World of Blue - Archived Forum 2007-2022

I'm interested to see how people feel about Fire Walk With Me. It seems like opinions vary widely.

While I appreciate Sheryl Lee's performance as Laura Palmer, I miss watching Dale Cooper as protagonist. And it's hard to explain, but Fire Walk With Me just doesn't feel like Twin Peaks to me. It has a different look and a different sense of humor. As far as the plot goes, I feel like most of it should have been left to the imagination. The film contains a few interesting revelations, but all in all, I could have done without a prequel.

I like to think of FWWM as David Lynch's Twin Peaks versus David Lynch and Mark Frost's Twin Peaks. Similar to how I feel about Episode 29. Absolutely love it.

An amazing film that's at it's most powerful when watched right after viewing the complete series.

Jerry Horne wrote:An amazing film that's at it's most powerful when watched right after viewing the complete series.

I've to agree with what you wrote because that's exactly what I did when I watched the movie for the first time. And I'm also one of the people who absolutely loves this movie.

Loved it ever since my first viewing of the film in the theater back in '92.

The first time I watched the film I had mixed feelings about it. I still thought it was good, definitely better than most films out there at the time, I suppose I was a bit biased for saying so being a huge fan of Twin Peaks. Still, I had expected and/or wanted more from it, more characters from the TV series (whose scenes I believe were cut). Being what it is I have grown to love the film more and more through the years. The pictures and cinematography is just awesome. Great acting. I would love to see the deleted scenes restored into the film one day. That would be the ultimate TP experience.

Another recent observation I saw in FWWM and read about in WIP was the repeated images of red and blue over and over and over. Very cool.

Lil's dress and the blue rose, Laura in a red sweater and blue jeans, red curtains and Julee Cruise bathed in blue light, and on and on. Love the symbolism.

Like a lot of people, I found it very, very jarring the first time I watched it. I knew it was a prequel so I'd let go of any expectations of finding out what had happened after the finale, but it just felt so different from the TV series that I wasn't quite prepared for it. I missed the humor (where were the coffee and doughnuts?); I missed so many of my favorite characters, whose scenes were either deleted (Big Ed, Pete, Harry, Josie, Ben, Dr. Jacoby, etc., etc.), were relegated to brief cameos (Cooper, Norma, Shelly, Albert, Leo, Mike, Annie), or were absent altogether (Audrey); I missed Lara Flynn Boyle and found it weird watching Moira Kelly play Donna; I missed the Great Northern and the Sheriff's Office; I didn't understand why the exterior of the Palmer house was different (even though the interior was the same); I didn't understand why Norma's hair was short; and overall, I missed the slicker, warmer, more polished feeling of the TV show (the movie, while very well done, was clearly done quickly and cheaply, giving it a much grittier quality). Overall though, I was still pretty young when I watched it (14), and just wasn't ready for how dark, bleak, disturbing and generally nightmarish it truly is. I had thought the TV series was pretty creepy, but it was like "Sesame Street" compared to this. In fact, I had taped it off Showtime the first time I watched it and had to turn it off about 2/3 of the way through because I found it so genuinely unsettling.

Now however that some time has passed, I have truly come to love it. And being older and (hopefully) wiser, I now find the darkness of the movie a great antidote to the some of the overly goofy hokiness that had crept in during Season 2. I also think the "gritty" quality actually does a great job of harkening back to the grittier quality of the pilot, and I think this is achieved by the fact that it's actually shot in the real Northwest as opposed to Southern California and well-lit studio sets. And of course, most of all, I appreciate that it's a movie about the final dark days of Laura Palmer and the true heart of "Twin Peaks"; it's not about Cooper, nor is it about the quirky townsfolk. It is a profoundly moving film and is the closest thing I've ever seen to truly approximating cinematically the feeling of being inside a nightmare. I'm glad that the critics seem to have softened toward it nowadays and the general reception to the film feels kinder than it was during the heyday of the enormous "Twin Peaks"/David Lynch backlash, and I hope we get to see those deleted scenes one day!

I think I agree for the most part with TheArm.

It is, indeed, very different in tone - the humour is largely gone, and we're left with a pretty bleak vision of a teenager whose fate we already know.

Although I'd seen the pilot and first few episodes when it first aired, I was too young to really appreciate it, and didn't really become a fan until the first season appeared on DVD. I was hooked and watched it many times, pining for the second season, before finally succumbing to watching FWWM, which of course I regretted - as I genuinely didn't know at that point WKLP. I didn't like it at all, because it was so relentlessly dark and miserable and I didn't see any point to the Deer Meadow act at all. It was, though, one of the few films that had really scared me in many years.

Fast forward a few years, and I've seen both the whole series and FWWM many times, and I think it's a genuinely great film.

Ultimately what I like about it is that while the series was about the darkness that lies beneath the calm surface of the town, to me the film is abut the shadow-self - the hope that remains even at the darkest time.

Or something.

It's now amongst my fav Lynch works.

$0.02,
g

Ultimately what I like about it is that while the series was about the darkness that lies beneath the calm surface of the town, to me the film is abut the shadow-self - the hope that remains even at the darkest time.

I think that is absolutely wonderfully put, G. I couldn't have said it better. There are million reasons why I love this film and I could go on about it forever, but I will be succint. I first saw FWWM when I was 12 (after I saw the whole show) and I immediately fell in love with it and the story of Laura Palmer. The film has had a grip on me ever since and it's been one of the primary reasons I have decided to become a filmmaker.

The main reasons I love it so much is that it's a memorable emotional experience like very few films I have seen (just try to get this film out of your head), it is visually striking, it's a powerful story told in creative, imaginative ways, and it boasts incredible performances (especially by Sheryl Lee and Ray Wise), haunting mood, intricate sound design, powerhouse music, and out-of-this-world WA locations. What's more, Laura's story touches me emotionally - to the point that I find it easy to forget that Laura Palmer is a fictional character and not a real person - and it hits close to home for personal reasons. So, in my heart, FWWM always has a special place. It's not the best film I have ever seen, but it certainly is dearest to me.

dugpa wrote:I like to think of FWWM as David Lynch's Twin Peaks versus David Lynch and Mark Frost's Twin Peaks. Similar to how I feel about Episode 29. Absolutely love it.

I think that's specifically why I dislike it so much. It seems like a betrayal to Mark Frost's vision, and he was the one that was there from the beginning to the end.

The Magician wrote:

dugpa wrote:I like to think of FWWM as David Lynch's Twin Peaks versus David Lynch and Mark Frost's Twin Peaks. Similar to how I feel about Episode 29. Absolutely love it.

I think that's specifically why I dislike it so much. It seems like a betrayal to Mark Frost's vision, and he was the one that was there from the beginning to the end.

Was he really though? I always feel like in interviews nowadays he shares responsibility w/Lynch for getting distracted with other things during Season 2. And there is a hefty gap in Season 2 - arguably the worst chunk of it, from episodes 17-24 - where he has absolutely no writer or co-writer credits at all. As with Lynch, he seemed to re-engage toward the end of the season, when it was increasingly clear that TP was in "critical" condition. I sometimes get the impression that Harley Peyton & Robert Engels were probably doing the lion's share of the day-to-day creative grunt work.

i have watched FWWM many many times now and still don't really like it...

i actually love the theresa banks part of the story but when the last seven days of laura palmer part of the story begins... i dunno, i just get bored. i think for me that it just covers familiar territory. we already new about a lot of that back story. sheryl lee is fantastic but still....

i would have loved to just have a whole movie that involved theresa banks with chet desmond and sam stanley. making small connections between that case and twin peaks. i dunno. the first half was just so fun...

ah well.

I've loved FWWM from the first time I watched it. I would say that it is probably my favorite film of all time and I don't say that lightly.

I'd say the same as the previous post, it's probably my favourite movie ever, and I saw it having never heard of Twin Peaks! Then I watched the TV show.

I also love FWWM because the whole plot, with Cooper and Laura'a reunion at the end, is close to another favorite of mine, Laura, by Otto Preminger, which I highly recommend.