Our understanding of how human memory works is expanding all the time. Modern advances in neurochemistry. psychology and physiology mean that we know more about how memories are stored and recovered than ever before. These advances will make it easier to recover memories made inaccessible by trauma, injury or simply time. But maybe they will also let us selectively forget things, at least for a period of time.
In the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the main character hires a company to have memories of a broken relationship permanently deleted after receiving notification that the other party has already done so. But what if a similar procedure could be done, even temporarily, for more trivial purposes? Maybe with a pill that would suppress specific memories for 3-4 hours?
Think of how much fun re-experiencing some of your favourite movies would be!
The spoilers that could be undone alone would make this worthwhile. When I was 13, we saw The Empire Strikes Back the first Tuesday after it came out, but that was still enough time for a Sunday school classmate to spoil the identity of Luke Skywalkers' father.
And I don't know too many people watching Citizen Kane who are surprised to learn the meaning of the titular character's final words, or who are shocked, shocked! to see Rick make his fateful choice in Casablanca. The iconic statue at the end of Planet of the Apes pre-spoils that movie for almost everyone who has seen it since maybe 1985.
How many movies might you rewatch even to re-experience the thrill of revelation like when you learn who Kyser Soze is? Or "what's in the box?" The kid who sees dead people?
And there are smaller reveals that have become major movie touchpoints as well. Did your well-intentioned friends tell you about Indiana Jones fighting that swordsman in Cairo? Well, take the patented cinematic amnesia therapy (CAT) tablet and in the words of Tony Soprano, fuhgeddaboutit! Want to be shocked and delighted at the monster at the end of the original Ghostbusters? The newly upgraded CAT will also block memories of the recent sequel, even the trailers!
Everyone knew going into Terminator 2 that Arnie was the good guy this time around, but onscreen they played their cards a bit closer to the vest. Wouldn't it be cool to experience the same fear and relief that John Connor had? Or better yet, the same reaction to John Hurt's stomach troubles in Alien as the cast? (Well, okay, maybe not that close...)
Every surprise, every twist, every reveal, resolution and solution to a whodunnit could be revisited again - and again, I suppose.
Ideally, the CAT would only suppress memories regarding a specific movie experience, but it would make sense that movies whose spoilers have more cultural cache or are immortalized in parodies, art or even toys and action figures might require a higher dosage. After re-watching the film, your original memories would return, but you also maintain the feelings of surprise and delight from your recent experience.
Home video and streaming services have made it easy to re-experience our favourite films over and over again, but you can typically only be surprised once, as the saying goes. How wonderful it might be to re-experience it!
If a safe and tested version of the cinematic amnesia therapy tablet was available for $50 a pop, I have no idea how many films I would rewatch with it, or which one I would start with. Probably Empire Strikes Back though - that spoiler still burns me up a little, even four decades later.
Feel free to put your choices to revisit in the comments!
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