The Beach

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The film has been released on VHS and DVD. It was released on Blu-ray in Spain in October 2022 . [8] The standard DVD release included nine scenes that were deleted from the film, including an alternative opening which to an extent resembles the one in the novel. These were later included in a Special Edition DVD release, along with Danny Boyle's commentary on what might have been their purpose. There is also an alternative ending which depicts Sal committing suicide and everyone loading up on a boat from the raft. In reality, the situation is not so much paradise as a small-scale version of life confined to a beach. Despite the location, the same problem remains. This comes to a head following the arrival of the American/German group by raft. Unlike Richard, Étienne, and Françoise, who managed to overcome all obstacles in getting to the beach, the newcomers never make it past the cannabis farmers. The intruders are beaten violently and killed. Not all of Garland’s film work has enjoyed the same success as 28 Days Later – Sunshine, Never Let Me Go and Dredd (which he adapted for screen from the comic strip) were well-received but all lost money – and each production has provided valuable lessons for Ex Machina. Mostly he has learned – personally – that he really hates having to acquiesce when he believes he’s right. And – professionally – that you are given a much longer leash if you are not beholden to a huge financial investment. “If what you’re focused on is creative freedom for that particular project, make it cheaply,” says Garland, smiling. “That or be a hotshot famous film-maker. But if you’re not that, make it cheaply.”

The night of the Tet Festival arrives, and this is the night Richard's group plans to leave the island, using the Americans' homemade raft to escape. To make it easier to get away, Richard's group puts marijuana into the evening stew. The commune also indulges in coconut beer, and soon everyone, including some of Richard's friends, are drunk and hallucinating. Richard slips into the tent where Jed has been caring for one of the injured Swedes and finds Jed asleep. Richard knows Jed will not leave so he smothers the ailing Swede. In his brilliant book, Utopia For Realists, Rutger Bregman details how the idea of a utopia often fails in practice.

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Science is a recurring feature of Garland’s work. In The Beach, there is a conversation between the characters about multiverse theory. The Tesseract, his second novel, took its title from a four-dimensional hypercube; Garland is gratified that tesseracts have started popping up all over the place recently, from The Avengers to Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar, which features a fifth-dimensional portal. Sunshine is predicated on an article Garland read about the death of the sun, while he was attracted to adapting Never Let Me Go because of an interest in the ethics around cloning. The Khao San Road, Bangkok -- first stop for the hordes of rootless young Westerners traveling in Southeast Asia. On Richard's first night there, in a low-budget guest house, a fellow traveller slashes his wrists, bequeathing to Richard a meticulously drawn map to "the Beach." During his travels, he discovers a map which leads to a beach he visits with a French couple. There they find a group of fellow travellers living in a self-supporting community. One night, Françoise invites Richard to the beach, where she tells him that she is falling in love with him and they start an affair. Despite hoping to keep it secret, the community finds out. Although he is angry, Étienne says he will not stand in their way if Françoise is happier with Richard.

Most of the characters are selfish and not likeable but weirdly that didn't make the book any less intriguing. Controversy arose during the making of the film due to 20th Century Fox's bulldozing and landscaping of the natural beach setting of Ko Phi Phi Le to make it more "paradise-like". The production altered some sand dunes and cleared some coconut trees and grass to widen the beach. Fox set aside a fund to reconstruct and return the beach to its natural state; however, lawsuits were filed by environmentalists who believed the damage to the ecosystem was permanent and restoration attempts had failed. [16] Following shooting of the film, there was a clear flat area at one end of the beach that was created artificially with an odd layout of trees which was never rectified, and the entire area remained damaged from the original state until the tsunami of 2004. [17]He made his directorial debut with Ex Machina, a 2014 feature film based on his own story and screenplay. Building a perfect community is almost always impossible because we live in an imperfect world. However, you can get close if you recognise this. Karl, Sten, and Christo (The Swedes) – all Swedish; Considered the best fishing detail since only they are comfortable with swimming through the submerged caves to fish in the open water. Only Sten is fluent in English, with Christo having fair knowledge, and Karl knowing only a few words. Like Jed, the Swedes arrived uninvited, as they learned of the beach's existence after overhearing Sal discussing with Jean about the island during a Rice Run. I've been relying on an idea that these things would become clear to me as I wrote them down, but it isn't turning out that way.” Gregorio – Spanish; member of Richard's fishing detail. Invited by Daffy to the beach after a robbing incident in Sumatra.

En route to the island, Richard becomes infatuated with Françoise. After swimming to the island from a neighbouring island, they find a cannabis plantation guarded by armed Thai farmers. Avoiding detection, they make their way across the island and meet Keaty, who brings them to a community of travellers living on the island in secret. Sal, the community's English leader, explains that the farmers allow them to stay so long as they keep to themselves and do not allow any more travelers to come to the island. Richard lies that they have not shown the map to anyone else. The trio becomes integrated into the community. The waterfall scene, where DiCaprio and others jump from a high cliff to the water below, was filmed in Khao Yai National Park in central Thailand, at the Haew Suwat Waterfall. You must grow up and live in the real world, complicated and unpleasant as it may be. Seems to me this is something every generation has to figure out for itself, with assistance or hindrance from various psychoactive substances.Garland is immediately suspicious of such a smooth narrative of his career: it has certainly felt much more unplanned, haphazard for him. But mostly he takes issue with the notion that Ex Machina is his film, even though he conceived it, wrote the screenplay, designed the robot, drew the storyboards and was involved in every stage of its creation. “I understand the premise, which is that directors own films,” he says, “but I don’t see it that way, I never have and I still don’t now. Ewan McGregor was cast as the main character before leaving due to disputes with the director. It was speculated that Boyle was offered additional funding under the condition that DiCaprio be cast and his character made American. [2] Whilst promoting T2 Trainspotting on The Graham Norton Show, the dispute was discussed in more depth, with McGregor stating "It was a mis-handling and a mis-understanding over the film and it's a big regret of mine that it went on for so very long... and it didn't matter about The Beach, it was never about that. It was about our friendship. I felt like Danny's actor and it made me a bit rudderless."

The story begins with Richard's arrival in Thailand. His stay at the shoddy guest-house in Bangkok is cut short when he is given a map and when the map creator subsequently commits suicide. Richard meets Etienne and Francoise and the three decide to find the island. They travel to the coast of Thailand and hire a boat to take them to a nearby island, then they swim to the beach paradise. Once arriving at the island, they try to assimilate into the spirit of the place, but there are several factors preventing this; mainly that Richard has shared the map with some Americans who are on their way to the beach, and that the other half of paradise is occupied by gun carrying guards who are protecting an illegal crop of marijuana.That I do, in fact, like him shows the nuance of Garland's writing. Despite the fact that it's a first novel, Garland shows a grasp of plotting and continuity of a much more mature author. Everything ties together neatly, and even minor characters possess warmth and depth. While Garland clearly draws on knowledge accrued while he was travelling himself, there's no show-off quality about it: he merely drops in hints of exoticism that not only enhance the novel's scenery but also forward the plot. Garland has by no means allowed The Beach to define his career – his strike rate in every genre he’s entered is enviable – but it is hard not to see his move towards more collaborative, less conspicuous endeavours as a reaction to it. All of which makes his new film, Ex Machina, especially intriguing. It is the most fully immersive project he’s completed since he stopped writing novels and in many ways it seems like a culmination of his life’s work to date. This is a bit of a confection: the ownership of the director,” Garland continues. “At a certain point in film-making, you end up in the same space, which is roughly analogous to a group of workmen standing around a hole saying, ‘How do we fill it?’ One guy says, ‘We could bring the gravel in.’ And another guy says, ‘Yeah, but that gravel is the wrong consistency...’ And so it goes on.” We all have wishes and dreams. We imagine what they may look like and how things would turn out. The problem is that our expectations are often very different from reality. Richard hears in a news report that Cassie has been arrested in Malaysia for smuggling a large amount of heroin and will be the first Westerner to be executed in the country in six years. He wonders whether anyone else got off the island, particularly Unhygienix, whom he liked. He believes that Bugs died and hopes that Sal died too, because he dislikes the idea of her "turning up on his doorstep".