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Post by gliquey on Jan 5, 2019 17:55:35 GMT -5
There’s been some discussion about exactly how much consideration the writers put into the sugar bowl reveal. The line I keep going back to is Esme’s line in the Hostile Hospital adaptation describing the sugar bowl: “It’s small... round... full of secrets... and I WANT IT!” This is done to draw a comparison between it and the Snicket file so that the Baudelaires will think she wants that, but it also implies that the sugar bowl holds information, which we now know it doesn’t (in the show). And, as shown in the opera flashback, Esmé is very, very aware of what’s in the sugar bowl (sugar. not secrets.). So... there is no way the writers had a solution planned until near the last couple of episodes, unless Esmé was huffing anesthesia during the Hostile Hospital. I think a different possibility is that the writers did have a solution planned, but this was just lazy writing, or due to interference with someone who didn't know what was in the sugar bowl. They wanted to misdirect the audience into thinking that Esmé was talking about the Snicket tape and they needed a rule of three for it to sound natural. I'm not sure the sugar bowl is exactly "round" either. Perhaps Esmé was indeed huffing anaesthesia.
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Post by Liam R. Findlay on Jan 5, 2019 17:57:08 GMT -5
The line I keep going back to is Esme’s line in the Hostile Hospital adaptation describing the sugar bowl: “It’s small... round... full of secrets... and I WANT IT!” ...And, as shown in the opera flashback, Esmé is very, very aware of what’s in the sugar bowl (sugar. not secrets.). She obviously knew sugar was in it, but since she was probably not completely trustworthy, I wonder if Beatrice might have told her it had a different secret purpose to what it actually did. Perhaps Esme and Olaf knew the sugar had an important, secret value, but they believed it to be something other than what it really was. That would explain why the villains are after the sugar bowl at the same time as thinking the medusoid mycelium no longer exists (while Kit probably thought otherwise and knew the true contents and its importance). I don't think this is what the writers intended, but it's a possibility within the universe (if ever a new spin-off episode were made which clarified certain details ). EDIT: I think "full of secrets" is still a valid line, since the contents is so very secret. I think she was being general, like if you had a genie lamp and said it was "full of secrets", even if it just contained a genie that you weren't telling anyone about.
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Post by Carrie E. Abelabudite on Feb 25, 2019 21:23:28 GMT -5
This definitely suffers from its shorter runtime. I understand why they'd only want one episode, but I really think it would have been a lot better if it were even twenty or thirty minutes longer. It's a shame that one of the longest books is confined to the shortest amount of screen time, when The Bad Beginning, a book that barely breaks 150 pages, is given over an hour longer.
The Island had a very Lost feel to it. I wouldn't be surprised to see fan theories from people who haven't read the books positing that the Baudelaires died in the storm.
It would have been better if we got to see the way the Island functioned a bit more. I think Ishmael's peer pressure still comes across fine. However, I wish we had seen the way the islanders wanted to mutiny. His 'parenting' should also have got more scrutiny.
Lots of cool Easter eggs this episode, especially the Bombinating Beast sculpture and the woman who said she washed up on the island after a manatee accident. Considering what we know about the Widdershins family...
Ishmael admitting to being the founder of VFD instead of telling his tangential story bothered me a lot more than most of the other changes, at least at first. On a rewatch, I did like the way it tied in with the 'God' role he plays in the story. Still, I miss the theme of the unknown that we see in the book. I understand that, given the nature of a visual adaptation, a lot of things need to be made more explicit. For example, I didn't mind the sugar bowl reveal that much; if they were going to show the flashback of Lemony and Beatrice stealing it, and it makes sense that they would want to do this, since just having Lemony and other characters hint at it would get boring onscreen, they kind of do need to reveal the contents in order for their motive to steal it to make sense. And there are still a lot of stories of which the Baudelaires can only grasp the fragments. (Mr Poe's stage name?) So, I wish they'd at least had Lemony say more about what remains unknown, but this might have fallen flat in an episode where many major mysteries are revealed.
The scene where Kit and Olaf recite poetry was amazing. I was worried how this would come across onscreen, but they really did a great job.
I don't think Chapter Fourteen is as saccharine as it appears at first glance. We're only given glimpses of the characters' lives, and we really don't know what's next for them. After all, there's still every chance that another eagle attack will finish of the SSHAMH for good and that TGU will come back for the Queequeg. We still have to imagine whether or not the islanders would have been brave enough to 'rock the boat' and eat an apple. The troupe was only successful for one night, and after that it's anyone's guess what happened to them. And Young Beatrice is very conspicuously alone in her Lemony-hunt. The problem is, these very real possibilities are never brought to our attention. Still, overall I thought this episode was a good way to wrap up the show.
I wonder if they had a very rigid end-date to finish filming due to Louis Hynes' GCSE schedule? If this is the case, it could be a reason why they didn't try to develop the episode into a longer story. Another possibility is budget constraints.
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Post by Foxy on Feb 27, 2019 8:00:09 GMT -5
We finally watched this final episode last night. I had been putting it off and suggesting we play board games at night instead of watching because I thought for sure the kids were going to die, so I was really, profusely happy at the end when they stayed alive and happy things happened at the end instead. Do I feel this was a betrayal of "there is no happy ending"? Yes, absolutely. But I like when happy things happen, so this does not bother me.
I thought they did more than a little disservice to this book by squashing it into one episode and getting rid of most of the details whilst rearranging what they did leave into something which barely resembles the book. There was no Friday abandoning Count Olaf on the coastal shelf or giving Sunny a whisk. Count Olaf disguised himself as Kit after he got out of the cage instead of before, so the Baudelaires were never abandoned on the coastal shelf. The mutiny was never attempted because no one came out to meet them on the coastal shelf in the middle of the night, and Viper came much, much later into the episode. This made them finding the arboretum and the home under the tree significantly less exciting.
But I loved how Count Olaf's theme was finally played IN MAJOR!!! as he lifted Kit off the vaporetto of favorite detritus, and I thought how they handled Kit and Olaf's relationship at the end was fantastic.
I couldn't tell my husband about the bombinating beast statue because he hasn't read ATWQ yet, so that kind of killed me a little inside.
I loved the color of the sheep and the clothes. That was so funny!
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Post by aldegrousozdizal on Feb 27, 2019 22:14:13 GMT -5
To me, The End was great, and perhaps not so great in other parts, but that's what makes it entertaining. The conclusion left me in awe, at how a 'happy ending' can leave one so sad and unfulfilled. However, the bulk of the episode, which was Ishmael and his colony, seemed
1) Rushed - Very little detail, is drugging a colony, suddenly thrown upon us that he's the founder of VFD, then just leaves. We could have seen a lot more about the colony in particular.
2) Unnecessary. While this is probably not a popular opinion, I just don't see why they decided to focus so much of the episode on Ish and his group. They could have took this time to explore and present new information on events that have already happened, rather then present new characters for one episode.
Still, I wouldn't change it one bit. The perfections and flaws are all based on opinion, and therefore we cannot justly say what *should have* or shouldn't have been put into the series. It's just a bunch of creativity and uniqueness and originality coming from the same repetitive source which is why, in my opinion, people ever watch any show. It's to see this group of people and to see a story, but, in contrast to movies, they have the key element of repetitiveness, and if you've ever watched these types of shows, they tend to end in either a very, very, well-informed conclusion, or the opposite, one which raises more questions, as more events happen with these familiar characters which we just never see. This is the case of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, as this cast of bright, unique characters simply fade away, each with their own stories we will never see.
This always leaves me with a sense of fulfillment, and that is what brought me to this forum in the first place. I crave for a conclusion, something I can grasp, something tangible. However, I know it is quite unlikely I will find it, as every answer seems to raise more questions. Still, the last episode did leave us some courtesy, with Olaf's death scene, Beatrice 2 scenes, the future of the other side characters (or at least, the ones who weren't present at the Hotel Denouement), and some more.
I really appreciated this series and found myself in shock after finishing it. There HAD to be a season 4, I couldn't comprehend that the adventure had finally ended. But now, after two days of scouring the internet, I think I've come to a feeling of understanding, and this forum has given me some peace of mind, although, I wait for more from Daniel's expecting books for some proper closure. I do hope they do a sort of "Sequel Series" using the same main cast, but in the future.
TL;DR - Good episode. I am kind of sad at the ambiguity, but happy that there is no definitive ending, that there is the hope for more.
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