# Forum > Discussion > Media Discussions >  Knives out: Glass Onion (Netflix)

## Eldan

Go watch it. It's great. It's a mystery that actually works and gives you the clues, it's well written, well directed, extremely well shot and scored, very well acted. Knives Out, I thought, was just okay. This is thoroughly fantastic.

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## Cygnia

We saw it in the theatre last month -- best movie of the year for us.  :Small Big Grin:

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## Fyraltari

Looks like this won't be in theaters outside of North America. Shame.

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## Eldan

> Looks like this won't be in theaters outside of North America. Shame.


Sadly, no. We watched it on Netflix.

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## Cygnia

Yeah, they did a limited release in theatres last month before going to Netflix.  Since we don't have Netflix, we went there.

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## Eurus

Just saw it! I actually rate Knives Out higher, but Glass Onion was still a very good movie in my book. I think most of my enjoyment was from the comedy of it, though.

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## Peelee

> Go watch it. It's great. It's a mystery that actually works and gives you the clues, it's well written, well directed, extremely well shot and scored, very well acted.


Exactly what I was hoping to hear, especially after I loved Knives Out so much! 



> Knives Out, I thought, was just okay. This is thoroughly fantastic.


Aaaand now I'm unsure how to take that review.



> Looks like this won't be in theaters outside of North America. Shame.


It was barely in theaters inside of North America. Extremely limited release for one week a month ago, with seemingly no rhyme or reason outside of the major cities. Birmingham is one of the biggest cities in the South, _the_ biggest city between Alabama and Mississippi combined, and some ****ing nothing town in Mississippi got it, not even on the way home from Louisiana, either, it was like 4 hours out of the way. Wife and I were planning to see it in theaters but that asinine decision meant it wasn't worth it.

She did get me a really nice surround system for Christmas for it though  so we still get a more cinematic experience, so I'm still excited. Gotta wait til after we get home though. I avoided this thread for a bit in case of spoilers but decided to brave it.

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## MammonAzrael

Watched it last night, it was a delight! The actors are all delivering excellent, fun performances. There is all around good cinematography, with several wonderfully striking shots. Johnson's love of the genre shines through clearly. It also captures the mood of it's precise time period uncomfortably well.

I think Knives out was the better overall movie, but that doesn't detract from Glass Onion in the least.

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## Trixie_One

Knives Out was very nearly perfect. This was a significant step down. It's an above average watch with some genuinely funny bits but it's just not on the same level.

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## Toastkart

Saw it today.  I tend to agree on it being a significant step down.  Spending so much time in flashback felt jarring and the ending was childish.

*Spoiler: spoilers*
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One of the things Knives Out did so well was showing how context of events changed as the character telling the story changed.  Glass Onion does a much worse job by showing how a scene changes as the camera changes.  So we're shown one event (Andy getting shot) and then we're shown it again, only with more dialogue before the shot and a whole bunch of stuff after.  That's a personal pet peeve of mine.  It reeks of sloppy storytelling.  

The end also fizzled for me as what became important was the ownership of Alpha on a napkin and not, ya know, the murder of Andy, Duke, and attempted murder of Helen.

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## InvisibleBison

I watched the film this morning, and while I did enjoy it, I also think it wasn't as good as the previous film.

*Spoiler*
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I found the way they used flashbacks to show that they'd only shown bits and pieces of earlier conversations to be fairly disingenuous. It's one thing to show a conversation, and then show a flashback that recontextualizes it, or even to show a scene and then in a flashback reveal that the previous scene was only half the conversation. It's another thing entirely to show a scene and then reveal that the camera was actually jumping forward in time and skipping over lines of dialogue when it cut from one character to the other. That just seems dishonest, especially in a mystery movie.


I also don't think a lot of the what the film says about Miles and Andi's backstory really holds up to analysis. If Miles is basically an idiot, how and why did Andi get him involved with founding Alpha? What exactly was this lawsuit about that the napkin would be decisive, and how did Andi's lawyers fail to find it? If the lawsuit was already decided, how would Andi discovering the napkin change anything? And moving beyond the backstory, why would the revelation that the new fuel Miles backed was dangerous be so ruinous to Miles, and why did all his "friends" turn on him at the end? Also, how exactly is Helen going to avoid being charged with arson?

On a more positive note, I thought the characters were all really interesting. I particularly liked Whiskey. Hers wasn't a particularly complex story, but I thought the various revelations about her that were revealed during Helen's snooping were a fun subversion of what was initially presented as a fairly one-note character.

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## Trixie_One

I will say that watching this film and then watching See How They Run a couple of days late made a line from that one *significantly* funnier. 

*Spoiler*
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"Flashbacks!" (context being an esteemed writer complaining about a director insisting on adding a bunch of flashbacks into his script adaptation of the Mouse Trap, Really good film by the way. Not as good as Knives Out but I did prefer it to Glass Onion)

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## spectralphoenix

I'm not sure if I can compare it directly to Knives Out. I enjoyed both, but they were very different movies.

*Spoiler*
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One thing that bugged me about the end was the "you're so stupid" speech. It was _funny_,  to be sure, but it kind of fell flat when almost everything Miles did _worked_. It was a bit like one of those gamer rants about "n00b weapons."

Miles got the napkin. Duke blackmailing him demonstrates that he couldn't trust his friends to do it. Miles killed Duke successfully, and if anything I'd say taking advantage of his allergy was smarter than carrying around poison all the time. Accidentally switching glasses and having a reaction would be a heck of a lot more explainable than showing up with polonium in his bloodstream or something when the cops arrived. Then it gets capped off by the heroes repeating the exact same mistake Andi did at the beginning - waving the napkin around and gloating instead of keeping quiet and getting it to a court ASAP.

Really, he only made two mistakes. His "one moment of panache" as Blanc put it, since shooting Helen* left her free to search his rooms, and more foreseeably, would have been harder to explain to the police. And not burning the napkin in the first place, which Helen helpfully gave him a second shot at.

And I'm not sure that burning down the building would have solved anything anyway. It didn't look any worse than a natural gas explosion, and we pipe gas into houses, after all. Not to mention that Helen is absolutely criminally liable for that.

*Also, I was thinking that she would be wearing a vest after all that discussion of the risks? A small notebook stopping a high-caliber handgun bullet from that range seems pretty unlikely.

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## theNater

> *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> 
> One thing that bugged me about the end was the "you're so stupid" speech. It was _funny_,  to be sure, but it kind of fell flat when almost everything Miles did _worked_. It was a bit like one of those gamer rants about "n00b weapons."
> 
> Miles got the napkin. Duke blackmailing him demonstrates that he couldn't trust his friends to do it. Miles killed Duke successfully, and if anything I'd say taking advantage of his allergy was smarter than carrying around poison all the time. Accidentally switching glasses and having a reaction would be a heck of a lot more explainable than showing up with polonium in his bloodstream or something when the cops arrived.


*Spoiler: How do you define "worked"?*
Show

The napkin was evidence of fraud and perjury, and in getting it Miles left behind evidence of _murder_, which required _another murder_ to cover up.

As for Duke's death, Miles' defense is pretending to have been the target.  Poison would be better for that than pineapple juice.  (Even better, of course, would be to have been drinking a beverage that was supposed to have pineapple juice in it, but Miles wasn't thinking that far ahead.)

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## Fyraltari

Just watched it, loved it.

*Spoiler*
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I do love me some extra-judicial justice in my mistery stories!

Also, the scene with the boxes had me going "Oh come, on genius multibillionaires aren't real, these guys are just con-men leeching off other people's work on ego trips. And then it turned out Miles was just a con-man leeching off other people's work while on an ego trip. Delightful!




> *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> I also don't think a lot of the what the film says about Miles and Andi's backstory really holds up to analysis. If Miles is basically an idiot, how and why did Andi get him involved with founding Alpha?


*Spoiler*
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I think the idea is that he was alteady somewhat loaded with cash. She was the brain, he was the initial investor.




> *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> What exactly was this lawsuit about that the napkin would be decisive, and how did Andi's lawyers fail to find it? If the lawsuit was already decided, how would Andi discovering the napkin change anything?


*Spoiler*
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Andi was suing him on the basis that the intellectual property of the company belonged to her since she came up with... whatever nonsense was on that napkin, not him. I'm pretty sure that's not how it actually works, though. Anyway, the napkin, specifically, the handwriting, was proof of which of the two came up with the idea. Andi didn't have the real napkin because she had lost it sometimes after founding Alpha and only found it again in a fit rage after the trial was concluded. I have no idea whether she could have another trial on the basis of this new evidence, but the movie treats it as feasible.




> *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> And moving beyond the backstory, why would the revelation that the new fuel Miles backed was dangerous be so ruinous to Miles,


*Spoiler*
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There's three things at play here, all very damaging to Miles:
1) He has already sunk a lot of money into his wonderfuel (seemingly, all of Alpha's finances) and it wasn't even tested yet. He wants it to power basically everything, from cars to the power grid. That means getting a huge number of people onboard to transistion, from states, to car manufacturers to the general public. His villa being destroyed by his new fuel is going to make sure absolutely no-one will do that that. he's never getting that money back. Alpha may even go bankrup.

2) The Mona Lisa just burned. He now owes the french republic a frankly absurd amount of money. And he's fiddled with the security system the assurance made him install to make it mess secure, meaning they will not give him a single cent. This will likewise turn pretty much every art lover in the world, as well the French government (which is the second most powerful decision-maker of the European Union, the single largest economy in the world) is going to see him as a destructive idiot.

3) People this rich don't have money in banknotes rolled under their bed. His money is most likely in the form of actions in many companies, especially alpha. Part of the wonderfuel idea was probably aimed at being the center of attention, marketing himself further as this supergenius. At this level of wealth, image is the primary money-maker, and is image just tanked. Remember Lionel's first scene where he's basically arguing that if it's Miles' idea then it's most likely gold. Think of how Musk's twitter fiasco cost him to lose his spot as the world's richest man, and multiply that by a hundred.

*Spoiler: Basically, this is Miles at the end of the movie*
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And of course, the more personal 4) He wanted to be remembered forever as a great man, and he will now basically share Herostratus's claim to fame. Doubt _he_ would be satisfied with it, though. What with it not being on purpose.




> *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> and why did all his "friends" turn on him at the end? Also, how exactly is Helen going to avoid being charged with arson?


*Spoiler*
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The second question is the easiest. They'll all testify it was his burning the napkin that caused the inferno. They are now willing to lie for the truth as it were.

As for the first question, Miles just murdered Duke even though he was just as loyal to him as they all were. And while they sold Andi out  (and them not knowing about Helen tells me they were never that close) murdering her, was probably a step too far. They all hate him. They were all going to fall back in line because they thought there was nothing they could do and because theat's what they've all been doing for years, but expressing their loathing for him, in joining Helen's art-smashing, reminded them both how much they hate him and how powerless he actually is. The guy is a paper tiger, only strong because no-one dares to actually stand up to his bull****. But they can follow Helen's lead once she deals him a first blow by burning the painting.

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## Eurus

Personally, my biggest complaint...

*Spoiler*
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The pocketbook blocking the bullet was pretty silly, and not in an actually funny way, to the point that I think it weakened the rest of the movie. The "you're so stupid" lecture especially feels bizarre when it was a _miraculous fluke_ that Helen survived at all. I would've found it way more funny and appropriate if he'd just missed because he's a terrible shot.

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## PoeticallyPsyco

> Personally, my biggest complaint...
> 
> *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> The pocketbook blocking the bullet was pretty silly, and not in an actually funny way, to the point that I think it weakened the rest of the movie. The "you're so stupid" lecture especially feels bizarre when it was a _miraculous fluke_ that Helen survived at all. I would've found it way more funny and appropriate if he'd just missed because he's a terrible shot.


Yeah I think that would have gone over a bit better if

*Spoiler*
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She keeled over in surprise and panic at being shot at, maybe knocking herself on the held or maybe just pretending to be dead. The faked death still works just as well, but him nailing a shot on her heart kinda clashes with the image of him as an incompetent skating by on improvisation, charisma, and inertia.


Overall, a good and entertaining movie, held back by the inevitable comparison to Knives Out, a fantastic and brilliant movie.

And I agree with others that the editing of the cuts is mostly cheating. We expect a certain amount of that from mysteries, but Glass Onion uses it _extensively_, and Knives Out didn't need it.

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## GloatingSwine

I think the only thing this really loses compared to Knives Out is that the Thrombeys had a bit more time to be entertainingly ghastly and the actors hammed it up a bit more.

A few of the characters didn't really stand out and not for murder mystery red herring reasons, just because the movie kinda didn't have time to spend on them. I guess we needed at least a sliver of sympathy for some of them by the end though so some of them were under the radar (and under Bron's thumb).

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## Bobb

If this hadn't come from the people who made _Knives out_ I would have said it was a fun, high production value whodunnit.

Since it did, I am disappointed by the decline in tightness of story and details.

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## Razade

> I think the only thing this really loses compared to Knives Out is that the Thrombeys had a bit more time to be entertainingly ghastly and the actors hammed it up a bit more.
> 
> A few of the characters didn't really stand out and not for murder mystery red herring reasons, just because the movie kinda didn't have time to spend on them. I guess we needed at least a sliver of sympathy for some of them by the end though so some of them were under the radar (and under Bron's thumb).


The only one I felt they really whiffed on was Peg. They spend the movie sort of lumping her in with the rest, but then she's not really even around for most of the movie. She supports Birdie but that's her job, she even tries to get Miles to stop throwing Birdie under the bus. It's for selfish reasons, but she had nothing to do with Andi whatsoever.

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## Giggling Ghast

I saw Glass Onion on Friday. While I thought it was cleverly-written, I didnt care for the wackier tone. Its yet another sequel that fails to measure up to its predecessor.

Regarding the Disruptors turning on Miles at the end:

*Spoiler*
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His experimental fuel just destroyed the Mona Lisa, arguably the worlds most famous painting. The amount of criminal and civil liability he is facing is mind-boggling. His financial empire is about to be completely ruined, so whatever sway he had over the Disruptors is gone.

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## Forum Explorer

> Saw it today.  I tend to agree on it being a significant step down.  Spending so much time in flashback felt jarring and the ending was childish.
> 
> *Spoiler: spoilers*
> Show
> 
> One of the things Knives Out did so well was showing how context of events changed as the character telling the story changed.  Glass Onion does a much worse job by showing how a scene changes as the camera changes.  So we're shown one event (Andy getting shot) and then we're shown it again, only with more dialogue before the shot and a whole bunch of stuff after.  That's a personal pet peeve of mine.  It reeks of sloppy storytelling.  
> 
> The end also fizzled for me as what became important was the ownership of Alpha on a napkin and not, ya know, the murder of Andy, Duke, and attempted murder of Helen.


I did really like it, but yes, I do think that Knives Out was the better of the two movies. 

*Spoiler*
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Also agree. At the end, the napkin is more of an inconvience that anything. It would hurt Miles at little, maybe. But it's more a threat to the other Disruptors than it is to Miles, who has already invested in this new fuel.





> I'm not sure if I can compare it directly to Knives Out. I enjoyed both, but they were very different movies.
> 
> *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> 
> One thing that bugged me about the end was the "you're so stupid" speech. It was _funny_,  to be sure, but it kind of fell flat when almost everything Miles did _worked_. It was a bit like one of those gamer rants about "n00b weapons."
> 
> Miles got the napkin. Duke blackmailing him demonstrates that he couldn't trust his friends to do it. Miles killed Duke successfully, and if anything I'd say taking advantage of his allergy was smarter than carrying around poison all the time. Accidentally switching glasses and having a reaction would be a heck of a lot more explainable than showing up with polonium in his bloodstream or something when the cops arrived. Then it gets capped off by the heroes repeating the exact same mistake Andi did at the beginning - waving the napkin around and gloating instead of keeping quiet and getting it to a court ASAP.
> ...


*Spoiler*
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I mean, he wasn't so much stupid as his whole 'genius' persona was just a facade over a relatively normal man with a talent for exploiting other people's talent. 

I agree that shooting Helen at all was a mistake. If he didn't it would be revealed that Duke died of an allergic reaction and that could be explained as an honest mistake that lead to Miles panicking and thinking someone was trying to kill him. Though Andy dying and then Duke dying shortly after would be incredibly suspicious, he could likely still get away with it.

The house burning down is bad, but not that big of a deal. Destroying the Mona Lisa, escpecially after it is revealed that he illegally modified the security measures on it to create an override so that its protections could be lifted when there was something dangerous happening would absolutely destroy him. The painting itself is likely worth around 1 billion dollars, but he'd likely get sued for even more, and may even be criminally charged. 

Not only that, but it burned down because the house was being powered by an experimental (and thus illegal) fuel source. There is no way Miles could argue it was a tragic accident. So he'd be facing criminal charges for that as well. So his reputation would be completely shot, and he'd likely not have any money and thus the Disruptors no longer have a motive to protect him, so they'd all testify to his murder of Duke and Andy. 



But the thing that bothered me most was
*Spoiler: Hydrogen*
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The movie demonizing hydrogen fuel and pretending it was super risky. You burn the fuel in a power plant or a fuel cell to generate electricity and then use said electricity to power things like electric cars, heaters, lights, ect. You don't pump and burn the fuel in your house like it was propane. 

It's actually less dangerous than gasoline or propane because if it does leak, it tends to dissipate very quickly, escaping into the atmosphere and becoming harmless, while gasoline and propane are heavier and stick around for much longer. So even though hydrogen is more volatile, gasoline is more dangerous.

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## Giggling Ghast

> *Spoiler: Hydrogen*
> Show
> 
> The movie demonizing hydrogen fuel and pretending it was super risky. You burn the fuel in a power plant or a fuel cell to generate electricity and then use said electricity to power things like electric cars, heaters, lights, ect. You don't pump and burn the fuel in your house like it was propane. 
> 
> It's actually less dangerous than gasoline or propane because if it does leak, it tends to dissipate very quickly, escaping into the atmosphere and becoming harmless, while gasoline and propane are heavier and stick around for much longer. So even though hydrogen is more volatile, gasoline is more dangerous.


Based on a little Googling, I determined we can actually produce hydrogen from sea water in RL, but it isnt effective to do so on a mass scale.

I would assume that whatever untested process Miles used to produce a solid state hydrogen fuel from sea water on a commercially viable scale also added to its volatility.

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## Peelee

The movie doesn't demonize hydrogen fuel. *Spoiler*
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It demonizes a fictitious experimental new form of solid hydrogen fuel. One of the issues that crops up throughout it using this fuel in rockets. Rockets already use hydrogen fuel. Also a major theme is that Miles is an idiot, and wanting hydrogen gas lines in his house more or less lines up with this (and also makes the solid hydrogen fuel irrelevant, since he's using gaseous hydrogen anyway. Unless his house is converting gaseous to experimental solid on-site, which also lines up with him being an idiot).




> Based on a little Googling, we can actually produce hydrogen from sea water in RL, but it isnt effective to do so on a mass scale.
> 
> I would assume that whatever untested process Miles used to produce a solid state hydrogen fuel from sea water also added to its volatility.


We can produce hydrogen from a lot of stuff. Chem 101 classes can produce hydrogen in labs without much issue. Solid hydrogen isn't even beyond us. Solid hydrogen at STP sure as hell is, though.

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## Forum Explorer

> The movie doesn't demonize hydrogen fuel. *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> It demonizes a fictitious experimental new form of solid hydrogen fuel. One of the issues that crops up throughout it using this fuel in rockets. Rockets already use hydrogen fuel. Also a major theme is that Miles is an idiot, and wanting hydrogen gas lines in his house more or less lines up with this (and also makes the solid hydrogen fuel irrelevant, since he's using gaseous hydrogen anyway. Unless his house is converting gaseous to experimental solid on-site, which also lines up with him being an idiot).
> 
> 
> 
> We can produce hydrogen from a lot of stuff. Chem 101 classes can produce hydrogen in labs without much issue. Solid hydrogen isn't even beyond us. Solid hydrogen at STP sure as hell is, though.


You are correct, but that's not what people will notice. They will hear hydrogen fuel, and people saying things like, that's dangerous, you've turned you house into the next Hindenburg, and of course, the house burning down as a result.

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## Peelee

> You are correct, but that's not what people will notice. They will hear hydrogen fuel, and people saying things like, that's dangerous, you've turned you house into the next Hindenburg, and of course, the house burning down as a result.


So ignoring that the average moviegoer isn't in charge of developing new fuel types, and ignoring that hydrogen cell cars have been available for purchase (at least in the US) for seven years now, even in the movie, *Spoiler*
Show

a large fire wasn't enough to ignite the hydrogen, even with a chuck of the solid hydrogen fuel tossed into it. The fire had to be sucked into a specially designed intake system in order for the whole thing to explode.


I really think you're overblowing this.

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## Forum Explorer

> So ignoring that the average moviegoer isn't in charge of developing new fuel types, and ignoring that hydrogen cell cars have been available for purchase (at least in the US) for seven years now, even in the movie, *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> a large fire wasn't enough to ignite the hydrogen, even with a chuck of the solid hydrogen fuel tossed into it. The fire had to be sucked into a specially designed intake system in order for the whole thing to explode.
> 
> 
> I really think you're overblowing this.


Is it actually a problem? No, I doubt it. Knives Out isn't that popular of a film, and the sequel even less so, AFAIK

On the other hand, I literally got a push poll where someone was asking me about how concerned I was about the dangers of hydrogen power. So people demonizing hydrogen power do exist. Which I consider a bad thing. 

So overall I consider it a bad thing that Knives Out Glass Onion did the same thing, even if it was in a pretty minor way. I don't think it will actually have an impact on the world, but it bothered me personally that they did it at all.

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## Ramza00

> Based on a little Googling, I determined we can actually produce hydrogen from sea water in RL, but it isnt effective to do so on a mass scale.
> 
> I would assume that whatever untested process Miles used to produce a solid state hydrogen fuel from sea water on a commercially viable scale also added to its volatility.


So this is fake science, but the advantage of this device is for transportation and industrial use where you could use the fuel as an alternate battery like storage, much like we use oil and natural gas as a battery.

Making Hydrogen is easy via saltwater electrolysis.  The only cost is you need to add electricity to split these molecules into its smaller atoms.  Something easily provided by solar, wind, nuclear, and other energy sources.

Hydrogen Fuel Cell Cars are possible, but not practical with current infrastructure which would require a trillion dollars plus refit.  This is because you need to pressurize the gas and so on creating new types of gas stations and so on.  If the hydrogen was in a solid and the solid was stable it would be a game changer, the problem is Klear is not stable even if its a solid.

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## Razade

If my understanding is correct, we have a form of solid hydrogen fuel in the form of sodium borohydride through direct borohydride fuel cells, and there are already operational tests either planned or underway in The Netherlands. The sodium borohydride is mixed with pure water and a stabiliser to form a non-combustible liquid fuel, with the dissolved NaBH4 then reacting with a catalyst to release hydrogen, which is then used to drive a fuel cell.

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## -D-

> Making Hydrogen is easy via saltwater electrolysis.  The only cost is you need to add electricity to split these molecules into its smaller atoms.  Something easily provided by solar, wind, nuclear, and other energy sources.


Easy technologically doesn't mean efficient. Converting electric to hydrogen, then hydrogen to electricity has huge loses. You're generally better just storing electricity as pumped hydro (i.e.. raising water levels of hydroelectric dam).

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## Aeson

> Easy technologically doesn't mean efficient. Converting electric to hydrogen, then hydrogen to electricity has huge loses. You're generally better just storing electricity as pumped hydro (i.e.. raising water levels of hydroelectric dam).


That depends on what you're trying to use it for. It's very difficult to put a hydroelectric dam and reservoir on the back of a car, for example, and while things like catenary lines are an option for powering some types of vehicles, most places don't currently have them and at the very least areas with low population density will probably never get them.

Also, dams and reservoirs generally come with significant environmental and societal impacts, and even if you don't care about those kinds of issues there's still not always going to be a good place to put one in the area.

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## Cikomyr2

I mean, any hydrogen based fuel system will have to deal with the inherent risk related to the volatility of the hydrogen used. Just dont use the bloody fuel inside people's home, and just use it to power an electric grid damnit.

I think Brons probably had a really good thing, he just was really really stupid about it and got hoodwinked in "moving fast". Because hes a moron.

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## Peelee

> I mean, any hydrogen based fuel system will have to deal with the inherent risk related to the volatility of the hydrogen used. Just dont use the bloody fuel inside people's home, and just use it to power an electric grid damnit.
> 
> I think Brons probably had a really good thing, he just was really really stupid about it and got hoodwinked in "moving fast". Because hes a moron.


I don't think there's even anything inherently wrong with using it in homes. Sure, it's small so leakage rates will be slightly more, but jt's not like we don't have massive systems of potentially explosive gases already piped into homes nationwide, if not worldwide (I'm unfamiliar with how prevalent natural gas is outside of the US). I'd imagine whatever reactor is used to get the energy from it would be the key point, and knowing little to nothing about energy production I'd imagine that its more economical on large scales to have a centralized power plant that feeds energy into the grid.

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## Ramza00

> I mean, any hydrogen based fuel system will have to deal with the inherent risk related to the volatility of the hydrogen used. Just dont use the bloody fuel inside people's home, and just use it to power an electric grid damnit.
> 
> I think Brons probably had a really good thing, he just was really really stupid about it and got hoodwinked in "moving fast". Because hes a moron.


Yep.  This is a fiction so it may not match real world scen arios with hydrogen and creating it into a solid fuel that is mostly stable, but unstable under ideal conditions to break down and turn it into energy.

But lets go with this fiction for so much of stories are that.  In the fiction scientist Lionel Toussaint ( actor Leslie Odom Jr.) believes in the product Klear.  But Toussaint wants to structure his believe with avow and disavow.  What are the conditions Klear is safe and what conditions is Klear unsafe?  The fact it can be used as an energy storage with discharge capability means it is inherently unsafe in at least 1 condition, but that 1 condition is how you also get the perverse / universal goal of using it as an energy source.  When playing with fuel you organize around it and via the external environment and the inputs you put in you craft the entire operation to make it safe while simultaneously harnessing its potential.

Miles Bion semi gets this and agrees with Toussaint.  The difference is he wants to be the center of the operation more so than making safety of the object Klear the center of this "motor."  It is Jurassic Park Hammond type of vanity and conceit.  And Blanc is a better Malcom for what Bions is doing is not so special, it is so ordinary.  Now Blanc is mesmerizing but he is no Ellie Sattler.

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## Ionathus

I really enjoyed Glass Onion! As others have said, it didn't feel like it met the exceptionally high bar of Knives Out, but it was good campy fun and a genuinely disorienting journey from start to finish. I love how the clues really were all there, and the reveal did a great job of demonstrating how it was all there in plain sight. 

I agree about how a few elements felt a little contrived in order to set up the scenes the way they wanted. 

Even still, this was all around a delightful watch. My wife and I had been clamoring for "more movies that feel like Knives Out" and thus far, the only thing that even came close was Enola Holmes. So I'm over the moon about getting another one. And even more excited by the future promised by the subtitle "a Knives Out mystery"...!

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## Peelee

> I really enjoyed Glass Onion! As others have said, it didn't feel like it met the exceptionally high bar of Knives Out, but it was good campy fun and a genuinely disorienting journey from start to finish. I love how the clues really were all there, and the reveal did a great job of demonstrating how it was all there in plain sight. 
> 
> I agree about how a few elements felt a little contrived in order to set up the scenes the way they wanted. 
> 
> Even still, this was all around a delightful watch. My wife and I had been clamoring for "more movies that feel like Knives Out" and thus far, the only thing that even came close was Enola Holmes. So I'm over the moon about getting another one. And even more excited by the future promised by the subtitle "a Knives Out mystery"...!


If you have Hulu, check out Only Murders In the Building. The three leads are so much fun to watch.

----------


## Ionathus

> If you have Hulu, check out Only Murders In the Building. The three leads are so much fun to watch.


That's the second time I've gotten that recommendation! Gonna move it up to the top of my list - thanks!

----------


## Mystic Muse

> That's the second time I've gotten that recommendation! Gonna move it up to the top of my list - thanks!


Make this the third time then, because I immenselt enjoyed it myself.

----------


## Peelee

I'm a sucker for Steve Martin and Martin Short, and was pleasantly surprised to find Selena Gomez holding her own with those two titans of comedy. Arguably she's the best part because a lot of generational divide humor comes into play with her being in the mix, and that's some of the best stuff (besides the whole murder mystery element, of course). Way back when they had Martin Short doing an interview for it on NPR and they played a short scene, Martin Short's character says he never locks his door despite one of their neighbors potentially being a murderer and Selena Gomez's character replies something like "huh. I guess the only thing old white guys are afraid of is societal change and heart disease". Great delivery, all three leads have wonderful chemistry with each other that clip and interview sold me on it.

----------


## Scarlet Knight

I liked how they came up with a novel way to keep the suspects trapped until the police can arrive in the morning.

*Spoiler*
Show

 I like how they updated the suspects to skewer so many unlikeable modern stereotypes. They mocked : the idiot billionaire with more money than anyone should have, the tough guy You-Tuber who fears his Momma, the has been model who thinks rudeness is honesty, the corrupt governor who can't wear a mask properly, and all the greedy enablers of the rich everywhere. Will they now be the fussy Dutchesses, the bombastic colonels, and the unsavory businessmen for future armchair detectives?

----------


## Aedilred

> nd even more excited by the future promised by the subtitle "a Knives Out mystery"...!


Although Rian Johnson is (I think fairly) on record as saying he hates the subtitle. As he put it, you wouldn't call it "Death on the Nile: A Murder on the Orient Express mystery", would you?

----------


## Peelee

"Benoit Blanc mystery" would have worked if they demanded a subtitle. I agree that "A Knives Out mystery" is awkward and clunky. Knives Out was evocative of both the murder and the themes in the movie, just as Glass Onion was for this one.

----------


## Cikomyr2

Allow the movie to be marketed as Knives Out mystery, but eventually just plain rename it to Glass Onion, just like A New Hope was technically originally Star Wars.

Anyone who see the movie will only remember it for "the Glass Onion one", the subtitle is only pertinent to help making the association to the original movie.

Ultimately, while its not a narrative sequel, its very much a thematic sequel as the original, and i am happy the subtitle helps establish that this movieverse is about something more than just Benoit Blanc. Its about his existence among the constellation of rich, privileged *******s in the world and how their social celestial mechanic inevitably work, and collapse.

----------


## Peelee

> Allow the movie to be marketed as Knives Out mystery, but eventually just plain rename it to Glass Onion, just like A New Hope was technically originally Star Wars.


"technically"? That's an off modifier to use. 



> Ultimately, while its not a narrative sequel, its very much a thematic sequel as the original, and i am happy the subtitle helps establish that this movieverse is about something more than just Benoit Blanc. Its about his existence among the constellation of rich, privileged *******s in the world and how their social celestial mechanic inevitably work, and collapse.


Much like Columbo. Whose series was simply called "Columbo", I do note.

----------


## GloatingSwine

Ultimately they used Knives Out as the subtitle because unsubtle capitalism is unsubtle.

They don't trust the audience to recognise that the movies are related without it.

----------


## -D-

> That depends on what you're trying to use it for. It's very difficult to put a hydroelectric dam and reservoir on the back of a car, for example, and while things like catenary lines are an option for powering some types of vehicles, most places don't currently have them and at the very least areas with low population density will probably never get them.


No one suggested using dams on cars, you use batteries. Hydrogen is cheap to make but can't escape the fact that just the chemistry of H2O -> O2 + H2 -> H2 -> H2 +O2 = H2O has inherently more losses.

https://c2e2.unepccc.org/wp-content/...nd-battery.pdf

----------


## Cikomyr2

> "technically"? That's an off modifier to use.


My point is you can change a movie's name, its not a sacred thing written in perma stone. Especially like "removing a superfluous subtitle"




> Much like Columbo. Whose series was simply called "Columbo", I do note.


Yhea, but it was a TV series to begin with. They didnt released the pilot as a stand alone movie named "Prescription: Murder"

----------


## Peelee

> My point is you can change a movie's name, its not a sacred thing written in perma stone. Especially like "removing a superfluous subtitle"


Ah, I getcha. Yeah, I agree. 



> Yhea, but it was a TV series to begin with. They didnt released the pilot as a stand alone movie named "Prescription: Murder"


Here I'm confused, though, because that is exactly what they did.

----------


## Cikomyr2

> Here I'm confused, though, because that is exactly what they did.


Oh, damnit you are right.

You know, thinking about this, it's a bit like The Pink Panther; where the series' main character was basically just the breakout character of the first film.

----------


## Tyndmyr

> Is it actually a problem? No, I doubt it. Knives Out isn't that popular of a film, and the sequel even less so, AFAIK
> 
> On the other hand, I literally got a push poll where someone was asking me about how concerned I was about the dangers of hydrogen power. So people demonizing hydrogen power do exist. Which I consider a bad thing. 
> 
> So overall I consider it a bad thing that Knives Out Glass Onion did the same thing, even if it was in a pretty minor way. I don't think it will actually have an impact on the world, but it bothered me personally that they did it at all.


Hydrogen is considered as a fuel for cars, and in that respect, it's replacing gasoline, which is notoriously flammable, so, uh...meh? The movie doesn't increase my real world concern over it, it's a movie. 

Overall, I greatly enjoyed the Glass Onion, it was terribly fun to watch.

It probably is not quite the equal of the original Knives Out, and upon thinking it over, there are some plot holes, but hey, it was fun. I'll forgive a lot if the experience is good enough.

*Spoiler*
Show


The bullet thing is weird and a bit of a handwave. At least give it a steel cover or something to make it plausible, but any handgun bullet, at that range, is going to breeze right through a thin notebook, largely destroying it(their evidence), and absolutely smashing whatever is on the far side. This is slightly annoying in that it could have been done better. My assumption immediately after the reveal was that le Blanc had, worried about her safety, given her a vest. That would have made a lot more sense, and would not have changed the remainder of the film at all. 

It was also kind of odd that the building exploded, and nobody who was actually in the building was killed or even seriously injured. This kind of undercuts the whole danger of the fuel. 

I can forgive a fair amount of "people acting stupid" because ego and stupidity is very consistent with their characterization, so a fairly large degree of illogical behavior is acceptable on that basis. In fact, it was fun to see how much of their personas were fake, and merely portrayed for advantage. However, one does wonder why, if Andi is very smart and nice, she would choose such a singularly self centered circle of friends. Granted, we mostly see her sister, and it is not hard to imagine that her sister has a somewhat slanted view of her sister, and perhaps her sister was somewhat more like the rest of the lot, but I'm not sure the show wants you to have that interpretation, or even to consider the question.

I also really like when foreshadowing is done well. In some cases, this movie does very, very well at this, and plays it fair, misdirecting your attention so that you do not see the envelope, which is indeed in his office the whole time. Granted, you don't know to look for it yet, so there's no reason you'd consider it, but it's a nice touch. Unfortunately, this is less universal than in the original knives out. When snooping on Whiskey, the original camera shot shows two people snooping, the later shot shows three...despite the camera angle of the first clearly encompassing the same angle. This is, well, not playing fair. 

These things don't make the movie unwatchable...it was still very fun, but it probably means it'll be considered less perfect than the original.

----------


## GloatingSwine

> *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> I also really like when foreshadowing is done well. In some cases, this movie does very, very well at this, and plays it fair, misdirecting your attention so that you do not see the envelope, which is indeed in his office the whole time. Granted, you don't know to look for it yet, so there's no reason you'd consider it, but it's a nice touch. Unfortunately, this is less universal than in the original knives out. When snooping on Whiskey, the original camera shot shows two people snooping, the later shot shows three...despite the camera angle of the first clearly encompassing the same angle. This is, well, not playing fair.


*Spoiler*
Show

They're showing the same angle but _at different times_. The full sequence of events is that both Benoit and Helen peek out, Helen moves from her tree and somewhere along the line snaps a twig, Duke hears that, looks back and sees nobody, then Benoit peeks out again.  The first time we're shown it we only see the end, the second time we see the start.

There's a really obvious audio cue that comes at the end of the second portrayal but the start of the first, which tells you how the events actually happened.

----------


## Peelee

> *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> 
> The bullet thing is weird and a bit of a handwave. At least give it a steel cover or something to make it plausible, but any handgun bullet, at that range, is going to breeze right through a thin notebook, largely destroying it(their evidence), and absolutely smashing whatever is on the far side. This is slightly annoying in that it could have been done better. My assumption immediately after the reveal was that le Blanc had, worried about her safety, given her a vest. That would have made a lot more sense, and would not have changed the remainder of the film at all.


*Spoiler: The gun issue*
Show

Depends on the gun and on how much energy that glass took. It didn't shatter so it's probably stronger than standard pane windows.

----------


## Tyndmyr

> *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> They're showing the same angle but _at different times_. The full sequence of events is that both Benoit and Helen peek out, Helen moves from her tree and somewhere along the line snaps a twig, Duke hears that, looks back and sees nobody, then Benoit peeks out again.  The first time we're shown it we only see the end, the second time we see the start.
> 
> There's a really obvious audio cue that comes at the end of the second portrayal but the start of the first, which tells you how the events actually happened.


*Spoiler*
Show


I'd have to rewatch to check. In any case, that is enough lined up convenience(three people peeping in at the same event at the same time sequentially is pushing silly) that it is a great deal less tidy than the original Knives Out. 





> *Spoiler: The gun issue*
> Show
> 
> Depends on the gun and on how much energy that glass took. It didn't shatter so it's probably stronger than standard pane windows.


*Spoiler*
Show


Eh, all glass shatters. Any round that goes through it is going to make it shatter, "shatterproof" glass isn't stronger than regular glass, it just has layers of plastic over the glass to keep the shattered bits in place. Substantial thickness of glass is required to stop a bullet, if the glass doesn't shatter, that's just a realism error, albeit a fairly minor one. Movies and realistic ballistics often have a very distant relationship. 

Most people probably aren't going to have a "wait, what?" from the glass shattering or not, because it's largely irrelevant to the plot, but a thin notebook stopping a bullet does cause one to pause and question it a bit, and the glass largely doesn't change that.

Shooting through glass *can* deflect a bullet significantly, causing a miss even at fairly short ranges, so that would have been a realistic path to take if they wished, but given that it was a straight to the heart shot, that's clearly not where they're going with this.

----------


## GloatingSwine

> *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> 
> I'd have to rewatch to check. In any case, that is enough lined up convenience(three people peeping in at the same event at the same time sequentially is pushing silly) that it is a great deal less tidy than the original Knives Out.


*Spoiler*
Show

It's not "convenience". Benoit and Helen are following Duke together, Duke is being voyeuristic. Helen moves and Duke hears her which makes Benoit hide again behind his tree then look once Duke is distracted.

----------


## Peelee

> *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> 
> I'd have to rewatch to check. In any case, that is enough lined up convenience(three people peeping in at the same event at the same time sequentially is pushing silly) that it is a great deal less tidy than the original Knives Out. 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Both of your issues here are "there are plenty of explanations to resolve it but I'm choosing to not assume those and assume it is problematic instead".

They're not movie issues. They're you issues.

----------


## Tyndmyr

*Spoiler*
Show


#1 only happens as a convenient "reveal" of something unforeshadowed. It is pretending to be clever in the way that other reveals actually are. 

#2 is just ridiculous. A thin notebook does not stop a bullet. That isn't even a me problem, it's something several people have noticed. Glass is irrelevant to this.

----------


## Forum Explorer

> *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> They're showing the same angle but _at different times_. The full sequence of events is that both Benoit and Helen peek out, Helen moves from her tree and somewhere along the line snaps a twig, Duke hears that, looks back and sees nobody, then Benoit peeks out again.  The first time we're shown it we only see the end, the second time we see the start.
> 
> There's a really obvious audio cue that comes at the end of the second portrayal but the start of the first, which tells you how the events actually happened.


It's still a dirty trick in the sense that it only tricks us, the audience. 
*Spoiler*
Show

Bendoit would know that Helen was there, after all. We simply are being denied information and thus can't figure out Helen's deal until after the reveal.

----------


## Cikomyr2

Yhea. The bullet was slowed by the glass. There, explained. Or the gun was a weak piece of crap made to look impressice, which 100% reflects and informs on Duke character.

I you want to pull at strings, it should be as relevant ones instead of minutia. Can you actually unravel the overall mystery so theres a material discontinuity problem?

Ill give you an example from ST Disco season 2:

- Spock knew about the 7 Lights because he had a mind meld with the Red Angel
- the Red Angel who mind melded with him turned out to have been [Character X]
- [Character X] did not knew anything about the 7 red lights
- [Character Y] briefly took the mantle of the Red Angel and reacted the 7 lights.

So the entire premise of the mystery of the 2nd season don't make sense at the overall narrative thread. Now, it doesnt necessarily make the story unenjoyable by itself (i personally loved season 2 on a moment by moment basis), but it weakened the overall narrative.

The detail of a gunshot effectiveness is so low on the list of what mattered in this movie, i dont see why people even argue about it.

Like, how about you argue that the movie loses its poignant when you realize that it couldn't have been the real Mona Lisa for a number of reasons. Or that the movie gets us to root for the destruction of a priceless and timeless piece of art just to destroy a petty billionaire. These are criticism central to the movie's story and thematic, and is warrant of discussion much more than the gun than had overall 5 minutes of screentime in the entire movie.

----------


## Peelee

> *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> 
> #1 only happens as a convenient "reveal" of something unforeshadowed. It is pretending to be clever in the way that other reveals actually are. 
> 
> #2 is just ridiculous. A thin notebook does not stop a bullet. That isn't even a me problem, it's something several people have noticed. Glass is irrelevant to this.


Number 1 _is_ foreshadowed. You were even given an explicit breakdown on how it was foreshadowed. You're just choosing to disregard that.

Number 2, on research (that I largely can't link to due to forum rules), *Spoiler*
Show

has a low caliber gun shooting through a thick lane of glass that cracks but holds together instead of shattering and likely robs the bullet of a non significant amount of kinetic energy before it goes into the diary. 


Again, there are explanations to this and you're choosing to disregard them. Again, this is a you issue.

----------


## Fyraltari

> *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> if Andi is very smart and nice, she would choose such a singularly self centered circle of friends.


*Spoiler*
Show

Don't recall anyone calling Andi _nice_.

----------


## GloatingSwine

> It's still a dirty trick in the sense that it only tricks us, the audience. 
> *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> Bendoit would know that Helen was there, after all. We simply are being denied information and thus can't figure out Helen's deal until after the reveal.


*Spoiler*
Show

How does it "trick" us though?

The difference between the two scenes for the audience is not actually whether Helen is there but _why Benoit is there_. The first time we see it we are given to assume that he has stumbled upon something embarrassing happening which will be relevant to something later because we're still expecting someone to be murdered, but the second time we know that he's actually _investigating Duke_ because someone already _has_ been murdered.

The scene has nothing to do with "Helen's deal" for the audience.

----------


## Tyndmyr

*Spoiler*
Show




> Yhea. The bullet was slowed by the glass. There, explained. Or the gun was a weak piece of crap made to look impressice, which 100% reflects and informs on Duke character.


In this particular situation, it does not matter. Your $100 hipoint pistol would be absolutely lethal in this situation. 

I agree that it might be fun to poke a bit of fun at Duke's facade, though that is adequately handled elsewhere in the film, but physics are physics. Falling twenty stories from a cheaply made building will make you as dead as falling twenty stories from an expensive one. The gun does not shoot a bullet faster due to being expensive. 

The actual gun used in the film is an extensively detailed Tokarev, possibly the Serbian copy of it. It's a quite decent russian gun firing a 7.62 round with a reputation for decent penetration for a handgun. I am quite confident that the movie makers were not relying on obscure knowledge of models as a justification here. Probably they were just aiming for "looks like a fancy 1911" but if you choose to find meaning in it being a Russian gun as part of his machismo, fair enough. Irrelevant to functionality, though. 




> The detail of a gunshot effectiveness is so low on the list of what mattered in this movie, i dont see why people even argue about it.


Because it is a particularly poorly justified fake-out. 

The explanation does not seem plausible even to someone with trivial knowledge on the topic. 




> Like, how about you argue that the movie loses its poignant when you realize that it couldn't have been the real Mona Lisa for a number of reasons.


Nah, that's...where is that from? Make the case if you want, but I don't see this.

----------


## Peelee

> *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> In this particular situation, it does not matter. Your $100 hipoint pistol would be absolutely lethal in this situation.


Your first problem here is assuming a hipoint will function.  :Small Amused:

----------


## Ramza00

> It's still a dirty trick in the sense that it only tricks us, the audience. 
> *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> Bendoit would know that Helen was there, after all. We simply are being denied information and thus can't figure out Helen's deal until after the reveal.


It is a trick, but I am not sure it is dirty.  The same brain circuitry is involved, and the same external perceptual stream is involved (visual, aural, sound effect, etc) and two different people may have different responses.  One may take joyful delight, the other see it as bad pool and dirty.

Much like the placebo effect (lessening pain), nocebo effect (increasing negativity), and attentional switching are all the same brain circuitry but one person feels better and one person can feel worse with the same stimuli.

----------


## Cikomyr2

Oh, 2 big reasons:

1- the Mona Lisa is actually smaller than how it was depicted in the movie. 77cmx53cm. Its bigger than that in the movie.
2- the Mona Lisa wasnt painted on a canvas, but on wood. We explicitly see a canvas when its being burnt.

Obviously, theres a chance that it was the real ML "in universe", and the BBCU's Mona Lisa is actually painted on a larger canvas than the smaller slab of wood of RealVerse, but the point still stands. And the Mona Lisa was a lot more important thematically to the movie than Duke's gun

----------


## Fyraltari

*Spoiler: A detail*
Show

I hope everybody thinks to get tested for covid once back on the mainland because after all that I wouldn't trust Miles' little fogger before they got on the boat to work as advertised.


*Spoiler: A couple more "mistakes"*
Show

The Mediterranean sea does not have tides so the pier should have stayed functional.

Duke wouldn't have been allowed to openly carry a gun like that in Greece. Although, I suppose it would be in-character for him to have kept it hidden from the airport to just before meeting everybody where it's safe to posture again. It also probably would have been a big hassle to get it through customs.

This hardly matters to the quality of the movie, though.

----------


## Tyndmyr

> Oh, 2 big reasons:
> 
> 1- the Mona Lisa is actually smaller than how it was depicted in the movie. 77cmx53cm. Its bigger than that in the movie.
> 2- the Mona Lisa wasnt painted on a canvas, but on wood. We explicitly see a canvas when its being burnt.
> 
> Obviously, theres a chance that it was the real ML "in universe", and the BBCU's Mona Lisa is actually painted on a larger canvas than the smaller slab of wood of RealVerse, but the point still stands. And the Mona Lisa was a lot more important thematically to the movie than Duke's gun


Fair enough, I don't really know art, so none of that stood out to me, but I'll cop to that being something they probably should have researched for as much as they focused on it, I suppose. 

I think it was intended to be treated as real within the context of the film, so any inaccuracies are likely just discrepancies with reality. 




> Your first problem here is assuming a hipoint will function.


I've actually had quite good luck with them, though I grant that my guns don't face all that much abuse, and they are certainly not top tier firearms. 
As an aside, it would have been quite amusing if Duke had needed to use his gun, and it was defective/out of ammo from all the previous unnecessary use or the like. Doesn't really fit the plot, I suppose, but has a certain poetic justice to it. 

Random stuff:
*Spoiler*
Show


I expected the random dude who was crashing there to be plot relevant at some time. He was not. As we had been explicitly told that he was not important to what happens here, this makes for kind of a hilarious red herring. I don't really consider something like this to be a plot hole, just...a funny trope subversion. 

In odder things, the trainer who was listening in on everything in the exercise room seemed random. Maybe another red herring? And the covid mouth sprays or whatever seemed random and largely unexplained. I guess they had a plot function in terms of bringing up the pineapple allergy, but it otherwise seemed like a very strange detail. Neither is super annoying, just strange choices for the film.

----------


## Peelee

> *Spoiler: A detail*
> Show
> 
> I hope everybody thinks to get tested for covid once back on the mainland because after all that I wouldn't trust Miles' little fogger before they got on the boat to work as advertised.
> 
> 
> *Spoiler: A couple more "mistakes"*
> Show
> 
> ...


For the Duke part...
*Spoiler*
Show

Miles dropped an anormous amount of money to get France to loan out the Mona Lisa to him. I'm pretty sure he could have greased some palms to allow Dukes gun to get in. Especially knowing Duke always has it.

----------


## Tyndmyr

For the gun transporting(not spoiled, because really not plot relevant): I believe everyone arrived via private jets, which often have....far laxer security than you may be accustomed to on commercial air travel. They are not taking off their shoes or having water bottles confiscated. I am not specifically familiar with Greece's practices here, but it does not seem at all odd to me that a rich dude arriving via private jet could have dodged the laws in this manner. Sure, sure, it'd be illegal, but rich people absolutely get to dodge rules sometimes. 

Both Knives Out lean pretty heavily on the "rich eccentric *******s" thing, which does justify some elements like this fairly well.

----------


## Wintermoot

*Spoiler*
Show




> In odder things, the trainer who was listening in on everything in the exercise room seemed random. Maybe another red herring?


That was Serena Williams. One of the very famous people starring as themselves at various points in the movie. The idea was, he was SO rich, he was able to afford to hire the #1 tennis player in the history of the world to be his peleton trainer to sit there and read a book for hours waiting for someone to want her to coach them in a workout.


I think its hilarious that we are discussing remote bits of incredibly obscure trivia like the makeup and size of the Mona Lisa, the ability of a very particular type of gun and whether or not the Mediterranean Sea has tides (it does, just very small ones of a few centimeters instead of meters) and someone doesn't know who Serena Williams is. Just goes to show that everything is a bit of remote obscure trivia to someone no matter how obvious it might seem to others.

----------


## Peelee

> *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> 
> 
> That was Serena Williams. One of the very famous people starring as themselves at various points in the movie. The idea was, he was SO rich, he was able to afford to hire the #1 tennis player in the history of the world to be his peleton trainer to sit there and read a book for hours waiting for someone to want her to coach them in a workout.
> 
> 
> I think its hilarious that we are discussing remote bits of incredibly obscure trivia like the makeup and size of the Mona Lisa, the ability of a very particular type of gun and whether or not the Mediterranean Sea has tides (it does, just very small ones of a few centimeters instead of meters) and someone doesn't know who Serena Williams is.


I think recognizing Serena Williams and knowing the Mona Lisa is very small are about the same level of "obscure".

----------


## Fyraltari

> *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> In odder things, the trainer who was listening in on everything in the exercise room seemed random. Maybe another red herring? And the covid mouth sprays or whatever seemed random and largely unexplained. I guess they had a plot function in terms of bringing up the pineapple allergy, but it otherwise seemed like a very strange detail. Neither is super annoying, just strange choices for the film.


*Spoiler*
Show

Serena Williams the personnal coach was just a gag. The joke being that what Benoit, Helen and the audience assumed to be a recorded video was actually a real-person on a zoom call apparently being paid a whole lot for not doing anything and not caring at all about the murder mystery she's accidentally eavesdropping on. Also she's reading the book Benoit said no-one reads back in KO.

The mouth-spray is clearly there as an excuse for the actors to not have most of their faces covered for most of the movie. And to build Miles' tech genius mystique as well as self-centered personnality: dude's (allegedly can treat covid with a single mouth-spray but instead of sharing it with anyone he uses it to host a party? And of course, in hindsight it's just Miles' pretend genius hard at work again. What was even did they got sprayed with and what does it do? No idea, but it sure as hell don't protect against covid.




> For the Duke part...
> *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> Miles dropped an anormous amount of money to get France to loan out the Mona Lisa to him. I'm pretty sure he could have greased some palms to allow Dukes gun to get in. Especially knowing Duke always has it.


*Spoiler*
Show

Miles asked for his guest to specify their dietary needs. In other words he can't be arsed to remember what food they won't eat despite being his closest friends for years. I'm not that convinced he'd remmeber Duke carries his gun everywhere.




> For the gun transporting(not spoiled, because really not plot relevant): I believe everyone arrived via private jets, which often have....far laxer security than you may be accustomed to on commercial air travel. They are not taking off their shoes or having water bottles confiscated. I am not specifically familiar with Greece's practices here, but it does not seem at all odd to me that a rich dude arriving via private jet could have dodged the laws in this manner. Sure, sure, it'd be illegal, but rich people absolutely get to dodge rules sometimes. 
> 
> Both Knives Out lean pretty heavily on the "rich eccentric *******s" thing, which does justify some elements like this fairly well.


I mean, Duke lives with his mom, I don't think he can afford a private jet. I guess Miles could have flown them in, but I don't remember any mention of that and then wouldn't they have all arrived together?

----------


## Wintermoot

> I think recognizing Serena Williams and knowing the Mona Lisa is very small are about the same level of "obscure".


If you say so.

----------


## GloatingSwine

> I think recognizing Serena Williams and knowing the Mona Lisa is very small are about the same level of "obscure".


No?

One is the technical details of a thing which everybody sort-of-knows but almost nobody has ever seen in person close enough to appreciate those details, the other is one of the most successful players ever of a major international sport.

Not knowing the dimensions of the Mona Lisa is normal, not knowing who Serena Williams is is "I live under a rock on Mars" stuff.

----------


## Tyndmyr

> *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> 
> 
> That was Serena Williams. One of the very famous people starring as themselves at various points in the movie. The idea was, he was SO rich, he was able to afford to hire the #1 tennis player in the history of the world to be his peleton trainer to sit there and read a book for hours waiting for someone to want her to coach them in a workout.
> 
> 
> I think its hilarious that we are discussing remote bits of incredibly obscure trivia like the makeup and size of the Mona Lisa, the ability of a very particular type of gun and whether or not the Mediterranean Sea has tides (it does, just very small ones of a few centimeters instead of meters) and someone doesn't know who Serena Williams is. Just goes to show that everything is a bit of remote obscure trivia to someone no matter how obvious it might seem to others.


*Spoiler*
Show

I'm aware it's a cameo, but it's not even vaguely relevant to the plot or anything. The movie absolutely does not need this to establish the man as insanely rich. There is an abundance of evidence on that score. I don't recall if they called her a character name or by her real name in the scene, I just recalled it not connecting up to anything else. 

The book thing I did not catch, and is a kind of nifty callback. 





> I mean, Duke lives with his mom, I don't think he can afford a private jet. I guess Miles could have flown them in, but I don't remember any mention of that and then wouldn't they have all arrived together?


I took Duke to be all about the flash. The guy seems to have money and some degree of success, just to be handling it exceedingly poorly. Strikes me as exactly the sort of person to blow an obscene amount on a private jet, yet not handled moving out of the basement. 

Yeah, it's not a smart move, but its one that sort of fits the character.

----------


## Peelee

> *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> Serena Williams the personnal coach was just a gag. The joke being that what Benoit, Helen and the audience assumed to be a recorded video was actually a real-person on a zoom call apparently being paid a whole lot for not doing anything and not caring at all about the murder mystery she's accidentally eavesdropping on. Also she's reading the book Benoit said no-one reads back in KO.
> 
> The mouth-spray is clearly there as an excuse for the actors to not have most of their faces covered for most of the movie. And to build Miles' tech genius mystique as well as self-centered personnality: dude's (allegedly can treat covid with a single mouth-spray but instead of sharing it with anyone he uses it to host a party? And of course, in hindsight it's just Miles' pretend genius hard at work again. What was even did they got sprayed with and what does it do? No idea, but it sure as hell don't protect against covid.
> 
> 
> *Spoiler*
> ...


Duke does not often talk openly about, wave around, and use his dietary needs on a regular basis. He does do all of this with his gun. Which is also always fairly prominent.



> No?
> 
> One is the technical details of a thing which everybody sort-of-knows but almost nobody has ever seen in person close enough to appreciate those details, the other is one of the most successful players ever of a major international sport.
> 
> Not knowing the dimensions of the Mona Lisa is normal, not knowing who Serena Williams is is "I live under a rock on Mars" stuff.


I didn't say not knowing who she is. I said not _recognizing_ her. I know who Serena Williams is. I did not recognize her in the movie. When someone said "hey that was Serena Williams" I immediately knew who they were talking about.

You don't have to live under a rock on Mars to not see her face very often.

----------


## Fyraltari

> Duke does not often talk openly about, wave around, and use his dietary needs on a regular basis. He does do all of this with his gun. Which is also always fairly prominent.


Duke is extremely allergic to pineapple. He'd have checked "there's no pineapple in this, right?" pretty much every time they went out to eat and/or drink together.

----------


## Peelee

> Duke is extremely allergic to pineapple. He'd have checked "there's no pineapple in this, right?" pretty much every time they went out to eat and/or drink together.


Let's say you and I go out to eat. I make sure theres no pickles on my meal. After we eat I shoot a gun into the air.

Which do you think is going to be more memorable?

----------


## GloatingSwine

*Spoiler*
Show

Which also demonstrates that actually miles *does* remember his guests' food and drink requirements, because that's how he murders Duke.

----------


## Fyraltari

> Let's say you and I go out to eat. I make sure theres no pickles on my meal. After we eat I shoot a gun into the air.
> 
> Which do you think is going to be more memorable?


You being arrested?

And Duke wouldn't shoot his gun all the time, he only does it once he's asked about it.



> *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> Which also demonstrates that actually miles *does* remember his guests' food and drink requirements, because that's how he murders Duke.


But he only remembered because he asked all of them to send dietary information and since he's dismissed all his staff, he's the one cooking.

----------


## Peelee

> You being arrested?
> 
> And Duke wouldn't shoot his gun all the time, he only does it once he's asked about it.
> 
> 
> But he only remembered because he asked all of them to send dietary information and since he's dismissed all his staff, he's the one cooking.


Duke doesn't talk about pineapples on his podcast. Duke doesn't wear anything indicating his avoidance of pineapples at all times. Duke doesn't make any pineapple-related gestures that grab the attention of anyone in earshot when asked about it. Duke doesn't try to make pineapple avoidance a part of his brand. 

I promise you, man, the day after we ate together you wouldn't be telling anyone about how I took the pickles off my burger. You'd be telling people about how I shot a ****ing gun into the air.

The gun is memorable.

----------


## Fyraltari

> Duke doesn't talk about pineapples on his podcast. Duke doesn't wear anything indicating his avoidance of pineapples at all times. Duke doesn't make any pineapple-related gestures that grab the attention of anyone in earshot when asked about it. Duke doesn't try to make pineapple avoidance a part of his brand. 
> 
> I promise you, man, the day after we ate together you wouldn't be telling anyone about how I took the pickles off my burger. You'd be telling people about how I shot a ****ing gun into the air.
> 
> The gun is memorable.


We don't eat together every week, do we? Because if we did, I would remember you don't eat pickles.
*Spoiler: Oops, big spoil*
Show


Edit: I mean, the guy didn't even remember Andi had a twin sister!

----------


## Peelee

> We don't eat together every week, do we? Because if we did, I would remember you don't eat pickles.


Sure, we eat together every week. I also open carry my gun every time we eat and shoot it any time I'm asked about it, and basically make it part of my personality.

Besides, this isn't a contest of which is more memorable an either-or situation where only one can be remembered. I have guns. I also have known someone for well over a decade now who I would describe first and foremost as a gun nut who has an unhealthy obsession with them. And even _he_ doesn't just fire them into the air when he wants, which I guarantee you if he did would immediately be the first way I describe them from thereon out. *It's memorable*. Miles would know he's going to have his gun.

----------


## Fyraltari

> Sure, we eat together every week. I also open carry my gun every time we eat and shoot it any time I'm asked about it, and basically make it part of my personality.
> 
> Besides, this isn't a contest of which is more memorable an either-or situation where only one can be remembered. I have guns. I also have known someone for well over a decade now who I would describe first and foremost as a gun nut who has an unhealthy obsession with them. And even _he_ doesn't just fire them into the air when he wants, which I guarantee you if he did would immediately be the first way I describe them from thereon out. *It's memorable*. Miles would know he's going to have his gun.


And yet Miles seems incapable to remember other memorable things about his friends. He's just that self-absorbed.

----------


## Peelee

> And yet Miles seems incapable to remember other memorable things about his friends. He's just that self-absorbed.


Imean he  is capable of remembering their names and personalities. And, again, Duke practically makes that gun his personality.

I really don't get why this is such a troublesome concept.

----------


## Sapphire Guard

This isn't a story that cares about the details. If you can set that aside and go along for the ride, it's pretty entertaining, but if you are looking for real world accuracy and attention to detail, that's not really what this story is. 

What people remember varies from person to person, depends if they are more interested in Art or Tennis, guns or pickles.

----------


## Fyraltari

> Imean he  is capable of remembering their names and personalities. And, again, Duke practically makes that gun his personality.


Not really though? He carries it around, sure, but he only pulls it out once. He's not in the habit of bringing it up, or firearms in general, in conversation. His personality isn't "gun nuts" it's Men's Right Activist. He has a gun, but it kind of fades in the background and in fact *Spoiler*
Show

it takes a while for anyone to notice it's gone missing.





> I really don't get why this is such a troublesome concept.


I just don't think Miles is meticulous enough to have a good think about which of his friends' quirks could be an issue while planning the weekend.

Then again, it's entirely possible he had a member of his staff do the travel arrangements and _they_ remembered to account for Duke's gun.

----------


## Tyndmyr

He did have staffers handle the boat and the covid inhaler thingie. 

Obviously, for a locked room setup, they had to be shut off the island for the actual event, but as they were clearly around for travel arrangements in some regard, I can justify them having further offscreen involvement with the same thing.

----------


## Peelee

> Not really though? He carries it around, sure, but he only pulls it out once. He's not in the habit of bringing it up, or firearms in general, in conversation. His personality isn't "gun nuts" it's Men's Right Activist. He has a gun, but it kind of fades in the background and in fact *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> it takes a while for anyone to notice it's gone missing.
> 
> 
> 
> I just don't think Miles is meticulous enough to have a good think about which of his friends' quirks could be an issue while planning the weekend.
> 
> Then again, it's entirely possible he had a member of his staff do the travel arrangements and _they_ remembered to account for Duke's gun.


Let me try one more time. If we're lunching together every week and every time anyone mentions my gun, I shoot it, would you not associate me with guns pretty damn well?

Conversely, we only have lunch once, ever. During that lunch I took out my gun and shot it. Would you not associate me with guns pretty damn well?

It's a defininfly memorable thing, here. Even for Americans. The gun is with Duke just like Miles' car is with Miles. They're never without it. 

And even with private planes, there's customs. Someone had to get that gun in. And Miles has the cash.

----------


## Sapphire Guard

If Duke actually did fire off that gun randomly into the air every few days, he would be in jail a long time ago. So he probably doesn't.

----------


## Peelee

> If Duke actually did fire off that gun randomly into the air every few days, he would be in jail a long time ago. So he probably doesn't.


Even assuming that's the case, once you go to jail, you are never let out? This world has one draconian justice system.

----------


## Fyraltari

> Even assuming that's the case, once you go to jail, you are never let out? This world has one draconian justice system.


Well, he _is_ from the U.S.A...

----------


## GloatingSwine

> If Duke actually did fire off that gun randomly into the air every few days, he would be in jail a long time ago. So he probably doesn't.


No, he doesn't.

His mom won't let him.

"Macho man" is his youtube persona though, and I bet he'd be the type to flash that gun on his videos, so it's pretty much what *everyone* knows about him.

----------


## Tyndmyr

> If Duke actually did fire off that gun randomly into the air every few days, he would be in jail a long time ago. So he probably doesn't.


That entirely depends on where you live. Celebratory gunfire is a fairly normal thing in multiple cultures covering perhaps half the surface of the earth.

----------


## Forum Explorer

> *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> How does it "trick" us though?
> 
> The difference between the two scenes for the audience is not actually whether Helen is there but _why Benoit is there_. The first time we see it we are given to assume that he has stumbled upon something embarrassing happening which will be relevant to something later because we're still expecting someone to be murdered, but the second time we know that he's actually _investigating Duke_ because someone already _has_ been murdered.
> 
> The scene has nothing to do with "Helen's deal" for the audience.


*Spoiler*
Show

Sure it does. Right from the start everyone is asking why 'Andi' attended the party. We are expecting something to be up with her and they've set things up so that we would expect a murder. And we hear a sound, and that initial scene makes us think that it's Benoit who made it. 

It's deliberately misleading the audience so we can't guess the twist. Basically you couldn't see the twist coming that Andi is dead, and her twin sister replaced her for this party to investigate. It comes out of no where, and the movie does its best to hide that the twist exists at all, to the point of changing scenes so Helen isn't seen in them initially. 





> It is a trick, but I am not sure it is dirty.  The same brain circuitry is involved, and the same external perceptual stream is involved (visual, aural, sound effect, etc) and two different people may have different responses.  One may take joyful delight, the other see it as bad pool and dirty.
> 
> Much like the placebo effect (lessening pain), nocebo effect (increasing negativity), and attentional switching are all the same brain circuitry but one person feels better and one person can feel worse with the same stimuli.


I don't know, it ties into the whole

*Spoiler*
Show

investigating one mystery, and then it is revealed that, no wait, that mystery doesn't exist. The whole time the characters were investigating a completely different mystery that you didn't know about. The answer to our first mystery is revealed in the worst way.

----------


## Ramza00

> *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> Sure it does. Right from the start everyone is asking why 'Andi' attended the party. We are expecting something to be up with her and they've set things up so that we would expect a murder. And we hear a sound, and that initial scene makes us think that it's Benoit who made it. 
> 
> It's deliberately misleading the audience so we can't guess the twist. Basically you couldn't see the twist coming that Andi is dead, and her twin sister replaced her for this party to investigate. It comes out of no where, and the movie does its best to hide that the twist exists at all, to the point of changing scenes so Helen isn't seen in them initially. 
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Let me rephrase what you wrote in a way I think can establish a dialogue and a meeting of minds between us  :Small Smile: 

Includes a video that talks about the first Knives Out to illustrate my point.

*Spoiler: Rian Johnson loves non linear stories, and also attentional shifts*
Show


Rian Johnson loves non linear stories, and also attentional shifts for it prevents the story from getting stale in his style of storytelling.

For example in Knives Out 1 we have a mystery movie (a who dun it), a crime movie, and then a shift back into a mystery movie.  We are swapping genre and formal story structure aka remixing both.




Note this is not just a Knives Out thing Rian Johnson also has done this in other movies that made him famous such as Looper (two people try to kill each other, and we find out they are different versions of the same person), the Last Jedi (different points of view from the same memory), and three famous episodes of Breaking Bad where we reconsider what drives the characters due to new developments.

(Rian Johnson is also famous for Brick and The Brothers Bloom, two movies I have  not seen and thus will not comment on.)

RJ wants to know the why that drives us and that is the interesting aspect for him in his storytelling.  The stories we tell ourselves to be inside larger stories, and attentional shifts and points of view is how RJ gets to show how humans are conflicted people.

So yeah Glass Onion starts off as a Mystery where we think everything is as its seens, then we are told it is an ongoing crime story in act 2 but we have too many suspects for the original crime and there are additional crimes layered onto it (the act 1), lots of references to Clue another mystery satire that RJ is aping and we are loving the over the top style of the story for each character is a character (something shared by many famous who dun it of times past.)  Lastly we are shown the reveal where it was all there as we first saw it, but we got lost in the story.

Put another way RJ pulled a magic trick, as another famous movie of this genre but RJ was not connected too explained, each magic trick is 3 acts like a 3 act movie.




> Every great magic trick consists of three parts or acts.
> 
> The first part is called "The Pledge". The magician shows you something ordinary: a deck of cards, a bird or a man. He shows you this object. Perhaps he asks you to inspect it to see if it is indeed real, unaltered, normal. But of course... it probably isn't.
> 
> The second act is called "The Turn". The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary. Now you're looking for the secret... but you won't find it, because of course you're not really looking. You don't really want to know. You want to be fooled. But you wouldn't clap yet. Because making something disappear isn't enough; you have to bring it back.
> 
> That's why every magic trick has a third act, the hardest part, the part we call "The Prestige".


Of course whether you find the magician or the detective reveling the plot to be "satisfying" or not is up to you, it is that placebo effect / nocebo effect I was mentioning earlier.  It is damn stupid or damn stupid it is brilliant.

It is okay not to enjoy  :Small Smile:

----------


## Forum Explorer

> Let me rephrase what you wrote in a way I think can establish a dialogue and a meeting of minds between us 
> 
> Includes a video that talks about the first Knives Out to illustrate my point.
> 
> *Spoiler: Rian Johnson loves non linear stories, and also attentional shifts*
> Show
> 
> 
> Rian Johnson loves non linear stories, and also attentional shifts for it prevents the story from getting stale in his style of storytelling.
> ...


*Spoiler*
Show

Oh, in general I've been a huge fan of RJ's work. And I'll say that the Last Jedi is downright the only movie in the sequel trilogy that's worth a damn. 

But in Glass Onion there is a small but critical difference. See, in Knives Out, we, the audience, apparently know what happened, even if the characters don't. Which is fine, even as it is revealed that what we thought happened wasn't what actually happened. There were clues that things weren't all what they seemed, and the characters never were hiding the information from us. 

In Glass Onion, Benoit knows that a murder was committed. But we don't. We the audience know less than the characters. And the movie goes out of its way to keep it that way with scenes like the Benoit spying on Duke spying on Whisky thing. 

It's the difference between 'hey lets try and figure this out' vs 'show me what happened because there is no point in me trying'. The former is a lot more engaging than the latter.

----------


## Razade

> Let me rephrase what you wrote in a way I think can establish a dialogue and a meeting of minds between us 
> 
> Includes a video that talks about the first Knives Out to illustrate my point.
> 
> *Spoiler: Rian Johnson loves non linear stories, and also attentional shifts*
> Show
> 
> 
> Rian Johnson loves non linear stories, and also attentional shifts for it prevents the story from getting stale in his style of storytelling.
> ...


That video is predicated on a pretty faulty premise. That the Crime Mystery isn't a sub genre in its own right, so well established that Knives Out leans heavily on the influences that solidified it as a concept in the first place. We don't even need to bring up Agatha Christie here, which Knives Out and Glass Onion are firmly touching on, because there's an entire sub genre of the sub genre called Cozies that Knives Out and Glass Onion are swimming in. Neither film shifts genres, they're firmly within a singular genre with a deep area of expression.

----------


## Eurus

What makes a twist/reveal "good" is always going to be controversial, but for me, a good twist is one that recontextualizes the stuff you've already seen in a way that makes it _more_ interesting or cohesive.

*Spoiler*
Show

The first flashback where we find out about Helen actually executes this really well, in my opinion. It instantly shifts the meaning of the scenes of Helen smashing the puzzle box, it has you trying to remember how people reacted to her showing up, it reminds you that Blanc is a total liar when it suits him... It's a solid reveal.

The alternate perspective scenes after that are much weaker, because each reveal can mostly be summarized as "also Helen was there just out of sight, and the characters said a bunch of much more important things that were cut off the first time around". It feels like the original scene we saw the first time around is _less_ important, because it's basically being superceded by this new one.

This wasn't a deal breaker for me, anyway, but it did make some bits of the movie drag a little.

----------


## Peelee

> And I'll say that the Last Jedi is downright the only movie in the sequel trilogy that's worth a damn.


I wholeheartedly agree with this, but almost certainly not for the same reason as anyone else saying it.

----------


## Murk

As far as twists go, for a moment I was _very afraid_ that
*Spoiler*
Show

the random island roommate we were told "not to mind him" would be the killer. Especially when Duke was poisoned and Blanc was like "nobody is allowed to leave!" and "Where is everyone?!" and "Who is missing?!" and everyone seemed to have forgotten there was someone else on that island, just walking around freely.

And I thought that would be a cheap, terrible twist that a pretentious writer could think was very clever: to clearly show a character, literally tell the audience to ignore him, and then laugh at them because they did.

But then he casually popped up again for a joke

and luckily it turned out not be that stupid.

----------


## Aedilred

> *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> Oh, in general I've been a huge fan of RJ's work. And I'll say that the Last Jedi is downright the only movie in the sequel trilogy that's worth a damn. 
> 
> But in Glass Onion there is a small but critical difference. See, in Knives Out, we, the audience, apparently know what happened, even if the characters don't. Which is fine, even as it is revealed that what we thought happened wasn't what actually happened. There were clues that things weren't all what they seemed, and the characters never were hiding the information from us. 
> 
> In Glass Onion, Benoit knows that a murder was committed. But we don't. We the audience know less than the characters. And the movie goes out of its way to keep it that way with scenes like the Benoit spying on Duke spying on Whisky thing. 
> 
> It's the difference between 'hey lets try and figure this out' vs 'show me what happened because there is no point in me trying'. The former is a lot more engaging than the latter.


Well, in _Knives Out_, the "true" version wasn't served up to us immediately. If I remember rightly it comes about a third of the way in, appearing to be the twist. Then there's another twist right at the end which pulls the rug, demonstrating that what we had seen needed to be recontextualised. 

_Glass Onion_ tries to do something similar, but I don't think it's nearly as effective. Firstly, the first twist comes too late, and its dramatic impact has already been diminished by an on-screen murder. Secondly, the twist takes too long to unpack, and as has been pointed out previously consists largely in showing us extended versions of scenes we've already seen. Thirdly, there isn't really a final twist. There's a _solution_ to the problem, but from the point the second twist is exposed, the plot is pretty much linear. 

It also doesn't help, I don't think, that the problem has to be solved twice: first the mystery is solved, then oh no that didn't work, then it's solved again more bluntly, but without changing the expected outcome. That adds to the pacing problems the film has, I think, because it feels like there's a lot of retreading the same ground, both figuratively and in some cases literally. And the film is, I think, too long anyway even ignoring that. 

As to the method of dealing with the second twist, and the reveal that scenes have been strategically cut, I have always felt that is a rather cheap way of building suspense. It's fine to show only a certain character's perspective and cut accordingly, but that isn't what's happening. We think we're getting Blanc's perspective the first time round, but we're only getting part of it - specifically, the _non_-critical part. 

Not that I thought the film was bad by any means, I just don't think on reflection that it measures up to the first.

----------


## Tyndmyr

> That video is predicated on a pretty faulty premise. That the Crime Mystery isn't a sub genre in its own right, so well established that Knives Out leans heavily on the influences that solidified it as a concept in the first place. We don't even need to bring up Agatha Christie here, which Knives Out and Glass Onion are firmly touching on, because there's an entire sub genre of the sub genre called Cozies that Knives Out and Glass Onion are swimming in. Neither film shifts genres, they're firmly within a singular genre with a deep area of expression.


I'd agree with this. 

The murder mystery genre is, well, very established, and many particular tropes and subgenres exist. This doesn't make any of them bad, and in fact, I quite enjoy this one when well executed, but yeah, RJ isn't quite so subversive as he likes to pretend. Almost everything has been done before, and for a genre film, knowing your niche and the expectations of it often can be part of making a great film. Solid execution counts for a ton.

Look at the recent Puss in Boots animated film. It absolutely does not redefine or subvert genres or anything like that. It is a...pretty straightforward romp. However, it is executed fantastically. The animation is beautiful, the adversary dreadful, the simple lesson the hero must learn is clearly embodied and demonstrated. It is absolutely a good movie of its type. No genre redefinition required. 




> *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> The first flashback where we find out about Helen actually executes this really well, in my opinion. It instantly shifts the meaning of the scenes of Helen smashing the puzzle box, it has you trying to remember how people reacted to her showing up, it reminds you that Blanc is a total liar when it suits him... It's a solid reveal.
> 
> The alternate perspective scenes after that are much weaker, because each reveal can mostly be summarized as "also Helen was there just out of sight, and the characters said a bunch of much more important things that were cut off the first time around". It feels like the original scene we saw the first time around is _less_ important, because it's basically being superseded by this new one.
> 
> This wasn't a deal breaker for me, anyway, but it did make some bits of the movie drag a little.


*Spoiler*
Show


I would agree that the smashing of the puzzle box is good foreshadowing. It's the only real clue we have of the Helen swap. 

That's a good example of playing fair with information, whereas the "just out of sight" is not fair. The box smashing scene is something we don't fully understand when we see it, but it does give us a small clue, and it makes sense in context. 

We want to be fooled, but we also want to feel as if we could have figured it out. Ideally, both are possible, and at least some aspects are discoverable without spoiling the whole film. That makes for a satisfying, engaging experience as the watcher is both engaged, surprised, and has the satisfaction of solving puzzles. Obviously...this is not easy to do. Many murder mystery films do not play entirely fair, but its admired when they do.

----------


## Ramza00

> That video is predicated on a pretty faulty premise. That the Crime Mystery isn't a sub genre in its own right, so well established that Knives Out leans heavily on the influences that solidified it as a concept in the first place. We don't even need to bring up Agatha Christie here, which Knives Out and Glass Onion are firmly touching on, because there's an entire sub genre of the sub genre called Cozies that Knives Out and Glass Onion are swimming in. Neither film shifts genres, they're firmly within a singular genre with a deep area of expression.


We are defining genres differently *shrug*, how the video defines genres is expectations of the concept of the plot that form a predictable pattern in the mind of the readers.

Thus when any work of fiction does anything novel it is challenging its genre it is placed in, and if its legible in another genre tradition than it switches genres. Of course no work of fiction is truly novel and ever work of fiction is also novel at the same time, it is a certain type of definition that has ambiguity at its core.  Like a donut hole inside a donut whole.




> What makes a twist/reveal "good" is always going to be controversial, but for me, a good twist is one that recontextualizes the stuff you've already seen in a way that makes it _more_ interesting or cohesive.
> 
> *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> The first flashback where we find out about Helen actually executes this really well, in my opinion. It instantly shifts the meaning of the scenes of Helen smashing the puzzle box, it has you trying to remember how people reacted to her showing up, it reminds you that Blanc is a total liar when it suits him... It's a solid reveal.
> 
> The alternate perspective scenes after that are much weaker, because each reveal can mostly be summarized as "also Helen was there just out of sight, and the characters said a bunch of much more important things that were cut off the first time around". It feels like the original scene we saw the first time around is _less_ important, because it's basically being superceded by this new one.
> 
> This wasn't a deal breaker for me, anyway, but it did make some bits of the movie drag a little.


100% agree and this parallels my feels.  Certain reveals were more impactful, and good or bad is not how I would phrase it, instead I would use satisfactory or less satisfactory.

----------


## Cikomyr2

I think i will reserve judgement about if this movie is genuinely good is if i am still happy on a 2nd rewatch, in a few months. Maybe half a year.

I know i watched Knives Out about 5 times and i had a thrill each time.

----------


## Forum Explorer

> *Spoiler*
> Show
> 
> 
> I would agree that the smashing of the puzzle box is good foreshadowing. It's the only real clue we have of the Helen swap. 
> 
> That's a good example of playing fair with information, whereas the "just out of sight" is not fair. The box smashing scene is something we don't fully understand when we see it, but it does give us a small clue, and it makes sense in context. 
> 
> We want to be fooled, but we also want to feel as if we could have figured it out. Ideally, both are possible, and at least some aspects are discoverable without spoiling the whole film. That makes for a satisfying, engaging experience as the watcher is both engaged, surprised, and has the satisfaction of solving puzzles. Obviously...this is not easy to do. Many murder mystery films do not play entirely fair, but its admired when they do.


That is exactly how I feel.

----------

