Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 29, 2024, 07:59:03 AM

Login with username, password and session length

Arrested Development Season 5 - Partially A Prequel???

Started by Small Man Big Horse, January 24, 2017, 01:27:47 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

DrGreggles

I had no problems with the back references in season 4 (although it does seem odd to use one of them in a new trailer).
There weren't many of them really, and they played around with them a bit anyway.
Cutting away from George Michael as he was about to chicken dance was wonderfully done.

AsparagusTrevor

"I blue myself" worked the first time as the tense was correct. The call-back in season 4 didn't work because the sentence made no sense and felt crowbarred in (which it very much was).

DrGreggles

Wasn't it "I just blue myself for the first time in 5 years"?
It does work in that tense (but was still unneeded).

Old Nehamkin

Quote from: DrGreggles on May 08, 2018, 11:22:49 AM
Wasn't it "I just blue myself for the first time in 5 years"?
It does work in that tense (but was still unneeded).

But in the original line, "I'm afraid I just blue myself", isn't Tobias using "blue" as a continuous present verb? As in, "I habitually paint myself blue" as opposed to being an actual member of the blue man group, as he would prefer. Obviously the innuendo is that it sounds like he's saying "I just blew myself" in the past tense, but the season 4 line isn't consistent with Tobias's original meaning. If anything, he should be saying "I just blued myself for the first time in 5 years."

Its possible that I've completely misunderstood the whole thing in some obvious way, in which case ignore.

Sexton Brackets Drugbust

Quote from: DrGreggles on May 08, 2018, 08:35:57 AM
I had no problems with the back references in season 4 (although it does seem odd to use one of them in a new trailer).
There weren't many of them really, and they played around with them a bit anyway.
Cutting away from George Michael as he was about to chicken dance was wonderfully done.

For a catchphrase/callback/recurring joke dense show like AD, the back references were handled - for the most part - inventively and with some degree of discretion, adding many, many new elements to play around with.

I think, for a certain portion of audience, the fact that it wasn't wall to wall Chicken Dances, Sad Charlie Brown walks, "I'm a Monster!" and "I've made a huge mistake," was frustrating, hence the heavy focus on what went before in this trailer.

AsparagusTrevor

Quote from: Old Nehamkin on May 08, 2018, 11:44:40 AM
But in the original line, "I'm afraid I just blue myself", isn't Tobias using "blue" as a continuous present verb? As in, "I habitually paint myself blue" as opposed to being an actual member of the blue man group, as he would prefer. Obviously the innuendo is that it sounds like he's saying "I just blew myself" in the past tense, but the season 4 line isn't consistent with Tobias's original meaning. If anything, he should be saying "I just blued myself for the first time in 5 years."

Its possible that I've completely misunderstood the whole thing in some obvious way, in which case ignore.
Yeah, that's how I understood the original joke to be and why it doesn't work the second time.

imitationleather

Reached the episodes about the asian prison gang. I'd forgotten about this part. Christ, it is bad. Coupled with the plot that has Ron Howard in and it's just episode after episode of boredom, surprise at how racist the show is being, and not ever laughing.

Struggling to get through it at this point.

DrGreggles

Quote from: imitationleather on May 08, 2018, 08:36:38 PM
Reached the episodes about the asian prison gang. I'd forgotten about this part. Christ, it is bad.

Even the noodle shiv!?

remedial_gash

The noodle shiv was okay, but maybe/maeby season 4 was just shit?

He's done a reasonable job of tidying it up, but you can't polish a turd.

Liked the trailer if that helps?

DrGreggles

Quote from: remedial_gash on May 09, 2018, 01:41:14 AM
The noodle shiv was okay, but maybe/maeby season 4 was just shit?

He's done a reasonable job of tidying it up, but you can't polish a turd.

Opinion seems pretty split on s4, to be honest.
Not sure it can be classed as shit in any way. Not as funny overall as before perhaps but, in the case of some of the storylines, the plotting was pretty fucking amazing.

popcorn

Quote from: DrGreggles on May 09, 2018, 07:56:20 AM
Opinion seems pretty split on s4, to be honest.
Not sure it can be classed as shit in any way. Not as funny overall as before perhaps but, in the case of some of the storylines, the plotting was pretty fucking amazing.

Mate, I hate to jump on you for this one innocuous statement on the internet, but this is one of those things that makes me wonder if I've slipped into a MAD BACKWARDS WORLD where UP IS DOWN and RIGHT IS WRONG.

The thing that, to me, seems screamingly obviously terrible about ADS4 is that it was conceived and written and filmed as a non-linear story. Not non-linear in the Tarantino sense, where scenes are sequenced deliberately non-chronologically, but non-linear in the sense that you were supposed to be able to watch the episodes in any order and create your own wacky experience.

In the end it didn't work out that way, because they put the episodes into an order anyway, and now have re-edited them again, both of which seem like tacit admissions that the original idea didn't work. And that should have been predictable, right?
Who wants a choose-your-own-adventure joke? It just creates a boring, baffling mess. A callback isn't a callback if you haven't shown us the thing you're calling back to yet. It's just confusing.

It also looks and sounds terrible, with hideous greenscreen and shit sound mixing all over the place, and the cast were never together, and man oh man it was a boring, baffling mess and I can't believe anyone likes it, I really can't, blimey.

DrGreggles

Quote from: popcorn on May 09, 2018, 09:26:35 AM
you were supposed to be able to watch the episodes in any order and create your own wacky experience.

That was the original plan, but it was scrapped.
The order the episodes were in on Netflix is how they're intended to be viewed, otherwise some of the reveals just don't work.

ajsmith2

Quote from: popcorn on May 09, 2018, 09:26:35 AM

and man oh man it was a boring, baffling mess and I can't believe anyone likes it, I really can't, blimey.

I can't believe anyone (who's a fan of AD in the first place of course) doesn't like it!

Quote from: popcorn on May 09, 2018, 09:26:35 AM
this is one of those things that makes me wonder if I've slipped into a MAD BACKWARDS WORLD where UP IS DOWN and RIGHT IS WRONG.

Same for me except about your view!

Just cos they didn't follow through with their initial 'any order' idea doesn't make the structure of the original S4 any less of an insanely meticulous piece of plotting genius that takes the already involved storylining of the original run and cubes it.

popcorn

Quote from: DrGreggles on May 09, 2018, 01:40:43 PM
That was the original plan, but it was scrapped.
The order the episodes were in on Netflix is how they're intended to be viewed, otherwise some of the reveals just don't work.

But that's exactly me point. They wrote and filmed it with the intent of them being viewable in any order, and because that was (predictably) a terrible plan, they had to save it in editing. And editing can only do so much.

In seasons 1 to 3, AD would set up a joke and call back to it with increasing complexity and it would only work because viewers knew what it was referencing. In S4 characters say and do bizarre things and you don't realise why until several episodes later. Which isn't funny.

phantom_power

Quote from: popcorn on May 09, 2018, 01:54:36 PM
But that's exactly me point. They wrote and filmed it with the intent of them being viewable in any order, and because that was (predictably) a terrible plan, they had to save it in editing. And editing can only do so much.


I am not sure that is true is it? I know they started out writing it with the view to it being watched in any order but I thought they came to the realisation it wouldn't work somewhere in the writing process.

popcorn

Quote from: phantom_power on May 09, 2018, 02:21:37 PM
I am not sure that is true is it? I know they started out writing it with the view to it being watched in any order but I thought they came to the realisation it wouldn't work somewhere in the writing process.

I am open to correction if that's the case. But even if they attempted to course-correct, the result has the symptoms of the decision all over it.

I speak partly from experience here. I used to be a writer on a major video game that had branching stories depending on what the player did and we had to write every scene so it would make sense no matter which order the player saw them in. It was absolutely nuts, because either you 1) made it so essentially nothing happened in any of the scenes, thereby not contradicting any of the others 2) say "fuck it" and make things happen knowing you will always baffle the player to some extent. It's the opposite of storytelling.

phantom_power

I think the main thing S4 suffers from is only having the cast together for those two scenes and writing everything around that. I think there is a bit of an issue with the structure of the show in that the first few episodes are a struggle as the pay-offs come later but I don't really see that as a problem. It is more about watching the show in a different way than you are used to

Sexton Brackets Drugbust

Quote from: popcorn on May 09, 2018, 01:54:36 PM
In seasons 1 to 3, AD would set up a joke and call back to it with increasing complexity and it would only work because viewers knew what it was referencing. In S4 characters say and do bizarre things and you don't realise why until several episodes later.

They did this many times in the first three seasons - 'call-forwards' was the term used.

imitationleather

Quote from: Sexton Brackets Drugbust on May 09, 2018, 03:13:03 PM
They did this many times in the first three seasons - 'call-forwards' was the term used.

They did indeed (ones about Buster losing his hand spring immediately to mind), but they were far more subtle and didn't render a lot of what you were watching nonsensical until you'd finished the season.

Sexton Brackets Drugbust

#110
Quote from: imitationleather on May 09, 2018, 03:14:45 PM
They did indeed (ones about Buster losing his hand spring immediately to mind), but they were far more subtle and didn't render a lot of what you were watching nonsensical until you'd finished the season.

See, that's perspective - I enjoyed the series and was on board with what they were doing.  As such your, 'nonsensical' was, for me, 'currently unexplained.' 

I enjoy watching a season of a show to see the whole story unfold; same in this case.

ajsmith2

Quote from: imitationleather on May 09, 2018, 03:14:45 PM
They did indeed (ones about Buster losing his hand spring immediately to mind), but they were far more subtle and didn't render a lot of what you were watching nonsensical until you'd finished the season.

Indeed, but surely S4 was written with an eye to/awareness of the reality that a lot of people would be binge watching it, often in the space of 1 marathon session? Quite forward thinking really considering it was one of the earlier Netflix original series. You can understand them not feeling the obligation to hold the viewers hand on call forwards on the assumption that it would all fall into place as soon as the viewer wanted, not drawn out over weeks; in effect almost treating the series like one mega-long movie.

Of course the irony/tragedy is that apparently many AS fans found the early episodes of s4 so off putting that never ended up watching the rest of it.

DrGreggles

Quote from: phantom_power on May 09, 2018, 02:21:37 PM
I am not sure that is true is it? I know they started out writing it with the view to it being watched in any order but I thought they came to the realisation it wouldn't work somewhere in the writing process.

That's true. Hurwitz admitted as much during the s4 promo interviews.
Things like Fakeblock only work if it's hinted at in previous episodes, then revealed much later on.

ieXush2i

The Fakeblock reveal is fantastic, after most of the season giving the impression that George Michael has grown into a normal person instead of the exact same person he always was but embarrassed by his overbearing dad.

phantom_power

I think saying some of it is nonsense without the pay-offs that happen later is a bit strong as well. I think some of it works better when you know what is coming, and the reverse call-back happen over several episodes rather than a single one, but that has been the style of the show since the start (one of the first lines of the pilot is "One of them is wearing my blouse" which doesn't pay off until later in the episode)

VelourSpirit

Or Oscar's first line being 'hey nephew' like Buster would say it. The callforwards are brilliant. I've forgotten what I didn't like about season 4 but I don't think it was the structure - I loved piecing things together and trusted that it would all make sense - it's probably just some of the stories themselves being a bit tedious.

Bhazor

My problems with season 4 were mostly technical. George's scenes in particular had some really ugly and cheap sets and seemed to have been filmed in an afternoon.

ajsmith2

I watched the first 5 episodes of the remix yesterday. Unsurprisingly technically ropey, because of the glaring fact that the material wasn't designed to be arranged this way. The first part was especially shonky in this respect, with loads of strained new narration info dumping all over the place in a very awkward way. In fact it was so bad that for me it almost managed to simulate what series 4 must look like to people who think it's shite, which is almost kind of impressive in a way. However the next few episodes calmed down into being an enjoyably different if not better take on the same story. I admit it's more entertaining that a straight rewatch of S4 would have been, for the novelty value alone. And am I tripping or does this remix incorporate outtakes that weren't in the original edit?

And the fantastic material still shines throughout. If it helps people who were put off by the early parts of the original cut discover the sheer gold waiting within the later parts, it'll have been worth it.

DrGreggles

Quote from: ajsmith2 on May 10, 2018, 10:39:33 AM
And am I tripping or does this remix incorporate outtakes that weren't in the original edit?


Plenty of different stuff in the 'new' version.

remedial_gash

Quote from: ajsmith2 on May 10, 2018, 10:39:33 AM
And am I tripping or does this remix incorporate outtakes that weren't in the original edit?


I've only watched s4 about 3 or 4 times, but yeah some stuff did look new, maybe it was the re-arrangement playing tricks? Dunno.