To be clear, I loved Twin Peaks but making a movie about her was a terrible idea. Especially since hardly any of the fun townspeople appeared.
Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel...
I wouldn't say that she was the least interesting character on the show. But my problem with FWWM is, that we already knew most of the stuff shown in the movie, because the police learned it in the investigation shown in the series. And Laura Palmer certainly isn't interesting enough to me for a movie all about her.
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Ahoy there, fancy pants
There's a world of difference between just knowing about it and watching it play out in Lynch's hands.
Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose.
The prequel idea was not great because we did kind of knew the backstory of Laura Palmer in the tv series. Still she is more interesting than James Hurley.
Its that man again!!
I completely disagree. There's a reason why the ratings started to drop after the murder case was solved in Twin Peaks. Laura-BOB-Leland-BlackLodge were the most interesting parts of the show for a lot of people. And I personally find her much more interesting than most characters and I know other people feel the same, going by the forums I have read.
However, this movie should have focused on the stuff that appeared on her diary, whether than just re-telling everything that we already knew from the show.
No, the ratings dropped because the show turned into a goofy soap opera for a few episodes (Evelyn, Lil' Nicky, Lana storylines etc). When they got back on track a bit later it was good again, and they more or less never did mention Laura again. But by then a lot of people had stopped watching.
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I think the film mostly focuses on revealing a new aspect to Laura's life, one that is only hinted at in the diary and not even discussed on the show. We see her relationship to her father, gain more knowledge (and admittedly, more questions) about how the Lodge creatures intermingle with the real world, learn about Leland's relationship with Teresa, and most importantly experience Laura's growing awareness firsthand. It's also usually pretty risky for a film to cover a broad expanse of time rather than a narrow period: it becomes patchy and unfocused. I think Lynch made the right decision in depicting Laura's last 7 days rather than attempting to adapt the diary. Yes, he touches on familiar tropes from the investigation but that's to a) heighten the tragedy, since they remind us what's coming, b) tie the film in to the show, since it feels so different in so many ways, c) emphasize how different it is to merely hear about something and to actually see it.
I agree that Laura was among the most interesting parts of the show (I would say the most interesting, which is saying a lot since there are many fascinating aspects to Twin Peaks).
As for the ratings - from what I can gather, the decline actually hit after the season two premiere, not the killer's reveal (or the weak episodes after that). Partly this may have been due to the scheduling: the s2 premiere aired on a Sunday (like the pilot) but the following episode began the Saturday-night graveyard shift that TP would maintain for months. Worst time for an audience that trended young and hip and was usually out partying at that time.
However, there also seems to have been a popular backlash against the series because it was growing more supernatural, darker, slower, and didn't seem like it was going to ever solve the mystery. Certainly there was a critical backlash at the time, with columnists who had praised the show to the skies in the spring now claiming it was "weird for weirdness' sake." Which simply meant Lynch had gone too far for them - far from being pointlessly weird, the show was drawing closer to its real sense of purpose: exposing Laura's dark secrets and the disturbing netherworld in which Twin Peaks was entrapped. That critics chose THIS moment to claim Twin Peaks was pointless is bizarre and perhaps a bit revealing.
Get Lost in the Movies on http://thedancingimage.blogspot.com/
IMO she should've been more sick-minded and troubled, as she was in her diary.
shareI think we saw quite a bit of her troubled mind in the movie, no? There's a reason the diary came as a shock to everyone around her - she concealed the uglier parts of her life. And so it is in the movie.
Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose.
"Hardly any of the fun townspeople appeared".
It wasn`t a very "fun" story.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
Laura Palmer's character and murder is what is known as a MacGuffin. She is just the catalyst for everything else that unfolds in the show...an excuse to explore the quirky and dark town of Twin Peaks.
They Live. We Sleep.
Agreed. I enjoyed reading the diary back in the days, but I watched FWWM for the first time last night after a TP marathon, and seriously, there was way too much focus on Laura in the movie.
We already knew most the things that had happened to her (except for a few random stuff like Bobby killing that guy in the woods, which had no point whatsoever), and these were just hammered on us really heavily: "here we go again just like at one-eyed jack", "you crazy Canadian", "Laura I'm your best friend!". No sh't (Gosh, the dialogues were so abysmal). She was a plot-device and should never have become the centre of the movie.
It's a shame because the movie was pretty good until Laura appeared. I would have preferred if she was still a character in the shadow that we would see people talk about or who would pass through during scenes focused on other people.
Totally disagreed. As a shadow she is just another "dead-girl" trope, one more intriguing than most but still just a plot device to turn the narrative wheels. Limited to this approach, Twin Peaks is quirky and challenging but never quite delivers on its promise.
As embodied on film by Sheryl Lee and directed by David Lynch, she's a figure of enormous complexity and tragedy. Laura Palmer as a human being, not merely a MacGuffin, is the most radical and powerful move Twin Peaks ever made. The point of the film is not to reiterate the forensic details of her murder, but to put us inside her head so we can experience firsthand the horror of her life as an abuse victim.
I applaud Fire Walk With Me for that and consider it one of the most overwhelming film experience I've ever had, as do many. I had issues with it the first time I saw it, but it hit me in the gut with a visceral punch I've never felt from any other movie. Halfway through, I'd forgotten it was even a Twin Peaks spin-off (and I'd just finished the series and was eager to watch the movie in that light). Sorry it did not work for you.
Get Lost in the Movies on http://thedancingimage.blogspot.com/
I would say she was the most interesting character in the show, even though she never physically appeared in it. Twin Peaks was stuffed with great characters but no other character could have carried the entire series - her death, and more importantly her troubled life, sparked and/or connected all the subplots initially and when the writers began to stray from that central hub the stories felt weaker and weaker. How one can watch the whole pilot and not feel compelled to know more about Laura, to find out who she was, is honestly beyond me.
Twin Peaks is fun, yes, but it's much more than that (sexual abuse and spiritual torment, which were purposefully placed at the center of the story, are hardly fun topics). The new Lynch/Frost series will almost certainly remind viewers of the series' darker and deeper aspects, and Laura Palmer, dead as she may be, will probably feature prominently. Lynch always felt she was the most important aspect of that world and Frost, who initially worried that her mystery was too distracting, has come to admit that Lynch was correct.
Get Lost in the Movies on http://thedancingimage.blogspot.com/