And is it just me or does Dale Cooper seem to know more about Laura Palmer than he should at this point? I mean throughout the series he had shown some form of intuition, but I always thought he could read people real good. In the movie it seems almost like he’s psychic.

Well it was in that crazy dream state thing... you have to really hold out on your suspension of disbelief with Lynch

Probably, but if you want to get technical he really shouldn't have even been in the movie to begin with, unless they spent time jumping around in the timeline, which they kinda did anyway.

Sorry to bump an old thread, but there are no current TP threads, and didn't feel this quick comment worth it's own thread.

After years of hearing the hype and praise for Twin Peaks, I finally watched the entire series over the course of the last week or two. Wow. Bizarre and amazingly well-done television. I loved it from beginning to end, although it definitely dropped in quality once they stupidly revealed "Who killed Laura Palmer?" in episode 11 or so.

Then I watched the film. Another wow. One of the worst films I've ever seen. Just awful acting, or dialogue, or delivery of the dialogue at least. Maybe my expectations were too high, or I was TPed out.

Interesting comparison. I went to see the film with some TP fans, after having never seen an episode of the show. I was wondering if I was missing a lot of backstory, or if the quality of the movie actually stood alone.
I keep thinking about picking up the TP series, since I've heard great things about it, but I need to catch up on some other series first.

The reason I find FWWM so disappointing is because the movie plays on the same dark note throughout. In the TV series, there were scenes that were quirky, comedic, suspenseful, disturbing, insights into character, there was a wide range of emotion to be felt, while the tone of the entire movie was straightthrough nastiness.

As to Cooper appearing to be physic, my theory was always that FWWM is taking place after the series. Cooper is trapped in the Black Lodge, and he is attempting to get out by reaching back in time to alter the manner in which Laura dies).

I seem to remember hearing that revealing Laura Palmer's killer was originally meant to be dragged out longer but the producers insisted that Lynch and Co. move the story along at a faster pace and reveal more info faster than originally intended (hence why season 2 seemed to slip in Lynchian quality). I'm not 100% on those details perhaps someone with more TP knowledge can elaborate.

I've heard a variation on that that claims Lynch NEVER wanted the murderer to be revealed at all.

The film has a lot of good moments (love that David Bowie cameo for its sheer eerieness) but doesn't quite come together. And I hated Moira Kelly replacing Lara Flynn Boyle. Still, I don't think it's as awful as some say.

Correct, it was supposed to be about the "journey" and not the "destination". ABC forced him to resolve the mystery.

The Bowie scene, the opening with Chris Isaak (and his fate) and the Pink Room. All very memorable.

Yes, that's my general understanding of the situation as well.

The murder of Laura Palmer was supposed to be a McGuffin that set all of these other events into motion, and the identity of the killer was secondary to everything else that was going on in Twin Peaks. (Like the suitcase in Pulp Fiction.)

But a lot of viewers were getting pissy about the central mystery being dragged out -- I can remember Laura Palmer was BORED to death t-shirts -- and ABC forced them to solve the murder early in the second season.

That's exactly why I liked the movie so much. It's a dark story to tell, ain't no room for the quirky stuff. I appreciated it went all the way with it's mood.

Some incredible scenes in the film. The one that sticks with me most is when Mike is yelling at Laura and Leland in their car.

I think the film fits nicely within the TP universe, but I do agree it would have been nice to incorporate more aspects of what made the show so unique. I'm hoping that once this finally hits BD, Lynch will get the opportunity to include the deleted scenes as he intended.

The missing elements from the series are largely contained in the FWWM deleted scenes that people have been waiting for. Lynch initially intended for it to be very much in the same vein as the show, but had to cut all but the core mystery out because of running time constraints.

Amazing how little patience people have. The changes were ordered after the first season of only 7 episodes, with the killer reveal going in episode 10 or 11. 7 episodes and fans and viewers lost patience?! People demanded answers after only 7 episodes? Enough to wear those t-shirts? People like that deserve mediocre television.
The missing elements I wanted are not so much but decent dialogue and acting. Those elements were not present in any part of the film, imo. It felt like Lynch took the first take on everything, or the whole thing was improv.

I've always felt that TPFWWM was an underrated film. The performances from Sheryl Lee and Ray Wise were fantastic. I love the bizzaro Twin Peaks stuff with Chris Issac in the first act. It's not a perfect movie by any means, but it has a dark beauty that fits in nicely to Lynch's work. I always looked at it as the movie is mostly through Laura Palmer's eyes so the quirkiness and fun would seem out of place.

Makes you wonder how a late '80s audience would have handled a TV show like Lost.

I remember him saying that it was never really suppose to be about the mystery but then they started advertising it, Who killed Laura Palmer...

^Yeah, I remember the "Who killed Laura Palmer?" advertising.