It can be done when people have love and respect for the source material.
New version of The Twilight Zone to be on CBS All Access
- Thread starter Shaka Zulu
- Start date
Err, you have just brought STD(?) into the discussion...
"Nightmare at 30,000 Feet" should have ended right BEFORE that final scene on the beach.
I agree that the ending made no sense. The passengers could all see the crazy Joe Beaumont in the cockpit, why didn't they beat HIM up?
About the only explanation I can think of is that the entire episode was an illusion. Meaning, Justin imagined the whole thing - it was another of his mental breakdowns. It would also explain the constant repetition of the number 1015...
I agree that the ending made no sense. The passengers could all see the crazy Joe Beaumont in the cockpit, why didn't they beat HIM up?
About the only explanation I can think of is that the entire episode was an illusion. Meaning, Justin imagined the whole thing - it was another of his mental breakdowns. It would also explain the constant repetition of the number 1015...
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I just had another thought about "Nightmare at 30,000 Feet".
I used to think that the whole episode was Justin's imagination, because of his PTSD. Maybe this isn't the case - perhaps the events depicted in the episode actually DID happen, except for one thing: Joe Beaumont never existed.
IIRC, Joe is never seen interacting with anyone other than Justin. Perhaps Joe is like Tyler Durden from Fight Club - he's a figment of Justin's imagination. So everything we see Joe doing on the flight deck - overpowering the crew, crashing the plane - was actually done by Justin himself. It would certainly explain why the passengers turned on Justin and killed him - because he really did crash the plane.
I used to think that the whole episode was Justin's imagination, because of his PTSD. Maybe this isn't the case - perhaps the events depicted in the episode actually DID happen, except for one thing: Joe Beaumont never existed.
IIRC, Joe is never seen interacting with anyone other than Justin. Perhaps Joe is like Tyler Durden from Fight Club - he's a figment of Justin's imagination. So everything we see Joe doing on the flight deck - overpowering the crew, crashing the plane - was actually done by Justin himself. It would certainly explain why the passengers turned on Justin and killed him - because he really did crash the plane.
I liked the third episode but like The Comedian I thought it was a little too long. It ran 45 minutes. I don't think we needed to see the camcorder rewind time so much. Sanaa Lthan was very good. And the actor playing the state trooper was creepy.
The Twilight Zone style anthology is popular again thanks to Black Mirror and a few other shows, but the format and style of the old Trek shows has gone out of style for the majority of series these days, so there is no way they would do a Trek series in that format today.
Episode 3 is up now!
Next week's episode looks really good.
The original TZ not was voted the second best written show in TV history by the Writer's Guild because of the length of the episodes, it had to do with the stories they told and the way they told them.
To me this relates a bit to the use of the term "filler" to describe an episode of a (usually) serialized show that a person thinks is there just because the producers have run out of ideas for the arc story. What it also appears to usually describe is an episode that the person doesn't like. I say, just say the episode sucked because no show presents crappy episodes because they've run out of arc story.
Same with the "new TZ is too long". Just say you thought it was boring. Making the episodes 30 minutes, I don't think, is going to help the show become more like it's predecessor.
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"Replay" didn't really do it for me. Nothing to do with the running time, but rather the execution of the story. I like the premise and the setting, and while I get what they were going for, the whole thing felt very forced and subtle as a hammer. Sanaa Lathan was excellent as the mother but she could only do so much with such a flimsy script.
1. The universe wants it's shape (remember the talk about the Big bang?) to remain constant, so it was using the cop to auto-correct the mom and son into a bad fate.
2. The cop was so incredibly racist that after he saw the mom and son in the diner, or their car, that he could not not find them and abuse them, and put the car in the impound lot, and then his driveway.
...
It would be nice to say which story I was watching, but seriously what if it was all about the cop want a Volvo of his own?
Of course even then, if it was about the car, it seemed like it still tracked back to racism.
"Black people are not allowed nice things, and they are especially not allowed nicer things than me."
2. The cop was so incredibly racist that after he saw the mom and son in the diner, or their car, that he could not not find them and abuse them, and put the car in the impound lot, and then his driveway.
...
It would be nice to say which story I was watching, but seriously what if it was all about the cop want a Volvo of his own?
Of course even then, if it was about the car, it seemed like it still tracked back to racism.
"Black people are not allowed nice things, and they are especially not allowed nicer things than me."
if they didn't want those comparisons, they shouldn't have called it The Twilight Zone. They could have called it Jordan Peele's Strange Universe or something of that nature.
It had nothing to do with the car, it was just an excuse to harass them by implying they stole it. Something that actual people have been killed for.
I feel asleep about half way through.
I do think length definitely plays a role. In ep 1 we get the idea that the comedian is literally giving away his life and ep 3 the woman is manipulating time within the first 15 -20 minutes of the story (these things are basically established in the trailers!!!). We then watch another 30 minutes of repetition on the theme prior to getting to the final twist. Although I don't think the stories are necessarily bad as they are, tightening them to fit a 25 - 30 minute episode would make them sharper, more enjoyable to watch, and closer to the original series.
But they made it in 2019 when expectations are different.
Twilight Zone is a show that took its time, slowly built up mystique and set up a payoff at the end. In 2019 you're not allowed to be slow.
Black Mirror is a show working by 2019 rules and telling much more compelling stories.
I want to know why Twilight Zone is casting so many comedy actors. Listen, I love Dinesh and Ben Wyatt, but they never had to react to realizing they just unmade their nephew from existence and now had the power to murder people by saying their name. They are played by actors with incredible comedic timing and far less dramatic gravitas.
I definitely think the episode was all about racism. The episode was a clear social commentary on police racism and police brutality that too many african-americans deal with on a daily basis. The scene of the cop pulling them over and the mom saying "just be nice like we talked about" was a clear reference to modern situations. And then there was the scene when the cop pulls out his gun and shoots the kid who was just trying to show him his cell phone. Another clear reference to some tragedies that have happened in the news not too long ago. And of course, there is the scene at the university with the cop pulling his gun out and all the people filming it with their phones. Another very contemporary reference. I think the commentary was obvious.