I watched the first three of them last night. As for your comment:
[spoiler]Yes, I do think that after the finger was delivered the public would have made a huge switch to wanting the PM to screw the pig. She was the princess, not just some random person, the public was in love with her. I think they would have been furious had he not gone through with it and she died. I took that the security services were telling him they couldn’t protect him, not that they would be the ones hurting him and his family.
I think that the whole point was what the precedent would be if someone tried that. Much like the whole ISIS and beheading stuff we’re seeing. [/spoiler]
The second one I liked, but there were things I didn’t get
What was with the bicycles and such? That made no sense to me at all. Was there a real point to it, because that just made me like it less. If there was some point then I guess I missed it. Very bleak though, one shitty room to another.
The last one, for me, was the most interesting, I don’t think I’d want such technology at all. It also seemed the most real to me.
Speaking of silly, I wish this was an open spoilers thread
I still can’t see it as a realistic scenario. Security services would never tell a sitting PM that they couldn’t protect his family (I still think that was meant to be taken as a threat). The PM was basically told he didn’t have a choice, which means everyone in government was untroubled by the precedent. And even considering useless, heat-of-the-moment polling data in such a situation is absurd. Had the PM been compelled by personal reasons, then it could have been believable. For instance, had a malignant force within the government taken his daughter and demanded he fuck the pig or the girl would be killed. I know this sort of thing is supposed to satirize and provoke, but it was sloppy to have him capitulate without stronger forces at hand. ETA: was I mistaken, or did they say that he fucked the pig for a full hour? WTF? That’s even funnier than the idea of a world leader committing bestiality on tv.
Otherwise, I thought the acting was excellent and the production looked good.
Regarding a remark made in your spoiler:I also took it as a threat. “We cannot guarantee the safety of you or your family.” How can that not be a threat? He’s the prime minister, so he and his family are pretty much constantly in danger from the actions of some nut or terrorist. Why suddenly now can they not guarantee his safety when they’ve been doing so all along? Would so much of the public want him dead that they would be unable to stop the massive hoards trying to break into his residence? That’s doubtful.
I watched the first episode last night because of this thread and I really enjoyed it.
A comment on what’s in your spoiler.
[spoiler]I think the old lady said something like “psychologists say the longer you fuck the pig the more sympathetic the public will be” I’m not exactly sure because British people talk funny and sometimes I can’t understand them. I rewound that part three times to try to figure out what she was saying and that’s what I took it to mean even though I still wasn’t really sure.
And after continuing to watch the show it made sense because at first the public was all, “Alright! I gets to watch me some pig fucking!” and then as it went on their attitudes and faces changed to being disgusted more than anything.[/spoiler]
Blank Slate: I think you’re taking things too literally. It’s not so much about how these technologies would actually work in real life; rather, the show attempts to show, via very mild extrapolation of current technologies and attitudes, what horrible things COULD happen. Regardless of what you think about how the PM eventually handled his dilemma, the point is very much just that the dilemma itself is all too plausible, and if it were to happen today, no obvious, simple solution presents itself.
If I recall correctly:She told him that psychologists said that he should not finish too quickly because then it would look like he enjoyed it. So I assume that one of the demands was that there would be what used to be called a “money shot” proving that he completed the act. Of course it may simply have taken him that long to get himself into a state of mind where he could do that.
The opposite is exactly the problem because there is an obvious, simple solution:
The pig-fucking is just a red herring. It doesn’t matter what the demands are, the PM, or the US president or any other national leader, simply would not accede because the demands would never end. The only move is to let the princess die for her country.
IIRC, one of the judges explains that the cycling generates electrical power. Of course, it’s entirely possible that he’s lying and this is just a ruse by the powers-that-be to keep the populace occupied…
The intent seems to be that this is how their civilization generates power. Of course, this makes no sense thermodynamically. Humans get their energy from food, which ultimately gets it from the sun, so it would always be more efficient to use solar cells or make biofuels.
Comments like these have made me realize that Anthology shows really have become much less common these days to the point where people find the very concept strange. I grew up watching about a dozen different ones but I can’t think of a current one (other than the topic at hand).
That is a good angle. But I think the episode is showing the extreme power of fickle emotions on the part of the public. The idea seems to me to be one of the emotions of the public being impervious to rational thought.
Except that in reality many countries do pay ransoms. (Whether they should or not is a separate issue). The Prime Minister didn’t really make the decision, at least not in order to save the princess. The safety of himself and his family was implicitly threatened by the party and the royal family. “We cannot guarantee the safety of you or your family.”
Just watched The Entire History of You. Haunting. Scary. And not far from what would happen if we had that technology. I’m actually shaken thinking about it. We’re better off not having all our memories on file for replay.
The metaphorical purpose of the bikes is to represent the working-class who are stuck in their daily drudgery.
They have to keep pedaling to earn enough to buy the things to distract them from the fact that they have to keep pedaling - until they physically no longer can. When that happens they fall from the lower class to the lowest class, the untouchables.
So I see the story as being fundamentally about a guy who fights to avenge the ruin and mockery that has been made of someone from his class that dared try to rise. (She was talented and beautiful, but instead of advancing she ended up even lower than where she had started.) He works and sacrifices until he manages to get a chance to implement his plan for revenge. What makes the story special - and hauntingly real - is that when given the option of justice (even if minor and fleeting), he instead allows his rage to be co-opted as a tool of the elites to help keep his former comrades in their place. He trades the chance for righteous vengeance for a larger, prettier cage. He advances a small rung on the social ladder by stepping on the backs of his peers.
Hmm, I thought he was a bit of a sociopath at first; but really now I am not so sure. It’s more like he was a naive and somewhat simple man who had a nervous breakdown when confronted with the truth about the people around him. I guess the question for me becomes one of what is causing his reaction. At first I thought it was a control thing, but then later I began to think it was not really a control thing so much as the pain and suffering caused when the bonds of trust and devotion are broken; and in the end he would just rather live with the illusion.
I’m on the 4th episode right now. First of all, IMO, the Twilight Episodes are mostly in comparison to the way each episodes stands on it’s own, both in plot (each one could be a movie in and of itself) and with the different cast from episode to episode. And lesser because of the content. If the same idea were a comedy or drama, they wouldn’t say that.
Now, the part that’s been bugging me, in the episode where they all had chips in their head:
A)What’s the point if you can selectivly remove sections of the memory, doesn’t that defeat the entire point?
B)I assume they still have ‘normal’ memories above and beyond the chip, right? Or rather, the chip memory is above and beyond the normal ‘human’ memory.
But still, it seems like that memories (or rather the POV style camera angle which is really what it is) is really pointless when you can say 'Hmmm, that meeting with the terrorist group I just had…delete. Sex with the hooker…delete. etc
Anways, I like it enough to finish it, but the messages are rubbed into your face a bit too hard. I mean in that first episode when the PM’s aide specifically said they knew we’d all be looking at screens, he was sending a message. Yes, a lot of people might not have caught that, but there was a better way to do it then to come out and say it like that…IMHO.
ETA, the second episode, the bike riding one…hated it. The whole thing, beginning to end was just dumb.