I'm Here About Some Monkeys: Comparing The TV Show To The Movie

[ottoDbusdriver]

A place to compare the TV show with the movies -- for people that haven't seen the movie, there will be spoilers for the movie.

[ottoDbusdriver]

I like the changes that they made so far to the movie storyline for the TV adaptation:

• having Cassie see Cole disappear after their first meeting set the wheels in motion for her believing him as a time traveler much faster.
• the physical consequences of objects from two different times interacting was pretty cool, I was worried that the two objects would annihilate each other (a la Timecop) otherwise there would have been an even bigger paradox with regards to Cassie.
• the survivors can roam the surface of the planet without protective suits because they are actually immune to the virus.
• that Cole doesn't arrive in the past naked, and he is much more mentally stable after arriving in the past
• Goines' child is a woman, as opposed to a man (Brad Pitt's character in the movie)
• from the get go, the people in the future have no idea what the Army of the 12 Monkeys even is, let alone that it is somehow involved with the release of the virus
• they changed Dr. Railly's first name from Kathryn to Cassandra, since Cassandra from Greek mythology applies here (someone with the power of prophecy, but cursed to have no one believe her).
• the lack of a musical score -- it was practically absent (while it was a very present and iconic part of the movie)

[shapeshifter]

This Cole has bio-enhancements that the 2015 people noticed in his medical work-up, and that also seems to manifest in super-fast healing. Bruce Willis' Cole suffered physically more--but then it's Bruce Willis, heh.

[shrewd.buddha]

This show raised a lot of question about how the movie actually did things - so we rented it and re-watched (wow, the movie is almost 20 years old).

The movie was excellent and holds up really well. Of course it was directed by Terry Gilliam, so it has a lot of atmosphere and quirkiness going for it. 

 

One thing I did prefer about the movie was there was no option of erasing the future - the point of sending people to the past was to get enough clues to finally create a cure for the disease in the future. The notion that a entire timeline can be erased seems pretty far fetched. But then again, everyone seems to make up their own time travel rules to suit their own purposes -- and again, the entire notion of time travel.. 

 

I feel, for me, the show will definitely suffer in comparison to the move. Knowing that basically everything that happened in the movie will be stretched out -- not for ten episodes, but possibly an indefinite number of episodes -- makes me feel exhausted already. Like that other SyFy show, Continuum, it seems as they are gong to be forced to reinvent a lot things to keep things going with no end in sight. 

Edited January 20, 2015 by shrewd.buddha

[Mars477]

Poor comparison. If 12 Monkeys can maintain even a fraction of the quality of Continuum it will already be miles ahead of other SyFy original series.

[Trini]

 

... Knowing that basically everything that happened in the movie will be stretched out ...

 

How do you know that is what they are going to do? It seemed clear to me that they changed many things to make it work as a series, and make it somewhat different.

[LeGrandElephant]

I couldn't figure out what thread to put this in, but I hope its ok to start one. 

 

I've finally realized what's been bothering me about this show, and its that the premise doesn't make any sense to me.

 

In the original movie, the future was terrible because the virus was still out there in the ground and the animals and the survivors were not immune, so they had to hide underground and wear protective suits if they went out. It made sense that the future sucked pretty bad and they wanted to put everything towards finding a cure or vaccine for the virus. 

 

But, in this show, they've said that the future is populated by the people who just happened to be immune to the virus. There are apparently enough people around the repopulate the human race, and there are scavengers running around and stuff, so no reason to think the earth is contaminated in any way. So, what exactly is stopping them from just going on and building lives in this new world? It would be horrible to watch most of the world's population die, and there would probably be a lot of chaos during that time. But once it was over, the survivors wouldn't be all that badly off. Most of our current problems today come from there being too many people overpopulating the earth. If most of them were gone, the survivors would have plenty of farmland, plenty of animals, even plenty of things like libraries and walmarts to raid for knowledge and materials ... Why not just start farming and herding and building and just go on with life? What exactly is stopping them, given that the earth is not contaminated? Why do they feel there's no future? 

 

Did I miss something?

Edited February 8, 2015 by SilverStormm
It's fine to start new topics, providing a suitable one doesn't already exist. However, this post fits nicely into this one.

[Trini]

 

So, what exactly is stopping them from just going on and building lives in this new world?

The roving hoards of armed, murderous scavengers?

But seriously, logically, there is probably some of that going on. The goal here is to save the 7 billion from dying. Which they think is possible with the time travel tech.

[Notwisconsin]

Just saw the ORIGINAL original version, Chris Marker's "La Jetee" (1962). It didn't have any virus or anything like that (it was after world war III and the time machine was out to find natural resources.) and was a series of still photographs instead of a real film. It was half an hour long. One of those French art fllms which are high concept and low execution. It's in French on Youtube and in English on vimeo.

 

The Gilliam Version is up there with The Maltese Falcon and the Wizard of Oz as one of the best remakes of all time.

[LeGrandElephant]

The roving hoards of armed, murderous scavengers?

But seriously, logically, there is probably some of that going on. The goal here is to save the 7 billion from dying. Which they think is possible with the time travel tech.

If their biggest problem is one sociopath with a gang, use their technology to kill that guy. Nothing else seems so wrong with the world that they should all be in such a hurry to erase themselves instead of going forward.

And why is that guy a scavenger in the first place? They're acting like there are scarce resources, but resources shouldn't be scarce now that there are few people and the land seems ok. So even the existence of these scavenger gangs as a big threat doesn't seem very plausible to me.

Edited February 15, 2015 by LeGrandElephant

[OmegaX123]

If their biggest problem is one sociopath with a gang, use their technology to kill that guy. Nothing else seems so wrong with the world that they should all be in such a hurry to erase themselves instead of going forward.

You're talking like the West 7 are the only scavs. There's been no indication that's the case, they're just the most prolific and dangerous.

 

EDIT: Also, did you see "The Red Forest"? With only one minor change (Deacon being dead and Ramse being in charge), they were able to completely overrun the Splinter facility and set up shop.

Edited February 23, 2015 by OmegaX123

[magicdog]

There are apparently enough people around the repopulate the human race, and there are scavengers running around and stuff, so no reason to think the earth is contaminated in any way. So, what exactly is stopping them from just going on and building lives in this new world? It would be horrible to watch most of the world's population die, and there would probably be a lot of chaos during that time. But once it was over, the survivors wouldn't be all that badly off. Most of our current problems today come from there being too many people overpopulating the earth. If most of them were gone, the survivors would have plenty of farmland, plenty of animals, even plenty of things like libraries and walmarts to raid for knowledge and materials ... Why not just start farming and herding and building and just go on with life? What exactly is stopping them, given that the earth is not contaminated? Why do they feel there's no future?

 

 

And why is that guy a scavenger in the first place? They're acting like there are scarce resources, but resources shouldn't be scarce now that there are few people and the land seems ok. So even the existence of these scavenger gangs as a big threat doesn't seem very plausible to me.

 

 

 

If you haven't already done so, I recommend watching "Life After People" which shows how the most modern buildings crumble with no one available to do even the most mundane things.

 

I haven't gathered all the info yet, but was it ever stated how many people live at the compound, or how many people survived the virus worldwide?   Just because they survived the virus doesn't necessarily mean they have what it takes to keep the world going as we know it.  Let's assume about a million people are still alive world wide.  Are they farmers/ranchers who can till the fields and handle livestock?  Are they engineers, architects, plumbers, electricians, etc. who are needed to keep buildings in good repair?  Even the Walmarts would likely have been picked clean by those panicking during the epidemic.  Other foodstuffs would have long since rotted and not replaced (since the delivery truck drivers died and were unable to replace them).     Even survivalist food (like MREs ) is guaranteed to be edible for about 25 years.  Then what?  Gasoline turns to water when it's been left unused in the pumps so unless the survivors at the compound found a way to use it or replace it as an energy source, the lights won't stay on for long.  Not to mention there will be no one to work or maintain the oil refineries or man the oil derricks to drill for more oil (or miners to get coal for those with coal stoves).   People like Cole were too young to remember life as it was before and many more about his age in 2043 would likely be functionally illiterate (although that may vary) so reading books about complex engineering techniques may not be an option for them.  Everything ultimately becomes a day to day fight for survival - even for the educated scientists at the compound.

[Wynterwolf]

I haven't gathered all the info yet, but was it ever stated how many people live at the compound, or how many people survived the virus worldwide?   

 

On The Wall on the Syfy site for the show, there is some information about the various virus mutations and how many people were left after each one.  Currently, after the 2040 mutation, they estimate there are <28 million people left on the planet.  

[snarktini]

Just caught the movie tonight. (If I've seen it before it's been so long I don't remember.) I have a whole new appreciation for Emily Hampshire -- watching Brad Pitt do crazy was painful! The cross-eyed thing he did? Strange. Didn't enjoy Jeffrey at all, but Jennifer's a lot of fun.

[shapeshifter]

2 hours ago, snarktini said:

Just caught the movie tonight. (If I've seen it before it's been so long I don't remember.) I have a whole new appreciation for Emily Hampshire -- watching Brad Pitt do crazy was painful! The cross-eyed thing he did? Strange. Didn't enjoy Jeffrey at all, but Jennifer's a lot of fun.

I haven't seen the movie in quite a few years, but at the time I thought Pitt was good in it, even if the weird contact lens prop was distracting.