Dodge This

      Whenever I'm just chatting with my friends online, I read what they type out to me in my head but I read it in the voice of the person who is talking to me. And I can picture, depending on what we're talking about, the expression on their face. It's a little..different and hard to explain, but this same thing happens to me whenever I read a book as well. I always picture what the setting would look like in my mind. Only utilizing the adjectives that are written in it, I watch the "scenes" like a movie and hear the different voices of each character. Although not everyone has this type of "ability", I'm sure I wasn't the only one who thought of "The Matrix" after reading the scene of Billy getting shot at.

     Let's refresh our memory:

"And on the third day of wandering, somebody shot at the four from far away--shot four times as they crossed a narrow brick road. One shot was for the scouts. The next one was for the antitank gunner, whose name was Roland Weary. The third bullet was for the filthy flamingo, who stopped dead center in the road when the lethal bee buzzed past his ear. Billy stood there politely, giving the marksman another chance. It was his addled understanding of the rules of warfare that the marksman should be given a second chance. The next shot missed Billy's kneecaps by inches, going end-on- end, from the sound of it." (pg. 33)

Action-wise, this scene definitely does not compare to the rooftop scene in "The Matrix." The context doesn't really match up either...or the setting.  Of course, Billy didn't have the audacity to attempt and avoid the bullets like Neo. However, just the idea of the 2 bullets skimming past Billy gave me the visual of Neo's crazy back-bend dodge.
     Since this connection between this war scene in SH5 and this battle scene in "The Matrix" was so vivid in my mind, I felt that this would fit well in an actual SH5 movie. Personally, when I pictured Billy pathetically standing there on the road, I imagined the first bullet coming towards him in slow-motion right up to when it was just about to skim his ear, and then switch to normal speed and it'd zoom past. Same with the second bullet, slow-mo at first and then zoom past his kneecaps. While the camera is getting all this, I imagined shooting this scene as a side view full shot, so the audience could spot the bullet heading for Billy's ear. Then, circle around him to the front for the second bullet.
     With the film technology of today, this scene could probably be achieved fairly easily, and I think it'd also really capture the personality of Billy Pilgrim: pathetic, emotionless, dazed, a noob, all from one scene.