But Red/Adelaide were the only two who had experienced both privilege/surface life as well as underground existence. None of the other tethered could bring such a perspective. It wasn’t some touch of magic.
Yes, but the extreme age difference makes an extreme difference. And also, I don’t think you can count the early life as a life of privilege necessarily. They are at a boardwalk carnival in Santa Cruz, and the father is this alcoholic dope. I can see your point if I really stare at it, in that both of them claw their way up to try to find the success they want. That’s a good parallel. But I don’t see why this makes them singular/doubular other than the screenwriter deciding she was Neo. I use Neo deliberately, because of the White Rabbit, but it is very much a “THE ONE” kind of story.
Why I don’t buy it here…as in, why I don’t get why this particular little tethered gets to choke her tethered and take over the world for some reason…as opposed to why I buy it in The Matrix, for instance, is because I think the writing in the latter is better. And, what’s more, it unfolds. Here we are just asked to accept that this random girl choked another girl and then the choked girl started a zombie apocalypse.
So why? Why does this random girl get to be THE ONE? I don’t know. And I don’t think Jordan Peele does either. I think he just thought it would be a cool twist.
Neo, on the other hand, emerges as a character who is learning about himself. Who is having to be led to himself, as well. This movie asks us to just accept that I guess they both just forgot who they were? Or that one of them forgot how to use an escalator.
It’s like that shark reef movie @tomchick talks about, where it really should be over in five minutes. Once she’s out of her chains…geez…just go up and have your Kirk-vs-Kirk moment with the family. Why’d you wait 29 years to do this? As a child she decided this was a moral imperative?
It just doesn’t hold up, in the writing. I mean I love a lot of the filmmaking, but I think you’re giving the twist way too much credit.
-xtien
I wish Jordan Peele had heeded the bolded word. Us needed focus. All these cool idea lost in a sea of Jaws riffs, rabbit imagery, government conspiracy, satires of charity, metaphysics, and dance metaphors. Take away any three of those and Us would have been better able to express what you’re talking about. :(
Well, also The Matrix is a superhero movie and Us is a horror movie. It’s much easier to accept The One in a power fantasy.
Whatever, nerd. /kellywand
-Tom