898 Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me

[mfunk9786]

I am of the tiny camp that has only seen FWWM and never seen the series (I bought the movie on DVD for $3 from Dollar General when I was in high school). I have been eyeing the blu-ray box though. Still, I agree this is a weird choice for Criterion.

I'm of the tinier camp that hasn't seen either. Ten pages here shows amazing support. So I will ask, where should I start in my viewing of all of this?

Watch the pilot, then Season 1, then Season 2 (in its entirety, this used to be optional but now that the new series has so many allusions to the final episodes of Season 2, it's a must), then Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, then The Missing Pieces, then Twin Peaks: The Return (which is Season 3 of the series by another name).

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me is in essence a prequel, but it spoils a great deal of the mysteries that make 1.5 seasons of the original series so compelling.

The best way to approach this would either be to find a copy of the now OOP The Entire Mystery Blu-ray set, or to get a Showtime streaming subscription through Hulu or any number of the other services that offer a Showtime add-on, all of this content (though not sure about The Missing Pieces) is streaming on there.

[swo17]

Chronologically, but just watch the normal pilot, not the extended version.

[cpetrizzi]

The pilot for sure.

So watch Season 1&2 then the movie?

[mfunk9786]

The pilot for sure.

So watch Season 1&2 then the movie?

Yes. See my post above.

[cpetrizzi]

The pilot for sure.

So watch Season 1&2 then the movie?

Yes. See my post above.

Thanks, mfunk for the advice! Although Twin Peaks (series) came out when I was in college and has a "cult" status, I have no good explanation on why I've never seen it.

Just ordered this on Amazon for $36.95:
https://www.amazon.com/Twin-Peaks-Colle ... re+mystery" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I've actually seen almost all of Lynch's most popular movies (except for Lost Highway & The Straight Story). Seeing Eraserhead (in school) was part of the reason I got into film and TCC. I definitely think Criterion should put out a special Lynch box set or even an Eclipse set; he has so many shorts.

[mfunk9786]

Enjoy it! Feel free to keep the forum posted on what you think in our Twin Peaks thread in the TV subforum!

[Cold Bishop]

Pretty much everything as it was released starting with the US pilot. People give grief to season 2.5 but the last three episodes are essential to the new series. If the episodes prior to that become unbearable, it's pretty easy to figure out what you can fast-forward to and what's essential. Fire Walk with Me is much more than a prequel, apropriate given the show's concern with time out of loop, so should be saved for after the series. Missing Pieces features as many extended scenes as deleted ones, so is best seen afterwards (and separate: avoid the fan edit).

The books are non-canon, but the Secret History sounds at least interesting and involved with the mythos. But still not necessary to the new series.

[swo17]

People give grief to season 2.5 but the last three episodes are essential to the new series. If the episodes prior to that become unbearable, it's pretty easy to figure out what you can fast-forward

Just every scene with James in it. The rest is fine.

[Cold Bishop]

I think most of the comedic sideplots could probably be fast forwarded in a pinch, as they're all pretty one note premises repeated ad nauseum. Although your mileage will vary depending how much you enjoy the actors involved (the Civil War plot is woeful, but the actors are clearly enjoying themselves, for example).

[swo17]

Oh, I forgot about the Civil War plot--skip that too!

[colinr0380]

Poor James in that second season, though its the kind of disappointment I could imagine people feeling had James Dean lived and seen him trapped in formulaic film plots rather than burn out young and at his height, so I still can kind of tolerate the subplot, albeit barely!

You are all getting my hopes up too much that the third season satisfactorily deals with that small matter of

SpoilerShow

Joan Chen's character being trapped in the knob of a drawer!

[miless]

well, there was that hum in the Great Northern, perhaps that is tied to it.

[Magic Hate Ball]

If I remember correctly there was a moment in the show that was shot and cut that had Cooper finding

SpoilerShow

Chen's body in the Red Room, with her head under the curtain, suggesting her conscious soul was forever trapped in the wood of the Great Northern, and there's a scene that was abbreviated where Pete sees her face in the fire - I might be wrong but I think we see the tail end of it?

[Drucker]

DVD Beaver.

Ps am I crazy or did they botch another Lynch encode?

[swo17]

He suggests this is clearly superior but only compares to the French Blu-ray. How did that compare to the U.S. version bundled with the original series? (For instance, he's counting the addition of The Missing Pieces as a selling point, but most of us already have that.)

[The Narrator Returns]

There's comparable caps on the Twin Peaks: The Entire Mystery review, but I dunno why he didn't just port those over. Comparing the caps, I actually think the Criterion appears to be better-encoded than the box set Blu-Ray.

[mfunk9786]

The grabs look virtually identical to the Missing Pieces caps. Still getting this for the new interviews, but... yeah. I don't know if anyone who has the box set has to rush out.

[Ribs]

I am actually kind of impressed that despite this being ~300 minutes of content on a single disc the encoding does actually look anything more than the marginally better than the other disc. I wish they'd have broken it up to give it just a bit more room still, though.

[flyonthewall2983]

Blu-ray.com

[kcota17]

How do all these reviewers not know how it compares to the 2014 US release?

[tenia]

How do all these reviewers not know how it compares to the 2014 US release?

Because it's Svet, and like for Mulholland Dr, if there's a way to say the Criterion is better than a past release, he'll choose that instead.

[soundchaser]

I watched the new interview with Angelo Badalamenti tonight, and Criterion's sort of dropped the ball here. When he's describing the writing of "Laura Palmer's Theme" (itself a fairly well-known anecdote among Peaks fans), the background music is, instead, "Falling," the opening theme to the show. It's weird to hear Badalamenti talking about the melody of one piece while another plays, and it makes me think that whoever edited the interview didn't pay very close attention.

[AquaNarc]

Bit of a random thought: is this the only movie that features a scene in English that is also subtitled in English? I'm sure there are documentaries that do this but are there any other fiction films?

[knives]

A lot of Ken Loach films get that treatment especially in America.

[Finch]

I remember Trainspotting was partially subtitled when I saw it in Dublin in 1995 but I don't recall forced subs on those scenes on any subsequent Blu-Ray, US or otherwise.