Sense 8 -Wachowskis and J. Michael Straczynski on Netflix

[shavedape]

Yes, avoid the question. I see you skipped right over and completely avoided my "The Fountain" challenge. Are you a scaredy cat?

In all seriousness, I couldn't get past the first 10 to 20 minutes of The Fountain. I literally couldn't convince myself to continue watching it. Personally I hate shit that is so incomprehensible yet is touted as being "deep". In the literary world you see it with the works of Thomas Pynchon, namely Gravity's Rainbow. His incomprehensible shit is venerated by pseudo-intellectuals in the most nauseating way. From Wiki, case in point:

Poet L. E. Sissman, in his Gravity's Rainbow review for The New Yorker, said of Pynchon: "He is almost a mathematician of prose, who calculates the least and the greatest stress each word and line, each pun and ambiguity, can bear, and applies his knowledge accordingly and virtually without lapses, though he takes many scary, bracing linguistic risks. Thus his remarkably supple diction can first treat of a painful and delicate love scene and then roar, without pause, into the sounds and echoes of a drudged and drunken orgy."

This is the kind of anti-intellectual nonsense that attends such drivel as The Fountain. When you hear someone wax poetic about this type of movie or book rest assured you're hearing someone that's trying to con you intellectually.


*I'm not directing this at OM1 and Cloud Atlas as I haven't seen that movie yet. I'm just remarking on The Fountain.

 

[Overmind One]

Yes, avoid the question. I see you skipped right over and completely avoided my "The Fountain" challenge. Are you a scaredy cat?

Well, your posts regarding it are not exactly making me want to see it! But I will check it out...nothing can be worse than Tank Girl.

 

[Bluce Ree]

Well, your posts regarding it are not exactly making me want to see it! But I will check it out...nothing can be worse than Tank Girl.

Don't forget the gun. If you don't own one, get a toy one that looks real. Subconsciously, your mind will lead you to it during the movie.



Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk

 

[Joelist]

Perhaps hold a "watch off". The Fountain versus Tank Girl? The main problem I forsee in such a contest would be viewers dying from brain aneurysms during the process.

 

[Bluce Ree]

Perhaps hold a "watch off". The Fountain versus Tank Girl? The main problem I forsee in such a contest would be viewers dying from brain aneurysms during the process.

Tank Girl just pisses you off at how stupid it is. The Fountain literally makes you want to blow your head off.

 

[YJ02]

I appreciate your comments on this movie, but look at all of the questions you have about its meanings. You are concentrating on the details and taking what you see literally instead of allegorically. Did you even wonder why the producers had Halle Berry and Tom Hanks and the others play completely different roles? Halle Berry played the wife of Vivian the composer, she played a Puerto Rican reporter, she played the surgeon who removed Sonmi's collar, and finally the Precient. Hugo Weaving played the nurse, Georgie, the Political Minister, etc etc etc. Why not different actors? The movie shows you why.

The Big Isle was not Hawaii. You missed the issue about the earth's oceans rising. The Sonmi fabricants could have been any systematically oppressed people and they simply chose those Asian women. They were only an allegory. They could have chosen blacks but that one is overused now. The whole story is much much deeper than you are looking. But like you said, the critics panned it. I personally am not at all surprised. It is way over their heads, just like the Matrix was. Conversely, something which was supposed to be epic like Prometheus was devoid of any depth.

I am not attacking you for your views here, I am just saying that you have to entertain the idea that perhaps you don't really understand the movie. You dont have to either. I totally did not get Mulholland Drive. But this movie is not a drama, it is not an action flick, it is not science fiction, it is allegory. I dont at all expect a Forbes critic to get this movie.

I never said that the island was Hawaii-that was in quotes. But Zachry calls it "Ha-why" and the shots look a hell of a lot like the place. Also, as to the "Kona tribe", Kona is a real life District on the Big Island. It is conceivable that the "kona tribe" derives their name from the place where they call their home base.

I know that whatever calamity that occurred caused rising sea levels (they has already risen by Sonmi's time- Maj Chang had told her that was the reason for neo Seoul, that old Seoul was submerged from rising seas-but again both the writer of the book and the movie's TPTB go along that the viewers are idiots-like with the cliched racism towards asians they hoped would be missed, Not much of a chance that neo Seoul be in Korea, if old seoul got flooded so to would much of the country). Also, Berry's prescient character told Zachry that Sonmi was from a land long ago ruined. Again they leave too many open ended "facts". Ruined how? War or sea level? Both?

I have no questions on the movie. What I have said are my views on it. If I have posted any questions they were from articles quoted.

The most "important" characters and the trail of THE soul is with the character in each time setting that bears the comet like birthmark-they would be Ewing, Frobisher, Rey, Cavendish, Sonmi and then Zachry . They are all individuals presumably inhabited by the same soul and are all struggling for some type of change, some more personal some more wordly, but all for the good. They were all fighting for some sort of "truth" and all progressive in nature. Whether they are each in possession of the same redistributed soul is not really important, what is is that the same birthmark on each one id's them as the "chosen" the "one who is to struggle" (chosen by who? well that brings up the whole God/ higher power thing again doesn't it?).

Look, like I said ,the movie is ok. Its watchable and entertaining-far better then many of the schlocky films coming out now. But just like I can't "convert" Bluce or Rac into trying to "understand more of" nu BSG and then liking it as I do, neither can anyone turn me into a fanboy of Cloud Atlas.

I am sure. like nearly every movie take on a novel, the the novel is far clearer on its meanings. You can get a used copy on AMAZON for $2.12 (I checked today)

 

[shavedape]

Just watch the goddamn movie!!!

 

[Joelist]

Tank Girl just pisses you off at how stupid it is. The Fountain literally makes you want to blow your head off.

I think Overmind might differ with you on this. Judging from his remarks I think the rewatch left him damaged for life....

 

[YJ02]

Just watch the goddamn movie!!!

Uh..yeah. I did. Do you think I got the info that I did through osmosis or something?

 

[YJ02]

Did you even wonder why the producers had Halle Berry and Tom Hanks and the others play completely different roles? Halle Berry played the wife of Vivian the composer, she played a Puerto Rican reporter, she played the surgeon who removed Sonmi's collar, and finally the Precient. Hugo Weaving played the nurse, Georgie, the Political Minister, etc etc etc. Why not different actors? The movie shows you why.

Of course though, this is once again an example of how movie makers take a novel and f*ck it up as they please. It is only in a movie that the re-use of the same actors would matter, the novel is not visual of course. The only descriptor in print is mainly sex, color, ethnicity, facial features, etc. IT IS ONLY the mention of the birthmark on each person that any connections between them can be made-as to their "sharing" the same soul.

The use of the same actors is nothing more then a vehicle for the Wachowskis to show off their "genius" and for the make up people to shine (though they got rather gloopy and ridiculous with some if the faces). It was completely unnecessary.

The focus of the story is the recurrent them of man's struggle against what is wrong (though the Cavendish story is rather silly). Cavendish also shows a plot hole that demonstrates that it is not a soul being reborn but rather that those with the birthmark have been somehow chosen (by God?). This is simple to see once one gets past all the feel good "I love the movie" stuff. Cavendish and Rey share the same time/space, 1 soul can not be in two bodies simultaneously.

 

[shavedape]

Uh..yeah. I did. Do you think I got the info that I did through osmosis or something?

Watch it again and this time love it!!!

 

[Bluce Ree]

Anyone seen Overmind? I hope he didn't take me seriously and watch The Fountain with a gun next to him. I don't want to be responsible for him blowing off his head.

 

[Overmind One]

I think Overmind might differ with you on this. Judging from his remarks I think the rewatch left him damaged for life....

Ongoing therapy. And the dreams....

 

[Bluce Ree]

Ongoing therapy. And the dreams....

OMG! There you are! Shit, I was worried!

 

[Overmind One]

OMG! There you are! Shit, I was worried!

The cats chased me under the bed. Im ready to come out now.

 

[Atlantis]

I have said that Halle Berry is a terrible actress. The discussion is over.

THE HAMMER HAS SPOKEN!!!

#1 and #2 on these lists

 

[Overmind One]

I never said that the island was Hawaii-that was in quotes. But Zachry calls it "Ha-why" and the shots look a hell of a lot like the place. Also, as to the "Kona tribe", Kona is a real life District on the Big Island. It is conceivable that the "kona tribe" derives their name from the place where they call their home base.

I know that whatever calamity that occurred caused rising sea levels (they has already risen by Sonmi's time- Maj Chang had told her that was the reason for neo Seoul, that old Seoul was submerged from rising seas-but again both the writer of the book and the movie's TPTB go along that the viewers are idiots-like with the cliched racism towards asians they hoped would be missed, Not much of a chance that neo Seoul be in Korea, if old seoul got flooded so to would much of the country). Also, Berry's prescient character told Zachry that Sonmi was from a land long ago ruined. Again they leave too many open ended "facts". Ruined how? War or sea level? Both?

I have no questions on the movie. What I have said are my views on it. If I have posted any questions they were from articles quoted.

The most "important" characters and the trail of THE soul is with the character in each time setting that bears the comet like birthmark-they would be Ewing, Frobisher, Rey, Cavendish, Sonmi and then Zachry . They are all individuals presumably inhabited by the same soul and are all struggling for some type of change, some more personal some more wordly, but all for the good. They were all fighting for some sort of "truth" and all progressive in nature. Whether they are each in possession of the same redistributed soul is not really important, what is is that the same birthmark on each one id's them as the "chosen" the "one who is to struggle" (chosen by who? well that brings up the whole God/ higher power thing again doesn't it?).

Look, like I said ,the movie is ok. Its watchable and entertaining-far better then many of the schlocky films coming out now. But just like I can't "convert" Bluce or Rac into trying to "understand more of" nu BSG and then liking it as I do, neither can anyone turn me into a fanboy of Cloud Atlas.

I am sure. like nearly every movie take on a novel, the the novel is far clearer on its meanings. You can get a used copy on AMAZON for $2.12 (I checked today)

First, you were right about the island being Hawaii. I just finished the book and it was definitely Hawaii. The cannibals on the other side of the island were called the Konas. Just as you said. The book is better than the movie, but the movie was a pretty good interpretation of the book. The nested stories were much easier to follow.

I am watching the movie again after having read the book, which will make it about the 15th time I have seen it. The book also does not explain what the event was, but it was called "The Fall" and evidently it killed off most of Humanity and civilization. The last high tech society on earth was that of the Prescients. You did get this pretty good...the movie is still awesome, but the book is better.

 

[YJ02]

First, you were right about the island being Hawaii. I just finished the book and it was definitely Hawaii. The cannibals on the other side of the island were called the Konas. Just as you said. The book is better than the movie, but the movie was a pretty good interpretation of the book. The nested stories were much easier to follow.

I am watching the movie again after having read the book, which will make it about the 15th time I have seen it. The book also does not explain what the event was, but it was called "The Fall" and evidently it killed off most of Humanity and civilization. The last high tech society on earth was that of the Prescients. You did get this pretty good...the movie is still awesome, but the book is better.

I am going to "frame" this post

No, but really, most films made from novels are without a doubt changed in some way. We all know this. Sometimes fort the better, often times not.

When it is done for "screen presence" or to highten the drama or make a more effective story-ok. But often they just muck things up so bad it makes you sorry you ever watched the thing.

I am sure--in fact I can tell, that CA is a great book. It is pretty clear that the movies touches on so many things from the book that must go into greater depth.

When a movie like this is made, it is almost a shorthand for the novel-that is if you read it. If you never read te story, the film is still a good one. But so much-as you say-was left out or maybe modified(?)

Even the LOTRS EXTENDED EDITION DVD still doesn't effectively capture all of the backstories and side stories of what has led up to that point in time. If you read the books and the books that precede in "middle earth time" the Hobbit and LOTRs, then you get it because you know what happened-the film is like a "highlights reel" of the books.

But don't get me wrong; I am happy that these movies (CA, LOTRs and others from great books) have been made. I think our "viewing world" is a much better place because of them.

 

[Overmind One]

I am going to "frame" this post

No, but really, most films made from novels are without a doubt changed in some way. We all know this. Sometimes fort the better, often times not.

When it is done for "screen presence" or to highten the drama or make a more effective story-ok. But often they just muck things up so bad it makes you sorry you ever watched the thing.

I am sure--in fact I can tell, that CA is a great book. It is pretty clear that the movies touches on so many things from the book that must go into greater depth.

When a movie like this is made, it is almost a shorthand for the novel-that is if you read it. If you never read te story, the film is still a good one. But so much-as you say-was left out or maybe modified(?)

Even the LOTRS EXTENDED EDITION DVD still doesn't effectively capture all of the backstories and side stories of what has led up to that point in time. If you read the books and the books that precede in "middle earth time" the Hobbit and LOTRs, then you get it because you know what happened-the film is like a "highlights reel" of the books.

But don't get me wrong; I am happy that these movies (CA, LOTRs and others from great books) have been made. I think our "viewing world" is a much better place because of them.

The book was great. You are right about it making the movie look almost like "shorthand" for the book. The stories are far easier to follow, and there are details in it which make the things you see in the movie make more sense. I watched the movie immediately after reading the book, and the movie made a lot more sense. But still, I think they did a great job with the movie. It still graces my favorite movies list.

 

[YJ02]

The book was great. You are right about it making the movie look almost like "shorthand" for the book. The stories are far easier to follow, and there are details in it which make the things you see in the movie make more sense. I watched the movie immediately after reading the book, and the move made a lot more sense. But still, I think they did a great job with the movie. It still graces my favorite movies list.

Yes it is a good movie and is far better then a lot of the schlock that is made today.

 

[Overmind One]

I am going to "frame" this post

No, but really, most films made from novels are without a doubt changed in some way. We all know this. Sometimes fort the better, often times not.

When it is done for "screen presence" or to highten the drama or make a more effective story-ok. But often they just muck things up so bad it makes you sorry you ever watched the thing.

I am sure--in fact I can tell, that CA is a great book. It is pretty clear that the movies touches on so many things from the book that must go into greater depth.

When a movie like this is made, it is almost a shorthand for the novel-that is if you read it. If you never read te story, the film is still a good one. But so much-as you say-was left out or maybe modified(?)

Even the LOTRS EXTENDED EDITION DVD still doesn't effectively capture all of the backstories and side stories of what has led up to that point in time. If you read the books and the books that precede in "middle earth time" the Hobbit and LOTRs, then you get it because you know what happened-the film is like a "highlights reel" of the books.

But don't get me wrong; I am happy that these movies (CA, LOTRs and others from great books) have been made. I think our "viewing world" is a much better place because of them.

I did read the LOTR books and also the Hobbit. In the case of the Hobbit, they actually overdid the movie IMO. The Hobbit is a side story and the movies are trying to make it into an epic like LOTR when it was not written that way. Do you like the way they stretched it out for the movies?