All I Can Say is... AMAZING STORY!
Riveting.
Suspenseful.
Excruciatingly emotional to point that I cried and couldn't stop talking to myself about the experience afterward that I had to write it down. And nothing happened to me physically, just emotionally. You might not believe me, but this wonderful jolt to the brain happened within a single half hour while watching TV not more than a minute ago.
I've always been intrigued by the concepts that Steven Spielburg produces, so I decided to check out the old collection of movies called Amazing Stories. It's on the Sci-Fi channel at this very moment, but I had to stop watching the three part movie to write this story down! There's NO way in hell that I'll forget the story, but I thought you guys might be interested and I want to show Mark and his roommate.
The Amazing Stories are a collection of movies that Steven Spielburg did consisting of three short stories each movie of.. well.. amazing stories. I don't know if they are all his ideas, but he is the producer for each and every one of the stories and they are all pretty amazing. Some of them are corny, some are funny, but this one was just... heart-stopping. And I mean this literally in a way.
The story was from Amazing Stories the Movie IV (four). It was called "Life on Death Row". Now, me being a moralistic person, just a justice person, I tend to veer away from stories and such involving the death penalty. I don't see how the government is not committing murder as well, but I don't want to get into any arguments about that so I should probably explain the story now.
It starts out with these two security guards talking at a desk in the middle of the night. Nothing important really, just chatter. Then the high up man walks in the room escorting a male prisoner that has just been sentenced to death and is due for the chair on day after the morrow. The guards tell the prisoner, who's name is Eric Peterson, that he will have to be in sector D for the night, since everything else is locked up tight. Although you don't know it while watching, fate has already assessed the situation and has decided to intervene.
In the middle of the night, the janitor (a cell mate as well) secretly flicks a switch in his fake hearing aid and reveals a small metal container (about the size of an Advil) filled with a powdery solution. When the security guard in the office next to him leaves to check on something, he dumps the contents of the container into the guard's coffee cup sitting on the desk. The guard comes back, drinks the coffee and then falls asleep instantly. However, you had to see the way they portrayed the actual event on the television for you to understand how good the cinematography was in that scene. The feet barring the view and the sudden silence and oh god, just trust me it was good. Hehe. Spielburg is a genius. He can make any plot (no matter how used up) and make it look shiny and new!
The guard is asleep and the janitor opens all the doors to the cells. Everyone in sector D escapes down a hall and through a heating duct or something similar. Eric timidly looks about and then follows the rest of the prisoners without hesitation. They don't recognize him but they let him follow as long as he keeps his mouth closed. The reach the roof of the prison; it is pouring outside. They climb swiftly down a long metal ladder that leads all the way down onto the prison grounds. Two people rush over to the far fence and begin digging under it. They don't succeed however as a flash of lightning hits the fence and kills (or severely stuns) them both. The rest of the group decide to lose the idea of digging under and chance climbing over. By now, the spotlights have turned up, passing by them in big swooshing patterns all over the perimeter of the compound.
A few make it over the side of the fence, even with the barbed wire at the top, and then Eric and another guy try to make it over. They are the last of the bunch and one dies by the barbed wire and Eric... Eric gets struck by lighting as it hits the fence once again. He sparks a few times with golden light, and then a spotlight hits the television dead on, bright light filling the screen.
He awakens in the medical area of the prison. He's lying on a bed. A doctor and the high up dude are conversing and the doctor tries to get the high up dude to listen to him. Unless he gets the man into surgery now, he'll only have less than 30 minutes to live. But you find out immediately after that Eric is fine, and that they weren't talking about Eric. They were talking about a man lying next to Eric in another bed. He has a severely bad wound from a shot to the stomach. The doctor and the dude leave and the man with the wound rises out of bed, determined to stand up. Eric grabs him, but golden sparks fly from his hands and they end up shocking the wounded man into lying back down on the bed.
The wounded man lifts his shirt then and... his stomach is completely whole and healed to perfection! Eric is flabbergasted at the whole idea of it all and cringes in a corner of the medic cell while the wounded man throws praises at Eric for healing him. A security guard comes to check on the sudden commotion and he finds that the wounded man is completely healed. He reaches for Eric and Eric pushes him away, golden light sparkling from his fingertips. The light concentrates in the guard's kneecap and a few moments later.. he can move his leg without any pain at all! The guard calls the doctor and the high up dude to come see the miracles. Eric reluctantly shows off his power by healing a man's horribly arthritic hands. The doctor, the dude and the guard talk in another hallway and the guard defends Eric as much as possible.
The high up dude tries to get the governor that sentenced Eric to death, to reinstate the proposition. In the meantime, he asks Eric into his office and has him sit in a chair while he brings in a woman and a little girl. I didn't quite catch what was wrong with the little girl, but it looked like she was blind and turns out to be the high up dude's daughter, and the woman, his wife. Eric heals the little girl and the high up dude tells Eric he is trying all he can to save him from death row, now that he's been given this new chance at his own life by giving life, instead of taking it from others.
For half a day Eric walks through the halls of the prison and touches anyone who holds out their hand to him and then they begin lining up before him. Rooms would light up with golden light, of hope, friendship and love. Eric was learning to understand what it was to give compassion to others.
But the next day, the high up dude comes and tells Eric that he did all he could and nothing prevailed. Eric was still sentenced to death row and so.. off they went to the chamber with the chair. Several prisoners were in another room, behind a wall of glass to watch the scene, hoping that by showing them what actually happens in the room during a death sentence could happen to them also, and they would repent and change their course of life...
Eric was put in the chair and the switches were slowly turned on. In a moment he was dead. They put him on a stretcher and left our old friend of a security guard to send him off to the morgue. On the way down a hall though, he began talking to Eric as if he were alive and listening, telling him of how he and the high up dude tried so hard to save his life, that he could have saved millions of people from deadly illnesses and that it just wasn't fair to let him go like that. He touches Eric then, in reverence and respect, and the golden light appears. Now... he has the touch?
Does everyone that was touched by Eric now have the touch? He went to find out and had several prisoners let out of their cells so they could touch the lifeless Eric lying on the stretcher in the middle of the hall. All was silent, the suspense was riveting and... and then... Eric's eyes opened. The high up dude came down to check on some stuff and when he saw Eric he said all that he could think to say..
"What do we now?"
It was AMAZING. You had to be there! It was the awesomest concept for a short story!! With respects to Steven Spielburg, I of course do not own this concept and do not claim to have done so. I am only using my own interpretation of the movie's main plot for my own personal usage. All copyright is handed over to Universal Studios and Amblin.
Thanks for that heart-wrenching-mind-boggling story Spielburg. I can never get enough of your stuff. By the way, Jurassic Park rulez! But only the first movie of course. Sequels are never better than the first. The impact on the mind is too great to understand a sequel when you are still trying to decipher hidden meanings in the first movie. Hehe.
Suspenseful.
Excruciatingly emotional to point that I cried and couldn't stop talking to myself about the experience afterward that I had to write it down. And nothing happened to me physically, just emotionally. You might not believe me, but this wonderful jolt to the brain happened within a single half hour while watching TV not more than a minute ago.
I've always been intrigued by the concepts that Steven Spielburg produces, so I decided to check out the old collection of movies called Amazing Stories. It's on the Sci-Fi channel at this very moment, but I had to stop watching the three part movie to write this story down! There's NO way in hell that I'll forget the story, but I thought you guys might be interested and I want to show Mark and his roommate.
The Amazing Stories are a collection of movies that Steven Spielburg did consisting of three short stories each movie of.. well.. amazing stories. I don't know if they are all his ideas, but he is the producer for each and every one of the stories and they are all pretty amazing. Some of them are corny, some are funny, but this one was just... heart-stopping. And I mean this literally in a way.
The story was from Amazing Stories the Movie IV (four). It was called "Life on Death Row". Now, me being a moralistic person, just a justice person, I tend to veer away from stories and such involving the death penalty. I don't see how the government is not committing murder as well, but I don't want to get into any arguments about that so I should probably explain the story now.
It starts out with these two security guards talking at a desk in the middle of the night. Nothing important really, just chatter. Then the high up man walks in the room escorting a male prisoner that has just been sentenced to death and is due for the chair on day after the morrow. The guards tell the prisoner, who's name is Eric Peterson, that he will have to be in sector D for the night, since everything else is locked up tight. Although you don't know it while watching, fate has already assessed the situation and has decided to intervene.
In the middle of the night, the janitor (a cell mate as well) secretly flicks a switch in his fake hearing aid and reveals a small metal container (about the size of an Advil) filled with a powdery solution. When the security guard in the office next to him leaves to check on something, he dumps the contents of the container into the guard's coffee cup sitting on the desk. The guard comes back, drinks the coffee and then falls asleep instantly. However, you had to see the way they portrayed the actual event on the television for you to understand how good the cinematography was in that scene. The feet barring the view and the sudden silence and oh god, just trust me it was good. Hehe. Spielburg is a genius. He can make any plot (no matter how used up) and make it look shiny and new!
The guard is asleep and the janitor opens all the doors to the cells. Everyone in sector D escapes down a hall and through a heating duct or something similar. Eric timidly looks about and then follows the rest of the prisoners without hesitation. They don't recognize him but they let him follow as long as he keeps his mouth closed. The reach the roof of the prison; it is pouring outside. They climb swiftly down a long metal ladder that leads all the way down onto the prison grounds. Two people rush over to the far fence and begin digging under it. They don't succeed however as a flash of lightning hits the fence and kills (or severely stuns) them both. The rest of the group decide to lose the idea of digging under and chance climbing over. By now, the spotlights have turned up, passing by them in big swooshing patterns all over the perimeter of the compound.
A few make it over the side of the fence, even with the barbed wire at the top, and then Eric and another guy try to make it over. They are the last of the bunch and one dies by the barbed wire and Eric... Eric gets struck by lighting as it hits the fence once again. He sparks a few times with golden light, and then a spotlight hits the television dead on, bright light filling the screen.
He awakens in the medical area of the prison. He's lying on a bed. A doctor and the high up dude are conversing and the doctor tries to get the high up dude to listen to him. Unless he gets the man into surgery now, he'll only have less than 30 minutes to live. But you find out immediately after that Eric is fine, and that they weren't talking about Eric. They were talking about a man lying next to Eric in another bed. He has a severely bad wound from a shot to the stomach. The doctor and the dude leave and the man with the wound rises out of bed, determined to stand up. Eric grabs him, but golden sparks fly from his hands and they end up shocking the wounded man into lying back down on the bed.
The wounded man lifts his shirt then and... his stomach is completely whole and healed to perfection! Eric is flabbergasted at the whole idea of it all and cringes in a corner of the medic cell while the wounded man throws praises at Eric for healing him. A security guard comes to check on the sudden commotion and he finds that the wounded man is completely healed. He reaches for Eric and Eric pushes him away, golden light sparkling from his fingertips. The light concentrates in the guard's kneecap and a few moments later.. he can move his leg without any pain at all! The guard calls the doctor and the high up dude to come see the miracles. Eric reluctantly shows off his power by healing a man's horribly arthritic hands. The doctor, the dude and the guard talk in another hallway and the guard defends Eric as much as possible.
The high up dude tries to get the governor that sentenced Eric to death, to reinstate the proposition. In the meantime, he asks Eric into his office and has him sit in a chair while he brings in a woman and a little girl. I didn't quite catch what was wrong with the little girl, but it looked like she was blind and turns out to be the high up dude's daughter, and the woman, his wife. Eric heals the little girl and the high up dude tells Eric he is trying all he can to save him from death row, now that he's been given this new chance at his own life by giving life, instead of taking it from others.
For half a day Eric walks through the halls of the prison and touches anyone who holds out their hand to him and then they begin lining up before him. Rooms would light up with golden light, of hope, friendship and love. Eric was learning to understand what it was to give compassion to others.
But the next day, the high up dude comes and tells Eric that he did all he could and nothing prevailed. Eric was still sentenced to death row and so.. off they went to the chamber with the chair. Several prisoners were in another room, behind a wall of glass to watch the scene, hoping that by showing them what actually happens in the room during a death sentence could happen to them also, and they would repent and change their course of life...
Eric was put in the chair and the switches were slowly turned on. In a moment he was dead. They put him on a stretcher and left our old friend of a security guard to send him off to the morgue. On the way down a hall though, he began talking to Eric as if he were alive and listening, telling him of how he and the high up dude tried so hard to save his life, that he could have saved millions of people from deadly illnesses and that it just wasn't fair to let him go like that. He touches Eric then, in reverence and respect, and the golden light appears. Now... he has the touch?
Does everyone that was touched by Eric now have the touch? He went to find out and had several prisoners let out of their cells so they could touch the lifeless Eric lying on the stretcher in the middle of the hall. All was silent, the suspense was riveting and... and then... Eric's eyes opened. The high up dude came down to check on some stuff and when he saw Eric he said all that he could think to say..
"What do we now?"
It was AMAZING. You had to be there! It was the awesomest concept for a short story!! With respects to Steven Spielburg, I of course do not own this concept and do not claim to have done so. I am only using my own interpretation of the movie's main plot for my own personal usage. All copyright is handed over to Universal Studios and Amblin.
Thanks for that heart-wrenching-mind-boggling story Spielburg. I can never get enough of your stuff. By the way, Jurassic Park rulez! But only the first movie of course. Sequels are never better than the first. The impact on the mind is too great to understand a sequel when you are still trying to decipher hidden meanings in the first movie. Hehe.