Trigger

^ wow - well put (whoever wrote that)... that's basically my sentiments exactly except said much better than I did.

Shonn

Just noticed this thread after posting in another that was higher up on the board. I liked the movie a lot, but here are my problems with it (some already being metioned by others);

- No explanation as to where Smara comes from and why she is so evil. All they had to do is say her parents made a deal with the devil.

- Smara is coming out of the well when Aidan watched the movie, she doesn't come out at any other time until the seven days are up.

- Becka somehow knows Rachel has four days left.

- Aidan mentions at the end that they are going to show the movie to someone, why? The only thing they say they have to do is make a copy to live.


I haven't seen Ringu yet, and don't want to read anything about it so I don't spoil anything that is different from The Ring, so maybe it will answer some of my questions.

DarthMaul420

Watching Ringu will help most of these questions out. I believe some of the details left out of the remake will be in the next film.

Shonn

Cool, thanks. I'm going to have to check the movie store to see if they carry Ringu.

Trigger

They'll most likely explain this in the sequel - this is part of the original story that the American version strays from quite a bit. In fact, the Japanese series of Ring movies has an entire film showing the origins of Sadako.

It's supposed to be that the scene in the video where they show the well at the end keeps getting longer until the climax - it's a very chilling build-up actually - much more effective in the original IMO.

I don't know who becka is.

The whole thing they were trying to figure out was how to stop the curse... they figured out that if they make a copy of the tape and show it to someone else the curse will be lifted from them - this is why such an urban legend would propell itself exponentially... superstitious people would make copies and show them to their friends and then tell their friends to make a copy and show someone else so none of them die. I think this was explained much better in the original also.

Shonn

She is the girl that goes to the mental hospital after her friend dies at the beginning. She tells Rachel she will find out in four days at the mental hospital.



You know what, I think I figured this one out, I have a different theory though. Although they don't say it in the movie, she also did something else that Noah didn't, she showed someone else the movie. Maybe she was just covering all her bases, so to speak, to make sure Aidan doesn't die in case the copy wasn't the only reason she didn't die.

Trigger

Oh - ok... well, in the original series - she plays a larger part in Ring 2 - according to the way the story goes in that film, she was touched by the evil of Sadako just because she was there when her friend died - so some of that just rubbed off on her. Now apparently, Ring 2 didn't follow the second book (Rasen) really, so this may or may not be how her character developed. It seems to me though to be a standard horror movie explaination for such a setup and I always kinda liked that... her character was one of my favorite parts about Ring 2 and IIRC, they even kinda threw in a little bit of that in the US version of Ring that wasn't there in the original Ring but rather was in Ring 2. I could be confusing scenes from the movies though. Anyway - I'd explain a little further, but I don't wanna give anything away since you haven't seen Ring 2. Like I said though - the best explaination I can figure for that is that she just got touched by the evil so she could see things that other people couldn't.

Well yeah - exactly... that's what I'm saying. The little boy saw it and she knew how to lift the curse or whatever, so she packed up a VCR and a blank tape (in the original, can't remember if this is exactly how it went down in the US version) and decided to go to her parents house and asked her dad if he could do something for his grandson... the audience is to assume that she's gonna go to her parents house and use their VCR and the one she brings with her to make a copy of the tape and show it to grandpa so her son's curse is lifted... from there, it's up to the audience - does she tell her dad to make a copy or whatever? Who knows? Another difference in the original is that there's a scene earlier in the movie with the grandparents setting them up as being a part of the family... I don't recall seeing it in the US version.

Groucho

So far I haven't seen any plot holes in this thread. I've seen some legitimate criticism, I've seen some Remakephobia,* I've seen complaints that the film explains too much, and I've seen complaints that it explains too little ( ). But no plot holes.

*Remakephobia - the automatic fear and hatred of any remake and refusal to see it any context other than in comparison of the original film, regardless of its actual merits. Often related to Americanphobia (American films are automatically inferior to foreign ones) and Massesphobia (the more popular a film is, the less quality it has).

zak52

It seems many people here have these phobia's.

audrey

Groucho, excellent post. Ironically, missing from this discussion is the criticism that Ringu strayed too far from the source novels—as in the seemingly constant whining over the changes Kubrick made to King’s sacred text. Also strangely absent are complaints that Ringu is itself a remake as it was preceded by a series of made-for-tv movies based on the same novels. Of course some don’t consider Ringu a remake because it strays from the tv-series and the novel. That line of reasoning strikes me as just plain odd.

My assumption is that because relatively few people on this forum have read the source novels or seen the made-for-tv movies, these preceding works do not factor into the appreciation of Ringu. Of course the same could be said for The Ring; in the scheme of things, few people in America have watched Ringu.

Ringworld (http://ringworld.somrux.com/index.htm) provides IMO a balanced view of the relative strength/weaknesses of the novels, the tv-series, Ringu, and The Ring.

Trigger

I don't think anybody's saying the US version sucks cuz it's a remake. I actually liked the US version quite a bit - I was just trying to explain what the "plot holes" are... comparing and contrasting the original with the remake. There's some things I liked better about the original and most of these things have to do with plot... I thought the US version had some great elements to it that weren't in the original - like when she pulls the fly off the screen, that was really cool - although it wasn't something I liked as far as plot goes, I did think it was cool.

Basically everyone who's seen both films are going to like one over the other - typically they're going to like whichever version they saw first. I saw the original first, but I like it more because of the way they dealt with the plot and supernatural elements and because I thought the scariest scene in both movies was scarier in the original. I think Hollywood did a phenomenal job with the remake - far better than I expected of course given the marketing and such. I mean, they even changed the meaning of the title and the voice on the phone says "seven days" and I find alot of these changes in US remakes of foreign films to be somewhat insulting - like American audiences are too stupid and need things explained to them. :/ The US version had the title indicating a halo of light (ring) at the top of the well whereas the original had nothing to do with that.

Anyway - they're both good movies I think - and they're both based on the same source material - of course people are going to compare them... however, I don't think anyone's saying the US version sucked cuz it's a remake or whatever. Take that kind of talk over to the Solaris thread.

audrey

Oh...I think we can wait till the DVD comes out for that discussion. :-)

MvRojo

I thought both versions were pretty good, but I give the edge to the Japanese version because I felt that the American version was way too structured and by explaining the images on the video, it made it too complex to be truly frightening. The randomness and the freakiness of the stuff on the video in the Japanese version had a bigger psychological impact on me.

I also thought it was funny that in the American version she could see a solid ring of light around the well, which would basically mean that the thing covering the well should have fallen onto her or something.

Matt

garmonbozia

I haven't seen it since theaters, so I don't remember if the movie states it explicitly or not, but I got the impression that in order to escape dying you had to make a copy and show it to someone else.....or perhaps making the copy was not really key, maybe it was just showing it to someone else and transferring the curse to them (Naomi Watts' character in the film doesn't know for sure what part of what she did cleared her). Of course, I took the ending (when the boy says something like 'what will happen to the people we show the video to') to mean that they just showed the video to us, the audience, so the boy is in the clear and we are not.......

Jazzbutcher

I watched Ringu last night. The scene with the chick crawling through the TV scared the crap out of me. A very creepy flick, IMHO.

succubiss

i enjoyed this movie, but some parts hit too close to home for me. About 5 years ago, I suffered from sleep paralysis mixed with visions of a female entity standing in my doorway.

anyways, one question. did rachel/noah's act of taking samara out of the well affect/unleash anything? she was killing before and she killed after. why was the little boy so distraught that rachel helped samara?

GeorgiaBoi

i liked the movie..... some things did need to be explained and thats undeniable.

(1) Why or how did Samaras original mother die?

(1b) If she died from Samara why does Samara have these powers or "ability" anyway?

(2) How after falling down the well to her death did she manage
to conjure up a tape? Or a better question... Or am I suppose to assume just as she makes images appear on film, she did the same to a miscellaneous video tape?

(3) why kill "joe" after he watches the tape you made and intended people to watch so you can be heard?


(4) Why is the little boy connected to Samara at all when he was
the last one to watch the tape and didn't even know Samaras name until his mother mentioned it at the end.

(5) This was already said buy why was she about to come out the screen when the little boy was watching it an it was his first time? Something was about to happen before his mom walked in the room and i don't think it had anything to do with being suspensful since the end or climax of the movie takes place atleast a hour to a hour and twenty minutes later.

(6) what was the significance of the wife (dont remember her name) going outside looking at everyone watch tv, while the husband was watching the tape?

Jackskeleton

Because she killed her daughter, who is still sending her images mentally...

Samara in the remake was never suppose to be.. Her mom couldn't get pregnant, so we jump to a conclusion that she is evil. a sort of damion character who was born from evil. This we really don't need to know so much.

She's evil.. she has a strange gift to make images appear in people's heads, in negatives, on walls, etc. etc. when the girl and her boyfriend and their friends went to the cabin which was built over the well the ghost of samara inprinted the images into the video when they tried to make a recording of a football game. She can make images pop into people's head.. hasn't that been made clear?

Samara is evil.. think of this as an curse if you don't pass on a chain letter to seven of your friends. She wants to hurt people, but she wants to be heard.. so thus she only hurts those that don't pass on her message.


Does he really need to know her name? As to why he is connected.. who knows. Maybe it's cause he talked to his causin a few days before she died and he heard some of her stories.


thats the end of the tape that she made.. she ends it right before she is going to get out of the well (and walk to the tv) a sort of end cut till the next scene were she will be walking to the tv and out of it) once the seven days are up. Regardless if the mom turned it off or not, the screen would have turned blank at that point because that is the end of her clip the first time you see it.

You sure you were even paying attention to the movie? You call him her husband... where was that in the movie? The significance.. I guess the director was just showing how folks watch tv. who knows.



A lot of you seem to question the stupidies things. Like someone else mentioned "Do you question where Jason got his mask?, how about freddy, do you question were he got that glove or whats his purpose of killing?" come on folks.. What happened to assumption?

LostHiWay

Come on people..when every single thing is explained in a movie it kinda ruins it. Whatever happened to imagination, and letting you mind fill in the blanks. This way everyone has a little bit differnent view of the movie.

I can just imagine some of you people watching a Lynch movie.

Groucho

Based on this thread, I have compiled a list of other "plot holes" in famous movies...

Casablanca -- how did Sam learn to play the piano? It's never explained...he just magically does it!

Citizen Kane -- this is supposedly the greatest film of all time, but I don't see why when they don't even explain where Kane bought the hat he wears when campaigning for governor! Did it just magically appear on his head? Sloppy filmmaking, IMHO.

Beverly Hills Cop -- when Eddie Murphy gets the banana from the guy played by Damon Wayons, we never find out where that guy comes from, who his parents were, and it's never explained where HE got the bananas. MAGIC?

Jaws -- who built the house that Chief Brody lives in? Was it just summoned up from thin air? Did they have the proper building permits? Was it up to code? How much did Brody pay for it? What was the interest rate on his mortgage? NONE OF THIS IS EXPLAINED! HOLES HOLES HOLES!

Mazinger

My take on the people watching tv scene:

I think the movie was just showing the audience that TV's are everywhere and everyone watches TV, so it will be hard to "run away" from Samara's curse.

Groucho

The "people watching television" sequence was also an homage to Rear Window.

GeorgiaBoi

1) I never claimed the movie had plot holes hence I am not the creator of this thread.

However I did say some things needed to be explained which I still stand by, otherwise your left walking out the theater or taking out the DVD saying to yourself "yea that was a good movie but wtf was this and that all about" like myself and some others....

2)Obviously alot of people feel the same way so something needed to be addressed related to the issues... This is one of the movies where it's actually beneficial to have the directors commentary on the DVD but you can't change time.....

3) no I don't have to question were Freddy got his glove from because IT WAS EXPLAINED 2 mins into the movie and AGAIN right at about the end.... Not only that the movie itself an every sequel was BASED around his and his gloves origin...

An I also don't have to question Jasons mask? Why..... because it's nothing taking away from or leaving you confused at the end of the movie as to why he's killing folks..... Our understanding is his mom was a lunatic, she was killed, he was born an now hes a lunatic, the end.... It's very simple to explain things.....An the Ring was not that type of horror flick....

Thanks for the reply though

neiname

audrey

Your post reminded me somwhat of the Plot Holes feature they used to run sometimes in Slate--some of these were quite funny. Below is a link to the feature on Along Came A Spider, which includes major spoilers.

http://slate.msn.com/id/105518