Silent Hill

[Mr. Keith]

Has anybody seen this movie yet? I'm hoping to see it later this week, depending on things go around here. But I was wondering if there's anyone whose already gotten the chance to see it, cause I really haven't heard many opinions on how well it turned out.

[Guest]

IT. IS. FREAKING. AWESOME~!

[Missy]

[Guest]

You know, the very first thing that came out of my mouth right after I saw the movie was "man, Yoda's gonna HATE it."

That said, I loved it, and will counteract your scathing review by praising it on G3 at every opportunity.

[Missy]

Okay, so the ending. I've heard two theories:

01. The three main characters (Rose, Sharon and Cybil) died when they crashed, and their spirits were able to escape Silent Hill because they solved the mystery / allowed Alessa to extract her revenge on the ghostly townsfolk.

The problem with this, however, is that the police found Rose's car but no bodies. How do we know this? Simple, really. Officer Gucci would have told Christopher that his wife and daughter were dead. By saying "they're missing," he's inviting an outside investigation. Which he obviously doesn't want. So, no bodies.

02. The Silent Hill Rose, Sharon and Cybil entered was a dreamlike world set atop ours, and, somehow, the three women were able to enter it while the men were not. This makes the most sense (to me, anyways), because Christopher was twice able to feel his wife's presence: they were in the same place at the same time, but separated by some ethereal fog / barrier. Which means events in the dreamlike SH could be nightmarish, while the real SH was just a ghost town with a sad history -- but no otherworldly creepiness.

One other thing that lends credence to this is the color scheme. Rose's Silent Hill is much greyer; there are more ashes in the air, giving the town a dreamy, yet dead feeling. Christopher's Silent Hill wasn't as murky, and had colors that were slightly brighter.

Personally, I'm inclined to believe the second theory. For the first to work, we have to accept that their corpses were spirited from the real world, and I can't accept that.

[Missy]

To cartoons from Penny Arcade: 01 and 02.

[Guest]

Okay, so the ending. I've heard two theories:

01. The three main characters (Rose, Sharon and Cybil) died when they crashed, and their spirits were able to escape Silent Hill because they solved the mystery / allowed Alessa to extract her revenge on the ghostly townsfolk.

The problem with this, however, is that the police found Rose's car but no bodies. How do we know this? Simple, really. Officer Gucci would have told Christopher that his wife and daughter were dead. By saying "they're missing," he's inviting an outside investigation. Which he obviously doesn't want. So, no bodies.

02. The Silent Hill Rose, Sharon and Cybil entered was a dreamlike world set atop ours, and, somehow, the three women were able to enter it while the men were not. This makes the most sense (to me, anyways), because Christopher was twice able to feel his wife's presence: they were in the same place at the same time, but separated by some ethereal fog / barrier. Which means events in the dreamlike SH could be nightmarish, while the real SH was just a ghost town with a sad history -- but no otherworldly creepiness.

One other thing that lends credence to this is the color scheme. Rose's Silent Hill is much greyer; there are more ashes in the air, giving the town a dreamy, yet dead feeling. Christopher's Silent Hill wasn't as murky, and had colors that were slightly brighter.

Personally, I'm inclined to believe the second theory. For the first to work, we have to accept that their corpses were spirited from the real world, and I can't accept that.

I can tell you with pretty much 100 percent certainty that it's a variation of #2. That's how it is in the games, more or less.

[A.Logan]

Without writing a column in this thread (which would clear things up quite a bit, and get some of the fogginess out of the way...I'm going to write one outside this column), Silent Hill, the movie, was a good re-telling of the first story in general terms.

Some of the things I really liked were the Otherworld segments, especially the effects during the changes, the little things that tied into the games, which was especially awesome during the very beginning where Rose is running down the forest path and again during the scene where Rose is bleeding in the church which I thought was a not so subtle shout to Silent Hill 3.

The reason that Rose and Christopher wouldn't meet up is because the town as Rose is experiencing it isn't the real town, but the town as influenced by Alessa, which is not physically the same as the literal Silent Hill that Christopher was in. I was unclear about why it seemed like Rose got the Jacob's Ladder ending from the game, but at the same time, it was fairly obvious by the foggy surroundings that she wasn't coming out of the influenced world.

This movie actually left a good enough opening for a heavily changed version of Silent Hill 2, though I would really be dissapointed with a changed version, seeing as SH2 is my favorite game for life.