MovieChat Forums > The Final Cut (2004) Discussion > the concept itself seems flawed

the concept itself seems flawed

posted 19 years ago by keithw7799
25 replies | jump to latest

The general opinion of most people on this board is that the theory/concept is interesting, but its portrayal in the movie sucked. I actually think that the concept itself was weak, which made the movie weak.

First of all, if I understand correctly, the purpose of the Zoe implant is to record your entire life, so when you die, people at your "rememory" (funeral) can spend a couple of hours viewing a short recap of all the good parts of your life. What the hell is the motivation for that? Who benefits from it? The parents who purchase the implant for their newborn are probably already dead by the time their son/daughter dies. And, of course, the implantee will not be alive to see it. So what's the point? So you can be remembered from a short video clip? Don't camcorders pretty much do the same thing?

The idea of an implant that records one's life is very intriguing; however, the only really beneficial application I could see is for the implantee to have access to his own footage while he's still living (such as the scene where Robin Williams convinces his colleague to wire him up for 5 minutes). After all, it would be incredible to have the opportunity to push the rewind button on your life's history and re-live moments in the past. In the context of the sci-fi scenario, don't you think there would have been a market for developing safe technology for that?

Just my thoughts on why I had a hard time watching this movie. It might have made a good short story in 7th grade English class, but not as a script for an all-star Hollywood cast.

[–] faithfulnes 19 years ago

I totally agree with you. Why on earth would anyone pay big bucks for such a device? Makes no sense to me. However, I still enjoyed the movie a lot.

[–] geezerbu 18 years ago

Yeah it seemed a bit pointless but there's no doubt there would be a market for it
if it existed, people buy anything however i don't think it would be very big..
but hey what do I know?

[–] Tuggler 19 years ago

I agree with this last comment, although it does not go far enough.

The main observation to be made about human existence is that, yes, we do dumb things. It does not even matter what the motivation for it is.

There is no good reason why we even bury the dead; George Carlin once railed against "saving up all the dead people for one part of town," or something like that. It really is a waste of space.

Getting more to the point, I believe that, for whatever reason, people could totally buy into the Zoe implant. People can be overly sentimental, especially when it comes to remembering those in their life who are dead. Why does a woman clutch a pillow or blanket because it "smells like" her dead mother?

All that said, the movie was mediocre.

[–] buybobnow 19 years ago

I agree that there are certain things in the movie that are flawed. Several things. Many, you could agrue. It took me a while to warm up to the movie, but the conclusion I came to is that it has to be viewed as a whole story, not as a movie.

The problem with movies is that by their very nature they purport to be realistic. Even movies that are supposed to seem unrealistic have to go to great lengths to make sure we understand that we're not supposed to take the events literally. I'm not saying this film is one of those surrealistic movies, but rather the viewer has to get over their disbelief in many of the concepts.

The same realization came after watching "Face/Off" for the second or third time. I had not really given the movie a chance before because it just seemed too ludicrous. I mean, a guy switches his face with another guy? Wha? And there are more details in it, like the fact that he wakes up in the hospital in the dark with no one around him and escapes. Who keeps a patient in the dark in a hospital (especially after a very volatile face-transplant)? The point is, I had to get over these little bumps in believability in order to really let myself enjoy the rest of the movie, and the way I did that was to imagine it was more of a parable than a film.

Other classic parables, like the Tortoise and the Hare or the Gingerbread Man, and especially the many east Asian or Buddhist tales, are really rather far-fetched; talking animals and dragons and things like that. But the extreme circumstances and really unrealistic premises are just there to tell a deeper story. In the case of "Face/Off", it's really a parable about getting a new perspective on your enemy, etc. "Universal Soldier" is another prime example. Soldiers brought back to life after being dead for 30 years? Wha? They're part machine? I mean, there are so many places to completely lose interest in that film, but when you look at it for what it is underneath--a story about the futility of war and the persistence of humanity--you can forget about the ridiculous plot devices.

My point in all of this is that when viewing "The Final Cut", one has to look at the bigger picture. Instead of focusing on the believability or necessity of the Zoe device, or the odds of Robin Williams' character recognizing his childhood friend as an adult merely by seeing him wipe his glasses with his shirt--much less the odds of this man being seen at this very party at the very moment he was doing this very thing--the viewer should think about the larger philosophical questions that the story raises. There are no set questions, exactly, just issues regarding memory and death and the human condition. When in doubt, always look for the human condition factor. That's a given.

I hope this post has been enlightening to someone, or at least given them another way to think about things, and not just seen as a pretentious rant. I'm merely trying to share my own opinion on how movies of this nature should be looked at, and it has worked for me.

Happy viewing!

[–] Zando777 16 years ago

Carlin's an idiot.

I understand the criticisms of the "rememory" idea, but the truth is, if someone developed a drug that allowed you to access any memory with crystal clarity, I'd pay huge bucks for it, as would most people, I bet.

[–] lyliakar 19 years ago

Hi everyone.

I've just finished watching the film and after reading posts about it, I would like to say a couple of things.

First of all, maybe we missed something important about the fact that Alan recognises Louis.
He doesn't recognise him by the way he cleans his glasses. He simply recognises him because he had met him before.
To all of us, Louis as a child and Louis as an adult are simply 2 different people, one is a child actor and the other one is an adult.
But haven't you ever met someone many years after the last time you saw them and recognised them? I have.

As regards the flaws in the film, I agree with the fact that there are a few, but allow me to make a paradoxical comparison please.. when we read a poem, and try to explain every single word of it, we risk to miss the beauty of it, the music in the language, the imagery it evokes, and so on. A poem should be felt, it should flow like a river inside our hearts, and I don't think it's too useful for us to dissect it in order to try and understand it at its fullest. It will lose a lot.

This is how I felt about this film, it touched some of my emotional chords, and made me think. It doesn't matter if there are a few mistakes in it.

Regards.

[–] HappyGobo 19 years ago

No...it's a great concept. If you think about science fiction stories, you'll recognize a few key themes running through them all...big brother (1984, Minority Report), technology out of control (Jurassic Park and any number of monster movies), what makes a man a man, and is a machine a man? A clone? (I, Robot and Blade Runner). In the case of most Phillip K. Dick stories, the theme is "Damn it they are out to get me and they ALREADY KNOW WHERE I LIVE!" Blade Runner and Minority Report are based on Dick's stories, in case you didn't know. The themes continue, but never mind that, what about this movie?

In the case of this particular movie, Dick's paranoid tendencies are combined with the "technology gone bezerk" theme. The movie examines the ramifications of recording an individual's entire life and does it very well. So by science fiction terms it definitely succeeds.

I admit to some bias; I'm an editor and I think it'd be fun to edit the footage from one of these implants. What I question is how one could stand not watching all of the footage. You'd really have to have a few dozen people on mutliple rigs to do it properly.

[–] skcb186 19 years ago

i was thinking...Wouldn't it be a good thing to have if you found a dead body? You could just see who killed the person and how. And lets not forget that you can also see why some people turn out the way the do. Sometimes things happen to people over time and they become vain or bitter or depressed or drug addicts or whatever. Instead of just saying "that guy was a loser", you could understand and maybe sympathize with with decisions that he made which eventually lead to his demise. Or maybe I'm full of crap. Let me know.

[–] bluenotejazz 19 years ago

"First of all, if I understand correctly, the purpose of the Zoe implant is to record your entire life, so when you die, people at your "rememory" (funeral) can spend a couple of hours viewing a short recap of all the good parts of your life. What the hell is the motivation for that? Who benefits from it? The parents who purchase the implant for their newborn are probably already dead by the time their son/daughter dies. And, of course, the implantee will not be alive to see it. So what's the point? So you can be remembered from a short video clip? Don't camcorders pretty much do the same thing?
"

Complete Agreeance. The concept, the execution, it all just seemed so utterly ridiculous. To the poster that asked why someone would dress up the dead and put them in an overpriced box is an apples to oranges comparison. The technology and expense involved with what amounts essentially to a lifetime video camera always being turned 'on' is vast. Elevating the 'profession' of a 'cutter' to the status that would inspire such violent retribution is laughable at best. This is a job that even now could be preformed by any freckle-faced kid with a computer and a cheap video editing program, much less in the future. Even the acting was horrible (and that includes Robin Williams perfromance), though that's possibly more the fault of the silly sounding dialogue. And the lazy attempts at suspense and action in the final scenes made for one large straight-to-video snoozefest.

[–] HappyGobo 18 years ago

After clicking through your comment history I couldn't help but notice an overwhelming mess o' negativity. Personally, I'm always on the lookout for something good and/or different, something that I can connect to. In keeping with this outlook, I can usually find it. If you're looking for something not to like, you'll probably find it.

Try to look a little beneath the surface.

[–] rengam 18 years ago

I don't know why I'm answering this... bluenotejazz has surely moved on to spreading his negativity elsewhere by now and will probably not visit here again. Just the same:

The technology and expense involved with what amounts essentially to a lifetime video camera always being turned 'on' is vast.

First, we really don't know how much the implant nor the rememory service actually cost. As technology advances, the means to create that technology usually becomes cheaper. About ten years ago, my wife paid about $500 for 16MB of RAM. Now you can buy 2GB of memory to hang on your keychain for about $115. So it is with most technology. So, how do you quantify the price of technology that doesn't even exist -- you've no frame of reference.

Second, as established in the film, even if it does costs loads of money, it's almost exclusively the rich that have this procedure done. And the rich are not unlikely to spend "vast" amounts of money on something that will, one day, result in little more than a 10-30 minute memorial. They probably spend half the amount on their kid's 16th birthday party. ;-)

Elevating the 'profession' of a 'cutter' to the status that would inspire such violent retribution is laughable at best.

The violent retribution is inspired not necessarily by the cutter, but by the implant and usage of the chip. The protestors are angry with the company first, and the clients and cutters second. If you're referring to the fact that they are after Robin Williams' character, it's not simply because he is a cutter -- it's because he is a cutter in posession of particular footage that they want. Footage to damage the reputation of not cutters, but the rather EYE-Tech company. (I'm not sure their plan would work, but that's a different story.)

This is a job that even now could be preformed by any freckle-faced kid with a computer and a cheap video editing program, much less in the future.

Doubtful. Having the tools is not nearly enough. I have Adobe Photoshop; I cannot do the job of a professional graphics designer. I have paints; I cannot make a living selling artwork. I have hammers, saws, screwdrivers, levels, pencils, rulers, a dozen other such tools; I cannot design and build a house.

When you add in the fact that the cutters in this film generally have decades of footage to start with, any "freckle-faced kid's" head would probably explode just trying to figure out where to start. Unless he's a prodigy, there's no way he would turn out a decent rememory until he's been in the craft for years.

It's about more than just arranging random clips on a timeline. It's about undertanding the subject and how it should be presented, choosing the right clips and the best order (keeping in mind, there are not even hours of footage to choose from, but decades), matching it to music if needed, knowing the right rhythm for the cuts and keeping that rhythm while still making all the aforementioned elements still work. And if that weren't enough, the cutters have the stress of having to see all the foul, violent, disgusting things that their subjects did in their lives and still keeping their heads on straight.

(And I'm just going from what we see in the film. As a professional cutter, Robin Williams' character makes it look easy. ;-)

At any rate, even if your "freckle-faced kid" could handle the job, he's still isn't going to be a target for "violent retribution" unless he has the head of Eye-Tech's own personal ZOE implant. ;-)

[–] HappyGobo 18 years ago

well said.

[–] genaro_m 18 years ago

Yes, I agree, well said.

Another aspect is that while the people who are directly connected to the implant, the parents and child, are dead, many of the people who go to funerals don't know the stories of the dead person. They only remember them from their own experiences; how exactly is this a far judgement on a person who has a lifetime of stories?

The premise isn't weak and the film is pretty good.

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[–] ats02171 18 years ago

it;s about imortality. yeah the parents will not get to see their childrens tapes if they out live their kids. but in their memories you will live on. just like when the little girl dies her memories of her father may live on.

[–] kay_cee_d 18 years ago

Yes definately I agree ats02171, it is about immortality. I mean I think a lot of scifi movies have that running thing. Thing about it, most people believe that you are essentially your memories. They help to create the person you are, they are extremely important. People are always talking about their memories, their best moments because they are a reflection of who they are and what they have done in their lives. I think the chip would be created so that those memories could live forever, and therefore the person could live forever, because like I said a lot of people believe that memories are what make a person. Another thing is that it seems like it would definately help with the people left behind because they would be able to see the world as their loved one saw it. And remember those moments that they shared with them. I mean, wouldn't it put you in a kind of awe to see yourself through the eyes of someone you loved and who loved you? And its just like whenever you take pictures or record moments in life, except this time you have everything that this person ever did in their life at your disposal. I think this movie does raise some really great questions, maybe it wasn't perfect, but it was definately interesting.

~RIP Six Feet Under

[–] SoundtrackScience 18 years ago

First I was thrilled about the plot and ethical implications that rise of the idea of having everything a person sees recorded. However, the concept of anyone taking the effort to view overall dull footage (of over 540.000 hours in a lifetime) of a person is completely lunatic. Even with advanced cutting software that runs an AI selection process, it would be insain to watch footage for over 16 to 18 hours a day maybe just to sort out the very scenes you want to edit.

Also, from aesthetic point of view, a 'top class' cutter like Williams would only need his Guillotine v.6.12 editing panel to dismiss the obsolete stuff, but would prefer to cut all of it manually, only having the computer run specifically targeted searches for his purpose.

Aside from that, I want to draw a line through most of Williams films, of which I've seen quite some interesting 'wisdoms of life' which I want to quote some. Right now, I'd very much like to interview Robin Williams myself actually to inquire this of him.

I think Williams wants to get off the comical side since some years now. He took up more creepier roles in 'Insomnia', and 'One Hour Photo'. He can portray a sort of creepy, plastical part too... Overall did mostly humorous movies , and I only remember 'Good Morning Vietnam' as being a political pamphlet with great humor, but that aspect isn't really the point of that film, it's the absurdity of war, the fact that it opposes people who can be perfect friends in peacetime.

I was in awe of his role in 'What Dreams May Come', which is my all-time favorite film about life and death ever (aside to 'Meet Joe Black') - I still cry watching that, but I think in part that's because I'm half orphan.
Awkwardly, orphanship is a recurring theme in Williams films: in 'The Final Cut', Alan Hakman looses both his parents when he's only twelve. In 'Jumanji', Alan Parish (same surname, is it a coincidence?) slids into the Ouija board and gets lost for 20-some years in another jungle world/dimension, and forgets about his parents. In 'Hook', Peter Banning has no specific memories of his parents, untill Julia 'Tinkerbell' Roberts helps him discover his bear Poppa, which reminds him of his dad -upon which he succeeds in remembering his parents (and so learns how to fly again). All by all very nice thoughts actually, if you get past the story elements and dig deeper into these SYMBOLISMS (what this review of mine is about).

Although he's still doing some fun productions like RV, Happy Feet, or Best Man, I think somewhere around 'Jakob the Liar' (which I assess to be somehow more majestic than 'La Vita é Bella'), Hollywood realized he could also play serious drama.

I always picked up the central message in each film Williams played in and seemed he too wanted to convey that thought, whether it was scripted or he could associate with that bottomline very well.

For this, I can go back to 'Mrs. Doubtfire' and 'Hook': Doubtfire was about healing wounds in a divorce, and the (emotional) care for children in a torn family where the parents who can't get along with eachother have to put their personal rage aside and focus on the continuation of giving their undivided, unconditional love to their children, who need this like air (he uses this metaphor of emotional addictment to his children in court).

Hook was about remembering childhood, keeping it in a special place in your heart and making the right decisions and a stand that family life is more a priority instead of personal carreer - a father cannot choose between carreer and wife&kids, if he has a heart and conscience the latter come first place.
That and the corny, romanticized quote from the aged Tootles (guy who forgot his marbles with fairydust): "No more adventures for you, Peter?" Peter's reply: "O no. Life ITSELF is an adventure...". The greatest discovery being that your loved ones, spouse and children, remain the main thing that give purpose to your life.

Also, the 'adventure of man', his successes, errors, love dramas, managing his own life and finding a partner, facing death... were themes recurring in 'Being Human', which thematically also hooks onto 'Bicentennial Man'.
In the latter, household droid Andrew wishes to become human and ultimately desires to be formally declared as such by a UNO-like committee. James Horner's music gave a very universallistic feel to the film. It was about the discovery of the identity, the 'true self'. Andrew was human in his heart, but constructed out of metal and gears. 'Bicentennial Man' lapsed three major themes:
1) the desire to become free and independent.
2) discover the world and a suitable (soul)mate (a non-robot eventually,
Portia)
3) Andrew's journey looking for a partner is simultaneously a metaphor for 'finding yourself'. Some people find themself back in another person, their soulmate.

The latter theme recurrs in 'What Dreams May Come': implications of soulmateship in an after-death drama, with a touch of reincarnating romantic touch at the end (that equally touched my heart and soul). Williams is joined in the afterlife by his spouse (who commits suicide) in 'What dreams may Come'. The same idea of two loved ones to be reunited beyond the borders of life returns in 'Jakob the Liar', as Williams' character Jakob Haym is executed for not telling the location of a (fictional) radio in the jewish ghetto. Wonderful was the metaphor of the tree where he met his partner just as he's about to get shot. A tree is also the visual metaphor of emotional connectivity between soulmates Chris and Annie (Annabella Sciorra) in 'What Dreams May Come', as Chris experiences her art paintings in his perception of heaven and connects with her grief.

I can go on and on about all these thematic links. Their all 'story of our lives', griefs and smiles... Céline Dion put it great in the track for Bicentennial Man: "Love and cry. Live and die, life is a dream we are dreaming.' 'Being Human' needs no explanation to illustrate the universal matters that bond all our generations, that have been inherent to everybody's lives since the beginning of times.

Williams does not shy away to participate in a film project that evoques a moral and social problematic topic: suicide (What dreams...), recording and viewing personal memories and privacy-breaching (Final Cut, One Hour Photo)... these things are more about 'crossing the line' of decency, moral inacceptable behaviour, overall stuff that sometimes touches the edge of sanity... and he manages to put up a sort of defensive, improvised and scary, polite smile like 'Hey I don't know how to react on that, but for your sake I'll just put up a improvised/civilised grin'... while his eyes convey a sort of madness and bitter irony... that's a quality Williams really possesses in his acting as far as I'm concerned.

So, I conclude by saying the obvious for any movie buff: Williams' films lends themself to interesting thematic associations. Was glad to set them aside here for all of you readers to reflect upon !

[–] jgroub 17 years ago

I also agree 100% with both your main points. First, there is not much motivation for parents to buy implants for their children so that the parents as yet unborn grandchildren will be able to see memories of the deceased's life. Dumb. Notably, all the dead people in the story died young - in their 50s. Doesn't say much about the future and medical technology, now, does it.

But even dumber is the lack of access to the memories while alive. There wouldn't seem to be any reason why this would be so. Although they mentioned that "it grows with you" and is "virtually undetectable", it seems like access would be pretty simple, especially with technologies of the future - wireless, anyone? The whole thing with Hakman's 5 minute lookback was a movie contrivance that was supposed to create drama. In fact, it just raised a lot of unanswerable questions.

Taking your comments a couple steps further, since the recordings can't be played back while the person is alive, objections to the whole technology by all the people who were protesting become stupid for that very reason. They say that the average person in London is captured on video surveillance hundreds of times a day. When we are out in public, we have no expectation of privacy. All this implant does is multiply the number of videocameras out there.

By the same token, by the movie's own terms, all these videocameras, or more to the point the tapes they create, are inoperative until the death of the person, and then, since the editing software probably categorizes "walking out in public" and "riding the bus" in their own categories, which would never make the final cut, so what do these people care? Random strangers walking around town in a rememory? Get serious.

The only thing these people would have anything to "fear" from would be their own relatives and friends, who would be recording exactly the moments that would make it to the final cut. So, does that make all of these protestors criminals or perverts? What do they have to hide in their private lives that they're protesting so much? If Joe said to Jim, "Y'know, I think that guy Harry is a royal pr!ck," do you think that at Jim's death, that would make the final cut? Silly!

All this being said, I do disagree with one thing you've said. While yes, the concept itself is flawed, it is rather thought-provoking, as we've expressed on this board. At that level, at the very least, the movie succeeds. Although it didn't really succeed on any other level.

BTW, "all-star cast?" Don't think so. Just Williams and Sorvino. Caviezel, although a known actor, I wouldn't call a star. And the rest were nobodies. (:-)

I asked the doctor to take your picture so I can look at you from inside as well.