Echelon Conspiracy

Sunday morning my sister had a showing of their house for sale, and I took the opportunity to scurry up to Tyngsboro during the early flakes of a snowstorm Nor'easter to catch the four-buck early showing of Echelon Conspiracy, a new Friday release that has gotten almost no publicity.

I had seen the trailer once, and was a bit suspicious, but it turned out to be a decent thriller that didn't insult me with War on Terror bullshit. Anytime you make the NSA the bad guy, you've gotten my sympathy vote! This definitely goes on my 2009 list of Movies I Sorta Liked.

While I was watching it, I started to formulate it in my new favorite way, through what I call story paradigms. Basically it is the idea that most Hollywood movies are made up of various lines of narrative that are recycled from other movies. Of course this is very old idea, but there is nothing like building this method from the ground by yourself, without outside help.

The point is not to reduce the entire movie to a single well-used narrative. Each movie is, in fact, original in some way, or else it wouldn't be done. A movie contains multiple story paradigms that are happening at once, creating the "genetic sequence" of the story that makes it different from other movies in the same genre. The core idea is to identify the essential story ideas, i.e., the ones that the story actually depends upon.

My first take on the story paradigms of Echelon Conspiracy:

1. Through fate, an innocent average Joe gets tangled up in what turns out to be a huge web of intrigue, pitting forces of good versus evil on scales he could hardly have imagined at the start of the story. His life is put in danger, and he hardly ever knows whom to trust, but eventually he emerges as the key to victory of good over evil.

2. Dark and corrupt forces within the United States federal government seek to undermine the liberties of the American people and impose tyranny. They are eventually brought down and exposed, with the help of ordinary citizens and good guys within the government itself.

3. Computer-driven surveillance technology runs amok, turning the lives of ordinary citizens into an Orwellian nightware. Eventually the technology is defeated.

4. Americans are overwhelmed by evil within their own government, but wise Russians, accustomed this kind of skullduggery, help them overcome it.

For a story paradigm to be valid, it must be one that appears in multiple movies over time. Some paradigms are very long lasting. Others are very topical and are short-lived, reflecting current trends.

Story paradigm numbers one and three above are also found in last year's Eagle Eye, a movie that seems like the antecedent to Echelon Conspiracy. But I liked Echelon Conspiracy a lot more because it was less campy about the technology, and it took story paradigm number two a lot more seriously without any "Global War on Terror" distraction.

Story paradigm number one seemed somewhat fresh in this case, partly because it had a Chaucerian spin, in which Average Joe gets seduced into the intrigue plot by his own weaknesses.

In addition to story paradigms, I also look for the cliches, which are sometimes simply story paradigms or story devices that have outlived their usefulness. In Echelon Conspiracy, I noted:

1. A beautiful woman befriends and seduces the average Joe hero. It turns out she has a hidden agenda, but he winds up winning her heart anyway.

2. The hero stops the omniscient self-aware computer-run-amok by reasoning with it, forcing it to logically admit that its impending "doomsday task" is at odds with its prime programming directive.

Number one was fresh when it appeared in North By Northwest (1959), but it feels way overdone at the present time. We all know that no beautiful woman sleeps with Average Joe unless she wants something for the uberboss she's working for.

Number two was fresh when it appeared in the "The Return of the Archons" (1967) and in War Games (1983).

In this case, the cliches were acceptable and didn't mar the movie too much. The twist ending involving the Kremlin was sort of cool. Leave it to the Russians to come up with a fresh take on American psychoses.