The Lawnmower Man (film)

Infobox_Film
name=The Lawnmower Man


director=Brett Leonard
producer=Gimel Everett
writer=Brett Leonard &
Gimel Everett (screenplay)
starring=Jeff Fahey Pierce Brosnan Jenny Wright Mark Bringelson
Austin O'Brien
Geoffrey Lewis
Rosalee Mayeux
distributor=New Line Cinema
editing = Alan Baumgarten
Lisa Bromwell (director's cut)
cinematography = Russell Carpenter
released= flagicon|United States March 6, 1992
flagicon|Australia May 7, 1992
flagicon|United Kingdom June 5, 1992
flagicon|Japan July 18, 1992
flagicon|France July 22, 1992
flagicon|Portugal February 1994
runtime=107 min.
139 min (director's cut).
country= USA
language=English
budget= $10,000,000 (estimated)
gross = $32,101,000 (USA)
music = Dan Wyman
awards =
imdb_id=0104692
followed_by = ""|

"The Lawnmower Man" is a 1992 film which uses elements from the writings of Stephen King, most notably the short story of the same name.

The film's original script, written by director Brett Leonard and producer Gimel Everett, was titled "Cyber God" and had nothing to do with King's story. New Line Cinema held the film rights to King's short story, and decided to combine "Cyber God" with some very minor elements of King's story. The resulting film, originally titled "Stephen King's The Lawnmower Man", differed so much from the source material that King sued the filmmakers to remove his name from the title. After two court rulings in King's favor, New Line still did not comply and initially released the home video version as "Stephen King's The Lawnmower Man". A third ruling granted the author $10,000 per day in compensation and all profits derived from sales until his name was removed. ["Creepshows the Illustrated Stephen King Movie Guide" Jones, Stephen Titan Books 2001 pp. 75] On King's official web-page, it is not listed among the films based on his work. The film was released in Japan under the title "Virtual Wars".

An earlier short film also titled "The Lawnmower Man", and a more faithful adaptation of the short story, was directed by Jim Gonis in 1987. [ [http://www.stephen-king.tk/index.htm?http://www.stephen-king.tk/lawnmowerman.htm The Lawnmower Man] Stephen-King.tk]

hort story

In Stephen King's short story, Harold Parkette hires "Pastoral Greenery and Outdoor Services Inc." to cut his lawn. The serviceman who turns up to do the job turns out to have a machine that mows the lawn by itself while he crawls, naked, behind the mower, eating the grass. The serviceman himself is actually a satyr who works for the Greek god Pan. When Parkette tries to call the police, the mower and its owner turn on him.

1992 film

Dr. Lawrence Angelo (Pierce Brosnan) works for Virtual Space Industries. His part in "Project 5" involves increasing the intelligence of chimpanzees using drugs and virtual reality. One of the experiment's chimps escapes using the warfare technology he was being trained to use. Angelo is revealed as generally a pacifist, who would much rather explore the intelligence-enhancing potential of his research without having to apply it for military purposes.

Jobe Smith (Jeff Fahey), the "lawnmower man" of the title, suffers from a form of mental retardation; he lives in the garden shed owned by the local vicar, Father Francis McKeen. McKeen's brother, Terry, is a local landscape gardener and employs Jobe to help him with odd jobs. When Father McKeen finds insects around the church altar, he blames Jobe and beats him with a leather strap for forgetting his chores.

While Dr. Angelo records audio notes about needing a human subject, Jobe is mowing his lawn. It turns out that Peter, the young son of Angelo's neighbors, is friends with Jobe. Angelo invites them to play some virtual reality games and persuades Jobe to participate in his experiments, telling him it will make him smarter. Jobe agrees and begins a program of accelerated learning, using nootropic drugs, virtual reality input and cortex stimulation. Dr. Angelo makes it a special point to redesign all the intelligence-boosting treatments without the "aggression factors" used in the chimpanzee experiments.

Jobe soon becomes smarter, and Dr. Angelo starts taking Jobe to his lab at work to use the technology there. Jobe begins having sex with a young rich widow, Marnie, during his daytime job; he learns Latin in an hour-and-a-half at the lab at night. Jobe starts to have telepathic and hallucinatory experiences, but continues with the experiment at the lab, until an accident makes Angelo call a halt. The project director, employed by a mysterious agency known as The Shop, keeps a secret watch on the progress of the experiment, and soon swaps Angelo's new medications for the old Project 5 "aggression factors".

Jobe acquires telekinetic powers and takes Marnie to the lab to have virtual reality sex with her; but something goes wrong in the system and Marnie starts to panic. The experience is so traumatic that she is permanently brain damaged. Jobe's powers and abilities continue to grow, although the treatments seem to be affecting his mental stability, and soon he takes revenge on those who abused him when he was "dumb"; Father McKeen is engulfed in flames, a young man named Jake is tortured by a "lawnmower man" continually mowing his brain, and Jobe directs a real lawnmower to run down Peter's abusive father. Jobe makes the investigating police officers attribute it all to "bizarre accidents".

Jobe believes his final stage of evolution will be to become "pure energy" in the VSI computer mainframe. He plans to enter the VSI computer and from there reach into all the systems of the world, and he promises his "birth" will be signaled by every telephone on the planet ringing simultaneously. The Shop sends a team to capture Jobe, but they are ineffective against Jobe's abilities. Jobe returns to VSI, where he creates millions of virtual insects to attack the guards, and drives straight in. He confronts the director of the project and tortures him before using the lab equipment to enter the mainframe computer. With the network connections disabled, Jobe is trapped in the mainframe and looks for an escape route. Angelo primes bombs to destroy the building and joins Jobe in virtual reality to talk with him. Jobe easily overpowers Angelo and proceeds to crucify him, then continues to search for a network connection. Peter runs into the building; Jobe still cares for him, and allows Angelo to go free in order to rescue him. Jobe finally escapes through a maintenance line as the building is destroyed in multiple explosions.

Back at home with Peter, Angelo and Peter's mother (who has implicitly become a romantic interest) are about to leave when their telephone rings, followed by the noise of a second, and then hundreds, all around the globe.

Other inspirations

The movie has several elements in common with the novel Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, which also deals with a mentally disabled man whose intelligence is technologically boosted to genius levels.

The revolutionary computer generated imagery (CGI) created for the film originated from the American developer Angel Studios (later renamed Rockstar San Diego). Though the images were not filmed in real time, they established a perception of virtual reality that worked towards expressing the achievements of actual technology.

equel

"" was released in 1996, and was retitled "Lawnmower Man 2: Jobe's War" for the video release.

Comic book writer Grant Morrison said in an interview [http://www.popimage.com/profile/morrison/012501_grant4.html] that he was contacted by the owners of the "Lawnmower Man" franchise in 1995 and asked to write treatments for "Lawnmower Man 2" and "Lawnmower Man 3". Morrison claims he was asked to "bend the "Lawnmower Man" series in an X-Men superhero-type direction." Neither of Morrison's script treatments were used and "Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace" was produced without his involvement.

1987 adaptation

Much more faithful to Stephen King's short story than the 1992 film, this 12-minute Dollar Baby short film was written by future professional screenwriter and New Line production executive Michael De Luca ("In the Mouth of Madness") and directed by Jim Gonis. The film was shot in 1985 while Gonis was a junior at New York University. Originally budgeted at $800, the final film (finished in 1987) wound up costing nearly $5,000.

The film has screened at the NYU Film Festival, Horrorfest in 1989, a screening of King films at the Stanley Hotel (the hotel that inspired King's novel "The Shining"), a New York film festival of Greek-American filmmakers in 1991 and at the 1st Annual Dollar Baby festival in Orono, Maine in 2004.

References

External links

*imdb title | id=0104692 | title=The Lawnmower Man
* [http://www.stephenkingshortmovies.com/goto.php?movies/lawnmower_man.php Stephen King Short Movies]
* [http://lawnmowerman.stephenkingshortmovies.com The Lawnmower Man — a film by Jim Gonis]