If I can remember, the UFO came twice in the season at, in my opinion, the two most significant scenes. Any explanations for these sightings?
shareIt was in the seventies not long after "Close Encounters" came out and UFO sightings were common. One was even reported by a law enforcement officer. I don't think there's any more to it than that, but I could be wrong.
share[deleted]
As already mentioned, the late seventies were the peak for alien/UFO sightings.
However I think the reason UFOs appear in the show is more prosaic. Throughout the show we (the viewer) become intimate acquaintances with vicious killers and horrific events, and in a way we become desensitized to the actions of the characters. I believe the aliens appearing in these scenes was a way of inviting us to look at the events through the eyes of bystanders, and reflect not just on the characters as people, but to reflect on them as exemplars of humanity. For example, in the scene where Bear has Lou on the ground, and the alien spacecraft spotlights them and other dead Gerhardt gang members, don't you feel prompted to reflect on the brutality and violence of the scene as it must appear to a different sentient race?
They are studying these people.
shareWell, if they were studying these people no wonder they never showed themselves. What really got me was Ed's wife being so casual about it, "oh it's just a space ship".
I know shew as crazy and totally out of touch with reality a lot of the time but come on. :)
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Wow I actually really like this idea. I got the same notion as well but couldn't quite put it into words xdpflxfd
shareBecause of "The Third Encounter" craze, aliens thought humans are ready and prepared to show themselves. But ultimately they decided not to based on other consideration.
shareI think it was just the Coen brothers messing with us.
Schrodinger's cat walks into a bar, and / or doesn't.
The Coen brothers are not writers of the Fargo TV series, only Exec Producers and probably have little to do with the creative side of things. Just FYI fer ya there.
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We've lost Gorgeous George
The Coen brothers are not writers of the Fargo TV series, only Exec Producers and probably have little to do with the creative side of things. Just FYI fer ya there.That's the story, and I'm sure it's as true as the events depicted.
Well okay then, but don't executive producers get final script approval?
Schrodinger's cat walks into a bar, and / or doesn't.
It certainly felt like the Coen brothers. Either they were heavily involved or they trained a damned good protege.
"Are you seeing this?"
"It's just a flying saucer, Ed. We gotta go."
It's a nod to the Coen brother's film, The Man Who Wasn't There. See the two here:
https://youtu.be/cusD04c8eJM
I think the writers were just throwing things at wall to see what would stick, and yeah nod to The Man Who Wasn't There...but:
They are studying these people.
SPOILERS!!!
Not sure about this, but the first time the aliens show up, the little gershardt just snorted coke, and the second time was in the 9nth episode that was a chapter of a book, if you noticed it didnt start as a normal episode, maybe it was a nod as if maybe or maybe not it appeared , you cant take it literal. The only two people who acknowledge the ufos, was ed, whos dies and Lou was being choked at the moment, hypoxia makes you see lights... maybe that was their approach.
Just a theory, I really dont know :)
the little gershardt just snorted coke
the second time was in the 9nth episode that was a chapter of a book, if you noticed it didnt start as a normal episode
Meh, it could track with Peg being crazy, since she's the only 'reliable witness' (especially for a true story that involves details Hank & Lou decided not to share) who could have told the story latter about what happened on the road that night, and the only one at the motel as well with Hank and Lou as mentioned so distracted but, there's also lights from presumably a saucer passing over the butcher shop only visible to the audience with the war of the world quote about aliens watching earth at the end of the second episode.
shareNot necessary to the plot,and seemed just a writers in-joke.Spoiled a good series for me.Made series one look far superior.
shareYeah, I'm kind of the same way. If you accept the series as being "quirky" and just to be fun, then it is ok. But so many people fluff it up to be something more than that.
If you do that, then you have to judge it with a different standard. When you judge it by a different standard, then you have to knock it for using UFO's as a plot device.
Sure, I know there are UFO sightings all of the time, but to use a UFO as the only reason Lou survived the shoot-out is just......
Season one did that with the flying fish as well. Both the fish, and the ufos tarnished what I would call two perfect seasons of television.
shareI was ok with the fish, only inasmuch as things such as that have been proven beyond any reasonable doubt.
While I'm not saying UFO's don't exist or that we're alone in the universe, we have no definitive proof they are real.
The worst was just that it was a lame-azz way to help Lou survive. You might as well kill Darth Vadar by shooting him with a conventional gun-powder rifle because he's never faced an ancient weapon like that before so he doesn't know it is dangerous.
Yeah, it really irked me that they threw in a UFO in there. Actually really took me out of the story. Still a good series, and I have nothing against UFO lore per sé, but it just didn't fit in there at all.
shareSure, a nod to The Man Who Wasn't There, but it does more than nod. It has an effect on the viewer.
The UFO doesn't belong, it's blatantly arbitrary. The effect is to break the spell of the story and make one suddenly aware of the artifice.
The UFO first interferes with the action by distracting Rye, who gets run over by Peggy. Then there's a bookend scene at the end when it interferes again by distracting Bear, thus saving Lou, who shoots Bear. Not only is the UFO itself totally arbitrary, the timing of its arrival is "perfect," i.e., blatantly contrived. Again we're forced out of the narrative and made aware of the artifice. We're supposed to notice deus driving the machina.
Something similar happens in the Coen film No Country For Old Men, although with some internal logic. It's when Moss is dispatched off screen. His perfunctory death throws people out of the story's spell, and, if they're curious, makes them think about what they were buying into. Namely, the experience of ritualized climactic violence that supposedly delivers personal and social regeneration/redemption, a glorious end for the action/western hero.
Fargo progresses by dumb luck, chance, ambiguous motives, and interstellar intervention - all to say, there's no logic, no neat cause-effect, no orderly progression that we expect from, and perhaps need, from a story. If the particular order of all these events is arbitrary, it's stripped of meaning. Only moments count. Lying in bed with one's spouse. Reading to one's daughter. Father-in-law commisserating with son-in-law, trading war stories. The family sitting together after a meal. The grand scheme - the scheme Milligan is after - is an illusion. And so we leave Mike, disillusioned. It's not what he thought would happen, and not what we thought, either. What we get instead is that quiet evening at home.
"You must not judge what I know by what I find words for." - Marilynne Robinson
(slow clap)
shareSo Well Said.
:)