Fight Club?

mrbigchin

mrbigchin

I just watched fight club recently, because I heard it was good and it looked like an interesting story. But I had a major problem with it.

The first half of the film is genius(When Brad Pitt's character was still real). After that the story became extremely unappealing.

As a viewer I put personal investment in a character and then you're going to tell me that he's not real, and that the other main character is simply hallucinating the entire time, wtf!

What I get from that is that the entire story was a lie and I waisted my time. This goes with idea of 'Inception'. If that whole movie was a 'dream' then why should the audience care?

Maybe I missed the point but can you guys explain to me why the story needed to take a retarded left turn?
 
Yes, I think you missed it. First Fight Club was suppose to be a dark comedy, so if you didn't laugh....:) Second Tyler Dirden(ms?) is a very real character in the movie.
Only it is actually Edward Norton's character that is doing everything not Pitt's.
So yes the character is real, you just see the face that Norton's character wants to be.

I love that movie.
 
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Let me preface this by saying that while I enjoy Fight Club, I don't think it is the "bestest movie ever". I thought it was pretty clever and interesting, and fun to watch, but it's a movie that suffers from hype overload. If you've heard about it before you saw it, it probably won't live up to what you were expecting.

Now, your complaint with the movie is that when Brad Pitt is revealed to not exist, you stopped enjoying the movie. However, Edward Norton is Tyler Durden. All the things that Brad Pitt seems to have done, Edward Norton actually did. He is an aspect of Norton's personality, so all the thoughts he expresses and actions he takes are a part of Tyler Durden's mind. The character that you care about DOES exist...just not as Brad Pitt.

Why should the audience care? It depends on what you're going for. With this, and Inception, they're character studies. Deconstructing the motivations and ideas of a character. It's not about what is happening or not...but how the characters respond, if that makes sense. There is a popular interpretation of Taxi Driver that none of the movie is real after he meets Iris for the first time. He's on the verge of a breakdown and he HAS one. The Big Fish is another great example...is he making up stories, or is that just how he chooses to see the world (similar to the Life Aquatic in that way)? Watch Jacob's Ladder (or Stay; pretty much the same story). The concept of an unreliable narrator is an old one and (to some of us) a fascinating one.

At the end of the day, you either enjoy movies that deal with perception and reality or you do not. While I do feel that "it was all just a dream" can be an ending that makes you feel cheated (Boxing Helena comes to mind), similar concepts can be well done. I think Fight Club (where it's not actually a dream) and Inception (where it may or may not be a dream, but the question is, does that matter?) are good examples. Both good examples of psychedelia (by which I mean "altered mind/perception" not necessarily "drug movie") in film. Again, you like it or you don't, nothing wrong with that!
 
We all know that there is no such thing as the jedi and no galactic empire or rebellion in a galaxy far far away. But does that take away the enjoyment?

Are you really complaining that fiction isn't real?
 
mrbigchin said:
Maybe I missed the point but can you guys explain to me why the story needed to take a retarded left turn?
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The story didn't take a retarded left turn. There was foreshadowing throughout the movie. If you think it's "retarded" you obviously don't understand the film.
 
Please use the spoiler tags before revealing secret plot twists. I had been waiting for the hype to subside before seeing this one.
 
First of all, you broke Rule #1 of Fight Club. Seriously, though, not EVERYONE in the world has seen it, so we really should be wrapping spoilers around your post.

SinEater said:
The story didn't take a retarded left turn. There was foreshadowing throughout the movie.
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Exactly. On my 2nd viewing I could not BELIEVE how many clues were being dropped right in front of my face, throughout the entire movie.

Plus, I'm not sure why you stopped caring.
The protagonist of the film is Ed Norton's character, and I would say that his situation becomes even more dire, when we learn that he has Multiple Personality Disorder.

EDIT: UC was typing at the same time as me:

Uranium City said:
Please use the spoiler tags before revealing secret plot twists. I had been waiting for the hype to subside before seeing this one.
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Ouch. It's still a really cool movie. Knowledge of the big twist shouldn't completely ruin it.
 
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Yeah Fight Club is one of my all time favorite movies. It is really cool. When I first watched it there was no hype for the movie. No one knew about the film much other than it had Brad Pit in it and it was about fighting. The film is really is not about fighting it is about much more. This film is so inspiring and really makes one think about how they view the world. This is Brad Pitts best movie.

When you have a bad day in the office at work this is the perfect movie to watch because this guy goes from living a strapped down office life to freeing his self.

At first watching the film you get mind blown when you discover the truth about the characters. Then on second watch you get to enjoy learning more details about the relationship because you know the secret ahead of time. So you can really see the film differently after the first watching.

The things that Tyler says in the movie really inspire and make one think. There are very many great lines and things to think about in this film.
 
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I enjoyed Fight Club, one of those "the less you know the better" films.

Looking forward to another film adaption from the same Author: "Invisble Monsters"-a story about masks (literal and figurative), gender, fashion and identity-it's a story I wished I had written :lol:

Again, one of those "the less you know".

Fight Club was a movie that really that me the whole tenant of "question everything" in a storyline! :)
 
I think there's at least two different broad categories of audience viewer.

There's the first group of viewers, such as yourself, that honestly wants to somehow "bond" or empathize with a protagonist or group of protagonists, and if the story cheats you out of that "relationship" you feel... well... cheated.
Kinda like marrying a girl, get to the honeymoon, clothes come off and WOW! she's packin' a six shooter dongina! WTH?! "Uh... you coulda told me about that earlier."

Then there's the other group, which includes myself, that just enjoys (or tries to) whatever interesting sh!t someone can put up on screen. I like new ideas with brain jerking visuals in a story that makes sense, where I'm not yelling and cursing "THAT SH!T DON'T MAKE A G.D. LICK-O-SENSE!"
I don't care how goofy something is, I don't even have to care for the characters. I just want to see some fun sh!t.

Soylent green is people - Got it.
Finkle is Einhorn - Great.
Bruce Wayne is Batman - Super
Clark Kent is Superman - Er... Bruce? No. Wonderful!
Michael Jackson is Diana Ross - Cool.
The Narrator is... GAH!

Whatever.

The DVD has one of the absolute BEST commentary extras on it.
Worth its price alone.

I don't get you character freaks.
But I'll allow you to reproduce.
 
©1999 How long were you waiting?
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Ha! I was waiting for someone to catch that. I suppose "waiting for the hype to subside" is incorrect. But big cult hits with lots of buzz are hard for me to see unless I see them before the buzz or until way, way later. It's my problem...if I see a film while said film is heavily hyped, especially in indie circles, I end up just weighing whether or not the film is worth all the hype and don't see the film on its own merits. It's much more rewarding for me to watch a film like this years later, when I've forgotten the buzz. I just saw Donnie Darko and found it fantastic and well worth the wait (and worth the buzz). I was THIS CLOSE to watching Fight Club for the first time.
 
I love this movie.
Tyler Durden is supposed to be like an alter-ego to Edward Norton's character. Because he's an insomniac he does the things he does, from a third-person perspective, without realizing it.
 
Fight Club is awesome.

Once a character ceases to exist (as you percieved), you still have the themes, ideas and issues to pick over, if you feel inclined to.

Just thought i'd add that.
 
I thought the twist was the best part.When I re-watched the film I began to think about project mayhem and how they were following this mentally ill anarchist.Them following Tyler showed how their piteous nature turned them subservient under a stronger personality.That to me was venerating.
 
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