Q. Cupcake Shamalamadingdong

[napoleonherself]

Well, we just saw The Village. It isn't as abysmally bad as Ebert says it is, we think, but it's still pretty bad.

If you want to have fun discussing all the logical holes in it for the hour after it's over, I heartily recommend seeing it. There are also some good performances, but the real treat is all the stuff that makes no sense. Like, where the hell do all the farm animals poop in this tiny, tiny valley?

OMG MY CURRENT MUSIC IS THE BAD COLOR

Now if you'll excuse me, I've just taken my half-Ambien (more like a third because I can't bite them exactly in half, but eh), so I should brush my teefs and get me ready for bed.

Edit: Spoiler warning on the comments to this post kthx. RUN AWAY IF YOU DO NOT WANT THE OHSOEXCELLENT MYSTERIES SPOILED

Comments

[steaksammich.livejournal.com]

I saw that tonight too...I was wondering where they got their food from. They have livestock, sure. But a few animals can't keep them fed forever. I didn't see any farmland and they obviously can't leave to go hunting, even if they had weapons to do it with. And (this part is SPOILERY if anyone is reading the comments) I get that they put a suit in a shed, lock it, and tell everyone to not go there. But why do they put one under the floorboards in a room where people go?! And why in the world did the guy just think to start ripping up floorboard!?

[jen-aside.livejournal.com]

The village isn't THAT small. I don't believe a full shot of the entire range of the village ground was ever shown, but the fact that the road was a half-day's journey from the village through the woods shows how large the grounds actually were. Woods included, it probably covers an area of at least several miles in each direction. I did wonder how large the original settling group was, but that's getting into too many picky details.

Spoiler thing... [I tried changing font colors to mask it... apparently doesn't work... grr]

The suits aren't all kept in the same place so no one necessarily connects the shed to the creatures, so whichever elder on duty could sneak off undetected to any hiding place... even if the whole shed bit seemed obvious.

Also remember that Noah was a bit crazy, so when he laughs at the beginning when the creatures howl, he very likely thought it was hilarious, after having figured out the whole scheme.

[wing-zero-ew.livejournal.com]

Ze Jenny and I did some calculations on the basis of this Villagey thing and found the whole situation to be patently impossible, so perhaps I shall share them heyahh.

DO NOT READ FURTHER UNLESS YOU EAT TOES^h^h^h^h^h^h^h^hHAVE SEEN THE MOVIE:

The area containing the Village is located in Pennsylvania, and is quite large. Improbably, likely impossibly large. For example, it is a half-day's walk to the road, and perhaps another hour, who knows, to the wall. Assuming a leisurely average walking speed of 2 miles per hour, and 8-12 hours depending on your definition of half-day, then the Village preserve is 16-24 miles in radius. 32-48 miles on a side. This is a huuuuuuuge piece of land in the middle of a state renowned for its very high property taxes. Combine that with the fact that there is simply no way you could buy such a large piece of continuous geography in Pennsylvania. I doubt you could do it in Wyoming. Likely Nevada, but you'd have to go to the government for that.

So the Village area is quite large. Impossibly so. Real estate values alone would probably exhaust even a billionaire's resources to purchase such a slice of land. Then you have the other costs.

This area is, as I said, and assuming central placement of the village in the territory, between 32-48 miles on a side. This makes a perimeter of between 120 and 200 miles, roughly, to be patrolled regularly by guards, one of whom so fortuitously shows up immediately at just the right moment. The guard says that there are guardposts every 10 miles, which means at least 12 posts, which seem to be manned by a dispatcher and X number of guards, so we're talking at least 24 men a shift, plus vehicles, electricity, taxes, road maintenance, medicinal supplies, etc. At *least* 24 men a shift. Huge expense, fixed costs, ouch mommy it hurts.

Aside from the financial impossibilities, you have the many other problems with the Village that should have led anyone inside to figure out the ruse quite quickly, assuming it was possible at all. For example: their lamp oil situation.

They have innumerable oil lamps, especially the ones around the forbidden whoosits, that burn all night long. We're talking many gallons of oil per DAY. There is no way that you can naturally generate that much oil in such a confined space, short of a well. Pre-industrial societies could have used whales or ground up huge volumes of seed to make oil; neither would work here. Either they have a stockpile to rival the saudis, or it's a crock.

There are also the monuments in the graveyard; the valley is green and undisturbed, so where do they dig, and I mean you have to really DIG, to get building-grade limestone, a relatively rare resource, which is what the monuments looked to be,? Are they so fortunate as to live on a vein of marble or some other such material they can easily hew out? It's absurd. Nobody living in such communities had tombstones of that sort.

And then there's the clothing, especially the Yellow clothing. Puh-leease. Where do they get all of this striking yellow dye? Hmm? Think about it: pre-industrial faken town means no artificial dyes and no running to the Sherwin Williams for paint. They're somehow making BUCKETS of yellow paint and similar dye on their small property. Pfft.

Then there's the drinking water. Impossible. Considering their town's small size and compactness, and the fact that nobody can ever go in the woods to crap, the stench of it must reach the heavens, but more importantly, their water supply is irredeemably contaminated unless they have a very, very deep well. Oops, can't; such wells require mechanical pumps, and that'd be a giveaway.

Then there's the "Tom Factor", named for our urban exploring friend Tom. People want to poke around areas they're not allowed to be. Considering the perimeter and the laughable protective measures, they'll get in.

Then there's the idea Jenny had. What about Terraserver? Satellite maps? Someone curious will simply look up a shiny satellite picature. You can order high-resolution prints of anywhere in the US from private firms. It's easy. Just have your credit-card handy.

[wing-zero-ew.livejournal.com]

Here's the last of my truncated, overly-long comment. Hyeahh.
Someone on the outside must be managing this incredibly large operation, and let's face it, criminal enterprise. Think about it: Walker and all the other elders are guilty of murder, murdering children no less, and others who fall sick and die, many times over, plus conspiracy, tax evasion, filing false documents, bribing government officials (as lamma lamma ding dong says in his cameo), etc. When discovered, they're going to prison for a very long time, as is their helper on the outside. It's going to take a loooooot of money to keep this quiet for more than about a day, to make people risk it. To disappear this thoroughly, you'd need to have faked death certificates, had fake burials, and have your fake-lawyer-dude set up this elaborate trust situation to hide your assets and obfuscate your plan. Someone will be curious; lamma lamma ding dong says they already are.

Conclusion: this movie sucks.

[jen-aside.livejournal.com]

I don't believe they've faked anything. Again, look at what Amish folk do, and look at the extents to which they've gone to set up their little world. It isn't that they don't want ANYONE to know they're there... just the folks who don't need to know and potentially would break in just to cause trouble for no reason. They aren't guilty of murder if a child gets sick and dies, just because they choose to live outside of modern society.

They've done their best to give no one no reason to bother them, end of story.

Conclusion: It is not terrible. You simply choose not to appreciate the thought processes behind the movie and nitpick its tiny inconsistencies.

[wing-zero-ew.livejournal.com]

Actually, it *is* murder. You do not have the legal right, in most jurisdictions, to deny live-saving care and certain governmental administrative functions to your children. Further, you absolutely do *not* have the right to give birth without filing a birth certificate, to live without paying or at least filing for taxes on a yearly basis, to refuse to submit to local governance and regulatory processes, or, for that matter, to construct residential properties in a landed area zoned as a wildlife preserve instead of a residential zone.

For the record, the Amish are required by law and court rulings to submit to local governmental authority; among other requirements, they must allow their children to attend school until the 8th grade, where they will of course be watched for abuse, malnutrition, and medical observation as are all children in the public school system. While it is true that they are given a remarkable, and unreasonable, amount of leeway to construct their little dystopian existence, they are neither unfettered nor autonomous.

These people are murderers and lunatics, and they've killed their children out of selfish, irrational fear of the modern world. Most separatist societies in fact hypocritically, and humanely, take medical care for their people in spite of it being an obvious violation of their moral codes, for precisely these reasons.

Finally, it is hardly nitpicking to point out the huge, ridiculous, glaring problems with both the plot of this film and the actions of its characters, including their laughable and obviously criminal, immoral conduct. We are presented with a story that lauds, through facetious and blatant methodology, a flawed and critically unbalanced moral philosophy, whether as a joke or as propaganda, it is hard to say. It is only natural as thinking people to reject this philosophy as the sort of mind-virus that it is.

[jen-aside.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I seriously had to rethink that one. I certainly don't condone their actions, but regardless of possible criminal activity*, it's undeniable that the scenario is NOT impossible--however improbable or logically foolish--which was the original intent of my argument. Remember they're running from these envious psychotics that kill people over a bit of money... perhaps they prefer the risk of being imprisoned over their lifestyle choices to being prisoner to greenbacks and fear of murder. Obviously they didn't think everything out, from Edward's dialogue with the other elders.

*The "settlement" began in the '70s, presumably, when such laws possibly weren't in effect, and whoever overseeing the project may have neglected to notify them and say, hey, you guys are gonna get it if you ever bust out of there. I'm tempted to look up exactly when everything would have had to happen to minimize their own criminal convictions, but I'm not sure where to start, since a quick search turns up nothing relevant. Also, it might actually be located in some ignorant backwater country similar in landscape to Pennsylvania that ultimately doesn't give a dime about its citizens... or on some foreign planet perfectly like Earth where no one questions Hollywood scriptwriting.

It's by and large a thinking exercise. As unlikely as it would be for the average person to concoct such a scenario in the first place [most people would just hire bodyguards and such if they were so concerned about getting bumped off over a bit of money], it certainly is a surprising plot twist... I imagine it to be the world's most elaborate witness protection program, as no one would imagine the heir to billions renouncing all monetary wealth and living in a wildlife preserve.

Besides, it's a movie! I don't mind if you hate the movie because it didn't entertain you, but you can't deny it's something to think about, even if it's inherently counterproductive. I admit I liked thinking of how the settlement could occur, despite the intentions behind it.

[jen-aside.livejournal.com]

You forget the "Hollywood" factor... suspension of disbelief and that junk... 9_9 so some of the things they threw in for effect are to make the movie more palatable to a theater-going audience, not an actual artifact of the village. For instance, the amount of lamp and torch light is more so you, the audience, can see what is going on, instead of being thrust into relative darkness. The theoretical villagers could--and probably do--easily make and use candles and [for the perimeter] oilless torches in place of oil lamps, occasionally having one of the "trustees" [elders] run off for supplies if they ever get low under the premise of getting medicines and such.

Have you ever lived an Amish life, by chance? They don't necessarily have to crap in the water and ruin it. They likely dug outhouses and/or go in areas near--but not IN--the forest. For water, they can sit clean buckets out when it rains, among other solutions, and there honestly could be a well pump, in fact--if there's no reason to suspect there's one there, no one would catch on that the water shouldn't be as clean as it is, though true Amish people at the time were less hygienically concerned, hence all the diseases and such, and would have used contaminated water if it was their only option.

I'm assuming the paint came from pre-settlement, in preparation of the Current Time, and the post-settlement villagers had no reason to question any anachronisms. Considering the setting, it's possible, especially the cloaks, since dyes last a good long time if done properly. I personally thought the guy with glasses seemed a bit out of place [perhaps the style of his frames, mostly], but again, with no reason to question the glasses, there's no reason to be suspicious of them.

The headstones seemed a bit much, yes, likely an oversight on the part of the Continuity Police... that happens. It seems more to have been a fast way to show the audience that a young boy had died.

Also, there's no exact [correct] year given for the movie. Perhaps Pennsylvania had a clearance blowout on land after the U.S. dollar collapsed. :p Given the time when they had to have settled, you'd have to look into the price of land in the '70s--not today. When I thought about it, though, I did have to wonder about managing the entire affair, because there obviously would be someone in on the project working on the outside who would be managing investments and such to continue it as long as it needs to be, so the billions don't necessarily run out. Of course, considering it's superficially a wildlife preserve, it honestly could be a government business, funded by Sierra Club donations and all that, so the guards are all technically doing government work headed by the Walker Corporation.

And if any "Tom" wants to wander around in a huge expanse of basically woods... more power to him, but he'll get bored fast after not finding much of anything right off the bat. Want satellite pictures of the village inside the reserve? Fine, but are you really that bored? Again, it involves who is working on the outside, and how plainly uninteresting the village itself seems to outsiders.

All in all, you have to look at it as SCA folks trying to recreate a facade Amish village, free of outside influence. It can be done, even if not to absolute movie standards, and there are obviously going to be things they overlooked no matter how much thought they put into it. You'll note how often Edward Walker comments whether it was a good idea in the first place, questioning why they've put so much effort into running from their problems... it's plain that he's concerned about the little inconsistencies in their lives and how to deal with them.

[wing-zero-ew.livejournal.com]

Oh give me a break. Suspension of disbelief is hardly an excuse for a movie this ludicrously constructed, and for that matter, is rarely an excuse for anything except sloppy filmmaking. But, for the sake of argument, I'll go over your counterpoints one by one, as I have some time on my hands today.

The oil torches are needed to provide light for us, you say? Bollocks. The oil torches serve an important 'plot' requirement of sorts, in that they form the spoooooooky and ominous border. They aren't needed to be there at the perimeter at all; we could easily have gone the entire movie without ever needing to see them. They're thrown in BILC (Because it looks cool), which is pathetic, and not cinematographically necessary.

Candle making is easy, you say? Bollocks again! Candles, in a society like this, have to be rendered from animal fats, a messy, smelly, noxious process that, before petrochemicals replaced it, proved expensive and time consuming. Candles are far too valuable to place willy-nilly all over the house and homes, they produce smoke and start fires, making them unwise to leave unattended, etc. This is why people carried a single candle with them to bed, saved tiny stumps of wax to keep using, and generally had to be in bed at dark until the invention of the electric light, which was seen as a huge boon to mankind as it effectively freed the species of the tyranny of darkness.

You ask if I've lived an Amish life; I counter by asking if you've ever lived on a farm, or in any place where, for that matter, one's water is obtained from the ground directly. If so you would know that enormous and elaborate precautions have to be taken to provide fresh drinking water from the earth, that buildings and communities have to be planned around uncontaminated sources of H2O, that true, usable wells capable of providing sizeable volumes of water are far, far too deep to be pumped by any means save mechanical.

For that matter, what planet do you hail from, where sizeable amounts of *rainwater* can be obtained seasonally in Pennsylvania, including during the height of, oh, I dunno, winter? Snow converts to drinking water at a ratio of 10:1, for those unfamiliar with the melting of ice. Snow on the ground would be horribly fouled with animal waste and soil, and hence completely undrinkable. Cisterns, a good idea but not present in the village that we see, would prove to be a source of easily contaminated water, feeding intestinal parasites and disease unless properly chlorinated or otherwise treated with a degree of ecological sophistication unpossessed by these rubes.

The problems with paint and supplies are, as I said, two-fold: first, a level of either unthinking stupidity on the part of the writers, or, secondly, a problem that any rational being trapped in this hellish, deceptive existence could use as evidence that they were currently interred in a very, very, low-tech version of the Matrix. While societies emphasizing stupidity and conformity are remarkably good at stifling dissent, there will always be the rogue individuals neither scared of spooooky monsters nor of the contempt of their neighbors. The ruling cabal of this village seems to lack the intellect or intestinal fortitude to truly put down any organized resistance; the best they can manage is to terrify the weak-minded, the inbred, and the children with boogeymen they've constructed out of Todd McFarlane's sketchbook.

While we're at it, there is that inbreeding issue. From the picture of the ruling council and information present in the movie about some people having had small families when they moved, etc, we can glean that the membership of the initial nutjob party was somewhere in the neighborhood of, oh, 20. This is far too small of a sample to form a sustainable, genetically intact community, as evidenced by the blind, mute (virtually, in the case of Lucius, and mentioned about the dead kid), and retarded members cropping up raipidly
as a result of their genetic concentration. Within a couple of additional generations we can expect them to all be drooling idiots soiling themselves in the dark.

[wing-zero-ew.livejournal.com]

As for the curiosity of people like Tom, again, perhaps you need to check up on the trends of this, the real world, and see just how dedicated a group of people with time on their hands and the insatiable need to violate social norms in a non-destructive fashion can be. For reference, I point you to the various urban exploration sites google references, which document at great length the exploration of 'boring' areas by those who find such often pointless meandering exciting and worthwhile. These people represent a technologically savvy and sometimes intellectually fixated group who use the latest technology, ranging from satellite tracking devices to the full modern array of portable electronic toys and gadgets to uncover the great mystery of storm drains and grafitii. These are people who will gladly embark on an 8 hour crawl through disused storm sewers merely to ensure that, yes, the grate on the other end does not in fact open onto a parallel universe full of goodness, light, and unfettered access to alcohol.

Besides such people, whose dedication to uncovering the conspiracies underlying sewage routing through major urban areas I heartily applaud, you have an array of investigative reporters, for whom this story would be a career maker, interested and angry locals, real-estate speculators, enviromental activists interested in the preserve, anti-environmental saboteurs interested in destroying it, vandals, punk kids looking for a place to screw, drunks, the homeless insane, police, local authorities both civic and county, etc, etc, etc. All of these people would have a keen interest in determining just what lies inside that boundary, which is quite conspicuously guarded, funded, and otherwise made all the more alluring.

The price of land in the 70s is irrelevant, and I'm curious as to when the dollar 'collapsed', exactly, to justify this expenditure. Moreover, if it had, the billionaire's fortune would not likely have survived either. If your refer to the dollar going off the metal standards, then you clearly weren't taught much about economics and misunderstand the exact nature of a currency-based economy, where the actual value of money is determined by acceptance of its value, rather than the arbitrary amount of gold or silver held by the treasury. Going off the metal standards in fact enabled the United States to rise to the pinnacle of global finance, and you would be hard pressed to find any modern, industrialized nation that does not in fact use such 'fake' money. The 70s were, for all their turmoil, a very mild distruption in the economic process of the nation, not comparable in scale or severity to the Reagan 80s, the great Depression, or earlier gold and speculatory crises.

At any rate, the land value at the time of purchase is, as I said, irrelvant. The value *today*, on which taxes must be paid, is all that is relevant. The 'preserve' is not a government managed institution as you insinuate, because that would put it under the surveillance of the Forest Service, the National Parks people, and other busybody agencies that have an imperative to, amongst other things, make money. Even the most 'preserved' of the national forests and parks allow various and sundry money making opportunies, including but not limited to, hunting, fishing, logging, mining, tourism, camping, and various vehicular rentals, assuming they do not sell large tracts of the land for real estate. In order to actually ensure privacy, the land is in fact privately owned. But this presents another problem, for routine assessment of private property is necessary and required for tax purposes. Assayers, surveyors, etc, would all be on the property at the least upon every major revision to the state tax code. California may not believe in propety taxes, but believe me, as a former resident of this state, Pennsylvania does.

[wing-zero-ew.livejournal.com]

Combine that with the incessant needs of ever-expanding populations, highway building, utility companies wanting to run power lines, transmission corridors, broadband to the household, fiber optics, cellular phone towers, airport construction, etc, and you would have a serious problem. Eminent domain is the club by which any and all interested parties would quickly tear ass into this unused property, which claims to be an animal preserve but in fact serves no legitimate ecological purpose, and does not admit scientists, observers, or eco-nuts who would rise to the defense of such a place if only it were real. I don't know offhand why you think the Sierra Club would be involved in this lunacy, but they are in fact far too down to earth to support a wacky billionaire and his crazy scheme on the basis of his world alone.

Walker's hypocrisy in saving the life of his daughter's boytoy over a seven year old dying of infection, or disease, or what have you, does not indicate a careful mind weighing consequences, it indicates nepotism. He is a cult leader, his followers are brainwashed sheep, and ultimately he deserved to hang from the nearest tree, dressed up in his froo-froo Halloween costume, after being castrated with a rusty spork.

[jen-aside.livejournal.com]

Alright, alright, forgive me for ever failing to properly question the integrity a suspense/horror movie!

Oy, even if I wanted to, that's too much to counter.

*goes back to watching Star Wars, the epitome of flawless screenwriting*

[darnn.livejournal.com]

Seriously. What the guy below said. You dismissed suspension of disbelief too easily. If you picked at everything like that, you wouldn't have any fun.