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Etherdave's Replies
My impression is Control would have anticipated Leamas' reactions (or over-reactions, if you prefer) and made them part of his overall plan. After all, who, in all likelihood, was identifying all of Leamas' agents to Mundt, one by agonizing one, until Leamas was completely broken. The one thing Control seems to have counted on, was a near-slavish refusal by Leamas to believe he could have been played all along... by his own boss. If Leamas acts out of wounded professional pride, it IS genuine, and it is because that is all Control has left him.
I thought it might be some sort of business card holder, but damn! That's a lot of business cards. Also, why would it be in Lacon's home? My only other thought is that it's some kind of <<objet>>, designed just to sit on a desktop, to provoke interest and/or controversy, but not actually to have any real purpose. Believe it or not, in the days before those silly ball-bearing things, there was these. I myself wore two-tone saddle shoes, made of suede, in those days. Orange and brown; I have no explanation. It was a thing in those days.
He used the Atavachron to escape into the past to live as a priest, only to be killed there by Harry Benson.
The 'Osaka' reference in the film may be referencing just such a gambit. All it takes is a few good men...
The delineation of his character is just not very well-detailed here; Cruise has played far too many more capable characters since his days as a working class football-playing high-schooler, but the single scene played out as a Jersey crane operator is all we get to register him as a guy who knows one thing in this world... and it ain't parenting or holding a marriage with Miranda Otto together. Seen in this light I, too, had difficulty seeing blue-collar Ray beneath the whiny, hoppin'-on-the-couch-with-Oprah Cruise. But I try not to let what these people do in their down-time keep me from viewing a film. They earn pretty much according to what they contribute. That includes entertaining a lot of people who identify as 'working class'.
Both Rachel and Robbie are creations of the scriptwriters and the admittedly talented actors that played them. That they are the way they are is, I suppose, a glowing tribute to their parents' upbringing, or lack thereof; if the failure of the marriage of Ray and Mary Ann is the cause of these childrens' various ills, then they truly are what their parents made them: incontinent, neurotic, maladjusted, and desperately seeking non-existent role models. Part of Steven Spielberg's classic 'Everyman' character is his seeming unsuitability to the task put to him; in the case of Ray Ferrier this includes parenting. Ray Ferrier is a lousy parent, and to make things doubly, perhaps triply difficult, Spielberg has decided that Ray's kids are royally f**ked up. His son, long since having given up on Ray as a father figure, functions as a makeshift guardian and protector for the sake of his younger sister, who is herself four quivering limbs short of a basket-case. And they are both extremely annoying. Perhaps Ray wished, or hoped, that Robbie would go away, or that both of them would go away. But then he would have failed, and proved himself the worse parent to his wife.
Probably. Small potatoes compared to everything else. His career is over, he spends the rest of his useful adulthood in a cell in Leavenworth while everyone he ever knew insists they never met him.
Better get vaccinated.
Fear of future travails or pains often predicates our actions in the present; such a reaction is not always rational or even reasonable. Life on Earth is no picnic for most of us, but assiduously avoiding anything painful or disturbing or undesirable may not be the way to live here. If I spent all my time avoiding pain, I would never have gotten vaccinated against the COVID. And that's just dumb. The future is a scary place because it's unknown; perhaps if we knew it more intimately we would be less fearful of it.
I'm pretty sure they did send Forrest Whitaker in first. Which was why they had to call in someone else.
Given what they've been through, and shared, and experienced together, the proposition does not seem all that unreasonable. Also, given that he may have some fledgling understanding of tetrapodese, he may intuitively (I use that term guardedly) believe this is what she actually wants... which, as it happens, it is.
She chose to live her life as it was unfolding before her, even though she knew how it would turn out. She should have told her husband, but she probably knew he would never consent to fathering a doomed child.
By understanding the alien language Louise unlocked memories of the future, including her future with her husband, as well as without. Her observation that she had forgotten what it was like to be held by him was from the future, but she was experiencing the emotional effect in the present.
General Shang wasn't in on anything. Louise had a premonition of the reception and took advantage of a probable temporal paradox, fulfilling his explanation of events in the future, by text-messaging him in the past.
'Tis clear as the summer's sun', to quote Shakespeare.
They didn't get the film. And then someone had to explain it to them and that made them feel stupid... and subsequently, angry. Or they felt the film was about something other than what they expected, and that made them feel cheated or duped... and subsequently, angry. Or they simply felt following the film was too difficult. Believe it or not, many people prefer simple answers and easy payoffs in their visual entertainments; this is why Vin Diesel has a job in Hollywood. Simple, uncomplicated films also tend to sit better with the chili-cheese dog they bought at the concession. But if instead they got this with their chili-dog, they wound up feeling confused, bewildered, and of course, mildly dyspeptic. And that made them angry. There are too many other reasons, but all with the same result: anger, and this is what propels them to this forum, being reminded all the way by other people who do not share their opinions, and didn't eat a chili-dog recently, that their opinions don't really matter. You might help by assuming they are in earnest, and not call them trolls. For what it's worth, 'Independence Day, Regurgitation' was a disappointment at the box office, and a flop with the critics, so there's no point ridiculing the title of a simpler, less complicated film you might think such viewers prefer. The Dennis Villeneuves and Roland Emmeriches of the world will go on making the films they make as long as wealthy producers let them. And Vin Diesel can probably count on many more years of employment in Hollywood. I guess that's actually good news for pretty much everybody, isn't it?
It's not really important. What is important is the knowledge that, should humanity survive this little incident, it will last a further 3000 years, and that the tetrapods are manipulating events through time to benefit themselves. What 'help' it is we provide is something we cannot know OR understand in the present.
Campion was told several times over the PA to 'CLOSE THE GATE'. This is code for not only closing the gates, thus trapping himself and his family, but also shutting down the ventilation system to the lab complex, which is entirely underground. Shutting down the ventilators would have effectively doomed the people underground, but it would have contained the virus. Campion's responsibility all along was to potentially suffocate everybody in the event of a containment breach, but instead he ran. The camera makes a point of showing the large aboveground piping and pumping system that he was supposed to disable, but did not (it is very likely his wife and daughter were infected first, then infected him during the car drive). As he and his family flee, the camera again shows him and his family running through the piping system, which could have been another opportunity at which he and his family were infected.
Since this story touches on legends regarding Armageddon, it is possible there is no immunity, that all the survivors are somehow 'chosen' for the coming battle and are under some sort of divine (or diabolical) protection.
The suggestion is that 11-year veteran NYPD Detective John McClane has 'transferred' to the LAPD (in what capacity we do not know) in order to prove he takes his marriage, and his wife's career ambitions, seriously. The exact mechanics of such a 'transfer' have never been adequately explained. In the third film he is back with the NYPD, and although under suspension, now holds the rank of Lieutenant, which is a commissioned rank in the NYPD, one rank above Sergeant, and two above Detective; he has thus made considerable progress in a career aiming towards administration and command within the NYPD. There is little mention of his wife, although the Zeus character suggests she may be reached by phone. Assuming the death of CEO Joseph Takagi resulted in a significant re-alignment of the Nakatomi corporate structure, she may have returned to New York. Or not. Maybe she is the new CEO. She fades from the narrative, replaced by two of his children by her who are now old enough to accompany McClane on his improbable adventures, and occasionally remind him that, in 25 years his career has gone absolutely nowhere.
Not so much 'unnecessary' as 'disposable', the Thornburg character exists to increase dramatic tension by threatening to reveal McClane's identity, and his relationship with Holly. The subplot of Thornburg searching for information on McClane proceeds alongside the rest of the film in a series of definitive cuts, each showing Thornburg at a different location as he gets closer to the Nakatomi Plaza; his vocation as a reporter rationalizes his search for information, and his reckless, dickheaded approach ensures that we hate him sufficiently at the end of the film. When McClane's identity is at last fully known by Gruber his usefulness within the plot is ended; he then becomes an object of comedy, and the target of the vengeful fist of McClane's wife.
Bruce Willis was very well known in the late eighties. His television roles include guest appearances in 'Miami Vice' and 'The Twilight Zone (1985) that won him critical acclaim. His breakthrough role, however, was David Addison in the comedy-drama 'Moonlighting', which established Willis as an actor capable of both dramatic and comedic roles. Willis was brought into film by Blake Edwards, hoping to capitalize on the actor's comic abilities, to decidedly mixed results. Willis was finally cast as John McClane, mostly because Hollywood's established actors passed on the project. At $5,000,000 the contract was deemed extravagant at the time, and Willis' ability to portray an action hero was considered doubtful at best.
There were only two reasons. John wanted a traditional marriage in which he earned the dough, and his wife (bearing his name) stayed at home and managed the McClane household. There was no room in this equation for his wife's career, and so when advancement for her came in the form of a move to Los Angeles, he chose to stay in New York out of spite. Rather than use John's name as an act of faith, knowing it wouldn't make any difference to him anyways, she chose to use her maiden name the way many professional women use their maiden names... because it's theirs. The other reason was to demonstrate her independence from her husband, a potent symbol of strength in a Japanese corporation. Her stated goal is corporate advancement, and this is partly how you do that. As it turns out, McClane has somehow 'transferred' (this only happens in movies) to the LAPD in Die Hard II, and then is back with the NYPD in Die Hard III. And suspended. And half-naked. And wearing a sandwich board. So much for the importance of HIS career.