[Pamp Culture] oh is there a rapsball happening?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [Pamp Culture] oh is there a rapsball happening?

Maya Fey: Jan 22, 2017

C-Euro posted:

I loved it in the moment but I don't think I would ever want to revisit, I'd rather just have it exist in my memory as this time capsule of where I was in life when it was on-air.

Definitely agree that it would benefit from the current TV paradigm of 10-12 ep seasons if it were made today, but I absolutely would not want it on any streaming platform that would dump the entire season all at once.

i didn't watch it as it aired and when i did (binging trhough like 3 or 4 seasons) it was the biggest piece of poo poo id ever seen, and whats more, my monitor was on

# ? Aug 9, 2022 18:00

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# ? May 27, 2024 19:45

Maya Fey: Jan 22, 2017

i watched a bunch of nathan for you eps yesterday and loved it. the one with the Claw of Shame was so good

# ? Aug 9, 2022 18:01

Tankbuster: Oct 1, 2021

Pryor on Fire posted:

X Files had all the same problems that every show in the 90s had, it wasn't uniquely good or special. Namely that every episode had to be it's own capsule that never affected anything else in the world so you'd have an ep where some guy was astral projecting to murder senators or some poo poo and then it's just like ok case closed! and they'd move on to fighting a sewer monster next week like it never happened. And it was the 90s so of course there were about zero black or even kinda brown people in any season, it's hard to go back and watch that whites only poo poo nowadays.

Excuse me it had that one episode where a tiny indian dude crawls out of corpses to kill white people.

# ? Aug 9, 2022 18:03

Fried Watermelon: Dec 29, 2008

Naked submarine nuke

# ? Aug 9, 2022 18:10

Some Guy TT: Aug 30, 2011

Pryor on Fire posted:

Nope was just kinda bad? What was even the point of the chimp stuff? Like Jordan just heard a story about chimp attacks and randomly threw that in there? Why do you have to look at the monster to get eaten? How did the horse magically figure out this nonsense plot device?

Then we are supposed to believe that the monster is a dumb carnivore outsmarted by horsey man who just knows animals so well, but he never really gets developed as a good horsey man? In fact he seems quite bad at horsing

The scene with all the people getting digested was pretty great, but most of this movie was a clumsy miss which I was not expecting at all

it took me way too long to figure out that yall were talking about the recently released jordan peele movie nope and not abraxas lol

# ? Aug 9, 2022 18:12

Some Guy TT: Aug 30, 2011

Atrocious Joe posted:

The X-Files had some amazingly racist episodes, but it had non-white characters.

The namesake character, X, was Black.

is the one about the negro league (s06 e19) one of the amazingly racist ones because aside from that one im having trouble thinking of any that really even deal with race at all

# ? Aug 9, 2022 18:13

Some Guy TT: Aug 30, 2011

Tankbuster posted:

Excuse me it had that one episode where a tiny indian dude crawls out of corpses to kill white people.

was the tiny indian dude a good guy or a bad guy seems like that could go either way

# ? Aug 9, 2022 18:14

Pepe Silvia Browne: Jan 1, 2007

Fried Watermelon posted:

Naked submarine nuke

I had forgotten all about this scene and it ruled lol

# ? Aug 9, 2022 18:20

ScootsMcSkirt: Oct 29, 2013

Nope is getting praised cause its extremely good. Its basically a modern-day Jaws, loved it

# ? Aug 9, 2022 18:22

Antonymous: Apr 4, 2009

in nope, in the ending, the big inflatable takes off into the air as if it was inflated by helium. But really those things are just inflated by air pressure, like a fan blowing into them. it's not a hot air balloon. this is kinda the problem with nope - it's not well thought out. Yes an air pressure bomb blowing up a carnivore is like the end of jaws, wow!. But jaws earned it

nope's biggest theme is about the entertainment industry. The shot of "Agua Dulce Canyon Road" made my girlfriend laugh cause I was literally working a movie ranch on that road 2 days before we saw it and she's worked there a bunch too. Jupe's amusement park has signs about the Vasquez Rocks which are also a famous shooting location.

Every character has a trauma related to the film industry - Jupe's psychology is that although in his subjective experience the monkey was abject horror, it was his closest touch with fame and a sorta beloved cult moment in hollywood history so he outwardly says "yeah it was great, haha". This is extremely hollywood behavior - you never see people talk bad about something they worked on especially if it's 'successful' even though as we know hollywood is a very traumatic exploitative place.

The Fry's electronics guy has extreme "moved to LA to act but I'm working at Fry's while I wait for my break" vibes and his girlfriend left him, ego puffed up over a bit part on the CW.

The random guy with a mirror helmet and one eye "TMZ" type feels like one that probably had his scenes cut, underdeveloped, but again when he crashes his bike he doesn't want help from OJ, he wants OJ to film him.

The Cinematographer is obsessed to the point of a death wish with getting "the impossible shot" and commits suicide to get it (I guess, the movie never wraps up if he got the shot - it would undermine the ending if he did).

OJ and Emerald obviously have their own trauma working in the industry and the opening scene on the commercial set shows how much you not only need to be good at your job you have to be hype "legendary cinematographer" big personality and you can't just do your job, because people don't want you to do it anyway. It was also exactly what everyone hates in safety meetings, if you're not the star keep your head down.

edit: oh yeah even the horse is spooked by a VFX ball

Peele has always said the film is about "spectacle and our societies relationship to it" and without a doubt Jupe's storyline works the strongest for that. He literally knows better, but is consumed by it. The symbolism of the alien being a big balloon - like what set the monkey off - is pretty on the nose.

OJ wins by not looking at it. I think that's his character, by not seeming to love the film industry as the rest do and instead focus on animals, always is a step ahead. He realizes quickly its not a ship filled with little green men like the movies would say - it's a territorial animal. He doesn't do the generic horror movie moves and get himself killed, instead he says to it "nope." But then, he really wants to get the "Oprah" shot, which is set up as his means to vindicate himself to hollywood - that he did something that mattered has to be won through the affirmation of the american media machine.

Also there's a callback in him riding in/on a white bronco and american love of spectacle.

But then I think that theme is undercut with Emerald taking the polaroid of the monster and them defeating it with a balloon of their own. OJ appears at the end, through the fog, like a polaroid developing and the banner "OUT YONDER" above him kinda suggesting he did become a spectacle himself at the end? After the big showdown with the alien is won by not looking at it they take a photo of it anyway.

there's a ton more but it's definitely a "gently caress hollywood" movie and it's also a very messy script

Antonymous has issued a correction as of 19:23 on Aug 9, 2022

# ? Aug 9, 2022 19:01

Antonymous: Apr 4, 2009

It also has the bike shot from Akira for no reason and thousand other Family Guy style "remember that?" things. it's cute but it also undercuts the 'gently caress hollywood' messaging if you also show you really love movies

it's definitely suffered from too many good ideas and that's what really weakened it

# ? Aug 9, 2022 19:05

Antonymous: Apr 4, 2009

the movie sets up 2 rules for the alien

#1 - it doesn't like to eat metal (later explained because it is a balloon, soft and squishy)
#2 - it doesn't like to be looked at - maybe this is why it killed their dad - he looked up. It's why it eats the people at Jupiter's Claim. It's why it attacks their house. The movie shows over and over if you look, you die, if you don't look, you live.

Okay so at the end they defeat it with a soft squishy balloon and take a photo of it. It pays off neither of the rules the movie was following. why?

I have a huge list of notes on this movie because everyone is saying it has some deep subtext but it just looks like a mess. The TMZ guy's name in the credits is Ryder (he rides a motorbike, also a very white california name) Muybridge (the guy who filmed the first motion picture - the black jocky - OJ's great great great great grandfather). Is there some meaning that the descendants are again in the role of a person making a motion image of another person riding a horse? nothing has changed?

Antonymous has issued a correction as of 19:31 on Aug 9, 2022

# ? Aug 9, 2022 19:27

Tankbuster: Oct 1, 2021

Some Guy TT posted:

was the tiny indian dude a good guy or a bad guy seems like that could go either way

I don't remember.

# ? Aug 9, 2022 19:36

MacheteZombie: Feb 4, 2007

Antonymous posted:

the movie sets up 2 rules for the alien

#1 - it doesn't like to eat metal (later explained because it is a balloon, soft and squishy)
#2 - it doesn't like to be looked at - maybe this is why it killed their dad - he looked up. It's why it eats the people at Jupiter's Claim. It's why it attacks their house. The movie shows over and over if you look, you die, if you don't look, you live.

Okay so at the end they defeat it with a soft squishy balloon and take a photo of it. It pays off neither of the rules the movie was following. why?

I have a huge list of notes on this movie because everyone is saying it has some deep subtext but it just looks like a mess. The TMZ guy's name in the credits is Ryder (he rides a motorbike, also a very white california name) Muybridge (the guy who filmed the first motion picture - the black jocky - OJ's great great great great grandfather). Is there some meaning that the descendants are again in the role of a person making a motion image of another person riding a horse? nothing has changed?

Their dad died because the alien took a poo poo and the debris killed him

# ? Aug 9, 2022 19:40

Miss Lonelyhearts: Mar 22, 2003

I really like X-files and rewatched them all but what really stood out watching them as an adult is just how many times Mulder rescues Scully, it's over and over and over for the first 4ish seasons. Especially apparent in the Chris Carter multi-episode arcs.

# ? Aug 9, 2022 19:48

Antonymous: Apr 4, 2009

MacheteZombie posted:

Their dad died because the alien took a poo poo and the debris killed him

yah but OJ was right there, didn't look up, didn't die, or even get hit

The key didn't penetrate that deep into Ghost.

The only reason the dad died is he looked up. The coin would have bounced off his skull. But instead it got into his brain through his eye.

Both literally and thematically his dad died because he looked at it

# ? Aug 9, 2022 19:49

MacheteZombie: Feb 4, 2007

Gotcha read that as dad got pulled up for looking up and was very confused

# ? Aug 9, 2022 19:51

Action Jacktion: Jun 3, 2003

Frosted Flake posted:

Was Fringe good?

I remember liking it though it's been a while. It has standalone episodes and an ongoing story that actually goes somewhere. The fourth season gets bad though.

Paper Girls is a new show that I thought was pretty good, though the character interactions are more interesting than the science fiction plot. I'm not sure how c-spam it is.

# ? Aug 9, 2022 19:52

WrightOfWay: Jul 24, 2010

Frosted Flake posted:

Was Fringe good?

It takes a while to find its footing and even once it does, the quality of the standalone episodes are pretty mixed, but it has a lot of heart and John Noble is fantastic.

# ? Aug 9, 2022 19:58

oscarthewilde: May 16, 2012; I would often go there
To the tiny church there

Frosted Flake posted:

Was Fringe good?

I quite liked it during original release, but the writers (*cough* JJ Abrams) were obsessed with writing a mystery without actually knowing how to resolve it. it�s not that big of an issue in a mid 2000�s tv series, but hugely frustrating when you�re in charge in of the biggest sci-fi franchise in history

# ? Aug 9, 2022 20:03

AnimeIsTrash: Jun 30, 2018; Can't post for 6 hours!

WrightOfWay posted:

It takes a while to find its footing and even once it does, the quality of the standalone episodes are pretty mixed, but it has a lot of heart and John Noble is fantastic.

The episodes especially early on are pretty hit or miss. Even after it gets "good" it gets a little too convoluted.

# ? Aug 9, 2022 20:08

Tankbuster: Oct 1, 2021

Miss Lonelyhearts posted:

I really like X-files and rewatched them all but what really stood out watching them as an adult is just how many times Mulder rescues Scully, it's over and over and over for the first 4ish seasons. Especially apparent in the Chris Carter multi-episode arcs.

Well she is the brains and mulder is the brawn.

# ? Aug 9, 2022 20:15