Stepford Update

Cybernetique · Post by **Cybernetique** » Sat Jun 12, 2004 11:17 am

Oh, and I forgot to mention it earlier, but it should almost go without saying: the ending nearly kills the entire movie by muddying up everything that it should resolve. The women are shown to have microchips in their heads, rather than being robot duplicants...but Joanna saw her robot duplicant earlier. And, if there were just microchips, how exactly were sparks flying out of Sarah Sunderson's ears at the square dance? You can almost see exactly where the ending was staplegunned onto the ass-end of the film and my only hope is that the DVD contains the original ending.

noidguy · Post by **noidguy** » Sat Jun 12, 2004 11:32 am

Don't forget the ATM machine scene and the inflating breasts. Last time I checked real women can't do those kindsa things. Sadly, it's been a while since I checked.

Cybernetique · Post by **Cybernetique** » Sat Jun 12, 2004 11:44 am

Heh.

There was actually an audible groan for the ATM scene at the theatre I watched it at, since the scene seemed to heavily imply that those bills were going to be coming from...ahem...somewhere else.

Svengli · Post by **Svengli** » Sat Jun 12, 2004 12:13 pm

I think that in many ways, the anticipation killed it for me.

If I had walked to the movie with no fanfare, I would have completely blown away. It's just that I litterally saw most of the good parts on one or another trailers.

I think Hollywood is gynoid fetishists worst enemy and best friend. Hollywood never gives gynoid free reign since it need's to provide comforting pablum to people. But for the same reason, Hollywood really likes gynoids a lot up to a point, since they serve as an easy plot device to cover up an empty plot. Pablum giveth and pablum taketh away.

And certainly would go to a movie for gynoid content. How many deep, meaningful films are going to have have really gynoid content? Maybe a few but here the content is more burried than in a Hollywood movie. The only way I can see fantanstic, extended content would if a robot fetishist created a movie - get EHY or some as the screen writer.

Best

S

rickdrat · Post by **rickdrat** » Sat Jun 12, 2004 2:45 pm

$5.00 and two hours later,

Ugghhhhh.

I honestly don't know what else to say, except that I'll be curling up with my original Stepford DVD tonight.

Sega-boy · Post by **Sega-boy** » Sat Jun 12, 2004 9:30 pm

I knew it!

I really didn't want this remake to happen. But now, here it is: A messy disaster!

They should have kept with actual bots rather than making this classic into a mind-control scheme.

Even though mind control fascinates me too, that's besides the point.

Hollywood could even get their crappy-happy ending where the women get liberated. All they had to do is not kill the women like in the original, keeping them alive in storage instead, while the bot-duplicates roam the community.

Then, this movie would have actually made sense, however, it would still be an unrealistic bastardization.

I guess the creators didn't know what exactly they wanted, and then they ran out of time and HAD to release it.
#

ButchyBoy · Post by **ButchyBoy** » Sat Jun 12, 2004 11:27 pm

the "buzz" i've been getting from friends who are just working schmos in LaLa land......who've seen the movie is......if Stepford Wives doesn't sink Paramount this year, Sky Captain and tne World of Tomorrow will! Yikes.

kb7rky · Post by **kb7rky** » Sun Jun 13, 2004 12:59 am

Are those flames I see streaming from the tail end? Looks like it fizzled on the launchpad, seeing the initial reviews so far.

MICROCHIPS IN THE BRAIN??? Holy (expletive deleted) me running! What the flaming blue hell were they thinking???

I did notice TSW was featured prominently at several out-of-town theaters today, and I was tempted to make an overnight stay just to plop down my $7.50 and see it, but, now that many of us have seen it, and are thoroughly disappointed...I do believe I'll join the fair Baron and await the home release (or try to score a bootleg copy off eBay)

Doug

ehy · Post by **ehy** » Sun Jun 13, 2004 6:49 am

Thanks, Svengli!

DollSpace · Post by **DollSpace** » Sun Jun 13, 2004 8:25 am

Cybernetique wrote:Oh, and I forgot to mention it earlier, but it should almost go without saying: the ending nearly kills the entire movie by muddying up everything that it should resolve. The women are shown to have microchips in their heads, rather than being robot duplicants...but Joanna saw her robot duplicant earlier. And, if there were just microchips, how exactly were sparks flying out of Sarah Sunderson's ears at the square dance? You can almost see exactly where the ending was staplegunned onto the ass-end of the film and my only hope is that the DVD contains the original ending.

My thoughts exactly... Though, as has been said, it was a fairly funny dark comedy, and I do recommend it to people, but...while the ultimate ending was a neat sort of twist, the explanations for everything and stuff we had to go through to get there was..well...not very good >< My view, is that it's worth seeing at like, a matinÃ©e price, but definitely not for much ASFR content (though there were bits and pieces here and there)...

Ryn

ButchyBoy · Post by **ButchyBoy** » Mon Jun 14, 2004 6:28 am

Well noid, ya just about hit the nail on the head with your box office prediction. $22.2 mil........just a little better than Garfield. I'll say this movie does just under $50 mil total.....It will be playing the hotel circut next month......DVD just after Labor Day.

fection · Post by **fection** » Mon Jun 14, 2004 9:38 am

OK, so this is getting annoying!
Living in the UK, I am as yet unable to view this widely panned poop-fest.
I've been reading reviews of TSW and EVERY SINGLE ONE simply dodges describing the 'twist' at the end by saying it's just too incomprehensible to descibe!
Could someone either post a plain english explanation of the elusive 'twist', or failing that (if it's deemed too much of a spoiler for public knowledge) drop me a personal message on this board?
Usually reviewers are only too eager to let the cat out of the bag, but this time, no!!
Argh!!!
fection.

Svengli · Post by **Svengli** » Mon Jun 14, 2004 11:21 am

Actually, I think that large parts of the twist were taken out of the final release, so only the pre-screener will really know the whole sorted messed.

But in the movie as released:

- Joanna sneaks into the Men's association where they give some confusing explanation of transformation process, it talks about chips in the brain but doesn't say whether or not the women become robots.

- Joanna and Walter are seen being lowered in the "wife transformer" which will change her - they use the excuse of it being a "personal moment" to say that none of the other guys will be involved.

- Then you see an ostensibly robotized Joanna along with the other wives in the supermarket - this scene is much shorted than the original, sadly but the wives are hotter and more stylish.

- Then there's a ballroom dance where new Joanna is fully introduced to the town. Walter offers Joanna to Mike as a distraction while he goes off to find the control center. He find the control center and sends an instruction to delete the Stepford programming from the chip in the women's brain. The women and Roger then wake up and get upset. The Mike decide Walter is to blame and goes after him with a big candle holder. Joanna see his and clock Mike with another candle holder, knocking Mike's head off and revealing that Mike is a robot. Then Glen Close's character reveals that she's a flesh and blood woman genius who built Mike to create the entire Stepford scenario (making the world perfect or something) - naturally she Mike the robot Mike after she'd killed the original Mike for cheaping on her with younger - AND UGLIER woman. We're left with Glen Close's character cuddling with the robot head and we cut to Larry King interviewing Joanna and Bobbie about their experiance, which only reveals that they made a documentary about the event and Bobbie wrote some bitter poetry about it. He then asks "what about the men" and Joanna says "they're still in Stepford, under house arrest", then we cut to a supermarket scene where the men are haplessly trying to shop for their mates with announcer who threatens them for taking too much time.

That's the whole muddled ending.

ButchyBoy · Post by **ButchyBoy** » Mon Jun 14, 2004 2:23 pm

OOOOOOOOOOO I get it now.......it's the whole "this is not a re-make, it's reimaging" Planet of the Apes kind of thing.

:cussing:

I think that about sums it up

andoroido · Post by **andoroido** » Mon Jun 14, 2004 3:01 pm

andoroido wrote:Sounds like maybe they're shooting an alternate ending?
(due to the rumors of a certain star not being happy with the ending,
but maybe now all the stars are finished shooting, and Frank Oz can shoot whatever endings he wants involving these extras)

30-50ish women executives does not equal Stepford gynoids, I think.
So maybe a turnabout is fair play ending?

A town of Stepford Husbands?

OR the "the Men were never in control anyway" ending

where the Stepford gynoids were created and tested in Stepford
by these female executives, and the men were the (unknowing?) test subjects.

andoroido

SO how much of my Feb. 2004 prediction was right?

andoroido

droidlvr · Post by **droidlvr** » Mon Jun 14, 2004 8:11 pm

I remember that post clearly Andoroido, I also remember my desire to post my simularly "disturbing" vision of may be in store for the film.
I said what's the use. Now I'll say (again) that there couldn't be an actual remake of TSW in the "light" of this "new age" we live in.

WilloWisp · Post by **WilloWisp** » Tue Jun 15, 2004 1:52 am

Well, it's not a continuity error: The (rotten) idea here is that the brains were taken out of the human bodies, then put into cybernetic bodies, with control chips to keep them in check. That's why the whole "repeat the following phrases" conditioning was present.

As a film, it's a flop, and as ASFR content, it has about 15 seconds of good malfunction (Yippie kiyay. Yippie kiydo-se-do do-se-do), and 2 minutes of weirdness with Bette Midler. Matter of fact, Midler gets most of the malfunctions. The special effects (and gags) are roughly on par with the first live action Inspector Gadget flick, and the "house arrest" ending felt completely lifted from Star Trek's "I, Mudd."

"Harcourt Fenton Mudd, where have you been, what have you been up to? Nothing good I'll bet, well let me tell you, you lazy, miserable, good for nothing sot! Have you been drinking?" etc.

So *SPOILERS* the women are left super-cyborgs with human brains, enslaving the blithering idiots who once held them captive.

I do have some plot-hole issues, or at least, some ludicrous movie logic: Why did Walter already have Joanna's remote before the brain transplant was made? It could have worked as a dream sequence, with Joanna finding the remote and pressing buttons out of curiousity, finding that it has unusual effects on herself, then accidentally shutting herself down... Matter of fact, that would make a nice story point. Feel free to use it, anyone.

And why was Mike, if he was a robot acting under his wife's programming, encouraging such a massively male-dominant, oversexed lifestyle? "This is my best friend, Candy. Would you like to watch?" Claire's confession at the end suggests that she was a neat freak, who wanted a simpler, tidy life, not a sexually submissive one.

Now, my personal version of The Stepford Wives (which only plays in the dim recesses of my mind) ends with the revelation that the wives weren't replaced, or transplanted, or anything of the sort, but that they were androids the whole time. The whole business of being dominant, agressive business types was a malfunction, and Stepford was nothing more sinister than a repair center. And, hey, if you like that idea, run with it. I'm handing out plot points like they're going out of style. Maybe they are. Maybe I just need sleep.

barakuda · Post by **barakuda** » Tue Jun 15, 2004 5:15 am

some nice ideas. but i wou;ld make where at the it is found out that women live in a sister town with perfect robot husband duplicates. bith sides win. it was a murual agreement. except. nico9les character findouts only after she attacks she one of the husbands mabey a nonimportant character killing him and she arested murder. because no broke any laws since both sides had mutual agreements. come on lets hear what other have for plot ideas

Keizo · Post by **Keizo** » Tue Jun 15, 2004 9:28 am

WilloWisp wrote: Now, my personal version of The Stepford Wives (which only plays in the dim recesses of my mind) ends with the revelation that the wives weren't replaced, or transplanted, or anything of the sort, but that they were androids the whole time. The whole business of being dominant, agressive business types was a malfunction, and Stepford was nothing more sinister than a repair center. And, hey, if you like that idea, run with it. I'm handing out plot points like they're going out of style. Maybe they are. Maybe I just need sleep.

That is probably the most brilliant solution to this sorted mess I have read.

Viper · Post by **Viper** » Sat Jun 19, 2004 3:01 pm

Have to say I was dissapointed with the movie. When I walked into the theatre and saw only 4 other people in it that was my first warning sign. I will be amazed if this movie lasts another 1-2 weeks in the theatres.

I left thinking, microchips in the brain !! What the ? What a let down.

Svengli · Post by **Svengli** » Sun Jun 27, 2004 9:18 pm

Some good news for all the bad news.

There is a pirate version of the preview version of The Stepford Wives on the gnutella/limewire network. It has at least one scene omitted from the final version what looks like a cool transformation scenes (it hasn't finished downloading).

The tone of movie also just is closer to a sinister horror than the final release version. AND you can freeze-frame and reply your favorite scenes.

So tune up your peer-to-peer and get something that may never be available any other way.

S

dale coba · Post by **dale coba** » Tue Jun 29, 2004 9:07 am

Svengli wrote:Some good news for all the bad news.

There is a pirate version of the preview version of The Stepford Wives on the gnutella/limewire network. It has at least one scene omitted from the final version what looks like a cool transformation scenes (it hasn't finished downloading).

The tone of movie also just is closer to a sinister horror than the final release version. AND you can freeze-frame and reply your favorite scenes.

So tune up your peer-to-peer and get something that may never be available any other way.

S

So give us the file-name or -size !
I don't want to accidentally dl the theatrical version.

Dale Coba

noidguy · Post by **noidguy** » Tue Jun 29, 2004 1:44 pm

These are two I've found....

[TMD]The.Stepford.Wives.(TUN).CAM.(1of2) 223.5 MB
[TMD]The.Stepford.Wives.(TUN).CAM.(2of2) 205.0 MB

The recording is poor because it was obviously made with a camcorder by someone sitting in the theatre.

mysticblueca · Post by **mysticblueca** » Tue Jun 29, 2004 2:33 pm

I have the movie downloaded off of Supernova.org. You need a bit torrent. Make sure you download the SVCD version. It's not amazing quality but it is pretty good. It will make 2 CD's if you create it onto CD. It is located on the movies section, under Comedy. or simply go to search and type in Stepford Wives and it will bring up all the torrents avaliable. I have downloaded the versions you have mentioned and didn't like them. This one was a better quality. They are all off a camcorder. Will never find a pirated version that isn't, while out in the theatre.

Oh yeah, it will take at least a day if you have high speed service. Took me 44 hours to download. Worth every minute. I almost forgot. If you want to burn it to disk, NERO 6 is a great program.

WilloWisp · Post by **WilloWisp** » Wed Jun 30, 2004 12:25 am

Or, if you have access to Usenet, you can find the same version posted to alt.binaries.svcd, and download it as fast as your usenet connection can handle.

If you don't have Usenet, I would reccommend getting access through Usenetserver.com. They're cheap ($15.00 a month) and unlimited. Then load up your favorite newsreader, like Agent, or even better, Newsbin Pro, tag the files, and Robert is your father's brother.

Stepford Update

On further thought

My in depth Stepford review

I remember....

My ideas

Finally Good News

Re: Finally Good News

Re: Finally Good News