Topic: The wankest film idea ever conceived? Danny Boyle's Ed Sheeran Beatles thing

[St_Eddie]

Saw this earlier in a moment of madness. Didn't realise both Sheeran and Corden were going to be in it. The whole thing was akin to having AIDS directly injected into my eyes and ears. Only redeeming feature was Kate McKinnon was quite funny whenever she said something cunty. Worst film of the year hands down. Far too many shit bits to list, but one moment stands out as particularly nonsensical and sloppy writing: a flashback scene clearly shows that the lead girl first fell in love with the lead bloke when she saw him singing Wonderwall in a school concert when they were kids. However, in this new Beatles-free universe it is clearly stated that Oasis don't exist. Now I assumed that this was a key plot point - maybe this would create a paradox that would return everything back to normal in the end when the two of them get together. But no, there is no acknowledgement of this at all. I don't think Curtis even noticed that he'd put these two contradictory things together in the same script. Sorry, none of this will make sense to any of you who haven't seen it, but let me assure you that it's fucking infuriating.

Was said flashback set in the Oasis-free universe though, or was it set in the prime universe?

[Mister Six]

I think it's more that she was still with him after The Beatles ceased to exist, even though their relationship is predicated on something that emerged directly from The Beatles' influence on popular music.

[SteveDave]

I lasted 32 minutes and turned it off. The twee af scene in the wacky recording studio did for me.

[Replies From View]

I think it's more that she was still with him after The Beatles ceased to exist, even though their relationship is predicated on something that emerged directly from The Beatles' influence on popular music.

Ah but maybe the writer is suggesting that Oasis is a thoroughly original band that has never derived any influence whatsoever from the Beatles.

[mothman]

The physics of the timeline alteration interest me. At least three people survive the change, which surely has to be temporal in nature, given the presence of an aged John Lennon who never formed the Beatles. There is precedent in the literature for this: in Star Trek: First Contact (Braga, Moore & Frakes, 1996) you can avoid a timeline change of you are "caught in the wake of the temporal vortex" when it occurs; that would however not appear to apply in this case. Another option is that cited in Back To The Future Part II (Gale & Zemeckis, 1989) where changes wrought by one time traveller are avoided by two others because they were in the future when it happened; again, this would not fit the facts in question. Oh, sure, if you want to go off the reservation you could mention Frequency (Emmerich & Hoblit, 2000) but that was judged to not have been adequately peer-reviewed and to attempt to apply it in this case would be junk science of the worst sort.

It's also possible that the change was not temporal in nature, but that some wider distortion to the fabric of the universe was to blame but to which some remained unaffected. Consider Night Of The Comet (Eberhardt, 1984) where isolation from external factors enables survival - agin, likely not applicable in this case. Perhaps more appropriate would be The Quiet Earth (Baer, Lawrence, Pillbury & Murphy, 1985) where only those at the point of death survive the ominously-capitalised Effect. The available facts would appear to support this hypothesis. More concerningly though, such an Effect manifested increasingly-severe follow-up effects potentially heralding the collapse of the universe itself. The subsequent discovery that nobody in the Beatlesless universe now remembers Harry Potter could be evidence of this. If so, it presents us with the enticing possibility that not just the world but indeed the very universe of Yesterday (Barth, Curtis & Boyle, 2019) will soon collapse into nothingness.

[Replies From View]

If so, it presents us with the enticing possibility that not just the world but indeed the very universe of Yesterday (Barth, Curtis & Boyle, 2019) will soon collapse into nothingness.

Hope so.

[BritishHobo]

***SPOILERS***

I think it's more that she was still with him after The Beatles ceased to exist, even though their relationship is predicated on something that emerged directly from The Beatles' influence on popular music.

Plus there's another flashback near the end to that Oasis concert, showing her listening in awe. It stuck out to me, too.

If Lily James' character was a bloke, she'd be a right cringeworthy friendzone-obsessed nice guy pisspot. Mooning over yer man for years, never saying how she feels, doing loads and loads of favours that he never asked for, and then just waiting for him to become psychic and cotton on.

Conversely, once she finally professed her love, he became a fucking idiot. She very clearly and openly states her feelings several times, and he flounders like things are still ambiguous. Why doesnt he just say he likes her and organise a quieter time for them to sit down and figure their relationship out?

I felt bad for her boyfriend most of all, the poor sap who helped Mr. Beatle out in the first place by producing his first album. What  a cunty thing to do to profess love for her in front of the world while they're together. But the script has him do this ridiculous thing where he's very noble and gives his blessing. Which is the problem with the film overall, I found - it's scared to follow through the consequences of its ideas. As others have said, a film about a failing musician getting fame and renown for stealing 'the greatest songs of all time' should have some really interesting things to say about writing/claiming ownership of ideas and experiences that aren't yours. With the Liverpool connection, maybe something about passing this music off as his own despite having no link to or stake in the city they come from. And generally, the fact that plagiarism is a terrible thing to do, and what all this means for the music he actually does create. But they essentially just wheel a Scouser on to tell him it's good he did what he did, because the music is important. He confesses all, but no one cares, they all still love him.

The only other film that's made me feel like this is The Ringer  where Johnny Knoxville pretends to be disabled to rig the Special Olympics. I didn't know how they could end that film happily, as surely once he confessed to his deceit, he'd be rightfully ostracised from society.

[Replies From View]

Plus there's another flashback near the end to that Oasis concert, showing her listening in awe. It stuck out to me, too.

How the hell did they overlook something so fundamental?

[BlodwynPig]

Did someone mention Oasis concert?

The Beatles
Ed Sheerhan
Oasis

*Blodwyn Explodes*

[BlodwynPig]

Does it feature a scene where one clean-cut character says

"Yeh, I loved Oasis..rock and roll man, drugs, yeh! wicked time"

and the ensemble all click their bottles of Sol together as the sun dapples their grinning beige faces.

[Blumf]

More concerningly though, such an Effect manifested increasingly-severe follow-up effects potentially heralding the collapse of the universe itself. The subsequent discovery that nobody in the Beatlesless universe now remembers Harry Potter could be evidence of this. If so, it presents us with the enticing possibility that not just the world but indeed the very universe of Yesterday (Barth, Curtis & Boyle, 2019) will soon collapse into nothingness.

Have you considered the ST:TNG episode Remember Me (Lee Sheldon et al, 1990). Would seem highly relevant to this matter.

[mothman]

Ah, excellently cited, young Blumf. I foresee a bright future for you in this faculty. Yes, indeed, the phenomena do seem similar - the initial deletion of the Beatles followed by another one (and possibly more?) later. In the 1990 study, the causation was determined to be a collapsing pocket universe. If the examples are analogous, then, as in my own paper, their prospects do indeed look bleak.

For them, anyway. For us as observers, things are more cheery.

[FerriswheelBueller]

Saw this earlier in a moment of madness. Didn't realise both Sheeran and Corden were going to be in it. The whole thing was akin to having AIDS directly injected into my eyes and ears. Only redeeming feature was Kate McKinnon was quite funny whenever she said something cunty. Worst film of the year hands down. Far too many shit bits to list, but one moment stands out as particularly nonsensical and sloppy writing: a flashback scene clearly shows that the lead girl first fell in love with the lead bloke when she saw him singing Wonderwall in a school concert when they were kids. However, in this new Beatles-free universe it is clearly stated that Oasis don't exist. Now I assumed that this was a key plot point - maybe this would create a paradox that would return everything back to normal in the end when the two of them get together. But no, there is no acknowledgement of this at all. I don't think Curtis even noticed that he'd put these two contradictory things together in the same script. Sorry, none of this will make sense to any of you who haven't seen it, but let me assure you that it's fucking infuriating.

Sequel where she’s the only one who remembers Oasis. Re-records Be Here Now, but makes it less terrible. Is rejected by mainstream society anyway for being massively derivative (but an inferior copy of) the other fella in this film

[popcorn]

***SPOILERS***

Completely agreed with all this. The behaviour of the characters is bewildering.

I think if I'd taken this premise, I'd make more of the idea of him not being able to remember many Beatles songs, and quickly running out after some early hits. Then he'd move onto Oasis songs (I think leaving Oasis until later would be a funnier joke). Eventually he'd have plagiarised a weird grab-bag of half-remembered hits, and achieved a decent level of success, but he'd know in his heart he hadn't deserved any of it and bring back his own songs, which would all bomb. Then he'd try to kill himself.

... alternatively perhaps I'd skip the "trying to make his own songs big" bit and have it so one day no one remembers him, and he's back to square one. Then he sees another big star on TV playing the Beatles songs, and he'd realise the same thing had happened, and they were ripping him off.  Ringo, in this world a painter-decorator, would visit and tell him the Beatles ripped off the songs in the first place, from another band also wiped from global memory in a similar phenomenon. He'd shrug and say it just seems to be the way it works. Then Ringo tries to kill himself. The end.

[icehaven]

I haven't seen it but I'm intrigued by this Lennon scene. So what, does he explain why he never formed the Beatles? How does he react to some madman turning up and telling him about the life he never had and the songs he never wrote (or did he still write them but never played them to anyone?) Does he tell him he thinks he's crackers or does he believe him? So many questions that could all be answered by just one hate-watch but I can't even bring myself to do that.

[popcorn]

I haven't seen it but I'm intrigued by this Lennon scene. So what, does he explain why he never formed the Beatles? How does he react to some madman turning up and telling him about the life he never had and the songs he never wrote (or did he still write them but never played them to anyone?) Does he tell him he thinks he's crackers or does he believe him? So many questions that could all be answered by just one hate-watch but I can't even bring myself to do that.

It's odd, and ambiguous. IIRC I don't think the lad explains what he's done, John Lennon just seems vaguely wise and old and gives him non-specific advice about being true to yourself and chasing the one you love.

[BlodwynPig]

It's odd, and ambiguous. IIRC I don't think the lad explains what he's done, John Lennon just seems vaguely wise and old and gives him non-specific advice about being true to yourself and chasing the one you love.

Sums up the faux messiah complex of Lennon quite nicely. Fucking snake oil salesman.

[Replies From View]

And is the Lennon a terrible impersonator bloke of some kind?  Make-up or CGI face?

I’m praying for an uncanny valley version of an 80 year old Lennon, looming out of the silver screen like Gollum.

[popcorn]

And is the Lennon a terrible impersonator bloke of some kind?  Make-up or CGI face?

Read the thread, GODD.

[icehaven]

It's odd, and ambiguous. IIRC I don't think the lad explains what he's done, John Lennon just seems vaguely wise and old and gives him non-specific advice about being true to yourself and chasing the one you love.

So basically just a rubbish excuse to shoehorn in an otherwise pointless ''Lennon'' ''cameo'' despite lacking the imagination and skill to write it without resulting in even more holes to the film's already fairly shoddy and paradoxical internal logic.

At the risk of overanalysing a piece of basic fluff that I'm probably never even going to watch, really what's the point in setting your film in an alternate dimension/time travel etc. scenario if you lack the imagination to make it at least a bit consistent, allow glaring paradoxes when and where it suits and offer hardly any explanation/resolution for the mysterious goings-on by the end? As others have said, half the fun (and possibly all of it in this case) for the audience is seeing how concepts like this come about, then play out, then resolve, so just saying ''Only one person in the world remembers the Beatles'' without bothering to plot why (other than a bus accident? Yes but why?) or write in at least some of the knock-on effects in the world, or have it come to any kind of satisfactory conclusion other than ''Aww the couple got together'' is just half an idea half done badly.

[popcorn]

So basically just a rubbish excuse to shoehorn in an otherwise pointless ''Lennon'' ''cameo'' despite lacking the imagination and skill to write it without resulting in even more holes to the film's already fairly shoddy and paradoxical internal logic.

I'm going to defend the idea of the Lennon cameo. I probably wouldn't have gone for it (for some reason I cannot stop talking about this film in terms of what I would have done, as if I know how to make a fucking film - something about the premise invites this). But it could maybe have worked as a nice, cute twist, something you might not have immediately thought of given the premise (Lennon wouldn't have been shot and you could potentially go and meet him in his ordinary house).  But it's just weird in the film, the way it's done.

As others have said, half the fun (and possibly all of it in this case) for the audience is seeing how concepts like this come about, then play out, then resolve, so just saying ''Only one person in the world remembers the Beatles'' without bothering to plot why (other than a bus accident? Yes but why?

Got to jump on this too. What-if stories don't usually focus on the why, but, errrrrrm, the what if. Did we need an explanation for the time loop in Groundhog Day? You just accept that this is happening and the story follows.

If anything I think they explained it too much in the film. It's not just a bus accident - there's a global blackout, like a sort of EMP strike or something, and seemingly him being unconscious at that very moment is what protected him. IIRC the other people in the story who remember the Beatles were also unconscious at that moment. This is all needless and the effort to "explain" it only raises more weird questions.

[Blumf]

How about having it so that Lennon, and Harrison (does the film remember him?), both died anyway, at the same point as they originally did, just from something more mundane (run over, heart attack)

[Bazooka]

Is there a scene where Mark David Chapman goes to shoot John Lennon but he doesn't exist yet?

[marquis_de_sad]

Is there a scene where Mark David Chapman goes to shoot John Lennon but he doesn't exist yet?

It would be funnier if the person who wakes up to discover he's the only one in the world who can remember the Beatles was Mark David Chapman.

Great minds

[BlodwynPig]

If anything I think they explained it too much in the film. It's not just a bus accident - there's a global blackout, like a sort of EMP strike or something, and seemingly him being unconscious at that very moment is what protected him. IIRC the other people in the story who remember the Beatles were also unconscious at that moment. This is all needless and the effort to "explain" it only raises more weird questions.

Like this you mean?

[mothman]

Do not only did they bottle it by offering an explanation, but they rip it off from a far superior movie? Richard Curtis? Richard Cuntish more like.

[Replies From View]

So he puts in shit jokes, Richard Curtis Richard Badum-tish more like

[Bazooka]

I lasted 32 minutes and turned it off. The twee af scene in the wacky recording studio did for me.

Are you a projectionist in a cinema?

[Bazooka]

Great minds

Damn I was bested in 2018.

[SteveDave]

Are you a projectionist in a cinema?

Not with my attitude.