Momo & greenglow thoroughly hash out Destiny & destiny on the resurrected FF board.
Posted by The Real Momo 10-09-2003
While there is nothing in the script to suggest who was responsible for "the plan" implemented by FLiz and FMax, it does refer to "we". It appears to be a joint plan with Serena providing the scientific "method" to implement the plan. I do, however, think it was probably Liz who came up with the idea or the theory. Certainly, Liz was the most obvious "planner" and it's Liz who learns the lessons that "the best laid plans of mice and men oft times goes awry" [excuse the quote if I haven't got it just right since I'm kind of paraphrasing].
Which got me thinking about "Destiny" all over again and "EOTW". I was reading Creative Scripting and came across an interview with Brian Helgeland, who wrote the scripts for The Order and Mystic River. In it, he discusses destiny and made some remarks which I thought were particularly suited to Max and Liz and their destinies.
originally quoted by Brian Helgeland in the Sept/Oct 2003 of Creative Screenwriting
There's a sense that their lives are preordained: they're going to end up where they're going to end up, no matter what they do or how hard they try to get out of it. Everyone wants to believe you have some control over your destiny, and where you end up is a result of what you make out of things. Both of these movies [The Order, Mystic River] are saying that's not true, that where you end up is a direct result of where you came from and the world you grew up in. Where you came from has much more to do with where you end up than you want to admit; you want to think you're in control of it when in fact you're really not. ... It's like when the Oracle of Delphi says that when Oedipus gets to a certain age he's going to sleep with his mother and kill his father. Oedipus does everything he can to avoid it, but that's where he's head. That sense of inevitable tragedy looming, and watching them, as aware of it as they are, trying to get away from it but at the same time heading towards it.
On one hand, you have Max, a product of where he was born and the environment he was raised in and as much as he tries to deny it, where he comes from has a great deal to do with where he ends up. Max continually tells us that you can create your own destiny, but it's his past that is constantly getting in the way of that.
Liz, on the other hand, is doing everything she can to avoid destiny, and yet, there is the sense that she iis heading toward her destiny no matter how much she tries to avoid it. In Liz's case, Madam Vivian takes the place of the Delphi Oracle. She tells Liz: The reading is clear. You marry your true love. You have happiness. This card here? Intimacy, sex. You will not be left wanting. And is a cut there, it's hammered home: All roads have twists and turns, but what I have told you is true.
When FMax tells Liz he needs to fall out of love with her, she tries to undo her "preordained" destiny by helping FMax "save the world" and "all their lives". And however successfully it appears she has done just that, the twists and turns of the road lead her back to the "destiny" as foretold by Madam Vivian. Liz marries her "true love". In version 1 of "destiny", Tess leaves , disgusted by Max; in version 2, Tess, branded as Alex's murderer, leaves for Antar with Max's child. History, though changed, leads Liz back to her destiny.
In the background, tragedy still looms. Has history changed enough to stave off "the end of the world"? According to the script of "EOTW", the answer is yes. The pod squad history changes when Tess touches Max's shoulder on the bench.
Ironically, it seems that Tess's destiny has also been preordained -- Tess leaves. Though the circumstances are different, she still leaves. So why doesn't the end of the world come? Or does it still in 2014? Unanswered questions worthy of lots of debate time.
But perhaps, we can take an old superstition -- when you give life, you take it away from some place else. So perhaps Alex 's death is the real sacrifice which "saves the world". And perhaps, his death also was "preordained" by Madam Vivian as she says of his relationship with Isabel: You are a wonderful friend. Her foundation. You will never have a carnal relationship. In a wider and looser interpretation of Alex's tea leaf reading, perhaps "you will never have a carnal relationship" is a veiled premonition of Alex's death.
So destiny is something we can't escape, and as aware as Max and Liz are of destiny, as much as they had tried to escape from it, they crash into it. A little Dave Matthews anyone?
Posted by greenglow 10-09-2003
Momo: you make some good remarks on your post, but to my view, they simply demonstrate how poorly written and disapointingly shallow and absurd is the script of TEOTW.
I think what the script is based on is pretty obvious. After all, their just recycling typical ideas about fate and pre-destinated life. A very old story, been done hundreds of times before. Its so *done* already that is a very bad start to grow a plot in.
Plus, this goes against the very basic thing that made Roswell special: the magic, the idea that people can change the way they live, embracing who they are, what they want, side by side with the ones you care about, your friends, your lovers. Thats what Max is talking about when he says "we make our own destiny" and that is a very big part of what Season 1 is about.
TEOTW goes against all of that and the worst thing is that its so poorly done that in the end it only end up shifting the "theme" of the show to angst and sorrow.
Still, the show could have survived, if it wasn't for CYN and everything after. That *really* made it *all* about angst and sorrow. Oh, and CHADS.
I agree that every man and woman is a product of circustance and noone can totaly control is "destiny", but individuals do count, we do have the ability to shape our lifes to a certain extent, and thats what Max, Liz and the rest of the gang are after back in season 1, leaving normal.
When "Destiny" is introduced into the plot, this puts the pod-squad and the others to the test. And they choose to live their own lifes. Even with TEOTW, in season 2, until VLV, everyone is slowly pulling away from "Destiny". Even Tess is discovering herself. It was a big mistake to change that. Because in the end I don't think "Departure" is confirming their so-called fate. Not at all.
And that's how bad TEOTW is.