Season 4? Or is it over after this? Wisteria/Unrecorded Night? Something else? (Speculation thread.)

[mtl]

Come pre end

[Hester Prynne]

One thing that strikes me is that of the Twin Peaks fans that are still left, an inordinate amount of them are writers, artists, filmmakers etc.

I have met no one who watched the return in my circle except a guy I met at my niece's wedding who is in the music business. I think he was a talent agent or something like that.

I myself wanted to be a writer at one point, but gave up on that dream long ago. Then I read about this flight attendant who wrote a novel on napkins while flying in the air...what does she have that I don't have?!

But seriously, if I ever write, it is for myself. I don't think I would try to peddle a novel anymore. I don't think I could stick with it.

Same experience - I am the only one I know personally who is a Twin Peaks lifer - know a few people who watched it when it first aired maybe, but that’s it until I stumbled across this forum a few years ago. Was an avid writer when I was younger and I always felt that Twin Peaks opened up my imagination in a way other works hadn’t. Of course at that time, there was nothing even close to it on network tv. Life happened of course, and sadly I couldn’t tell you when the last time I wrote was, but I still daydream of writing that script one day .

[Jasper]

I don't know anything about the reality show mentioned, but imo superhero movies are a profound cultural tragedy.

You're on a forum dedicated to a literal soap opera.

This is fine as a flippant comment, but on the other hand it's not a meaningful argument when it can be said of any continuing drama on television, and arguably in cinema. We know that Lynch is an auteur director, and that he elevates even the original series to high art, better than most film. For that matter he's directed and written, and co-written, many more hours of Twin Peaks outside of network television, and most of that, FWWM and the Return (and arguably TMP), has been challenging (to say the least) for the mass audience. The BFI Sight & Sound best films list, arguably the most prestigious there is, included a show for the first time in their 2017 list, which was the Return in the #2 slot.

Now, I don't care too much about the public or critical reception other than for pragmatic reasons (success gives Lynch more opportunities to create), but I mention those things precisely because they're from elsewhere, not from me. As for me, in my original post I wrote "imo" for a reason.

[LateReg]

It's funny to think of this as an alternate title:

Twin Peaks: The Return - A Literal Soap Opera

[Jonah]

I prefer the original series, but it was a soap opera and Lynch even said it was, but not so sure The Return was? It didn't really feel like one - not sure what the closest genre for it would be. It felt more experimental or like a long arthouse film (but only in part - some parts felt silly like mid Season 2). That's not to say I think it's better (I don't) than the original series or even more profound a work of art or anything. It just didn't feel like a soap opera whereas the original series did, though also a mixture of a detective show and an arthouse film.

As for super hero movies, eh I pretty much just ignore them. If you had asked me a couple of years ago, I could have said I've never seen any of them, not any of the recent ones, only some of the Batman ones (the earlier ones from Burton, Schumacher, and Nolan) or whatever (I might also have seen a couple of the earlier Spiderman ones as well). I pretty much just ignored them. But I have since seen a handful of the recent ones - both Wonder Women movies, one of the Ant-Men ones (I think the second one - I checked one of them out because curious to see Evangeline LIlly from Lost), and a Justice League one, but can't really remember that one very well. Apart from those four, I still consider myself very out of the loop as I haven't seen any of the other ones and don't follow them - but there does seem to be an awful lot of them. I don't know if they've ruined cinema or anything. I think they're just something that's been popular and that popularity will probably go by the wayside until an inevitable revival. I don't think they're any worse for cinema than any other trend such as the erotic thriller of the 90's, or the buddy cop movie of the 80's, etc. etc. But I haven't really looked into the literature on it - if they take resources from other movies or actively stop other movies being made, then maybe Scorsese is right. Otherwise, I figure - if they're not your thing, just ignore them until they go away, focus on what you love instead.

[baxter]

Superhero films are made for teenagers with disposable income. Many films in the past were also made for that demographic (e.g. the 50s teen rebel genre). You can build a strong case that the success of those movies has kept cinemas open (albeit shitty multiplex ones, not the amazing art deco cinemas of yore), so it's weird to complain about them. Yes there are more challenging films in the world, but they are never going to appeal en-masses to teenagers. Any argument that pits them against more adult material just misunderstand who they're for.

I really loved Burton's Batman films as a teenager, and I still love them because I have that connection with them. I haven' bothered with many recent ones though, unless they have Batman in! They are what they are. I'm always amazed by the technical virtuosity when I watch one, but I subsist on a diet of 50s and 60s French classics, so that's not surprising.

[JackwithOneEye]

I've looked at a few superhero movies. I don't find any of them particularly good. I'm always getting told such-and-such is the breakthrough one, you have to see this one, but they're mostly loud and obnoxious vehicles for fight scenes and chases non stop far as I can tell. I liked Superman II as a kid, Clark giving up Superman for Lois was a good hook, and I enjoyed the build-up to the fight confrontation with Zod. The ones I've seen in recent years seem to be 2 and a half hours worth of the Superman II Metropolis fight with little pauses for dialogue/drama. I caught part of one the other week on tv with Redford and Captain America, seemed like a giant ballad of fighting, things crashing and breaking.

[LateReg]

The difference between today's slate of blockbusters and any past equivalent is that today's cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make (resulting in more studio control and less creative freedom while tying up many artists under contract) and occupy valuable real estate at movie theaters, filling multiple screens that could easily go to smaller films so that the audience has more of a choice. It's very dangerous and there are many articles that outline how different this is from the more popular genres of the past.

Yes, at the same time one can easily make the argument that they're keeping the theaters open, but the counter-argument would be that it's because the masses are being fed one thing and eating it up, which isn't good. And therefore one can't simply say that these are made for teenagers because it's every age bracket that is going to see these movies. I know plenty of grown-ass people who don't get to the theater much, but go to see these movies without fail. They're really dominating every level of the industry (talent and spectator) in a way that is unique to the history of the medium, and I think their prevalence is programming the way a lot of people think of movies and therefore how movies are made. I agree with Scorsese fully on the matter.

But then again, I have seen every single major comic book movie released in the past 20 years, and multiple times. The difference between myself and most other people I know is that I've also seen everything else, whereas they have barely seen anything else, and less and less so as the years go by. And therein lies my grudge in the matter. To keep my sanity while allowing myself to still keep up with the current big movies and shows (I simply care deeply about the art in all its forms), I had to create distance between myself and whatever the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) is doing by considering it its own thing entirely separate from film or TV as we once defined it. It's basically the comic book come to life in serialized audio-visual form. And that's fine in and of itself, and even innovative to some degree. But it's the implications of its excessive dominance that trouble me.

[baxter]

Fair enough LateReg, it's more complicated than I gave it credit for. I'm left wondering how you find the time to watch everything, and also how you derive entertainment value from so many repetitive super hero films. I've tried to expand out from my Batman viewing, but I always find I'm getting bored compared to the endless things I could be watching. For some reason, Batman slips through this, because I connected with it as a youth.

I suspect I'll watch everything once my kids are a bit older though - they aren't quite the right age yet, but I'm looking forward to family movie nights. I've already shown them bits of The Prisoner though

[DougieJones]

Because of all this superhero talk I’m curious to hear everyone’s opinions on the Marvel-satire fight scene between BOB and Freddie with the glove. It really felt like a popcorn blockbuster movie moment and I’m sure it was done purposely like that.

I was scrolling all the way through the r/TwinPeaks group (haven’t been on there in a while) and saw this little photoshop that someone made. Twin Peaks: Unrecorded Night is such a good title IMO. Also since we talked about it before, the idea of a Twin Peaks anthology series is growing on me. Some episodes are long, some episodes are short.

[Cde.]

Question about Inland Empire. It looks very stark - do you all think Lynch intended it to look as stark and digital as it did or was it just the camera he chose for convenience and budget reasons? At the time, he raved about it and I think he said he'd never shoot on film again, but was he genuinely pleased with how stark it looked? Most digital now seems to be softer, shot to resemble film. Would IE have looked better if he'd chosen a different camera/format - can it ever be softened up or is the harshness intentional? (I thought it was but I sometimes wonder.)

(I haven't seen the full film in years but I remember some scenes still looked beautiful, but a lot of the film looked harsher/washed-out.

Lynch said that the lack of resolution and heavy grain reminded him of early film. He found it mysterious and providing a lot of 'room to dream'.

In a lecture since pulled from YouTube, he also said that he might have upgraded the camera as the production went on and DV technology improved, but he wanted the film to keep a consistent look.

[Jonah]

That's interesting - thanks.

[mtwentz]

The difference between today's slate of blockbusters and any past equivalent is that today's cost hundreds of millions of dollars to make (resulting in more studio control and less creative freedom while tying up many artists under contract) and occupy valuable real estate at movie theaters, filling multiple screens that could easily go to smaller films so that the audience has more of a choice. It's very dangerous and there are many articles that outline how different this is from the more popular genres of the past.

Yes, at the same time one can easily make the argument that they're keeping the theaters open, but the counter-argument would be that it's because the masses are being fed one thing and eating it up, which isn't good. And therefore one can't simply say that these are made for teenagers because it's every age bracket that is going to see these movies. I know plenty of grown-ass people who don't get to the theater much, but go to see these movies without fail. They're really dominating every level of the industry (talent and spectator) in a way that is unique to the history of the medium, and I think their prevalence is programming the way a lot of people think of movies and therefore how movies are made. I agree with Scorsese fully on the matter.

But then again, I have seen every single major comic book movie released in the past 20 years, and multiple times. The difference between myself and most other people I know is that I've also seen everything else, whereas they have barely seen anything else, and less and less so as the years go by. And therein lies my grudge in the matter. To keep my sanity while allowing myself to still keep up with the current big movies and shows (I simply care deeply about the art in all its forms), I had to create distance between myself and whatever the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) is doing by considering it its own thing entirely separate from film or TV as we once defined it. It's basically the comic book come to life in serialized audio-visual form. And that's fine in and of itself, and even innovative to some degree. But it's the implications of its excessive dominance that trouble me.

Can I take a moment here for us all to recognize Richard Donner, who just passed away?

Donner is the father of the superhero blockbuster. And his formula was you had to make the effects believable ("you will believe a man can fly") but also his superhero film was NOT an action film; it was a love story. He always corrected people when they called Superman a comic book film, to him, it was always a love story first and action/adventure film second.

Personally, I'll patronize an art film or slice of life film (Florida Project, Nomadland) before I'll go see a superhero film. But that's mostly because Donner set such a high standard that is hard to meet. There is no reason that superhero genre can't generate some great art. Heck, who knows, even Lynch might be called on to direct one someday

[krishnanspace]

RIP. He was slated the direct the final Lethal Weapon movie

[Jasper]

Richard Donner directed two episodes of The Fugitive, a show that comes up sometimes when Twin Peaks influences are discussed due to the shared theme of a mysterious one-armed man, with the Twin Peaks one-armed man, Philip Gerard, getting his last name from a detective on the older show. That's the best I can do for a Donner/Peaks tie-in.

Looking over Donner's directorial accomplishments, what stands out to me the most is that he directed Danger Island, the live action segment of the Banana Splits show!