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I know that these two episodes are virtually identical. What I don’t understand it why. I heard that an episode had to be pulled, yet I still don’t know why or what was contained in the episode. Does anyone know greater detail on these two twin episodes?
Iconclast
I know it’s stupid, but when I watched The Web, at the beginning I thought it was recapping from what happened in The Net, then about 40 minutes into the programme, me and my friend just thought it was a repeat so we turned it off. It wasn’t until the 2nd time I saw it that I noticed there were some bits different throughout the programme. I dunno why they showed both episodes,they should have just shown The Web which explained everything in the end.
I liked the way they did it……very subtle editing……
The reason for eps back to back, is they tell
the same story from two different perspectives, ala the Japanese movie, Roshoman, where the action was described by
different points of view of the characters…
the wife, the husband, and the bandit…
( at least I think it was Roshoman)…one of
those them there..Japanese flicks….
quote:
Originally posted by mayaxiong:
( at least I think it was Roshoman)…one of
those them there..Japanese flicks….
yup, i felt the urge to ‘improve my mind’ a while back and did a stint of kurosawa and fellini…ended up suicidal and retreated to friday the 13th sequals to cheer myself up 
quote:
Originally posted by FX:
yup, i felt the urge to ‘improve my mind’ a while back and did a stint of kurosawa and fellini…ended up suicidal and retreated to friday the 13th sequals to cheer myself up
Darlin’, you don’t go to those films to improve your mind…You go to those to satisfy a certain artistic craving. Never force Kurosawa or Fellini on oneself. It’s better to improve your mind by seeking the sublime in the least-likely places, such as Friday the 13th Part 6: Jason Lives! (my personal favorite out of the bunch). If you’re feeling a bit more artsy, I’d recommend Last House on the Left, as it’s at least inspired by Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring. Or Herschell Gordon Lewis’ 2000 Maniacs!, which is loosely based on the musical Brigadoon (not to be confused with a certain LEXX episode).
–Aleck
I am anXious to see “the Net” again. I remember it turns out that Stan is still being controlled by the creature and Kai threatens to kill him. But most of what I saw in The Web was stuff that I remembered seeing The Net, but obvisously The Net had more stuff in it. So.. was The Web just a heavily padded episode or what? I want a detailed side by side comparison.
Unfortunately, a lot of US fans probably never saw Web because of the US SciFi channel’s decision not to air it over cable. Apparently not grasping the Rashomon concept and finding the episodes too similar, they instead only aired Net over cable at the usual time, and directly followed it with Web over the internet via streaming video on the same night. The technical quality of the webcast wasn’t too bad on a broadband connection – it just seemed like a lame way to avoid showing an episode.
Anyway, as Mayaxiong said, the idea was to do a take on the old Akira Kurosawa film Rashomon, where we see the same events from different perspectives – Xev’s in Web and an omniscient perspective in Net. Although there are many parts common to both episodes, there are other scenes unique to each like the opening of ten minutes of Web, where the rationale for heading to the center of the universe to escape Mantrid is developed, and the final ten minutes of Net where the small spider-like web creature controlling Stan is finally revealed and destroyed. There are also many scenes where either the actual perspective is different, or the viewer’s awareness of what is occurring is different. For example, when Xev first revives Stan in Web and he tells her to find Kai and cut the chord because “it’s killing us”, I thought he meant that the large web was killing them, not that Kai was in fact killing the creatures as we find out later in Net. A lot of 790’s dialog in Web threw me as well, since I just assumed he was insulting Stan rather than accurately warning about something malevolent controlling him – Stan appeared innocent and confused in Web, but had those wonderfully evil and devious expressions in Net. Now for all of this to work to maximum effect, Web really should be viewed first, and the two probably thought of as one continuous episode. Viewed that way I think the concept works, but it is rather experimental and whether one considers it successful or not probably depends on their perspective
.quote:
Originally posted by Aleck:
It’s better to improve your mind by seeking the sublime in the least-likely places, such as Friday the 13th Part 6: Jason Lives! (my personal favorite out of the bunch). If you’re feeling a bit more artsy, I’d recommend Last House on the Left, as it’s at least inspired by Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring. Or Herschell Gordon Lewis’ 2000 Maniacs!, which is loosely based on the musical Brigadoon (not to be confused with a certain LEXX episode).
–Aleck
you are right as always aleck, however i would substitute i spit on your grave for ten thousand maniacs for sheer novelty of the woman actually getting back at the rapists (novel for its time)while keeping the cheesy facelicking/drooling and the ‘trite and true’ woman suddenly becomes beautiful and sexy once she is raped sub plot
anything based however loosely on ed gein is always a winner too
all seriousness aside, jason is absolutely on in the web/net eppy’s ; they were experimental and had very good moments, but the effect was rendered incomprehensible by the scifi gerbils…i had to read saddy’s reviews to get what was going on as we only saw one…
Thanks Jason! That was a really good summary. I still haven’t seen The Web…I’m waiting for that last DVD of S2 to come out!
quote:
Originally posted by FX:
you are right as always aleck, however i would substitute i spit on your grave for ten thousand maniacs
I’d subsititute I Spit on Your Grave for 10,000 Maniacs as well. I never could stomach that Natalie Merchant. All that fey earnestness…bah.
Getcher exploitation film references right, sweetie. It’s 2,000 Maniacs!, made right down the road from you in St. Cloud, FL.quote
anything based however loosely on ed gein is always a winner too
Amen to that. Psycho (which is hard to include just because of the level of acceptance it’s engendered), Three on a Meathook, Deranged (which is the closest to the actual story, and also the laugh-out-loud funniest), and the immortal The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Oh, the joy that is Saw. Beautifully grotesque camera work and composition (the opening strobe/”photography” sequence leading into the graveyard sculpture being revealed, the bizarre closups of Marilyn Burns’ eyes), expert build-up of dread and anxiety, eminently quotable (“Look what your brother did to the door!”), and unrelentingly nerve-shattering (it’s still hard for me to sit through the dinner sequence, which seems like 3 hours of Marilyn Burns just screaming…I’d recommend to anyone to check out the audio commentary on the DVD to hear about the filming of this scene)…all with about 2 or 3 scenes of actual bloodshed. Everything else is implied (or you just see some blood, never really much, and have no idea where it came from).
quote
all seriousness aside, jason is absolutely on in the web/net eppy’s ; they were experimental and had very good moments, but the effect was rendered incomprehensible by the scifi gerbils…i had to read saddy’s reviews to get what was going on as we only saw one…
Exactly. I don’t understand how SciFi thought that they could just show one ep. “The Net” established vital plot points. While “The Web” revealed everything that was hidden in “The Net,” the revelation means nothing when you don’t know what was hidden. It’s the action of revealing that’s important, and neither one works without the other.
–Aleck
An additional note about Net/Web: Valdron told us that the reason Salter did those two eps that way was because funds were getting tight, and they were running up against a deadline in getting all their episodes out. So they took one episode and shot extra scenes (much cheaper and faster than filming a whole new ep) to make two episodes out of it, a la Rashomon. Luckily for me, a friend sent me a tape, so I managed to see both of them, and I have to say they did a bang up job. I found Scifi’s decision to air only one episode unfortunate, if not a little insulting.
Understandably, “I spit on your grave” has its’ good points, but it’s hard to compete
with “The Hills Have Eyes”, “Faster Pussycat,
Kill, Kill” and “The Blood Spattered Bride”..
truly, truly classics, (and don’t make me
whip out all my Russ Meyer Flicks, Ultravixen, etc)
hanging head in shame…..Oh, I forgot…re: Net/Web-Roshoman comparison, I sure don’t know everyone is
having such a tough time figuring it all out.
After about 3 hits of mescaline, it all made
perfect sense to me…(.shrugs..)
and once again Aleck proves he’s not just a
pretty face…quote:
Originally posted by Doffy:
Thanks Jason! That was a really good summary. I still haven’t seen The Web…I’m waiting for that last DVD of S2 to come out!
Thank you Doffy. I caught the webcast of “The Web” but it wasn’t as good as seeing it for real so I sort of have a new episode to look forward to also. But it is now available on the S2V4 DVD – “The Net” will be on V5.
quote:
Originally posted by Aleck:
Exactly. I don’t understand how SciFi thought that they could just show one ep. “The Net” established vital plot points. While “The Web” revealed everything that was hidden in “The Net,” the revelation means nothing when you don’t know what was hidden. It’s the action of revealing that’s important, and neither one works without the other.
–Aleck
Aleck, not to be too picky but you’ve got the titles backwards – “The Web” is the setup episode where we only see things essentially from Xev’s perspective, and “The Net” is the revealing episode where we see things as they actually are. But your point about SciFi is well taken. Not only did they not show Web on regular cable, but they did the webcast directly after the prime time airing of Net at 10 PM, thus ruining the effect by reversing the sequence (unless one were to purposely skip prime time and catch it at 1 AM after seeing the webcast).
quote:
Originally posted by mayaxiong:
Understandably, “I spit on your grave” has its’ good points, but it’s hard to compete
with “The Hills Have Eyes”, “Faster Pussycat,
Kill, Kill” and “The Blood Spattered Bride”..
truly, truly classics, (and don’t make me
whip out all my Russ Meyer Flicks, Ultravixen, etc)
hanging head in shame…..
There is no shame in pulling out the Russ flix. None whatsoever (when I clean up my inbox, moving all my personal mails into my personal folders, etc., my email from Tura Satana is the only thing I allow to remain on screen). Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is, IMHO, the second greatest film ever made, sandwiched between Citizen Kane and Touch of Evil. Russ Meyer is a god among men. A filmmaking giant. A true legend in his own time. I worship his divine shadow. Or, rather, the divine shadows cast by any one of his starlets. The only Russ Meyer film I *don’t* enjoy watching on a regular basis is Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens simply because I’ve never been able to stomach Kitten Natividad (the narration by the late Stuart Lancaster is *priceless*, especially when matched with the editing, however).
Now, The Hills Have Eyes gains points for the presence of Michael Berryman in his finest role, but I still think that one can’t really beat Last House on the Left in the revenge catagory for sheer bravura, and for David Hess’ incredibly creepy turn as Krug Stillo.quote
and once again Aleck proves he’s not just a pretty face…
I think the mescaline hasn’t worn off yet. You’re right, of course, I’m not just a pretty face. I also have a *delightful* bum.
quote:
Originally posted by Jason:
Aleck, not to be too picky but you’ve got the titles backwards – “The Web” is the setup episode where we only see things essentially from Xev’s perspective, and “The Net” is the revealing episode where we see things as they actually are.
You’re absolutely right. I always get the titles of these mixed up. Hell, I nearly approved scene index menus with the wrong titles. Thanks for catching that.
–Aleck
quote:
Originally posted by Doffy:
Thanks Jason! That was a really good summary. I still haven’t seen The Web…I’m waiting for that last DVD of S2 to come out!
Um… it’s like been out and stuff.. like since Oct.2nd (Best Buy’s tom-foolery not withstanding)Xept for those few lucky like moi who got it the Monday before one week ahead of time cause they pre-ordered it from Amazon.com
And Jason.. nice summary but I grasped the concept. I’ve watched The Web twice and it’s been ages since I’ve seen The Net. I guess I was wanting to know what was in The Web that wasn’t in the Net. Please edumacate my ass if you can. This will “bug” me until January. I suppose I will have to poor through Sad’s episode synopsis as well for comparison.
I did try watching The Web when SciFi played it online. It started out fine but then went to more of a still slide show then it started bufferiing and I started missing a lot of what was being played
so I turned it off.[ 16-10-2001: Message edited by: X ]
Yes Aleck, I agree that BTVOTUV is not the best Meyer sequel, simply because he ended up exploiting himself…Who da thought?
But no one…and I mean no one can beat Dario Argento for the lovely use of vivid blue and red photography as a signature look..check out the re-release of Suspiria on dvd..it resembles a 1960’s Hypgnosis album cover design…(HP Lovecraft anyone, and I don’t mean the scifi writer..) quote:
Originally posted by mayaxiong:
Yes Aleck, I agree that BTVOTUV is not the best Meyer sequel, simply because he ended up exploiting himself…Who da thought?
True, but it’s really only Kitten that does it in for me. If it had been, say, Erica Gavin in the role, and if Charles Napier had played one of the redneck guys, it would possibly be up there with Supervixens. And anyway, it’s got that touching coda with Russ packing away his camera.
quote
But no one…and I mean no one can beat Dario Argento for the lovely use of vivid blue and red photography as a signature look..check out the re-release of Suspiria on dvd..it resembles a 1960’s Hypgnosis album cover design…(HP Lovecraft anyone, and I don’t mean the scifi writer..)
Got it, watched it, love it. The sound remix on this title is kind of troubling, but still well worth the dough. The music (with Profondo Rosso, aka Deep Red, Goblin’s best work) is mixed way too low, as are some sound effects (if you’re listening on a 5.1 sound system, the trick is to pump up the volume on the surrounds), and a couple of semi-audible lines of dialogue and sound effects are missing completely. But the use of color in his lighting design is just incredible, and it’s never looked as good as it does on the new release. Also check out the loose sequel Inferno, which has a very good remaster as well.
To get to the roots of Dario’s color design, though, you have to check out Mario Bava’s works, particularly The Whip and the Body, which just came out this year on VCI’s budget DVD line in an *incredible* restoration. It’s a ghost story, it’s a mystery, it’s a gothic romance, it’s an exploration of repression, it’s a s/m kink film, it’s tasteful *and* lascivious. One of my favorite Bavas. Also the cheap-as-all-get-out MGM “Midnite Movies” release of Bava’s Planet of the Vampires is a great restoration of a key title in Bava’s work. Great use of color and atmosphere, rumored to have inspired Alien (though everyone connected with it denies it), made for about a buck-fifty, and a beautiful piece of art.Now that all but *maybe* 5 people have been alienated by the turn this thread has taken, maybe we should get back to LEXX.
“The Web.” That’s some episode, huh?
–Aleck
MY BAD!! (others are sitting there going..
what…) I agree, back to more Lexxy topics.
say……the juxtaposition of one eppy toward the other for the purposes of the storytelling process…or something like that..
(maya smacks Aleck’s hand away from her Jean Rollin collection…)quote:
Originally posted by mayaxiong:
MY BAD!! (others are sitting there going..
what…) I agree, back to more Lexxy topics.
say……the juxtaposition of one eppy toward the other for the purposes of the storytelling process…or something like that..
To get back on topic, as I’ve said, one episode of this pairing completely ruins the intended effect. What strikes me about this is the successful way in which they handled both episodes. A lazy attempt would have been to just shoot additional footage expanding on certain scenes in “The Web.” “The Net” goes to the trouble of not only expanding scenes, but to provide different coverage of the same scenes to reveal Stan’s posession. If it were just additional footage, one could combine the variant cuts to produce a nearly-feature-length episode, but the way it’s structured makes that impossible, and encourages the viewer to watch and re-watch these episodes. Very few things deliberately set themselves up to be so obscure that repeated viewings are vital in order to catch everything, and these two episodes handle this quite nicely. The only problem I have is with the story itself. It’s not a truly memorable or original idea, but judging from the reports, it was put together out of neccessity, and it’s the only episode idea I can think of out of this season (particularly out of the later episodes) that lends itself to this kind of treatment.
To kind of answer X’s question, a side-by-side comparison would be kind of hard to pull off, as there are so many variances, but I don’t think that either episode is really filler-packed. Both episodes provide common scenes that are neccessary for both to stand on their own as episodes in their own right, and there are other scenes that *appear* common that have slight variances in content. Just a look from Stan, or a reaction shot, or a sound effect. Both appear, when taking them on their own, to contain lots of filler, but when the act of comparison is done, it’s all vital footage.quote
(maya smacks Aleck’s hand away from her Jean Rollin collection…)
As well you should. I’ve been meaning to pick up more Rollin stuff. I’ve only got Levres de Sang/Lips of Blood and Requiem pour un Vampire/Requiem for a Vampire (the Something Weird Video release under the Harry Novak re-titling of Caged Virgins, one of the most inexplicable re-titlings in history). I keep being told to check out Shiver of the Vampires and Living Dead Girl and to hold out for the upcoming DVD release of Raisins de la Mort. What I *really* want is poster art from his first few films.
–Aleck
Got Living Dead Girl, alot of the stuff re-released on the Redemption series is greatly improved over some of the original film work, thanks to digital editing, check out Fascination and La Vampire Nue or Franco’s Virgin among the Living Dead and of course, Jose Larraz’s Black Candles..
(maya considering getting Barbara Steele a guest shot in Lexx as the ‘ultimate’ vampire witch..) see, not o/t altogether…hmm…
Babs would make a great villianess!
quote:
Originally posted by mayaxiong:
(maya considering getting Barbara Steele a guest shot in Lexx as the ‘ultimate’ vampire witch..) see, not o/t altogether…hmm…
Babs would make a great villianess!
I still contend that Udo Kier is the one “star” that the Beans should have gunned for, and I’m still disappointed that they didn’t. I mean, he would have *done* it, and for probably less than the rugs that Malcom MacDowell got for making Giga Shadow.
Now, Babs would be great, but I don’t know if she even wants to deal with doing a send-up of horror now…she’s apparantly pretty bitter about being pigeonholed as a “scream queen.” I’m still trying to figure out how they got Britt Ekland (and where she fits into the storyline).
–Aleck
Ah yes, he most certainly been a very good addition to the guest star cast, but think of Babs, the black mane, the crooked puffy lips, the intensely burning eyes…Hey! Wait a minute..that’s KAI!!!
If you know which ep Britt will be in, I could use some help in tracking down the title, someone emailed me last week that was an extra in one of the scenes, and didn’t know how to watch for it when it comes on in Canada…I posted a query on the eps page, but no one ever responded to it..quote:
Originally posted by X:
And Jason.. nice summary but I grasped the concept. I’ve watched The Web
twice and it’s been ages since I’ve seen The Net. I guess I was wanting to know what was in The Web that wasn’t in the Net. Please edumacate my ass if you can. This will “bug” me until January. I suppose I will have to poor through Sad’s episode synopsis as well for comparison.
X, I don’t think I can answer your question any better than Aleck already has, but I’ll give you an example of a major difference between the two episodes that sets the entire tone for each. When the giant web first attacks and its tentacles penetrate inside the Lexx, we last see the crew on the bridge. The next scene in “Web” is of Xev waking up in bed wondering what happened to Stan and Kai, and the scenes after that are seen from her perspective as she locates them and tries to figure out what happened. In “Net”, we actually see what happens to each crewmember after the tentacles carry them from the bridge – the strands penetrate into Stan and Kai, but not Xev. Hence, while we might have suspected something was up with Stan in “Web”, we know he is actually possessed in “Net”. We also see the giant web stopped dead in its tracks when it penetrates Kai – that’s why it never penetrates or possesses Xev and in fact has to have Stan direct her to sever the chord before it can even move again. There are other obvious and more subtle differences, but I’m not sure I even want to try to remember any more until I get the V4 DVD (any day now) and watch them back to back again.
Well, thanX anyways, Jason. Maybe they just let some takes run a bit longer in The Web which were trimmed up in The Net. Shave a few off each take and you’ve got a few Xtra minutes of time. Guess we’ll have to wait
quote:
Originally posted by X:
Well, thanX anyways, Jason. Maybe they just let some takes run a bit longer in The Web which were trimmed up in The Net. Shave a few off each take and you’ve got a few Xtra minutes of time. Guess we’ll have to wait
I’ll try and work up a more detailed thing later, but it’s more than just scenes running longer. It’s entirely different coverage of scenes. For instance, in “The Web” you’ll have a shot with Kai and Xev in the foreground, and with Stan’s back to them in the background, and in “The Net” you see the same scene, but shot with Stan in the fg (making “evil possessed Stan” face) facing the camera, and with Kai and Xev in the bg. It’s handled very well. I’ll take a look at both episodes and see if I can come up with a detailed comparison tonight.
–Aleck
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