Author Topic: Mr. Robot  (Read 5606 times)

1SO

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Re: Mr. Robot
« Reply #10 on: August 21, 2015, 04:02:48 PM »
I just watched a scene that crystallized my dissatisfaction with the show. A good TV Drama displays a behavioral insight that's true to the characters, one that we can find interesting because we can believe moments would happen in this way. Take a show like Hannibal or (one this one aims to step in the shoes of) Dexter. Outlandish characters, but their behavior is believable.

In the current episode, Elliot has to get rid of a guy named Bill, who is giving him a tour of a facility, so that Elliot can access a restricted area. Elliot does this by putting Bill down, explaining how he is nothing. (Something Tyler Durden can do as easy as breathing, but I digress.) Bill, stands there while Elliot slowly dresses him down. Never interrupts. Never speaks up for himself. Though there's plenty of room to interrupt, Bill just stands there. To help the scene along, the music strikes this unusual chord. It's all meant to create an unsettling mood and there's a post-moment about Bill's personal habits that's supposed to sell his standing there and taking it. (He has a cat. What a wimp.)

The scene is a major moment in the episode, but it rings completely false. I don't buy Elliot taking this approach and I don't believe Bill not saying something or just walking away. As Elliot's speech lumbers on, I could hear the keyboard composing the words, and the writer opening a drink when he finished. Damn, I bet he was proud. But, it's not even well-written, and post-production is stuck trying to sell this lemon with moody editing and music.

philip918

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Re: Mr. Robot
« Reply #11 on: August 21, 2015, 08:13:46 PM »
I agree that scene (which was surprisingly well-received and hyped in reviews) isn't very good. At all. Probably my least favorite moment in the show.

Are you on board with Elliot's character at all? If you are, the next few episodes should pay off for you. If you're not that invested, might not be the series for you.

1SO

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Re: Mr. Robot
« Reply #12 on: August 21, 2015, 09:25:32 PM »
His character seemed better defined in the Pilot where he's on the high end of the Autism spectrum. I like moments like when he says just the right thing to a person and comments, "oh no, he's going to hug me now." I find his relationships interesting, the different ways he adapts to deal with each character and how Mr. Robot throws him off his game.

In later episodes, he seems to only be as anti-social as the script needs him to be. He seems more adept then he initially let on, and I don't like that he's become sort of the ring leader of a heist plot. This far in, I'm disappointed with how enigmatic they've kept Mr. Robot only because it doesn't make sense how much trust he puts into Elliot and how he's willing to chuck his own plan and follow Elliot's riskier one. (I'm sure this will be Mr. Robot's plan all along, but it's too X-Files/Dark Knight where each advance is revealed to be part of the puppetmaster's grand design.) I'm not asking to know all of Mr. Robot's secrets, I just think the writers are using him as a catch-all crutch. By not being truthful about anything, they can always say he's on top of everything.

And the show has TWO of these characters. As mysterious as Mr. Robot is, he's effective in the moment and I think Christian Slater is as well cast as I've seen him. Tyrell Wellick, the ambitious Senior Vice President of Technology at E Corp, is just as big a mystery and appears to be equally on top of it all. (He's the Capital City doppelganger of District 9's Mr. Robot.) Wellick gets scenes, but they only put out that he's a strange one. The psychology doesn't come together into a compelling character.

Aside from the drug habit (which was given too much story) I would say I'm on board with Elliot. I like the actor, though the way he delivers dialogue is already taking on a sameness that's going to be trouble the longer this goes on. (The voice-over is a terrific contrast to his out loud hesitant way of speaking.)

philip918

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Re: Mr. Robot
« Reply #13 on: August 21, 2015, 11:07:04 PM »
I find his relationships interesting, the different ways he adapts to deal with each character and how Mr. Robot throws him off his game.

This far in, I'm disappointed with how enigmatic they've kept Mr. Robot only because it doesn't make sense how much trust he puts into Elliot and how he's willing to chuck his own plan and follow Elliot's riskier one.

Tyrell Wellick, the ambitious Senior Vice President of Technology at E Corp, is just as big a mystery and appears to be equally on top of it all.

Based on this. Just hang with it.

1SO

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Re: Mr. Robot
« Reply #14 on: August 24, 2015, 12:44:42 PM »
I got as far as the prison break. Don't really care anymore. Would rather spend my free time watching movies. Sorry everyone.

philip918

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Re: Mr. Robot
« Reply #15 on: August 26, 2015, 03:48:58 PM »

Bondo

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Re: Mr. Robot
« Reply #16 on: June 26, 2016, 06:41:01 PM »
I got as far as the prison break. Don't really care anymore. Would rather spend my free time watching movies. Sorry everyone.

I pushed to the end of the first season, but that moment was the one that broke me. Also, I didn't ultimately like or identify with Elliot as much as I had hoped, for reasons you address.

I guess I struggle with the whole principle of the action that the season is based around. Basically the show's logic is that destroying EvilCorp's records means getting rid of debt, which would be a great victory for the poor and downtrodden. And there is a sense the only cost is to the corporate heavies anyway. But this isn't how debt works.

First off, debt is financed by bank holdings. You put money in a checking/savings account and they loan that money out to others at interest, some of that interest might accrue to the person with the checking/savings account, with the rest being the profit that incentivizes the bank to exist. To eliminate the debt is to eliminate the savings.

The other thing of note is that the truly poor tend to have neither savings nor debt. They don't have the credit necessary to take on substantial debt. The main exception here would be something like medical debt, since hospitals cannot deny service based on credit-worthiness. But mortgages, car loans, credit card debt...these are debts of the middle class more than the poor.

So you are poor and you received no benefit when these hackers altruistically eliminate debt. What you do get is laid off because the economy tanked and you have a job that is most dependent on the whims of the economy. Also, governments are cutting services because the economy tanked and they have lost revenue (and further are probably out a lot of money bailing out the financial system because all the middle-class people just had their checking accounts deleted...though I'm not sure how FDIC would work if all banking records were truly lost). So not only are you unemployed, but they are probably pretty stingy with social support programs. Your life has indisputably been made shittier by these heroic hackers taking it to the man.

Now, you might say, the show doesn't actually see the hackers as being heroic...it's hard to say, but there is a significant contingent of the audience that does...this is the same populist ignorance that supports Brexit and some of the wilder notions of Trump AND Sanders. There really are a lot of people who think good will come from burning down the system. I feel like this show plays to them and nurtures their ignorance. But it doesn't play to me.

1SO

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Re: Mr. Robot
« Reply #17 on: June 26, 2016, 10:52:34 PM »
I'm surprised how few people are disappointed by how far Elliot gets away from the character they set up in the first episode. You could argue that he was too antisocial to sustain a series, but he was doing pretty good in that first one, and he became less interesting as they took him away from that with drugs and outlandish adventures.

DarkeningHumour

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Re: Mr. Robot
« Reply #18 on: June 27, 2016, 12:05:48 AM »
I think the economics of the show are very fairy tale. At first I thought ECorp was an invention of Elliot's diseased mind until it became clear it was a real thing. The conglomerate is so vast I cannot take it as something other than a big bad wolf fabulation.

I'm surprised how few people are disappointed by how far Elliot gets away from the character they set up in the first episode. You could argue that he was too antisocial to sustain a series, but he was doing pretty good in that first one, and he became less interesting as they took him away from that with drugs and outlandish adventures.

I didn't feel him changing so much.
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dassix

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Re: Mr. Robot
« Reply #19 on: July 07, 2016, 05:55:20 PM »
Just watched first few episodes last week.  Working in IT, I usually stay away from movies/shows having to do with hacking or reliant on technology.  However, this show is pretty accurate with a lot of the topics they discuss.  I applaud the writers for getting the right information while writing the script.

I'll give the show a couple more episodes, but I might be done.