11.22.63 - James Franco in Stephen King's JFK Time-Travel Miniseries

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > 11.22.63 - James Franco in Stephen King's JFK Time-Travel Miniseries

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

I'll keep watching, but I'm not entirely sold on this. The JFK conspiracy stuff seems pretty dumb, and just going back to prevent his murder seems like a bit of a waste of a time portal. But most of all the protagonist is just really unimaginative and is doing a lot of dumb stuff. Like, when he pissed off the bookie, why didn't he return to the present immediately and reset everything so he could go back and not gently caress up so badly? Why did he do so little preparation? Why, when he realised how unprepared he was, didn't he go back to the present to reset everything and do some more prep? Why did the old guy's research exist only in a single, hand-written copy? He should have typed up all that stuff on his computer and printed out multiple copies to send back with the protagonist. Why did the protagonist try to phone his own father? What was he hoping to achieve?

If it were me, and I was absolutely set on trying to save JFK, I'd go back, make some quick cash, and pay someone to put a plan into action to foil the assassination. Then you can come straight back to the present and see if it worked.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2016 16:43

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 13:38

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

blue squares posted:

Because it's a story and if he just rests out of every conflict, it would be boring.

A: No it wouldn't. The way the time travel resets everything each time makes it an interesting choice of when to reset, because anything you achieved the first time gets undone, and if you gently caress up after living in the past for two years you probably don't want to lose those two years of effort.

B: Saying "It has to be that way for the story to work" is just admitting that it's badly written. There should be a reason within the story for how the characters behave.

Fast Luck posted:

Also because he literally has to live all those days. So like he'd have to go back and live through however many days and weeks all over again if he has to reset, and he gets older too each time.

No one was suggesting he should stay in the past three years and then reset it and try again, but he definitely should have reset it after that first day because he really hosed up and it had only been a day.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2016 02:31

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Fast Luck posted:

He did get away safely with $3500.

He can keep that though. You can bring stuff back to the present through the portal.

Cojawfee posted:

Why did he throw his phone away? Whenever he goes back to the future, won't he need a phone?

I was thinking that as well. It was probably dumb to bring it, but having done so it was even dumber to throw it away.

timp posted:

His reactions to how different things are in 1960, usually how cheap things are, were all my favorite parts of this episode.

In basically every time travel story, I always want them to spend more time on this sort of stuff. Even going back or forward relatively small amounts of time there would be just so many things that you'd be surprised by or have to adapt to.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2016 17:30

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Zwille posted:

Either way I'm stoked for Jake's next runthrough and him improving Groundhog Day style.

Assuming he actually does do a reset. He's already passed up a couple of really obvious opportunities to do so.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2016 18:03

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Karmine posted:

I didn't view the episode as a matter of Jake wrapping his mind around killing someone. Through that lens it makes a lot more sense but I still can't shake the idea that the main point of this episode was to give Josh Duhamel as much screen time as possible.

It seems like maybe we were supposed to see it as him coming to terms with having to kill, but it really didn't come across that way.

timp posted:

I wasn't crazy about how forced the high school dance conflict seemed to be. First the faculty twists his arm to get him to chaperon the dance despite insisting that he couldn't, and then everyone is furious when he has to leave unexpectedly. Is it that hard to believe that a grown man might have some affairs to attend to that are none of his coworkers business, even in 1960 in Texas?!

Also, he's got simple excuse he could use, he needed to go check on his "brother". Say he's got a medical condition or something and that's why he couldn't get back, turned out his brother needed him.

Basebf555 posted:

It seems like at this point resetting is going to be a really tough decision, and something particularly bad probably has to happen to force him into it. Like, somehow saving the janitor's family makes it impossible to save Kennedy, something like that. Or maybe his substitute teacher girlfriend gets killed in one of those accidents caused by time being pissed.

Except... the more stuff goes wrong, the more reason he has to trigger a do-over. And yeah, time he spends in the past is time he can't get back, but if he's successful then he changes the whole world anyway. The 2016 he returns to if he prevents Kennedy's death is not the same one he left. He actually has more to lose by succeeding than by failing. To be honest, if he can commit to spending three years in the past, it's not a huge leap to justify going back and trying again. And each reset makes the next reset look more reasonable, too.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2016 16:56

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Frosted Flake posted:

The past pushing back is done really well too.

I was thinking just the opposite. How come nothing happened when he told the kid about the assassination and time travel and everything? Isn't that going to have major effects? What determines when something is important enough to cause consequences? It seems totally arbitrary.

ExtraNoise posted:

I honestly can't tell if you guys didn't notice the signs in the hallway going from 1960 to 1961 to 1962 (and then referencing several other instances of it being 1962 now)

Didn't see them at all. :shrug:

The whole timing thing was very confusing to me. I got that at some point it was 1962, but I didn't realise when the time jump happened. I sort of had the impression that he got the teaching job in 1962, but that actually happened earlier? What year was that? When did he kill Josh Duhamel?

ExtraNoise posted:

Then you also probably didn't notice that Sadie was the girl in the front seat of the pink convertible that made eye-contact with Jake when he first arrived in Maine in 1960.

Nope.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2016 03:25

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Karmine posted:

The guy stealing the audio equipment was definitely the past pushing back

I don't think that's clear at all.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2016 16:10

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

buddhanc posted:

I was under the impression that the scenes with Ms. Mimi were more about setting up Franco's character as the outsider. The strange writer / teacher that speaks differently and stands up for civil rights probably sticks out like a sore thumb.

But it didn't go anywhere? He's there for two years and everyone likes him and no one seems to regard him as strange or outspoken or whatever.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2016 11:28

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Well, that episode was super dull. And if the CIA is behind JFK's assassination, what do you think you can do about it? Even if you foil one attempt, why wouldn't they just try again? But that issue aside, mostly I'm just bored now. This story doesn't seem to be going anywhere. Is the past still pushing back at him? It doesn't seem to be. Is he making any real progress on saving JFK? He doesn't seem to be. It seems like he's half way between two stories and not really committed to either. One is the JFK thing, the other is him living this life in the '60s, and each of them is getting in the way of the other so neither of them really go anywhere.

FilthyImp posted:

Partially because spending that much time in the setting and being singularly focused would make him stand out? There's old man Amberson again type stuff.

Not really though. He could just be someone that no one really knows or cares about. The only reason people notice him is because of the stuff he's doing to blend in.

ExtraNoise posted:

the clothespin thing

That was so weird and confusing. I thought at first she was going to say that he was gay, but instead it's this stuff about the clothes-pin, and I thought I'd misheard, but then it comes up later and I had to Google it to figure out what the gently caress they were talking about.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2016 15:23

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Astroman posted:

In a way though, that's the story. If it was just a thought exercise in "how would you/or would you even save JFK", then the Macguffin would be he could choose when to go back, or he'd show up in October '63. The fact that he has to slowly live through 3 years means like any of us, he'll get roped in to living a life and being "off mission" after awhile, which makes for a more interesting story.

That's the problem though, it doesn't make for a more interesting story. Regardless of which aspect we're seeing, it feels like the other is getting in the way of it going anywhere. There's this weird disconnect where he seems to be "all in" on whichever side he's currently on, but then will get get pulled back into the other and his focus completely flips. It's like they couldn't figure out which story they wanted to tell.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2016 04:55

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

waitwhatno posted:

The clothespin thing was very well done.

It was so well done that a good proportion of the audience had no idea what they were even talking about and had to Google it. Masterful story-telling. :downsbravo:

emanresu tnuocca posted:

You could always reset one more time if the world went to poo poo.

Unless something stops you. Like, maybe you changed something that meant you were never born and you only exist until you try to return to the present. Or maybe the building burned down and the time portal doesn't work any more. Without knowing how it works, you can't rely on that.

Fragmented posted:

Actually now that i think about it wouldn't stopping the JFK assassination be just as easy? Just call the secret service and tell them your neighbor told you he's going to shoot the president(and hes a marine sniper that defected to the USSR, and he showed you his rifle)? Stick around for a year or so and see if the assassination happens differently and if it does with Oswald in jail, boom: Conspiracy. Reset try again.

There are definitely plans you could try out that would require much less investment and have fewer risks than spending three years in the past spying on Oswald and his associates. Do your research and preparation in the present, travel to the past, set things in motion and come home to see if it worked or how it played out. Hire someone to kill Oswald, for example. Hire ten people, or a hundred. Money's really no object since you can basically make as much of it as you need by repeating that one day. Or hire people to wait till the day of the assassination is coming up and send in warnings or bomb threats or anything that would keep Kennedy from being where he was supposed to be.

ExtraNoise posted:

In the book, Al addresses his reasoning for what events he believes unfold:

Pretty sure he said all that in the show too. It's just, why is James Franco convinced that he's right? There are so many other ways things could go.

Basebf555 posted:

I really liked this episode as well. The scene with the ex-husband was incredibly tense, because I didn't feel like Sadie had any of the normal plot armor a character like that would have. I thought there was a good chance she was going to end up dead, so I was on the edge of my seat the whole time.

I wish she had died, then he might finally have done a reset. What's his plan now anyway? Is he going to keep trying to save Kennedy and then just stay in the past and live out his life there? Is he giving up on saving Kennedy now because he's decided that Sadie's more important? Whatever else he does, it seems like he can't possibly be planning to return to 2016 at all now.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2016 14:17

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

timp posted:

I think it was just a hypothetical from before he learned about the time portal. Not all that unusual of a question for high school students really, and a good way to try to get them to put themselves into history and get a better appreciation for it.

He did seem to be disappointed that they were suggesting stuff he couldn't use, but I think that was just the show being bad rather than actually trying to imply he knew about time travel at that stage.

# ¿ Mar 17, 2016 15:18

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Did everyone who's going on about the yellow card man read the book? Because I have no idea what you're talking about.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2016 04:13

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

waitwhatno posted:

You thought that Jake took a bus to Sadie's house and that they just cut out the bus riding scene for dramatic effect. Don't try to weasel your way out of this, stand by your horrible, horrible TV watching skills.

Pretty sure no one actually thought this. It was just a hypothetical dumb explanation for why he was running instead of driving right to her house. The fact that she apparently walked to his house suggests that maybe they did live close enough that he'd just run, but it's hardly been established conclusively and the running scene did seem weird.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2016 18:18

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

OK, so he already learned in episode one about how making huge bets was a super dumb idea. I get that he needed a lot of money in a hurry, but what did he think was going to happen? How was he expecting this to play out?

# ¿ Mar 22, 2016 16:35

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Oh, and another thing from this episode. There was another time skip (six months this time) and it occurred to me that we didn't miss anything. Nor in the two-year jump earlier. When time jumps forward, nothing happens. The date changes but it's like the world was basically just frozen in place that whole time. It seems to relate to Oswald not being around, so if he was the focus of the story then it would make sense, but since the show is far more about the non-Oswald stuff it doesn't make sense.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2016 03:06

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

FilthyImp posted:

I know the big criticism is that the personal relationship stuff is getting in the way of all the cool time-travel related plot that could be happening, but I really enjoy the way that The Past Fights Back is turning Jake's past relationships into liabilities.

Is it though? Most of the stuff people in this thread are attributing to the past fighting back seems to be just actions having consequences.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2016 08:20

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

emanresu tnuocca posted:

No, Jake's actions are fully explicable ocne you factor in the fact that a "do over" with Sadie will not be authentic and perhaps more importantly that the moment he steps back through the rabbit hole there's gonna be a version of Sadie that will live out through the next 50 or so years abandoned, whether he resets or not the 50 years will be real for this one version of Sadie.

Well, that depends entirely on how time travel works. If there's only one timeline then a reset means that anything that happened last time just didn't happen. If each trip back creates a new timeline then it's impossible to change the past, all you're doing is switching into a different parallel timeline and everything that already happened stays happened, so you're not really saving JFK anyway, you're just abandoning the world in which died for one in which he didn't. If saving JFK is worth doing for anything more than purely personal, selfish reasons then there's no reason to not use as many do-overs as you want.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2016 10:14

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

Basebf555 posted:

And if he were to reset and attempt the relationship again, he'd inevitably be using knowledge of her gained from the previous runthrough, which is exploitative and morally questionable.

Yeah, and he hasn't done anything morally questionable so far.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2016 14:58

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 13:38

Tiggum: Oct 24, 2007; Your life and your quest end here.

LinkesAuge posted:

Lesson learned: Don't do anything to make people's life better, they will be better off without it.

Yeah, that seemed to be the message. Seems like a pretty terrible message, but there it is.

Vanderdeath posted:

Yeah, the glossing over of the alternate future was frustrating. I wanted to know how poo poo went hinky with JFK alive but they barely scratched the surface. It cheapened the whole conceit of the show, in my opinion.

Yep. It comes back to the issue of Jake not resetting at all ever. Why bring that up at the start only to do basically nothing with it?

emanresu tnuocca posted:

major spoilers I guess the new time hole monitoring guy tells Jake that the rabbit hole doesn't truly fully reset the timelines and that the major changes to the timeline caused by his saving of JFK are somehow fundamentally destroying reality, when he gets back to the present it's not just a war torn world he encounters there's actual apocalyptic phenomena all over the place. In the book there's already a major earthquake that kills 7,000 people in california a couple of days after Jake saves JFK and reality basically starts going off the rails at that point so the new past Jake discovers when he returns is less of an alternative history and more of the world kinda falling apart rather rapidly.

That sounds even dumber than the TV version.

Vorgen posted:

many worlds theory of time travel

Oh, so not time travel, just pointless time-wasting. Glad I didn't read the book.

Fast Luck posted:

The "time loop" thing for the yellow card man never ended up making sense. I mean, because that guy was caught in a time loop trying to save his kid, he just faded in and out of reality around Jake and hosed with Jake to teach him a lesson? And why does Sadie die "every time" according to him if Jake actually was able to save the janitor and save Kennedy, and Sadie doesn't even die period in the normal timeline? And how is it a "loop" if Jake can just go back to the present and quit trying at any time? Just didn't make sense.

Yep, that guy was a wizard. Anything that didn't make sense was because of magic. This show was bad.

Basebf555 posted:

I'm not sure how you could have taken him out completely, because he's the reason Jake decides he can't ever be with Sadie. You'd really have to re-write the ending completely to show Jake going through multiple cycles where he gradually figures it out on is own.

Which would have been a much better show!

tetrapyloctomy posted:

The show's portrayal of "the obdurate past" didn't live up to its initial car-into-a-phone-booth, which was extremely sinister.

Yeah, time "pushing back" was really not in evidence at all through most of the plot.

Guy Mann posted:

An easy way to do it is to have Sadie be all when a man she's never met before starts creeping on her and apparently knows everything about her and have Jake realize on his own that he can't ever have a true relationship with her again because the balance of power is so skewed.

Yeah, when he came back to the past and started chasing her I literally said "Oh, so he hasn't learned anything then." You can't go running down the street in soaking wet clothes in the middle of a bright sunny day yelling at some woman who doesn't know you, that is what a crazy person would do.

grapecritic posted:

How did the secret service know that James Franco saved them? Did I miss something?

That whole thing made no sense. How the gently caress did the Kennedys get an accurate report of what had happened when the police and FBI were still trying to figure it out?

Maybe there's some context in the book that makes this ending seem somehow satisfying, but based solely on its own merits it's garbage. This show was garbage. And that ending? Rather than finding out how this experience has affected our protagonist, we get to see that Sadie lived a life? Yeah, so? Who gives a poo poo? We knew she was a person who lived a life without Jake in the original timeline anyway, now it's just gone back to how it was before. Nothing loving happened. And like I said earlier, Jake learned nothing, and he hasn't changed in any noticeable way, he's just gone back to his old life as though none of it happened. What was the loving point?

# ¿ Apr 7, 2016 17:00

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > 11.22.63 - James Franco in Stephen King's JFK Time-Travel Miniseries