Re: Freddie's fight scene in part 17
Posted: Sun Nov 25, 2018 11:38 am
That screenshot of Freddie with the green glove says it all really.
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I would actually say that Nadine's super strength was introduced in Episode 2 when she bends the rowing machine.Xavi wrote:Factually the green glove superpower did not come out of the blue, whereas Nadine's superpower in "the original" did. It lasted until TPS3 for Nadine to progress from an annoying flat character to a mature emphatic human being, thanks to Dr Amp's golden shovel.missoulamt wrote:Hopefully we can stay on topic without getting personal. It's a discussion forum after all where a difference of opinion is a good thing.
Would Nadine killing off Bob in the original have felt like a suitable finale? Probably not.
I don't see how Freddie with the green glove is more appropriate.
Bob should be handled with care, because of his epic nature and it was fine up to that scene. But when "battling" with Freddie it suddenly went to a comic relief situation almost. As if TP was a computer action game. It was in stark contrast to the subtlety of the original. Bob was often over the top there as well, but it was always frightening. The feeling watching Freddie's fight scene was not one of fear but disbelief at how they chose to go about it.
Would it have been any less absurd or silly to have Nadine or James do it? Because one of those I questionably support and the other I am/would've been much more on board for.AgentEcho wrote:The whole thing was conjured up to be the most absurd resolution to the BOB problem precisely because the audience would be expecting a resolution that would involve a heroic, satisfying action by one of the leads, probably Cooper. Subverting audiences expectations was part of the text of the whole season and this is no different. If there's no way that a super powered green gardening glove from a shop in London being the one thing the world that can pound a bouncing found footage demon ball to oblivion wouldn't sound silly, it's because it's supposed to be silly.
Of course the audiences who demand their conventional audience expectations be met and who will consider any deviation from this a "flaw" or going to have more problems with Season 3 than this one scene.
The way I see it, I think this debate is divided into at least 3 points of view. There are the people, like me, who like the scene mostly because of what it means, and how it fits into the larger tapestry. Secondly, there are people who purely like the scene for exactly what it is on the surface, including how it feels, it's level of execution and its place in the plot. Then there are people who simply don't like it for reasons that I do understand. As you say, all points of view are down to some degree of personal taste, and I think all of them are worth examining and have some degree of truth to them.missoulamt wrote:It's easy to over-intellectualize things. I read one comment earlier in the thread where the poster suggested that one must do as Dr. Amp says, dig yourself out of the shit, to really learn to appreciate the greatness of the Return It becomes a little far fetched.
At the end of the day, it's all down to personal taste and what moves you. On a whole, TR felt disappointing to me. Not because I was expecting it to follow in the same footsteps as the original, but because I was hoping it would be as strong.
Would Nadine killing off Bob in the original have felt like a suitable finale? Probably not.
I don't see how Freddie with the green glove is more appropriate.
Bob should be handled with care, because of his epic nature and it was fine up to that scene. But when "battling" with Freddie it suddenly went to a comic relief situation almost. As if TP was a computer action game. It was in stark contrast to the subtlety of the original. Bob was often over the top there as well, but it was always frightening. The feeling watching Freddie's fight scene was not one of fear but disbelief at how they chose to go about it.
I don't believe it would have been as meaningful had it been Nadine or James. Or rather, allow me to rephrase that. It would not have been as meaningful to The Return, or would NOT have fit it as well. I do feel like this scene feels far more ingrained in The Return than the sillier elements of season 2 are in Twin Peaks, because The Return has so much going on when it comes to storytelling and subversion, as well as Cooper's psyche and the focus on evil on a large scale rather than just one girl or town. Freddie is very much directly tied to all of this. BOB was defeated by an absurd impossibility, basically, because there is no defeating BOB, who is the personification of the evil that men do. There's simply no way to really defeat that; to imply some sort of high-stakes dramatic victory where Cooper simply wins would feel equally cheap and perfunctory. On the other hand, yes, I like and agree with others' contribution to this topic as well, who state that BOB was defeated because he simply isn't that important, whereas Judy is, which works at a plot level as well as a meta level, and in which Freddie still serves the same thematic purpose. Instead of a clear victory that we all feel good about, many of us find bafflement and question what we see, which leads directly into Cooper's ripping Laura from peace/enlightenment - another faux happy ending - and then winding up trapped between two worlds in search of a far greater evil.bowisneski wrote:Would it have been any less absurd or silly to have Nadine or James do it? Because one of those I questionably support and the other I am/would've been much more on board for.AgentEcho wrote:The whole thing was conjured up to be the most absurd resolution to the BOB problem precisely because the audience would be expecting a resolution that would involve a heroic, satisfying action by one of the leads, probably Cooper. Subverting audiences expectations was part of the text of the whole season and this is no different. If there's no way that a super powered green gardening glove from a shop in London being the one thing the world that can pound a bouncing found footage demon ball to oblivion wouldn't sound silly, it's because it's supposed to be silly.
Of course the audiences who demand their conventional audience expectations be met and who will consider any deviation from this a "flaw" or going to have more problems with Season 3 than this one scene.
And I would say that statement about convention is painting with far too broad of a brush. I would point to a history of my posts, especially this one about my rewatch, or even my history of discusssion with the Profoundly Disappointed folks over in that thread, to show that the things I love aren't specifically conventional. I thought the pace ended up great, would've actually been ok with what we got being stretched a little more, and would've liked more Dougie. I would assume people that were looking for something more conventional would be irked by those things, but I can't speak for anyone else.
I didn't need resolution to BOB. I feel like anyone but Cooper or Laura dispatching BOB would've been easy to frame as unconventional or BOB not getting resolved at all. For me, it's not that that scene the way it exists is so much bad/unconventional as it just doesn't feel of a whole with the rest of the season or series as a whole. Again, yes, you cand point to ridiculous things in the original series that are silly but they still feel of a whole. I guess that the argument then becomes that makes it unconventional, but even something unconventional should fit within the world.
Hey, no problem. It's just such an odd crossroads to be at, you and I. I look at what you wrote, over and over again in this thread, and I think, YES EXACTLY, YOU'RE NAILING WHAT'S GOING ON THERE, THAT'S IT! You're feeling a lot of things that I feel (bafflement, letdown, randomness) and that may very well have been part of the creators' intent, but it feels like you're just not interested in how it applies to what you've seen before and after because the scene just doesn't work for you, which I get. But he absolutely is a voice non-actor flown in from London without any real understanding of what he was doing...much like the character himself. Absolutely. That's the scene right there, in a nutshell. That's the choice they've made, so we have to ask why, I think. Look at the way Cooper strolls in and says, "Are you Freddie??!!" I almost LOL at that line every time, our hero marching in just after his doppelganger is defeated by a lowly secretary and looking for some Hail Mary that he's pinned humanity's hopes on without ever having met the guy. That's all there. We're seeing the same scene in nearly the exact same way, lol. But beyond the substantial way I see the scene tying and then leading into everything, I also greatly admire the atypically artful lightshow execution, and found it intense even as I'm baffled, a sensation that is quite unique and yes, almost comical. That's the grounds on which we most differ, I think. I appreciate the scene in and of itself, so I search for more, whereas you don't, and then see less of a reason to look further. Or maybe the scene is just such a sin that it can't be overcome, no matter how much sense it makes. I get that, too.missoulamt wrote:Bowineski said it well: "I think that Freddie having no real context or understanding of what he was doing dilutes things as well." Freddie basically feels like a voice actor flown in from London to cut this scene without any real understanding of what he was doing except taking direction from Lynch. It could easily have been a video game or a college student directing his/her first Crowdfunding project, from an acting perspective. To me, it has little to do with the feel of the world of Twin Peaks. I don't necessarily need James to do the fighting, I would much have preferred the mystery of not knowing where Bob ended up. The CGI graphics detract as well and comes across as cheesy to me.
You raise a ton of good points and I get all of that, but it doesn't resonate with me on any real level in the end. Cooper's super imposed face gets all of that across much better to me(insofar as questioning the reality of the situation).LateReg wrote:I don't believe it would have been as meaningful had it been Nadine or James. Or rather, allow me to rephrase that. It would not have been as meaningful to The Return, or would NOT have fit it as well. I do feel like this scene feels far more ingrained in The Return than the sillier elements of season 2 are in Twin Peaks, because The Return has so much going on when it comes to storytelling and subversion, as well as Cooper's psyche and the focus on evil on a large scale rather than just one girl or town. Freddie is very much directly tied to all of this. BOB was defeated by an absurd impossibility, basically, because there is no defeating BOB, who is the personification of the evil that men do. There's simply no way to really defeat that; to imply some sort of high-stakes dramatic victory where Cooper simply wins would feel equally cheap and perfunctory. On the other hand, yes, I like and agree with others' contribution to this topic as well, who state that BOB was defeated because he simply isn't that important, whereas Judy is, which works at a plot level as well as a meta level, and in which Freddie still serves the same thematic purpose. Instead of a clear victory that we all feel good about, many of us find bafflement and question what we see, which leads directly into Cooper's ripping Laura from peace/enlightenment - another faux happy ending - and then winding up trapped between two worlds in search of a far greater evil.