Chris Thompson   Chris Thompson on the internet

In some of my recent blogs, I wrote about the advances of technology, and I wrote about Clash of the Titans, but I would like to write a little bit about both of them together. Because as I was driving back from the film, and stuck in the rush-hour traffic of the early evening, I thought a lot about both.

Movies are, themselves, fairly recent developments all things considered. But when you strip everything away, they are really just a modern form of mythcraft. A modern form of storytelling. They are a throwback to times where bards and storytellers were the entertainment go-to-guys, and listening to stories told around a fire, or in a pub, was the thing to do.

With the advances in special effects and technology that permeate the medium, things develop and change and evolve, but the more they change, the more it becomes apparent that the core of a film itself stays the same.

The story; the heart of the movie, is just that: a story. And you can wrap it up in motion picture and fancy effects, but it’s still just a story. We pay to be engrossed in adventure, just like our ancestors, in ages before us, would have paid to hear their stories.

And that’s quite an interesting thing, I think.

I experienced a 3D film for the first time today. It was a surreal, wonderful experience; but the adverts at the beginning of the film were by far better than the 3D in the film itself. I actually found myself blinking and moving back slightly as objects shot out at me, and that, I think, is a remarkable thing.

It’s like those accounts of the very first motion picture, of a train coming towards the screen. The audience allegedly ran out screaming, because they were not used to the technology, and it looked, to them, like they were about to get hit by the train.

The film of choiceIt was Clash of the Titans, and I was looking forward to it a lot. The first 1981 epic, I have always thought, got by on its effects – so here was a remake that Hollywood couldn’t ruin by favouring effects over story. It felt like the film it should have been all those years ago.

The audience is introduced to Argos, where the people have lost faith in the gods. Statues are hauled down, and men and women are starving their creators of their prayers in protest.

Zeus (Liam Neeson) is obviously not keen on this, and sends his brother Hades, brilliantly depicted by Ralph Fiennes, to wreak havoc; creating a burning hatred in Perseus, our hero, and sparking his quest for vengeance.

And the world that he travels is fairly well done, with its decaying buildings and craggy cliffs. It looks impressive both up close and high above the clouds, from the home of the gods. But it’s probably not worth forking out extra to see it in 3D: the technology is used sparingly, dotted here and there, and feels like an afterthought.

The monsters (and in particular Medusa) are very well done; and the result is a film that ticks most of the blockbuster boxes, and breezes by in flash of thrills. And there was even a charming nod to the original, about halfway through.

It is amazing how far technology has come.

Norwich called yesterday (I had heard about a particular shop there, but I also just wanted to look around). It’s a few hours away from where I live, so was a day trip. The kind of day trip that’s one point brave and two parts foolish: I had never been there before, had no idea where anything was, and – since I was getting the train there – it came with a very real risk of getting lost.

Thankfully, I didn’t get lost. Every bit of that is down to my phone, which has Google maps on it, and a tremendously useful GPS.

It’s with phones, much more than anything else, I think, that this James Bond-ish quality of the modern technology really comes into its own.

Of course, there are some things that business and office telephone systems can do better. There are some that can do all sorts of ridiculous things – much more than the simple offering of broadband. And that’s another mark of how far technology has come.

It’s a little bit like the tech that the new BT television systems are offering: TV on demand, and some I’ve seen are even offering 3D capabilities, that sort of thing. And if the movie experience in the cinema is anything to go by, that is going to be something worth keeping an eye on: I remember being forced to blink and move back slightly when objects were flying out of the screen towards me, the other day.

But smartphones are still the thing that impress me the most. What they can offer you in something so small, stashed away in your pocket is quite frankly mind-boggling. Most of it comes down to internet on the go. It is the stage for everything else to build upon.

It’s not like that mobile broadband you can get, where you shove a usb stick into a laptop, and tend to battle with fluttering, unstable connections and tediously slow speeds. It’s easy. It’s simple. It’s automatic.

And there is a beauty in that. I think I’m more impressed with my mobile than I was with my first Panasonic digital cordless phone, which was a bit of a lifesaver, if you recall.