Yeah, but its reason to exist is just to show what happened to Jesse, the idea it has to give us some new awakening on the series to be a story worth telling is a pretty tall order, if not insurmountable, and fraught since we liked what we thought of it broadly in the end and apparently so did they. That would just be shaking it up for the sake of it, like a creepy custom-made snow globe you keep next to your tarantula.
If their only intent was to show what happened to Jesse, then they waited too long. I feel like waiting 6 years carries a weight, so that when they step back up to the plate they should have something pretty significant to offer.
Okay, this may have started as JUST JOEK, but I've been thinking about the parallels between Schala and Jesse pretty much all evening. Also, Queen Zeal is certainly Todd, forcing Schala to work on the mammon machine against her will. Janus is Brock (loling). Jesse's escape in the series finale and traveling to Alaska is Schala awakening from the Time Devourer and uh, visiting modern day Japan. Care to guess who Lavos is? Imagine it with a pork pie hat. Shit ... or is Walt actually Janus, who grows up and tries to rescue her?I'm rejecting this comparison based on the fact that Gato wasn't the co-lead or even a prominent character of Chrono Trigger whose fate was not elaborated on. And because the Schala comparison was right there too! That point could go either way depending on what one thinks of Chrono Cross as a sequel compared to El Camino. =)
This is already better than El Camino.
Also since you asked, I have exclusively negative thoughts about Chrono Cross. Even divorcing it as a Chrono sequel, I find it just fucking awful. It's one of the most excessive stories in video games. This only got worse for me once I read that the creator (Masato Kato) said he felt it was an honest effort at a Chrono sequel (Vin Diesel: Ohugottabekiddinme.wav). I would love to talk about it one day with you. But maybe not in the TV thread
I guess my defensiveness is with how we consume a lot of media in general now, like it's almost judging art by its perception rather than just what it is; Joker is encouraging incels, El Camino doesn't need to exist, etc. Some of these prevailing takes are forming instantly, before the movie is even out in the case of the former, so we're not even talking about it anymore but talking about how we talk about it or perceive its place in the zeitgeist.
I had a very lucid response to this planned, but I've had a pretty rough week and I'm two drinks in at this point, so I'll just lay out my honest thoughts: This is naive. I feel you that we should be able to watch movies/TV compartmentalized from their impact (or perceived impact) on culture, and appreciate the thing itself. But I feel like that time has passed. Somewhere along the way, big budget entertainment became an all-consuming beast, demanding the full attention of culture, and thus is on the hook for all sorts of things, including in the case of the Joker, cultural responsibility. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. That attention comes with a price accorded to its impact.
But all that aside, I genuinely did not pre-judge El Camino. I went in with low expectations, but hopeful given the actor/writer attachments, and it still left me with a somewhat amateurish aftertaste. And a few small moments that struck the spark of Breaking Bad aside, felt it wasn't quite what it could have been. But what is?
to me the consistent experience is that it seems of a kind with BB on a granular level, like that apartment search scene
Agreed, this is also the scene I've indirectly been referring to that felt most in parity with Breaking Bad.
but it doesn't need to match the series' profound highs and lows, and likely never could in two hours, just to dare exist to tell the story of how Jesse got out.
Mmm, I dunno. Sure it's just two hours, but they're working with an audience intimately familiar with what, 30+ hours of story and character development? There's an opportunity there.
Netflix releasing it with a jumped up, eventized marketing campaign ultimately doesn't it make it something else to me. I'm guessing for you it's just not a story and character you cared for seeing anyway, and it didn't add anything on top that you did.
The regular Netflix fanfare didn't get in my way. I always tune that shit out. But yeah, it's more about the production itself and the character it's centered on that was the weak point for me.
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