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Arrested Development |OT| Season 4 - May 26 - Netflix Unmakes A Huge Mistake
- Thread starter FantasticMrFoxdie
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You shhh shhh shhh shhh.
Avallon
Member
What the hell happened to Maeby!?
Cera compared to the old seasons looks more like a Pokemon evolution than a kid growing up.
"I'm here, I'm queer, now I'm over here!"
Lee Chaolan
Member
Stabby McSter
Member
fixed
My biggest disappointment is that some of the characters just fall flat. It's odd how some of the side characters (okay, Lucille 2) in the original run completely dominate the new series (presumably because they have nothing on their plate) while others are almost entirely absent (Buster). I was so disappointed with what they did with George Sr. and (especially!) Oscar; they dominated so much of the new season, at least early on, and yet those two characters just provided so little life and so few laughs. and George Michael just felt like such a tired extension of the Michael Cera schtick that's already been beaten to death post-AD. His and Maeby's episodes just felt... very meh.
New season definitley peaked in the middle. Once they got over the huge barrier to entry that was three episodes worth of exposition-heavy intricate plotting, the season really hit its stride. Tobias was hilarious, GOB and Tony Wonder were absolutely hysterical, up there with the best of AD.
Regardless of what they do with the series in the future, particularly with how they deal with all the various schedules of the main players, I'm just not impressed by a series of never ending coincidences and near-misses. What is this, post-season 1 Heroes? So I hope they rely less on that.
New season definitley peaked in the middle. Once they got over the huge barrier to entry that was three episodes worth of exposition-heavy intricate plotting, the season really hit its stride. Tobias was hilarious, GOB and Tony Wonder were absolutely hysterical, up there with the best of AD.
Regardless of what they do with the series in the future, particularly with how they deal with all the various schedules of the main players, I'm just not impressed by a series of never ending coincidences and near-misses. What is this, post-season 1 Heroes? So I hope they rely less on that.
XANDER CAGE
Member
Hell nah. Maeby looks great.
Lee Chaolan
Member
Beautiful girl. Dirtiest mouth out of the family though. lol. Loved her F word screams when Lindsay came into the penthouse, and Gob and Michael at the Model House.
Demoncarnotaur
Member
I really didn't feel the episodes (though they all had their good moments) until the last 4 or so. Those really hit into gear and felt like AD- they were snappier, the jokes/gags better delivered and the plot more progressive and well paced. I really am glad they brought the show back, but I hope the next season has a more traditional format- all the characters actively interacting with each other really makes the shows humor work.
Probably picked up while being a movie producer!
Me neither, but it was interesting. Episode 1 made Michael such a pathetic character, and having his own son kick him out, it wasn't even that funny, just sad.
Good thing we'll get another season/movie or this would be one hell of a dark ending...
George Michael punches his father, hates his guts.
George Sr. and Lucille get a divorce.
Maeby is a convicted sex offender.
Lucille 2 is dead?
Buster arrested for murder.
George Sr. and Lucille get a divorce.
Maeby is a convicted sex offender.
Lucille 2 is dead?
Buster arrested for murder.
Lee Chaolan
Member
Which is funny, because before the new season popped up, they pretty much said this is the only season they're funding.
Money talks and all that, though.
Demoncarnotaur
Member
Which makes no sense giving how unfinished it is with the current ending. This entire season felt like it was all buildup for a payoff that never happens.
Steelyuhas
Member
Break out the piggy bank Reed!
Lee Chaolan
Member
Yeah, maeby originally they thought they'd just be financing one and then hand it off to the movie people, but as the Netflix CEO has said, it's been a huge success, and they're willing to do more. That's fantastic news for everyone. I'd rather a season 5 than a movie, personally.
Why don't you go away!
Getaway!
Stay away!
Getaway!
Getaway!
Getaway!
You're Hopelessly Hopppppelessssssss!
Getawaaaaaay......
I like the idea of how fleeting the Bluth family's lives are. Each family member never focuses in on why they get into the situations they get into. That feeling was implemented perfectly by the pacing and ending of this season.
Getaway!
Stay away!
Getaway!
Getaway!
Getaway!
You're Hopelessly Hopppppelessssssss!
Getawaaaaaay......
I like the idea of how fleeting the Bluth family's lives are. Each family member never focuses in on why they get into the situations they get into. That feeling was implemented perfectly by the pacing and ending of this season.
Agreed. In the first three seasons the narration added a lot, but there's so much in season 4 that it's exhausting.
Lee Chaolan
Member
The imperfect new Arrested Development is still good enough
I really like this article for the mention of walls. Both physical, and metaphorical keeping the Bluths from each other.
I really like this article for the mention of walls. Both physical, and metaphorical keeping the Bluths from each other.
Lee Chaolan
Member
I don't think it's Netflix we have to ask anymore, they love it already and it's up to the talent now. So we have to hope that the actors can all free some schedule for whenever Mitch has his next chapter planned, that is if he doesn't have it already.
Also
Summer Must List - EW on Arrested Development
"Some have criticized the new season for not being funny enough. But no one has given it much credit for how fantastically strange and melancholy it has gotten"
Definitely the tumbleweed. Reminds me of when Tobias slipped on the vodka which was absolutely, hands down, my favorite physical comedy fall in tv history.
GhostRidah
Member
New season was great, maybe 4 episodes I didn't like but I bet I will enjoy them after multiple views just like the other seasons, I want more!
Mushroomer25
Member
Just finished. Without a doubt, this is one of the most impressive comedy pieces I've ever seen - if only from a technical standpoint. It's a show that really couldn't exist anywhere else than Netflix. Stories weave and intertwine with multiple layers that reveal themselves over time, yet the writing always shines through.
Lee Chaolan
Member
Glad you guys liked it. The episodes were designed for you to watch them more than once. It's how they were designed. It's been incredibly fun rewatching and discovering all new things, as with the old seasons. It's definitely rewarding for season 4 with it's format of leading up to a new season or whatever's next.
I would imagine that most reviews watched hastily watched the season once before posting a review. It's been received better by fans, and I'm sure its reception will improve over time, just like any other season.
The Real Abed
Perma-Junior
Fixed. That third "getaway" is a different kind of getaway. In that they're telling "Getaway", GOB's nickname, to get away. "Getaway" refers to someone who drives the car. "Get away" refers to telling someone to get the fuck away from us. So they're saying "Get away, Getaway." Or "Get away, GOB."
/Public Service Announcement
I think my big mistake was watching all the episodes in one day. It felt really bloated at times.
Still good though, but considering all the hype it got, how it was supposed to revolutionary, blah blah blah....eh House of Cards was better.
Also, maybe it's just me but this season really killed all my interest in all the characters but George Michael and Maebe.
Still good though, but considering all the hype it got, how it was supposed to revolutionary, blah blah blah....eh House of Cards was better.
Also, maybe it's just me but this season really killed all my interest in all the characters but George Michael and Maebe.
I ended up enjoying it, and I appreciated that they went for something completely different, even if it didn't end up working completely. It would probably be much worse if they went for the style of the old series. Too much time has passed.
Yeah, it's the same for me. I know there's a lot of unresolved plotlines left, and I really did enjoy it in the end, but I just can't be enthusiastic about a sequel, whatever form it will take. Putting the focus on one character every time (and making the show so plot-heavy) makes it really obvious how one-note most of the characters are. The Michael/George Michael-story is the only story that feels like it's going somewhere. I honestly don't care what happens to any of the others.
Also, this series was dark. In a way, that was a good thing. Pretty much no one got a happy end, and this is the first American series in ages where people who aren't good-looking by Hollywood-standards are allowed to have lead roles. The characters all look like actual people, and this (together with the general shittyness of everyone's lives) isn't something that you see in American shows often enough.
On the other hand, the show really wants to make you feel bad about ever liking these characters. It's not a big complaint, and I know all of them deserve all the bad things happening to them, but man. At least in the old show you could sense that behind the egos of all the main characters they all cared a lot for each other, even though they didn't want to admit it themselves. I know that's the theme of the entire series, with the phrase 'Love Each Other' popping up all over the place and everyone ignoring it, and that that's something that possible sequels will probably build on, so perhaps I'm just complaining about nothing. We'll see how it all turns out. It made the first section of the show feel very awkward to watch at times though. The feeling of 'eh, this isn't what I was expecting', combined with the slower pace, the terrible green screen and dubbing (seriously, that stuff constantly took my out of the scenes) wasn't helped by the fact that everyone was so sad and lonely all the time. The show was a bit of a bummer at first, and it certainly took too long for me to get into it.
On the positive side: I loved Meaby's episode. It's easily my favorite episode of the bunch, which really surprised me. George Michael's episodes were really good too. Watching that story unravel and having some scenes that can be interpreted in three different ways depending on the information you have was mindblowing. Just so many good moments in his episodes - his Spanish adventures, his almost-chicken dance, the fact that he doesn't know Lucille 2, his entire Facebook story, the FakeBlock party and the reveal why everyone was actually happy to have him there later... Man, so good. Maybe it's because it's easier to accept that the actors have changed with the kids, but their episodes worked far better for me than any of the others. The other episodes are growing on me too - they're definitely funnier if you know what happens later on. This entire thing wasn't 100% succesful, but it wasn't a failed experiment either. It took serious balls to make an experimental piece like this, build on a show that's so beloved/overquoted/overanalyzed. I hope they make more experimenal tv like this in the future. I don't really care if it's Arrested Development or not though.
Yeah, it's the same for me. I know there's a lot of unresolved plotlines left, and I really did enjoy it in the end, but I just can't be enthusiastic about a sequel, whatever form it will take. Putting the focus on one character every time (and making the show so plot-heavy) makes it really obvious how one-note most of the characters are. The Michael/George Michael-story is the only story that feels like it's going somewhere. I honestly don't care what happens to any of the others.
Also, this series was dark. In a way, that was a good thing. Pretty much no one got a happy end, and this is the first American series in ages where people who aren't good-looking by Hollywood-standards are allowed to have lead roles. The characters all look like actual people, and this (together with the general shittyness of everyone's lives) isn't something that you see in American shows often enough.
On the other hand, the show really wants to make you feel bad about ever liking these characters. It's not a big complaint, and I know all of them deserve all the bad things happening to them, but man. At least in the old show you could sense that behind the egos of all the main characters they all cared a lot for each other, even though they didn't want to admit it themselves. I know that's the theme of the entire series, with the phrase 'Love Each Other' popping up all over the place and everyone ignoring it, and that that's something that possible sequels will probably build on, so perhaps I'm just complaining about nothing. We'll see how it all turns out. It made the first section of the show feel very awkward to watch at times though. The feeling of 'eh, this isn't what I was expecting', combined with the slower pace, the terrible green screen and dubbing (seriously, that stuff constantly took my out of the scenes) wasn't helped by the fact that everyone was so sad and lonely all the time. The show was a bit of a bummer at first, and it certainly took too long for me to get into it.
On the positive side: I loved Meaby's episode. It's easily my favorite episode of the bunch, which really surprised me. George Michael's episodes were really good too. Watching that story unravel and having some scenes that can be interpreted in three different ways depending on the information you have was mindblowing. Just so many good moments in his episodes - his Spanish adventures, his almost-chicken dance, the fact that he doesn't know Lucille 2, his entire Facebook story, the FakeBlock party and the reveal why everyone was actually happy to have him there later... Man, so good. Maybe it's because it's easier to accept that the actors have changed with the kids, but their episodes worked far better for me than any of the others. The other episodes are growing on me too - they're definitely funnier if you know what happens later on. This entire thing wasn't 100% succesful, but it wasn't a failed experiment either. It took serious balls to make an experimental piece like this, build on a show that's so beloved/overquoted/overanalyzed. I hope they make more experimenal tv like this in the future. I don't really care if it's Arrested Development or not though.
WordAssassin
Member
It IS revolutionary. Please tell me one other show that could possibly do what they did with this season. There is not a chance in hell the format they chose to tell the story in would work on a normal TV schedule, what they did with green screens to work around the actors' schedules has never been done before. People might not like the format compared to the first 3 seasons but to suggest what they did to make this season happen was nothing special is ridiculous.
I agree with your post, except for the bolded part. I understand the green screen effects were a necessity and that they couldn't simply rewrite the plot all the time to account for actor availability, but it was so badly used that it made a lot of the episodes feel very cheap. They did the same thing in Star Trek and the most recent Doctor Who episode. It's better there because those shows are already very special effect-heavy so you don't notice it so much, but it always feels like such an outdated technique to me. It reminded me of a joke on one of the Monty Python dvd's (I think it was Holy Grail, but I could be mistaken). The fans were constantly asking for a Python reunion, and the Pythons played up the animosity between each other for laughs, and as an excuse for not doing the reunion. After getting sick of being asked about a possible reunion all the time, they did one as a dvd-special, but they're all green screened into the same scene, and they're just standing there for 10 minutes. The green screen effects are bad on purpose, but the worst thing is that the effects in AD didn't look that much better. The worst scenes were definitely the two Lucille's in the courtroom (I think that was the scene at least), George sr and Oscar in the sweat lodge in the desert and the scene with Winkler in his captain outfit. Horrible stuff. The overdubbing was even worse. Some actors were better at making it feel natural than others (Tobias was probably the worst), but it bugged the hell out of me.
Sorry for that angry rant. I'm mad at the show, not you
. Carry on!I loved the season besides the first couple of episodes that are probably gonna be much more funny on rewatch but i do have a couple of complaints:
I can understand Michael becoming a giant asshole after all that happened to him, but why Lucille Austero and Sally Sitwell? They were always portrayed as good people, especially compared to the Bluths.
Also George Michael did know who Lucille Austero was, Buster told him in Pier Pressure.
I can understand Michael becoming a giant asshole after all that happened to him, but why Lucille Austero and Sally Sitwell? They were always portrayed as good people, especially compared to the Bluths.
Also George Michael did know who Lucille Austero was, Buster told him in Pier Pressure.
I pretty much liked it a lot. S4 felt like AD to me even with the switched up format. Having the character based episodes meant that there were less (very few) ensemble scenes which was too bad, and every episode I'd be like 'is this dragging?' and then look at the counter and there was always 3 minutes left. Less laughs overall too but that's okay. Jason Bateman killed it the entire time, the Michael bits about the roommate voting brought me much joy. As did the airplane on the freeway phone tag.
WordAssassin
Member
I agree with your post, except for the bolded part. I understand the green screen effects were a necessity and that they couldn't simply rewrite the plot all the time to account for actor avaialability, but it was so badly used that it made a lot of the episodes feel very cheap. They did the same thing in Star Trek and the most recent Doctor Who episode. It's better there because those shows are already very special effect-heavy so you don't notice it so much, but it always feels like such an outdated technique to me. It reminded me of a joke on one of the Monty Python dvd's (I think it was Holy Grail, but I could be mistaken). The fans were constantly asking for a Python reunion, and the Pythons played up the animosity between each other for laughs, and as an excuse for not doing the reunion. After getting sick of being asked about a possible reunion all the time, they did one as a dvd-special, but they're all green screened into the same scene, and they're just standing there for 10 minutes. The green screen effects are bad on purpose, but the worst thing is that the effects in AD didn't look that much better. The worst scenes were definitely the two Lucille's in the courtroom (I think that was the scene at least), George sr and Oscar in the sweat lodge in the desert and the scene with Winkler in his captain outfit. Horrible stuff. The overdubbing was even worse. Some actors were better at making it feel natural than others (Tobias was probably the worst), but it bugged the hell out of me.
Sorry for that angry rant. I'm mad at the show, not you
I wouldn't classify compositing Clara into old episodes of Doctor Who as quite the same thing here, and your feelings on the visual quality of it are irrelevant to my point (though I completely agree with you that the low point is the Lucille courtroom scene, that was really bad). This was filming an entire season of a show with actors being in the same scenes sometimes shot months apart, having full blown conversations and interactions with each other and their surroundings while not even being there, etc. The closest I can think of would indeed be Clara interacting with One but at the same time, that's just compositing her into old footage not unlike the movie Kung-Pow, not writing an entire 15-episode season around the fact that none of your actors can be there to shoot together at the same time.
Plus sometimes it looked pretty good, like the Tobias and GOB table sequence which I'm still not totally sure was green screened, but just shot to look like it in order to poke fun at the fact that they had to do it so often this season.
So, I reiterate, there's never been a show before that's done what it took to get this season made. Having a girl run in place in front of a green screen and then sticking her into a hallway from an old episode for one episode out of 14 doesn't really compare, but I also realize that could fall under a matter of opinion - and I've never watched any Star Trek so I honestly can't speak to how often they did it, but I don't think that every episode was shot with all the actors in different places at different times and then all compiled into one place the way ADS4 was.
Regarding all the 'What happened to Steve Holt' comments.
Look back at 'The Immaculate Election'. On the 'On the next Arrested Development' section 'Steve Holt finally tracks down his real father'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4RKeZJpw1c
"Wow, Is that's what's gonna happen to my hair?
Look back at 'The Immaculate Election'. On the 'On the next Arrested Development' section 'Steve Holt finally tracks down his real father'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4RKeZJpw1c
"Wow, Is that's what's gonna happen to my hair?
I agree that Doctor Who was a different approach, but it worked better there because they were just quick shots, none of them lasting longer than a couple of seconds. It's not just about how it looks for me. Here you'd have entire scenes and conversations between actors without them actually being in the same room. The strength of a comedy like this is actors being able to play off of each other, especially when you have a collection of talented actors like these. There were already very few scenes with the family coming together, and the chemistry was completely missing in the green screen scenes, which was a huge bummer. Some scenes were worse than others though. It's not really the fault of the actors - they did the best with what they had - but you could really tell they were talking to an empty space.
I don't think there's much more I can say about this, especially because there was a lot about the season I did like and I think that the writing and the performances are more important than the green screen/dubbing thing. It just bugged the hell out of me. I'd rather have them wait a couple of years so you could have all the actors together instead of having to rely on weird post-production techniques from the 70s. I agree that this series was ground-breaking in a lot of ways, but definitely not because of the green screen. That's been around for ages and should be avoided whenever possible, unless you're absolutely sure you can make it feel natural. And they couldn't here.
Edit: Reading that back, it sounds like I'm attacking you for not being annoyed by a thing that annoys me. That's not my intention. Don't want to flood this thread with negativity though, so I'll leave the subject alone after this post.
Just to end on a more positive note: I'm going to do everything in my power to marry Alia Shawkat. She's absolutely amazing in this.
FantasticMrFoxdie
Mumber
Gob: I was just doing it to get out of gym.
Tony Wonder: Who's Jim?
LOL I need that Mariachi version of Sound of Silence.
Nice.
Tony Wonder: Who's Jim?
LOL I need that Mariachi version of Sound of Silence.
Nice.
XANDER CAGE
Member
Can someone screencap some of the more glaring greenscreen moments? I'm usually allergic to compositing, but for whatever reason the only "eurgh" moment I've noticed so far is the sweat lodge.
Oh yeah, and some of the stuff in Ron Howard's office too.
Oh yeah, and some of the stuff in Ron Howard's office too.
Freewheelin'
Member
Tbh, I didn't even notice the green screening lol.
Ape Gone Insane
Member
Fuck me. I was wondering why you guys were talking about a punch then realised the AD I thought I'd finished a couple of days ago was only 14 episodes long.
Welp, free episode.
Welp, free episode.
bigwinnerx
Member
When Lucille is cross examining Lucille 2, that's composite.
First episode when Zuckercorn comes out in the sailor outfit.
I don't think greenscreen was used as much as body doubles. Lots of back of heads. Wigs. and lots of phone calls.
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