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PearlJade's Replies
Yes! We think alike ^
[quote]If your assertion were true that "animals have a keen sense of impending danger" with the implication that this is evidence the dog survived, then no predator would ever catch any prey and the entire food chain would collapse.[/quote]
You missed one important point: My assumption is that Pippet didn’t go into the water after the last toss of the stick. He stayed on land where he was less vulnerable and where the danger lurking in the ocean couldn’t get to him.
Not every stalked/hunted animal gets killed. They use their natural defenses and their instincts to evade capture. If your premise is that this never works, then every “low on the food chain” species would be extinct due to its predators.
I assume, however, that such a simplistic statement is [i]not[/i] your premise, in which case we are back at the same point: the [b]possibility[/b] that Pippet survived. I’m not saying it’s a certainty, but it’s not beyond belief either, especially based on my assumption that Pippet avoided the water in the middle of the fetch game.
I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree: You’re in favour of one possibility while I’m in favour of the other.
Of course the dog went into the water; who says he didn’t? But after a few fetches, he sensed danger and wouldn’t go in again.
That’s what I want to think anyway. I just can’t accept the thought of poor Pippet becoming a shark snack when it’s entirely possible that his instincts saved him.
<blockquote>If the dog survived, they would've had a scene <b>later</b> of it bounding into it's owners arms eventually.</blockquote>
No, because the film makers wanted Pippet’s fate to be left to the viewer’s interpretation. They gave neither a happy ending nor a sad ending to his/her screen time. It leaves the viewer somewhat unsettled, which is part of the film’s atmosphere.
Sure, I can grasp that the shark <b><i>may have</b></i> gotten him; but it’s also not beyond the realm of possibility that the dog was spooked and would not go into the water. It would be fantasy if Pippet sprouted wings and flew off into a pink cloud. But running off because he had an animal’s instinct for danger? Perfectly possible <i>and</i> plausible.
<blockquote> If the dog survived, they would've had a scene later of it bounding into it's owners arms eventually.</blockquote>
Not necessarily. That would undermine the tension that the Kintner beach scene was trying to convey: the push-pull of dread (Chief Brody’s nervous watchfulness because he knows something the island visitors don’t) and the obliviousness of the beach frolickers. The tension breaks when Brody’s fears are confirmed and everyone experiences the shark-induced panic. A dog with a wagging tail reunited with its owner doesn’t fit the tone.
I think Pippet’s fate is deliberately meant to be unresolved because much of <i>Jaws</i> (especially the early scenes when the shark is unseen) is about viewers letting their imaginations fill in the blanks regarding the terror. We can apply our own interpretation to Pippet’s fate. I just choose to interpret that Pippet escaped based on what I’ve observed/read about pet behaviour. To me, it doesn’t make the shark any less terrifying.
No, it was the very clear confirmation of the shark’s impending arrival, causing Pippet to abandon the game of fetch.
The floating stick is no less a chilling foreboding of peril even if Pippet survives. Pippet’s animal instincts kicked in, thus saving him/her. Unfortunately for us humans, we don’t possess that sixth sense. Danger was lurking for the beach goers of Amity.
Why does everyone believe that Pippet fell prey to the shark?
Animals have a keen sense of impending danger; for example, they get skittish before earthquakes and storms. A few years ago, an adult bear was spotted in the neighborhood where my friend and his wife lived. They personally didn't see the bear, but their two dogs were spooked and didn't want to go for their walks. After the police shot the bear, the dogs were back to their normal behavior.
After Pippet's owner tossed that stick into the ocean that last time, I can imagine Pippet thinking, "Uh-oh, there's something creepy in that water. See you later, stick; I'm outta here ..." I think it's quite plausible that Pippet just ran off somewhere, and later came out to join his (her?) owner when the danger was over.
The stick floating in the water while Pippet is no where around still effectively foreshadows the impending menace of the shark; only I would add that this menace was clear to Pippet in ways that humans can't intuit, thus causing him (her?) to take cover.
I wondered that myself, and I simply concluded that the company only offered its services to men.
As others have said, that may have been for practical reasons. At that time, single women would not likely have the required financial resources, while married women would not have easy access to the household funds. Since men were the breadwinners, they were likely deemed the owners of the family wealth.
I also think women are less likely to abandon their children, even grown children, for a second chance at life. Imagine not being there for a child’s wedding or missing out on future grandchildren. I don’t know how Tony justified not seeing his daughter again.
I especially noticed the absence of women in the CPS day room. If the company did find women of means who elected to become reborns, this would imply that they adapted to their new identities better than the men did. (After all, only the “unsatisfied customers” are sent to the CPS room.)
Remember that Arthur Hamilton underwent extensive surgery to make him look younger, fitter, and more handsome. He did not receive a face and body transplant from a handsome dead man named Tony Wilson. A random person wouldn’t recognize him as his “old friend Tony Wilson” because Tony Wilson was created on the operating room table.
A cadaver is sought to match the <i><b>pre-surgery, old identity</i></b> appearance (height and build) of the person who wants to be reborn, in this case Arthur Hamilton. This is in order to convincingly fake Arthur’s death to his family and/or other authorities.
It doesn’t go the other way around. In other words, no cadaver is used or needed for the new identity. The new identity is created by plastic surgery on the reborn-to-be and by expertly faked I.D. documents.
After not being able to sleep because of the dripping tap, the steam whistle, the freight train, and the screeching owl, Vinny spends the night in jail for his 3rd contempt charge. In the middle of what sounds like a full-on prison riot, he's shown sleeping as peacefully as a baby. Must be no different from the street sounds of his Brooklyn neighborhood at night.
Even though Cassie and Sunny made their decision with empathy, compassion, and yes, even morality -- and I applaud the sensitivity these police professionals have shown -- I still think the end decision was not only legally wrong, but also misguided morally, even though a moral result is what they wanted to achieve ("leave the judging up to God"). The reason: these police detectives are not omniscient.
Many people who were sexually abused as children will in turn become abusing adults. We saw this with the David Walker character. The show was somewhat manipulative in portraying the three suspects as upstanding citizens who gravitated to careers that involved helping and nurturing the young: Colin in the juvenile court system, Marion in a pediatric cancer centre, and Sarah in the school system. They were portrayed as true righteous angels -- useful members of society who turned their lives around and dispatched predatory scum. But what if the show had revealed that earlier in their lives any one of those three - in their darkest hour before finding the right therapy - became an abuser? They all chose jobs with a proximity to children; was it always for altruistic reasons or was it for expediency -- to escape victimhood by choosing a victim?
And if that were the case, how would we feel about Cassie and Sunny's decision?
The morality that I worry about is that of Cassie and Sunny. Having swept three pre-meditated murders under the carpet this time, doesn't that put them in danger of doing so again the next time a sympathetic murderer is discovered? Do their job titles actually give them any greater insight into who truly has the moral upper hand?
[quote]Now that's a true scientist! He's not arrogant because he's rich, he's embarrassed he couldn't get a grant![/quote]
That's a good one! :D
She's lucky she got photos of her son. If I were in Karl's place, I don't know if I would have been so kind.
Then again, Karl himself had lost a son, so he may believe that Lana will only realize the consequences of her crimes when she is left only with photos of Saban, knowing that her punishment is that she will never be able to see, hear, or hold him.
[quote] I didn't really get why the killers felt the need to torture the detectives.[/quote]
I hear you, but I think it's because the young fellow, Anton, was a sociopath. It's strongly implied that his mother was mentally ill, so he may have inherited her traits. Her abandonment of Anton and his sister may have pushed his damaged psyche into inimical territory.
He was particularly jealous over Lana and could not tolerate her trusting or becoming close to anyone else. His fear of abandonment had reached a paranoiac level. He had to know where Lana was at all times; when she left the caravan park, he kept tabs on her electronic communications, which is how he discovered Karl's attempt to contact her. From that moment, Karl was in Anton's crosshairs. Karl, with his resources for investigating and possibly locating Saban, was a threat to Lana's dependence on Anton.
I'm still reeling. I was doubly unprepared because I didn't realize that episode #6 was the last one of the series.
Spoilers ...
I was really scratching my head in an earlier episode because I was wondering how in the world B.B. lived. He was shot in the stomach at close range with a rifle, then he was bayoneted (also in the stomach), then he was tossed off a cliff. In the subsequent episode I thought for sure we'd find out that B.B. was a goner and that the writers had taken the bold step of killing one of the team. When B.B. survived his surgery (and came back to work in what seemed like two days later), I became complacent, thinking that the writers weren't going to sadden us with the death of a dedicated detective.
I wonder if that plot element with B.B. was purposefully done so that the audience's guard would be down. With B.B. seemingly indestructible (the guy could give Rasputin a run for his money), one could easily think that such a smart and capable team could outsmart any villain. It made the sudden demise that we got even more unexpected and shocking.
A perpetrator's confession is circumstantial?
Putting that aside for a moment, it's not for the police to decide if there is enough proof. That is for the courts and the jury to deliberate on. The job of the police is to lay charges if their investigation results in evidence -- and even circumstantial evidence is still evidence -- that a crime has been committed.
Even if they don't want to charge the three principals, they must tell a legal authority what they've uncovered. They must NEVER keep silent and sweep pre-meditated murders under the carpet so that the public is none the wiser. They have an obligation to disclose their findings to the state's attorney (or crown attorney or prosecuting attorney). That legal body could very well decide that charges aren't warranted or that a grand jury must convene to decide if there is enough evidence. If a decision is made that there is enough evidence to go to trial, then the judge and jury take it from there and weigh all mitigating factors, including the abuse endured by the defendants. The justice system fails all of us if the police allow themselves to become secret keepers.
They have David Walker's widow's admission that he visited a house where he abused children. The police traced Sara Mahmoud to that house when she was young.
The police have seen all three -- Colin, Sara, and Marion -- meeting together and traced all three to the same psychiatric care facility where they were all treated for issues stemming from their childhood abuse. Plus, witnesses for each confirmed to police that they were abused (Colin's father, Sara's father, Marion's mother). The abusers of all three are dead.
Then there is the best proof of all: Colin's confession of the trio's entire plan and how it was carried out: they each killed one of the other's abuser.