Well, this real-life story has a similar parallelism. Daniel Craft, a 41 year-old man with a diagnosis of terminal cancer with only weeks to live, had to be hospitalized and missed the 9-minute preview of the film Star Trek: Into Darkness accompanying selected screenings of The Hobbit. Knowing how he was an unconditional fan of Star Trek, his wife made an appeal on the internet for someone to arrange a copy of the preview. The application has become viral and reached the ears of Paramount and J. J. Abrams. As such, they invited them to see the full movie. Days later, Daniel died. A friend of his reports the experience of Daniel on Reddit:
A day or so after the thread began, Paige, Dan’s wife, got a voicemail from J. J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof that was very nice and very straightforward: a producer for the movie would get in touch with them. The next day, one of the film’s producers showed up at the door of their apartment with a DVD containing a very rough cut of Star Trek: Into Darkness in his hands. Paige had made popcorn, Dan had spent the previous day resting so he could sit through the movie, and after signing about 200 non-disclosure agreements they watched the film and had a blast.
Afterwards, Dan got back into bed, exhausted, and didn't get out again. Yesterday he was pretty non-responsive and Paige took him to the hospital for hospice care. Last night, at 10:15pm, with Paige and his brother in his room, Dan died. The last thing he got to do that gave him pleasure was watch the new Star Trek movie. And it’s because of you.
At a time when he didn't have a whole lot to look forward to, Star Trek, J. J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof, and Bad Robot performed a simple act of kindness for a total stranger and gave Dan something to be excited about for a couple of days. The movie did exactly what movies are supposed to do, it helped him forget about his problems for a couple of hours. It doesn't sound like much, but in this case it was.
This is a difficult story to write about without getting sappy, sacharine or insensitive, but to those of us who didn't know him, Dan now stands as a symbol of the power of film. Here’s a man who spent his days helping to cultivate one of the best film festivals in the country and when the end was near, he took solace in cinema. “Dying Man Gets to See New ‘Star Trek’ Movie” is flashy headline, but this story is a powerful reminder of why we love cinema. Movies are capable of transporting us to new worlds, of helping us forget our pain for two hours — it’s comforting to know that a real movie fan was able to embrace what he loved until the very end.
Rest in peace, Mr. Craft.
