Bloody, sweaty hell...
Okay, chardy, my man, let's do this.
Two women find forbidden love in a supernatural world ...
Right away I have to take issue. The world is not supernatural, it's a software, a technology created virtual reality. And if you think I am not going to nitpick about the terminology, well, I am. Lots. That's probably what 70% of this month is going to be about. Just wait until someone watches
The Cabin in the Woods and calls it a horror movie.
... stretched over the time continuum. It’s a story worthy of exploration that this film doesn’t have time for. A romance formed from no discernible connection that pays lip service to its authenticity once the concepts of time and space are brought into play.
I am not sure what stretched over the time continuum means here. The story takes place in a limited number of days. The characters are plugged into the system once a week for a few hours and my best estimation is that a few weeks go by between the first and last scenes of the episode.
If it is paying lip service to anything at all, surely it must be the singularity and euthanasia. Those themes, beyond the relationship stuff, are what the episode is about after all. Every BM episode takes one one more sci-fi concepts and applies them to real life and thinks about what a world with flying cops or luminescent apples would look like.
A big part of the enjoyment of
San Junipero is figuring our what is going on, which is not that complicated, but is really freaking cool when you think about it. People can plug into this virtual, perfect world and enjoy themselves as much as they want. In this specific situation, it turns out they are escaping the shackles of old age and disease. They are liberated from their bodies, able to establish connections based solely on each other's actions because everyone is young and attractive. It's the ultimate set up for escapism and authenticity.
How you can say the two of them have no discernible connection? One of them loses her virginity to the other while we see the second one fall for her and deal with her grief and feelings of betrayal.
Simultaneously ostentatious and melodramatic both in tired clichés early and in overwrought speeches later on, San Junipero is falsely earnest, undermining the very values in purports to uphold.
Which values would that be? The right of people to dispose of their own bodies? A general belief in science's capacity to better the lives of people? I don't think the story takes a moral stance where the romance is concerned because it clearly shows how various choices here would be utterly understandable. It just has this uplifting belief in people's ability to make each other happy which is quite unique to the BM episodes I have watched, which are basically all horror stories. Maybe that is why it is so much better.
Sorry there wasn't more butter on my popcorn DH. How could you find value in a relationship involving someone still alive when the episode itself placed such value on being dead together? And how could you be captivated by this relationship? These characters are not developed and a sad story about an off-screen husband isn't going to change that.
The death scene is beside the point. Their bodies could remain alive where they are while their minds wander and the result would be the same. The important thing is that they get a new beginning, a new chance at life and happiness, the opportunity for a new great love story. When you learn that the redhead has been paralysed since her adolescence and never got to be with someone, that is a heartbreaking scene, and San Junipero means she gets to right that wrong. To see her finally bloom after so many years is a touching thing that the episodes handles with such tenderness.
The husband character doesn't need to ever be shown to me for that part of the story to matter. Surely you care about plenty of things in movies that are told, rather than shown. Most of Sophie's backstory in Sophie's Choice for example (except for the obvious one scene) ; ditto for the guy she's dating. You call the speeches melodramatic but when she tells that story that is one powerful piece of acting and I wouldn't change a thing about the acting. It's a great moment of on screen empathy that has you root for their relationship and then makes you feel like a bastard for not giving more thought to what that might imply for the characters.
To conclude:
(I jest.)That's what I've got for now, if you want to continue, I am sure I can find Beth some more wine somewhere.