https://movieweb.com/christopher-nolan-next-movie-the-prisoner-controversial/
Rumor is that Nolan was looking to do a horror movie, but couldn’t find anything original enough to tackle.
And that’s the way the film industry works. In the absence of something new to challenge the intellects of the audience you’ve got to settle for borrowing from old concepts and hoping to at least add a twist or two to make it fresh enough for the modern audience.
A serious modern conspiracy theorist, those that actually qualify as a believer, should have done some serious background check information of some old material. The Matrix is stuck in there and constantly referenced. X-Files gets a little bit of press. But The Prisoner? Not a peep. It’s too old. Even though by modern standards it should be analyzed thoroughly for every scrap of predictive programming fake evidence that can be gleaned from it.
As for Nolan’s planned remake, I expect it to suck. But let’s wait and see if it even gets made first. Nolan’s strength is his making a (needlessly?) complicated story come together for a twisty finish that makes sense. How the heck do you do that with a miniseries that deliberately had no actual ending or making sense of the events preceding the ending? If it’s not going to suck it will need to do one of two things:
1). Find a way to present the source material in a mind bogglingly Inception or Prestige style tale that blows our minds.
2). Borrow bits and pieces of modern thinking to resonate with what’s fresh in the minds of the age group that consumes modern film.
The first is unlikely as there were no original Inception or Prestige tales to mimic. And even remakes that suck have to pay some homage to the source material. And for the second, what’s the idea going to be? Voter suppression? Jan. 6 riots? Government partisanship roadblocks? Or, well, the original was all about a bizarre conspiracy that you never find out a resolution. And people do love themselves some conspiracy stuff to talk about. Whether it’s the nonsensical gibberish that produces diametrically opposed thoughts within in a single brain or the ordinary person struggling to get through daily life financially that has to deal with the aftermath of conspiracy thinking.
Like an early Liam Neeson, McGoohan portrayed someone with special skills that allowed him to navigate his forced world of imprisonment. Films about ordinary people navigating the world by doing ordinary things don’t do well. You may root for the humans in Barbie, but without Barbie to help them along, you don’t get your happy ending. Ordinary people are…wait for it…
Trapped in a prison of self belief modified by external pressure to conform with the conflict created by others beliefs.
Although the original series didn’t have a true ending, common themes were present across episodes. No. 6 has a strong sense of identity. He has reasonable critical thinking skills. He’s trying to escape from a physical prison, as bizarre and comfortable as it may be. Deliberately open ended from start to finish.
And putting on my conspiracy mentality cap, I’ve arrived at the solution. Getting into the heads of Nolan and the collective intelligence of the conspiracy grifter community. And I really doubt you saw this coming. A twist worthy of Nolan.
Everything is existentially related to ME personally. I like to be entertained. I like money. I have a self proclaimed strong sense of identity. Part of that identity includes cooperation. Merging these is difficult, I should just be getting along with everyone and they love me so much they just give me money. But I haven’t ASKED for it yet. So Nolan needs to pay me money just for me to take the heat when his twist ending pisses off the group of people it doesn’t satisfy. Note the part of the article about McGoohan disappearing after angry folks kept bothering him. My life has been leading up to this.
And don’t forget that sarcasm is part of my self identity. This magical thinking of conspiracy thinking - that ultimately some other worldly force will take control of your life and solve your problems with no effort. That’s a prison that effort to escape from is worthy of attention. People IRL are down and out in rehab, complaining about being homeless, at work wasting time not working and literally typing away on their smartphones about how down and out they are and what bizarre, at times not even human related, forces are out to get them and what even more bizarre solutions they expect. Their personal belief resonating with their tribe who are equally irresponsible.
I don’t make the rules, I just try to play by them, too. And one of those rules is that your self identity is just that - yours. You can try to influence others to adopt what you think are meaningful pieces. But you are never going to find an exact clone of yourself. You can’t force people to be a clone of yourself, a clone that remains intellectually imprisoned to boot. There are no magic conspiracy solutions that have to do with vaccine shedding or Planet X or reptilian humanoids or gematria. It’s just a movie that you’re choosing to spend money on instead of buying groceries.
No comments:
Post a Comment