"IsaacKuo" <mechdan@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> On Apr 1, 9:54 am, "Franklin Hummel" <hum...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> "IsaacKuo" <mech...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> .
> .
> .
> spoilers for The Mist movie
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
> .
>
>> > I just realized a bizarre possibility. Mist wouldn't clear away
>> > like that unless it was being pushed away by something else.
>> > So, what if the Arrowhead project doorway to the mist world
>> > were closed, but the doorway were redirected to an even nastier
>> > world? This even more horrific dimension is now spilling into
>> > the world, pushing away the mist (possibly including airborne
>> > toxins and/or disease, based on the equipment of the
>> > soldiers).
>
>> As I said, I really wanted an *End-of-the-World* store, but at the
>> same time, the doorway might have been redirected to a dimension
>> of
>> large butterflies and daisies.
>
> A world infested by vicious Mothras and Trifids wouldn't be
> a picnic either.
Now, now, you *know* what I meant. I mean, if we are doing quantum
parallel universe, there are also a lot (infinite) number of places
that are much nicer that our world.
> Sure, but where are they evacuating to? I'd rather set up
> refugee camps where there isn't mist, and where apparently
> helicopters can fly around (obviously not practical within
> the mist).
Well, actually you gave me the answer on this, when I thought the
military was coming into the Mist and not from the Arrowhead
project -- when the reference was true.
Arrowhead (*great* name, by the way) was a research facility, not a
base. At the beginning we clearly see troops rushing to Arrowhead
(though how many actually made it there in the open jeeps in another
question). Given this, I suspect the Arrowhead military presence was
small (even given the ending shot) and they likely were not in a
position of enough resources to set up camps (which would have taken
a fair amount of effort and leaving soldiers behind) so it was easier
to just taken them with them as they left.
However, if the Mist is actually dissipating, as it seem to be, why
leave the area at all? Just as the Mist had spread out, it would
also be falling apart in the same way.
And though it isn't totally clear in the film, it seems the creatures
need to be *in* the Mist to survive. This is never made totally
clear and there are contradiction, such as the insect and bird
creature being able to fly through the store. (On the other hand,
humans can survive underwater for a period of time as well.)
The acid-tang to the Mist (in the novella) I always thought meant the
presence of something in the Mist that the creatures need to survive.
It would make sense evolution-wise for that to have happened. Maybe
it was something they needed, but could do without for periods of
time.
Also, one thing I was disappointed by was the lack of creativity of
the creatures. Some of this is also present in the King story, but
it really got worse in the film. All the creatures were suppose to
have a great many legs, but they were reduced down to sixs and eights
(the spiders). Also besides the never-seen tentacle creature, I
believe all the others had claws of some kind.
I was hoping for much more *alien* creatures.
>> Well, that seems somewhat reasonable within the movie, but it does
>> seems really strange they could not *see* through glass.
>
> Why, exactly? Glass isn't transparent to all wavelengths
> of light. We use glass because it's transparent to
> visible light (visible to us). But it's opaque to thermal
> infrared. In the mist dimension, visible light wavelengths
> are almost useless--you can't see very far through the
> mist. It's logical that they'd use different wavelengths
> of light for vision, wavelengths that could penetrate the
> mist.
>
>> Also, in the novella while it isn't stated as defined, the Mist
>> creatures use *smell* to locate their prey. That is why they
>> bypass
>> the people in the supermarket and once they get in the car.
>
> That makes sense also, although smell isn't precise
> enough to shoot spidersilk with.
Good point. I suspect like most smell-oriented animals, they use
smell for their sense in tracking and then use vision once the prey
has been found and can be attacked.
Also, we don't know the exactly nature of the Mist itself. In the
novella, it has an acid-tang to it, but really nothing is said about
the Mist's substance.
>> If they were using infer-red vision, that women going hope to her
>> kids *still* would have been prime meat for them.
>
> Glass windows are opaque to thermal infrared.
But, again, she was walking out in the open, where two other people
had just been attacked.
Oh, well, I can see a lot of this is we will need to agree to
disagree. So you know, I think within the movie, much of what you
have to say makes a good deal of logic and is very reasonable. I am
working more from both the novella and the movie -- and while that
films in some of the holes in the film, because what the movie
present was also different from the novella, there are
contradictions.
As an example, the earthquake. The cause of that is never explained
and I have never really been able to come up with one myself.
(Somehow am actually shift in our *reality* as the Mist universe?
Some change in physical laws? But that leads to all sorts of
problems.)
But in the novella, there were major consequences from the
earthquake. The roads and other areas are broken, shifted up and
down. There are cracks in the land. About the only thing when they
are in the Mist that might have been done by the earthquake was the
partial falling down of the highway sign. And that could have been
caused by something else.
In the novella, so many trees, and some very large trees, have fallen
over that David cannot get home in the car to find out what happened
to his wife. It is never known in the story, but of course, given
the nature of everything shown, it is very reasonable to assume she
is very dead.
A film like this leaves much, much background and side-events
unanswered and perhaps never even developed. So like the fans we
are, we try to fill those spaces with what fits within the context of
what the film has shown us.
>> I guess, for me, a too way-over-the-top ending, done to be cruel
>> and
>> not too logical given all the other events in the film. The
>> military
>> appearing *just then* was too much a gimmick. It truly felt fake
>> to
>> me.
>
> It was indeed excessively convenient, and it didn't make any
> sense for them to not wait longer before ending it all. If they
> were desperately suffering from hunger or thirst, that'd be one
> thing. But as it was, they were still holed up in a cozy little
> safety zone. Sure, it was a wee bit smaller than the
> supermarket, but it was something.
A reasonable point. But I fell by that time they were not looking on
the Bright Side of Life.
> But then, I don't buy into the whole idea of being so horrified
> as to consider suicide. Well, I know that happens to some
> people, but I just don't think it would happen to most people.
> Suicidal over feelings of guilt and/or loss? Sure. But just
> out of horror? No, I don't buy it.
Horror, yes, but remember in this situation it is also FEAR.
Suicide so you don't suffer the horrible death of being eaten
alive -- or something even worse. Even the young boy (setting up the
ending) asks his dad never to let the monster get him. The mercy
killings at the end were assisted suicides.
Suicide to end your life peacefully or a quickly as possible, without
pain and agony.
As an extension of this, along with this horror and fear would come
great despair and hopelessness. As I have had major depression for
years now, believe me I know the lure of suicide.
> And yes, I know the main character just lost his wife. But
> this is more than counteracted by the fact that he still had
> his son.
Simply put, after all they had been through, after all they had done
to save themselves, after the complete absence of any possibility of
rescue, all during which they lived in terror and fear within a
situation of horror -- they just gave up. People do that.
Sometimes, sometimes after all the pain and fear and horror you have
been through, you just do not want to go on, especially what all you
can see head is more pain, more fear, and more horror. Suicide is
relief.
-- Franklin Hummel in Boston, Massachusetts
P.S. By the way, I submitted the "tags" for THE MIST at Amazon.com of
"h.p. lovecraft' and "lovecraftian"/
At first they were rejected by Amazon, saying that did not use tags
just because something was "similar". So I sent them a more detailed
explanation saying this was not a case of being similar, this was a
case of *being*. I though in some web links showing how King has
used Lovecraft in his writings -- and my background in Lovecraft
fandom as well.
It also helped by that point in time, a fair number of *other* people
have checked off those 2 tags as valid ones as well. :)
So this morning I got an email saying these tags had gone "live".
Now I have to check to see if these 2 tags were also accepted by
Amazon for the single-disc, full-screen version, the dramatization CD
(which is excellent, by the way!), the novella in book form (I bought
that, so I could just read *that* story when I wanted to), and the
book-on-tape version.
I'm doing my part to spread knowledge of HPL where and when I can!
-- Frank
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