LONG, HARD SLOG `TIMELINE' DIDN'T EXACTLY GO BY THE CLOCK - OR CALENDAR FOR THAT MATTER.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Writer

Trying to make the movie version of ``Timeline,'' Michael Crichton's sci-fi novel about a group of modern archaeologists who get teleported back to 14th-century France, was a bit like crawling into a temporal wormhole itself.

``We faced what we thought at times were insurmountable problems,'' says veteran director Richard Donner (``The Omen,'' ``Superman,'' many a ``Lethal Weapon''). ``It took us a year to get the screenplay right enough to go into pre-production. We couldn't shoot in France because it was all modern in the Dordogne (the valley in which the Hundred Years' War-set story takes place). So we picked Wales, but then there was hoof-and-mouth disease, and we were thrown out of the country. We then went to Germany after scouting all of Europe again. We set up there, had stages in Berlin, then 9-11 happened, and I didn't want to be a high-profile American film there. So we came back here, and then there was going to be a writers' strike and an actors' strike - and that was six months shut down.''

The lavish production - which stars ``Fast and Furious'' mainstay Paul Walker, ``A.I.'s'' Frances O'Connor, Gerard Butler (last summer's ``Tomb Raider'' sequel, the upcoming film version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's ``The Phantom of the Opera'') and Scottish comedian Billy Connolly (``Mrs. Brown'') - finally got under way in Quebec. But even though it was made in the New World, this tale of a high-tech visit to the Middle Ages was done in a decidedly old-school fashion.

Reality show

Donner, 73, insisted that all of ``Timeline's'' period settings - which included a hilltop castle, a gated monastery and a medieval village - be physically replicated in convincing detail, not digitally inserted afterward, as is more and more commonly done with large-canvas period adventures these days.

``It's not old-fashioned,'' insists the director's wife and ``Timeline'' co-producer Lauren Shuler Donner. ``It's practical.''

But while Shuler Donner acknowledges that computer graphics are appropriate for certain projects - CGI is used extensively, for example, in the ``X-Men'' films she produces - her better half doesn't seem to care much for the technology. And why should he? After all, Donner convinced the world a man could fly a good decade before movies began going digital (which makes one wonder what he'll do if the long-delayed new ``Superman'' movie project, which Donner has recently gotten attached to, ever gets off the ground).

For this horse-riding, sword-swinging, flaming-arrow-shooting, catapult-hurling swashbuckler, though, keeping it as real as a time-travel movie can be seemed a sensible way to go.

``It's reality,'' the director enthuses. ``You take an actor and you put him against a green screen and say, 'That thing coming at you is a trebuchet,' and, 'This light over your shoulder is going to be blinking because it's fire, so feel the heat.' ... Hey, a lot of people make movies that way, and it works. I just wanted it to be tangible, to be visceral, for them to be in that period.''

The desired effect seems to have been achieved.

``It was all just kind of there, and so you didn't really have to imagine what it would be like,'' attests Australian actress O'Connor. ``They built these amazing sets that were 50-foot castles and monasteries, and every day when you'd turn up to work there would be a new thing. They did such a great job.''

Medieval times 

The movie, however, had to tread a fine line. The settings and period characters had to be persuasive, but the modern time travelers had to look uncomfortable in and appalled by the unfamiliar, violent environment they found themselves in.

This after the requisite months of training in medieval fighting techniques.

``We wanted to train the actors to forget whatever they learned, as far as their bow or a sword,'' Donner explains. ``They were kids from the 21st century; it's like taking somebody off the street and putting them on an NFL football field and saying, 'Go through that line.' When these guys get into fights, they're not swordsmen. They're smacking with baseball bats - it's just street fighting.''

This is one of many changes that were made to Crichton's story along with many screenplay drafts, on the long way to celluloid. One of the more notable ones was to change Walker's character, Chris, from one of Connolly's Professor Edward Johnston character's students into his son in order to give the nonscientist stronger motivation to go back in time when Johnston becomes trapped in the 14th century.

``We had to speed things up,'' Walker reckons. ``The movie sings once we get back to the medieval period. The professor and Chris originally didn't have the father-son relationship. It makes a lot more sense now. I'm going, 'He's my dad. I understand that.' To me, that made all the sense in the world. We gotta expedite this. We gotta get you back to the past. That's when the movie starts going. Chris' character - Why would he put his life on the line to get on that (time travel) platform? Well, if it's his dad, we understand.''

Novel participant

Donner says that Crichton - who had full access to the set and the editing room throughout the filmmaking process - had strong opinions about the adaptation. And why not? After all, the author of such blockbusters as ``Jurassic Park'' has directed a few films himself (``Westworld.'' ``Coma''). Nevertheless, it was a remarkably cordial collaboration.

``It's basically the same piece, but you can explain it in X numbers of words, not 100 pages,'' says Donner. ``We weren't required to run every change by him. But we have tremendous respect for Michael Crichton. So, if we reached a block or we wanted to try something different, we'd put it on paper. Then I'd call Michael and say, 'Do you want to read it?' He'd either want to or ask me to tell him about it, and if he had thoughts, he'd give them to you. If it worked, we'd use it, if it didn't we'd explain to him why. And he's still a dear friend, so it worked.''

By the way, one term Donner never wanted uttered, on screen or on the set, was ``time travel.'' For reasons of his own, he viewed the piece as a rip-roaring adventure yarn that just happened to be facilitated by one of Crichton's beloved science-fiction concepts.

Still, no one who worked on the film could refrain from speculating about which era they'd like to visit if time travel were possible.

``It's this one for me,'' Walker admits. ``I really like the medieval period. It seems the easy way out. But from the time I was a little kid, it always seemed one of the most fascinating periods to me. As I got older, in college, I took a poli-sci class. It was on the history of the Far East and focused on Japan and China. I loved feudal Japan, the samurai, like Kurosawa stuff. That's what I like, shogun and samurai. That's my favorite.''

``I think I would like to go into the future rather than go back,'' O'Connor says. ``With the past we know what it was about generally, but it would be interesting to imagine what it would be like in the future now, especially as there are so many permutations of what could actually happen.''

Shuler Donner concurs, to some extent.

``I would love to see the future,'' the producer says. ``But I would like to visit Florence during the Renaissance. That would be fabulous.''

While the ladies look forward, Donner would rather associate time travel, if he has to at all, with an era he remembers as one extended good time.

``I'd go back to the '60s!'' he affirms with gusto.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) PAST LIVES

Archaeologists dug being transported to 14th-century France in `Timeline'

(2) Modern-day archaeologist Chris Johnson (Paul Walker, center left) and medieval Lord Arnaut (Lambert Wilson) fend off attackers in 14th-century France in ``Timeline.''

(3) The road to making ``Timeline'' wasn't quick or easy for Billy Connolly (left), Neal McDonough (partially hidden), Frances O'Connor, director Richard Donner and Paul Walker.