|
Onomarchus posted:A lot of the changes after season 1 are almost certainly due to the addition of Reza Aslan as a "consulting" producer. Yes, plus season 1 was based on the actual novel, the seasons after that are lindelof.
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2017 19:48
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 13, 2024 23:25 |
|
|
theflyingexecutive posted:Like if you want to buy into Lindelof's story that this is still a "character study", why would you have a three year time jump when these characters have changed drastically in the span of days or hours. You're kinda disrespecting your audience to say "and then for three years after an armed insurrection and drone strike on a cult that invaded the town, everybody stayed basically the same" and then a month after that, they all leave the country and their relationships. A three year time jump doesn't say "these characters have been back to normal for three years" it means "it took three years for these characters to get back to normal".
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2017 19:51
|
|
|
Getting back to normal is a really big part of character development and arguably the main drive for every character on the show; it's insane to skip it.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2017 19:52
|
|
|
theflyingexecutive posted:Getting back to normal is a really big part of character development and arguably the main drive for every character on the show; it's insane to skip it.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2017 20:00
|
|
|
oliwan posted:Yes, plus season 1 was based on the actual novel, the seasons after that are lindelof. Completely ignoring the fact that Tom Perrotta has been a writer and executive producer, helping break the story arcs for both seasons beyond the source material, yeah, purestrain Lindelof. theflyingexecutive posted:Getting back to normal is a really big part of character development and arguably the main drive for every character on the show; it's insane to skip it. But when the network says "Hey, you're getting cancelled, but we're giving you eight episodes to finish this thing" you don't have the luxury of exploring the journey of that recovery and just have to fast forward to their next great (and final) breaking point.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2017 20:01
|
|
|
oliwan posted:thanks to LOST i still get ptsd episodes whenever anyone mentions Lindelof and "character study" in the same sentence Edgy lol! Also, gently caress you.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2017 20:06
|
|
|
Why is Australia so important to the story though? If it's truly a "character study" and there's been nothing about Australia at all in any of the characters' lives, why couldn't you just shoot in Texas or somewhere else? It's stupid expensive to shoot overseas and you lose a lot of cast because of career and family commitments. I personally can't see a lot of payoff that would justify a short season and the time and location jumps.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2017 20:07
|
|
|
theflyingexecutive posted:Why is Australia so important to the story though? If it's truly a "character study" and there's been nothing about Australia at all in any of the characters' lives, why couldn't you just shoot in Texas or somewhere else? It's stupid expensive to shoot overseas and you lose a lot of cast because of career and family commitments. I personally can't see a lot of payoff that would justify a short season and the time and location jumps. Kevin Sr. ends up going there to do the anti raindance aboriginal line thing (it was hinted at last season), Nora gets summoned there to get microwaved, and who cares about the rest of this stuff?
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2017 20:11
|
|
|
I think this is the thread where I've ignored the most trolls. Makes it so much better. Don't feed them, they're starving.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2017 20:42
|
|
|
clown shoes posted:I think this is the thread where I've ignored the most trolls. Makes it so much better. Don't feed them, they're starving. tfe is good people, hell, I kind of just drive byed the Americans thread after that lackluster season and said I'm done. It's TVIV, we all have opinions.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2017 20:55
|
|
|
well thanks everyone for ruining this thread just before the finale
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2017 21:35
|
|
|
oliwan posted:thanks to LOST i still get ptsd episodes whenever anyone mentions Lindelof and "character study" in the same sentence I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by Lost, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the HBO app at 8:00PM on Sunday, looking for an angry fix
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2017 21:37
|
|
|
oliwan posted:Whoa someone doesn't like this show that has been totally ignored by awards and gets 700k viewers every week... well wat DOES he like??? You're one of those 700k you lunatic. Why not spend your time watching and discussing all of these actually good shows instead of spending hours out of your week watching a show you hate and fishing for insults in here so you can act like a victim?
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2017 21:55
|
|
|
Sheriff posted:I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by Lost, starving hysterical naked,
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2017 21:57
|
|
|
Guy A. Person posted:You're one of those 700k you lunatic. Why not spend your time watching and discussing all of these actually good shows instead of spending hours out of your week watching a show you hate and fishing for insults in here so you can act like a victim? Oh gods... Forums poster oliwan is... Nora? Also, I'm checking out till after the finale. Peace, thread!
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2017 22:11
|
|
|
Sheriff posted:I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by Lost, starving hysterical naked, This is how you make a post
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2017 22:39
|
|
|
oliwan posted:Whoa someone doesn't like this show that has been totally ignored by awards and gets 700k viewers every week... well wat DOES he like??? Your a bitch made bitch retard
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2017 22:39
|
|
|
Matt Zerella posted:Kevin Sr. ends up going there to do the anti raindance aboriginal line thing (it was hinted at last season), Nora gets summoned there to get microwaved, and who cares about the rest of this stuff? Neither of those things are essential to the plot though; I'm talking from a production standpoint. Maybe they did Kev Sr's native tourism with Indigenous Australians because it would've been too touchy with Native Americans, but Nora's microwave could've been anywhere as far as the plot is concerned. The only thing justifying the massive budget and inconvenience of shooting thousands of miles away is (imo) Lindelof trying to find a unique doomsday cult and retroactively justify the location and pretend he had a plan for the series. Before I get piled on for this speculation, he did the exact same thing in Lost where he shoehorned in the Jacob/Man In Black plots to create the illusion of depth in the mythology and also he did the same thing even in season two (the first one outside of the book) with the primitive woman saving the baby from the snake. I really want to hear an alternate explanation for why Australia specifically matters at all, considering we've seen virtually no Australian experience of the Departure outside of the offhanded mention of the Tony the Chicken story, which could've easily happened in America.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2017 22:47
|
|
|
Sheriff posted:I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by Lost, starving hysterical naked,
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2017 22:47
|
|
|
theflyingexecutive posted:I really want to hear an alternate explanation for why Australia specifically matters at all, considering we've seen virtually no Australian experience of the Departure outside of the offhanded mention of the Tony the Chicken story, which could've easily happened in America. My guess would be production subsidies, tax credits, or exchange rate advantages. I doubt this show is profitable, so if it's eight eps in Australia or cancellation, you find a reason to do eight eps in Australia.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2017 22:54
|
|
|
When do shows go up in the HBO Go app? Immediately after it airs? Midnight?
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2017 22:57
|
|
|
I hugely believe in second and third chances for showrunners because of how much I really think Damon Lindelof can occasionally surmount his hackishness given the right producers and it's just not happening for me. Like he should be able to pull off "something disastrous happens, but it turns out humankind's real enemy is other humans", but he can't help himself in reining in his flights of fancy to fit a multi-season narrative. Come to think of it, this show would've been really great as an anthology where you can lean into some narratives and each season or group of episodes or even just single episodes tell a self-contained story in a larger world (the book was written like this and the first season really shows it), but we instead have to suffer weak characters and storytelling devices overstaying their welcome (is Kevin Jr really schizophrenic? etc.) while others died on the vine (where did Kevin's daughter go? What was the GR up to? How do less urbanized cultures deal with the Departure?) It would've been a nice way to get deeper into some stories and also build up more viewers/interest to have less serialization, but here we are.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2017 23:02
|
|
|
Agronox posted:My guess would be production subsidies, tax credits, or exchange rate advantages. I doubt this show is profitable, so if it's eight eps in Australia or cancellation, you find a reason to do eight eps in Australia. I'm not too well-versed on financials (and I know a lot of states cut film subsides in the past couple years), but it would have to be some really massive subsides to justify two or so months in Australia, along with cutting out two episodes from the order. A ton of LA film people chafe at shooting in New York w/r/t logistics and career/family obligations and that's only four hours away in the same country.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2017 23:07
|
|
|
The idea of physical spaces being meaningful ran throughout the second season - Jarden being "protected" from Departures, or how Kevin's continued resurrections were possibly a result of being within its limits; the scientists who bought Nora's house because they believed her kitchen would reveal some grand tangible evidence related to the Departure. They were planting seeds: Maybe there really were places on Earth that had a supernatural connection to somewhere else, maybe there really was a cave in Australia where people could be resurrected, or that a man could talk to his son in a place between life and death. But really, it was an excuse to get some beautiful location shots. Klungar posted:When do shows go up in the HBO Go app? Immediately after it airs? Midnight? I think shows are available as soon as they start airing on HBO on the east coast.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2017 23:11
|
|
|
Right, it had all the bones of an anthology series (including the massive time jumps), but kept the cast for some reason.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2017 23:22
|
|
|
One idea that I really wish had been left more ambiguous in season 2 that I never see anyone else talk about is about is the thing about Matt possibly raping Mary. The way it initially plays makes it seem like it could go in this direction, and Matt's story about Mary coming out of her coma one night and whether viewers even believe it or not fits the general themes of the story really loving well. It also helps that that episode was one of the better ones of season 2. So why then it was undermined when the writers had Mary come out of her coma for good and announce that she totally remembers consenting that night with Matt is something I've never heard a particularly convincing argument for, especially considering how her character and their child was written away anyways in season 3. It just feels like a very bathetic way to handle a storyline that really seemed ripe for drama and is even relevant to a lot of real world debates going on today in regards to how victimized women are treated in society. Maybe Lindelof and Perotta thought it was just too uncomfortable and dark for the kind of show Leftovers is, I dunno.
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2017 23:32
|
|
|
"Do you remember when we conceived our child?" "No, not at all" *Nirvana starts blasting from a car stereo*
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2017 23:39
|
|
|
theflyingexecutive posted:"Do you remember when we conceived our child?"
|
|
#
?
Jun 1, 2017 23:43
|
|
|
Nirvana has a song called Rape Me
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2017 00:16
|
|
|
theflyingexecutive posted:Like if you want to buy into Lindelof's story that this is still a "character study", why would you have a three year time jump when these characters have changed drastically in the span of days or hours. You're kinda disrespecting your audience to say "and then for three years after an armed insurrection and drone strike on a cult that invaded the town, everybody stayed basically the same" and then a month after that, they all leave the country and their relationships. The ending of season 2 was a resolution; Kevin and Nora resolved to build a family together despite their previous insecurities. The time skip establishes that this resolution was temporary and didn't resolve the characters' underlying problems.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2017 00:52
|
|
|
Time skip is fine if it means we can avoid garbage like Lost after season 3 and the latest season of The Americans.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2017 01:11
|
|
|
Raxivace posted:One idea that I really wish had been left more ambiguous in season 2 that I never see anyone else talk about is about is the thing about Matt possibly raping Mary. The way it initially plays makes it seem like it could go in this direction, and Matt's story about Mary coming out of her coma one night and whether viewers even believe it or not fits the general themes of the story really loving well. It also helps that that episode was one of the better ones of season 2. This was my biggest problem with season 2. Things were just resolved too solidly. S1 had very little of that type of resolution.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2017 01:18
|
|
|
Raxivace posted:One idea that I really wish had been left more ambiguous in season 2 that I never see anyone else talk about is about is the thing about Matt possibly raping Mary. The way it initially plays makes it seem like it could go in this direction, and Matt's story about Mary coming out of her coma one night and whether viewers even believe it or not fits the general themes of the story really loving well. It also helps that that episode was one of the better ones of season 2. I think it had more to do with the budget for the show and Janel Moloney doing American Crime. Same with Regina King. Same with Liv Tyler. I agree that a lot of stuff from Season 2 just got dropped but I think it had more to do with budget constraints of the show. They were kind of lucky to get a Season 3 as it was and perhaps that came with a cut to the budget.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2017 02:35
|
|
|
My biggest gripe with Lindelof is he cares way too much about meta poo poo and catering to reviewers instead of viewers.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2017 02:39
|
|
|
Niwrad posted:My biggest gripe with Lindelof is he cares way too much about meta poo poo and catering to reviewers instead of viewers. What does this even mean?
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2017 02:43
|
|
|
Maybe part of the reason people who really liked season one feel let down by the other two is because the core theme has shifted over time. It started out as a story about how people deal with grief and loss, but its become more about how people deal with the unknown and unexplained. I can see why it would be annoying, hacky, lazy pretentious, etc. if every show threw a bunch of poo poo at the wall and refused to explain any of it by the end. But why we can't have this one show built around ambiguity as its core concept? IMO the direct payoffs we have gotten have been very satisfying, so its not fair to assume the lack of other answers is due to laziness or an inability to execute them. Also its weird how people assign everything in the show to Lindelof and his personal proclivities. There is a whole team of writers. Lord Krangdar fucked around with this message at 03:09 on Jun 2, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2017 03:07
|
|
|
Oh and people were asking about the significance of moving the show to Australia: The core characters going so far from home showed us that they were really serious about their beliefs (that the world was ending, that Kevin was important, that the departure machine was worth investigating).
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2017 03:14
|
|
|
Nora went for machine. Kevin followed Nora. Everyone else followed Kevin.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2017 03:19
|
|
|
UmOk posted:What does this even mean? The weird cavewoman scene was done to gently caress with Andy Greenwald. The Matt episode from this season was written for a reviewer who said nice things about the show last season. All the Kevin dick jokes came from a joke online about Theroux in his sweatpants. It's not a big deal since some of those things work out well. But he's admitted to caring a lot about what reviewers say and I think throws stuff into the show to cater to them. The French submarine scene is an example of that. Don't think it added anything to the plot except to be a quirky thing reviewers can fawn over.
|
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2017 03:19
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 13, 2024 23:25 |
|
|
UmOk posted:Nora went for machine. Kevin followed Nora. Everyone else followed Kevin. Those are the plot reasons, but on an earlier page people were asking about the show-runners' motivations. Niwrad posted:The weird cavewoman scene was done to gently caress with Andy Greenwald. The Matt episode from this season was written for a reviewer who said nice things about the show last season. All the Kevin dick jokes came from a joke online about Theroux in his sweatpants. The critics were only inspirations, in the end those were all woven into the show organically (except the dick one which really was just a fun meta wink). The cave-woman scene was a microcosm of the entire show. That Matt episode wasn't just a shout-out to that reviewer, it was inspired by his personal story of tragedy and loss. Any writer is going to be inspired by stuff from their lives. Televisions critics are part of the lives of television writers. Nothing wrong with that. Niwrad posted:The French submarine scene is an example of that. Don't think it added anything to the plot except to be a quirky thing reviewers can fawn over. That, along with Dean and the guy yelling in the airport, showed that people around the world were starting to believe the apocalypse was imminent. It wasn't just the core characters. Lord Krangdar fucked around with this message at 03:26 on Jun 2, 2017 |
|
#
?
Jun 2, 2017 03:21
|
|