Anyone seen Kill Bill yet? [merged]

[John Crichton]

c) Showing the movie out of order this time was a mistake, IMO.
The dramatic tension in the story was destroyed, since we knew she would

Spoiler

kill O-Ren

. Bad move.

Spoiler

Considering that this was part 1 of a two-part movie, of course the main character is going to live. Plus, it would have been terribly anti-climactic to do the fights in the correct chronological order.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not completely defending QT, here. I just think that the movie worked better the way it was presented. I do think that it would have been a little better to not have the "checklist" shown until the very end, just to add a little tension, tho. The time-switching thing wasn't a big deal to me, especially compared to how QT has used it in the past. This was rather tame and it worked with the flow of the film.

Spoiler

But, yes - I would have rather not known, for sure, what was going to happen at the end.

 

[Kai Lord]

Spoiler

Considering that this was part 1 of a two-part movie, of course the main character is going to live. Plus, it would have been terribly anti-climactic to do the fights in the correct chronological order.

No, what they should have done was just have had Vivica A. Fox be the first on the list.

 

[John Crichton]

No, what they should have done was just have had Vivica A. Fox be the first on the list.

That's one other thing they could have done, sure.

Spoiler

But, The Bride got the info she needed about where the rest of the assassins were from her trip overseas, so that wouldn't have worked with the plot.

But, point taken.

 

[Kai Lord]

That's one other thing they could have done, sure.

Spoiler

But, The Bride got the info she needed about where the rest of the assassins were from her trip overseas, so that wouldn't have worked with the plot.

But, point taken.

Of course it would have worked. How hard would it have been to have had

Spoiler

Uma find Vivica A. Fox through some simple means then have her go to Japan to kill Lucy and get the rest of the info on the others?

As if they even needed to make it known how she finds out where everyone is. Its not like any of the the story is actually grounded in a shred of reality to begin with.

 

[John Crichton]

Of course it would have worked. How hard would it have been to have had

Spoiler

Uma find Vivica A. Fox through some simple means then have her go to Japan to kill Lucy and get the rest of the info on the others?

As if they even needed to make it known how she finds out where everyone is. Its not like any of the the story is actually grounded in a shred of reality to begin with.

It makes sense to me that she would have a hard time finding out where all her targets would be located. I liked that she had to work for it. And it did fit with the plot. And yep, it could have been done how you mentioned it but it would have lessened the movie, to me. It may not seem that any of the plot was important but there was a narrative flow and that was part of it.

 

[jdavis]

OK, I'll post my points about Kill Bill now.

Liked the movie (gave it a 7), but not anything like many people have. I think QT is quite overrated - he gets away with stuff that fanboys roast other movies for. (example : gee, the movie was DESIGNED to not work perfectly - that's an homage to the bad kung-fu movies of - STOP. just stop rationalizing, when you crucify other movies for less.)

Well you see the whole point of not 'crucifying" the movie for those gaffes is that they are not gaffes. The movies it was throwing back to were notorius for their loopholes and gaffes, it had those loopholes in it intentionally for stylistic purposes. Now whether that is silly or not is another question entirely, but roasting the movie for it's mistakes would be sort of silly when those weren't mistakes. It's not people rationalizing the mistakes it's that it wasn't a mistake to start with. Nobody is letting him "get away with anything" it was a given that the movie would be like that to start with. I've already quoted and linked to this before but I will again:

Incorrectly regarded as goofs: The many continuity lapses and other apparent technical errors are a matter of deliberate stylistic choice in this pastiche of 1970s "B" action movies

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0266697/goofs

THe whole bit in the hospital was a big example of this, why worry about her head being shaved or whether she knew how much time had passsed, after 4 years in a coma your arms aren't going to work either and there is no way to will back lost muscle tone, your talking about months of physical therapy to even be able to get out of the bed, yet she was killing 100's of people within a couple of months. So what are you going to complain about? She was shot in the head and lived with no brain damage? She willed atropied muscles back to full martial arts kick butt working order in 13 hours (or 3 hours or 4.62 hours......), that she flew to Japan and back and still drove around in the Truck who's name cannot be mentioned around here(gee you think maybe the cops would be looking for her and the guys missing truck? It's not like it doesn't stand out.) I could go on and on but it's hard to pick on stuff like that when the whole entire movie was like that. The movie wasn't set in the real world it was set in "movieland" (Tarantino's words not mine, I posted that link before already too) it's supposed to be that way, it being that way is the whole point of the movie, if it wasn't that way then it wouldn't be a homage to 70's action movies, it being that way is what makes (or breaks) the movie. It's hard to pick any scene in the movie that isn't outrageous and unrealistic (Vivica Fox keeps a gun in her cereal box?, Japan is full of killer high school ninja kids? They used a old Godzilla set for the shot of a plane landing when it would of been infinitly cheaper to just go to the airport and shoot footage of a plane landing?) that's the whole point of the movie. How can you "crucify" this movie for that kind of stuff when that kind of stuff is the whole point of the movie, it's supposed to be cheesy.

I can understand people not liking it, it's not for everyone, I can understand people not liking the non-linear storytelling that's not for everyone either, I can understand people not liking the goofy ass violence, and I can understand people not liking the fact that it's a intentional B quality movie, but why pick on it's goofs and continuity lapses when those were all written into the script that way, it's the whole point of the movie. If I thought for a split second that any part of that movie was supposed to be realistic or taken seriously then I would have to call it the most retarded movie ever (as Kai Lord does) the whole movie is one big unrealistic plot hole from beginning to end, that's the whole point. It sort of like coming out of Scary Movie 3 and griping that it wasn't scary.

 

[stevelabny]

is this still on?
hi my names steve
and i'm a month and half late to this party

um, wait...let me get this straight. QT made a film with no humor , no dialogue, bad special effects, bad acting, gaping plot holes, and no interesting or sympathetic characters...and its OK because he MEANT to do that?

gee, i wonder how many other writers and directors will start saying they MEANT all their plot holes too.

i mean all my bad grammar and typos, i'm not really stupid and lazy, i'm just paying HOMAGE to all the other stupid and lazy people online.

just so you guys know.

NOTHING in this movie worked for me on any level. And to call it art and a sucess because it was supposed to be awful is why i dont believe in "art"
I once heard someone say that ANYTHING can be art if you look at it with an open-mind. To which I quickly replied, if ANYTHING can be art, then in reality, NOTHING is art. And that promptly ended all conversations between us.

Ok...I finally saw MAtrix Revolutions too...gonna go dig up that thread

 

[Numion]

Well you see the whole point of not 'crucifying" the movie for those gaffes is that they are not gaffes. The movies it was throwing back to were notorius for their loopholes and gaffes, it had those loopholes in it intentionally for stylistic purposes. Now whether that is silly or not is another question entirely, but roasting the movie for it's mistakes would be sort of silly when those weren't mistakes. It's not people rationalizing the mistakes it's that it wasn't a mistake to start with. Nobody is letting him "get away with anything" it was a given that the movie would be like that to start with. I've already quoted and linked to this before but I will again:

Well, maybe people roast the movie because of the intentional 'mistakes' because they're normally called mistakes because they make a movie worse. Intentional or not, crap is crap.

 

[John Crichton]

Well, maybe people roast the movie because of the intentional 'mistakes' because they're normally called mistakes because they make a movie worse. Intentional or not, crap is crap.

I can agree with that.

However, I thoroughly enjoyed this film so it's certainly not crap to me.

I find that these kinds of films fall into 4 categories:

1. People who got it and liked it.
2. People who got it and didn't like it.
3. People who didn't get it and liked it anyway, for whatever reason.
4. People who didn't get it and therefore didn't like it, for whatever reason.

The 4th one is not to say that this type of person is in any way flawed nor should they be put down. Not all movies are made for everyone. This one is a perfect example.

 

[hong]

Scary Movie [1|2|3] is a parody. It's supposed to be funny.

AFAIK, Kill Bill is not meant to be a parody, and the laugh quotient is also rather low. Although there were definitely a number of funny bits. I'm thinking primarily of the kiddie yakuza getting his katana sliced to bits -- how blatant can the symbolism get?

But anyway, I don't have a problem with kitschy scenes, plot logic holes, and whatnot. I mean, you have this chyk taking on 88 ninja in a restaurant[*]. It may not be a parody but it's also clearly not meant to be completely realistic. Tarantino may have said that he didn't want any CGI involved, but that just makes Uma 10th level, rather than 20th.

As for the blood: jeez guys, there's more to Japanese cinema than anime. The gallons o' blood is a staple of chambara films going back 50 years or more. See any one of the multiple Lone Wolf and Cub movies, for instance, and you'll get exactly the same fountains of gore, lopped-off limbs and so on. Not usually with as slick choreography and special effects, though.

As an aside, I saw _Hero_ for what must be the 10th time last night and the stylistic contrasts are striking. If Japanese people have 10,000 gallons of blood in them at 500 psi, Chinese people have a couple of cc's. Japanese people leave lots of disconnected body parts behind when they die, whereas Chinese people just disappear (the really high-level ones anyway). Personally I also prefer cinematic wushu swordfighting, aerial ballet and all, to kenjutsu duels, but that's just me.


[*] in a fight to the death, get your mind out of the gutter