The Box...

Steven J. Weller · External Since: Oct 07, 2003 Posts: 998

So, the hook is that there's this guy (Frank Langella?) who's got this
wonky Big Red Button thing in a box, that looks like Art Department
didn't know if it was supposed to be a comedy or a drama. He offers
it to some random person, or couple, telling them if they push the
button, they'll get a million bucks, cash.

Oh, and some random stranger will also die.

So I guess the question here is mostly for Neal, as he used to work
for Laurel, but... wasn't this an episode of Tales From The Dark
Side? I don't think it was Monsters, as there's no monster involved,
and I'm pretty sure it wasn't an episode of the new Twilight Zone, and
I know it wasn't the old TZ 'cause it was in color. The twist ending
is pretty obvious (I won't spoil it here), but... isn't this just some
22 minute first-run syndi story, padded out to feature length? Or am
I missing something?

--
Life Continues, Despite
Evidence to the Contrary

Steven

nmstevens · External Since: Sep 03, 2009 Posts: 15

On Oct 13, 3:20 am, "Steven J. Weller" <az... DeleteThis @lafn.org> wrote:
> So, the hook is that there's this guy (Frank Langella?) who's got this
> wonky Big Red Button thing in a box, that looks like Art Department
> didn't know if it was supposed to be a comedy or a drama. He offers
> it to some random person, or couple, telling them if they push the
> button, they'll get a million bucks, cash.
>
> Oh, and some random stranger will also die.
>
> So I guess the question here is mostly for Neal, as he used to work
> for Laurel, but... wasn't this an episode of Tales From The Dark
> Side? I don't think it was Monsters, as there's no monster involved,
> and I'm pretty sure it wasn't an episode of the new Twilight Zone, and
> I know it wasn't the old TZ 'cause it was in color. The twist ending
> is pretty obvious (I won't spoil it here), but... isn't this just some
> 22 minute first-run syndi story, padded out to feature length? Or am
> I missing something?
>
> --
> Life Continues, Despite
> Evidence to the Contrary
>
> Steven

Well, it wasn't Monsters and I have to admit I haven't watched every
episode of Tales of the Darkside, although given how many of them
there were, and how inexpensive the idea is, it seems like a likely
choice for an episode.

I've also seen the trailer for this thing and I couldn't help thinking
what a lame idea it was. This hypothetical moral challenge has been
drifting around for ages -- as a hypothetical moral challenge. But how
can you possibly make it make sense in any kind of real world context,
especially since they're obviously suggesting that they've got lots of
boxes and lots of people apparently pressing them for some sort of
diabolical purpose.

(Oh -- establish the school bus picking the kids up in front of the
house at the beginning -- I know nothing about this movie, but somehow
I wouldn't be surprised if they ultimately end up pressing the button
and the "stranger" that gets killed is the substitute school bus
driver. Just tossing that out there based on the trailer.)

NMS

Bert Coules · External Since: Feb 04, 2005 Posts: 528

There's a famous psychological experiment, the name of which escapes me,
which runs on broadly similar lines: the subject is invited to press a
button which she or he is told administers an electric shock to an unseen
individual. And the level of the current is slowly increased.

It's amazing (or perhaps it isn't) how happy some subjects are to keep on
pressing that button as the volts get higher and higher...

Bert

Remysun · External Since: Jan 11, 2009 Posts: 55

On Oct 13, 10:04 am, "Bert Coules" <m... DeleteThis @bertcoules.co.uk> wrote:
> There's a famous psychological experiment, the name of which escapes me,
> which runs on broadly similar lines: the subject is invited to press a
> button which she or he is told administers an electric shock to an unseen
> individual. And the level of the current is slowly increased.

> It's amazing (or perhaps it isn't) how happy some subjects are to keep on
> pressing that button as the volts get higher and higher...

The Milgram Experiment, as seen in the documentary Obedience,
available on DVD. Dave Chappelle was watching it in the green room
before his Ypsilanti performance. He ended up talking about it in his
act that night, and if he had left it behind, I could have seen it for
myself.

Ah, well.

Apollyon · External Since: May 14, 2007 Posts: 9

On 13 Oct, 08:20, "Steven J. Weller" <az....RemoveThis@lafn.org> wrote:
> So, the hook is that there's this guy (Frank Langella?) who's got this
> wonky Big Red Button thing in a box, that looks like Art Department
> didn't know if it was supposed to be a comedy or a drama. He offers
> it to some random person, or couple, telling them if they push the
> button, they'll get a million bucks, cash.
>
> Oh, and some random stranger will also die.
>
> So I guess the question here is mostly for Neal, as he used to work
> for Laurel, but... wasn't this an episode of Tales From The Dark
> Side? I don't think it was Monsters, as there's no monster involved,
> and I'm pretty sure it wasn't an episode of the new Twilight Zone, and
> I know it wasn't the old TZ 'cause it was in color. The twist ending
> is pretty obvious (I won't spoil it here), but... isn't this just some
> 22 minute first-run syndi story, padded out to feature length? Or am
> I missing something?
>
> --
> Life Continues, Despite
> Evidence to the Contrary
>
> Steven

Apparently it was originally a Richard Matheson short story called
"Button, Button", later adapted by Matheson himself for an episode of
the 80s version of The Twilight Zone.

Didymus · External Since: Aug 06, 2009 Posts: 3

Steven J. Weller:

> wasn't this an episode of Tales From The Dark Side?

Google and IMDb boards are your friend.

As has already been said, it's based on Matheson's 2-page "Button,
Button", which did g et made into a half hour new Twilight Zone
episode (available on YouTube or Google videos).

Kelly takes that idea as the Act 1 set up in his story -- and then
launches into a sci-fi/existential thriller involving NASA, the Mars
landers and aliens.

The script is available online. I've been told by people intimately
involved in the production that there was a good amount of rewriting
before filming. But we were told the same thing about "The Green
Effect" (The Happening).............

I'm still gonna see it though since, well, I'm still holding out hope
for Kelly (haven't given up on him like I have Shyamalan), and because
it was filmed locally 2 years ago.

Steven J. Weller · External Since: Oct 07, 2003 Posts: 998

On Oct 13, 9:13 am, Didymus <Didy... RemoveThis @comcast.net> wrote:

> Steven J. Weller:
>
> > wasn't this an episode of Tales From The Dark Side?
>
> Google and IMDb boards are your friend.
>
> As has already been said, it's based on Matheson's 2-page "Button,
> Button", which did get made into a half hour new Twilight Zone
> episode (available on YouTube or Google videos).

There's a film-watcher's moral dilema - which element is more
important? That it's based on a Matheson short story (generally a
good thing) or that it's based on all of TWO FREAKIN' PAGES!

> Kelly takes that idea as the Act 1 set up in his story -- and then
> launches into a sci-fi/existential thriller involving NASA, the Mars
> landers and aliens.

....and there, I think, we have the answer.

> The script is available online. I've been told by people intimately
> involved in the production that there was a good amount of rewriting
> before filming. But we were told the same thing about "The Green
> Effect" (The Happening).............
>
> I'm still gonna see it though since, well, I'm still holding out hope
> for Kelly (haven't given up on him like I have Shyamalan), and because
> it was filmed locally 2 years ago.

Be sure and tell us all about it, after. Where's 'local?'

--
Life Continues, Despite
Evidence to the Contrary

Steven

Didymus · External Since: Aug 06, 2009 Posts: 3

Steven J. Weller:

> Be sure and tell us all about it, after. Where's 'local?'

Boston. They also filmed in Milton, and practically in my wife's
family's backyard in Quincy.

And right now Cameron Diaz is again in Boston filming WICHITA with
Xenu... er, I mean Tom Cruise.

wcmartell · External Since: Apr 17, 2007 Posts: 106

As has been said - Matheson short story made into half hour TWILIGHT
ZONE episode in the 80s (have it one VHS) which drags like hell as a
22 minute TV show. Can't imagine how they pad the movie.

- Bill

Martin B · External Since: Mar 23, 2005 Posts: 70

"nmstevens"

> I mean, whether it's two minutes, five minutes, twenty minutes or five
> hours of story-telling junk mixed in -- what else can you do with it?

Sell it on e-bay.

--
Martin B

Steven J. Weller · External Since: Oct 07, 2003 Posts: 998

On Oct 15, 1:02 pm, Alan Brooks <ch....RemoveThis@panix.com> wrote:

> Maybe I'm missing something here. You mean, one more person is going to die
> because you pressed a button? So instead of 186,301 people dying today,
> 186,302 people will die (this from my own rough estimates based on an online
> world population clock...)
>
> And then, making some assumptions from the trailer, you throw into the mix
> the idea that if you refuse to make a decision, your own kid or wife or
> husband is threatened with death, so pushing the button becomes a matter of
> us-or-them.
>
> But what does it mean to not make a decision? You're either pushing the
> button or you're not pushing the button, so not making a decision is the
> same as not pushing the button. How do you get nuance out of a binary
> decision?
>
> I don't get it.

In the original story (IIRC) there was no downside to not pushing the
button. It was simply, push the button, kill a random stranger, get a
million dollars, or don't push the button, and nothing happens. The
moral connundrum was just, would you kill a random stranger for a
million bucks, if you didn't have to see it happen? The original
twist (Twilight Zone) was that they pushed the button, got the
million, and then the button was passed on to someone for whom the
original description - a random stranger; someone you'd never meet or
even hear of - would then apply to the button-pushing protagonists.

Still, not a great bit of storytelling, to my mind. You get the
million bucks, and then you might get killed at the push of a button?
So what? You might get killed without the button ever existing, too.
Millions of people die every day; we're all going to die at some
point... it's like a game of Russian Roulette, only there's one bullet
and 6 1/2 BILLION empty chambers. Those not only aren't scary odds,
they're quite appealing. If the original offer had included that
possibility, it would have been the same general decision process for
the couple in dire financial straights.

The original short story, frankly, doesn't sound all that much
better. She pushes the button and it kills her own husband, 'cause
she never really knew him? Seems like a pretty harsh way to deliver a
pretty weak lesson. If she thought that he'd jump at the chance to
push the button and it turned out that he'd never even consider doing
that (or the other way around), I suppose you could squeeze two pages
out of that. Still, just not a lot of there, there.

> -- Can we make it
> a lever?

Y'see, it's really like a whole KEYBOARD, with a lot of different
buttons, and each one... nah, a lever works. Moving on...

--
Life Continues, Despite
Evidence to the Contrary

Steven

Remysun · External Since: Jan 11, 2009 Posts: 55

On Oct 15, 4:02 pm, Alan Brooks <ch....RemoveThis@panix.com> wrote:

> But what does it mean to not make a decision? You're either pushing the
> button or you're not pushing the button, so not making a decision is the
> same as not pushing the button. How do you get nuance out of a binary
> decision?

What about Hamlet?

nmstevens · External Since: Sep 03, 2009 Posts: 15

On Oct 15, 6:26 pm, "Steven J. Weller" <az... DeleteThis @lafn.org> wrote:
> On Oct 15, 1:02 pm, Alan Brooks <ch... DeleteThis @panix.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > Maybe I'm missing something here. You mean, one more person is going to die
> > because you pressed a button? So instead of 186,301 people dying today,
> > 186,302 people will die (this from my own rough estimates based on an online
> > world population clock...)
>
> > And then, making some assumptions from the trailer, you throw into the mix
> > the idea that if you refuse to make a decision, your own kid or wife or
> > husband is threatened with death, so pushing the button becomes a matter of
> > us-or-them.
>
> > But what does it mean to not make a decision? You're either pushing the
> > button or you're not pushing the button, so not making a decision is the
> > same as not pushing the button. How do you get nuance out of a binary
> > decision?
>
> > I don't get it.
>
> In the original story (IIRC) there was no downside to not pushing the
> button. It was simply, push the button, kill a random stranger, get a
> million dollars, or don't push the button, and nothing happens. The
> moral connundrum was just, would you kill a random stranger for a
> million bucks, if you didn't have to see it happen? The original
> twist (Twilight Zone) was that they pushed the button, got the
> million, and then the button was passed on to someone for whom the
> original description - a random stranger; someone you'd never meet or
> even hear of - would then apply to the button-pushing protagonists.
>
> Still, not a great bit of storytelling, to my mind. You get the
> million bucks, and then you might get killed at the push of a button?
> So what? You might get killed without the button ever existing, too.
> Millions of people die every day; we're all going to die at some
> point... it's like a game of Russian Roulette, only there's one bullet
> and 6 1/2 BILLION empty chambers. Those not only aren't scary odds,
> they're quite appealing. If the original offer had included that
> possibility, it would have been the same general decision process for
> the couple in dire financial straights.
>
> The original short story, frankly, doesn't sound all that much
> better. She pushes the button and it kills her own husband, 'cause
> she never really knew him? Seems like a pretty harsh way to deliver a
> pretty weak lesson. If she thought that he'd jump at the chance to
> push the button and it turned out that he'd never even consider doing
> that (or the other way around), I suppose you could squeeze two pages
> out of that. Still, just not a lot of there, there.
>
> > -- Can we make it
> > a lever?
>
> Y'see, it's really like a whole KEYBOARD, with a lot of different
> buttons, and each one... nah, a lever works. Moving on...
>
> --
> Life Continues, Despite
> Evidence to the Contrary
>

You see, as I understood the original story, it was a bit cleverer
than that. The person making the deal didn't say -- press the button
and some "random person" would die. The deal was -- press the button
and some person "you don't know" will die. It could very well be
somebody specific -- that is, somebody specifically selected by *them*
-- so long as it wasn't somebody you didn't know. The only limitation
was that it was somebody *you* didn't know.

It really is a variation on any number of the "careless" wish stories
where a wish is granted but because of the way in which the wish is
worded -- either by you or the by person offering you the wish -- the
result is that the wish is granted in the worst way possible.

So the whole "moral" of the box, at least as it's presented in the
original story, is that the box moves from person to person -- you've
obviously never heard of the box before, so you've never heard of
anyone who ever got it before. Whoever got it last was a stranger to
you. So in keeping with the rules, if you press the button, a person
you don't know will die.

*That* person. The person who last pressed the button. And if you
press the button, they take the box, give you the money, reset it and
pass it on to someone else -- someone else who doesn't know you -- and
you become the next "unknown person" who's destined to die at the
hands of some other stranger who values a suitcase full of money over
the life of an unknown stranger.

So it's not that you have one chance in a few billion of dying because
the box kills randomly. You're *going* to die, because you are, in
fact, the specific target of the box. Maybe the next person will say
no and not press it. Maybe the next two or three will say no. But it
won't take long for someone to say yes, just like you did -- like
spinning the barrel playing Russian roulette. Maybe you'll escape once
or twice or a few times. But very, very soon, that button will get
pressed and that'll be the end of you.

NMS

Steven J. Weller · External Since: Oct 07, 2003 Posts: 998

On Oct 15, 5:55 pm, nmstevens <nmstevens2... DeleteThis @yahoo.com> wrote:

> On Oct 15, 6:26 pm, "Steven J. Weller" <az... DeleteThis @lafn.org> wrote:
>
> > In the original story (IIRC) there was no downside to not pushing the
> > button. It was simply, push the button, kill a random stranger, get a
> > million dollars, or don't push the button, and nothing happens. The
> > moral connundrum was just, would you kill a random stranger for a
> > million bucks, if you didn't have to see it happen? The original
> > twist (Twilight Zone) was that they pushed the button, got the
> > million, and then the button was passed on to someone for whom the
> > original description - a random stranger; someone you'd never meet or
> > even hear of - would then apply to the button-pushing protagonists.
>
> You see, as I understood the original story, it was a bit cleverer
> than that. The person making the deal didn't say -- press the button
> and some "random person" would die. The deal was -- press the button
> and some person "you don't know" will die. It could very well be
> somebody specific -- that is, somebody specifically selected by *them*
> -- so long as it wasn't somebody you didn't know. The only limitation
> was that it was somebody *you* didn't know.

Random, from the point of view of the protagonist. Not 'push the
button and you'll kill John Q. Smith of 123 Main St. (who you don't
happen to know)' but just 'some un-named person you don't know.'

> It really is a variation on any number of the "careless" wish stories
> where a wish is granted but because of the way in which the wish is
> worded -- either by you or the by person offering you the wish -- the
> result is that the wish is granted in the worst way possible.

Well, yeah - that's the twist ending. The idea that you might be the
next victim, as you fit the description, but no one came right out and
said 'definitely YOU, once we give the box/button to the next person
on our list.' If it were definite, then it'd be a whole different
connundrum - the couple is in financial trouble, which ever one
presses the button gets killed by the next guy, but the million bucks
is community property so the non-button-presser gets to keep it.
Would you kill someone for a million dollars for your spouse, knowing
that you'd be caught and punished (in practical terms)?

Still, kind of a long way to go for it.

And, of course (having looked it up, now) not the original moral of
the story at all. Changed for the TV version, apparently against the
wishes of the original author, to the extent that he took his name off
of that version. The original moral was that the woman didn't really
know her husband at all, so she killed the poor shmoe by pushing the
button, but still got to keep the million bucks and didn't
(apparently) do the time for the murder. Not exactly the worst thing
to have happen, all things considered. A loveless marriage, fraught
with financial problems, and Frank Langella shows up with a cool
million samoleans and a permanent way out? Where do I sign?

--
Life Continues, Despite
Evidence to the Contrary

Steven

Kris_W · External Since: Oct 16, 2009 Posts: 1

On Oct 15, 3:02 pm, Alan Brooks <ch... DeleteThis @panix.com> wrote:
>
> But what does it mean to not make a decision? You're either pushing the
> button or you're not pushing the button, so not making a decision is the
> same as not pushing the button. How do you get nuance out of a binary
> decision?
>

The real story shouldn't be whether or not to push the button. The
real story ought to be how the hero ensures that the person making the
offer will never present this choice to anyone else, ever again.

And maybe run subplots in which a choice is much less black & white
and the person making the offer is not so blatently a sociopath.

Alan Brooks · External Since: Dec 13, 2004 Posts: 843

"Remysun" <remysun2000.DeleteThis@yahoo.com> wrote:

> On Oct 15, 4:02 pm, Alan Brooks <ch....DeleteThis@panix.com> wrote:
>
>> But what does it mean to not make a decision? You're either pushing the
>> button or you're not pushing the button, so not making a decision is the
>> same as not pushing the button. How do you get nuance out of a binary
>> decision?
>
> What about Hamlet?

Well, his issue isn't just to be or not be, it's all about the morality and
necessity of taking action when in doubt, which I think is a little more
nuanced than pushing or not pushing a button for a million dollars. Anyway,
Hamlet gets style points for waffling on about it in iambic pentameter.

Alan Brooks
---------------------------
A Schmuck with an Underwood

-- Words, words, words.

MWSM FAQ: http://www.panix.com/~mwsm/faq.html
Filtering Trolls: http://www.panix.com/~mwsm/trolls.html

Martin B · External Since: Mar 23, 2005 Posts: 70

"Alan Brooks"
> "Remysun"
>>
>> What about Hamlet?
>
> Well, his issue isn't just to be or not be, it's all about the morality
> and necessity of taking action when in doubt, which I think is a little
> more nuanced than pushing or not pushing a button for a million
> dollars. Anyway, Hamlet gets style points for waffling on about it in
> iambic pentameter.

If I perchance should firmly press
The button that's in front of me,
Some random wretch will cease to be;
But I contrariwise posess

A thousand thousand smackeroos
Wherewith I may without restraint
Indulge myself -- a handsome bait!
Right quick I press. How could I lose?

--
Martin B