18 hours- will it turn out to be too long? (NO SPOILERS)

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Rainwater
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Re: 18 hours- will it turn out to be too long?

Post by Rainwater »

laughingpinecone wrote:
Mr. Reindeer wrote:I'm a DKL true believer, and I have near-complete faith in him based on my prior relationship with his work. But this is the one thing that gives me a slight tinge of pause. DKL typically overshoots more than almost any other director (see FWWM, BV, W@H), then trims the fat in editing. The deleted material is frequently terrific, and arguably one or two scenes from TMP should have made it in to FWWM. But by and large -- while I love having that "bonus" material -- BV and FWWM are almost unarguably stronger, tighter films without the excess. He has spoken about how he believes enforced runtimes are a good thing because they force him to take a step back and see what the narrative is truly about. I really hope he kept that in mind on this project.

That being said, I'm way more excited than nervous at the prospect of seeing what DKL does in such a huge sandbox. It's almost impossible to envision what this damn thing is going to be. It's gonna be a hell of a ride.
A thought: Lee and Fenn originally said "18 hours", then Showtime said "not sure how long it's gonna be", then the grapevine said a number of things between (iirc) 15 and 20+ , and then it turned out to be exactly 18.
Maybe he did give some consideration to the concept of enforced run-time after all!
That's what I'm thinking as well. Back then, Fenn didn't seem like the most reliable source but, since it turned out to be true, maybe it means Lynch did set clear boundaries for the run-time. Wait, was that said during filming or what? Spring 2016?
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Re: 18 hours- will it turn out to be too long?

Post by Agent Earle »

Rainwater wrote:
laughingpinecone wrote:
Mr. Reindeer wrote:I'm a DKL true believer, and I have near-complete faith in him based on my prior relationship with his work. But this is the one thing that gives me a slight tinge of pause. DKL typically overshoots more than almost any other director (see FWWM, BV, W@H), then trims the fat in editing. The deleted material is frequently terrific, and arguably one or two scenes from TMP should have made it in to FWWM. But by and large -- while I love having that "bonus" material -- BV and FWWM are almost unarguably stronger, tighter films without the excess. He has spoken about how he believes enforced runtimes are a good thing because they force him to take a step back and see what the narrative is truly about. I really hope he kept that in mind on this project.

That being said, I'm way more excited than nervous at the prospect of seeing what DKL does in such a huge sandbox. It's almost impossible to envision what this damn thing is going to be. It's gonna be a hell of a ride.
A thought: Lee and Fenn originally said "18 hours", then Showtime said "not sure how long it's gonna be", then the grapevine said a number of things between (iirc) 15 and 20+ , and then it turned out to be exactly 18.
Maybe he did give some consideration to the concept of enforced run-time after all!
That's what I'm thinking as well. Back then, Fenn didn't seem like the most reliable source but, since it turned out to be true, maybe it means Lynch did set clear boundaries for the run-time. Wait, was that said during filming or what? Spring 2016?
No, Fenn actually said that about a year earlier, just after the news that Lynch is back on board after exiting the production broke (the middle of May 2015) and quite a few months away before the filming commenced (in the fall - September? - of 2015). Here's the link to prove it: http://welcometotwinpeaks.com/news/18-n ... ton-state/
Last edited by Agent Earle on Thu May 18, 2017 6:56 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Rainwater
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Re: 18 hours- will it turn out to be too long?

Post by Rainwater »

Agent Earle wrote:
Rainwater wrote:
laughingpinecone wrote: A thought: Lee and Fenn originally said "18 hours", then Showtime said "not sure how long it's gonna be", then the grapevine said a number of things between (iirc) 15 and 20+ , and then it turned out to be exactly 18.
Maybe he did give some consideration to the concept of enforced run-time after all!
That's what I'm thinking as well. Back then, Fenn didn't seem like the most reliable source but, since it turned out to be true, maybe it means Lynch did set clear boundaries for the run-time. Wait, was that said during filming or what? Spring 2016?
No, Fenn actually said that about a year earlier, just after the news that Lynch is back on board broke (the middle of May 2015) and quite a few months away before the filming commenced (in the fall - September? - of 2015). Here's the link to prove it: http://welcometotwinpeaks.com/news/18-n ... ton-state/
Aha. So it does seem it was decided quite a bit in advance.
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Re: 18 hours- will it turn out to be too long?

Post by Jonah »

Look at it this way - 18 hours is pretty much Season 2 minus the less-than-stellar middle episodes between the reveal and when it got back on track. THAT sounds good.

I'll admit I am a bit wary about it being too "Inland Empire" for my tastes, though, and wandering through too many random landscapes and stories. I'm also wondering why they are releasing the first 4 all at once. I'm not sure that's been addressed.
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Re: 18 hours- will it turn out to be too long?

Post by dronerstone »

When I first watched IE, I was completely high off my socks (which, obviously, were on fire at the time).

I just sat there in a big chair and didn't pretty much move throughout the whole movie. Then the credits came on and it was like waking up from a weird dream, going "WTF was THAT?"
I still haven't seen it a second time, I just can't, it kinda drags me down a little too low, I find it very negative compared to David's other work. I'm missing the humor that is in TP, for example. Seems as if there's no (or too little of one) lighter side to it.

But being the Lynch-/Frost-believer that I certainly am, I'm sure the new TP will not only be quite dark and grim, but also having a lot of good quirky humor and a huge amount of coffee in a lot of those 18 parts. That duality of dark and light is what I love most about the TP universe, and has ever been.
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Re: 18 hours- will it turn out to be too long?

Post by indyit »

This is probably my only concern as well. So happy that there's so many hours of content - but do they have a strong enough story to warrant it? For e.g. the problem with quite a few Netflix shows is the 13 episode season length. Their shows that only last as long as the story requires it (e.g. Stranger Things) ends up a lot stronger and better paced.

Things that are putting me at ease is that (from the sounds of it) Lynch had to fight to get the season to be this long. There's gotta be a lot he thinks is top drawer for him to not want to trim it down at the outset.
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Re: 18 hours- will it turn out to be too long?

Post by IcedOver »

With the run time, one thing that concerns me is whether Lynch and company had enough time to satisfyingly write and film something that's eighteen hours. I don't know the correct version of why Lynch left, whether it was over money or if he and Frost discovered it would take double the originally planned nine hours to do the show. It seems like we heard that it was nine hours, that scripts had been written and "turned in," then it was eighteen hours and they were filming just a few months later. My fear is that it could have been rushed. The filming length, which I recall ran from about September to May, feels like it should be enough to do that long a show, but you never know if it was rushed.
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SpookyDollhouse
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Re: 18 hours- will it turn out to be too long?

Post by SpookyDollhouse »

I think it'll be fine, that's roughly the series' length through killer reveal. At least it isn't set for an indefinite till-it's-cancelled run stuffed with filler as an endurance test for cash.

BTW I did the math and it looks like 18 hours might be a lil over what was actually committed to release. Cannes' page lists the combined 1 & 2 runtime as 112 minutes which splits equally into 56 minutes a piece. If that's a hard number (and might very well be) in total it's gonna run about 16 hours and 48 minutes counting whatever credits segments are there. Not a problem, just something to think about!
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Re: 18 hours- will it turn out to be too long?

Post by Mr. Reindeer »

SpookyDollhouse wrote:BTW I did the math and it looks like 18 hours might be a lil over what was actually committed to release. Cannes' page lists the combined 1 & 2 runtime as 112 minutes which splits equally into 56 minutes a piece. If that's a hard number (and might very well be) in total it's gonna run about 16 hours and 48 minutes counting whatever credits segments are there. Not a problem, just something to think about!
I imagine the episode lengths will vary plus-or-minus within a ten-minute range or so. That's true of almost every hour-long prestige cable drama I've watched. Then again, I could totally see DKL settling on a "magic number"' episode length and sticking to it religiously, especially given his comment about not caring about ending points for episodes (which I expect to be a hair of cheeky exaggeration).

Sidebar: I don't know if I ever noticed before this rewatch that Episode 29 runs a bit over the usual runtime (about 50 minutes with credits and titles, as opposed to the usual 47:30 or so).
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Re: 18 hours- will it turn out to be too long?

Post by SpookyDollhouse »

Mr. Reindeer wrote:
SpookyDollhouse wrote:BTW I did the math and it looks like 18 hours might be a lil over what was actually committed to release. Cannes' page lists the combined 1 & 2 runtime as 112 minutes which splits equally into 56 minutes a piece. If that's a hard number (and might very well be) in total it's gonna run about 16 hours and 48 minutes counting whatever credits segments are there. Not a problem, just something to think about!
I imagine the episode lengths will vary plus-or-minus within a ten-minute range or so. That's true of almost every hour-long prestige cable drama I've watched. Then again, I could totally see DKL settling on a "magic number"' episode length and sticking to it religiously, especially given his comment about not caring about ending points for episodes (which I expect to be a hair of cheeky exaggeration).

Sidebar: I don't know if I ever noticed before this rewatch that Episode 29 runs a bit over the usual runtime (about 50 minutes with credits and titles, as opposed to the usual 47:30 or so).
Totally plausible! The 112 minute runtime got me thinkin though cuz it splits so evenly.
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