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Spoiler NOPE (spoilers)

D

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What a great twist on a UFO movie.

The scene where you see the people getting sucked up into the UFO's esophagus, revealing that it's actually a living creature, and hearing the muffled screams above and below as they're settling into their final resting place to be digested was so fucked up.

Shit gave me some Fire in the Sky flashbacks.

I'd like to thank whomever came up with the concept of screams emanating from the UFO any time it flies overhead for the nightmares I'm sure I'll have tonight.
 
I'd like to thank whomever came up with the concept of screams emanating from the UFO any time it flies overhead for the nightmares I'm sure I'll have tonight.
oAQVYRd.gif
 
So glad you made this thread since i spent a post in the Kino Thread to refute nonsense, repeated throughout other film common criticism of unfair expectations on prior work as well as comparisons drawn to other films that can possibly taint a subsequent first viewing, I'll take this spoiler ridden post to declare what I felt worked and why.

Firstly all the actors brought it in their own unique way. Each their own voice and perspective on the situation. Charismatically realized and lived in by each performed.

Daniel Kaluuya with a phenomenally subdued yet strong performance. We know what he's capable of, but I feel his performance here is being severely underrated due to subtlety.

Keke Palmer delivers the counter-performance with all the energy and backbone to the film that carries us throughout. An unrelentless positive infectious energy that I doubt Jean Jacket could ever have much of an effect too strongly against.

Then the unassuming role of the Fry's associate played by the unpromoted Brandon Perea, who I thought was just a really funny trolly bit part, but unexpectedly (pleasantly so) became a integral grow-on-you character with our main two.

I'm going to take this to transition to other things I didn't expect and thus feel it worked in the films favor.

The Title/Chapter cards worked for me. They denoted the names of the animal creatures we were already made aware of and either directly or tenuosly related to them after said cards appearance. That's why it worked, it felt inconsisent, but also stirred up dread. You didn't know what to really expect under each monikered segment.

Which brings me to Gordy. The title card where, after the opening sequence and Steven Yeun's secret shrine sequence with SNL anecdote with an extra dose of sarcastic Kattan shade, we all know what to expect here right off the bat. And then there's the dread. And the torturous build up as we watch a cheesy sitcom scene play with an off screen chimpanzee. When, how will it happen? And then it does, and fuck that mess...

This little vignette seems hotly disputed as something that could have been cut to save someone like seven mintues of their day. They believe the same message could be accomplished in a more expediant way. No. It's not just about some heady message hear for people to sit and discuss the scenes intricacies over tea. This was meant to horrify you. Make you deeply uncomfortable. Make you unsure of what else is left to come or how you yourself would have handled yourself in that situation. Would you have gone for the fist bump, or try to save a young actresses life in some (likely self-dooming and ineffectually impotent) way?

There's no other need to read too deeply into at this point beyond that, in my opinion. I don't watch a film and toil my brain trying to outsmart it before the film outsmarts me. I just go along for the ride. And Jordan Peele delivers yet again for me here in (sure, damn I guess I'll say it) spectacularly (cause everyone says it's a "spectacle" sigh anyways). Just like his previous two and this one, I'll be there day one for his next. And I hope it doesn't conform to the populous's narrative expectations since many seem to be incapable of thinking beyond pre-established notions and biases of things that came before and seem incapable of being able to engage an original story and characters without bringing their own baggage, because I have no interest in that film.

It's okay to be weird, it's good to be different. Stop trying to will the zeitgeist to discourage original art for your incessant need to complain about little shit you don't even understand with given context.
 
This little vignette seems hotly disputed as something that could have been cut to save someone like seven mintues of their day. They believe the same message could be accomplished in a more expediant way. No. It's not just about some heady message hear for people to sit and discuss the scenes intricacies over tea. This was meant to horrify you. Make you deeply uncomfortable. Make you unsure of what else is left to come or how you yourself would have handled yourself in that situation. Would you have gone for the fist bump, or try to save a young actresses life in some (likely self-dooming and ineffectually impotent) way?

There's no other need to read too deeply into at this point beyond that, in my opinion.
Thing is, there is a way to read deeply into that vignette, and it helps with the character. He went through this traumatic experience with a wild animal that hurt/killed everyone except him. It saw him, and instead wanted to connect. So when the alien creature comes along, he's primed to see the potential death and destruction and go "But it'll like me." Which is why he foolishly puts all those people in harm's way, because he honestly believed he could fist bump it.

And another, simpler way of looking at it: a bait-and-switch. The movie sets it up as a parallel, where this force of nature ripped through these people but then he tamed it. Audiences who picked up on that quickly might think during the ranch performance scene: was it foreshadowing? Will the same thing happen with the alien? Will he connect with it in a way where others failed to try? Nope.

Anyway, this ends my TED Talk about Why That Scene Was Good To Leave In. Thanks for coming, yall.
 
Thing is, there is a way to read deeply into that vignette, and it helps with the character. He went through this traumatic experience with a wild animal that hurt/killed everyone except him. It saw him, and instead wanted to connect. So when the alien creature comes along, he's primed to see the potential death and destruction and go "But it'll like me." Which is why he foolishly puts all those people in harm's way, because he honestly believed he could fist bump it.

And another, simpler way of looking at it: a bait-and-switch. The movie sets it up as a parallel, where this force of nature ripped through these people but then he tamed it. Audiences who picked up on that quickly might think during the ranch performance scene: was it foreshadowing? Will the same thing happen with the alien? Will he connect with it in a way where others failed to try? Nope.

Anyway, this ends my TED Talk about Why That Scene Was Good To Leave In. Thanks for coming, yall.
Also, it furthers the idea of "viewers" (humans) being mesmerized by spectacle--even disastrous, horrific spectacle--and that the more we engage with it, the less we become observers and the more we become participants in the destruction. It also has to do with the disrespect of animals throughout the story when "training" them--Gordy, the horse that kicks after the crew disobeys OJ's orders, and of course Jean Jacket not wanting to be looked in the eyes.

But back to the point on spectacle and the lines that blur between what we watch/consume and who we are. Think about our daily news cycle and how bleak and pummeling it is, and think about how many capture footage of said spectacle (shootings, fires, car accidents, natural disasters, etc.) and thereby become participants in it. This all coalesces with the director of photography, who, throughout the entire movie, is seen watching footage of predators attacking their prey. He's always an observer, not a participant--until he joins OJ and Emerald, captures the shot, and even then that isn't enough because he wants to redo it at magic hour. He has officially crossed the rubicon and has become what he warned OJ of -- "the guy who wants to be at the top of the mountain".

All of this is to say that I loved the movie, its weird narrative detours that paid off in spades for character, mood, and theme, and Peele's career-best craftsmanship. The man improves his directing chops with every film, and though I personally thought Us was too messy and narratively incoherent to be great on a script level, NOPE represents a return to form for me.
 
Also, it furthers the idea of "viewers" (humans) being mesmerized by spectacle--even disastrous, horrific spectacle--and that the more we engage with it, the less we become observers and the more we become participants in the destruction. It also has to do with the disrespect of animals throughout the story when "training" them--Gordy, the horse that kicks after the crew disobeys OJ's orders, and of course Jean Jacket not wanting to be looked in the eyes.

But back to the point on spectacle and the lines that blur between what we watch/consume and who we are. Think about our daily news cycle and how bleak and pummeling it is, and think about how many capture footage of said spectacle (shootings, fires, car accidents, natural disasters, etc.) and thereby become participants in it. This all coalesces with the director of photography, who, throughout the entire movie, is seen watching footage of predators attacking their prey. He's always an observer, not a participant--until he joins OJ and Emerald, captures the shot, and even then that isn't enough because he wants to redo it at magic hour. He has officially crossed the rubicon and has become what he warned OJ of -- "the guy who wants to be at the top of the mountain".

All of this is to say that I loved the movie, its weird narrative detours that paid off in spades for character, mood, and theme, and Peele's career-best craftsmanship. The man improves his directing chops with every film, and though I personally thought Us was too messy and narratively incoherent to be great on a script level, NOPE represents a return to form for me.
I didn't even think about the audience-creature connection through spectacle and observation, or the significance of the cinematographer's participation. I was thinking they were setting up a thing where his camera would eventually be spat out like the other metal materials, and there would be the proof of what the creature was and even what was inside, but I didn't catch that he and his profession were part of the metaphor. Wow.
 
I didn't even think about the audience-creature connection through spectacle and observation, or the significance of the cinematographer's participation. I was thinking they were setting up a thing where his camera would eventually be spat out like the other metal materials, and there would be the proof of what the creature was and even what was inside, but I didn't catch that he and his profession were part of the metaphor. Wow.
Each of the animals in the movie is made a spectacle in different ways. I feel like it's about them reclaiming their wild, natural state in some ways and stopping this humiliating or mocking trend, too. There's a lot of messages in this movie--arguably too many--but the ambition and rendering of it all is just so great!
 
Thing is, there is a way to read deeply into that vignette, and it helps with the character. He went through this traumatic experience with a wild animal that hurt/killed everyone except him. It saw him, and instead wanted to connect. So when the alien creature comes along, he's primed to see the potential death and destruction and go "But it'll like me." Which is why he foolishly puts all those people in harm's way, because he honestly believed he could fist bump it.

And another, simpler way of looking at it: a bait-and-switch. The movie sets it up as a parallel, where this force of nature ripped through these people but then he tamed it. Audiences who picked up on that quickly might think during the ranch performance scene: was it foreshadowing? Will the same thing happen with the alien? Will he connect with it in a way where others failed to try? Nope.

Anyway, this ends my TED Talk about Why That Scene Was Good To Leave In. Thanks for coming, yall.
Oh for sure. With my wall of text (which was long enough) I just focused on the visceral experience of the scene rather than its thematical and character motivating aspects. But yeah I'm fully on board with your post as well. I felt the mood it created had a stronger impact for being unsettled for the remainder of the film, just as the opening did as well at the time of first viewing it than I did quantifying its greater signifigance to the overall message. Then we see Steven Yeun's character was apparently just casually reminiscing the second Gordy scene, and we of course later see with Jean Jacket the tragic conclusion of his character as a direct connection to that moment. The two aspects together is why it works and should put to rest the talk of the Gordy scenes needing to be cut from the film. "Nothing lost," some may say while offering no ideas of how to accomplish what those scenes do in their place and seemingly oblivious to the ill effect losing those scenes would cause to the film. experience in general.

Also just occurred to me that I believe they called the fist bumps their characters would do in that show as something like "blowing it up." And then of course then when the alien creature devours the helium balloon likeness of Juniper, it blows up.
 
Also just occurred to me that I believe they called the fist bumps their characters would do in that show as something like "blowing it up." And then of course then when the alien creature devours the helium balloon likeness of Juniper, it blows up.
Wow. 🤣
 
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Got out of it this afternoon with the wife. Feel like I'm gonna need a Youtube explainer on some of this stuff because aside from the main plot of filming/taking down the monster I'm not totally sure what was going on.

Did the Jupiter guy actually know about the monster? My wife and I can't figure out if he had seen it or if he was just going along with the rumors. The thing she's listening to says the monkey thing was about him not having respect for animals, but I'm not sure how they got that out of that scene.
 
Got out of it this afternoon with the wife. Feel like I'm gonna need a Youtube explainer on some of this stuff because aside from the main plot of filming/taking down the monster I'm not totally sure what was going on.

Did the Jupiter guy actually know about the monster? My wife and I can't figure out if he had seen it or if he was just going along with the rumors. The thing she's listening to says the monkey thing was about him not having respect for animals, but I'm not sure how they got that out of that scene.
He did know about it, and built a show around it. He was watching the cloud at the beginning of the show and when it began moving he pretty quickly said something like "okay folks here we go" because he knew what he was trying to lure. The thing about the chimp was that he foolishly thought he could connect with the alien the way he believed he connected with the chimp. He figured it would trust him.
 
He did know about it, and built a show around it. He was watching the cloud at the beginning of the show and when it began moving he pretty quickly said something like "okay folks here we go" because he knew what he was trying to lure. The thing about the chimp was that he foolishly thought he could connect with the alien the way he believed he connected with the chimp. He figured it would trust him.
Okay, that makes sense. So he was buying the horses off of Daniel Kaluuya to feed the thing? And he sent his kids out in the alien masks because they stole the fake horse?
 
Also just occurred to me that I believe they called the fist bumps their characters would do in that show as something like "blowing it up." And then of course then when the alien creature devours the helium balloon likeness of Juniper, it blows up.
Plus Gordy and Jean Jacket both go apeshit after a balloon pops haha
 
Okay, that makes sense. So he was buying the horses off of Daniel Kaluuya to feed the thing? And he sent his kids out in the alien masks because they stole the fake horse?
Damn good catch! I didn't even think about Jupe buying the horses just to feed Jean Jacket. Especially that look he gives when he says, "right, of course" hesitantly when OJ suggests buying some of the horses back.
 
Damn good catch! I didn't even think about Jupe buying the horses just to feed Jean Jacket. Especially that look he gives when he says, "right, of course" hesitantly when OJ suggests buying some of the horses back.
Oh! Same here, didn't even occur to me. I thought maybe he had already resold them and that was the reason for the hesitancy. Good catch, @Apopheniac!
 
Damn good catch! I didn't even think about Jupe buying the horses just to feed Jean Jacket. Especially that look he gives when he says, "right, of course" hesitantly when OJ suggests buying some of the horses back.
Oh! Same here, didn't even occur to me. I thought maybe he had already resold them and that was the reason for the hesitancy. Good catch, @Apopheniac!
You'll have to thank Mrs. Pheniac for explaining that one to me.
 
I liked the opening scene with Gordy because I literally couldn’t tell if it was the movie or a weird second, extremely lavish logo for Monkeypaw Productions.

The movie was awesome btw. Had a similar vibe to Us with cursed Americana folk lore providing the basis but none of the middling execution of that movie.
 
I liked the opening scene with Gordy because I literally couldn’t tell if it was the movie or a weird second, extremely lavish logo for Monkeypaw Productions.
The opening scene freaked me out because I didn't realize Monkeypaw was Peele's production company so I had no indication that I was in the right movie at all. I was wondering if I was about to have to jump up and sprint out to find the right screen. 😅
 
.......

hadn't made that connection yet

Being unwillingly swallowed and forced through a slimy esophagus, accompanied by the confused muffled screams of a dozen other victims ahead of and behind you in the darkness before you finally settle into the guts of your predator, your final resting place where you wait for hours, utterly hopeless, impossible to rescue, unprepared, primally panicking because you had plans for today, while you're slowly digested as part of a routine feeding by a creature that simply sees you as necessary sustenence

...was literally shown in the movie. I was shaken lol. It fucked me up for the night
 
Being unwillingly swallowed and forced through a slimy esophagus, accompanied by the confused muffled screams of a dozen other victims ahead of and behind you in the darkness before you finally settle into the guts of your predator, your final resting place where you wait for hours, utterly hopeless, impossible to rescue, unprepared, primally panicking because you had plans for today, while you're slowly digested as part of a routine feeding by a creature that simply sees you as necessary sustenence

...was literally shown in the movie. I was shaken lol. It fucked me up for the night
Maybe because of the interior material and texture still looking rather plasticine my brain didn't track it as an esophagus until after it crunched them and began raining blood and pocket change. So perhaps that's why I didn't have such a visceral reaction. I thought they were simply captured (hence the continued screaming) during that scene.

Goddamn, this movie. I wanna shake Peele's hand.
 
Maybe because of the interior material and texture still looking rather plasticine my brain didn't track it as an esophagus until after it crunched them and began raining blood and pocket change. So perhaps that's why I didn't have such a visceral reaction. I thought they were simply captured (hence the continued screaming) during that scene.

Goddamn, this movie. I wanna shake Peele's hand.

Knowing they were just trapped like bugs inside a gastrointestinal tract made hearing the screaming from above so much worse.
 
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Regarding the tube I thought at some point they were going to be grabbed out into whatever holding area the aliens had set up. Then I saw the dead horse and realized the ufo was the alien.

A very fun twist on aliens and great (horrific) way to reveal it.
 
Absolutely loved the movie when I saw it last Sunday. Jean Jacket is my favorite modern horror monster I've seen in media in such a long time.

Film definitely brought in multiple talking points:

  1. Spectacle and how dangerous it can be. When Gordy went off on the show and how people are so intrigued by the event that they want photographic or video evidence to see the event. In real life, the story that Gordy is based off of is a animal handler whose face was actually ripped off by a monkey she handled. People then started getting monkey's so they could recreate that moment on film. And this is something we see with Jupe's character trying to showcase the Alien Ship by making a show on it. Even down to the shoe mysteriously standing upward while we all wait for the shoe to drop (which is a Hollywood term of when a shoe drops something bad happens) but the shoe never dropping keeps us engrossed in what happens next.
  2. Understanding animal handing. There are people who feel like they are The Special, who feel like because if X doesn't happen with a animal they have some greater bond. Then there's the animal handlers that understand that every creature has it's own special needs to handle and they understand the risks of the animal. So we have Jupe who feels like he's special because Gordy fist bumped him after he calmed down when the balloons (or something else) sets him off. We had all the warning's of Gordy, anytime someone mention the jungle it would set him off to other things. No one respected Gordy's needs which lead to him being set off. Jupe thinking has the special even trying to make a spectacle event of trying to showoff the Alien Ship by feeding it routinely which lead to his and the audience's demise. All compared to OJ who details how his horses all have special things you need to take note of, not looking in the eye, no loud sounds, standing in front of the horse and as he goes through the whole process everyone at the film set actively not caring. The people who survived in this movie are the one's who understood animal handling and Jean Jacket's traits to avoid death like not looking at it's eye, tying yourself down, using electronics to track it's movements.
  3. The movie can even tie into climate change with Jean Jacket being a allegory of the dangers of climate change, getting proof of something impossible to prove on video/photo of it. Oj and Em trying to get a photo/video evidence of Jean Jacket trying to endanger themselves for this impossible shot to make some money and prove to the world of it's existence. When the danger of Jean Jacket is shown Em keeps asking Oj why he won't leave, and OJ says he has to just live with it since he still has to work, this is his home and he can't just leave. Just like many parts of the world effected by climate change and have to keep going on about their lives living with it. Even if someone knows of it's existence they are powerless in solidarity to fix anything unless they can prove it exists. And after Em finally gets a photo of Jean Jacket, the news media shows up too late to get video evidence/photos of the creature. Not to mention we learn throughout the movie on how OJ's land was taken off Google Maps supposedly by the government, the radio talks about people going missing and the explanation of all the guests at Jupe's show were caught in a draught. The government were suppressing the evidence and realness of the creature probably in a effort to keep people living there to be food to the creature and keep it there. Since they can't figure out a means to get rid of it and don't want to cause more of a panic/spectacle out of the situation.
There's so many things to grab out of this movie and like every Jordan Peele movie, this movie deserves multiple watch throughs just to pick apart. I can't wait for the movie to be out of theaters so I can stop and examine each scene for other details I missed.
 
Movie would haven't have been mid if it had the alien fighting a chimp
Imagine if Jupe kept a chimp around because of his whole deal, and some convoluted reason was set up for the chimp to meander out into the theme park at the end and take the well photo instead of Emerald 😅
 
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I enjoyed it overall, I would say it's more coherent than Us (which I thought kinda fell apart in the third act) but less entertaining overall. Definitely a slow burn in the first half. I think it's simpler thematically than Get Out or Us but the spectacle was well done and there were a few scenes that were more viscerally disturbing than any other movie scene I can recall in recent memory (specifically JJ eating the Jupiter guests in graphic detail and Gordy's violent outburst). Honestly, I wish we got more of Yeun's character, he was very fascinating.

So yeah, it was good, but I think Get Out is still by far Peele's best film. But his movies are always interesting to watch and think about after.

Also I chuckled at how shameless the Akira homage was.
 


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