It’s interesting what bothers people. This has bothered a lot of people. Klear is total hogwash, but that doesn’t bother people. The puzzle box was total hogwash, but that doesn’t bother people. But the notebook-as-armor… That bothers people.
I think that’s because for many (most?) people, some science-y things like Klear, and tech-y things like the puzzle box, can be like magic. So if they do things you don’t understand, that’s unsurprising.
But there’s nothing incomprehensible or magical about a little notebook. No one has ever held a chunk of Klear or gotten one of Miles’ puzzle boxes. (Okay, @puzzlegal probably has.) But we’ve all owned little notebooks, and we all know they couldn’t possibly stop a bullet. Seeing one do that kills the suspension of disbelief in a way that the other examples just don’t.
And if Johnson had thrown in a line like, “This is my titanium notebook cover,” it would have been a dead giveaway when “Andi” is shot that she’s not really dead. So instead, the notebook has to be magical. (Although the theory posted above that maybe the glass reduced the bullet’s velocity isn’t bad.)
I don’t see losing track of the napkin as a particularly dumb thing to do. It only became important (to Miles or Andi) after Miles kicked her out. Up to that point, it was a best a memento but most likely just some scrappy notes that, as pointed out, would have been expanded on in ways that made the napkin irrelevant.
By way of example, my lockdown project was developing a board game with my brothers. I’m really proud of it and I kind of hope we might do something actually commercial with it, but in the unlikely event that a) it goes anywhere and b) one of my brothers tries to screw me over, I would be completely unable to lay my hands on my original notes. They’re probably gone, and if they’re still in the house I’d have to turn it upside down before I found them. Why would I keep them when I’ve got the game that came out of them?
Likeiwise, Andi could have realised that the napkin constituted proof of her pivotal contribution to Alpha, but I think it’s reasonable for an intelligent person not to foresee she’d need that. What she lacked wasn’t intelligence but cynicism/an ability to read Miles for what he really was.
Duke is, in the bigger picture, a faker:
He gives it all the macho alpha male crap, but not only is he dominated by his mother, he also needs to beg his girlfriend to sleep with Miles so she can wheedle a TV slot for Duke out of him while Duke just crouches miserable but desperate in the bushes. Which I’m pretty sure his audience of MRAs and incels would consider to be “beta-cuck” behaviour.
(Also he gets murdered, which is the ultimate loser move. Sad!)
You may also have owned a gun. Honestly, i have a lot more experience with puzzle boxes than with bullets. I know intuitively what puzzle boxes do and don’t do on a much more visceral level than i know what bullets do and don’t do.
…there is a moment in the Doctor Who episode “The Eleventh Hour” where the Doctor remembers something significant, and we go back and watch it in ‘stop motion’, and the scene ends up on a close-up of the name badge. You can watch that scene here:
So after that scene fans began to speculate on the date on the ID, that it somehow didn’t make sense, and there was all sorts of speculation on what that meant and how it would impact on the overall plot arc.
The writer and Showrunner, when asked about it, said:
https://www.reddit.com/r/doctorwho/comments/12dg7r/after_tatm_i_was_surprised_nothing_came_up_about/
Movies and television productions are enormously complex beasts. I made a couple of short-films for film school and a five minute film took me months of prep and it ended up not very good and if you looked close enough there were enough continuity errors to drive a starship through it.
So its possible that the shot of the contract was Johnson’s attempt to set up something later in the movie.
But its equally possible that during the script-breakdown Johnson said to the Art Director “for this scene we are going to need a contract” and the Art Director made a contract for the scene, then they filmed it, got to editing, it may (or may not) have been noticed there, they asked “do we need this scene?” They went yes, then they asked “is it worth it to digitally change the details on the contract?” And they might have gone, “nah, almost nobody will even notice, just leave it in.”
Which is why that moment is in the movie. Or they might have missed it in editing entirely.
Ultimately it really does all come down to this:
I went down a rabbit hole of where I thought the Eleventh Doctor’s first season was heading and in the end it didn’t end up that way at all. Sometimes everything is all planned out. And other times we are lucky to get a finished movie. We never quite know which is which.
First, an overview of the relevant points:
- Alpha was a private corporation with only two shareholders. How do I know this?
The contract that Andi was about to sign had only two names, Andi and Miles.
Each of them would have 50% of the Alpha/Klear merger.
Andi says that “I’ll take half the company to stop you from using this.” - The corporation would not have any outside directors that Miles could manipulate. Why would it? There were only two shareholders.
- Andi was not an Alpha employee. According to the Alpha/Klear contract she didn’t have a title or a corporate email address.
So, Miller is wrong because he starts with “Andi was absolutely an officer in the company, and one who had enough clout to check Miles.” There is no indication that she was an officer. (Point #3 above.) Andi’s clout was that she owned half the company.
The_Other_Waldo_Pepper says that “both parties kept a signed copy of the contract that says any officer of the company can be fired unilaterally by …”
Andi is not an officer of the company and, even if she was, she owned 50% of the company. You can’t get rid of an shareholder’s ownership by firing them.
Joey_P says: “Maybe there was a clause in the original contract allowing either of them to buy out the other and he exercised that. Or a rule that stated a member would be required to sell their stake in the company if …”
That would be great for Andi! Miles would have to cough up enough cash to buy out Andi’s 50% share, thereby depleting Alpha of half its resources, and probably all of its cash. And then what would Andi be suing for? Makes no sense within the context of the movie.
Left_Hand_of_Dorkness says that “that the board of directors has ultimate CEO hiring-and-firing power, and that Miles schmoozed with them and convinced them either to vote her out, or to vote him in as sole CEO, and he fired her.”
See point #2 above. Also, vote her out of what? She owned 50% of the company. She wasn’t fired, she wasn’t an employee. (See point #3.) She was “cut out of the company completely”, whatever that means. The fact that she sued suggests that she lost her stake in the company, although it’s confusing because of what Helen says happened. After Andi said “I’ll walk. And take half the company”, Helen says “And she did it. God I love that she did it.” Did what? Take half the company? If she did, then there was nothing to sue about. It seems that she tried to do it and failed.
AlsoNamedBort starts with “Let’s say he [Miles] owns 50.1%” He didn’t. He owned 50%. Miles could not do anything to the shares without Andi’s approval, just as he couldn’t merge Alpha with Klear without her approval.
BTW, the movie ignores the Norwegian chemist who came up with the hydrogen fuel. Typically, he would have been a minority shareholder but it seems that Miles and Andi screwed him.
I assume you’re aware you can’t make a statement like that without people jumping to conclusions.
Dude, it’s a movie.
If you’re going to reference other movies you’re going to need to complete your TPS report.
I am not at all convinced that your screenshot of a contract contains enough evidence to support any of these three claims.
That said, the dialogue that follows is, “Then Miles had the lawyers work the contract so that she was cut out of the company completely.” THAT–not a half-second focus on one page of a contract that’s halfway covered up by her hand–suggests that maybe there was something in the contract that was harmful.
Most importantly, though, is that Helen (?) is telling all this third-hand. The visuals are of her understanding of what happened, not documentary evidence from the event. Finding plot holes because maybe she doesn’t remember precisely the wording on a contract she never saw is not, in my opinion, a reasonable approach to film criticism.
Exactly - the flashbacks are through the tellers’ eyes, so are subject to unreliable narration.
I keep thinking about this damned contract.
So the scene shows Andi with pen in hand looking at a contract that talks about a merger, suggesting that she and Miles are equal partners.
And she says no.
The implication is that she doesn’t sign this contract, right? So nothing in the contract applies. Without signing it, she’s not an equal partner.
When Helen says “Miles had the lawyers work the contract so that she was cut out of the company completely,” she must have been referring to some other contract that we never see.
Am I understanding this correctly?
Re: the notebook in the pocket.
For me, the trope being utilized with a wink already is “magic” in that a small object an inch or so on a side just happens to be exactly where a single bullet hits our hero, saving their life. These bullets are somehow magically attracted to items in the breast pocket (or dangling from lanyards) whenever the hero needs to survive a single gunshot wound with no injuries. Of course the book/flask/police badge/locket can stop a bullet- it exerts a force pulling all bullets toward it, and then slows the bullet to the appropriate speed such that the material blocks the bullet.
Correct, that contract was for Alpha to invest in Klear. Andi doesn’t sign it. Miles then reworks the original contract used to create Alpha to cut her out of the company.
…up to a point. He knew that singing that song using that guitar would impress the Governor, but then he doesn’t stop to think how she will react to him just dropping the guitar on the beach, without any concern for damaging it.
So yeah, knows a lot about schmoozing people, but still kind of stupid.
He also didn’t think that the Governor might know, as we do, that he was lying about it being Paul’s guitar, because Paul played left-handed guitars.
Yes, Miles is all sizzle and no steak. He drops names to bask in their reflected glory.
I think Miles Bron = Rian Johnson. He’s not half the clever filmmaker he/we think he is. But, that’s just like, my opinion man.