs contrary, however. To wit: history admits no rules; only outcomes.

What precipitates outcomes? Vicious acts & virtuous acts.
What precipitates acts? Belief.

Belief is both prize & battlefield, within the mind & in the mind’s mirror, the world. If we believe humanity is a ladder of tribes, a colosseum of confrontation, exploitation & bestiality, such a humanity is surely brought into being, & history’s Horroxes, Boer-haaves & Gooses shall prevail. You & I, the moneyed, the privileged, the fortunate, shall not fare so badly in this world, provided our luck holds. What of it if our consciences itch? Why undermine the dominance of our race, our gunships, our heritage & our legacy? Why fight the “natural” (oh, weaselly word!) order of things?

Why? Because of this:—one fine day, a purely predatory world shall consume itself. Yes, the Devil shall take the hindmost until the foremost is the hindmost. In an individual, selfishness uglifies the soul; for the human species, selfishness is extinction. Is this the doom written within our nature?

If we believe that humanity may transcend tooth & claw, if we believe divers races & creeds can share this world as peaceably as the orphans share their candlenut tree, if we believe leaders must be just, violence muzzled, power accountable & the riches of the Earth & its Oceans shared equitably, such a world will come to pass. I am not deceived. It is the hardest of worlds to make real. Torturous advances won over generations can be lost by a single stroke of a
myopic president’s pen or a vainglorious general’s sword.

A life spent shaping a world I want Jackson to inherit, not one I fear Jackson shall inherit, this strikes me as a life worth the living. Upon my return to San Francisco, I shall pledge myself to the Abolitionist cause, because I owe my life to a self-freed slave & because I must begin somewhere.

I hear my father-in-law’s response: “Oho, fine, Whiggish sentiments, Adam. But don’t tell me about justice! Ride to Tennessee on an ass & convince the rednecks that they are merely whitewashed negroes & their negroes are black-washed Whites! Sail to the Old World, tell ’em their imperial slaves’ rights are as inalienable as the Queen of Belgium’s! Oh, you’ll grow hoarse, poor & gray in caucuses! You’ll be spat on, shot at, lynched, pacified with medals, spurned by backwoodsmen! Crucified! Naïve, dreaming Adam. He who would do battle with the manyheaded hydra of human nature must pay a world of pain & his family must pay it along with him! & only as you gasp your dying breath shall you understand, your life amounted to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean!”

Yet what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?

Mainly how he was a murderous greedy doctor in one but turned into a much more reasonable man during the post apocalyptic time period, and was a nice scientist in the 70s, etc. I get that the movie is about karma and affecting people/yourself past your own life The reason I bring it up is because Hugo Weaving and Halle Berry both more or less maintained the same archetype. Weaving was a fucking dick, and Berry was a pretty good/inquisitive person no matter what time period she was in. Hanks is the only one to "switch sides" between the generally accepted moral good and evil I think

are all the stories necessarily supposed to have happened/be the truth? Remember for example, we get each past story in diary/book/movie/letter form experienced by someone in the future. Or can characters' "souls" be seen in or projected onto stories of the past which they and we aren't even sure happened in the real movie world.

Or the even the reverse. The future characters are dreamed up by the past ones, in Adam Ewing's delirium/Frobisher or the old composer's dreams/etc.

Frobisher blew his brains out :/, I didnt get to that part in the book yet^^

That was the one thing that really destroyed the movie for me. So hanks is first this greedy doctor. Then the greedy hotelmanager, where, by his greed he actually does something nice. Then he works for one of the most evil corporations, but for a brief moment is even more eager to get into halle berry's pants and therefor helps to prevent the death of many. Because love starts to make him a better person. Then he is that really simple criminal, which points out how simple of a soul he possesses. Then in the future, the button he finds again from one of his past lifes almost rips of his face, and when he finally lets go of the button(his greed) he gets into halle's pants...yeah. Also, hugh grant actually goes through a transformation aswell, he continiously becomes more evil. Pretty sure Agent smith is not to take too seriously, as in the end he literally become the personification of fear. He is more like someone who helps other characters to develope.

I think "Agent Smith" embodies some negative principle in all stories. From Slavery, Fascism (I am not sure if he really loved the Jewish women here, that would be the only conflict we see in him), Murder, the unjust and uncaring System (I would say two times), to "The Devil" of the tribes people/ Fear. The most interesting thing here is that at the end he only exists in the mind of another person because this questions for me if he was ever a soul or just a negative principle that found a soul/body that it shaped.

Damn I just noticed how the tribes people in the post apocalyptic world and the slaves in the beginning have both extensive facial tattoos establishing yet another connection.

Loved the film so much to think about.

I loved a lot of the timelines. Especially how different they were - yet oddly similar. The one with the composors in peticular was a favourite of mine. I do have a question about the connections of timelines:
- The lawyer was linked to the composers through his journal found in Vyvyans mansion
- The composors were linked to the journalist through both the composors relationship to Sixsmith - but also the music (she recognizes at the store)
- The journalists friend wrote a book you see in the publishers timeline

- Somni is obviously related to the storyline after the great fall...