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Plot Holes That are a Step Too Far.

Started by yesitsme, June 19, 2018, 02:18:03 PM

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yesitsme

I don't mind suspending my disbelief, you can even 'spoil' a movie for me and I can put that to one side and still be surprised by the ending but there are some times when I just think 'Oh fuck off!  I'm not having that!'

Recently I've been reminded of two whoppers in basically what is the same movie.

The Tom Cruise version of WotW and the dogshit romp Independence Day.

War of the Worlds.  Why would the Martians go to all the lengths of burying their fighting machines if all they want to do is harvest us for our blood?  Wouldn't they just wait until the two technologies of transporting the craft and the Martian himself marry up?  Seems like a lot of effort.  Wouldn't anyone have seen them crash in the first place?  How long have they been there?

Plus the bit where they're in the cellar and yer Cruise is hiding behind that mirror.  The telescopic camera thing is totally flummoxed by it's own reflection.

Let me get this right, interplanetary travel, warfare, heat rays - Ulah - the lot yes, yes, yes, yes, tick.
Reflection?  What the fuck is that?

Independence Day. 

I know it's an action filum but the bit where they fly the craft from Area 51 back to the mother ship?  If I tried to enter an F1 race driving Jackie Stewart's old car wouldn't someone say - 'What's he doing in that?'

Wouldn't an Alien go 'Look at that heap of shit that's coming up here?' and at least go 'Oi, what's going on?'

Or are they idiots?

Do any other Metro readers have plot holes that they can't over look?

Remember to mark your entry 'Why don't they shoot the Godzilla from out of arms reach?'

Steven

Quote from: yesitsme on June 19, 2018, 02:18:03 PM
Independence Day. 

I know it's an action filum but the bit where they fly the craft from Area 51 back to the mother ship?  If I tried to enter an F1 race driving Jackie Stewart's old car wouldn't someone say - 'What's he doing in that?'

Wouldn't an Alien go 'Look at that heap of shit that's coming up here?' and at least go 'Oi, what's going on?'

Or are they idiots?

Do any other Metro readers have plot holes that they can't over look?

Remember to mark your entry 'Why don't they shoot the Godzilla from out of arms reach?'

https://youtu.be/oCZevpfEK5k?t=24m48s

a duncandisorderly

"blade runner".

making androids 'more human than human' to do things that humans don't want to do, 'off-world'.

actually, the whole flick. much as I love it, it's a load of shit.

New Jack

I ruined Blade Runner for myself (or rather Ridley Scott did) with the idea of Deckard as replicant, so, what happened before the film... They made a replicant with fake memories, planted him in a city, wandering free despite the law despite the risks despite the sheer impracticality, set up an apartment, gambled on the police chief who asks him back either being a good actor or... Is he a replicant himself, or what? Best I can do is going back to the Do Androids Dream... Fake police station of androids, more or less. Aye, loaday shite. Gorgeous shite, mind.

Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth

In 28 Weeks Later, Robert Carlyle's kids sneak out of their fortified safe zone on Canary Wharf. Despite this being seen and reported by one of the guards, they're blithely allowed to go their merry way and eventually discover their mother, who happens to be immune to, but loaded to the eyeballs with the zombie virus. The yank army eventually pull their collective finger out and retrieve the kids and mum. Mum is placed in quarantine, but Dad - a civilian - happens to be the caretaker of the base and, despite the obvious risk involved, still has the keys to the quarantine area. He lets himself in and all hell inevitably breaks loose.

Maybe the writers were trying to make some satirical point about the allied occupation of Iraq or something (and it's not technically a plot hole, anyway) but it just stretches credulity too far. It's a catalogue of fuckwittery.

a duncandisorderly

Quote from: New Jack on June 19, 2018, 02:54:00 PM
I ruined Blade Runner for myself (or rather Ridley Scott did) with the idea of Deckard as replicant, so, what happened before the film... They made a replicant with fake memories, planted him in a city, wandering free despite the law despite the risks despite the sheer impracticality, set up an apartment, gambled on the police chief who asks him back either being a good actor or... Is he a replicant himself, or what? Best I can do is going back to the Do Androids Dream... Fake police station of androids, more or less
it hadn't occurred to scott that deckard might be a replicant until long after the flick came out. his attempting to ret-con it by colouring in ford's eyes in one of the many "leave it the fuck alone, ridley" recuts is just shameful.

it's another example of how that hack committee of 'script' writers ignored the central theme of the book ("what is it to be human?") & instead obsessed over the vengeful robots.... but I'm sure that if I dig around on C&B enough, I'll discover that this has been discussed in great detail at least eight or nine times, the last few also factoring in the sequel last year.

New Jack

Think I've raged about that in a Blade Runner thread before and aye, the general impression I'm left with was a consensus he traded the original sort of ambiguous commentary on humanity's nature and the meaning thereof, for a fucking twist ending with no mystery that raises a load of logical problems

a duncandisorderly

I was at a screening of BR in the everyman in hampstead, 1991... a while before the first "director's cut" &, I suppose, while the flick was still coming up from cult status into mainstream recognition. rutger hauer was there, doing Q&A, & made sure that everyone left thinking he'd written that god-awful cod scifi monologue that the fans all wank over; he didn't, the bulk of it was already in the shooting script, but what he did do was bring to scott's attention that the character development in the flick was probably as important as the flashy cinematography & the props. too little, too late. one of the things I actually liked about the tribute act sequel was that the characters were at least a little bit more fleshed out. no pun intended.

Utter Shit

It's a well-known one, but in Jurassic Park the massive drop into the cage should prevent the T-Rex from escaping regardless of whether the power lines are down. Annoying.

Dr Rock

Quote from: a duncandisorderly on June 19, 2018, 02:59:18 PM
it hadn't occurred to scott that deckard might be a replicant until long after the flick came out.

Apparently true, but for many of us way back before Scott commented on it, the fact that all the replicants (and fake owl)  had that funny reflective thing with going on their eyes and the only other person who does is Deckard was an early reason to think and say Deckard was a replicant too - didn't Scott notice he'd done this shot with Ford and included it in in the movie, and what it implied?

Anyway I don't find any reasons to find it a stretch that Deckard was a replicant, allowed to live freely.

a duncandisorderly

Quote from: Dr Rock on June 19, 2018, 03:25:24 PM
Anyway I don't find any reasons to find it a stretch that Deckard was a replicant, allowed to live freely.

except for all the limited life-span stuff. no, he's a fucked-up human, just like in the book.

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: a duncandisorderly on June 19, 2018, 02:59:18 PM
his attempting to ret-con it by colouring in ford's eyes

Incorrect - it appears in the original theatrical version.


Quote from: Dr Rock on June 19, 2018, 03:25:24 PM
Apparently true, but for many of us way back before Scott commented on it, the fact that all the replicants (and fake owl)  had that funny reflective thing with going on their eyes and the only other person who does is Deckard was an early reason to think and say Deckard was a replicant too - didn't Scott notice he'd done this shot with Ford and included it in in the movie, and what it implied?

Anyway I don't find any reasons to find it a stretch that Deckard was a replicant, allowed to live freely.

The shot is not intentional and is actually an on-set mistake - Ford happened to stop in the exact position where the off-camera light highlighting Sean Young's eyes also reflected in his own.  The fact that it just happened to be at that moment was a happy mistake, at least if you subscribe to the "Deckard is a replicant" theory (which I do).


Quote from: a duncandisorderly on June 19, 2018, 03:10:45 PM
I was at a screening of BR in the everyman in hampstead, 1991... a while before the first "director's cut" &, I suppose, while the flick was still coming up from cult status into mainstream recognition. rutger hauer was there, doing Q&A, & made sure that everyone left thinking he'd written that god-awful cod scifi monologue that the fans all wank over; he didn't, the bulk of it was already in the shooting script, but what he did do was bring to scott's attention that the character development in the flick was probably as important as the flashy cinematography & the props. too little, too late. one of the things I actually liked about the tribute act sequel was that the characters were at least a little bit more fleshed out. no pun intended.

Whilst Hauer didn't write it, he removed the excess and, crucially, added the "lost in time like tears in rain.  Time to die." bit, which is the emotional punch of the whole thing.


Quote from: a duncandisorderly on June 19, 2018, 03:29:14 PM
except for all the limited life-span stuff.

The idea being that he's a more advanced Nexus that Tyrell hasn't "released" officially yet, so the 6's limited life-span does not apply.


I think you massively misunderstand the film - if anything the "Deckard is a replicant" theory gives the theme of what it is to be human even more depth and gravitas (as it is, the replicants display far more human-like traits than most of the human characters in the film), and I don't see it as a plot hole at all.

But then it is my favourite film, so I am biased.

New Jack

#12
Quote from: Dr Rock on June 19, 2018, 03:25:24 PM
Anyway I don't find any reasons to find it a stretch that Deckard was a replicant, allowed to live freely.

Who paid for his apartment, who is in control, did he get wages, if so were the police in on it, even if he's an advanced model isn't implanting memories that make him a bit reluctant and inefficient with a career a huge waste of resources and a gamble, etc.

Vastly prefer it to be non explicit, as that way you can hold onto at what point a human loses his humanity. Batty and Co. Already cover at what point a replicant becomes human. There's no human struggle in the replicant only version.

Think, to be fair, I've gone too far over the edge of suspension of disbelief. Worrying about wages is probably a bit OTT...!

But I can't even invent such issues with the original / human-with-a-but... version.

Shit Good Nose

Quote from: New Jack on June 19, 2018, 03:39:26 PM
Who paid for his apartment, who is in control, did he get wages, if so were the police in on it, even if he's an advanced model isn't implanting memories that make him a bit reluctant and inefficient with a career a huge waste of resources and a gamble, etc.

But isn't that kind of the point, and don't you think with the replicant Deckard theory it makes it all the more interesting, even with that thinking being applied retrospectively?

Tyrell funds it all (he is mega rich, after all), sneaks in a replicant without the police clocking it, and successfully gives him the human traits of being reluctant and inefficient...don't you think that's a fascinating skew?

New Jack

#14
Quote from: Shit Good Nose on June 19, 2018, 04:20:48 PM
But isn't that kind of the point, and don't you think with the replicant Deckard theory it makes it all the more interesting, even with that thinking being applied retrospectively?

Tyrell funds it all (he is mega rich, after all), sneaks in a replicant without the police clocking it, and successfully gives him the human traits of being reluctant and inefficient...don't you think that's a fascinating skew?

I think Deckard as Human adds a layer, and further blurs the line between human and replicant... Whereas Deckard as Replicant rather duplicates or mirrors the journey to humanity Batty goes on and explores sufficiently. Think that's preference, though, and still of value either way, this area is probably a bit subjective.

The Tyrell as big bad thing seems odd, I don't know Tyrell's motivation. So, he ruins his new Nexus model (who he reports missing, when she runs off) by using another one, he willingly releases out there, to test her... Sort of works if you make him egotistical, proving how smart he is fooling the police, testing his new designs.

(Doesn't one of the deleted scenes show Tyrell himself is a replicant? Don't consider that canon, necessarily.)

But is Holden a replicant? Cause he gets badly injured while Deckard is basically milling about waiting for the plot to start, why not throw in the replicant before the human life gets risked? Surely he was plan A to catching the escaped replicants..

So did they / Tyrell just have Replicant Deckard on hand just in case Holden failed? Which seems an even bigger gamble, as Holden may have succeeded and the Tyrell Replicant Testing angle needs not inconsiderable setup. Holden sort of denies the motivation for Tyrell controlling it all, too, poor fella gets fucked over, especially in a society where replicants are less valuable than human life.

It's a superb film though, just the last viewing gave me a weird moment tossing around how everything came to be with the latest cut. Doubt anybody watching it for the first time is going to worry about what was going on five minutes before the plot began! But I think Replicant Deckard just introduces too many issues to be de facto (something the sequel dealt with nicely, by basically letting either reading work).

Endicott

Quote from: a duncandisorderly on June 19, 2018, 03:29:14 PM
except for all the limited life-span stuff. no, he's a fucked-up human, just like in the book.

Indeed, I say this only once per thread, but the idea that Deckard is a replicant is laughable. End of.

New Jack

How did Andy get the poster back up?

I tend to tell myself he just lifted the poster, leaving it attached at the top and dangling down (although seem to remember it looks rigid when it's discovered later)

Might mean Toy Story, I might not! (Why does Buzz freeze in front of humans if he thinks he's a spaceman?)

... these are mere quibbles, aren't they....

St_Eddie

Quote from: New Jack on June 19, 2018, 05:49:26 PM
How did Andy get the poster back up?

I tend to tell myself he just lifted the poster, leaving it attached at the top and dangling down (although seem to remember it looks rigid when it's discovered later)

This is the obvious answer.  I don't think that it needs explaining past that.  At absolute most, it simply requires an ever so slight suspension of disbelief (personally, I don't think that it even needs that).  I certainly wouldn't consider it to be a plot hole.

a duncandisorderly

Quote from: Shit Good Nose on June 19, 2018, 04:20:48 PM
But isn't that kind of the point, and don't you think with the replicant Deckard theory it makes it all the more interesting, even with that thinking being applied retrospectively?

Tyrell funds it all (he is mega rich, after all), sneaks in a replicant without the police clocking it, and successfully gives him the human traits of being reluctant and inefficient...don't you think that's a fascinating skew?

no. absolute bollocks, sorry.

deckard explicitly has at least a few years in the LAPD as a hunter of rogue replicants, unless his boss & colleagues are all in on it. neither of the original flick's explanations (the one given in the v/o or tyrell's own) for the limited life-span are satisfactory, & if you want to pretend that deckard is a replicant that sits outside of this issue, then you have to wonder why rachel (a more recent attempt, by weeks/months at least) is so fucking clueless.

besides, the point of the story (as written by dick) is surely deckard's losing his grip on humanity (as he goes around killing things that are like people, & saving up for a toy sheep) along with his wife & others whose tenuous grasp of it is sustained by the empathy boxes & the whole miller business, & the titular artificial animals which are supposed to provide their owners with a focus for empathic feelings & singularly fail to do so; this is contrasted with the perfection- to their disadvantage- of human feelings in the replicants.

it is also one of my most revisited movies- I think I may be into three figures. I have many versions of it- multiple DVDs, multiple VHSs, around eight or nine CDs of the music.
but it is deeply flawed.

Dr Rock

Quote from: Shit Good Nose on June 19, 2018, 03:38:14 PM
Incorrect - it appears in the original theatrical version.

The shot is not intentional and is actually an on-set mistake - Ford happened to stop in the exact position where the off-camera light highlighting Sean Young's eyes also reflected in his own.  The fact that it just happened to be at that moment was a happy mistake, at least if you subscribe to the "Deckard is a replicant" theory (which I do).

Yup, sorry if I wasn't clear. I know it was an accident, but once Scott was assembling the movie, I wonder how he couldn't have noticed that this shot added to all the other shots that seemed to give the audience a cue that the being with those eyes was artificial now implied Deckard was also. I suppose it didn't occur to him at the time, but it seems strange that it didn't.


Quote from: a duncandisorderly on June 19, 2018, 06:27:28 PM
deckard explicitly has at least a few years in the LAPD as a hunter of rogue replicants, unless his boss & colleagues are all in on it.

This is much harder to explain, if you want to assume Deckard is replicant. His boss has seemingly known him for years, and the idea he's in on the deception seems too much. So Deckard was either a Blade Runner for real, or this is the (unintentional) plot hole. If he's a Blade Runner for years, Tyrell's 'plan' goes back about a decade at least. This will have to be the case then. Not ideal, but it just about holds.

New Jack

Quote from: St_Eddie on June 19, 2018, 06:09:54 PM
This is the obvious answer.  I don't think that it needs explaining past that.  At absolute most, it simply requires an ever so slight suspension of disbelief (personally, I don't think that it even needs that).  I certainly wouldn't consider it to be a plot hole.

Aye. Quibbles, like I said. That's like, the only flaw my overactive sick mind finds with it - God, it all hangs together so beautifully!

Quote from: a duncandisorderly on June 19, 2018, 06:27:28 PM
it is also one of my most revisited movies- I think I may be into three figures. I have many versions of it- multiple DVDs, multiple VHSs, around eight or nine CDs of the music.
but it is deeply flawed.

Same here, I couldn't even count the times...  I don't know if you agree with this, but I basically don't generally consider Deckard's narration to be canon, though I think the idea of canon is a bit fucked with this film and basically suggested rather than shown.

I think my favourite - because it's the least problematic - version is the Director's Cut. I think, basically, Scott as creative rather than director has the best balance. Less executive meddling than the theatrical, less revisionism than Final Cut.

QuoteWarner Bros. hired Arick, who was already doing consultation work for them, to head the project with Scott. He started by spending several months in London with Les Healey, who had been the assistant editor on Blade Runner, attempting to compile a list of the changes that Scott wanted made to the film. He also received a number of suggestions/directions directly from the director himself. Three major changes were made to the original theatrical cut:

1. The removal of Deckard's 13 explanatory voice-overs.
2. The insertion of a dream sequence of a unicorn running through a forest. The original sequence of the dream—showing Deckard intercut with the running unicorn—was not found in a print of sufficient quality. Arick was thus forced to use a different print that shows only the unicorn running, without any intercutting to Deckard. This unicorn scene suggests a completely different interpretation at the end of the film: Gaff's origami unicorn means that Deckard's dreams are known to him, implying that Deckard's memories are artificial and that therefore he is a replicant of the same generation as Rachael.
3. The removal of the studio-imposed "happy ending", including some associated visuals which had originally run under the film's end-credits. This made the film end ambiguously when the elevator doors closed.
Scott has since complained that time and money constraints, along with his obligation to Thelma & Louise, kept him from retooling the film in a completely satisfactory manner. While he is happier with the 1992 release of the film than with the original theatrical version, he has never felt entirely comfortable with it as his definitive director's cut.

Kelvin

Quote from: yesitsme on June 19, 2018, 02:18:03 PM
War of the Worlds.  Why would the Martians go to all the lengths of burying their fighting machines if all they want to do is harvest us for our blood?  Wouldn't they just wait until the two technologies of transporting the craft and the Martian himself marry up?  Seems like a lot of effort.  Wouldn't anyone have seen them crash in the first place?  How long have they been there?

This always bothered me, too. The reason it was done like that was because the martians were meant to represent terrorism, or something, and the machines being there was to play up the idea that "they already live among us", but in the logic of the film, it makes no sense and is never actually addressed.

St_Eddie

The Butterfly Effect has a proper plot hole, which can't be explained away in any regard whatsoever.  When the protagonist is in prison, he decides to prove to his cellmate that he can alter the present, by traveling back in time to school, when he was a kid and piercing his hands with two spikes.  He then reawakens as an adult in the prison and his cellmate is in awe of his "stigmata", which has magically appeared on his hands, before his very own eyes.


The problem is that's not how the rules of the universe have been established to work, prior to and after this scene.  The protagonist would have had those scars on his hands from his childhood onwards and therefore they wouldn't have simply appeared magically to his cellmate in the present.  Also, the movie establishes that the slightest change in one's actions, has huge reputations on one's life (hence the title of the movie itself) and as such, the protagonist likely wouldn't even be in prison anymore, due to this childhood incident.

That's a proper plot hole, in a proper shite movie, right there.

mothman

Quote from: Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth on June 19, 2018, 02:59:09 PM
28 Weeks Later

I've bored everyone before with my thoughts about this film, but why let that stop me? My problem with 28WL is that I don't buy the basic premise, the world is builds extrapolated from 28DL.

OK, so you have a prosperous country, one of the richer ones in the world, that is suddenly depopulated within weeks, with 50 to 60 million people dying either horribly and agonisingly, or slowly and agonisingly as shuffling zombie analogues who can't even feed themselves. So six months later what do you have? A whole technologically-advanced country, empty. Filled with billions - trillions? - of pounds of real estate, goods, art, resources. Who owns all that? People who had wills, well, chances are anybody they left stuff to is dead too. Would banks that owned all the mortgaged property lay claim to it? The surviving UK government? The Royal family? Who decides all that? Who polices it? What stops the other countries of the world moving in, colonising, looting, whole container ships worth of plunder being sailed away yet barely making a dent?

It'd make a fascinating TV series in the GoT vein, the politics, the intrigue, the exploring and adventures in the new world this splintered isle has become. It'd all go the same way in the end, there;d be the second outbreak likely going global etc.

But what do we get? A few random Brits who escaped, or were expats to begin with, being moved into a uselessly indefensible area (Canary Wharf ffs?), guarded by about a battalion of US special forces, to live in luxury apartments with no allowance for the trauma they might have suffered or could suffer returing to what was their home country, now a ghost island. And for what? What is this meant to accomplish? How could they know there wouldn't be a second outbreak somehow? The way the second one happened did come out of leftfield, granted, but that wouldn't have mattered if they hadn't moved some feedstock in for the Rage virus to use in the first place.

Paaaaul

Quote from: St_Eddie on June 19, 2018, 07:18:07 PM
The Butterfly Effect has a proper plot hole, which can't be explained away in any regard whatsoever.  When the protagonist is in prison, he decides to prove to his cellmate that he can alter the present, by traveling back in time to school, when he was a kid and piercing his hands with two spikes.  He then reawakens as an adult in the prison and his cellmate is in awe of his "stigmata", which has magically appeared on his hands, before his very own eyes.


The problem is that's not how the rules of the universe have been established to work, prior to and after this scene.  The protagonist would have had those scars on his hands from his childhood onwards and therefore they wouldn't have simply appeared magically to his cellmate in the present.  Also, the movie establishes that the slightest change in one's actions, has huge reputations on one's life (hence the title of the movie itself) and as such, the protagonist likely wouldn't even be in prison anymore, due to this childhood incident.

That's a proper plot hole, in a proper shite movie, right there.
Looper does something similar, where a guy gets dismembered by a time-traveller, and in the future his limbs disappear as he makes his way down a road. Totally dumb.

checkoutgirl

Quote from: Shit Good Nose on June 19, 2018, 03:38:14 PM
But then it is my favourite film, so I am biased.

It's my fave too an I'm glad you're sticking up for it. In general I think attacking Blade Runner is rife with pitfalls. It's so nebulous and can be read into in so many different ways that you can grab the wrong end, right end or middle of the stick and still be able to make a credible argument. Then someone else can row in with a counter argument that seems just as plausible. Everybody and nobody is right.

Of course it gathering a cult and the director, writers and actors all coming out with their stories and opinions and various cuts of the film just muddy the waters further. It's not the type of film I would associate with having plot holes a step too far though.

Mister Six

Quote from: Paaaaul on June 19, 2018, 09:42:14 PM
Looper does something similar, where a guy gets dismembered by a time-traveller, and in the future his limbs disappear as he makes his way down a road. Totally dumb.

That's fine - it's just how time travel works if you're a time traveller in that universe. It's not self-contradictory like the Butterfly Effect one is.

greenman

Quote from: New Jack on June 19, 2018, 04:59:18 PM
I think Deckard as Human adds a layer, and further blurs the line between human and replicant... Whereas Deckard as Replicant rather duplicates or mirrors the journey to humanity Batty goes on and explores sufficiently. Think that's preference, though, and still of value either way, this area is probably a bit subjective.

The Tyrell as big bad thing seems odd, I don't know Tyrell's motivation. So, he ruins his new Nexus model (who he reports missing, when she runs off) by using another one, he willingly releases out there, to test her... Sort of works if you make him egotistical, proving how smart he is fooling the police, testing his new designs.

(Doesn't one of the deleted scenes show Tyrell himself is a replicant? Don't consider that canon, necessarily.)

But is Holden a replicant? Cause he gets badly injured while Deckard is basically milling about waiting for the plot to start, why not throw in the replicant before the human life gets risked? Surely he was plan A to catching the escaped replicants..

So did they / Tyrell just have Replicant Deckard on hand just in case Holden failed? Which seems an even bigger gamble, as Holden may have succeeded and the Tyrell Replicant Testing angle needs not inconsiderable setup. Holden sort of denies the motivation for Tyrell controlling it all, too, poor fella gets fucked over, especially in a society where replicants are less valuable than human life.

It's a superb film though, just the last viewing gave me a weird moment tossing around how everything came to be with the latest cut. Doubt anybody watching it for the first time is going to worry about what was going on five minutes before the plot began! But I think Replicant Deckard just introduces too many issues to be de facto (something the sequel dealt with nicely, by basically letting either reading work).

To me though it seems like the film very successfully has its cake and eats it, it can function on the level of showing a dehumanised assassin hunting slaves but also on the level of the replicants as a stand in for post religious humans. If you look at it in the latter respect I think the film is very clearly full of references to that, the religious iconography around Batty and indeed Deckard's general existential funk plus his obsession with nostalgia. Having the actual twist revealed at the very end as well means that the film can focus more on being a character study rather than a whodoneit, a difference I would argue that weakens the sequel. Roy and Deckards stories link together telling us the same thing in different fashions with the reveal of the protagonist the audience have been relating to as a replicant pushing the message that replicants are a stand in for themselves.

As far as the specifics go I would say that we do clearly see the Nexus 6 have greater physical abilities than humans and Batty seems on a mental level similar to Tyrell but also surely the biggest point is using tech to legalise slavery? in the case of Deckard and Rachael this moves to the level of believing you don't actually need to enslave someone so directly provided you can control them via their memories.

You could argue that the scene with Deckard and Tyrell earlier in the film isn't really about testing Racheal via the VK machine, its about the latter looking at his handiwork with the former, how successful it is even when he's actually told of the potential for memory implants. That perhaps makes sense of the seemingly implcatical idea of Deckard as a replicant, its not automatically the most efficient process but a good test for the tech.

a duncandisorderly

Quote from: greenman on June 20, 2018, 08:53:46 AM
To me though it seems like the film very successfully has its cake and eats it, it can function on the level of showing a dehumanised assassin hunting slaves but also on the level of the replicants as a stand in for post religious humans. If you look at it in the latter respect I think the film is very clearly full of references to that, the religious iconography around Batty and indeed Deckard's general existential funk plus his obsession with nostalgia. Having the actual twist revealed at the very end as well means that the film can focus more on being a character study rather than a whodoneit, a difference I would argue that weakens the sequel. Roy and Deckards stories link together telling us the same thing in different fashions with the reveal of the protagonist the audience have been relating to as a replicant pushing the message that replicants are a stand in for themselves.

As far as the specifics go I would say that we do clearly see the Nexus 6 have greater physical abilities than humans and Batty seems on a mental level similar to Tyrell but also surely the biggest point is using tech to legalise slavery? in the case of Deckard and Rachael this moves to the level of believing you don't actually need to enslave someone so directly provided you can control them via their memories.

You could argue that the scene with Deckard and Tyrell earlier in the film isn't really about testing Racheal via the VK machine, its about the latter looking at his handiwork with the former, how successful it is even when he's actually told of the potential for memory implants. That perhaps makes sense of the seemingly implcatical idea of Deckard as a replicant, its not automatically the most efficient process but a good test for the tech.

I think checkoutgirl's right in that there aren't gaping plot-holes spoiling BR, so much as a general sloppiness.

if you're of a mind to be kind to scott & the committee that wrote what ended up on screen (& generally speaking I'm not), &/or a fan of the look/feel/sound of the flick (which I most assuredly am, & which is why I keep going back to it), then this sloppiness & internal inconsistency can be viewed as 'leaving things for the audience to make up their own minds about'. t me, that's a cop-out, & is evidence that the folks involved chose not to deal with the central thrust of the book, but rather to cherry-pick the bits of it that would make a good scifi action flick. it seems to me almost by accident that some of the existential issues survived as far as the big screen.....

I think the main reason for my personal ire at scott, fancher & the rest is a long & deep attachment to the writing of dick & that while the movie looks & sounds great, it lacks precisely the quality that draws one to PKD's writing.

massive intellect of tyrell, huge corporation turning out flawed replicas of humans to do- what, exactly?- as labourers "off-world", & yet the design (& supply?) of their eyes is farmed out to some bloke with a high-street cryo lab?

& so on.

AsparagusTrevor

Quote from: St_Eddie on June 19, 2018, 07:18:07 PM
The Butterfly Effect has a proper plot hole, which can't be explained away in any regard whatsoever.  When the protagonist is in prison, he decides to prove to his cellmate that he can alter the present, by traveling back in time to school, when he was a kid and piercing his hands with two spikes.  He then reawakens as an adult in the prison and his cellmate is in awe of his "stigmata", which has magically appeared on his hands, before his very own eyes.


The problem is that's not how the rules of the universe have been established to work, prior to and after this scene.  The protagonist would have had those scars on his hands from his childhood onwards and therefore they wouldn't have simply appeared magically to his cellmate in the present.  Also, the movie establishes that the slightest change in one's actions, has huge reputations on one's life (hence the title of the movie itself) and as such, the protagonist likely wouldn't even be in prison anymore, due to this childhood incident.

That's a proper plot hole, in a proper shite movie, right there.

It's a fictional movie about time travel...


...is the kind of bullshit handwaving I fucking hate people coming up with. A good story, no matter how outlandish the premise, should follow the established rules of its own universe, otherwise it's just extremely lazy writing.