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[JohnIan101]

Past Tense


[An earlier version of this PT was originally posted on July 26th, 2015 on JoBlo's "DVD, Blu-Ray & Home Theater Discussion" forum.]

What appears to be a miraculous gift can make you the target of zealots in "Jumper"...



The motion picture opened on February 14th, 2008. It was made with a budget of $85,000,000 (estimated) and grossed over $80 million during its U.S. theatrical run; counting foreign receipts it made $222,231,186. The film opened number one at the box office, the following week it dropped to number two.

The feature opened against "Juno", "The Bucket List", "The Spiderwick Chronicles" and "Step Up 2: The Streets".



The two disc set, "Digital Copy Special Edition" came with a lenticular slipcover. The single disc version did not. The SE came with a second disc which housed the digital copy. There were two inserts. 1) Single sided ad for General Tire with a web address for a contest; win a free set of car tires. Yeah, that feels pretty random. 2) A small insert, Digital Copy instructions. It expired on June 9th, 2009.

Never owned the single disc version, which was pretty light on extras. I can imagine that it only came with General Tire ad.

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There was a single exclusive from Wal-Mart, a comic book prequel, "Jumper: Jumpscars". It came in a foil cardboard long box, which I still have as you can see from the scan below.



This streeted on June 10th, 2008 for $14.44. One huge catch - this exclusive was only attached single disc version. Being anal, I bought it and sold the movie on Ebay. And yeah, I lost money on this.

I was going to scan the graphic novel cover, but the long box shows it unobtrusive. Pass. This is a self contained story; one hundred pages. It was published by Oni Press. The story was written by Nunzio DeFilippis and Christina Weir. It's roughly the same size as a DVD case. And no, will not fit inside.

The story is told in flashbacks; Paladin trainee Jessica - we follow her as she goes on her first case. Her mentor is Roland Cox (Samuel L. Jackson). They are looking for a child Jumper, who in escaping from the Paladins, causes a death; a pedestrian is struck by a car. Roland kills the kid without any mercy.

By chance she learns of another Jumper nearby and investigates. She falls for the guy, Andrew. But in the end, she does her job to much regret. He was harmless, just a sightseer. And cared for her, Andrew saved her from an attacker.

The present; her new target is David Rice (Hayden Christensen). Jessica is having second thoughts on killing him, for now she's monitoring the kid.

I appreciate that this was not preview or chapter of a larger comic. I wish this was standard comic exclusive, but its not.

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Footnotes.

Just so you know, "Jumper" was intended to be posted for this past June, but things popped up and here it is.



Something I didn't know until researching, this film is loosely based on the novel of the same name by Steven Gould, published in 1992 (hardback) by Tor Books. Only bare elements carried over to the big screen. Gould's book has three sequels, "Reflex" (2004), "Impulse" (2013) and "Exo" (2014). There was even a short story sequel to "Reflex" called "Shade" (2008).

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Like the production for "Back To The Future" (1985), there was a stop and go on filming.

Sure.

For that film, the lead character, Marty McFly wasn't originally Michael J. Fox - it was actor Eric Stoltz. The problem was that the part needed charisma. Not an insult to Mr. Stoltz, he's a good actor. But at that point in time he wasn't the right person. Four weeks of filming were in the can before filmmaker decided this wasn't working and recast the role with Fox. The rest is history. Stoltz's departure was amicable.

The same happened for "Jumpers".

Production began in May of 2006 and stopped for three weeks. The role of David Rice was played by Tom Sturridge best known as Roger Gosselyn from "Being Julia" (2004). In this version the main character is eighteen years old.



The role of his girlfriend/love interest, Millie was then played by Teresa Palmer. At the time she was probably better known as Vanessa from "The Grudge 2" (2006). I know her as Tori Frederking from "Take Me Home Tonight" (2011). And of course as Julie Grigio from "Warm Bodies" (2013). She's so frackin' huggable.

Did not know she was Australian, she does a great American accent. Palmer was a guest on "The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson" (February 12th, 2013), she was plugging "Warm Bodies". Holy crap. Please don't talk like that; not cute Australian, it's friggin' burly!

So what happened in June that cause the shut down?

Producer Tom Rothman convinced director Doug Liman that a recast could open the film to a wider audience, since as it stood - this was a teen flick. So David was turned into a twenty-five year old, this resulted in a redo.



And that's when Hayden Christensen was given the role of Rice. And if you do this, you might as well do that. So Millie was recast as well with Rachel Bilson a.k.a. Little Miss Vixen.

This alteration allowed them to do a slightly more mature relationship, said slightly.

20th Century Fox also liked the idea since Christensen was famous (or infamous if you like) for the "Star Wars" prequels, a known actor unlike the first version where the main stars were up-and-comers.

A side note; this was this film that brought Christensen and Bilson together. Not married, but they have a daughter together, Briar Rose Christensen. She became a mom at thirty-three. I've seen some recent beach pixs, Bilson bounced back from the kid. Though she and Christensen separated in late 2017.

Going back to BTTF, only some stills and few seconds of footage remains of Stoltz as McFly. The rest were trashed/lost. Too bad since that's about half the film. Would love to see him as Marty; edit the footage into the movie for as long as it can. Have that as a special feature, oh well.

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There was a video game based on the movie, "Jumper: Griffin's Story" from Brash Entertainment in February of 2008. It released for Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's PlayStation 2 and Nintendo's Wii.

The game received terrible ratings.

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Rant.



That's a good villain, Rolan - a true believer. The graphic novel gives a bit of a back story for the Paladins. They have been around since ancient Egypt, killing Jumpers.

Why?

In short, they're zealots. Only God has powers; as Roland says to Jessica, they're "unnatural".

They tear the fabric of reality when they jump. This is POWER we're talking about here. Vast power with vast consequences. And using that power means ignoring those consequences. So they're corrupted from the start.

- Roland from the comic

Add to the mix a good number of Jumpers of crooks and thieves with little to no afterthought to repercussions. It gives them justification for the slayings, the betterment of mankind; self-appointed guardians.

It make sense.

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Food for thought; Millie was a Jumper...

When the house was sinking into the water; David was slipping into unconsciousness. She grabs him and kisses him - just before she does, she closes her eyes. Both are now instantly at the library. Roland believes David made a last second jump. What happened next?

Millie was trying hard to revive him, slapping David multiple times. The thing is - Jumpers can't jump if they're unconscious. She is one of them. In the second book, "Reflex" (also by Gould). it's revealed that Jumping can be learned, if you passed enough space folds yourself, which is what Millie had been doing with her beau. The book take place ten years later with her having companied thousands of jumps with David.

She is at the point where she can generated her own brain waves to fold space. This talent only manifests, the first time when life is threatened. Like any skill it needs to be refined. The bigger implication is that this is latent, ANYONE can Jump if exposed to enough of them. Something the Paladins would kill to keep a secret.

And that's it - come back on August 9th, 2018 for mindless actioner and a henchwoman who going with racoon chic. Time to catwalk with garbage cans.

Sorry about being a day late, I forgot.