No, look closer - the camera starts off to Jesse’s right and moves to his center. It’s the camera moving, not Jesse - and I’m pretty sure this was confirmed in an interview.
I’ve never understood this interpretation of the scene. I mean, I can see where people are coming from – the writers take a certain glee in subverting expectations and love to keep viewers guessing – but it’s totally obvious that the camera is shifting into Gale’s perspective. I was a little surprised upon finishing the episode that people were saying that Jesse moved his arm, simply because it didn’t look like that was the case, like, at all.
Some trivia I thought was interesting: Jesse was supposed to die in the first season, but he proved so popular with viewers they kept him as a co-star.
The articles keep talking about how bloody this season is and how you’ll come to hate Walt. Since he’s already committed and ordered murders and led (unintentionally) to Hank’s paralysis (though he continues in his field afterwards) and all while making meth that kills many ruins even more lives, it makes me wonder if he’s going to spend Episode 5 torturing a baby seal and then vivisect a group of orphans or something.
The coolest Walt scene of the series imho.
And Negro y Azul is possibly the greatest cold open in TV history, especially after a poster explained Mexican drug cartel inspired music in another thread.
Fortunately Netflix has this ending on two different versions. On both it shows Jesse’s arm - NOT the camera - moving.
No, it doesn’t. Here’s an interview with Vince Gilligan, creator of the series and the director of the S3 finale. He explains in no uncertain terms that the scene is exactly as Senorbeef and I have described it, which is to say, the camera pans around to the front of Jesse as he’s aiming the gun at Gale. Unless they inexplicably re-filmed the scene for the DVD release, that’s what you saw. You can check it out on Youtube and see for yourself. I’ll admit that it’s possible to construe ambiguity from the camera movement, but if you look closely, and pay attention to the orientation of Jesse’s arm as it relates to his face and torso, it’s clear what’s going on.
Personally, I think it’s a neat trick. It’s unfortunate that it had to happen on a season cliff-hanger, though.
To change the topic again:
I’ve been seeing Giancarlo Eposito everywhere since S3 of Breaking Bad ended. I knew that he was one of the assassins in Spike Lee’s Malcolm X – a role which has me excited for the upcoming season, because he’s absolutely, spectacularly sinister in appearance in the scenes leading up to Malcolm X’s death – but I only recently realized that he played Buggin’ Out in Do The Right Thing, a character that’s basically the polar opposite of Gus.
He’s also in Monkeybone and a shitty comedy called Nothing to Lose. His range is really impressive. I’m looking forward to the ‘jousting’ between him and Walt. When he finally loses his cool, I’m sure it’ll be spectacular.
This is actually different from the original broadcast version - either refilmed or mirrored. Originally the camera moved the other way. Not quite sure what the intent was - maybe if it was refilmed it was slightly less ambiguous, but still not totally clear.
For me, the worst thing Walt did was moving back into his house in S3, particularly his passive-aggressive comments to Walter Jr.
A friend let her ex-husband badmouth her to their kids rather than tell them that he’d been a serial cheater. “He’s their dad, they need to respect him.”
A few words from Walt would have set Junior straight. He didn’t need to tell him the truth. Something generic like “people grow apart” or “I’m partly responsible for this, don’t blame your mom.” But nope. He lets Junior think his mom’s a heartless bitch.
Second worse thing was letting Jane die, but at least there he had the excuse of self-preservation.
I believe the comments to it, or similar BB clips, say that the image is reversed in order to flummox YouTube’s image recognition software and thereby dodge the banhammer.
I guess I can see it that way too. If true, then there is no doubt Jesse killed Gale. But I agree - not a good thing to do on that crucial scene. The show is good enough on it’s own… no need to trick-fuck the audience.
I didn’t ever really think it was a trick. I was 100% sure Gale was dead, because when has this show EVER pulled some tricky cliffhanger ending where the characters get to escape the consequences of their decisions? This isn’t every other bullshit serial on TV. The actions on this show mean something. This show has never played an unfair trick on its audience or did some sort of sensational misleading ending.
Not only that, but it’s a completely logical direction for the story to go. The show has been about Walt’s descent into evil. He’s killed before, but first in immediate self defense. Then in a more general, calculated but passive sort of self defense (Jane), but still against someone who wanted to harm him. Now he’s killed what is basically a good guy. It’s a logical progression of the story. It’s a logical way for Walt to prolong his existance. Everything about it just makes sense.
If Gale is alive I will be furious. It will take a show that has spent 3 years being honest with its audience, being ballsy and going where the story had to go - and turn it into a stupid fucking gimmick show that plays sensational little tricks on its audience.
Quite frankly, I don’t even know how you guys can be considering that Gale isn’t dead. It’s almost like you don’t have respect for what this show is, and what it has done so far. If Jesse didn’t shoot Gale, then this show will go from something that is the best show on TV to jumping the shark.
If Gale is alive, there is no way in hell the early episodes that were screened for critics would be getting such rave reviews. Sepinwall doesn’t care for that kind of bullshit trickery and would have voiced some sort of complaint - though non-spoilery of course - about it. I think we can all comfortably turn on Sunday night’s premiere with the assumption that Gale is really most sincerely dead.
Yep, and easy to see: he AMC logo is backwards.
[QUOTE=Tarwater]
I’ll admit that it’s possible to construe ambiguity from the camera movement, but if you look closely, and pay attention to the orientation of Jesse’s arm as it relates to his face and torso, it’s clear what’s going on.
[/QUOTE]
Plus the door moves out of the shot while Jesse himself is not moving.
Vulture has published a break-down of the amount of time that has elapsed since the first episode. In the article, they try to establish how much time passes between (and within) each episode, but as they note, there’s a couple places where there appear to be some continuity errors. Nonetheless, it seems pretty exact, and the figure they come up with, which is a little over 7 months, correlates with what Gilligan has said in interviews.
They also have an interview with Gilligan here.
After waiting roughly 6 years, we’re down to 1 more day!
A tasty little article that doesn’t spoil, but does tell us the five questions that will be answered in the season premiere. Nice appetizer. Like we need one!
http://www.thewrap.com/tv/article/breaking-bad-5-questions-premiere-answers-29143Wow, I hadn’t thought about that last question at all, now I’m insanely curious. It is pretty state of the art.
I had thought about it. It seemed unrealistic to me. How could such a sophisticated but illegal setup (complete with a secret entrance) exist? How many people would have to be involved, in one way or another, in constructing it; and what do you do about all of those loose ends?