I liked that too. I figure that 100 years of loneliness and no one having your back would pretty much suck for an immortal with no other superpowers tho.
Aye; that was a really well-thought-out scene with fantastic performances, especially from Mr. Kenzari.
Me three. Reminded me a little of Highlander, the Series, where redemption for some stupid bad decisions was often possible. Not always, but did happen.
There’s a lot of third-act stuff in this movie which is a pretty blatant setup for a sequel. My guess is exiled-immortal dude becomes a villain in the next one.
Overall, I enjoyed the movie but there’s a lot of awkward backstory exposition. Could have done with a bit more show-don’t-tell.
Overall I liked it. Noticed that gunshot wounds heal, but ear piercings don’t.
Fanwank 1: Since their ears were pierced before they were immortal, they don’t heal
Fanwank 2: They would heal if the earrings were removed, but as long as they stay in, they don’t
Brian
Did you catch the stinger?
Yeah, kind of a big (if not entirely unpredictable) twist there.
For sure I was waiting for that appearance from the moment the backstory was revealed.
And again, a lot like a Highlander series episode…
Ditto. As soon as that plot point was revealed, I said to my wife:
”You know, iron wouldn’t last all that long in the ocean. A hundred years, tops. Of course, she’d probably be batshit crazy by then.”
Looks like I hit the nail on the head. She didn’t look all that happy at the end.
BTW, I know Andy expressed regret, but what else could she have done? It really would have been a hopeless task trying to find her. Even today, we can’t find that missing Malaysia Airlines plane (Flight 370).
When did it happen, the 1500s? Andy was immortal, but she didn’t have any technology, or knowledge of technology.
[Still thinking about this…also, do we still need spoiler tags?]
Of course, if Quynh was actually still trapped until recently (such that Nile was dreaming about her in the present tense), there’s no reason Andy couldn’t have been searching for her as underwater tech was developed.
Maybe Quynh has a right to be pissed.
P.S. I still think there’s no way iron would last that long in the ocean (500 years). Look at the current condition of the Titanic. There’s not much left, and it’s only been a little over a century.
[Still mulling over various plot points…]
The stated reason that Booker betrayed Andy in the penultimate act was to end the cycle for her and himself. However, it seems like complete obliteration would do the job: like parking oneself next to a nuclear weapon test, or even a large conventional explosion. I’m not sure how one comes back from being burned at the stake, for that matter, or being run through a wood chipper. (I’m probably overthinking this.)
For these immortals, there’s even worse things you could do to them than tossing them into the ocean in a corrodible box, like encasing and burying them in concrete. 
As indeed they did to Captain Jack in Torchwood.
I felt pretty strongly that those particular scientists shouldn’t be studying them, because those particular scientists were unethical shitbags who would absolutely use whatever they learned for the detriment of society. Best case scenario, they unlock immortality and give it only to gross oligarchs like Rupert Murdoch who spend centuries entrenching themselves in power. Worst case scenario, they try to weaponize it and accidentally trigger a zombie apocalypse.
Andy and the rest of the Immortals are, I think, basically atheist/agnostic. Andy, in particular, has a sort of, “If there were a God, I wouldn’t have had to spend centuries killing monsters,” attitude, coupled with a weariness that no matter how many she kills, there’s always more monster behind them. The reveal at the ending is, I think, meant to indicate that there is a higher purpose to their existence and is guiding their actions to some degree, by putting them in places where they’re not just saving lives, but shaping the future in positive ways that unfold over centuries. The reveal at the end is a sort of “hero’s reward” for Andy, in that it shows her that her actions weren’t just futile resistance to an uncaring universe, but part of some larger, conscious plan.
Yeah, me too. I watched it while eating dinner, and when I was finished eating I was maybe 35 minutes in, and continuing just didn’t seem worth staying on the couch.
It was okay… as the pilot of a TV series, maybe.
I was watching it with my girlfriend and I made her laugh during a scene when one of the group is on a laptop trying to track down Copley and Andy tells him to hurry up. So I said:
“Sorry, the internet service in this abandoned mine isn’t very fast.”
See: Altered Carbon
Re: The reveal of “purpose” at the end. I got the impression that she honestly had no idea. It’s stated very early on that one of the “rules” is they don’t do two jobs for the same people. This is probably to avoid situations like the witch-burning/trapped underwater thing, where doing too much for one group or in one place leads to people catching on that there’s something unusual about them. And it’s exactly that same trap they fell into with the scientists The rule meant that they’d show up and help somebody, then disappear and never have contact with them again, and never learn what good thing that person did later.
Damn you guys are tough. I saw this last night with several friends (watching separately while on a Google chat) and we all really enjoyed it! I thought it was excellent! I especially appreciated how the fight scenes were filmed so you could actually see what was going on, instead of quick cuts in close up.
Um, you know we are in a pandemic with theaters closed right?
Even before the pandemic, some movies were sold to streaming services like Netflix or Amazon. A theatrical release is expensive, with marketing costs of $20 million or so and there’s no guarantee that a movie will succeed (particularly as the box office seems to be dominated by the big blockbusters). So a guaranteed paycheck from Netflix or Amazon might be a better choice. (Amazon seems more willing to give films a theatrical release while Netflix only gives them a token release to make them awards-eligible.)
One thing about the premise of the movie that had me confused: Does becoming immortal somehow require you to join the other immortals in their mercenary activities? There was no mention of the existence of any immortals who were not fighters, almost as if one of the “requirements” for becoming an immortal was military/fighting experience.
That seemed to me to be an implied part of the premise that none of the characters seemed to quite be aware of. They all seemed to take it for granted that any new immortal would be a skilled fighter, presumably because every immortal so far had been, but none of them seemed to think much about it other than that was just the way it was. They all seemed curiously incurious about their immortality.
I may be mis-remembering, but I think one of the characters tells New Girl something to the effect of, “None of us know how or why any of this works, we just know it does. You’ll drive yourself crazy trying to figure it out.” Presumably, they’ve each spent decades or centuries trying to figure it out, and eventually just gave up and accepted it was the way it was.
It’s not until the very end, when the Analyst brings in an outside, mortal perspective, and maybe more importantly access to modern information technology, that they finally figure out that they seem to be part of a larger plan to help make the world a better place. It seemed to me to be strongly implied that a part of the plan was that immortality was specifically granted to warriors of both great skill and great moral character. That it was granted to individuals who would both feel the need to fight for those who could not fight for themselves, and would have the talents and skills to do so.