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Watch him again when Rachel first comes to his apartment. His reaction is superb, repressed, understated.
Then again as he stands over the body of Zora after he killed her. Easy to see why he didn't want to be a Blade Runner anymore.
I agree. I think the screenplay missed an important point: Once Jim learned she had a return ticket that should have been a major "uh oh!". At that point he had to understand he could never admit he woke her. Because had she been any other passenger it couldn't be said he "murdered" her. The passengers were on a quest to inhabit a new world. No guarantees, I'm sure. So the new world, in the case of two of them, happens to be the ship. Given the circumstances, I don't think what Jim did was unreasonable. He just chose the wrong person to wake.
It's really a shame the story took such a well-worn path, because it's a great premise.
The way I'd have liked to see it go is maybe Jim, realizing Aurora won't forgive him, takes himself to some part of the ship as far off the beaten path as he can. Aurora, thinking perhaps he went out the airlock, is now alone. She experiences his isolation. Arthur, surely not designed to operate for a century without maintenance, starts to malfunction. She doesn't even have him. She studies the manuals, learns how to wake passengers. Maybe as a distraction, to keep from doing what Jim does, she explores the ship in greater detail, & finds Jim. Now she can forgive him.
I like that scenario better.
Also, why didn't they wake some of the crew, the captain in particular, after gaining access to the command module?
Thanks for the clarification.
Yes, as I think on it, consider that all of the Bond adventures could be said to have taken place after Casino Royale, while any subsequent Bond adventures will take place before No Time To Die. Craig's tenure merely bookmarked the series.
Sorry. Just watched it. Was well done in terms of atmosphere & score, yes. But overall seemed to be a meditation on the dangers of black mold. Which we already know is dangerous. I had high hopes when they find the note, early on, that says "don't follow it". But that led nowhere. And Sam getting lost in an other-dimensional version of the house, also interesting. But if it was just hallucination on her part, no so much.
What was the deal with the great-grandfather? Was the idea that he was infected by the mold, left to suffer & rot. Said mold later brought to the house via the windows? Okay. So it lay dormant for all the years Kay & Edna's husband lived there, only striking when Edna was alone?
Did like the ending where Kay found herself unable to walk away even though the black thing was plainly no longer her mother. And Sam couldn't leave Kay. References back to her comment about mom changing your nappies, then you change mom's.
Still, nothing at all like Hereditary. I mean, all we the viewers have is speculation as to what happened & why. Seems like weak storytelling.
Not sure I agree wrt the tree & passage of time. Aurora, after all, never says anything to Jim about nearly drowning as the ship's gravity fails. She even argues with Gus that Jim "murdered her". So I don't see her coming around until the emergency with the ship is revealed.
Ultimately it was George Gannon who learned about Dodson's father, & conspired with Seidler because both were aware of the church's shortfall. I believe it was shown that Gannon knew Seidler from back in the day & the Polish guys, so they were brought in as well.
No. Only one juror was bribed. When Wigham's character delivered the payment the juror told him that two others also held out against a guilty verdict. The bribed juror assumed at the time they had also been paid, only learning afterward they weren't. It was, I reckon, intended as a testament to Mason's powers of persuasion.
I think that's a good point about it being unnecessarily cruel, at least from the personal standpoint. The novella, after all, is told from Drayton's pov, so an ending like that would be impossible. Ironically, King's ending might be much, much worse, because if the mist keeps spreading, there's no hope for them anyway.
I'm curious, have you also read the novella? King's work is usually very literary, difficult to translate to the screen. Darabont did a good job, by & large. But I can see that going just by the film one gets the impression it was a standard cgi-monster flick. Still, I think the novella & its ending conveys a sense of cosmic horror, largely through Drayton's narration, that is lacking in the film adaptation.
Incidentally, I hadn't realized Darabont did Shawshank. That's another ending I don't like as much. In the novella Dufresne tells Red about the rock under which he put papers & money prior to his imprisonment, but never suggests Red follow in his footsteps. After Red's paroled he finds himself unable to adapt to the wider world. He considers committing a minor crime in order to be sent back to prison, but starts looking for Dufresne's rock as sort of a Hail Mary. It's a surprise when Red finds the rock, a note from Andy & money that will permit him to travel south & join him in Mexico. I liked that ending better. Not sure why Darabont changed it. (sorry, if you've already read the novella, than disregard).
Darabont's ending didn't piss me off, but I think King's was better, actually more in keeping with the rest of the story. I'm not entirely sure I buy King's praising of Darabont. He has been supportive of filmmakers in the past (if memory serves, he even supported Kubrick in Danse Macabre, though he clearly didn't like Kubrick's adaptation of The Shining) regardless of his feelings about their work.
As I wrote elsewhere, Darabont's ending takes The Mist from the realm of cosmic horror & transforms it into BEM, because the monsters are being destroyed, their range is finite, normality, more or less, restored. All of which is typical of the BEM genre.
In King's ending, for all we know, the mist will continue to spread indefinitely ... & all that implies.
Oh indeed. That's why I spend any time at all pondering such a so-so film. There were so many interesting ideas or ways it might have gone. Based on what you wrote, maybe even a horror comedy: Jim offs Aurora (which he probably should have done as soon as he realized she had a round-trip ticket), & wakes somebody new. Only she has problems & so on.
Even better might be to start with a woman waking first, waking & jettisoning one potential companion after another. Perhaps as a climax they wind up stalking one another on the ship a la The War of the Roses.
I agree. Was she really going to spend the rest of her life talking only to Arthur? I think a more interesting film would have been them working it out gradually. I dunno: maybe it starts by Jim hiding out somewhere on the ship, for months on end. He probably knows the ship better & has more practice at solitude than Aurora. For all she knows he's gone out the airlock. It's manipulative, but also permits her to see what things were like from his pov.
I couldn't figure out why, after they saved the ship, & had Fishburne's override they didn't wake the captain, or at some other crew member. That would have been a reasonable thing to do given the circumstances.
Didn't he also save her life? After all, he couldn't have repaired the ship by himself. When she tells Fishburne's character he "murdered me" her anger is understandable. But he didn't ruin her life so much as change it. Which people do to one another all the time, often without intending to.
That said, I was deeply disappointed in the film. So many good & interesting ideas wasted. I would have started out with a female passenger awakening. Just start with that. Then maybe lose the extreme save-the-ship! part & explore the ethics of intruding on someone else's life in order to save your own.
More like that...
I think "Penny" was based on Persephone, daughter of the Earth goddess, Demeter. One version of the story has Hades visiting Olympus & falling in love with Persephone. Eventually he kidnaps her & brings her to his domain in the Underworld. Only Zeus, Hades's brother, witnesses the kidnapping. Demeter, bereft at the loss of her daughter, searches high & low, but cannot find her. While searching, Demeter withholds her blessing from the earth. Crops fail, the soil hardens & grows fallow. Famine rages & people are unable to make their customary offerings to the gods. The gods finally prevail upon Zeus to intervene. He reveals that Persephone is in the Underworld with Hades.
One problem, however. During her time there, Persephone grew fond of Hades; she liked being Queen of the Underworld. So finally a compromise is worked out—for 9 months of the year Persephone returns to her mother, the remainder she spends in the Underworld. During the latter time Demeter continues to mourn; the earth grows fallow & crops don't grow. We call it "winter".
Some of this is used in the screenplay, though obviously "Penny" is presented more as escaping Hades than being fond of him. Also not certain where the Nepenthe she gives to Harrison fits in, or why touching her begins to restore his memory of their previous rides.