Re: To the Profoundly Disappointed: Are You Still Disappointed?
Posted: Tue May 04, 2021 3:39 am
Very detailed and interesting post. I also didn't like the direction they took with Sarah or with most of the original characters (just commended on a very good post by WhiteLodge90 who addressed this in more detail in this thread - http://www.dugpa.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=4013 ). Interesting about Chantal and Hutch being a dark version of Lucy and Andy, will have to keep that in mind, as I really hated those characters, which was especially annoying for me as I love Jennifer Jason Leigh and wish she had been given a much better character to play.boske wrote: ↑Tue May 04, 2021 3:28 am I am still disappointed. Profoundly? Overall maybe not as much, but for more mundane reasons, enough time has passed since then that it does not sting as much as it did back then. And there are parts that I really like, both back then and now: the Purple World, Mr. C going to the "Dutchman's", Fireman's place, cherry pie restaurant scene, first half of part 17 including that new scene that they discovered and put in, Ottis and Buella, Cooper taking Laura/Carries back, and probably a few more. And another chance to hear more of Angelo's music, of course. I even liked the floor-sweeping scene (it is always great to see late Walter doing his French accent).
I think the rewatch helped. One of the reasons why I disliked what I saw was alleviated when I realised that some (not all) of the issues I had with the color tones of some of the scenes were artificial and caused by a lousy stream compression. Also, there are some details of the Fireman's place that you can quickly forget about or miss altogether unless you do a rewatch. I am mostly talking about two here: the large machine-filled room (you see it when Fireman kicks Mr. C out), and two openings in the ceiling when Andy is being told the complete story, since only one of the ceilings is used, the other one is not. This particular scene is highly symbolic, and is a real gem.
At this point in time, I think I do understand what they were ultimately trying to portray, but as was pointed out very early on, "it cannot be said aloud now". I can see why they retconned Sarah (it is a retcon in my book), I wish they did not do it, but the story (as I now understand it) had asked for it (as well for the lack of Leland), so I can live with that part.
Ultimately, I did not like the Dougie arc, I understood it had to be there and that it had great potential, I just think it did not deliver, especially knowing how it all ended, in particular how Dougie woke up in the end. Las Vegas part of the Return may have had all the funny parts (and some of them were really funny!). Back then, I did not like the fact that they kept Dougie slamming into doors, but one of the later parts gives a bit of a hint: Dougie tries the same hand waving motion that he is now using in the lodge to open the curtain passage, ergo he is still not really out of the lodge or has not yet adjusted to the fact that he is "out" of it. Also remember how Dougie wanders around the hallway on the first floor of their LV home as Sunny Jim is reading before going to sleep, he is simply still acting as if he were in the lodge. So with respect to LV parts, I am more or less at where I was before.
Mr.C: the same. Pointless plot, not going anywhere, useless arm wrestling match, useless coordinates, cow jumped over the moon, Todd and Ike. The rewatch helped with Chantal and Hutch, when I realised that they were set up as dark mirrors of Andy and Lucy. It was Chantal who was supposed to take out Dougie ("he looks just like our boss"), and it was Lucy that disposed of Mr C. We first saw the contrast as work in FWWM with Fat Trout's as a dilapidated mirror image of TP with non-cooperative local police force, etc, while here we see Chantal and Hutch as a highly mobile version of Andy and Lucy, where the latter likely never left TP, and Chantal and Hutch seemingly have no permanent fixture. I saw it all (and then wrote in the parts discussion) that Andy and Lucy represented a more sedentary aspect (hence them looking to buy a chair) vs. chaotic and ever-moving other pole: stability vs. movement, order vs. chaos. Waves crashing the mountain in the Purple World, two poles and forces eternally going against each other. I wrote more on it, including Wally, in the parts threads.
TP parts were bleak, nothing special, and I was not disappointed there. Yes, I do not think we need to know of armpit rash of random characters. I now consider the musical acts to be Audrey's dream scenes, and I really, really liked how the Veils one was done. Au Revoir Simone were great too. The green glove is just hideous. I used to play Doom, and when you ran out of ammo you could find yourself fighting a cacodemon with your base fists, that about sums it up.
But what mostly disappointed me back then, and I think I am still profoundly disappointed with (and maybe even more than back then, where these even then bugged me a lot), is what Lynch did with Gordon Cole and that whole "cossacks, smoking with Diane, fine bottle of Red Bordeau, French escort, not being soft where it mattered", and maybe some other monstrosities I luckily no longer remember. It is such a gigantic waste of opportunity to make best use of a chance that was given, and may never come around again, what a shame.