Just a few newbie observations

Author	Comment
Eliashoi and Ohtis Sadako slave (10/28/02 6:29:54 pm) Reply	Just a few newbie observations - movie spoilers Hi, I just saw "The Ring" this weekend, and loved it. I dragged other people to see it, so I have seen it twice now. I have not seen the Japanese original, but I certainly will when I get a chance. I made a few observations which will probably be trivial to the board population here, but I can't resist posting. Please comment if you please on my assumptions. The film does not deal with Samara’s origins in any concrete way. Her mother is unable to carry a baby to term, and eventually “goes away for a yearEand comes back with Samara. She tells everyone the girl is adopted but later we find out she gave birth to the girl. (This is revealed in the records almost casually and I missed it on my first viewing.) I think the subtle unspoken assumption is that she made some sort of supernatural bargain for the child. In literature, all such “deals with the devilEcome with a heavy consequence, and Samara’s nature and power are that consequence in this case. I can’t wait until this movie comes out on video and I can freeze the frame and read the birth certificate. Are there clues there? I bet so. They may have originally included more explanation that ended up on the editing room floor. Good stories, (especially good ghost stories) can be diminished if you fill them with too much “explanationE Samara’s interview in the asylum was excellent. They gave us several clues here. Why did the horses go crazy and drown themselves? The answer is that “Daddy doesn’t love meEhe hates meE he just loves the horses.ESamara killed the horses. Samara hated horses because of that, and she killed the horse on the ferry the same way. We think the horse is after Rachael, but it is really searching for the sea. When Samara fastens her will on a horse, it must find the sea and die. The use of ambiguous speech in the interview is marvelous. The interviewer says “we know you don’t mean to hurt peopleE and she replies “But I do, and I’m sorry. It will never stop.EHer reply can be interpreted two ways. Before we understand that Samara is evil, we interpret it as “But I do [hurt people], and I’m sorry [that I hurt people].EAnd in despair of being healed, she adds mournfully “It will never stop.EBut when the interview is replayed in Rachael’s mind toward the end of the movie, we understand her reply to be “But I do [mean to hurt people], and I’m sorry [if you don’t like it, but] it will never stop.E This story is very clever in that it uses our own preconceptions against us. We are given many indications throughout the film that Samara was malevolent even before she was murdered, but we gladly discount these indications because we think we recognize the classic “the ghost wants you to find her bodyEplot line. Like Rachael and Noah, we want the body found before Rachael’s time is up so Rachael won’t die. And like Rachael and Noah, we think the fact that Rachael doesn’t die is due to the fact that they did discover the body. But of course, if we had been paying attention we would have noticed that Rachael’s time had already passed long before she actually held Samara in her arms. The moral dilemma at the end was very thought provoking. Make a copy and show it to someone and you won’t die, but that solution saves you by sacrificing someone else. The right thing to do would be for Rachael to destroy the other tape and suffer the consequences, but it would have cost her her son and that is a hard price to pay. It is also interesting that just showing it to somebody isn’t enough, you have to make a copy too. Notice that Rachael made two copies at the end; one for Aiden and one to replace the tape she had destroyed. She probably figured she was at risk again if she didn’t replace the destroyed tape. So every time someone avoids the curse by passing it on, there is one more of these evil tapes in the world. Perhaps she should have sought a stronger benevolent spiritual power (God) instead of becoming complicit in Samara’s evil. Interestingly, Samara didn’t create the physical tape. She used the tape the teens were using to record a football game. It is also interesting that the tape was in a VCR and record mode was activated at the time. Did she need a physical tape and VCR to make the tape? The VCR was right over the well. Was the close proximity necessary to the tape-creation process? What are the consequences to Samara being “set freeE It seems to me she was pretty bad when she was in the well. How much worse will she be now that she is out? Aiden seems to think helping her was a bad thing. Will we find out the consequences in a sequel? As I said at the top, this is one of the best ghost-story movies I have seen in quite some time. I am looking forward to watching it several more times. Edited by: ring rasen loop at: 10/28/02 9:41:31 pm
SadakoIsEve further down the Spiral (10/28/02 6:36:42 pm) Reply	Re: Just a few newbie observations All those points make sense in some sense
pagnstix further down the Spiral (10/28/02 7:23:36 pm) Reply	Re: Just a few newbie observations those are really well thought out. i hope you post in the thread about the adoption issue. the exorcist will live in my mind forever.
Eliashoi and Ohtis Sadako slave (10/29/02 10:43:28 am) Reply	Re: Just a few newbie observations Thanks. I thought of something else last night. Remember when Katie's friend Rebecca was being led to the interview with Rachael in the psychiatric hospital? The nurse was pulling a screen next to her. Rebecca stopped and stared at the TV, and the nurse told her to come alon, and that she had "almost made it". Why were they blocking her from seeing the TV? It must be because she saw Samara come out of the TV and kill Katie. No wonder she is in the hospital...
mikejonas manipulator of the Virus (10/29/02 10:58:15 am) Reply	Cool For once, a newbie who's managed to figure out all of the simpler issues before hitting the discussion board. The more the merrier, for sure, but personally I weary of the "Is Samara adopted," "What happened to Becca," and, even more frustrating, "Why did Rachel survive" threads that keep cropping up. One thing, though...I didn't get the impression that Rachel made two copies of the tape in the final scene. The tape in the top deck was the existing copy (the one Aiden saw, that Rachel retrieved from under the couch), and the one in the bottom deck is the new copy Aiden was "making." I don't remember if the "copy" sticker was still on the source tape, but even if it wasn't, it could plausibly have been removed.
Mulberry Sadako slave (10/29/02 11:35:24 am) Reply	Re: Cool Very well thought out! I love your take on the ambiguity of Samara's comments. I will have to watch it again to hear how she uses her inflection in those comments.
SadakoIsEve out from the well (10/29/02 12:07:24 pm) Reply	Re: Re: Cool But be aware often children do not inflect one way or another
Eliashoi and Ohtis Sadako slave (10/29/02 12:21:20 pm) Reply	Re: Re: Cool Oh Mike you might be right about only making one tape. I may have misremembered the scene. Cool, a reason to go see the movie again!
Alexis Machine Sadako slave (11/7/02 6:19:20 am) Reply	Re: Cool *Quote:* One thing, though...I didn't get the impression that Rachel made two copies of the tape in the final scene. The tape in the top deck was the existing copy (the one Aiden saw, that Rachel retrieved from under the couch), and the one in the bottom deck is the new copy Aiden was "making." I don't remember if the "copy" sticker was still on the source tape, but even if it wasn't, it could plausibly have been removed. The top tape did, in fact, have the COPY sticker attached to it. Sorry about dragging these old threads up, but I can't sleep.
Woapalanne Sadako slave (11/7/02 9:00:34 am) Reply	Re: Cool Except as she was making the copy, it didn't have the sticker - she peeled it off after burning the original, and then made the copy. http://www.ucrats.com - UC Rats! Everyone will suffer.
Alexis Machine Sadako slave (11/7/02 11:12:36 am) Reply	Re: Cool You're right; she did peel the sticker off. I saw her do it. And yet... That's the tape sitting in the top deck of the copy machine. Somehow the label has mysteriously reappeared (nensha-ed? ). Sp00ky. Possible continuity error?
SadakoIsEve the chosen infected (11/7/02 11:53:49 am) Reply	Re: Re: Cool Anacronlogical
O Deka K out from the well (11/7/02 11:57:25 am) Reply	Re: Copy Maybe that's the new copy? Or was it the bottom one that was recording? --- Before you die... you GOTTA see The Ring!
SadakoIsEve the chosen infected (11/7/02 12:02:54 pm) Reply	Re: Re: Copy No way to tell
Kitano the chosen infected (11/7/02 12:04:08 pm) Reply	Re: Re: Copy Screw ups in the editing process...possibly. The cuts aren't shot in the order they appear on the movie, so sometimes they forget to switch props in the proper order? Heh. Boneheads... Edited by: Kitano at: 11/7/02 12:09:49 pm
mikejonas moderator (11/7/02 12:09:47 pm) Reply	Re: Copy I'd infer from the common practice that, in video editing or copying, the source tape goes into the machine on top and the copy to be made goes into the bottom machine (or left to right, in the case of machines situated side by side), that the top machine is supposed to be the source. I'm pretty sure a re-viewing of the movie would show that Rachel made Aidan press "play" on the top machine and "record" and "play" on the bottom machine. So the "COPY" sticker thing was probably a minor gaffe (why'd she have to peel it off, anyway?)
O Deka K out from the well (11/7/02 12:16:14 pm) Reply	Re: Copy Maybe she peeled it off and then had no place to put th sticker so she put it back on. --- Before you die... you GOTTA see The Ring!
SadakoIsEve shambler (11/7/02 12:31:18 pm) Reply	Re: Re: Copy I am in awe of your wisdom
DaMan791 out from the well (11/7/02 2:46:01 pm) Reply	Re: Re: Copy Prolly just an editing mistake. ------------------ She never sleeps.. 7 days.. OMG Becca is soooo Hot! I WANT HER!!!!
angrygn0me Sadako slave (11/7/02 3:06:19 pm) Reply	Re: Just a few newbie observations - movie spoilers Hi I'm new and blah blah blah. I agree with the replaced sticker theory. Sheer brilliance. har har har.
SadakoIsEve the chosen infected (11/7/02 3:33:06 pm) Reply	Re: Re: Just a few newbie observations - movie spoilers People can be so stupid sometimes. I mean that in general so don't be insulted
Alexis Machine Sadako slave (11/7/02 5:42:43 pm) Reply	Re: Copy *Quote:* Maybe she peeled it off and then had no place to put th sticker so she put it back on. LMAO! The top deck is play-only, and the bottom deck is play-record.
SSJPabs Sadako slave (11/7/02 7:30:32 pm) Reply	Re: Copy Well how about this for a reason to put the copy sticker back: Ahem The original tape. The copy Rachel made: Copy A The copy Aiden made: Copy B You have to show Copy B to someone. Well if she takes the sticker off she can mistake which tape is Copy B and give Copy A to the person insteand of Copy B. If the person watches Copy A instead of Copy B, then they are cursed but so is her little boy. This way she keeps them straight. And that is why she re-applied the sticker to Copy A. (Hehehe I love confusing people )
O Deka K out from the well (11/8/02 12:54:19 am) Reply	Re: Copy Yeah, everyone's right. The tape with the Copy sticker went on the top, and they pressed record on the bottom. Both machines have the same buttons though. --- Before you die... you GOTTA see The Ring!
ARAMAS666 Sadako slave (11/8/02 1:26:42 am) Reply	Question about the deaths of Katie & Noah etc... We learn from Katie's mum that Katie had a heart attack (heart failure) and by the quick glimse of Noah's face after Samara comes out of the TV, we see a distorted face which looks as though he suffered severe trauma as well. My question is....if they are "scared to death" as implied, when Samara "kills" Katie--I believe Becca returns after the fact (Samara is no longer in the room) and is in "shock" when authorities find her friend Katie. Could she (Becca) have possibly known this was due to the cursed tape & that Samara came out of the well? Based on Becca's and Katie's conversation prior (this may have been implied). When Noah is killed, he is trying to escape and then later he is sitting in the chair in front of the TV. If you are scared to death...what is with the mangled face, droopy eyes, and skin like the elephant-man? Wouldn't you just have a heart failure? Or....can Samara use her "power" to physically contact the living? This doesn't make sense to me. Samara's other victims (Katie's friends) died at 10pm in a car accident (assuming they are riding together) or was that heart failure from Samara's ghost appearing first and causing an accident? Why wasn't Samara's body decomposed since it was in the well for so many years? Hello, this is a mysterious homicide that no one seems to investigate. Instead she is buried like the family pet. Well, I have hoards of questions but for now, if any ringworld experts can give me the answers to these questions, I'd appreciate it! By the way, great forum! :-)
Rhyamoonlight Sadako slave (11/8/02 1:40:14 am) Reply	Re: Question about the deaths of Katie & Noah etc... "My question is....if they are "scared to death" as implied, when Samara "kills" Katie--I believe Becca returns after the fact (Samara is no longer in the room) and is in "shock" when authorities find her friend Katie. Could she (Becca) have possibly known this was due to the cursed tape & that Samara came out of the well? Based on Becca's and Katie's conversation prior (this may have been implied)" i thin becca was in the room.. that why she wasnt answer'n when katie was yelling for her.. she was scared.. not scared to death but very scared..i think she knew ebcause i think she saw it... thats why she cant be around tv's .....Samara just didnt kill her ebcause she hadnt seen the tape.... "When Noah is killed, he is trying to escape and then later he is sitting in the chair in front of the TV. If you are scared to death...what is with the mangled face, droopy eyes, and skin like the elephant-man? Wouldn't you just have a heart failure? Or....can Samara use her "power" to physically contact the living? This doesn't make sense to me." he was also drip'n water and was soaked.. same with katie.. their body's were like that because it is as if they were under water for a long time...same way Samara was... "Why wasn't Samara's body decomposed since it was in the well for so many years?" hey body wasnt exactly in the best condition.. was very waterlog'd.....it couldnt be completly decomposed or her crawlin outa the well would just be mush.. and woudlnt be as frightening.. "Hello, this is a mysterious homicide that no one seems to investigate. Instead she is buried like the family pet" theres nothign to investigate.. once rachel tells the police her story.. and they look at all the stuff they have.. and they find Anna's husband they know what happened... me......
inteferon further down the Spiral (11/8/02 1:41:02 am) Reply \| Edit	Re: Question about the deaths of Katie & Noah etc... Quote: "Hello, this is a mysterious homicide that no one seems to investigate." What's left to investigate? Rachael and Noah inform the cops that Samara was murdered by her mother with the father possibly being an accessory. Coroner positively IDs the victim. Both perps are dead. No-one left alive to put on trial. Case closed. About the only thing suspicious was that there was no missing child report/investigation. Then again, the doctor explains why Samara was not particularly missed in her community and everyone took for granted that she was holed up in the loony bin.