laughingpinecone wrote:
That's kind of my wish too... uncertainty about which Coop it is would, imho, serve the double function of sustaining narrative tension and reminding us that they are all aspects of Dale Cooper in the end.
But I wonder about the, ah, logistics involved? And the kind of audience they would be writing for, in order to present that as a twist? TSHOTP readers know that 'Coop' went AWOL 25+ years ago and is not an agent presently. How would you go about creating a situation that would be ambiguous both for this crowd and for the general public who doesn't even know the book exists?
All I can think of is a Deer Meadow-like open, with |Coop| meeting all-new characters who don't know him and therefore can't bring up his past?
Funny you mention it, I keep thinking along these lines.
A big problem for sequels in general is that the world is not as clearly laid out as the first movie, not as well defined;
It is harder for an audience to empathize with characters and the world itself. Think, without laughing too much about the differences of genre or lack of quality at display, of the first Independence Day vs. the one that came out last year. For the first, you're along for the ride and the world is clearly understood, which engages the audience. For the second, too much consequential strangeness has happened, and the rules of the game in the sequel are hard to identify with, resulting in lack of interest.
That illustrates the fundamental problem pretty well, despite both genre and expectations being different.
And Twin Peaks will actually be facing this phenomenon to a uniquely large extend.
In the first season, as a viewer, you were basically a visitor to Twin Peaks, experiencing things pretty much like Cooper did.
The new season has the difficult task of dealing with abstract circumstances of the main character, Cooper, that even fans to this day seem somewhat confused about or have difficulty fully grasping....
When that is the case, the offset.....then how do you drag in a new audience and invoke the empathy required to capture their imagination?
That is going to be extremely tricky, and aside from the aging cast, probably the most likely reason that the new season, regardless of external circumstances, is bound to be be a much, much smaller show in terms of reach, than the first.