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abiggerboat's Replies
"Simpletons". LOL. I'll just leave that one alone. It speaks plenty without me needing to address it.
And YOUR old retort: "Just because it's a fantasy genre doesn't mean general, established rules of what mankind is and is not able to do, plus laws of gravity, laws of medicine, etc....don't apply", doesn't really work here. I'm sure you've used it many times.
My point is not: Abandon the rules of what is and is not possible. My assertion is simply....Carol had a machine gun, and had the element of surprise on those guys. She easily could have dispensed with them. A couple of you bullet-counters get all uptight about it because of things like....her gun angle? Whether or not the ceiling could have supported her? LOL. Again, you choose to get uptight about inconsequential details, and miss the forest for the trees. And you call it "lazy writing". How ironic....because THAT is one of the "laziest" IMDB (and now MovieChat) complaints ever written. It is trite and has been rubber-stamped countless times. Though MOST people don't bother....because most people really don't CARE if the "gun angle" was fully feasible. They realize she had a machine gun, and had the jump on those guys. If the details of the scene were not executed well enough to your liking, maybe this really is not the show for you. When you watch a Chuck Norris movie, all of the general rules of physics and the human condition are in play.....but let me break it to you: fights don't look like that. They aren't perfectly choreographed with perfect, clean punches and loud "pop" noises each time a blow lands. Yet someone like you would, if you're being consistent, would complain that we deserve a more realistic fight....sloppy, glancing blows, more misses than hits, immediate broken noses and blood, and complete exhaustion after about 60 seconds.
When it comes to TWD....or ANY action show or movie where there is gunfire, things get understandably unrealistic. For starters, there's simply not enough time...within a 40 minute show, to show lots of misses and failed standoffs, lots of reloading, misfires, etc. We also don't see them eat or poop. In a 40 minute show, you have to glance over the details and get to the action. In a Chuck Norris fight (or ANY movie fight), people don't want to see a lot of sloppy grappling that ends in an exhausted draw....even though that's how most real fights go. You just kinda have to...."forgive" that stuff. Forgive perfect head shots. Quit counting bullets. Or, move on.
Carol shot the bad guys with a machine gun and the element of surprise. That's all you really need to accept about that scene. If you nit-pick the details of it....you may as well nitpick everything from....the likelihood Martin Riggs could have survived that fall out the hotel room window into a swimming pool....to John McClane falling down the elevator shaft and yet being able to grab onto the opening during his fall and pull himself up into it.
Man, you must be a lot of fun at parties.
We're talking about a show in which the dead....walk.
And yet we can't suspend disbelief enough to just assume there was a way Carol could have killed those guys with a machine gun? We can't forgive that she may not have had the correct angle to have achieved the shot trajectory that she did? (Really?)
She easily could have accomplished the act of shooting those guys. They didn't NEED to spoon-feed us with the details of how. In the bigger picture, she had a machine gun, and caught them by surprise. I'm not going to nit-pick the details of that. It's like nit-picking whether the guns show enough recoil....or people who count how many bullets were fired from a handgun ("hey, that was one too many bullets!"). You people miss the forest for the trees. Put the calculator down....REMOVE your thinking caps....put your feet up for an hour....have an Eggo....and just watch this graphic novel play out. Really, you're overthinking it.
I think it would be great to show a flashback of Negan, pre ZA....and have him be something like a school teacher, or a therapist. It would be cool to see him in a completely docile, caring role. And, it would show how he was able to use his charisma to gain followers. Or....go completely the other way with it. He is a leader of many in the ZA. But perhaps in the pre-ZA world.....he was a short order cook. I think it would be cool to delve (just a little....I'm talking one 5-minute scene) into Negan's past, to get a better understanding of what makes him tick.
Well said, carjones.
Plus, they ask questions they fully know the answers to.
"Why didn't they just shoot him then and there?!"
Answer: Because they'd rather draw out the Negan arc instead of just having him get shot in the first new episode of the season. (But I think people already understand that)
If someone is lonely enough, they will develop a connection to anything. A cat...a plant....a........volleyball. Look at Joaquin Phoenix's character in Her.
Joi had artificial intelligence. She had a personality. She could think, respond, reply and express. Including, as we found out....love. One can assume her AI and ("personality") increased with time and exposure to K (almost like a pet can grow more and more intelligent and attached to its owner, and vise versa).
It's easy (and rather knee-jerk) to just write Joi off because she was not fleash & blood. She was yet another part of the overall existential questions being raised in the movie...about what it really means to be human. I think...therefore I am?
The connection K and Joi had was real, and Joi had more love (and "soul") than any actual humans in his life. Stretch yourself a little. Suspend some disbelief. Otherwise, why even bother going to a sci-fi movie?
LOL...einstein. You are your own worst enemy. Keep typing, man. You can't get out of your own way. And it's guys like you that killed IMDB. Nothing substantive at all to say....just complaints and negativity. Quite a life you've carved out for yourself.
The original BR had the enormous advantage of being first (obviously). We'd never seen anything like it before. So it created a hypnotic and fascinating new world. Plus, if you're like me...you saw it at a young and impressionable age, so it really just had an extra impact on you--and it stayed with you.
Whereas the sequel....had the built-in disadvantage of coming second, after we've already seen the cinematic magic of the first. The bar is high and expectations have been set. There's practically nowhere a second movie could go but down--when compared to the original. That all said....
I was pleasantly surprised with just how well they did with the sequel. It had just enough little touches, little grace notes, to really move me. And it's funny....mt FIRST impression, upon walking out of the theater was: It was really good (albeit long), with moments of brilliance. But after I had 24 hours to really let it sink in--the movie stayed with me. A day later, I wanted to make plans to see it again--to have that cinematic "experience" a second time (this time in 3-D IMAX). There are VERY few movies these days I'd make an effort to go and see (and PAY) to see a second time. This is definitely one of them.
It's interesting how opinions vary on this movie. For me, I liked the sequel better than the original. It had a much longer running time, and yet the first one is the one that really seems to drag for me. Not much really happens in the original, there are long dry spells, and the plot doesn't require much thinking. However, the final scene with Roy Batty's speech: perfection.
With the sequel, there were some extremely gratifying little grace notes along the way. Sinatra's "Summer Wind" playing in the background of K's apartment. Heck, the Sinatra hologram, emanating from a retro jukebox, in an abandoned Vegas casino. The sepia hues and barren landscapes. The bizarre, gigantic nude statues in the wasteland. The use of winter snows and water. The Treasure Island quote. The scene with Joi once the eminator allows her to walk outside in the rain and "experience" a taste of living. And really.....ANY scene with Joi was mesmorizing, like the "sharing" love scene. And the most heartbreaking, when she made a plea to be spared, and lunged at K to try and embrace him as her last words were to tell him she loved him.
The cool, fearless calm K had in the face of Bautista in the opening scene. The cold, empty loneliness of K's apartment.
The irony that Deckard's daughter (the very "birthed" replicant Wallace had been seeking) was a distant employee of his the whole time. The sad irony that Joi was a hologram, and yet had more soul and love than any "human" in K's life. The poignant and ultimately tragic hope K had that perhaps he indeed was born, and therefore had a soul....and the memories he had were real afterall. And his slow shutting down on the steps, as the snow fell on his blank, yet soulful stare into the graying sky.
It was just a really, really cool and poignant cinematic "experience". I'd think I was the oddball in thinking of this movie in this fashion, but enough other people had the same reaction to kinda validate. Some people just really kinda "got it". But it's definitely not for everyone.
I agree, everyone has a different interpretation of art. But for someone to just blanketly dismiss a movie like this as "Hollywood plastic", with no points to substantiate it? Well, that's just a sophomoric comment, isn't it? At least attempt to make a few points and present a few examples to back up your point of view. Otherwise, the opinion lacks any credibility. It's like it was written by a kid just looking to troll.
Excellent points! Especially regarding the world-building. In an effort to "milk" an idea or fantasy to death, under the pretenses that more is more and the audience will eat it up, it can just kill the mystique of an otherwise unique story and experience...and turn it into another McMovie franchise. The more I think about it, the more I really agree with you. As GREAT as both Blade Runner movie "experiences" were....sometimes they just need to leave a great thing alone, and not tarnish it with a string of sequels.
Along with your fine examples, look how badly things like Godfather III tainted the franchise. Or how about (gulp), Jaws: The Revenge.
Whether or not there's a continuation of the story, we don't need to be spoon-fed with every character's arc wrapped up in a nice conclusion bow. What happened to Wallace? Use your imagination. We don't necessarily need to know. But the ambiguity leaves space for more story. A continuation of the mythology. I think its a more....."intellectual" approach, when the writers don't wrap every character's story up with a nice, neat ending. This movie works fine as a stand-alone....but it works best for those who have a love for the original. A love for the pacing, the visuals, the feel and sound, the atmosphere and the characters. The story and plot are a lot bigger and more textured than many people are realizing. And it's a story that begs for a continuation. I loved that it worked well as a stand-alone. I liked even more...that it worked well as a second act. And I REALLY like that it left things open for more to be told.
Just my humble opinion.
Fair points--opinions vary.
You mention the "unimportance of the plot". The initial plot is......a new emergence of corporate mass production of replicants....a risk that those replicants will become not just self-aware (they already are)....but also self-SERVING. They're more intelligent than humans...and they're stronger. If we (humans) can't control their quantities.....memories....behavior, etc. If we can't "police" those things, the replicants can turn on humans, and "break the world", if they choose to. Fair or not? That is just one of the questions posed in the movie: What does it mean to be human, and what rights are our "birthright"?
You can see just with the police protocols alone (daily "baseline testing"), that there's a real paranoia about losing control of replicants. We also see (toward the end of the film)...that there is INDEED a replicant uprising in the works. That is just one part of this layered plot. There's also the story of K wanting to find his humanity. (This may not be compelling to you, but it is for many). There's also the storyline of....whatever happened to Deckard and Rachel? We discover they had a child, and this is revealing on many levels, and has huge implications.
What happened to Wallace? While we don't need to be spoonfed with every single character having a conclusion spelled out for us....I think it's safe to say Wallace's story arc is still in motion (cough-cough, "another sequel in the works", cough-cough). The room full of slave kids? We don't need to know what became of them. All we need to know is....that ispart of what the world has become. And, that is where K (or Deckard's daughter) came from (per the memory K had, which he had always assumed was a fake implant). Did the world break? We don't need to actually witness the collapse of humankind to understand why the worry of the threat of that happening. Just as 4 replicants were a threat in the first movie....mass quantities of rebelling replicants (who can reproduce)? Much worse.
And amdist all of this, there is a subtle and poignant love story--a connection. K's hologram comes across as the most "human" of all the characters in his life. Did she have a "soul"? What does it mean to have a soul. She loved him, and he loved her. Poignant irony....tragic and bittersweet. Because neither of them were "real". Or....what really DEFINES being real? I think, therefore I am. I think.....(and feel) therefore I am.
If none of things compell you, or move you....at least enjoy the stunning feast for the senses. The music...the sounds....the visuals...the nuances....the cinematography. Knocking CGI for the very principal of it never made sense to me. When it's done unnecessarily, or poorly, ok. But for Blade Runner, it was 100% necessary....in order to recreate (and evolve) the world R.Scott created in the original movie.
It was not a bad scene or bad line at all. The line....and the reasoning....is only as simple as the person who believed it.
In other words...the security guard (Ramirez?) was a rather simple guy, at least when it came to his superstitions. There are people like Ramirez. People who believe things like...if someone sweeping a floor happens to touch your feet with the broom, it will bring you bad luck. Not every line or character in a movie (especially a story like this--which isn't exactly Citizen Kane) needs to be (or SHOULD be), perfectly polished and sophisticated. There are people in the world like Ramirez....with simple, sometimes even silly superstitions. That one was obviously an example of one he was introduced to early on as a kid.
That scene deserves a lot more credit than it gets. It starts to show just how far-fetched Ramirez's beliefs could ordinarily be, in every day life. But then...on a day where some freaky sh_t is happening, even the cop (and many of us the viewing audience) were more and more willing to maybe believe there was some truth to all Ramirez's silly "superstitions". The jelly flip was just a simple, innocent means of establishing the character and his simple, seemingly silly beliefs. What made the movie progressively more creepy as things moved on...was that we started to think, more and more, that maybe Ramirez was right.
It's kind of a slack-jaw, simple-minded, lowest common denominator reaction to just come on here and say: "Duuuuude, that scene was so STEEEEWPID." But it's only because you don't understand it, even in its simplicity. And you're seeing it too literally. It was a metaphor....and it established a character. The jelly flip was a lot better idea and scene than if they had some spiritual expert come in and did some sophisticated example of the paranormal. No...it was just simple Ramirez, and his simple little belief. What made it scary was....maybe it wasn't so silly afterall. Get it yet?
Sarcasm, when others were just looking for civilized dialogue.
Always a class move. Thanks for participating.
Heath had become an established, ongoing character over the course of several seasons...not an arbitrary, temporary character (like "the guy who left Randall behind", for example). There's a difference, and you know it (I hope). Either way, your attempt at being a tool is noted.
That would be cool if they did something like that with Heath. He has been off everyone's radar (including the viewers) for months now. And yes, if he had died, they'd have shown it. So he's out there...
Shredder...this is not a competition.
The moment you chose to insult Popcorn Kernel unnecessarily, you pretty much lost credibility in the conversation. It's not a good road to go down. This is what ended the IMDB boards. The creators of THIS site are hoping people can be a bit more dignified.
It was Andrea that first helped Michonne get her humanity back. And Michonne helps Rick realize...their humanity is what they fight for. It's what separates them from the savages and from the soulless, lifeless zombies. Without their humanity, what's the point of living on. So, let's not criticize Michonne for being a fully fleshed-out, complex, strong, intelligent and yes (parish the thought) even VULNERABLE at times.....woman. Being vulnerable is part of the human condition. It's the ability to be strong amidst that vulnerability....in SPITE of that vulnerability....that makes us bad-ass.
Sometimes, it's more impactful to sense and experience something like Carol's return to glory via her actions, rather than having a definitive: "Hey guys, I'm BACK" moment. You could sense it by the look on her face when she learned the truth (about Glenn and Abe). You could see it in her walk....the way she left her quiet sanctuary of a house and marched boldly through the Kingdom's gates. You just knew, without a doubt. I really like how the writers (and the actress) conveyed this. She had enough dialogue, enough "key moments" with the people who understood her exile. Moments with Daryl.....with Morgan.....
Too much of that would have been overkill, even cliche. I appreciated the relatively fanfare-free return of Carol. It's how she wanted it. She didn't see herself as a warrior to be celebrated. She hates the role, and hates that it's necessary. She's very practical and focused, and that's it. Understated and under the radar. She has weaponized herself again....but she doesn't want to make a thing of it.
Gregg....the OP wasn't asking who double-crossed Rick's group. He/She was asking who the mole was. In other words....who the informant was, who had been feeding Negan with detailed information about the uprising, the strategy, the day, the explosives, etc, etc.
The informant (mole) wasn't necessarily one of the Garbage people. It could have been anyone.