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12 Monkeys the Series
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Justin
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Feb 14, 2015 10:54PM
Has anyone checked this out? Its based off the classic movie from 1997 and airs on SyFy. I've watched them all after having recently seen the movie and it differs quite a bit though it's solid and seems pretty interesting. The plot is a lot more easy to follow then the movie. Seems like a decent show.
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I like the movie better.On another thread, the whole "paradox" issue about the same object from different times occupying the same space was just a cheap method of allowing Cole to get out of a situation. You know, the watch stopping time for everyone but Cole? :)
In the movie, they were just trying to collect the base virus so they could cure it in the future, implying that they couldn't change the past. In the TV show, they are trying to obliterate themselves by changing the past. Quite a difference.
I think the movie is better, I couldn't get past the second episode of the show.
I'm still watching, but they have, in my opinion, oversimplified the concept. It's unfortunate that they chose a Terry Gilliam movie, when they wanted such a prosaic storyline. He's trying to stop the terrorists from designing and releasing a virus.
It's so damn simple.
That's the main problem.
(view spoiler)
And that whole paradox thing. Egads, so irrelevant.
Randy your right they definitely redid the whole concept. I like it though I suppose it won't live up to the film that's to be expected. I think it's interesting how they've made the 12 monkeys involved in the whole epidemic whereas the film just portrayed them as an animal rights group.It'll be worth seeing to see how they really separate from the film or what's similar.
I'm pretty sure they haven't verified who the "12 Monkeys" are. People are just assuming things. They may end up being a rights group, after all.
True James very true. I remember that being a big twist in the movie though it's feels like they are making the 12 Monkeys the reason for the deaths but we shall see.
So something interesting happened in the most recent episode that didn't happen in the movie and something that was mentioned in the movie sort of happened. Cole got transported to an alternate version of his current time, 2043 which never happened in the movie. The reason he got transported to an alternate future is because Cassandra dies and he then goes back to 2015 before it happened to prevent it from happening. Point being, one thing in the movie that's constantly mentioned is you can't change what's already happened so the series is either going against this theory or their saying she wasn't suppose to die therefore he could go back and save her.I know that's a lot to take in and hopefully you get what I said but yeah.
Yes, he changes time. Then he sees ghost images of the time he changed it from, which makes no sense: if he changed events then that time never happened and there's nothing to see.I also don't know why that machine turned on and worked fine. He was never sent from that machine.
I also don't know how the doctor could send him to the correct time, at the end of the episode. Don't forget North Korea: they had learning to do.
I don't get cable or have satellite dish, so am not able to watch the show. 12 Monkeys is one of my favorite films, though.
So while I'm enjoying this I feel like they make errors at times that they think no one will notice. Though in the latest episode he's trapped and I wondered how the hell he survived the explosion. Apparently they tried to send him back around the exact same time as the explosion and not only did it save him and not work but it jumped him two years to 2017.Now this is either a really big coincidence that he just happened to get transported during the explosion or ..or I don't know what else it could be.
I like the show but moments like this make me scratch my head.
Justin wrote: "Apparently they tried to send him back around the exact same time as the explosion and not only did it save him and not work but it jumped him two years to 2017.Now this is either a really big coincidence that he just happened to get transported during the explosion or ..or I don't know what else it could be"
This show is chock full o'stupid science, but this one I can explain. And yes, it involves another ridiculously improbable timing choice.
They attempted to return him to the future, at the same time as the "core" lost power and burned out. Thus, I guess, the idea is that they started bringing him to the future, but when the power cut out, he was dropped only two years into the future, rather then all the way. And it was coincident enough with the bombing to create some fake cheats, suspense-wise.
It's a frustratingly simplistic and unworkable way of viewing time travel: as a roadway, where you go straight and move forward or back. And where time always seems to move forward, for both our present and our future worlds.
All of that will be contradicted, probably in nearly every episode. But they just assume (probably rightly) that most people will simply say, "ooh, time travel and sciencey stuff" and be happy. Well... I guess we'll find out, when it is or is not renewed.
I don't get how, 2 years after the beginning of the global pandemic... this out of the way place has men in clean hazmat suits and enough people to quickly amass a crowd of helpers.It struck me as odd.
It also struck me as a cheat: he was never in danger, the entire episode. He just jumped a few years, sat around awhile, then was rescued. WTF? Weak. That trick reveal should have been around a commercial break, not an entire episode.
That does make sense James thanks for clearing it up. I had a feeling you'd chime in Lol.I'm still perplexed as to whether or not he can change things from the past that have already happened. I know I mentioned this before but it seems as though at times they contradict themselves.
Also, she flies halfway around the world, risks her life getting to the site of the bombing, steps in the ruined doors... and gives up.She clearly did not have enough info to make her defeatist assessment, at that moment.
So here a main character is making decisions to facilitate the dramatic moment of a reveal that was not earned and not big enough to be worth the entire episode as a build-up.
Justin wrote: "I'm still perplexed as to whether or not he can change things from the past that have already happened."He can definitely change the future. The cheese-ball watch scratch proved that.
I think the fence-sitting is on major changes. He may only be able to make superficial changes that don't alter major events. Which is an argument that always make me shake my head.
The idea is something like this:
Time is a stream.
Making a small change (buying a coffee that was never bought) is like tossing a pebble into the stream: you did something, but it had no noticeable effect on the stream.
Making a large change (killing someone) is like tossing a boulder into the stream. Maybe even a boulder that is wider then the stream. But the stream will simply flow around the boulder and continue on, afterward.
Either way, the stream may be unchanged, farther down, no matter what you do, farther up.
I think it's silly. It looks at famous events as somehow more temporally meaningful, then unknown events. Pocketing a fallen leaf could be as important as shooting a president. There is simply no way to know.
Right now, on the show, they seem to be teasing us with whether anything he can do will stop the virus. And it's annoying.
There is so much potential, but I'm getting the feeling that the showrunner isn't really into time travel. Which is a weird thing to be feeling.
Now I'm going to check...
Justin wrote: "thanks for clearing it up. I had a feeling you'd chime in Lol."You're welcome.
And I don't know whether that means I have a good or a bad reputation to build on, but either works.
Looked them up on IMDb. The two showrunners worked on Nikita (which I never watched), Terra Nova (which I didn't finish the first episode of) and the older partner also worked on some Star Trek Enterprise and Voyager.
And I am annoyed with them both, for wasting this.
This latest episode has me so damn confused..like I keep going back trying to figure it out but then when I throw logic in I realize there is none. I was waiting for the confusion with this series just like the movie and it seems I've got it now.Ramse is behind it some how..makes no sense..
No. At no point do they suggest that Ramse is behind it all. In fact, they make it clear that Ramse has no idea who they are or how they know what they know.I suspect that, at the very least, one of the early time travel test subjects survived and is running things. Or a test subject from a different timeline.
Same as I assume the dessicated body from the Himalayas is Cole. Either from the future or from some other timeline. (pretty much a guarantee, unless they invalidate the episode where he stands next to it and feels the queasy paradox sensation.
The bad guys have knowledge of the future, but not of Cole's missions.
I'll be impressed if they find some way to pull this all together, without making a hash of it.
But I do not hold out hope. This series is not very well thought-out.
Rather then making it smart, like the movie, they made it complicated.
Hmm..interesting thought James. I never considered the body possibly being Cole's but it would definitely make sense. I was a bit taken back to see what Ramse went through just because 2 episodes prior he And Cole were buddy buddy..what finding out you have a kid does to someone I guess.It'll be interesting to see what happens from here on out. The shows already been picked up for a 2nd season.
I can't give up, yet.I really want a decent time travel show and tv really sucks at delivering that.
Deep down, I know that this won't be it. I'll be surprised if I'm back, for the second season.
Justin wrote: "I never considered the body possibly being Cole's but it would definitely make sense."The reason I say that:
At one point, they show what happens if you get near another version of yourself. What I call paradox-cramps.
When Cole gets close to the leatherface victim, he get the paradox cramps.
Ergo: the torso is Cole.
Well for the latest episode they called it Paradox..I thought the paradox would be 2015 Jones trying to send Cole back to see 2045 Jones but I was wrong..the paradox was Cole...On another part, I don't think Cole is the torso. Clearly he's a boy in 2015, alive and a middle aged man in 2045 so how could the torso be him if it was created in 1987?
Justin wrote: "I don't think Cole is the torso. Clearly he's a boy in 2015, alive and a middle aged man in 2045 so how could the torso be him if it was created in 1987? "The torso is a 1000 year old corpse that was found frozen, in the Himalayas. The Japanese businessman ("Mr. Roboto") said so.
Besides, this is a time travel show. How can it matter when something is found?
And he experienced the paradox twinge, when he got close to it. No other explanation, for that. I'm as sure as you can be, for this show.
Justin wrote: "the paradox was Cole"And another meaningless jumble of sci-words to use a non-paradox-"paradox". Injecting him with his younger self's DNA is paradoxical because it is the same thing.
Which makes as much sense as saying that a photocopy of a picture is the same thing as the picture and will cause a big boom, if they both touch. Pure silliness. Not a single cell in the younger him remained by the time he reached his late teens, much less 30(ish). All were replaced more then once. So... no paradox.
I wish it were my own idea, but I saw something interesting, on some random forum:Cole is immune. They could create a serum, from his blood. The community they decimated had cured the initial virus... they could teach Cole what is needed to explain this (even if it took a year of flash cards and memory drills), then send him back.
I never even considered that they can cure it, in the future AND they all possess immunity.... problem solved!
I remember him saying he was immune when he was in Chetnia or however you spell it Lol.So you're saying the corpse aka virus is him and at the same time saying they his blood may be able to cure people? Isn't that a paradox? lol. I appreciate all this God knows it's hard enough to figure out on my own.
He can be the cure for himself...??O.o
Justin wrote: "So you're saying the corpse aka virus is him and at the same time saying they his blood may be able to cure people? Isn't that a paradox? lol. I appreciate all this God knows it's hard enough to figure out on my own."What we know is that, in Cole's time, only the immune still live. The last bastion of non-immunes were slaughtered by Whatsisname's 7's gang of scavs.
It's possible that the virus isn't dead, in them, just dormant, non-virulent.
I'll admit that all I have to go on is that he experienced their paradox-cramps-thing, when approaching the torso and (to the best of my knowledge) that can only mean one thing. The rest is assumption, based on that.
Justin wrote: " in Chetnia or however you spell it Lol"Chechnya
Thanks..no way I was getting that Lol. So after the series finale..Im scratching my head more then ever. Pretty sure he just changed time and "fate" by sending Cassie to 2043 and saving Ramse.
Justin wrote: "So after the series finale..Im scratching my head more then ever. Pretty sure he just changed time and "fate" by sending Cassie to 2043 and saving Ramse."Yeah, he did. And, typical to this show, they showed him change things in a way that should leave you scratching your head.
Because he didn't even know that there was something to change. How do you not do what you would do... if you don't know what that is? (that does make sense)
He would have to have known that he was "fated" to leave Ramse, in order to have any reason not to. If he can just randomly change preordained events, then all of history beomces random and no actions taken matter (they didn't happen, at some point you probably changed your mind... over and over).
Very weird choices, this writer's room is making.
Oddly enough I got that Lol. Olivia, the short haired woman said he Ramse(or Ethan) as he was then called would die and that James Cole would fade into obscurity and yet the very minute she said it, Cole turns around and picks up Ramse. Changing both her statements and on top of it all he sends her Cassie to 2043...yeah odd choices indeed.Who do you think the witness is if it's not Ramse? I thought maybe Aaron cause I don't think he's dead tho maybe maybe not just a thought.
So I started watching Season 2 and I feel in some strange way it hasn't exactly picked up from where it left off like most shows would do. It starts off with them doing a mission and they've been doing it almost in between where season one ended and where season 2 started.I'm fairly certain they are officially altering time and changing it in many different ways. During the first season it wasn't quite clear but this season there's no doubt they are changing things, they don't care about the repercussions and they are going forward looking for a cure for the virus which now seems almost secondary to any side missions which seem mandatory.
Erin wrote: "I think the movie is better, I couldn't get past the second episode of the show."Yep. I abhor remakes. Movie was fine as it is. Its a shame that tv series executive are now opting to remake movies or turn them into rebooted episodic stories rather than make something original.
I won't touch 12 Monkeys, Bates, Dusk till Dawn, and all the rest.
Wolfrott wrote: "Yep. I abhor remakes."I don't think people do. They abhor when a version they like isn't the last version.
Most people don't complain that The Maltese Falcon was a remake. Or Wizard of Oz. Or many others. Mainly because they don't know the original, so it "doesn't count".
Remakes are fine. Remakes and movie adaptations (of novels, comics, etc) have been around since the beginning of film. Before that you got stage adaptations of famous novels (Dracula and Sherlock Holmes come to mind).
Where would we be, without remakes of Sherlock Holmes stories? Stuck with some grainy and poorly performed black and white half-hour films.
I didn't say people, I said -me-, and I am entitled to my opinion, thank you.
Wolfrott wrote: "Yep. I abhor remakes. Movie was fine as it is. Its a shame that tv series executive are now opting to..."I hate to break it to you but Bates Motel isn't a remake. It's a prequel.
James wrote: "Where would we be, without remakes of Sherlock Holmes stories? Stuck with some grainy and poorly performed black and white half-hour films. "So true. If it wasn't for the RDJ films I might have never discovered Sherlock Holmes.
Wolfrott wrote: "I didn't say people, I said -me-, and I am entitled to my opinion, thank you."Wow someones a bit sensitive. :)
I was well aware going in that the series for 12 Monkeys was going to be a bit different than the movie but I'm not sure I was ready for all the paradoxes and side plots that while are irrelevant in the movie are bigger and more profound in the series.Don't get me wrong I like it as I am commenting on here and I keep watching it, I guess the perplexing theories and ideas and the questions I have afterwards are what keep me entertained.
I know Bates is a prequel, buy I lump it under 'remake' as its retcon and changing canon continuity with a reimagining of the characters and the plot.All I said was that I don't like remakes, and validated my stance when you twisted my words to say 'you're wrong, not all people dislike remakes'. :) thats all I've got to say.
Wolfrott wrote: "I know Bates is a prequel, buy I lump it under 'remake' as its retcon and changing canon continuity with a reimagining of the characters and the plot."There's a canon continuity of events that occurred before the movie? That's news to me.
Wolfrott wrote: "I didn't say people, I said -me-, and I am entitled to my opinion, thank you."Absolutely. And you're welcome.
I have no problem with you having an opinion that you stick to. Like disliking remakes. And sticking to it with such fervor.
I mean, if you want to insist that you dislike Bogie's Maltese Falcon and the Garland Wizard of Oz on the basis of them being remakes then... more power to you.
The latest episode left me scratching my head trying to piece together any logic of anything that makes sense but I got nothing.
Beyond confused at this point. In the first season their sole purpose was to go back in time and stop the virus. Yet the second season isn't even focused on stopping the virus it's about going back to stop the 12 and time itself. What makes it even. more confusing is their going back to the 40s and 70s to stop all this, wasn't the idea to stop the virus during the alleged breakout? So why go back 40 and 70 years? It makes no sense..not to mention all this prime and not prime crap.It all just seems so pointless and confusing and to make matters worse there's the whole growing of the red forest in the current future(any point to this) and this whole witness thing...I thought the witness was someone we know but now it's looking more and more like some kind of entity which just again makes no sense and defies logic and reality beyond the idea of time travel.
Paradoxes were frowned up in the first season and now their being treated as ways to stop anomalies and incidents...like uh what changed? This show is becoming more confusing and more of a mess.
Justin wrote: "This show is becoming more confusing and more of a mess"Yes. I LOVE time travel stories, so I've stuck with this into the second season. But I guess I'm giving up, now.
Really, the "paradoxes" are just magical boom-things. Much fun can be had with temporal paradoxes, but they just ignore all of that and create a magical time bomb. Amazing.
