Twilight Zone the Movie.

Heard they talked about it on Radiodrome. And like them I was also scared of the gremlien. The original looked silly, this was was scary.

I liked the movie, but was disapointed they didn't have my fave episode on it, "Talking Tina."

It's one of my favorite movies, hands down. The bizarre set design and lighting in the last two segments in particular make me very, very, happy. The gremlin never scared me as much as that bunny, though...ugh.

I've got to shout my extreme disagreement. I hated the Twilight Zone movie because it completely missed the point of the original series. The point of the classic series wasn't to be scary, which why in my opinion it didn't matter what the hell the Gremlin looked like. What's scary is that there's a man tearing apart the damn plane, not that he looks like a mutant womprat(oh and by the way he's tearing apart the plane!). What made the show compelling are the circumstances and certain information which is hid from us.

The original Twilight Zone was a bastion of enlightenment and profound insights on humanity and it's concepts of morality. The movie could not have had anything less to do with all of that except for the "Time out" segment, and even that one sucked because due to the horrible accident was not fully realized. The closest the movie comes to being a true representation of Twilight Zone was Kick the can, it was a truly beautiful story and Scatman Crothers was excellent. The rest of the movie though... psshh, you can take it or leave it.

gunflyer wrote:

I've got to shout my extreme disagreement. I hated the Twilight Zone movie because it completely missed the point of the original series. The point of the classic series wasn't to be scary, which why in my opinion it didn't matter what the hell the Gremlin looked like. What's scary is that there's a man tearing apart the damn plane, not that he looks like a mutant womprat(oh and by the way he's tearing apart the plane!). What made the show compelling are the circumstances and certain information which is hid from us.

The original Twilight Zone was a bastion of enlightenment and profound insights on humanity and it's concepts of morality. The movie could not have had anything less to do with all of that except for the "Time out" segment, and even that one sucked because due to the horrible accident was not fully realized. The closest the movie comes to being a true representation of Twilight Zone was Kick the can, it was a truly beautiful story and Scatman Crothers was excellent. The rest of the movie though... psshh, you can take it or leave it.

I beg to differ; all of the stories were based on original episodes, so all of the circumstances and whatnot are there. The only difference, really, is the use of atmosphere. In the original series, it was everyday events turned on their head, and a lot of the mood came from that naturalistic dismantling of the normal. The idea is still in place with the movie, albeit slightly differently; instead of a collective unhinging of reality, we see it from the point of view of one character. Thus, the really crazy visuals during the last two segments, the soft focus in Kick the Can, etc. While the series commented on society and the institutions put in place by society, the movie took a more personal look at how he individual perceives the world around them and how one accepts the institutions of society. I know I'm not going to win you over, but the movie isn't the series and can't be criticized for that.

Mondo a Go-Go wrote:

I beg to differ; all of the stories were based on original episodes, so all of the circumstances and whatnot are there. The only difference, really, is the use of atmosphere. In the original series, it was everyday events turned on their head, and a lot of the mood came from that naturalistic dismantling of the normal. The idea is still in place with the movie, albeit slightly differently; instead of a collective unhinging of reality, we see it from the point of view of one character. Thus, the really crazy visuals during the last two segments, the soft focus in Kick the Can, etc. While the series commented on society and the institutions put in place by society, the movie took a more personal look at how he individual perceives the world around them and how one accepts the institutions of society. I know I'm not going to win you over, but the movie isn't the series and can't be criticized for that.

I know they're "based" on original episodes, but honestly those episodes were not originally meant to be scary with the exception of Nightmare at 20,000 feet. Even then, if you've watched every episode of Twilight Zone like I have, you'll know that the movie missed the point of the series entirely even though the segments were based on classic Zone episodes. See the segments may basically have the right idea, but they don't really bring anything new to the table or change the message of the original episode entirely.

Time out isn't about forgiveness anymore, the message is now once a bigot, always a bigot. Kick the can was great, no problem there. The problem is with It's a good life, it's a show that tries to be scary with a lot of new and pointless creature effects and some kind of weird, creepy ambiguous and poorly defined relationship between Helen Folley and the kid. Nightmare at 20,000 feet was no longer about speaking your crazy ideas out of fear of ridicule and persecution in an attempt to save lives, it was about OMG scary monster on the wing of the plane! I guess the problem is more the episodes they chose and the ways they chose to adapt them for the big screen. The movie does not feel like Twilight Zone at all. The best episodes of Twilight Zone were thought-provoking, devilishly clever and rarely had anything to do with being scary, or if they were, the point of the story was you don't need to be scared. For my money, Close Encounters was a far better interpretation of the Twilight Zone.

In adapting stories, they also showed their weakness, we can't come up with something wholly original, so let's just adapt.