With all due respect, I think you guys are looking too closely at the story of this movie (it was originally one movie, after all).
What's your point that it was 'after all' originally meant to be one movie?
Do you mean that 'cuz it was originally meant to be one film that it's understandable that the story is 'weak'? I don't get your point?
-I'd wager that QT purposely made the story-line weak, trying to mirror the typical B-movie plots that the Saturday afternoon "Kung-fu Theater" movies typically have.-
Q.T. didn't intentionally make the story 'weak'. I think I would easily win that bet if we were able to ask him that question.
The plot was meant to be very straight-forward and simple though (which is diff. than 'weak') and Vol. 2 actually got that wrong whereas Vol. 1 IMO didn't.
If you watch interviews with him he talks about the first half as an intro to the characters and the 2nd half where you really get to know them.
His explanation of course sounds good, but then makes no sense if you've actually seen the films...
Never in the 1st OR 2nd film do they expand on that Vivica Fox character at all nor Lucy Lu in the 2nd, BUT they tell Lucy Lu's whole biography in the first film -which is more info then on any other character in either film.
That's just uneven and doesn't match what he claimed he did.
They also tell you next to nothing about Elle and leave a BIG question IMO about why Budd is down and out and IMO you don't learn much more about Bill or Uma than you already knew from the first one.
'More scenes' with them doesn't mean 'character development' in this case.
Trust me.... I didn't sit down and study this for hours, drawing up plot charts and taking note, watching scenes over and over to come up with any of this.
It all just popped into my head when I watched Vol. 2 for the first time.
My little nitpicking this or that scene here has aLOT more to do with how it was edited, the pacing, useless scenes that had nothing to do with the main plot, while main plot questions are left unanswered, etc...
-than a 'weak' story which I'd take to just mean 'didn't have much of a story'. (since I can only guess how you mean it).
Vol.1 I thought was much better overall than Vol.2 and there was 'less' story/plot in it so either you're not talking about my posts (doubt that) or you don't understand the points I made already.
BTW... 'Kung Fu' films were only one of several diff. types of films he was getting ideas from.
That's one of those things 'thinking about movies when you watch 'em' could tell you.
If that sort of thing doesn't matter to you -fine, but I like knowing that sort of thing.
-I think it's best just to sit back, enjoy the ride and have fun w/ the dialog and the quirky gestures/actions the characters have. I thought they were both very fun movies.
That's good you liked them. I mostly liked 'em too but you do know you're on a Cinema forum right? A place to talk about films?
Wouldn't this be the place for people who actually think a bit deeper than you about films and don't just watch them mindlessly to come to talk about them?
As you suggest others just 'sit back and enjoy'... I suggest that you might want to pay more attention to the films you waste time watching (like we all do) and you might get more out of the good ones.
And better able to tell the ones that screw up so many things.
Next time you see a new Ashely Judd 'thriller' you'll understand why it's garbage and not a "Tence thrill ride! Thumbs up!!" hehe
That's fine if you want to just say 'liked it, didn't like it' about films but don't put people down for knowing more about film-making and writing than you.
I can't shut my brain off when I watch a film.
It's like when I saw Hellboy and noticed that it there seemed to be a gap in the story and I posted about it here and months later bubba here said it was actually a film splice error that happened all over the country.
Probably no one else (or few) in the theater I saw it in ever noticed anything 'odd'.
They just sat back and enjoyed it 'cuz they were too dim to see that the story didn't make sense with an important snippet of scene missing.
Ignorance is bliss though I hear.
