Re: Twister

Lamer wrote:

Yeah but why can't we have both? It shouldn't be an on/off switch. Either everything happens according to Hollywood template or Indy dies crushed by a boulder in the first 10 minutes of the movie. In se7en Gwyneth Paltrow did nothing wrong and yet she ended up having a pretty miserable day. Shit happens and sometimes innocent bystanders get the short end of the stick. I like that. Falling Skies does this. 'Oh look, what an innocent and lovely character. Surely she'll survive th...oh crap, she's dead'.

Bring it on. Ripley in Alien3. Viggo in The Road. Rocky loses the fight at the end of Rocky I. The Mist.

Loves me a bummer ending.
But clearly Twister isn't a dark arthouse flick. I was just making the point that getting a steel girder in the head for wanting to find out about tornardoes seems kinda excessive retribution. Cary had a character flaw... he was ambitious... therefore it is decreed by the Hollywood Gods that he has to die horribly.

There's this perception that Hollywood is liberal. But when it comes to portrayals of "bad people must die", Hollywood is more medieval than the most rabid right-wing Bible-thumping gun-toting red-neck hillbilly.

not long to go now...

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Re: Twister

I think it's partly cultural bias and partly just the fundamentals of storytelling. Yes, bad people sometimes get away with stealing an old lady's life savings, but no one wants to hear that story. They want to hear about a crime that got solved and an old lady whose live savings was recovered.

Yes, innocent people sometimes get a flesh-eating virus and die horrible deaths filled with bitterness and loneliness, but no one wants to hear that either. They want to hear about Rush Limbaugh getting a flesh-eating virus and dying a horrible death filled with bitterness and loneliness.

There's room for a tragic tale here and there, but it's got to be uplifting in some way. Horror is probably the one genre where evil can triumph, and the audience will cheer the killer as an antihero. But it helps if it's the sluts and stoners (and black dudes—don't forget the black dudes) who get killed and the good girl who escapes.

Warning: I'm probably rewriting this post as you read it.

Zarban's House of Commentaries

Re: Twister

avatar wrote:

Also, did Cary Elwes  really deserve a steel girder through his head? For being ambitious? Okay, he cut some corners and borrowed another's ideas, but is that an executable offence?


Um, Cary Elwes did not get the antenna-through-the-chest death(it wasn't a girder, no sky scrapers around),
it was the driver. Elwes was alive when the truck was sucked in that twister, only to die a few moments
later when the truck slammed into the ground and exploded.

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Re: Twister

avatar wrote:

I'm all for realism - why not have Paxton die in the twister and Cary live to get the data? Sure, it'd be unjust, but that's life. But not emotionally satisfying for a mainstream Hollywood audience. In the cinema, we escape to a universe where there's punishment commensurate with the crime, and reward commensurate with the virtuous effort.

It's simple. Cary Elwes character clear had shown that he likes to take shortcuts through life,
this is shown by how he stole the idea of "Dorthy". He took a shortcut by heading into the
storm, even after repeated warnings not to. He couldn't be bothered to wait for another storm,
so he deserved to die. that was his own choice. Too bad the driver had to die along with him,
but that guy also had a choice, he new he was working for someone with questionable morals
and ethics. He was bound to get his "karma" returned back to him, movie karma anyway.

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Re: Twister

Just watched twister commentary. I then watched just the first 15 or so minutes with the sound
on afterwards, just to hear the score.  I watched this movie in the theater, and a few times since then,
put I just noticed something with the story that I missed, and I think it is a huge plot point that makes a
big difference to the story!!!

OK, get this:

Bill goes to get the papers from his Ex.  We figured, as the viewer that perhaps she didn't sign them
cause she wasn't ready to let him go. OK, so that is given. But.... BUT!!!  GET THIS!! When Bill
shows up, Helen reluctantly gets the papers from the truck, and after that she still hadn't signed
them. OK, so we know now that she most likely is stalling. No prob, I noticed all this the first time
I watched this in the theater. BUT here us where it gets crazy. When Bill say that he is getting
married, she still isn't saddened yet, there is still hope, because of the big reveal yet to come.
But when Bill says that she is here with him, "shes with Dusty", Helen's heart sinks. Why?? Not
because of straight out jealousy, oh no, because all of this was planned, not the storms per say,
that was just the icing on the cake for her!!  After learning of Bills girl being there, she tells him about
Dorthy, but she had Dorthy all covered.  But here is the BIG DEAL, I will bet you anything that the script
writer had the back story in his/her head that Helen had built four "Dorthys" in the specific hope to
get back her man! She built those things to learn about the storm, of course, but my point is that
she had it in her mind that Bill was going to be shown those machines, and with the sole intent
to then take them out TOGETHER!, she even says that "it would be wrong for you not to be here
for this". She knew he was coming, she was acting coy, but on the inside she was hoping that maybe,
just maybe that if Bill saw his dream was made alive by her doing, and going out together to place
them into the storm together, that the spark would come back. That is so clear that Helen, with her
award winning acting, puts it into her characters voice and even in her eyes and face how her learning
that Bill brought the new girl along threw a wrench into her master plan.
Believe me, watch that 10 minutes or less scene over and you will get all of that untold back story,
all from Helen Hunts voice and interactions. 
The most important point to all of this is that all of you guys that keep saying that Gertz didn't need
to be there, had missed how hurt Helen was, and that she absolutely did need to be there, it had
nothing to do with the twister plot and all to do with getting the two leads back together, and
giving a reason for these Dorthy's to be made, because one of the questions is that why did Bill
leave, why didn't he stay and make these things he was so passionate for. Well there was no
money to make them. But Helen wanted her man back so bad, it gave her motivation to get the
grant money, without fail, to make HIS dream come to life, in fact they all wanted their friend
back home.  She makes it a point to say "we all had a hand building this', like HINT, HINT, PLEASE
COME HOME!!  you could clearly see how excited these guys were to see him back.

Last edited by mkeithddc (2014-02-16 03:29:20)

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Re: Twister

Obligatory. Two hours of comics trashing Twister.