World's End (Spoilers)

[madd0ct0r]

Watching this film made me very thirsty. I forseee it becoming a university drinking game for the next decade.

I liked it and it's nihilistic belligerent idiotic message. The ending was interesting, in that freedom (to be drunks) came at a cost, and a heavy cost at that.

I'm left wondering about how the film fits into a post-colonisim view of the world, especially for a country as mired in it's past as the uk is.

[Eternal_Freedom]

I found it highly enjoyable. Not as overtly comedic as the previous two, but since it's about the end of the world you'd expect it to be darker and more subdued. That's not to say it wasn't funny, far from it, just the humour was a lot more situational.

The cast was first rate and once again Pegg and Frost's chemistry is brilliant. It was interesting to see Frost playing the successful character and Pegg playing the slob/failure for a change.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Awesome film. Far better than This Is The End and the actual alien "invasion" reminded me a bit of a theory mentioned by a NASA scientist in David Brin's Existence about joining a galactic EU being every bit as daunting as outright conquering.

I was also waiting the whole film to see the Cornetto reference, this film being mint (SotD being strawberry, HF being classic).

Also, Bill Nighy. And for that matter, Walder Frey.

[Bedlam]

I saw it last weekend I'd put in below Hot Fuzz (That film has the best last half hour ever) but above Shawn of the dead (I'm just not that into Zombie films). I didn't see the very end coming but it did make sense I suppose.

Mostly the sound track made me nostalgic as I can remember most of them from my youth (I laughed out loud when they did the 'we want to get loaded' bit against the alien) I think it had not one but two Beautiful South songs in it.

[Big Orange]

I enjoyed The World's End but it felt like a blend of the last two "Cornetto" movies. And what was it trying to say? An early middle aged bloke partying hard will bring about the collapse of modern civilisation? It had a surprisingly unexpected and downbeat ending though, and it also had something to say on the conformist, invasive nature of mobile phones, pub restaurant chains, and the terrible boringness of the UK suburban towns.

And for that matter, Walder Frey.

Frey (David Bradley) in Hot Fuzz played that disturbed farmer that spoke in a indecipherable West Country twang and horded an arsenal of weaponry in his barn. Also a greying Pierce Brosnan turned up in TWE as Gary King's old teacher who tried to gently persuade them to join the alien collective (an echo of Timothy Dalton's shark salesman in HF).

[Eternal_Freedom]

Yeah it has a downbeat ending, but I think it's fitting. Having the world be saved by Gary's defiant slobbishness would have felt really cheap, especially given everyone pointing out to him all through the film that there are consequences to what he does.

[madd0ct0r]

instead he goes on on an endless pub crawl dispensing 'justice'.

It's intresting isn't it?

the conformist, invasive nature of mobile phones, pub restaurant chains, and the terrible boringness of the UK suburban towns.

is swept away, and the world is a much worse place for it.

At the same time, the Network's casual replacement of people and turning the remains into fertilizer is horrible too.

[Big Orange]

This movie had a pretty strong late 80s/early 90s retro soundtrack as well (but it could've included Go West's "The King of Wishful Thinking", which fits snugly into the late 80s/early 90s time period and Gary King's mindset).

the conformist, invasive nature of mobile phones, pub restaurant chains, and the terrible boringness of the UK suburban towns.

is swept away, and the world is a much worse place for it.

Yeah Gary King played a similar role to that pot smoking Shaggy look-a-like in The Cabin in the Woods.

At the same time, the Network's casual replacement of people and turning the remains into fertilizer is horrible too.

The Network were not really benign invaders, they just seemed to be the Borg with better PR, and a lot of their sanctimonious rhetoric seemed like half-truths, like their supposed creation of the internet and phone network: maybe that just co-opted it like they co-opted townsfolk for their own imperialist agenda. The only people who seemed cool with the Network's annexation of the town were a pair of obnoxious fuckweasels.

And the Network "peacefully" pulling out by nuking their lair and EMP-ing the modern infrastructure for the entire human race does not show them to be the benign invaders they present themselves as (The Network's representative was voiced by Bill Nighy, although the role could've gone to Patrick Stewart or Tom Baker).

[Big Orange]

Sorry, double post.

[madd0ct0r]

I figured the Network's parting shot was a containment strategy - make sure humanity is contained to earth for a lot longer, a sort of interstellar version of the council estate.

That's it!

The thing that's been bugging me, the entire ideological conflict of the film is a reflection of the class struggle between the louts and smarmy patricians and the 'gentrification' of areas. Do you think it's a coincidence that Gary's teacher (smugly middle class) is the one chosen to explain the benefit of joining society/ the Network?
Do you think any of the character would say no if they were sober? Even Gary is a broken man by the start of the film.

[Admiral Valdemar]

It's not unlike the ending to the remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still, which almost ended in a grey goo apocalypse, but settled on total destruction of our technology instead.

I'd have thought that everyone got the parallels with the Gary/Teacher career talk and humanity and The Network dialogue. The whole character arc for Gary is basically the embodiment of our civilisation in the eyes of these aliens, so we're basically not uplifted out of our ways because we're so stubborn. Better to be a non-issue restricted to one planet, probably with a sign nearby saying "mostly harmless".