jochen-j-smet

I'm not gonna tap into 'debunking' the scoop.

OK, a virus cannot know how wealthy you are and bla bla bla. So yeah, the scoop is already flawed, but frankly I don't mind. Just go with the scoop.

But then, as I saw appearing in earlier reviews, the main character (Laura Palmer) doesn't raise any sympathy at all. She's just a horrible person and you wish for her to die asap from the virus.

For some unclear reason she travels to Alaska to meet a very rich guy with a job offer, and it is suggested (?) he knows what's coming and disposes of his wealth. This is no spoiler at all because it's just a load of rubbish and there is no explanation at all.

Chapter 2 is 'The Collapse' and is also poorly worked out. No explanations, no clue of what is actually going on. The story spins around this Laura Palmer and her personal shortcomings. For me ok, that it would be like a personal drama, but that is also worked out poorly, since she is clearly a bad mother but in the whole movie, her daughter doesn't utter a single word.

Chapter 3 'The Exodus' handles about the rich becoming refugees. I'm not gonna go deeper into that. It was just rubbish.

And then the epilogue. As I interpreted, the bottom line is that if there's no possession, wealth is created by labour and creativity.

Yeah, so, to summarize: the director had some ideas about the wealthy (the 1%, and he thinks it's wrong, and I follow him on that point) and wants to show an alternative. Or something.

It's in line of his former movie, The Platform. This guy has clearly an idealistic view on life and wants 'to wake up people' with his movies, but he has no talent at all according to me.

In this movie he attempts to make the viewer repulse the superrich and sensitize the viewer when it comes to refugees.

Guess what? I already repulsed the superrich and I already was sensitized when it comes to refugees before seeing this movie. And the combination between the two in one movie just didn't work.

Moreover the cinematography and the acting by certain characters is worthless.

An absolute waste of time.

First of all, I binged the whole series (original series + movies (the missing pieces as well) + season 3 in a day or 4. In fact I only need to watch the last episode of season 3, but I think I have seen enough for a review already.

Although I am old enough to even have seen the original series back in the days (I think I saw some episodes here and there on television), I had never seen it as a whole, let alone I could call myself a fan.

In fact, someone told me it was the best series ever for him, so I thought I should have seen it.

After seeing the lot, I have to say there's way too much garbage in the series, even in the original series.

To give examples: the storyline where James is on the run and meets this lady in the bar and is hired to fix her husband's car. I really hated the spineless mellow character that James is, and I was hoping it would be the end of him in the series when he ran away. Not. Also the return to higschool of Nadine and the whole thing around Windom Earle was as if the script was extended in a hurry.

Maybe one day when I'm retired I'll cut out all the garbage myself. Probably not because it would be a hell of a job.

In my opinion the script should have stuck just around 'solving' the murder on Laura, and ofcourse afterwards around The Lodge. This goes for the movies as well. Combining the relevant scenes of Fire Walk With Me and The Missing Pieces would result in one better to the point movie.

Too much irrelevant, mellow, supposedly funny scenes in the original series.

In season 3 this is taken to the max. As I read Lynch convinced Showtime to make it an 18 episode season instead of the 9 Showtime initially gave him. It shows. However, I thought it was kind of acceptable. He clearly had the intention of giving some artists a platform, thus making a crossover piece of art. He also had the intention of giving a role to as many legacy actors as possible, even if they're irrelevant. And given the slow pace he had in mind, that took time in his head.

The result: an overall pretty boring and irrelevant bunch of scenes for the legacy actors. I also skipped a lot of the songs, but that's a matter of musical taste.

I was pleased to read in the reviews that I didn't stand alone thinking what the major flaws are:

1. The script.

My main problem was that the best character of the original series, obviously Dale Cooper, is a complete moron throughout the series. At the point it became really annoying to me. What could have been an epic battle between good and bad like in Stephen King's The Stand, was ruined by this. Furtheron, there are all these loose ends that go nowhere and they were inserted either for legacy actors or as art for art's sake, but weren't really beautiful or interesting and very slow. For example Sarah Palmer watching this glitched boxing game, horrible.

2. The Characters Up to the 16th episode there appear new characters, you don't know who they are, and it's irrelevant what they are saying. I really don't get why they inserted those. Now Freddie might have been interesting to follow from the beginning, but they didn't, he comes in quite late and Dale apparently knows about him, but we don't know how.

3. The special effects.

They are quite lame most of the time.

4. Episode 8 (Gotta Light?)!!!

Just skip this arty farty, mystery for the sake of mystery, long and boring episode that leads nowhere, nor has relevance in the following episodes. This was plain and simple torture. After the Nine Inch Nails song (which also wasn't my cup of tea) around about 15 minutes into the episode, I was looking every 5 minutes to see how long the sequence was going on. Well, straight till the end of the episode.

In order to get this season right, a lot of cutting needs to be done, and some extra scenes with Dale Cooper should be shot. With a bit of luck you'd get about 8 episodes...

OK, this movie shouldn't be watched like a 'normal' movie. It should simply be watched for what it is, namely a piece of art. The scenario, who gives a damn. In most movies I do give a damn, but not in this one. Bertrand Mandico makes it quite clear you shouldn't. I read in another review that one should just let him/herself be immersed in the strange and wondrous universe created by this movie. That hits the nail.

It's a visual masterpiece, full of colours and art. The weirdness of the encounters just makes you laugh. I definitely need to rewatch this on acid.

I especially love the western kind of feeling to it.

This is truly something, instant cult!