Jason Bourne

One of the Bourne movies was on TV this morning. As I understand it, the basic plot-gimmick is that Bourne is a CIA assassin who lost his memory, and is now dangerous to some (rogue) CIA officers who were running the assassination project. This must be covered up at all costs, because it would be a huge scandal if people discovered that the CIA was inclined to just assassinate people.

Since that is now, to all intents and purposes, official US foreign policy (admittedly using drones rather than brainwashed super-spies), doesn't that make the whole Bourne oeuvre kind of dated?

I read The Bourne Identity before the movie came out. I thought the premise of the book was dated. Lost memory stories are ancient (a quick google search shows 133 books); this one just threw in the CIA as a gimmick.

Ha! I'm reading a book about WWI and the "spy novel" genre came into being during the war, due to fears of Germans infiltrating British and French intelligence services. However, I was surprised to read (and I suppose it might be accurate for WWI) there is NOT A SINGLE KNOWN CASE of this actually happening -- despite the widespread paranoia spread by the novelists of the era.

Jason Bourne is the spy who wakes up one day to find people chasing him, for reasons he doesn't understand, and he discovers he has skills for dispatching these people that he didn't realize he had -- right? I think I've seen at least 3 of these movies. Matt Damon, right? The same plot appears in quite a few other movies too.

George Clooney makes a good agent/counteragent/countercounteragent in a few of his movies.

IMDB has a list of movies about amnesia or loss of memory. The earliest was made in 1945. 34 of the movies were made in 2000 or later. Which substantiates my opinion that there are very few new ideas in movies these days.

Yeah but people forget they've seen it all before.

One of the few advantages of Alzheimer's disease.

"Memento" is one of my favorite films.

I like the Bourne franchise. Of course, I am a fan of CIA spy stuff. I also liked the Denzel version of Manchurian Candidate.
To me, the premise is more complex than the memory loss. It's also about the CIA cover-up of the program that created Jason Bourne. You see some more of that angle in the latest movie which does not have Damon in it. In the Damon movies there was also the angle of him having changed, a man who wants to separate from his past and how to do that with an organization that is the equivalent of a government run mob outfit.

Everything has been done to death. There is nothing new under the sun. But if a director or story teller can make me forget that his or her story has been told a thousand times with new angles or something else to entertain me then I consider it a success.

Jenni wrote:

Everything has been done to death. There is nothing new under the sun. But if a director or story teller can make me forget that his or her story has been told a thousand times with new angles or something else to entertain me then I consider it a success.

Just wait thirty-five years, Jenni. There will be nothing you haven't seen in numerous variations.

_Howard wrote:

Jenni wrote:

Everything has been done to death. There is nothing new under the sun. But if a director or story teller can make me forget that his or her story has been told a thousand times with new angles or something else to entertain me then I consider it a success.

Just wait thirty-five years, Jenni. There will be nothing you haven't seen in numerous variations.

I know, but luckily I am the type of person who can peruse a beloved book over and over or watch a favorite film so many times I can quote it. The dog eared are my loves and frequency doesn't decrease my enjoyment. I find such lack of change comforting, it makes time stop. I am filled with the same wonder or optimism I was the first time I saw the thing.

Not me, man. Once I've bagged a woman I never want to see her again!

NoCoPilot wrote:

Not me, man.  Once I've bagged a woman I never want to see her again!

Jenni wrote:

I know, but luckily I am the type of person who can peruse a beloved book over and over or watch a favorite film so many times I can quote it. The dog eared are my loves and frequency doesn't decrease my enjoyment. I find such lack of change comforting, it makes time stop. I am filled with the same wonder or optimism I was the first time I saw the thing.

I do agree with you there, Jenni. I have watched some movies many times and read a few favorite books several times.

But I do wish they would come up with some new ideas for films. Too often, I watch a new movie and part-way into it I realize it is just a poorly done ripoff of an old movie.

_Howard wrote:

But I do wish they would come up with some new ideas for films. Too often, I watch a new movie and part-way into it I realize it is just a poorly done ripoff  of an old movie.

That's true. And there are some story lines, such as the Stargate one, that could have been limitless and they did so little with it.

In general, Hollywood is pretty bad at sci fi. They like the genre these days because they get to do lots of cgi effects, but that also means they are picking the shallowest stories with the emphasis on alien monsters or space opera. Any thought or interpretation that runs deeper than could be acted by John Wayne is excluded.