SineSwiper wrote:Nev wrote:Debate by eminent opinion, one of the all time classic debate techniques. Sine, you're absolute garbage, I'm sorry, I just have to say it.
Oh, nice. Let's resort to name calling. Nev, fuck you asshole. I'm sorry; I just have to say it.
You're just better than this. Sorry if my opinion offends you. But you just can't hope to analyze a creative work with any thoroughness unless you actually experience the whole thing.
SineSwiper wrote:Nev wrote:It really kind of does. Just about every time I register an opinion on a creative work around here without actually seeing it, I turn out to be wrong, or reverse my opinion later. You do too, except that you don't admit that your ignorance is making you look like a doofus.
I'm using my experience of movies and series with messy endings to make a comparison. I've read the review, and quite frankly, I think it was messy and not what the fans wanted. It's almost like having Tony Soprano standing in front of his friends, while they say "Congratulations! Congratulations!" while clapping for no fucking reason. It's that type of WTF reaction (for The Sopranos or NGEva). In both cases, you have no idea what happened, and you're not going to because the series is over.
I can relate, even if I haven't seen the series. I know what the series is about. I've read about the last episode, and even had a chance to see the ending. Therefore, I have enough information to comment on
the ending. I am not an expert on
the series, but we aren't talking about
the series. An episode in Season 1 has absolutely no relevance to the last episode, especially with HBO/Showtime series. ("Loose end? Bah, fuck that; we'll just pretend that it never happened.") Therefore, your book comparison is invalid.
No, it's not. Context is *crucial* to understanding plot, of any kind. I'd argue that context is far more important than actual events. Things relate to each other in a WHOLE host of subtle ways that we tend to subconsciously process when we form opinions of emotional works, as human beings. I can't quote sources on that, but I do believe it to be true in nearly all cases.
There was a comic strip I liked in Starslip Crisis, one day. The museum curator was looking at a large blank modern art piece with a single bloody bullethole painted on the canvas, and calls the piece "Collapsed Lung". He then goes to an identical piece which he calls brilliant, called "Collapsed Lung II". When his assistant asks why the second is so brilliant, the curator says that viewed in the context of "Collapsed Lung I", the meaning completely changes! It's a throwaway gag, but I think it's absolutely perfect in terms of providing a bit of visceral humor to relate this discussion to.
You *can't* analyze events completely on their own if you want the deepest picture of the work. The events that have gone before influence the physical, mental, and emotional states of the characters as well as the audience. The characters aren't the same characters as they were in the first season, if it's the last season. The *audience* isn't the same audience, either - they've already had their emotional states altered hundreds of times in the intervening story lines, which have left people open to certain things, closed to others, and etc. We don't exist in a vacuum, and neither do TV characters - we constantly change and react to our surroundings, so do they. So do characters in novels. You can't say that the pilot has nothing to do with the final episode. I mean, some final episodes are *expressly written* to relate back to the pilot in some way.
I think you're trying to treat each character as a sort of eternal force here, something unchanging that makes it valid to analyze any event outside of its context. I just don't think that's true. I understand that the Sopranos characters are known somewhat for being the same characters at the end of the series that they were at the beginning, but I also understand that that's *part* of the writing of the show. David Chase is known as somewhat of a pessimist about human nature, and I have read some people who take the Sopranos' unwillingness to change (over several seasons) as a deep statement by Chase on the stubbornness of human nature. But you NEED to know that the Sopranos have been through several seasons, and have remained the same, in order to see that. The consistent reaction of the characters OVER A PASSAGE OF TIME is what provides the ability to make the analysis about stubbornness.
I have more to say, but this is a good start.
