MovieChat Forums > Firestarter: Rekindled (2002) Discussion > You've really gone and done it now!

You've really gone and done it now!


I saw this last night and pretty much kept the discrepancies from the first film suppressed in my mind.

OK, so the not-noticeably Native American-y George C. Scott is now the even less Native American-y Malcolm McDowell, and I can't understand how Charlie, who seems experienced enough, either got her apparent sexual experience, or, with that experience granted, how it was she hadn't learned after Kiss One that amatory fun was dangerous. But I let them slide.

And Rainbird wasn't head of the Shop or the originator of Lot 6 in the original film. OK, swallowed.

But I could not for the life of me see for one instant why, having turned Rainbird into ash with a fuggin' kiss of all things (why not blast him with a fireball from a distance and be done with it), this then obligated Charlie to burn up the entire town. And yet she left the super-boys largely intact except for Cody.

That I just could not get for the life of me. What on earth had the poor blameless people of the town done to her? That for me stretched any sympathy for the character to the limit and beyond.

OK, in the Drew Barrymore original, I can accept that she was crazed beyond all measure, knowing these people were never, ever going to leave her alone, and that they were responsible for her father's death.

But this casual nuking of a town I cannot understand or empathise with.

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Just watched it yesterday. My wife asked the same question.

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She knew once she started she couldn't stop, because it's ruled by her emotions. When Rainbird killed Vincent he basically triggered her. Cody was the same, the more energy he experienced the more he wanted. So I think the only way to stop Cody was effectively to let go and set her power loose. He would suck it up, thereby stopping her and in return she overloaded him by not holding back. That's why he's shut down again at the end.
Given that the other kids, who were only feet from them, were fine, I doubt anyone else was actually 'nuked'. I suspect it was more a cancelling out of opposing forces and the design team chose a poor visual for it.

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