# The Bourne Supremacy... **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 22, 2004, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bourne-supremacy/256280 "2004-07-22T02:06:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bourne-supremacy/256280/41 "2004-07-26T00:16:11Z")
> [@Exapno Mapcase](#): > > Cuts so fast-paced that you can’t tell who is doing what to whom have become a real problem in movies, although evidently this director was hired because he likes to work that way. > > It’s even more of a problem in CGI movies. I thought the first Spider-Man movie was wreaked because the fight scenes between Spidey and the Green Goblin were undecipherable. A blur of thrown punches is not as interesting as thrust and parry, as every old sword fight director knew. I HATE, HATE, HATE (!!!) this fast-cut trend in action scenes in movies. I hated the movie _Gladiator_ because every fight scene was: shot of Russel Crowe with sword / cut to shot of his opponent with sword / TWENTY SECONDS OF INCOMPREHENSIBLE BLURRED IMAGES FLASHING BY / cut to Russel Crowe standing over fallen opponent. Huh? How did that happen? In contrast, in the movie _Troy_, the fight between Achilles and Hector was filmed/edited much better. You can actually see the moves they are making as one person swings and the other blocks. You can follow the action with your eyes, as opposed to just having to take for granted that there is a fight going on somewhere in a blur of pictures. The camera moves enough and the editing is fast enough to give it a frenetic pace, but it’s not overdone. _The Bourne Supremacy_, as in _Gladiator_, overdoes it to the extreme. ---
**Author:** ![zahara2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/53a042/32.png) [@zahara2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zahara2)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bourne-supremacy/256280/42 "2004-07-26T01:28:29Z")
> [@Cardinal](#): > > I don’t think it’s fully explained why Bourne would use his own passport to get noticed in Naples. Is it so that he could listen to the phone calls about him and find out whom he was dealing with? > > Then, why would he use his own passport at the hotel so that the police could come in and make him climb the drainpipe to escape? > > I thought the movie lacked an emotional ending. Identity gave you “It’s over, he met a great woman, and they’ve started their own life away from the madness. Aaahhhh.” This one didn’t have the plot intricacies, the mystery, or the “doneness” feeling. I agree. It did feel like there should have been more closure. Either they’re going to do a supremacy two or nothing at all. I just don’t see any thing remotely like Ultimatum with the current ending. (I know the film isn’t like the book but there were soft references. Bourne running on the beach, writing down his dreams, the last treadstone assasin etc.) anyway, I enjoyed it but it was lacking a certain je ne sais quoi? ---
**Author:** ![Frostillicus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Frostillicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frostillicus)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bourne-supremacy/256280/43 "2004-07-26T03:16:58Z")
> [@Glory](#): > > I went and saw it today. Did anyone else have problems with the incredible jerkiness of the camera? I had to look down during the car chase, it was making me sick to my stomach. I don’t know what the film maker was going for, but making a paying movie goer look AWAY from the screen seems like a bad idea. My thoughts exactly! ---
**Author:** ![lightingtool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/57b2e6/32.png) [@lightingtool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lightingtool)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bourne-supremacy/256280/44 "2004-07-26T03:30:58Z")
My first thought while walking out of the movie was, “Well, that’s too bad.” Like a bunch of other people in this thread, I think they took what could have been a great movie and ruined it with stupid jerky camera stuff. One of the great parts about the first movie was that you could _see_ what Bourne was doing while fighting. There was calm, rational thought behind every move. This movie made him seem uncontrolled, almost spastic. Anybody know why they changed directors for this movie? ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bourne-supremacy/256280/45 "2004-07-26T09:57:55Z")
I too wanted the car chases and fights to have fewer cuts. Look at the big chases in Ronin. It seemed like the editors stayed with a shot as long as they could, to convey that it really happened, and wasn’t just faked from a hundred different tiny pieces. I think the director was trying to convey a feeling of disorientation from a first-person POV, but it makes it seem fake if the cuts are too frequent. Look at the car chases and crashes in Blues Brothers. No one ever accused that movie of looking fake. They set up numerous cameras and just filmed the sucker. ---
**Author:** ![AmericanMaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@AmericanMaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AmericanMaid)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2004, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bourne-supremacy/256280/46 "2004-07-26T13:14:24Z")
I saw it and appreciated the gratuitous LotR casting (Eomer and Celeborn in one movie!) Did anyone else get the Russian dudes mixed up like me? When Bourne killed the last Treadstone guy, I turned to my companion and muttered “There can only be one.” It’s a great movie to MST3K. I was turned off by the bumbling woman who can do no right first half. But that was only a set up for making Brian Cox’s character a bad guy. Seriously, has he ever played a good guy? Note to self, never reveal a major piece of information alone to the boss in an isolated basement._Identity_ trumps _Supremacy_ in my book. ---
**Author:** ![Mollie\_Magill](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mollie_magill/32/20882_2.png) [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2004, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bourne-supremacy/256280/47 "2004-08-02T13:06:53Z")
> [@Glory](#): > > I went and saw it today. Did anyone else have problems with the incredible jerkiness of the camera? I had to look down during the car chase, it was making me sick to my stomach. I don’t know what the film maker was going for, but making a paying movie goer look AWAY from the screen seems like a bad idea. Hear! Hear! I really did not appriciate the over use of the steady cam. I am a “third-row center” movie watcher, and I started getting motion sickness. Otherwise it was a fun film. ---
**Author:** ![annieclaus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b5a626/32.png) [@annieclaus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/annieclaus)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2004, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bourne-supremacy/256280/48 "2004-08-02T13:25:50Z")
> [@Maus Magill](#): > > Hear! Hear! > > I really did not appriciate the over use of the steady cam. I am a “third-row center” movie watcher, and I started getting motion sickness. That wasn’t a Steadicam, Maus. That was plain old hand-held. Just like you with your little home video-cam. No gyros to stabilize it. If they had used Steadicams, we wouldn’t be grousing. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2004, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bourne-supremacy/256280/49 "2004-08-02T13:50:24Z")
Good action. Lacked heart. Identity was much better. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2004, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bourne-supremacy/256280/50 "2004-08-02T17:39:15Z")
> [@Duderdude2](#): > > Nope, there’s a third book, Bourne Ultimatum, which will hopeful also have a movie companion. Not that it really matters, since the only resemblances between the books and the movies are the titles and character names. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-bourne-supremacy/256280.md?page=2)