MovieChat Forums > Looker (1981) Discussion > Laughably bad edit

Laughably bad edit

posted 12 years ago by d-davidfrancis
4 replies | jump to latest

I remember liking this movie when I saw it on television as a kid. As other have already pointed out the film has a several occasions of bad editing and missing scenes. But to me, the worst edited scene in the movie has nothing to do with plot points or deleted scenes, its simply bad continuity.

The scene occurs when Dr.Roberts takes Cindy back to his office after their escape from Digital Matrix HQ. It is clearly night outside,as they have just left the HQ and through his office windows you can see it is night. He lays her down on an examination table, covers her up, then checks the rest of the office. He discovers that someone has entered the office, the office is filled with smoke, Cindy is missing, and a firefight ensues with silenced automatic weapons. Ron Burgandy and his buddy shoot up the entire office. Dr.Roberts cuts the hand of the goon and he drops his gun. Burgandy says "Forget about him, we have the girl", and they leave. Dr. Roberts,panting and wet from the broken sink, leans against the wall and exhales.Fade to black...

A title card appears saying "Sunday". Did these have any meaning? Did the day have any significance in this movie? I don't why the audience should have cared.

Anyway the scene changes to Detective Masters at the bullet riddled office the next day investigating the wreckage. He says to his partner something like "We're closing in, it's just a matter of what Roberts does next and if he stays alive"

Then the scene changes to Roberts in his Porshe being chased by Ron Burgandy in a bid Caddy trying to shoot him with the Looker gun.

What the hell happened?!! Were they chasing each other in cars all night? Cindy wasn't in the car, so did they drop her off then come back in the morning and start a car chase? It was such a jarring transition that I rewound the disc to see if it had skipped. Nope, just really bad editing. It reminded me of Robert Rodriguez's "Planet Terror" when the film breaks during the sex scene and it resumes with everybody in a burning cabin shooting zombies. Like a whole reel was missing.

[–] jztzt 12 years ago

Maybe they cut the previous scene out. In any case, I agree with you. This film is very silly and is kind of a guilty pleasure. At some point in the film I simply gave up, emptied my mind and watched the film without questioning its logic and just went along with it.

[–] philoj 8 years ago

While the movie is rife with technical issues, that's all outweighed by the incredible prescience of the technology. When I first saw it in the 80s, the concept of a computer being able to digitize a model, animate and render her so that the model looks more perfect than the actress was insane. Yet here we are where it's just around the corner.

Usually watching an 80s movie where technology is a centerpiece is almost impossible because they get everything so wrong. Here's a movie where they get it so right it makes up for the weakness of the movie itself. In fact, it's almost like the movie was made today to be set in '81 and they couldn't get the technology old enough.

[–] richard.fuller1 9 years ago

I saw this movie on tv back when it first came out and liked it, perhaps on a high school kid level.

I haven't seen it since, but it is airing several times on Escape tv. I recorded it last night and will watch it later. Hope to still enjoy it.

It seemed very prophetic for how images of performers are placed into scenes nowadays and dead actors are used in movies and commercials.

As well as the need to not 'pay' these performers, since they are dead, hence why the models were killed.

I don't understand everyone's confusion over the movie.

I'm going to watch it and see if it is so badly edited at these moments, but again, I haven't seen it in over thirty years.

[–] omoxus 8 years ago

Agreed. That was terrible.

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