It’s not liked
my life needs the extra layer of drama. Or maybe it does. My life is minefield
of boring surround by medical craziness and a family who definitely needs
therapy. I've been ill so that while I've been missing in action.
So Twilight
Zone is back and I’m been rewatching the classic episodes. The problem with the
new episodes is that there too much like the classics. I mean I could just
watch the classics. The first one is random ep, but the second one is the main
one that has been remade already twice times. The Twilight Film, and let’s be
honest The Simpsons counts as remake. I
mean the Simpsons have remade a lot of the Twilight episodes and generally,
it’s a bad idea to pick the most known stories.
Going off
the Trailer they are going after the episodes that both were in the film and in
the Simpsons, which basically just straight up remade those eps but with the
Simpsons. I mean, they doing the evil kid but he’s president because the
President of the USA is a fucking child. Political statement. By the way, of
course the Twilight Zone has always been politic. That was Rod Sterling’s main
motivation for getting the series made.
But there’s
difference between the communists being Aliens/they are the monster themselves
and the Terrorists being Terrorists. I’ve only watched the 1 and half eps.
That’s right I bailed on the 20,000 feet remake. There are several problems.
Obviously,
this is the most famous ep of Twilight Zone. It’s been parodied and frankly was
one first shorts at horror on a plane but 56 years later, bitch we’ve been
there with snakes and polar bears. The worst part that while trying to be inventive
with true crime podcast from the future, it’s has the premise of Final Destination,
which then makes me think of the X-files and Scully’s brother.
The X-files
thing aside, there’s has now been plenty of films/shows that have dealt with
the horror of air travel. 1963 only had the terror of being trapped in the air,
completely out of your control, this was before hijacking would become real
fear in 70s and planes would explode over villages. Gremlins are now beloved
80s franchise. My main point is that fear of the air travel has been ran into
the ground. Hell, there’s several pop culture moments where an airplane is
limbo.
The real
problem with 30,000 feet is that completely breaks down when questioned and
frankly someone would notice that pilot’s voice changes after someone has stormed
the cabin. Like I said I didn’t watch the ending but I did wikipeded to know if
was worth my time. They all have to die/never to be found. Maybe the podcast
series starts before they found somehow but the info in it wouldn’t be common
knowledge yet. I guess the person who wrote this ep doesn’t actually listen to
mystery/true crime podcasts.
I have yet
to watch the third ep which I’ve heard is better and is more of its own thing.
I do think Jordan Peele is the right fit to give this ago and it’s not that I
don’t think old eps should not be revisited. They are eps that so belong to their
time that updating for now would make a lot of sense, but Nightmare at 20,000
and a comedian getting his comeuppance are pretty timeless stories (by the way,
none of those reference list have mentioned “It's Take My Life...Please!,
season 1, episode 22, so we know them to be bull and only know like five episodes).
Now, Jess-Belle
is my argument for ep that should be updated. One, it’s was originally set in
time period that was nostalgical for its viewers. Two, suffers from time period
where woman couldn’t just be straight up evil. Three, Billy Bob is fuck-boy and
gets no comeuppance. He should be the bug at the end and Jess-Belle and bland
love interest should run off together. I turn everything Queer in my head,
mainly because it more interesting in two girls fighting over a fuck-boy. They
should love each other instead. Friendships is acceptable too.
But
seriously, there’s a lot of eps that play with revisiting the times of our
parents. It would be interesting to revisit the 60s or time before phones.
Revisiting the 80s is obvious one as well. The Twilight Zone often played with nostalgia;
it was one of its main themes. We’re literally living in a Dystopia now, so
playing with that nostalgia makes sense. A time before the threat of Nuclear devastation
was the norm and just something you live with like terrorism and child
predators.
In all
fairness, the Twilight Zone was the first tv show to play with horror and
sci-fi in such a smart way and has sharped so many stories. Hell, bloody the
plot Toy Story 1 and 2 appears in the Twilight Zone. Frankly, most horror tropes can be found in
the Twilight Zone. Obviously, a lot
before Twilight Zone is gone. We don’t know exactly everything that shaped it,
we know that short stories and radio plays helped. Urban Myths is something
they touched on, especially with the stories set 60 years ago in them.
Parallel universe
are in Twilight Zone and what would happen if you found yourself in a slightly
different world. Mandela Effect before that had name.
The Twilight
Zone is massive, and we have been wandering in for over decade of culture with
other shows and works stepping into with and without its name. The 80s sure did
have a lot of Horror anthologies. The only one I’ve watched completely is
Freddy’s Nightmares, the rest are strew in my brain. I recently discovered ‘Tales
from the Darkside’ which is so blatantly the Twilight Zone it’s beautiful with
it’s gay 80s uncles giving their nieces evil doll houses. I also have the nonsense that is ‘Urban Gothic’.
There’s
never quite been a show that deals with Technology and horror in the way
Twilight Zone did. Hell, Black Mirror has failed to keep being good after being
Americanised. Maybe if it moved from the mirror instead of finding different
ways to say technology bad. Frankly, it just got very obvious. I think Black
Mirror is never going to say all there is to actually say to say about how the
world works now; there is definitely room to make podcasts horrifying but
predicating plane clashes is pretty overdue.
Horror
doesn’t have to say anything but it’s a lot more interesting when it does. The
Twilight Zone is a place that I want to wander into 2019, but I don’t want to
go over the same story plot over and over. The themes and the core of its idea
is what we should be doing, not remaking classic episodes.
Also 40
minutes is too long for most Twilight Eps, I even think the classic eps suffer
at being too long at hour length for TV. It’s better to slap the audience and
run, than slowly tap their faces and then walk away. A lot of this is just my
random thoughts, if I was still making videos, this would be one.
Also the
voice thing in US (2019) being very bad choice would have been a video. All you
gonna miss is being making joke that Jordan Peele should hire me to work some
mystery thing (maybe if they second session of Twilight Zone) but also not
because they also a bunch of POC who are also mute and deserves their voices to
be heard. But also, in all seriously, hire me too LOL. I’ve not worked out if
Jordan Peele actually has that much control over Twilight Zone reboot but also
I’m just putting out there I want to re-write Jess-Belle for modern audience
and it’s not over played ep to do it with. I also just want to put ‘but’ too
many times in a paragraph, with ‘also’ guess starring.
Twilight
Zone is beloved thing for me, it has so many eps with dolls involved and that’s
why I love it. Also, the politic messages and how it’s least not offensive. I
haven’t made it through a proper re-watch but they actually hire Asian actors to play
Asian parts, so far. Also random Asian waitress in one. "A Quality of Mercy" is bit awkward with the accent choices.
I don’t how
to end this, so let’s steal from Rod Sterling (and possible Charles Beaumont).
They never found Charley Parkes, because the
guard didn't tell them what he saw in the glass case. He knew what they'd say
and he knew they'd be right, too, because seeing is not always believing,
especially if what you see happens to be an odd corner of the Twilight Zone.
