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The Rumi reveal is the point where the movie went from "really damn good" to "alright, this is a classic" in my eyes. Not only was it a wicked twist that caught me completely off guard, it was incredibly poignant and had a pang of truth to it: truly none of the people in Mima's life actually had her best interest at heart, and her former squeaky clean pop idol persona was just as artificial and destructive for her as her edgy image as an actress. Mima needed to figure out she really was, herself. And as nuts as she was, Rumi became such a fascinating and sad figure.
Yes, this is an unintentionally hilarious thing about the movie. From what we can observe, Elliot himself is not transgender (the movie uses "transsexual" though these days I think that refers specifically to a transgender person who's had or seeks a sex change operation or procedure), BUT he has multiple personality disorder (I think they call it dissociative identity disorder these days), and since the Bobbi personality is (presumably) female and is inhabiting a male body, *Bobbi* could be arguably said to be transgender when she's emerged as the present personality in Elliot's body. I sort of doubt professionals in reality actually consider someone's other personalities to be separate people, but just going by what the movie shows us that's what it looks like.
Thing is, the film's exposition doesn't do much to draw a distinction between the two conditions AT ALL so it gives off the impression that the filmmakers have simply WILDLY misunderstood transgenderism to mean "I have a separate personality of the opposite gender inside of me." And the movie keeps making repeated and unprompted references to transgenderism all throughout (like the Donahue episode playing on a TV; the graphic conversation they're having in the restaurant at the end; etc.), practically screaming "Elliot is transgender! This movie is all about transgenderism! This is what it's like! Multiple personality disorder, what's that?"
Ironically, I suspect all those references are the filmmakers attempting to show that "hey, transgenderism is a real thing that real people experience, and that doesn't make them psychos like our fictional Dr. Elliot." Except since it looks like they've got what transgenderism even is all wrong in the first place, the more they keep bringing up the subject the more it seems like they're doubling down on depicting trans folks as having a pretty severe multiple personality disorder that would require extensive psychiatric treatment. It's nuts!
Brian De Palma: "I am Hitchpussy."
James Bond (Sean Connery): "I musht be dreaming..."
The Empire Strikes Back does actually tell a stand-alone story with a resolution at the end: one by one, each of the main characters realizes they are a family, and that looking out for one another is the most important thing in their lives.
Note the repeating motif of "going back" for a friend throughout the story, and that it's Han Solo that first does it on Hoth (twice, in fact: he goes to find Luke after his wampa attack, then he goes to retrieve Leia from the command center so she can escape with him in the Falcon). Solo's the oldest of the humans and knows better than any of them how cold and uncaring the universe can be; it's why he's upset that Leia doesn't protest his announced plans to leave the rebellion at the beginning.
Later, Luke "goes back" to help his captured friends even in spite of Yoda pleading with him not to leave. Further on, Leia orders the Falcon to "go back" to rescue Luke at the bottom of Cloud City. Lando "goes back" and abandons his stake in Cloud City so he can free Leia and Chewie (and eventually Han). Even Chewbacca "goes back" to retrieve C-3PO's pieces and put him back together.
We even learn in a shocking twist that Darth Vader himself has actually been trying the whole film to "go back" and meet his long lost son, but Luke rejects him. Luke also realizes that Obi-Wan and Yoda have been cruelly manipulating him for their own ends, however noble. In the next movie he'll "go back" for all three of these parental figures, but at this point in time is a crucial moment where Luke learns that deciding who ISN'T his family is just as important as who is.
The movie ends with the characters united and committed to "going back" to rescue Han together. We don't need to actually see the rescue in this movie, because their mutual commitment to each other has already resolved the story and Han has already shown his own commitment to them from early on in the film, and now that commitment is finally being returned in kind, by his makeshift family.
(Answering mostly for posterity and not because I necessarily expect the OP is still wondering years after the fact.)
Kirk and crew have no idea that Spock's body has been revived until the moment they hear it from Saavik when they've made it to the Genesis planet. They haven't gone there because they think they can resurrect Spock, they've come to retrieve his body to be memorialized on Vulcan. They're also hoping that by participating in this ritual it'll clear Dr. McCoy of his odd mental condition stemming from his impromptu mindmeld with Spock.
They never say this in so many words, but the katra ritual is more or less a funeral service. What Sarek is really asking of Kirk is a chance to bury his son and preserve his memories (it's explained in the script and novelization that the katra's are traditionally collected in a hall or temple on Mt. Seleya). The priestess even reminds Sarek when he asks for the "fal-tor-pan" refusion ritual that it's just a legend (ie. a tradition, a myth, it's not supposed to be literally real), probably tantamount to asking a modern-day minister to perform an exorcism or some such.
She frankly had a bigger part in this than the previous two films, in which she might've had more screen time but was pretty much a glorified extra.
I'd like to add: I don't believe this or most other films are puzzles to be solved. Film works by evoking meaning in the viewer through the act of experiencing it. If you feel like there's something meaningful there but can't quite pin it down, you can talk through it and see if a change of perspective can help you gain insight into the film, but for the most part the meaning of a work is felt more than it is reasoned out.
That is to say: I don't believe you can "over-simplify" a movie, because the deeper you delve into works of art, the simpler they get. There's a reason they're called "base" instincts and emotions. Movies can by all means be complex if we let them be, and that can indeed be rewarding and that's all fine and dandy, but these complexities are *attachments* to the basic core of meaning to the film, supplements to the base feelings the movie evokes while viewing.
I also want to make clear I'm not trying to argue or override how you perceive the film with my own. If you genuinely watch the movie and you see that Larry really is having a rough go of it and maintains your sympathy throughout, then that's perfectly valid. You asked for some help understanding some parts of the movie, so I'm trying to help by letting you know what the movie evoked in me.
A seemingly inexplicable parable in the opening scene is paid off by framing it by proxy as another of life's mysteries that no one can explain and ought to be set aside if it starts getting in the way of more important things. Works for me! Your mileage may vary, but it's thematically sound, feels appropriate, and while arguably a bit "cute," it's an amusing and illustrative idea.
More specifically, the payoff for the dybbuk is the scene with the story of the goy's teeth. What does it mean? The rabbi makes it plain: how's he supposed to know? But we already know the most important thing god wants from us: to be a good person. It couldn't hurt to assume any and all divine messages lead down that alley eventually.
To be even more specific, the true payoff for the dybbuk story is Larry's reaction to the goy's teeth. It can be tough to be critical of a character when we've been following his POV the whole time, so try viewing the scene again out of context and try to see it from *the rabbi's* perspective this time. He tells Larry exactly what he needs to hear: go out and do good things for people, stop wasting your time on trivia like some guy's teeth.
Larry actively refuses to listen. His response is that of a selfish child. Larry is being presented as a cautionary tale for indulging yourself into pointless rabbit holes. If the dybbuk story doesn't evoke any meaning even after giving it some thought and perspective, leave it be, lest we become a sadsack loser like Larry! (https://youtu.be/YUTyEEiulQk)
I can't speak for certain about the introductory scene because I'm not familiar with the folklore it's drawing from and I feel like I might be missing some important context, and also because the unexpected setting and extended period of subtitles caught me off guard and I felt a little disoriented. Oh, and by the end of the movie I've mostly forgotten about it.
Going by the rest of the movie, though, I'm comfortable just considering the opening dybbuk scene a non-sequitur. If there's a point to it, it's that nobody can say for sure what the scene has to do with the rest of the movie exactly (I've read the Coens say they consider it a mood setting scene rather than performing a story function), and to dwell on it too hard when the movie proper functions perfectly well on its own is precisely the kind of thing Larry himself would waste his life over while he neglects more urgent matters. Best to accept the mystery.
If I'm coming off hostile at all I apologize, I don't mean to. I guess I just think this is a pretty easy movie to figure out and it's a worthwhile message, so seeing so many people (including professional critics!) run in circles trying to "crack its code" makes me feel like I'm reading Larry himself watching this movie and he's crying, "But what does it mean? What does it MEAN?"
Larry has a pretty good life. He has a family (pending divorce or no), resides in a quiet and pleasant neighborhood, and has a cushy job. Larry's only problems are situations that he doesn't do anything about and allows them to fester until he can't avoid the consequences. "I didn't do anything!" he says in every other scene, it's pretty much his motto.
Larry's family doesn't respect him because he's such a pushover (and it's been a while but I recall he didn't really pay them much attention or show them much interest unless they complain). Larry doesn't have to move into a hotel and let his wife's boyfriend live in his house, he just went along with it. Larry could either directly help his brother or kick him out rather than just tolerate his freeloading. Larry jeopardizes his pending tenure by not bothering to publish anything. He gets into a car accident because he isn't paying attention. Larry could just cancel the damn record club membership instead of complaining about it.
Even the threat of a lawsuit by the father of the failing student is largely based on Larry not having taken any action with the apparent bribe money: if Larry believes the money is a bribe, he should do something about it instead of just kind of hanging on to it and leaving the issue unresolved. He can report it, he can accept the bribe, or he can give it back. Sooner or later he has to pick one (The father says he'll also sue if Larry tries to return the money. Let him try! That's not a case that'll go well for the plaintiff).
Larry is an ungrateful wretch who doesn't appreciate his good fortune, even when his destitute brother points it out to him. He's also too involved in pointless navel-gazing to take the moral of the goy's teeth story to heart: we can't know all of life's mysteries, but we know how to be a good person, so do that. But when Larry finally makes an active decision about the bribe, it's an immoral one. And then he sees what an "act of God" REALLY looks like.
It always seemed to me the alien was throwing out his hands like, "Hey! Will you turn that fucking light off, damn!"
Honestly I really have no issue ignoring revelations from other installments and just take in the movie "in the moment." And this goes whether I like the added context or not: I love Aliens, but when I watch Alien I usually don't even think about the queen or anything like that, unless I'm in the mood to.
I've always noted that he says "We found this lying there," implying that he didn't go in alone.
As said above, most of the marketing didn't really focus on the cast much. Vintage magazine articles seemed to treat the cast members quite equally, actually, focusing on the ensemble as a whole. This wouldn't have been too out of the norm in the 70s, lots of disaster flicks and expansive dramas of the time featured big ensemble casts that had one or two "leads," but not quite The One Main Character that the movie revolves around.
It's true, though, that most audiences almost certainly would've considered Dallas the "lead" going into it. Sigourney Weaver was actually the least known of the cast at the time (it was her first major screen role if I remember right), but since she was positioned as something of a love interest I reckon it wasn't TOO surprising that she was among the survivors (most folksprobably would've guessed Dallas and Ripley along with maybe one or two other random characters would be the ones to make it); though Ripley being the only one left standing and Dallas suddenly biting it 2/3 in likely did raise some eyebrows.
I believe in the recent "Making of Alien" book it was decided against showing the topless female crew because in certain more religious countries they'd risk a higher rating.
It should be noted that in many countries film age ratings prohibit anyone at all underage from attending, where as MPAA ratings generally still allow underage patrons if they're accompanied by an adult. Also in some countries ratings are determined by a government censor board while MPAA ratings are a film industry self-regulation (as in you're not actually breaking any laws or anything if you violate them), so there are places that take ratings a lot more seriously.
BLADE RUNNER?! That was considered too slow and boring for 1982, let alone nowadays!
There are a couple drafts, but both of them are even stupider than the finished movie. Ripley has multiple fistfights with aliens, including the newborn who is more like a creature from Resident Evil. Come to think of it, his scripts read quite a bit like a Milla Jovovich-starring Resident Evil flick.
In the script there's a scene where Meurice checks out Marty's house after Abby says she thinks he's dead, and there he encounters the dog, who is hungry and growling. The next scene shows Meurice holding a bloody broken pool cue, implying that he had to kill the dog in self defense.
The tornado and the bad news from the doctor are punishments from god because Larry took the bribe. Up to this point god had actually been *rewarding* Larry throughout his life and all of Larry's perceived problems until then were all just the long-term consequences of his not doing anything to prevent them, but he was too self-centered and myopic to understand that.
If you look into the production history of Alien 3 it becomes much more understandable how it turned out the way it did. Nobody went into the project with the intention of producing such a drab film, it just slowly got funneled into that shape after years of development hell.
Basically they spent years trying to get an action-oriented sequel to Aliens based around Hicks and Bishop off the ground but simply couldn't get a satisfying script, so they finally decided instead to bring back Ripley and try for a fresh new direction. By the time the producers decided that the "surreal" direction David Twohy had come up with (wooden planet, crazy nightmares, etc.) was too far out there for an Alien sequel, the movie was already in pre-production with sets being built and everything, and so they had to work with what they already had.
Essentially, the reason that Alien 3 is so boring is mostly because it's the Twohy script but with all the "surreal" stuff scooped out without adding anything to compensate. It's like if you simply deleted all the action out of Aliens-- all you'd have left is a lamer retread of Alien, and that's pretty much what happened here. Now, I agree that Twohy's stuff was bonkers and inappropriate to the Alien series, but it would've likely been more fun and interesting to watch than the dull final film, at least.