World of Blue - Archived Forum 2007-2022

N. Needleman wrote:

AnotherBlueRoseCase wrote:Of course, several respected artists, at least when asked by journalists, have said they like The Return. But how many high-profile artists said on release how poor they found The Godfather III or True Detective 2 or The Phantom Menace?

I'll give you the same response I gave you the first time you posted this exact same message: "Lots".

And I'll wish you a fond farewell, Needleman. You're a smart guy. Make the most of it. See ya.

AnotherBlueRoseCase wrote:

N. Needleman wrote:

AnotherBlueRoseCase wrote:Of course, several respected artists, at least when asked by journalists, have said they like The Return. But how many high-profile artists said on release how poor they found The Godfather III or True Detective 2 or The Phantom Menace?

I'll give you the same response I gave you the first time you posted this exact same message: "Lots".

And I'll wish you a fond farewell, Needleman. You're a smart guy. Make the most of it. See ya.

Way ahead of you, slugger. But I'll mark that down as "not an actual rebuttal" re: your evidently-rhetorical question.

Melong wrote:No option for positive criticism? Typical.

I vote none of the above.

Nope. This is specifically to look at negative criticism. There's plenty of positive criticism out there. It's also not an attempt to attack The Return or Lynch. Merely looking at issues people had, if they had any.

I'm aware that some people had many issues with The Return, but I've read a lot of opinions on those and will try to look at them in the article also. This poll is just a small attempt to see if there is a trend in criticism.

There were no "dropped" plotlines. This is a misconception about The Return, which was not based on a traditional plot where lines could be dropped.

Fans are lazy. They should try to understand what The Return is doing instead of assuming it's simply not able to do what they want.

Dropped plotlines are whatever since I didn't care about any of them terribly much. I feel soooo bad for the dogged theorists it makes all those weekly discussions pretty funny.

I was bored for lots of the repetitive scenes. Roadhouse, jail, Audrey, Jacoby, Freddy's monologue, Cole's expositions. (Candie and Wally grew on me) Had I not waited 25 years, I wouldn't feel like these scenes were reminding me I was slowly dying as I was watching them. If that was the point, Fuck you LynchFrost.

In a nutshell:

• Bad writing. Characters were severely underdeveloped, infodump dialogues, and many random storylines that either went nowhere or were lazily resolved.
• Poor direction. Shoddy mise-en-scene, cheesy special effects that jarred, weirdness for weirdness' sake. It felt like a David Lynch self-parody at times.
• Self-indulgence. The ego of Lynch was very visible throughout the work (e.g. making his quirky side-character Gordon Cole almost a main character, claiming he can still get it up).
• The mythology. The narrative felt on the one hand deliberately obtuse, on the other hand it felt needlessly overcomplicated judging from all expostion of the FBI.
• Deconstruction. The whole season felt like a dismantling of the original run, just for the sake of dismantling it. A condescending attitude towards the audience, just for the sake of it.

In the end The Return felt meaningless. There is nothing deeper to gain from it. It's as much a vacuous mess as Godard's Week-End.

Iron_Dwarf wrote:In a nutshell:

• Bad writing. Characters were severely underdeveloped, infodump dialogues, and many random storylines that either went nowhere or were lazily resolved.
• Poor direction. Shoddy mise-en-scene, cheesy special effects that jarred, weirdness for weirdness' sake. It felt like a David Lynch self-parody at times.
• Self-indulgence. The ego of Lynch was very visible throughout the work (e.g. making his quirky side-character Gordon Cole almost a main character, claiming he can still get it up).
• The mythology. The narrative felt on the one hand deliberately obtuse, on the other hand it felt needlessly overcomplicated judging from all expostion of the FBI.
• Deconstruction. The whole season felt like a dismantling of the original run, just for the sake of dismantling it. A condescending attitude towards the audience, just for the sake of it.

In the end The Return felt meaningless. There is nothing deeper to gain from it. It's as much a vacuous mess as Godard's Week-End.

This is worth signing under. Good work!

Iron_Dwarf wrote:In a nutshell:

• Bad writing. Characters were severely underdeveloped, infodump dialogues, and many random storylines that either went nowhere or were lazily resolved.
• Poor direction. Shoddy mise-en-scene, cheesy special effects that jarred, weirdness for weirdness' sake. It felt like a David Lynch self-parody at times.
• Self-indulgence. The ego of Lynch was very visible throughout the work (e.g. making his quirky side-character Gordon Cole almost a main character, claiming he can still get it up).
• The mythology. The narrative felt on the one hand deliberately obtuse, on the other hand it felt needlessly overcomplicated judging from all expostion of the FBI.
• Deconstruction. The whole season felt like a dismantling of the original run, just for the sake of dismantling it. A condescending attitude towards the audience, just for the sake of it.

In the end The Return felt meaningless. There is nothing deeper to gain from it. It's as much a vacuous mess as Godard's Week-End.

here's the thing. I agree with all your criticisms ( apart from the last one), those things annoyed me too. I could even add a couple of other ones.

But i don't agree with yr last sentence. For me the pros outweigh the cons, there are more things i liked than things i didn't like, and there have been deeper things to gain from it: it connected ( very unexpectedly) in a way that no other film has for at least ten years, after every episode i found myself making associations between this and that several days later. For me, it's been a programme that lives/d in the mind for days or weeks afterwards, which is very rare for TV and quite rare for film. I found myself coming back to parts like I would with an absorbing piece of music or a book. I am still circling round it. Having said that, I agree that it was a mess. But not ( for me, anyway) a vacuous one.

Elad Repooc wrote: But Lynch got to do exactly what he wanted, which was the whole point really. The point wasn't really to entertain us, it was for Lynch to have fun doing whatever he wanted. I've seen him say that he thinks the artistic process is more important than the end result, so that says it all really. David Lynch cared more that he got to enjoy the process of making this than he did about whether or not it was actually a good viewing experience.

Exactly. The whole shebang was little more than a thinly-veiled vanity project. On second thought, it wasn't so thinly-veiled - the warning signs were there, if you knew where to look. Or cared to.

Visual effects! Why is that not in the poll, holy shit.

eyeboogers wrote:Visual effects! Why is that not in the poll, holy shit.

Simply didn't think that would be the number one on anyones list, and tried to keep the options to a minimum.
Sadly in adding the extra 'none' and 'all' options to the poll I lost the previous votes, so polling is kind of screwed now
But, comments are all useful!

My problems with The Return:

- Uneven writing; the Albert, Tammy, Diane and Cole scenes had some special moments, but it could be strangely underwritten, unimaginative in Albert's case, or over-
worked.

- Sometimes jarring combination of exposition and visual storytelling; the Monica Bellucci dream could have been so much more potent without Cole's narration, without
losing any understanding of what was happening. Hastings' descriptions of "alternate realities", the "Jowday" idea.

- Stagnation of situations; some scenes and ideas felt like they stopped progressing for no reason other than "we've got more stuff to explain, so sit down".

- Telling the audience things they already know; I get that characters need to explain things to each other, but The Return was far from a soap opera.

- Uneven visual effects; Part 8 was incredible, Part 17's Bob fistfight was awful. I suppose it's down to taste though.

- Dubious re-writing or changing of established lore; Bob as a vomit orb was, at first, an interesting way to represent his evil, but to bring it into the material world as an
literal object to punch was ridiculous, and trivializing the visceral disgust and fear that humanoid Bob could instill.

- Emphasis on superficial plot over feelings; something I felt could have ruined the show if continued. It's audacious turnaround at the very end sanctified the rest somehow.

When Mr C's face morphed to Bob in Part 5 I was in awe. Would have liked to see more of that.

Wonderful & Strange wrote:There were no "dropped" plotlines. This is a misconception about The Return, which was not based on a traditional plot where lines could be dropped.

Fans are lazy. They should try to understand what The Return is doing instead of assuming it's simply not able to do what they want.

I agree. I understood Twin Peaks The Return was planned to be a sort of re-boot or re-imagining. Some things old, some things new....etc etc. ...but mainly things new.

I chose dropped plotlines because there are a few stories and characters I would have liked a bit more closure on if they were going to bother with others. And I don't believe there will be or was ever intended to be another series produced after this one, so until proven wrong I'm operating under that assumption. That said, I'm still fine with how it all turned out for the most part, and considering there's a good chance it was all reset anyway I'm really not concerned about the rest. Sometimes I enjoy coming up with my own conclusions to characters' stories anyway.