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First up, here's the new trailer for season 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXg2_yExgVY Now, some detail: Arrested Development is one of the most acclaimed comedy series of this century if not of all time and is responsible for launching the careers of many known comedy stars including Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and Michael Cera, but it's had a weird and rough history. This can be divided into a few different sections...  AD's original run started out on FOX in 2003, the story of a wealthy family who lost everything and the one son who had no choice but to keep them all together. The Bluth family consisted of Michael (Jason Bateman), the "good" son, his siblings terrible magician Gob (Will Arnett), self-obsessed Lindsay (Portia de Rossi) and babyish Buster (Tony Hale), brother-in-law Tobias Funke (David Cross) who definitely isn't gay, his awkward-nerd-recently-turned-overtly-sexual son George Michael (Michael Cera), Tobias and Lindsay's daughter Maeby (Alia Shawkat), and his parents, criminal doofus George Sr. (Jeffrey Tambor) and conniving Lucille (Jessica Walters). It quickly became one of the most acclaimed comedies on the air, winning the Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series in its first year, as well as Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series two years running. Unfortunately, it suffered from low ratings and network fuckery such as timeslot changes and reduced episode orders after arcs had already been set in place. In the end it was cancelled after three progressively shorter seasons, with the final four airing alongside the opening ceremony of the 2006 Winter Olympics. Good job FOX. These seasons are the "classic" episodes of the show that everyone mostly agrees are consistently incredible. But acclaim and word of mouth kept growing, the DVD sales were good, and there was constant word of a revival in some way, most likely as a movie, as mentioned in the final moments of s3. It was over five years before any kind of announcement was made....  And then in 2011 Netflix announced they would be resurrecting Arrested Development for a fourth season, with all the original cast. The excitement was palpable, but a fair few people questioned how it would work when so many of the stars were far busier and more well-known than back in the mid-00s. Two years later, these questions were answered: sorta....awkwardly? The season had a completely different structure to the previous three, with each episode following an individual member of the Bluth family on their own separate journey over a five-year period, only coming together towards the end. It's ambitious as heck, but was met with mixed reviews due to a variety of factors, from the structure leading to less interesting storylines being given too much weight for them to handle to too many references to the older show to people feeling that certain characters were portrayed differently. I personally love it to death but can see some of the issues, particularly when you get like a 40-minute episode devoted to Lindsay. The humour is darker but imo as funny as ever when you really get into it. So the official word for years after that was "yeah we'd like to get everyone together again but we'll see" with the promise that it would feature more of the main cast actually interacting with each other. Sometime I think last year they confirmed that it was definitely happening, with Tony Hale posting a wrap party pic on Instagram back in November. Then, earlier this month, poo poo began to go down...  First up was the announcement of Fateful Consequences, a recut of season 4 which presented the season in mostly-chronological order and with episodes cutting between storylines, and which was first discussed way back in 2014. This came out on May 4, and again has had a mixed response. I personally think it fixes a lot of s4's existing issues but highlights or creates other problems. I hope one day I hear from someone who got to see this version first. This is probably what discussion is gonna be about for a bit. Then, earlier today, the trailer and release date for season 5 were revealed! On May 29th we get a bunch of new episodes that promise to feature the nine cast members together prominently. There have also been reports that the season would heavily feature flashbacks to when George Sr. and Lucille were younger, as were in s4, but I never saw any kind of confirmation about this, so maybe it's bogus? I dunno. There are storylines involving Lindsay running for Congress, the Bluths giving themselves a "family of the year" award, and Tobias portraying Michael in something. Presumably it will also deal with the big fallout at the end of s4 where Lucille 2 is murdered. We got 3 weeks or so until season 5 is out, so let's chat! What do you think of season 4, and/or the recut? Do you think having the cast together will be an improvement? Is there still money in the banana stand? Yes.
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May 7, 2018 19:03
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 07:18 |
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The India scenes are definitely the #1 example of how the recut can improve things, in my opinion. Those few minutes actually felt like classic AD when edited together, to me anyways.
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May 7, 2018 22:00
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Whoa now you mention it I don’t remember them actually properly explaining the George Sr./Oscar personality switch
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May 8, 2018 16:23
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Ugh that Australia thing is poo poo. Sorry to hear.
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May 9, 2018 16:46
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That one exterior shot of George Sr. and Oscar in the original sweat lodge is so ridiculously bad lmao
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May 10, 2018 12:13
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AD absolutely punches down often and the original series has a lot of jokes that have not aged super well too. It’s never been the most progressive show, except when it comes to blue people.
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May 13, 2018 09:38
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Season 4 Michael is definitely worse but he was for sure a hypocritical douche in the earlier seasons, they just didn’t make it as overt. I think the focus on Michael’s shittiness is one of s4’s major flaws, even if it does lead to some really funny moments. Also I wonder how many people would have been willing to give the season more of a chance if it hadn’t began with an incredibly un-AD Grinch rhyming couplet joke that kinda just leaves you feeling baffled
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May 13, 2018 17:11
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I think they’re saying they made a fake credit for the shaman and they forgot to check what it was.
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May 13, 2018 21:25
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It was the third to last episode but that was George Michael’s first spotlight ep.
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May 14, 2018 13:30
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People keep saying there’ll be more flashbacks but I’ve never actually seen an official report/article about it
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May 15, 2018 00:01
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Season’s gonna be in two parts, 8 eps on the 29th and 8 later: http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2018/05/16/arrested-development-season-5-is-being-split-into-two-parts
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May 16, 2018 19:54
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3 is still great, but it suffers majorly from them getting their order cut by nine freaking episodes after they had already mapped out the whole Rita arc. The second half of the season is imo as good as ever.
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May 21, 2018 09:42
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Bateman was in that too right?
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May 25, 2018 01:09
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Sir Lemming posted:However, I do wonder about -- and somewhat endorse -- the possibility that delaying the second half of season 5 could be used as a way to retool the ending based on how the winds are blowing. If they weren't already planning on wrapping up the series, perhaps they should strongly consider it at this point. I personally would be very up for this. But I don’t know the actual status of the second half.
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May 25, 2018 13:49
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Clip from Conan works way better with the context the scene beforehand provides. S5 SPOILER RULES Gonna try and go for the usual TVIV thing and say spoiler tag any specifics (and mention what episode they’re from) until June 4. That gives people the rest of the week to watch through the eps. After that, everything can be untagged. If a mod comes in with different rules feel free to ignore me of course
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May 29, 2018 08:28
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Fartington Butts posted:Edit: Holy poo poo. Michael Cera is very much a dude now. Holy crap you weren’t kidding
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May 29, 2018 08:34
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My favourite joke from the first two episodes is when George Michael and Maeby try and remember Lucille’s quote about sending all the murderers and rapists to an island, and then the discussion at the end about whether there would be one murderer or one raped murderer left.
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May 29, 2018 13:22
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Yeah I really felt like this slogged as it went on and was straining so hard to tell a story it forgot to have many jokes. Maeby was the best bit probably. Only having half of the season definitely doesn’t help. Shame cos I really thought it came back strong.
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May 29, 2018 19:47
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There’s a line about her trying to stay out of Sudden Valley, so are the police meant to be looking for her now? Was she still arrested and charged and is ducking the consequences? I agree it’s very confusing. They also retconned the Buster arrest from s4 so they could I guess do it again in this season
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May 31, 2018 08:16
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Troy Miller is credited as directing every episode this season. He co-directed all of season 4 with Hurwitz.
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Jun 1, 2018 11:57
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The rebooted season of Beavis and Butt-Head is probably the gold standard for revivals tbh. As far as keeping the original spirit of the show goes anyway
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Jun 3, 2018 21:28
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Hey have we talked about how bad that whole old-timey silent film bit in 508 is yet? gently caress it’s so bad
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Jun 3, 2018 21:39
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Futurama reboot bad
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Jun 3, 2018 23:20
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Nah pre-cancellation Family Guy is definitely better
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Jun 3, 2018 23:39
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I mean s4 is still amazing and that was late Obama era
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Jun 7, 2018 14:09
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 07:18 |
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imo this whole half-season was almost worth it for that bit alone
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Jun 18, 2018 23:57
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