Finally got around to it....Kupek wrote:Read my first post in this thread.Zeus wrote: But at the same time, give credit to Nolan and his bro for writing something neat enough to make us want to think about it, even if it is too much. One thing those guys do is certainly not insult their audience.
You absolutely have no choice but to explain things to the audience in a movie like that. Bringing in a character like Page's gives him a good vehicle to do it, even if it is a little bit of preachy hand-holding. But at least it was done relatively well. Cobb was explaining why she could or could not do thing as opposed to completely babying her through it and near the end, they didn't fully explain the exact mechanics of removing the layers, they just decided on a plan on how to do it. They could very, very easily have explained the details far more to you rather than expecting you to follow through the layers and understand exactly why the timing was the way it was. But, like they did with Memento, the Nolans laid the groundwork and expected you to follow along. Ain't nothin' wrong with that.
And don't forget, we have an entire two or three generation of movie-watching audiences who basically expect to be breast-fed everything and who don't really want to think about the movie they're watching. Hell, when Back to the Future 2 was released, there was lots of complaining that audiences couldn't follow it. Not sure about you but I never thought it was that hard to follow if you just put a shred of effort forth. The fact that the Nolans just prepare the dinner and put it on the plate without actually cutting it up and feeding it to you directly is a credit to them trying as hard as they can not to insult their audience while at the same time catering to expectations of the masses, as silly as they may be. Remember, this is a $150M film and regardless of how much money Dark Knight made, it was just one film. They don't yet have the clout to tell the producer and studio heads "fuck you, I want my audience to actually think", they have to come up with a good compromise (like Cameron did when he made Titanic his way and WAAAAAY over budget). And I thought they did a phenomenal job with that compromise. Sure, I would have preferred a little less flat-out explanation but that's unrealistic in a big-budget flick. It's just the way it is now.
I was there on that fateful day, were you?
