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Re-Watching the Series in 2016
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BusyAsABree
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Joined: 21 Jun 2016
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 28, 2016 8:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

primaryasset wrote:
I'm at the bit where they kidnap Julia and probably cracking up more than I should be. "Legally, it is a little bit wrong" is kiiiiiiind of an understatement there, Bree. And then Jonas just awkwardly apologizes as he loads Julia into their car. I'm finding the parts of this show where they make deeply ridiculous decisions, like uploading their kidnapping of a teenage girl to Youtube, are most enjoyable when you stop questioning the ridiculousness and just laugh.


I think this is also one of the vestiges of YouTube not being wholly mainstream at this point yet. Nowadays a video a few seconds long about a high schooler complimenting another high schooler's shoes goes viral and they get thousands of dollars from a TV host. The law enforcement infrastructure has also improved when it comes to monitoring videos. I think that back in 2007 while this was still risky from an IRL perspective, it wasn't AS asinine as it would be in 2016.
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ir3act
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Joined: 23 Jun 2016
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 28, 2016 5:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I remember, at this point, thinking that we'd been doing the teen fugitive stuff for quite awhile now and the danger and risks had heightened to the point where the story was no longer suited to the medium and means with which they told it. I felt that there was a desperate, desperate need to get the hell back to normalcy -- maybe the TAAG could destroy the Order's finances or expose a key member to the law and then the videos could go back to the slice of life stuff that works best for vlogs for at least awhile.

... I guess they sort of did do that for a bit when Bree died and everyone went their separate ways, and they reverted back to it some more when everyone moved into the same house for awhile in the post-Emma / pre-Gina days.
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primaryasset
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 29, 2016 5:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm finally on the first 12 in 12, and Nikki B. knocking out Greg Goodfried!Watcher with a fire extinguisher is still an utterly delightful and satisfying moment for me.

Aaaaaaand I'd better refrain from posting while I watch the rest of it so no one has to deal with me crying over all the sad bits. But once I get through all the emo, I'm really excited to power through to Emma's introduction!
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ir3act
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 30, 2016 2:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

TL,DR: The Season 1 finale of LG15 is the show destroying itself and all its characters. It is the stupidest course of action a show could possibly take. But it's handled brilliantly and with such emotion and confidence where crushing despair and defeat still finds a note of hope. This is one of LG15's finest's achievements.

Despite my retrospective dislike for the Order, the Season 1 finale was made at a time when the Order hadn't collapsed and imploded on itself just yet. It was really well done -- which is strange in that the show is pretty much blowing itself up by killing its title character. By any reasonable standard, everything they're doing here is irrational, destructive and stupid.

As Jessica Lee Rose noted in the recent Story Forward podcast, the character of Bree has been badly lost after spending so long submerged in the fugitive storyline. And rather than retrieve her character, accept that this on the run plot has run its course and return to a more workable Bree and a schedule that would allow Rose to do GREEK and I KNOW WHO KILLED ME and whatnot -- LG15 instead kills her off.

But it's handled precisely, thoughtfully, emotionally and powerfully. There's a light touch with Spencer first helping Jonas train for all the physicality they'll have to handle in trying to save Bree. The abandoned hospital is a terrifying maze of confusion and never have our characters seemed more outmatched and dwarfed by the Order and its power structure.

The hospital looks like an abandoned building. Unmaintained, run down, worn out. On one level, it looks like it's a location chosen for a low-budget, underfunded web series starved of resources. But on another, it shows the Ceremony for what it is: a dirty, barren, lifeless procedure in which an innocent girl's life is transplanted into a privileged authority figure. There is no mystique, no grandeur, no symbolism -- the Ceremony takes place in what could be a crackhouse or a homeless encampment. This is what the Order really is.

One wonders why the Order hasn't simply dispatched mercs with Uzis to take out the TAAG aside from the vague indication that Bree's consent is vital to the Ceremony -- the 12in12 suggests that the Order is barely aware of Jonas, Daniel, Sarah, Taylor and Spencer because they are powerless and irrelevant non-entities, ineffectual children who aren't worth any attention.

Jonas being stabbed isn't even part of a carefully mounted defense -- it's a barely considered side event. The Order doesn't care about the TAAG -- they have Bree who has given up the fight and surrendered -- and, as Bree confesses in her voicemail, she has done so willingly. Just like the Order wanted.

And Bree dies. Daniel is shattered, weeping that he feels "so powerless" and then lashes out at Jonas before collapsing against him while shrieking, "I want my friend back!" and Sarah is at first angrily trying to pull Daniel away from Jonas but then breaks into tears at the sight of Daniel's grief -- her love for him makes her feel every ounce of his agony. Taylor is crushed. Jonas is traumatized and blank and lost.

And LG15 ends its first season on complete and total crushing defeat. And it really works because failure and loss and utter disaster are things we all have to deal with in our lives. Sometimes, our preparations and efforts and courage and cleverness will fail and we will lose -- and then LG15 takes everyone to their lowest point and leaves us asking how they can get back up. And LG15 is so confident in its storytelling and its characters that even in this hopelessness, we know that if the TAAG can recover from this, they can recover from anything.

LG15 destroyed itself, but in a way that could let it rebuild itself stronger than ever.

Of course, it didn't quite work out like that...
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primaryasset
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Joined: 17 Jun 2016
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 08, 2016 10:57 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Has anyone else continued rewatching since it's gone quiet around here? I'm nearly done season 3 now, myself. I just made it to Emma's last video - this one's always been a favourite of mine - and, not gonna lie, I've really gotten my hopes up that Emma will appear onscreen in the revival. It was great to watch Emma's return midway through season 3 and to see how much she'd grown as a person, and her last vlog ends on such a hopeful note. Emma lived to fight another day, and I'd love to actually see her in that fight. (Of course, I have no idea how likely an onscreen return is, and I respect Katherine's decision either way. I'd just be really excited to see Emma in action again.)

I've also gotten myself thoroughly convinced that Gina's secretly alive somewhere, too, but I gather I'm not the only one who feels that way. I don't actually believe she'll come back in the revival, or anything, and I'm not saying both sisters' deaths being faked is the likeliest direction for the story to take, but at the same time, we never saw her body. And why did Salinas need to provide video proof of her death if he'd supposedly taken her body away? Fact is, there's only about as much evidence that she's dead as there was for Bree, and look how that turned out. I feel like Bree's reappearance has made me more skeptical, but I'm also not sure why I didn't doubt Bree's death in the first place. When I watch it now, it feels so obviously staged to me, just like that first "ceremony" they staged for Daniel.

I've also finally started watching KateModern for the first time! Jamie Bell showing up was incredibly random.
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grace2_89
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 08, 2016 11:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I re-watched the whole series after the new video dropped, and I agree with what you said. Smile I also liked how much Enma had grown. She was turning in to a real leader. I hope we see her back, too.
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WriterGirl
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Joined: 19 Apr 2007
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 09, 2016 2:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

primaryasset wrote:
I don't actually believe she'll come back in the revival, or anything, and I'm not saying both sisters' deaths being faked is the likeliest direction for the story to take, but at the same time, we never saw her body.

I agree, but I think I think having them be alive and (at least the possibility of having them) together would be hugely emotional and make a lot of people happy, including me. Speaking for myself, that's a case where I would happily overlook the logical and/or realism problems to get the emotional payoff.

primaryasset wrote:
And why did Salinas need to provide video proof of her death if he'd supposedly taken her body away?

You know, I never even thought of that before. LoL. Good point.
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atnegam
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 14, 2016 12:42 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I rewatched the series and it seems to me the Order would be doing experiments on Jonas which would mean he is in La Crete. I am so ready for Daniel to pack up Emma and Spencer and go. I am also really curious as to how Daniel has been supporting himself without the bank of Jonas.
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ir3act
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Joined: 23 Jun 2016
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 14, 2016 3:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I rewatched Season 2 - 3 and it was amazing to see how the show treated Bree's death as an incredible creative opportunity. The ensemble cast of Jonas, Daniel, Sarah, Taylor, Mallory, Emma and Gina really work. The Creators in this era seemed to understand that no one character could replace Bree, but the exploring the void with other roles could be rewarding. Season 2 does a great job of hitting the balance between normal life and fighting the Order and the finale has a real sense of repeating Season 1's end but this time in victory.

However, there's a very obvious lack of planning to the series. While improvisation has its place, the abrupt retreat on Emma having superpowers is glaring. LG15's emphasis on characters over plot let it sidestep the need to plan out a full arc and mythos for the Order in Season 2, but with Season 3, the failure to plan became impossible to ignore.

Mesh Flinders' writing avoids the issues well, but after the first handful of S3 videos, Flinders' absence is keenly felt as the show falls completely into escape-capture-cluehunt formula with no insight or deeper meaning whatsoever.

It really speaks to how creators can seriously misidentify what makes their creations special. Miles Beckett was a social media obsessive and without him, LG15 would never have been more than Mesh Flinders' screenplay format dream journal or an obscure short film, but the emphasis on social media gimmicks came to dominate LG15 after Flinders left.

While those aspects have their role, the whole point of the ARG and social media elements was that they made the audience feel close to the LG15 characters. The games and puzzles and social media stunts are not an end in themselves, but the post-Flinders creators didn't seem to understand this at all.

It makes me wonder how much of LG15's strengths were purely accidental and how much the creators recognized them if they ever did at all?
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primaryasset
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 14, 2016 10:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I just finished watching the Ascension in full for the first time, and I'm curious about the live chat Emma took part in during that finale. Presumably there would be a link to the archived footage on the wiki if anyone had it, but I figured it couldn't hurt to ask, anyway. Was it even possible for anyone to save video of that chat, or was that simply not a possibility on the NowLive platform?

Anyway, I'm excited to start rewatching the Resistance, because I first became an LG15 fan while that series was going on!

...Okay, on that note, another question: is there anywhere to watch Sarah's first few videos from the Resistance's prologue, now that Sarah's channel has been deleted? Those videos don't seem to be included in the first weekly recap episode, and I know they're not essential or anything, but I still want to see them again! (I realize I recently answered someone's question about these videos in another thread incorrectly claiming they could all be viewed in the weekly recaps...whoops.)
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grace2_89
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 15, 2016 12:39 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

primaryasset wrote:

...Okay, on that note, another question: is there anywhere to watch Sarah's first few videos from the Resistance's prologue, now that Sarah's channel has been deleted? Those videos don't seem to be included in the first weekly recap episode, and I know they're not essential or anything, but I still want to see them again! (I realize I recently answered someone's question about these videos in another thread incorrectly claiming they could all be viewed in the weekly recaps...whoops.)


I think this includes one of her videos, if not all of the prologue ones (I can't remember which are prologue or not): https://myspace.com/skyisempty99/videos

Hope that helps! Smile
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primaryasset
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PostPosted: Fri Jul 15, 2016 6:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I don't see any of the prologue ones there (the "Fun Things To Do in Hiding" videos and one called "Here's the Deal"), but I'd also given up on clicking old Myspace links by now since most of them seemed to be dead, so it's helpful to know some of those pages still work! Thanks!
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