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Passengers (Discussion, SPOILERS!)

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Post by Chickpea Sarada Thu Dec 22, 2016 11:41 pm

So I read reviews of Passengers and got spoiled on a key plot point that turned me off from seeing the film.  Doctor Nerdlove himself would probably see this as a "Learn From This" or article topic that literally fell into his lap.

SPOILERS after this point, and probably all throughout the thread if it gets going.

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Basic setup is that 5,000 people are aboard a spaceship headed toward a distant planet to colonize into a new homeworld.  The journey is to take 120 years so everyone is in suspended animation.  But after an asteroid collision, one pod malfunctions and Chris Pratt's character awakens 90 years too soon and is doomed to spend the rest of his life isolated in space.  

And here's where he does something really selfish and, in many people's eyes, unforgivable: After a year of loneliness, he becomes attracted to another passenger, Jennifer Lawrence's character.  He then chooses to wake her up, essentially forcing her to spend the rest of her life stuck with him.  He pretends she was woken up by accident too, tricking her into a sexual relationship with him, and then stalks her with "apologies" when she finds out the truth and is understandably pissed.

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Basically this movie tries to be a romance, but a quote from one of the reviews sums it up better: "In space, no one can hear you scream 'Restraining Order!'"

Share your thoughts on the message, your ideas on how it could have been better, etc.


Last edited by Chickpea Sarada on Thu Dec 22, 2016 11:48 pm; edited 2 times in total (Reason for editing : Editing title)
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Post by Enail Thu Dec 22, 2016 11:49 pm

That is the creeeeepiest shit I've heard in a long time, I'm really glad I saw a review, because I'd considered seeing it and just nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.
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Post by eselle28 Fri Dec 23, 2016 12:14 am

I'd been hearing this was bad for awhile, so I wasn't in danger of seeing it, but am still glad for clearly marked spoiled reviews.

The whole premise is to some degree unbelievable to me, mostly because I think we'll have VR good enough at simulating human interaction to be emotionally satisfying (if not ideal) for most people within my lifetime. We're definitely going to have it long before we have a colony on a world outside our solar system serviced by luxury cruise ships. But then there's no story, I suppose, or at least it ends up being a rather odd one of a man who entertains himself for 80 years and perhaps leaves some memoirs for the colonists.

If we're talking about an actual movie that people might go to see, I could see this working very well as a horror film. Or they could set it up as a 500 Days of Summer scenario where the hero doesn't get what he wants and instead of falling for him, Lawrence's character ends up preferring to spend time with EDIT: Michael Sheen's robot bartender or with Laurence Fishburne's crewman. Or maybe she just shoves Pratt's character out the airlock and then gets to show us what she'd do with herself during 80 years alone.

Oh, and about Fishburne's character:


Dear Movies Made in 2016,

If you only have one black character with a significant speaking role*, that character's role should probably not be to pass important information on to the white leads and then die.

Hugs and Kisses,

Eselle

*There's a black woman on the list of cast members, but it doesn't sound like her character plays a significant role in most of the events of the film. Andy Garcia is also credited, but is apparently only in one scene. So, it seems like this is a movie that mostly revolves around three white and one black characters that decides to fridge the black guy.


Last edited by eselle28 on Fri Dec 23, 2016 1:04 am; edited 1 time in total
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Post by Chickpea Sarada Fri Dec 23, 2016 12:41 am

Wow, the black character's role in the story (drop off plot device and then die) makes the film even more like The Shining!  As if the bar wasn't enough.  Why isn't this a horror?!

I got an idea for an alternate ending that appeals to my sense of justice: after the ship is saved, Pratt's character offers to let Lawrence's character go back to hibernation in her pod.  In the movie's ending she refuses because she loves him and wants to stay with him.  But in my ending, she refuses and convinces him to go into cryo-sleep instead, saying "Oh I love you, I want you to have a future, you deserve this, blah blah blah."  So he does, and when the time finally comes, he and everyone else wakes up...to see writing everywhere exposing what he did!  The bartending robot confirms the truth, and it turns out she did this to prevent him from possibly awakening someone again.  So he now has to live with the consequences as the colony's first criminal.
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Post by eselle28 Fri Dec 23, 2016 12:49 am

Oh, I like that one! Especially since, at least from the vague written descriptions of her character, she sounds like someone for whom the trip would be a sacrifice but not the end of meaningful existence.
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