unforum

[lonsumtravlr]

[Lithp]

[lonsumtravlr]

[Lithp]

[DJay32]

[Lithp]

[censura_umbra]

[Lithp]

That's odd, because I pictured Alex shaving his face while he was dying & Brian wheezing out, "You...dick." Not so scary.

[ReverendJ]

[censura_umbra]

[Lithp]

I'm not sure if I was clear. I didn't repost my list with annotations to say, "Propose explanations to these," it was in response to a question about what I said regarding avoiding situations where the unanswered question list dramatically outweighs the list of things we've learned.

[lonsumtravlr]

Lithp, I see your points. I share a couple of your criticisms. To be fair to the THAC guys (and I'm aware that this really is neither a viable ulitmate excuse nor any sort of viable defense of some of MH's weaker moments), I still think that part of the issue has been that MH became far bigger than they'd imagined, and as you rightly state, they're not accomplished writers on the long-term series level yet. I don't want to keep pointing back to the limits of found footage argument, either, because, again, it's more a reason to drop it for the next series.

I do think that the mystery isn't all gratuitous and that there are more clues given for things in the visual composition of the series. Now I agree--a little more explanation for the shack and part of Rosswood shifting woulda been nice. And it coulda been done in the limited medium of found footage and the limited handheld and chest cameras. At least EMH had a couple of trips to ye ol' library or a little online research. Everyone in the show is computer savvy enough to have checked online--something coulda come up when Jay tried to find a missing persons report on "Bruce." There could have been some backstory about TO and Rosswood without providing everything--an origin story isn't necessary, but some sort of sense of history could be. This is a hole. BUT not everything needed to be completely laid out, either. if this were say a Lovecraft short story, you'd get a page-and-a-half diatribe tying the connections together. I'm glad that MH didn't go that route, especially as long-winded monologues are not something Troy et al. do that well yet (and hopefully they'll avoid them in the future). I don't think the characters needed to really say much more--and it's possible in series (again, unsubstantiated, weak argument) that they said a lot when the camera either wasn't rolling or that just got edited from the entries. I don't think this is a problem--I just wonder why no one thought even to check Snopes or something and look into ghost stories and urban legends. They wouldn't have had to mention creepypasta--it's quite likely that MH takes place in a different universe in which creepypasta doesn't even exist (though it's clear from the series's start that "Something Awful" does). They could do this without going the Candle Cove route (something tells me there wouldn't have been a TO survivor's forum anyway). Agreed that they coulda handled this better while still maintaining a lot of the mystery and the creepiness and the inhumanness of The Operator.

As for TO not jumping to everyone--it seems that the camera's the thing that does it. It lays claim to a host that way. Alex had a point about an outbreak--though if I'm reading his last words correctly, he came to think that ANYone he came in contact with would be contaminated (I understand him saying, "When you see someone, you have to kill them, then yourself"). Even before Entry #84, it seemed pretty clear that this was where they were going (Jay tweeted that he was getting terribly ill after reviewing this footage [some of which had included him from the MH shoot], and it's not a weak conjecture that Alex was relatively OK till Amy found the camera).

As for Jessica... well, I'm not sure that she's really dead. I still don't believe that Entry #76 shows a death and a TO abduction. Or, if she's dead, maybe Hoody killed her? Doubtful, but maybe she was allowed to leave, too? Entry #76 seems staged in series to me. But the "she's out there" seemed to me to be something to incense Jay and keep him mad at Alex or just keep him going (as Tim pointed out in Entry #69, and as Jay stated himself in Entries #59 and #63, finding Jessica was one of the main reasons he persevered, such as it is).

I'm of the camp that says that when the attempted offing of Brian didn't take in Entry #51, Brian "snapped." He became that sort of mad Ahab confusing justice with vengeance, and with him it was a zero sum game. I think there's been enough evidence to support that interpretation, although it coulda been sharper in points, yeah. Agreed about the account hacks, too, but Jay seemed like a guy who tried to keep stoic about things and was wicked bad at it. That's all I got for now.

[Lithp]

[lonsumtravlr]

[lonsumtravlr]

Actually, now that I've been briefly detained, why not one further post?

About their storytelling style. (And I think that while they likely share a vision, this is Troy's baby.) I really do think that in MH's case many clues and many answers are provided visually--especially as emotions and thoughts have apparently been captured by the cameras (IG). THis might have been Trosephim's way of getting around the limitations of found footage while also throwing a few bones to the fans who like to pick things apart. It also suggests something of a surreal influence on Troy and likely on Joseph and Tim too. (Again, Troy was following David Lynch on Twitter, he's a film student, I'm sure he's seen Twin Peaks and Mulholland Dr. and Eraserhead, though it's the former two whose influence I see on MH.)