Reply by dogg724
7 years ago
@seanmsu I don't think you got the point of my digression and are doing that thing where people pretend there's more going on or wrong with the audience than there actually is.<br />
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edit: I want to take it many steps further and point out how your response speaks to what I said, but in a way only someone attempting to defend the show could.<br />
<br />
Your opening line:<br />
<br />
"I'm sorry but you are missing the point and attempting to judge all shows by the same metrics is what is probably holding you back from understanding why people love this show."<br />
<br />
The claim is immediately false given the sheer amount of shows I watch and can see the point of that have all sorts of conflicting narrative structures and styles. I watch 250 shows a year. I can see the point of every single one of them besides Twin Peaks. They aren't good points or points that would keep me continuing to watch them, but I can see them. What makes Twin Peaks special? Its sheer lack of coherence or point beyond self-indulgent screed.<br />
<br />
"Yes, for a lot of the characters there is poor acting but there's also really good acting, that's something you could really say about any show."<br />
<br />
This is a nothing statement. So, shows have good and bad actors? No way! Was that a point I spoke to? I can't criticize acting in something so bad there's nothing to act with. You attempt to make a point I didn't quite raise and then address it with a matter-of-fact sentiment.<br />
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" You judge the characters as one dimensional but aren't asking yourself why certain characters are one dimensional."<br />
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Why? Your answer to my judgment is that you think I'm not asking myself the right questions? No, I'm not going to imbue my own pick-your-own mystery on top of what doesn't exist there in the first place. I've already spoken to the idea that maybe it's just shitty and lazy writing. Maybe they're just "one-dimensional" because the mind conceiving them was. You're not asking yourself why you're compelled to make excuses.<br />
<br />
"Cooper is the near-perfect good guy because he is supposed to within the context of the story. You are supposed to look at him and he is the best possible person to judge what should be done in various situations. Other characters are meant to show the opposite, others are meant to make the world more vivid and emphasize the unpredictability of it."<br />
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Name a show where there aren't characters that represent good and bad. Can't? So what do you think you're telling me here? Is it nothing again?<br />
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"There's this common misconception nowadays that characters have to be morally gray or have internal conflict in order to serve the purpose of the show and Twin Peaks doesn't buy into that."<br />
<br />
So I've suffered this misconception to you? Twin Peaks doesn't bother with the baseline premise of coherent story-telling before it would bother to depict some kind of moral gray area a character may inhabit.<br />
<br />
<br />
"I've checked your viewing habits and I honestly just don't think it's your show, not because it's bad or because you aren't able to comprehend it but just because it is not something you personally enjoy. Firefly, Game of Thrones, The Wire, Rick and Morty, etc. are shows that rely entirely on presenting the writing and characters to you in ultra-explained detail because they are concerned with directly preaching to the audience and making an argument." <br />
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You reference a handful of shows I rate the highest and think this accounts for all I've watched? What's the "argument" of Game of Thrones? What is Rick and Morty "preaching?" What are you even talking about?<br />
<br />
"Twin Peaks and other shows are more concerned with presenting a truth about the world and aren't concerned about solutions or making arguments."<br />
<br />
Twin Peaks isn't concerned with a lot of things well before you might bother searching for a "solution" or "argument." It isn't concerned with anything. That doesn't make it brilliant or special or worth watching. It's fucking around with a big budget.<br />
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"In terms of style and plot you're not asking yourself why they have seemingly unresolved or overly casual/calm bits that pepper a large portion of the show. It gets you into a state of not knowing what to expect and potentially expecting the exact opposite of what happens."<br />
<br />
A proper actually intriguing mystery does this without pretending it can happen without a coherent narrative. Again, you think I'm not asking myself the right questions. I'm not inventing a story to supplement the lack of one. It gets you into a bored and dismissive state. I've encountered "the exact opposite" of what I thought was going to happen in other shows.<br />
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"The show has many ideas that it presents but the biggest is that there are random events that happen throughout all of our lives for no intended reason and these events bring both good moments and bad." <br />
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The main premise of the show is that shit happens! Randomly even! Oh, deep. It is shit, and it did happen.<br />
<br />
"How do you show the impact of unpredictable coincidences?"<br />
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Actually try. <br />
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"You have a lot of them happen and make big and small impacts on various characters. How do you make horrible moments seem even more horrible? Have them come immediately after events that seem non-consequential."<br />
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You have things happen to the characters when you're trying to tell a story? Well blow me over! So you're begging me to compare this to The Butterfly Effect if there was an actual butterfly that spent 3 seasons flicking off the screen daring you to tell it to do something compelling.<br />
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"This difference from conventional storytelling and how strong the tone bleeds through are why people love the show."<br />
<br />
You didn't explain a difference. You just used a lot of empty words that underlie the very act of what's supposed to be story-telling. You didn't describe a tone. You used "conventional" as if Twin Peaks is "unconventional" instead of "incoherent" or "nonexistent." People with a completely arbitrary sense of their place in the world or causality love the show? Seems to say significantly more about them than the quality of that show.<br />
<br />
But hey, maybe you're just not asking yourself the right questions about how what you like is actually terrible and perhaps you're not in a coherent enough head space to explain yourself any more clearly than your favorite director.
Reply by SeanMSU
7 years ago
@dogg724 Listen, I'm not trying to get into an essay writing contest with you nor am I insulting you but it is very apparent that you just have a giant misunderstanding of what this show is trying to say and it's due to not being open to how it is saying things. You keep on saying it doesn't have coherent storytelling but I'm not sure what you mean by coherent. In terms of having a point that it is trying to get across it is absolutely coherent, in fact, every single minor detail in the show is working towards the same goal, but if you're just talking plot point to plot point then yes, you'd be correct, not everything is closed up in an envelope at the end, not every scene will be relevant to the main storyline, certain scenes just kind of happen and then fade away. But like I said you misunderstand why Lynch and Frost have decided to include these parts anyway.<br />
<br />
"The claim is immediately false given the sheer amount of shows I watch and can see the point of that have all sorts of conflicting narrative structures and styles. I watch 250 shows a year. I can see the point of every single one of them besides Twin Peaks"<br />
First off, no you don't watch 250 shows a year, you don't need to lie here. Secondly, numbers don't mean anything, there are plenty of people who watch dozens of shows and only understand half of them. <br />
<br />
"What makes Twin Peaks special? Its sheer lack of coherence or point beyond self-indulgent screed."<br />
It is coherent, it just takes a little bit of deeper thought to understand. This is like saying a surrealist painting has no meaning because it doesn't fit the image in your head of what it should look like.<br />
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For the acting bit, yes you did mention the acting was bad in the OP but whatever fine.<br />
<br />
"No, I'm not going to imbue my own pick-your-own mystery on top of what doesn't exist there in the first place. I've already spoken to the idea that maybe it's just shitty and lazy writing. Maybe they're just "one-dimensional" because the mind conceiving them was. You're not asking yourself why you're compelled to make excuses." <br />
This is exactly why you aren't enjoying it. You aren't being open to a different form of storytelling than what you're used to. How can you call it lazy and say something doesn't exist when you don't even try to understand the characters in the context of the story being told? Other people are clearly getting gold when they dig, you're just sitting there looking at the ground thinking "There's no gold there anyway so I won't dig."<br />
<br />
... You babble for a bit trying to sound like you know more than you do and still misunderstanding the point about the characters in Twin Peaks being there not to be appealing characters but to serve the purpose of the story. I guess if you don't try to find the purpose you won't see what their place in it means though...<br />
<br />
"You reference a handful of shows I rate the highest and think this accounts for all I've watched? What's the "argument" of Game of Thrones? What is Rick and Morty "preaching?" What are you even talking about?"<br />
I mentioned these shows because your top rated shows generally give a good idea of what you want to see in a show. These shows are obviously very different types of shows as I explain.<br />
<br />
"Twin Peaks isn't concerned with a lot of things well before you might bother searching for a "solution" or "argument." It isn't concerned with anything. That doesn't make it brilliant or special or worth watching. It's fucking around with a big budget."<br />
Budget has little to do with anything. The point of what I was saying is that certain shows like the Wire or whatever are arguing about a proper solution to a perceived problem or flaw in the world. Twin Peaks and other shows like Lost or Boardwalk Empire are making statements about how the world works. Specifically Twin Peaks is talking about how the randomness of our world gives rise to both the best and the worst things in our lives.<br />
<br />
"A proper actually intriguing mystery does this without pretending it can happen without a coherent narrative. Again, you think I'm not asking myself the right questions. I'm not inventing a story to supplement the lack of one. It gets you into a bored and dismissive state."<br />
A proper mystery can't happen with a non-traditional narrative? seriously? I mean that's an opinion but it's clearly wrong. Even people who don't like Twin Peaks would disagree with that one. You don't need to supplement the story but you can take the cues given by the show to actually think about what the show is trying to say.<br />
<br />
Basically all you have actually said here is "I don't get it. I shouldn't have to ask any questions. I shouldn't have to understand the plot of the show to judge the scenes and characters because their role in delivering a message is not the most important thing. I don't want to even try to understand this. I just want to be spoonfed everything and be lazy while rapid fire watching 200+ shows every year." I'm sorry if that sounds harsh but that's really all your argument boils down to.
Reply by dogg724
7 years ago
@seanmsu <br />
<br />
"Listen, I'm not trying to get into an essay writing contest with you nor am I insulting you but it is very apparent that you just have a giant misunderstanding of what this show is trying to say and it's due to not being open to how it is saying things."<br />
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Good thing, I was about to read and dissect your essay about how to contradict yourself.<br />
<br />
"You keep on saying it doesn't have coherent storytelling but I'm not sure what you mean by coherent."<br />
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I know, you ignored the latter half of, "One dimensional characters bouncing from one boring ass conversation to the next before schizophrenically altering their personality and plot line to be doing something that isn't better or worse than before and probably won't be given a resolution."<br />
<br />
"In terms of having a point that it is trying to get across it is absolutely coherent, in fact, every single minor detail in the show is working towards the same goal, but if you're just talking plot point to plot point then yes, you'd be correct, not everything is closed up in an envelope at the end, not every scene will be relevant to the main storyline, certain scenes just kind of happen and then fade away." <br />
<br />
Shit, spoke too soon. I disagree about the every single minor detail point.<br />
<br />
"But like I said you misunderstand why Lynch and Frost have decided to include these parts anyway."<br />
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They're self-indulgently bored with themselves. It's as good an answer as any. Don't construe this means more to me than it does.<br />
<br />
"The claim is immediately false given the sheer amount of shows I watch and can see the point of that have all sorts of conflicting narrative structures and styles. I watch 250 shows a year. I can see the point of every single one of them besides Twin Peaks"<br />
<br />
"First off, no you don't watch 250 shows a year, you don't need to lie here."<br />
<br />
Actually, asshole, I do. If you bothered to actually look through my viewing habits you would have seen as much. It's easier than you think, particularly when you speed up talk shows and skip anime intro/outros. There are plenty of things that aren't 23 episodes and an hour long a season, and torrenting drops commercials.<br />
<br />
"Secondly, numbers don't mean anything, there are plenty of people who watch dozens of shows and only understand half of them."<br />
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So even if you bothered to believe the truth of my broad experience of television, you'd rather call me an idiot than think your show is terrible. Fair enough.<br />
<br />
"What makes Twin Peaks special? Its sheer lack of coherence or point beyond self-indulgent screed."<br />
<br />
"It is coherent, it just takes a little bit of deeper thought to understand."<br />
<br />
You can keep repeating yourself. You can, keep repeating yourself. And like I said, it's easier for you just to call me an idiot.<br />
<br />
"This is like saying a surrealist painting has no meaning because it doesn't fit the image in your head of what it should look like."<br />
<br />
A few of my opening lines: "A lot of time and effort is put into apologizing for "surrealist" works. When something seems bizarre or off-putting, it's really the symbol of [blank] that has kept the particular reviewer up for many sleepless nights and changes in meaning for them over years. It would be too simple, it is supposed, to only say the plot was weak and dialogue boring."<br />
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Let's keep listening to you keep apologizing.<br />
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"For the acting bit, yes you did mention the acting was bad in the OP but whatever fine."<br />
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World peace, here we come!<br />
<br />
[No, I'm not going to imbue my own pick-your-own mystery on top of what doesn't exist there in the first place. I've already spoken to the idea that maybe it's just shitty and lazy writing. Maybe they're just "one-dimensional" because the mind conceiving them was. You're not asking yourself why you're compelled to make excuses.]<br />
<br />
"This is exactly why you aren't enjoying it. You aren't being open to a different form of storytelling than what you're used to."<br />
<br />
You're refusing to acknowledge there's a difference between being open and literally doing all the work for the creator.<br />
<br />
"How can you call it lazy and say something doesn't exist when you don't even try to understand the characters in the context of the story being told?"<br />
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I did try. I'm still trying to hear something from you that suggests there's any merit to what you think you're defending.<br />
<br />
"Other people are clearly getting gold when they dig, you're just sitting there looking at the ground thinking "There's no gold there anyway so I won't dig.""<br />
<br />
People, surely you're aware, are impossibly intrigued and entertained by literally any level of debauchery or mediocrity literally every moment of every day. This isn't the best way to make an argument that simply because they can enjoy their shit heap, I'm the fool for not jumping in too.<br />
<br />
"... You babble for a bit trying to sound like you know more than you do and still misunderstanding the point about the characters in Twin Peaks being there not to be appealing characters but to serve the purpose of the story. I guess if you don't try to find the purpose you won't see what their place in it means though..."<br />
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You, of course, work in the cheeky internet condescension, again repeating yourself, and again I'll deny you the idea that it's my job to invent things to play on in the creator's shitty playground.<br />
<br />
[You reference a handful of shows I rate the highest and think this accounts for all I've watched? What's the "argument" of Game of Thrones? What is Rick and Morty "preaching?" What are you even talking about?]<br />
<br />
"I mentioned these shows because your top rated shows generally give a good idea of what you want to see in a show. These shows are obviously very different types of shows as I explain."<br />
<br />
I think you struggle with what is and isn't "obvious." You didn't answer my questions. You explained nothing. You asserted plenty, explained none of it. When you start better defining your words, you'll see the same emptiness I do in them.<br />
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[Twin Peaks isn't concerned with a lot of things well before you might bother searching for a "solution" or "argument." It isn't concerned with anything. That doesn't make it brilliant or special or worth watching. It's fucking around with a big budget.]<br />
<br />
"Budget has little to do with anything. The point of what I was saying is that certain shows like the Wire or whatever are arguing about a proper solution to a perceived problem or flaw in the world."<br />
<br />
Again, you can either skirt the question, or answer it, but I suspect I know what's going to happen. What is The Wire's "proper solution" to "a perceived problem or flaw in the world?" <br />
<br />
"Twin Peaks and other shows like Lost or Boardwalk Empire are making statements about how the world works."<br />
<br />
It's fitting that you would reference Lost as that was a completely arbitrary circle-jerk show as well, AS LITERALLY DESCRIBED BY IT'S OWN CREATORS lol in a Wired article after it ended. Holy shit was that perfect of you to bring up. How on Earth you managed to drag Boardwalk Empire into your explanation, I truly have no clue or words for.<br />
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"Specifically Twin Peaks is talking about how the randomness of our world gives rise to both the best and the worst things in our lives."<br />
<br />
If, as you say, this is what Twin Peaks is talking about, which I doubt, then as a premise IT'S GOD FUCKING AWFUL. What's novel or thought provoking about randomness? It's a full stop sentiment. Literally, you let the creator get away with murder by just making shit up and letting it do WHATEVER. That's an abuse and disregard of the medium. It's a circle-jerk for people with zero capacity to hold their own internal coherent narratives together. It's a giant celebration of absolutely nothing but the arbitrary way in which you've wasted your time watching the show. I hope, for Lynch's sake, that what you've posited as the point of the show is dead wrong so at least I could walk away thinking the man isn't literally insane.<br />
<br />
[A proper actually intriguing mystery does this without pretending it can happen without a coherent narrative. Again, you think I'm not asking myself the right questions. I'm not inventing a story to supplement the lack of one. It gets you into a bored and dismissive state.]<br />
<br />
"A proper mystery can't happen with a non-traditional narrative? seriously? I mean that's an opinion but it's clearly wrong. Even people who don't like Twin Peaks would disagree with that one. You don't need to supplement the story but you can take the cues given by the show to actually think about what the show is trying to say."<br />
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So, you're going to misquote me and then answer your own question? Seriously? I mean, that's a way to approach engaging with words, but it's clearly wrong. Even people who speak made up languages with their invisible friends would disagree with doing that. You don't need to pretend you haven't asserted over and over again contradictory and foot-in-mouth things, but you can actually think about what words mean before you use them or look like before you quote them.<br />
<br />
Here, check this out:<br />
<br />
You: "You don't need to supplement the story."<br />
Also you: " I guess if you don't try to find the purpose you won't see what their place in it means though..."<br />
<br />
So the characters, or story in general, exist on their own, or, as I've stated, you have to make shit up and pretend there's more depth and mystery than actually exists?<br />
<br />
Wait wait, I bet I can do it again.<br />
<br />
You: "It is coherent, it just takes a little bit of deeper thought to understand." "[...]every single minor detail in the show is working towards the same goal..."<br />
Also you: "...not every scene will be relevant to the main storyline, certain scenes just kind of happen and then fade away."<br />
<br />
So, the structure and style of the show is this intricate web of details that all speak to a coherent narrative espousing the *brilliant* thesis that "randomness happens," but you just kinda have to ignore the -STILL BRILLIANT- random scenes that just kinda happen, brilliant in their randomness! and then fade away.<br />
<br />
Sorry, but again, picking my own adventure pretending any one scene speaks more or less to the general narrative doesn't mean I'm not thinking enough, it means I'm not willing to forgo thinking in order to believe the inherent brilliance of what I'm pulling out of my ass and making up on the fly. You're willing to make that journey with yourself. You refer to it as "thinking deeper." Good for you.<br />
<br />
"Basically all you have actually said here is "I don't get it. I shouldn't have to ask any questions. I shouldn't have to understand the plot of the show to judge the scenes and characters because their role in delivering a message is not the most important thing."<br />
<br />
Basically, you've gotten defensive in service to something that very personally you've staked your capacity for judging your own intellectualism on, and I'm bored and patient enough to keep pointing out your redundant nonsense and contradictory thinking because it's wildly easy to do.<br />
<br />
"because their role in delivering a message is not the most important thing."<br />
<br />
This caricatured line I find the most telling. It's the peak on the mountain of irony. That's literally a character, in any medium, for any reason, across all of space and time's purpose, to deliver SOME kind of message. You're just kneading at the base of all communication at this point. Twin Peak's characters are empty, arbitrary, and doing empty arbitrary things as a very loose "mystery," that amounts to a shitty better show's subplot, kinda sorta ties it together. You fill in all the space between with some internal narrative that gets a 10/10. I, and any thinking individual who cares to bother with having a point for anything they do, including watching television, recognize quickly that this "random" world can be written off as quickly as any piece of shit we might step in walking about our day. The shit wasn't trying to tell me something, it was just waiting there for me to decide if sliding in it was indisputably one of the greatest shits I've ever stepped in, or an ungodly smell that's going to linger until I can clean or throw out my shoes.<br />
<br />
"I don't want to even try to understand this. I just want to be spoonfed everything and be lazy while rapid fire watching 200+ shows every year." I'm sorry if that sounds harsh but that's really all your argument boils down to."<br />
<br />
I'm going to sacrifice myself on the alter of opinion and pretend there was ever really an argument between us to begin with. This lowly idiot unable to prance about the dazzling intrigue of your mind able to mine gold. Woe is me, I said, woe is me indeed. Someone, I beg of you, hand me my spoon.
Reply by Fernanda221
7 years ago
@dogg724 OMG I'm not alone!!!! I hate this show, & especially this reboot, with a passion. I've been trying to force myself to keep watching, but it's excruciatingly painful. In an era when TV shows have evolved and improved so much in so many aspects (acting, directing, plot, character development, photography, you name it) Twin Peaks at the very best stayed the same, if not de-volved. The only thing that is sort of OK is music really...<br />
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Also, what's Lynch's deal with portraying women as annoying b*tches that won't shut up and poor old silent men that have to just suffer them (and don't even utter a word). Maybe this is one of those pieces of "art" where the "artist" makes the viewer angry? hahaha Don't think so, just bad quality TV, that's all
