Wow. I watched this movie a few weeks ago and I have to say it was one of the most confusing stories that I've encountered probably besides The Usual Suspects which confused me to no ends at least until the ending came up, I only watched The Usual Suspects too about a month ago and I'd have to say both movies were superb though and I'd definitely watch both of them over again more than just one time.
Lucy and The Usual Suspects
- Thread starter FluffehFoxEM
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What bothers me isn't that Lucy is a bad movie (though I think it is), it's the total lack of anything resembling scientific fact. You can't call your work science fiction unless it's based on real, existing principles instead of some hogwash meme. The idea that we only use 10% of our brains is simply wrong. The entire brain is used, it's just that most of it is busy keeping us alive. The other idea, namely that "the other 90%" contains the power to control the universe, is ludicrous. If it's true, why is the universe so stable? Given how chaotic dreams can be, it makes sense that cosmic powers without conscious control would just flare out randomly. How come everything around us isn't constantly being set on fire or moved to random points in time and space by these phenomenal abilities we supposedly possess? Because the power simply isn't there, that's why. Complete control of your brain might allow you, for example, conscious control over peristalsis and the release of digestive juices. Maybe you could stop your fingernails from growing or something. I can't see that kind of thing being terribly useful. It annoys me to see scientist characters in movies lecturing two audiences about complete and utter nonsense. People unfortunately do not distinguish between movie science and real science. Some poor fool walked away from Lucy thinking he could have special brain powers.
So..... is this a thread about those movies, or a thread about movies we personally found confusing?
If it's the former, I really didn't care for Lucy and I loved the Usual Suspects.
If it's the latter, I recently watched Enemy. I thought I had a decent grasp on it, but there are these weird scenes with spiders that kept popping up that completely baffled me. The ending is so abrupt and confusing that I immediately had to take to the internet and try to make sense of it. Turns out, pretty much everything I thought about the movie was completely wrong. Pretty interesting.
If it's the former, I really didn't care for Lucy and I loved the Usual Suspects.
If it's the latter, I recently watched Enemy. I thought I had a decent grasp on it, but there are these weird scenes with spiders that kept popping up that completely baffled me. The ending is so abrupt and confusing that I immediately had to take to the internet and try to make sense of it. Turns out, pretty much everything I thought about the movie was completely wrong. Pretty interesting.
I suppose that if you wanted to you could talk about ANY movie that confused you, I wouldn't mind that as it would broaden the horizon of the topic, so go at it I suppose. I myself on the other hand just found those one fairly confusing.
The Usual Suspects is a "Twist Ending" kind of movie. The first time you watch it, a lot of it slips past you, and that's by design. Second viewing though, you can look for subtle clues.FluffehFoxEM said:
Lucy...well Lucy is just a piece of crap. Sorry but I just can't say anything positive about that cinematic turd. The plot was stupid, the direction and editing was almost like a school art-film project, the foreshadowing with the "animal being stalked by a predator and/or trapped" was so heavy handed that I felt concussed. The ability of that criminal syndicate to so freely roam Paris, in plain sight, openly carrying massive firearms, and nobody seeming to notice them made me want to smash my head open to stop the pain. The laptop Lucy was using to SuperFast Internet Searches OMGURD, being incapable of processing data that quickly, no matter how fast her fingers freaking move. "Cells can choose to either be immortal, or choose to reproduce" .... (-_-) ....wut? WUT!?! It just...GAH! So terrible!
Horrible movie, horrible premise, horrible execution.
Man, if you like confusing movies, you should definitely watch Restart (2005, Finnish production; personally don't like the movie) and Memento (2000; liked it). Those are some nicely confusing movies.
Haven't seen Lucy and don't really plan on doing so because of the pseudo-science I keep hearing about. If I ever do so, it will be for the sole reason of Johansson kicking ass.
Haven't seen Lucy and don't really plan on doing so because of the pseudo-science I keep hearing about. If I ever do so, it will be for the sole reason of Johansson kicking ass.
The Usual Suspects was pretty amazing, not sure why you didn't like it.
A pretty good one is a film called Chasing Amy, it's a comedy time travel, but it's really good, watch it. I won't ruin the twist.
Reservor Dogs is pretty good as well, for it all coming together in the end.
I see someone above has already put down "Memento".
I hope you've seen Fight Club; if not, watch it before someone spoils it.
Sixth Sense is another film you should watch if you don't know the twist.
If you like stories that slowly develop the character and start to come together from multiple angles, then I really would recommend Citizen Kane. It was a fantastic film for it's time, although you need to be patient. But some of the camera work, while early, was amazing. It does get absorbing after 30 minutes or so, be patient.
EDIT:
Spec Ops: THe Line has a good twist. All five of them.
Bioshock (the first one) has a twist that damn near floored me when it is revealed.
If you don't know either, play them and be similarly floored.
A pretty good one is a film called Chasing Amy, it's a comedy time travel, but it's really good, watch it. I won't ruin the twist.
Reservor Dogs is pretty good as well, for it all coming together in the end.
I see someone above has already put down "Memento".
I hope you've seen Fight Club; if not, watch it before someone spoils it.
Sixth Sense is another film you should watch if you don't know the twist.
If you like stories that slowly develop the character and start to come together from multiple angles, then I really would recommend Citizen Kane. It was a fantastic film for it's time, although you need to be patient. But some of the camera work, while early, was amazing. It does get absorbing after 30 minutes or so, be patient.
EDIT:
Spec Ops: THe Line has a good twist. All five of them.
Bioshock (the first one) has a twist that damn near floored me when it is revealed.
If you don't know either, play them and be similarly floored.
A lot of classic sci-fi and (admittedly silly) pulp sci-fi from yesteryears would disagree with youJohnny Impact said:
Dune, John Carter, Flash Gordon, Star Wars, a lot of the original Star Trek before it got mainstream enough to warrant internal consistency, they were all extremely silly settings built largely around their own internal maguffins, in-setting physics and scientific rules that bear no resemblance on reality. I like harder sci-fi as much as the next guy, but it's extremely unfair to just take a swath out of the genre and go "this isn't sci-fi because it isn't based on real stuff."
Science-fiction isn't about being based on real technology or science. It's about exploring worlds in which that technology and science is more advanced, or evolved in a completely different way, and how people within those worlds live with it. That can be hard, fairly true to reality stuff, or that can be bonkers space-pepper, energy swords, time-travel, whatever.
Do I think Lucy was a modern classic? Certainly not, but there was a nugget of a good idea in there. What happens to a person when they (arguably) aren't human any more? When their mind is thinking on higher levels? Etc etc. Suddenly our day to day drama (Lucy's relationship with her mother, as an example. Or the fact that Lucy completely accepted her inevitable death, and chose to focus purely on the betterment of the species) seem completely different, or trivial, or whatever. It was a very silly movie that was basically an excuse to see Scarlet Johannsen kick some ass as some sort of crazy, post-human superwoman... but there were some interesting nuggets in there, even if the script and the structure of the movie didn't give them enough focus.
He didn't say he didn't like it. The OP in fact said he felt both movies were superb. He simply said he was confused/puzzled by it on first viewing, which is to be expected. The movie was kind of designed that way, to give you a big sucker punch at the end.L. Declis said:
I personally can't watch that movie, because the main character reminds me too much of a psycho ex-girlfriend. The fact that she also loved the movie has permanently burned me against the movie. I'm sure it's good, but I can't watch it. xDL. Declis said:
Agreed, these were all good movies, that can be enjoyed more with a second viewing.L. Declis said:
I don't see too much as to why everyone hated Lucy I thought it was sort of a spin off of Limitless which was also a pretty swell movie to me, I just seem to enjoy movies where the brain is more developed by a medicinal way, I find it interesting if we would have the power or technology to enhance our brains even if we do use more than just the percentage that they say we do, perhaps beyond a small, medium or high level. I'll definitely give a lot of the movies many of you are recommending as I'm always looking for a nice twist in a story. Thanks to everyone that's provided your looks on things and your own confusing plot twisty movies, please continue though as a discussion is inevitable at one point in the future though currently I find us to talking a bit more along things, awesome!
What specifically was confusing about Lucy? She got superpowers, she used superpowers, she was dying...actually for the life of me I can't remember what actually happened in the end, except that it went all 2001 on us, but I do remember it finishing and me think "Well, that was that". It was one of those movies that was nearly very cool, but wasn't because of the very face-palming reasons people have mentioned above.
Well I thought I was clear as to why in my original post, but I'll be happy to repeat it! xDFluffehFoxEM said:
1. The base premise is false science, it's an urban myth about some random thing somebody said, and if I recall correctly, it was misquoted in the first place. But, since people are people, it's become this thing that everyone seems to think is true, even when the actual science demonstrably shows it to be false. For some of us, this is highly annoying. Propping up false science in an attempt to make science look awesome is contrary, dis-ingenuine, and insulting to people who actually do like science, and think it should be portrayed accurately, to prevent the continual dumbing down of the populace with bad science. So that's one thing about the movie that annoys people, me included, BUT, I will be honest and say, that after actually seeing the movie, it was not the thing that annoyed me the most. One of my favorite movies Phenomenon, works off the same false premise of "Hidden Magic Brain Powers", so I can grit my teeth and ignore most of the annoyance of the 10% thing...mostly.
2. The directing was terrible, the editing of those natural wildlife footage, hammering home the point that "Lucy's walking into a trap! Oh my gurd look out!" by splicing in clips of animals being hunted was a heavy handed, obvious, and unnecessary narrative device. We already know Lucy's walking into a shitstorm of trouble, this was revealed to us in every single trailer for the movie. They stuff her with drugs, kick her in the stomach, and suddenly goes Super Sayan. They don't need the disjointed context of showing me a cheetah hunting a gazzelle, and a trap door spider killing a bug, we get it, she's in trouble.
3. The magical Korean (I think) crime syndicate! Oh my god this drove me nuts through the entire movie. Seriously, more than anything, THIS is what made me want to eat the stuffing out of my chair while watching it. These thugs would casually walk around Paris, in incredibly distinctive black suits with blinding white shirts, in packs of like 20, and nobody noticed them. They would walk into a hospital, and get deep into the facility, carrying assault rifles and nobody notices them until they start shooting. Hell they even load up to storm the hospital in one scene in plain sight of the Paris cops, and STILL nobody sees them! It was like the director just didn't really care about realism in his story at all (not surprising considering the premise), and just said "ok, so they're going to have a fight here. Nevermind that this place in the hospital is 3 checkpoints in through security doors, that we just showed Lucy sneaking through, but it's ok, who would cause an alarm at seeing 20+ asian guys in suits with assault rifles walking through a hospital! Right? happens all the time in Paris!
4. The amount of terrible little things, like Lucy doing the Super Internet Surfing on a dinky laptop, because you know, her brain is super powerful now, so she can process all that data that fast. Ok fine, whatever, the piece of shit laptop from Best Buy sure as hell can't process all that data that fast, no matter what magic powers you give Lucy. Also the flimsy bit of bullshit science they make Mr. Freeman say about "Cells have a choice" (no they don't) "They can either be immortal" (no they can't) "Or reproduce" (that's the only option they've got, sorry). It was heavy handed pseudoscience, on top of pseudoscience to justify the convoluted, thin plot. And how the hell does Mr. Freeman know what powers would be unlocked at various brain percentages?! Who the hell would know that, it's all theory and speculation, but boom, he's right on target for the stuff she starts unlocking....how?!
5. Lucy is Science Jesus! The end of the movie, one that had been pissing all over good directing, editing, plot, and science, decides to pull the Religious Symbolism card and have Lucy be a Science Christ, who dies for our sins of low brain power! It was stupid and the cherry on top of the cinematic shit-cake that was Lucy. Just, every thing about that film was poorly executed, poorly planned, and just plain poor. Like I said above, one of my favorite movies has the same 10% brain thing, so if the movie had handled that premise better, I probably wouldn't have minded so much. But they stumbled all over even the urban myth, and just made it seem stupid and frustrating.
Good for you! I'm glad you liked the movie, and like I said, I like a similar movie, though I will state that I liked the movie back when I still believed this bit of false science had some kind of validity to it, which was like 20 years ago. I have since then learned better, and haven't seen the movie since. Not out of any refusal to watch it, simply because I've had no desire to do so. I might find it as equally frustrating, but I doubt it. Phenomenon went more for the "touched by the hand of god" magical explanation for his powers, which isn't exactly the same thing as "Because Science". Also that movie kept the true source of his powers a mystery for the entire film. We never actually learn how it happened, it just happened. So, since they left if vague, I can't criticize it as much for using a stupid premise. It was mysterious magical pixies, or god for all I know. Nobody knows! Ok fine. And I certainly am not directing the above venom at any fans of the movie. You can like it all you want, knock yourself out. I don't like it though, I don't like it a lot, and I will frequently explain in great detail why I didn't like it. xD But that's me, and others have eviscerated movies that I love in return, and that's fine. Everyone's got their own tastes, Lucy isn't one of mine.FluffehFoxEM said:
