Grant is transformed by the war, by the misery he sees in the South, by seeing Black men in combat. He’s transformed by Lincoln, and later by Douglass. He’s a very different man in 1865 than he is in 1861.

Fair.

I’m just trying to remember if that’s it: four Sensurround movies total.

I’ve studied him pretty thoroughly and certainly by 1864 I believe he’d have burned the continent down rather than make peace with slavers.

There’s a reason why Frederic Douglass — who was unsatisfied with both John Brown and Abraham Lincoln — supported him and eulogized him.

Ah! I forgot ROLLERCOASTER.

So that’s four now.

The last movie I can remember seeing with Sensurround was the theatrical release of the BATTLESTAR: GALACTICA pilot.

I can’t remember if there were others beyond that, EARTHQUAKE and MIDWAY.

Right? The villains are generally the people who fail to protect society. The heroes are mavericks who do it anyway.

The hero of POSEIDON ADVENTURE is notably not the Captain of the ship (RIP Leslie.)

The idea that humans were “fine with that” is pretty hilarious. No, they were not at all “fine” with being conquered, murdered and raped.

Williams scores POSEIDON ADVENTURE, EARTHQUAKE, TOWERING INFERNO and JAWS.

As someone who was alive at the time… I remember that even KING KONG (John Barry score) and MIDWAY (Williams again) are marketed somewhat as disaster movies.

MIDWAY even had Sensurround, like EARTHQUAKE.

I like to suggest that Williams gets JAWS, in some degree, because in its way it IS a disaster movie. It doesn’t quite have the all-star cast or center around a single event… but it’s a community getting killed off by something that’s not human.

It has literally the two biggest names in the world at the time.

I saw it in the theater. It had an intermission.

I vaguely remember an article in an old WGA magazine from a veteran TV writer who claimed he sold some variation of The Guns of Navarone to a dozen western, spy, war, sci-fi and action shows in the 1960s-1970s. I have no trouble believing it.

I wonder if he wrote the Battlestar: Galactica one.

Exactly.

The Seven Samurai idea has been repackaged a zillion times. People love it. They love it with samurai, gunslingers, star warriors and even insects.

Execution is everything.

An obsession with protecting “ideas” is the telltale sign of the amateur. I’ve never met a professional who gave it any real attention.

I’d say it only took me to about age 20 to collate what I’d heard from women and come to the conclusion that the sexual assault survivor rate was close to 100%.

I don’t know what Vince Gilligan is thinking, of course. But the mass murdering fascist overlords who just fall apart if you even raise your voice to them… seems pretty pointed to me. I don’t think it’s a story anyone would have written twenty or fifty years ago.

Exactly. No CGI. Train some goddamn hippos and put tutus on those magnificent beasts.

That third one? Key.