movie thoughts: Veronica Mars

[orangerful]

So, as I think all of you know, I backed the Veronica Mars movie on Kickstarter. I had watched the show religiously when it initially aired and I was excited by the prospect of seeing Kristen Bell on the big screen in a role that would take advantage of all of her talents.

Leading up to the movie's release, I decided to rewatch the series since I hadn't seen it since it was on TV, even though I had purchased the DVDs almost 7 years ago. If you read those posts, you know that the show did not fair as well during the second viewing. Or, at least, I realized things about the show that I didn't notice the first time through. Mostly that it doesn't have the character development that I made me love shows like Buffy, Firefly, or Gilmore Girls. Watching season 1 - 3 over the course of 2 months made it very clear - Veronica Mars is not about characters growing or changing, it's about solving mysteries. At it's core, it is a noir detective series that just happens to take place in a high school instead of a black and white city.

With these confusing feelings in my heart, we started up the movie right after watching the final four episodes of Season 3. Here are my thoughts:


The Good

• The gang was all there! It was so great to see all of our main characters back, but especially Kristen and Enrico because I still think they have one of the best father/daughter dynamics in a tv show ever.
  
• Even better was seeing all the side characters, like the semi-stoner guy or the Principal. Nice that they were able to track them down. And Cliff. I adore Cliff.
  
• SCHMIDT! LEO! That scene was great, especially when he asked her about the FBI LOLOL!
  
• It felt like a long episode of the TV show and that was perfectly fine. The mystery was relatively solid, with enough little twists to keep you guessing.
  
• Banter! Pop culture references!
  
• Silly voices! Secret identities! Accessories!
  

All in all, I was happy with the majority of the broader strokes of the film. But then little things started to bug me...

The Bad

• They should not have made Piz and Veronica a couple if they were just going to break them up. Were they supposedly together for 9 years? If that is true, then that break-up was shitty on her part. Thomas should have just made them friends, maybe had a quick sentence about why it didn't work out and moved on. Wallace and Mac could have still flown him out, there could still be sexual tension but at least Veronica wouldn't look like a horrible person.
  
• Weevil's ending sucked. Why would he throw away his happy life with his wife and child and suddenly become a biker gang leader again? Just, no. How about he could be the example of people that can escape Neptune's grasp and that it is possible?
  
• Sorta disappointed we heard nothing about what happened with the Sheriff election that ended Season 3.
  
• I wish Veronica's career story had not been so integral because it sorta made me sick her throwing away everything. And the idea that she didn't go to the FBI academy AND spent a ton of money on law school only to throw it all away to go back to Neptune made me sad...
  

See, here is where I can't figure out if the problem is the movie or the problem is between me and the genre. I don't really do a lot of noir detective stories. Heck, I don't even watch a lot of detective shows period. Talking with andy_wolverton about what defines that genre, I would say that Veronica Mars fits the bill - the idea of no escape, being trapped, a guess a kind of fatalism? Defeatism? I have grown to prefer character that fight back and watching Veronica throw away a life she had for NINE YEARS and decide to go back to being a P.I. in Neptune just made me too sad. But that is noir. It's dark and you're trapped and you do what you gotta do to stay alive.

Couldn't she have gone with Logan to wherever he was stationed and solved crimes there? See the world, Veronica! It ends with her smirking but all I could envision was Keith feeling so sad that he had let his daughter down, that she was trapped again.

So while it was probably the only ending that worked for Veronica Mars, it was not the ending I wanted for Veronica Mars, if that makes sense.


All in all, a 3 star movie for me. I've only watched it once and I'm not sure if I want to watch it again right away. I almost think I need more space between me and the film to try to get the woulda-coulda-shoulda plot lines out of my head and go back to it with an open mind. The whole show was not what I remembered, confusing the aging of characters for development. It's a detective show, through and through, and this movie is a good detective story. It's just too bad the characters had to take such abuse.

Comments

[lostacanthus.livejournal.com]

I really kinda liked how it ended! (Maybe this means I should read more noir?) I took it less as her being/feeling trapped, but more like she was returning, but on her own terms. Yeah, it's kind of a bummer that she spent all that money on law school and was finally able to "get out" of Neptune, but it was such a huge part of her, I don't think she would have ever been able to really get out. Idk, it's hard to imagine Veronica Mars without Neptune and I think as much as maybe she told herself that being out was what she wanted, there would have been a part of her that was always back there. Also (and it is probably naive of me to think this) but I feel like at least if she's back in Neptune she could try and change it, or at least make it better for the people who actually are stuck there. She already got rid of Lamb 2 after being back a few weeks.

I figured you didn't like the Piz/Veronica stuff :c I'm sorry for your sake that they broke up. It was kinda crappy if they had been together for nine years to just end it so quickly, and she wastes like, no time before going back to Logan. (Which... I'm not complaining about too much, lol.)

Anyway! YEs! It was so awesome that they got everyone back! Schmidt's scene was probably one of my favorites. I was actually buying that he didn't remember her and was about to get really sad, lol. It was perfect though. Omg and Dax Shepard lol. So maybe he was my favorite and Schmidt was a close second. I need some gifs of that scene! XD Everything I was finding on tumblr was all Logan and Veronica. PEOPLE NEED TO REALIZE WHAT IS REALLY IMPORTANT HERE lol.

Oh! You know what else I really liked? Having TMZ in there. Idk, it just made it feel that much more real.

And as for the election, I just figured Keith didn't win. It wasn't looking very good for him by the end of S3 :C And even if Vinnie did win, he is so wildly incompetent it's not hard to believe he didn't last very long, lol. In Neptune! Hive of scum and villainy that it is, and Vinnie Van Lowe couldn't do one job. BUT, really, would it have killed them to at least mention it?? :\ It would be nice to have word of god one way or the other.

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

I think a lot of this is me projecting onto Veronica. I didn't think that being a lawyer was the right fit for her either but to me there was something that just didn't quite work for me with that ending. Maybe it was because Keith wanted her to get out so badly and perhaps I was just more upset about him being disappointed that Veronica ended up back in Neptune, taking of the business because he got hurt. I dunno, I wish there had been a little more set-up for that. To make it feel less like she was obligated to stay because of Keith's injuries vs she feels like herself again.

Everyone says there was a throw-away line where Piz explains that they have only just started dating again since college but I still felt is was unnecessary to try to resurrect Team Piz/Team Logan crap. I knew that Thomas would go for Logan (who, btw, gets to escape Neptune because he joined the Navy...which I also feel was lazy character development because how many shows use bad-boy-joins-military as code for military-taught-him-to-be-good or something? I dunno)

OH DAX! That made me happy. I love that he got to have a cameo. :)

I want to hear how Vinnie crashed and burned!!! It would have been hilarious! No word on the Fitzpatricks either, did Keith manage to take them down? GAH just little things like that would have been nice, much more important to me than who Veronica ended up dating (Piz was too good for her anyway, I want Piz, she can have Logan)

[juliet-demarcus.livejournal.com]

I could say more, but I'm sleepy and can't articulate it all...however I did think that I heard Piz say in the movie that he and Veronica had dated a while in college and then got together again a year ago when he was talking to his boss/coworker about why the two had never met. Or maybe he was saying that's why she'd never met his parents even. So I think they reunited and started dating around a year before when the movie is set. I don't think they were even in contact for the bulk of those nine years. I think they only put them together to sensationalize this Team Logan/Team Piz thing that they thought would appeal to the fans of other movies like Twilight and The Hunger Games. I could have done without it, but at least they (as I understood it) had not been together the whole time...as you're right, that would have looked pretty bad.

Also, I just watched the show for the first time this year, and saw the movie yesterday... But I had the impression that her wanting to "escape" Neptune had more to do with who she thought she wanted to be vs. who she actually was. So I was ok with it. The idea of Veronica as a lawyer (especially as she seemed to have a catalog of lawyer jokes and insults on hand that indicated she didn't think highly of the profession) was hard for me to picture without making me sad for some reason. I also liked the idea that instead of giving up on a place where so much injustice is going on (Neptune) and just leaving, she was going to fight it and try to make it a better place for the other people who maybe didn't have a chance to get out.

I was confused by Weevil's ending though... Not sure what they were doing with that. I'm still trying to figure it out.

Wow, I said more than I meant to. Forgive me if it's gibberish. I'm sleep deprived.

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

I think I was more annoyed that they felt is necessary to dredge up the Team Logan Team Piz stuff for the movie - especially since we all knew Thomas was all about Logan. And, honestly, Veronica doesn't deserve a Piz anyway. I wanted Piz. I was projecting my good taste onto Veronica LOL. She can have her Logan.

I didn't understand the whole lawyer thing, was that just their code for her attempting to be responsible adult? It just felt wrong but wrong to the core, like Veronica would never have done that. We never heard that discussed. Shouldn't she have been in journalism? Or something more fitting? There was no precedent for her wanting to be a lawyer.

I also think I was projecting there too, though. I felt really bad for Keith, like he would blame himself for Veronica staying because of the accident. I wish we had seen her struggling a bit more before the movie started with being comfortable. It's been 9 years, it feels like there should have been more.

I enjoyed the movie overall but these little things keep bugging me mostly because I feel like they were easy fixes.

LOL and I'm all about the sleep deprived posts. This made perfect sense. :)

[rhoda-rants.livejournal.com]

Nothing relevant to say, just dropping some avatar love. <3

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

I just wish they had said they dated for 3 months in college and now they were just good friends. Trying to create drama where there is none is annoying and just sorta cruel to Piz as a character. I knew Thomas was in love with LoVe so it was no surprise to me they ended up together.

I just wish we could have seen more of her choice making. To me it felt like she got sucked back in and nothing had changed and instead of growing she just settled back in. Her final speech even felt very "oh well, guess I'll stay" to me not "you know, i've been trying to fight crime in the big city but Neptune needs me more"...it was just the tone of those last few moments that really bugged me. Plus I felt like Keith would be very sad, like it's his fault because of the accident.

[elizalavelle.livejournal.com]

Piz and Veronica weren't together for 9 years. He has a quick exposition at the beginning that they dated in college for a few months (season 3) then met sometime in the last year and started dating again. But I think that Rob Thomas just wanted Chris Lowell in the movie, Veronica could have started out single with no change to the plot at all.

I want more of the Weevil story. We don't know what his wife thinks about any of this. For all we know she encouraged him to go out and join the gang. Or maybe she's devastated. I want to see follow up on this.

I am with you on all of the good that you mentioned :)

I think the ending is sad but also really complex. I don't see Veronica throwing away the education, she'll use it, just in a different way. Maybe this is because I have a degree that's not being used traditionally and it's working out just fine even though life isn't going as it was "supposed" to.

But yes the happy ending would be Veronica getting out and not looking back. But we wouldn't have a movie that way ;)

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

Considering that we all know Thomas is firmly Team Logan, I really wish they hadn't felt the need to have her dating Piz. Why not just have them be good friends? We assume he went to college with her and Wallace and Mac for the rest of their time there, nothing in the script would have to change except for the stupid "meet the parents" thing which was dumb anyway.

I feel like I should write another post just about the ending because I think I'm projecting onto Veronica. Or maybe I just think of her in a different way. Or maybe I wanted an ending like Buffy where she burned the town to the ground and moves on with her life LOL. I just felt like those final moments, that her speech was not a positive one, more of a settling one. And while plenty of people settle in real life, I watch shows for hope and man I did not feel hopeful at the end of the movie when it came to Veronica being happy.

I almost wish I had watched the movie without watching the show again, to see if I wouldn't have minded all this as much.

[elizalavelle.livejournal.com]

I don't think Thomas was team Logan, I seem to remember back in the day he talked a lot about the fans not knowing what they really wanted and what they really wanted was Piz.

Piz and Veronica didn't stay in college together though so without hooking up again there's no reason for him to be in the film at all. She left after that first year to go to Stanford, so she just did 1 year at Hearst.

Devils advocate - Did Buffy really move on with her life? She just moved to the next Hellmouth no?

I thought that law school and lawyer job were Veronica settling - so was Piz. Logan and P.I. work were the hard choice and taking them wasn't settling, it was being true to herself.

It certainly is not a hopeful ending though. Neptune has gotten more dark. Stakes are higher and bad things are happening. I think for Veronica she finds satisfaction in saving people where she can and she'll feel that more in Neptune where she really would see her actions create an impact.

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

I'd forgotten about the Stanford line.

And I know I read an interview with Thomas when Season 3 was on, or maybe it was in the Smart Pop book "Neptune Noir" but he pretty much said that Logan and Veronica were his couple and I figure if the creator has picked a team, then that is the official team. I know I wanted Piz back but it didn't have to be in a romantic capacity. Why does everything get turned into Twilight now??

Now that I have rewatched Veronica, I don't think it is fair to compare it to Buffy too much because, honestly, Veronica Mars is a mystery show that happens to have some colorful actors/characters and Buffy is a melodrama with character arcs and development. And if you just look at the show, Buffy ends with her getting a chance to do whatever she wants with her life. Now the Season 8 comics go into a different direction, with her uniting all of the new slayers under one banner (because women's rights are still an issue so there's plenty more real world to turn into metaphor), but I find those more of a side amusement rather than canon, sorta like the Star Wars novels vs the movies.

But, yeah, I think the ending could have worked better? I think you could have had the exact same ending scene but I think I wanted a happy Veronica. She can still be a feisty bitch but I didn't feel like she was on her way to happy.

:) But maybe someday when I rewatch the movie I won't mind it all so much. but right now that ending rubbed me the wrong way and I really think it is probably a personal thing more than the writing.