Ash Vs Evil Dead S01E01: El Jefe Discussion [SPOILERS]

Swofty said:
OI YOU LOT! ... some of us still haven't seen it yet .. mark your spoilers from now on.
Click to expand...

Um, this is the spoilers thread for the first episode...
 
Swofty said:
OI YOU LOT! ... some of us still haven't seen it yet .. mark your spoilers from now on.
Click to expand...

Episode 1 is available on the Starz website, and I don't know if they let people from out of the country view it... but it is there for everyone's viewing pleasure.
 
@Tim - It looked like  a screaming woman - weird that it passed her right by (and conveniently Pablo and Kelly - demonic spirits can't break left!)

@eViL DeAdiTe - I think the biggest problem with Kelly having pants-related feelings for Ash is that it sets up a triangle possibility. The last thing I want is a triangle.  Just give me Pablo and Kelly falling in love, throw Ash at Amanda or various women of the week.

@TOFB: The editing on the sex scene is even weirder when you realize his fly's obviously zipped in the Deadite reveal shot, the pants are unzipped in the next shot, then they're obviously buckled in the next shot.  These are things one notices.

Pablo's kinda following along with the 'mystical poc shaman who sees the white dude as a savior.  I'm hoping they counterbalance this with Pablo becoming his own hero as promised because yeah.  Wrong kind of squicky.


I just watched it again for watching-with-someone-else purposes, and I liked Pablo a little more this time but still found him to whiny/stereotypical (the grossness of Ash as White Savior here is going to get them picked apart if this thing survives).  And found Dana DeLorenzo's acting to be worse this time around - she was good at the suspense stuff and fight choreo, but she's ultra-wooden when delivering dialogue. 

ETA from the credits, cut with spec.

0LE5C1S.jpg


A lot of people were speculating about/wondering if Pablo had Linda's necklace.  It looks like a different one from here - too oval to match.


Hah, yeah - as Nick said: First episode is up on the Starz website, those outside the US will probably have to use region unblockers.  You'd think they'd advertise this on their social media beyond Twitter, I found out on IMDB of all places.  They've also got the preview up - I have no idea why they're neglecting youtube.

And yeah, this is a spoiler thread, spoilers go here!  Open discussion goes here!
 
Thanks Nick and MaidOfKandar .. I was going to wait for the box set but now I'm going to have to learn region unblocker tech ... I don't think I can wait that long !
 
"I’m assuming we won’t see any more of this place after the pilot"

They might not go back to Value Stop but considering how that scene ended... I think we'll see the manager again.

Just caught it for the first time last night. I largely liked it. Some parts actually scared me a little bit (although I've found I've become hardened to a lot ). The stuff with Amanda was particularly chilling.
The slapstick comedy with the doll was welcome, although the CGI was bad. I was actually hungry for aa crazy laugh at that point. The Horror was good, but I was missing that counterbalance.

I guess the tone was somewhere between films 1 and 2, huh? Not a bad thing, but I hope there's a bit more comedy in future episodes.

I have more thoughts, but I'm typing this on my phone on way to work and It's a bit awkward.

I'll be back later, but so far, I'd say it's a good start.
 
While I LOVE the pilot, there are many negative points just as mentioned by you guys:

* cheap CGI (but only for a few seconds)
* the short runtime (would not have hurt, to give a little more scenes to Amanda, Pablo and Kelly)
* Ash's creepy loser character
* the dumb reason for the demons to return

The last two points are my biggest problem with the episode and I want to go in detail about them, because they would have been so easy to correct.

To begin with Ash's character you have to keep in mind, that there is no consistence characterization in the movie series either. EDI-Ash only exists in this film as a whiny college student. In the reboot, that EDII more or less was, he is a goofy average Joe, who deeply loves his girlfriend and goes insane after the events of her dead, until he adapts a more masculine, but also grim and tragic hero attitude with a clear sign of technical skills (chainsaw-hand). In AoD then he is that arrogant asskicker who mainly aims for selfish goals and shows signs of unbelievable stupidity but also incredible technical knowledge (mechanical hand, DIY-gun powder, deathcoaster etc.). At this point, his characterization already went off tracks and Sam Raimi himself admitted that in comparison to EDII. That leaves us with the fact, that there is not one single Ash character, when you see EDII-AoD as one plot entity.

What should they have do with it when creating AvED? In my opinion: Not turn the douchebag/idiot-meter from AoD up to 11.

As a writer I would have tried to bring Ash emotional evolution from EDII and AoD in balance. You could explain his behaviour in AoD as a form of extreme frustration. He lost his girl, his hand, his mind through pure terror and is now stucked in the past with primitives, who want to kill you. I can "understand" that after all of this he goes "screw you! I will insult these apes, bang their hottest chick and ride back home". In the course of the story, he finds his bravery and courage from the time, he helped Anne Knowby, back and he returns to his time as a hero. This is his state of mind/character, when he is back home.

Question is: What kind of guy is he 30 years later?

In my ideal version he suffers from post-traumatic disorder aswell. But after AoD he might also suffer from the loss of his hero role. Of course he tells no one about the things happening in the cabin. And maybe he even has to keep low-profile, because it is still a mystery for the authorities how his friends/linda disappeared while on vacation with Ash. In my version our hero is also deeply frustrated for living in a trailer and still working as a stockboy, because in the movies, we saw, that he has impressive engineering skills, that could have land him a much better job in all these years, if not his state of his mind was so damaged. So he still goes to bars late at night, drinks down the terrible memories and maybe, while drunk, he might even mumbles the truth to some teens like Pablo and Kelly, who think that he is a creepy lunatic.
There could still be a female barfly who ask about his hand. And he could still tell her the story of the rescued boy, but not impress her but just to have a explanation, that is less strange than "evil went into my hand". After telling that, he could still see, how impressed she is, think "meh, if she really wants" and still bang her, but without the silly lothario-act behind it. So in my version, I could use the same story tropes, but tune them a little bit down, for a more realistic approach.

For the return of the deadites I would have two alternatives in mind:

*Version A is quite near to the real product: Ash has a date in his trailer who loves poetry. But he does not show her the book or even reads from it. She might find it on her own, while he gets her a drink. "what the hell is this?" she asks. "Nothing!" and he rapidly puts it away. Then they still smoke some weed. But in my version Ash falls asleep while drunk and his date search again for the book, thinking it might be his dairy or something else personal. Then she reads the notes from Prof. Knowby aloud ALONE, not with Ash, how has to know much better! After he sees the first deadite at the bar, he could still find some clue like the weed bag later. So you would not have to change the structure of the episode at all.

*Version B would be quite different. In short: Ash is a paranoid and alcoholic mad man, who is raged by all these people, who don't belive the stories, he tells late night at the bar. The hero from the past is insulted by the kids as a aging loser. So he thinks "Loser? I show you what kind of loser I am...". So in secret he uses the book on purpose to unleash the dead and, after people are terrorized, he saves them in somekind of lunatic scheme to impress them, to show them the hero, he was and still is...until the dangers become bigger as he tought. That would shift Ashs role from hero to villan in some degree, but it would be a interesting character development, I think (more interesting than dump pothead at least), and at the end of the season he could still redeem himself as the hero, he was meant to be.

So what do you think?

(sorry for the crappy English, but I am not a native speaker)
 
MaidOfKandar said:
I just watched it again for watching-with-someone-else purposes, and I liked Pablo a little more this time but still found him to whiny/stereotypical (the grossness of Ash as White Savior here is going to get them picked apart if this thing survives).  And found Dana DeLorenzo's acting to be worse this time around - she was good at the suspense stuff and fight choreo, but she's ultra-wooden when delivering dialogue. 
Click to expand...


The only person who I thought sounded wooden, and didn't like at all was Kelly's dad when she was talking to him via video.


Swofty said:
Thanks Nick and MaidOfKandar .. I was going to wait for the box set but now I'm going to have to learn region unblocker tech ... I don't think I can wait that long !
Click to expand...

No problem. I don't understand why companies would want to block people from other countries from viewing videos. It just seems to be counter productive, but a lot of them do it these days... and I hope you get to see the episode. The show moved pretty quick, and it will be interesting to see what happens when they go to the regular 30 minutes next week.
 
Muzzlehatch said:
While I LOVE the pilot, there are many negative points just as mentioned by you guys:

* cheap CGI (but only for a few seconds)
* the short runtime (would not have hurt, to give a little more scenes to Amanda, Pablo and Kelly)
* Ash's creepy loser character
* the dumb reason for the demons to return

The last two points are my biggest problem with the episode and I want to go in detail about them, because they would have been so easy to correct.

To begin with Ash's character you have to keep in mind, that there is no consistence characterization in the movie series either. EDI-Ash only exists in this film as a whiny college student. In the reboot, that EDII more or less was, he is a goofy average Joe, who deeply loves his girlfriend and goes insane after the events of her dead, until he adapts a more masculine, but also grim and tragic hero attitude with a clear sign of technical skills (chainsaw-hand). In AoD then he is that arrogant asskicker who mainly aims for selfish goals and shows signs of unbelievable stupidity but also incredible technical knowledge (mechanical hand, DIY-gun powder, deathcoaster etc.). At this point, his characterization already went off tracks and Sam Raimi himself admitted that in comparison to EDII. That leaves us with the fact, that there is not one single Ash character, when you see EDII-AoD as one plot entity.

What should they have do with it when creating AvED? In my opinion: Not turn the douchebag/idiot-meter from AoD up to 11.

As a writer I would have tried to bring Ash emotional evolution from EDII and AoD in balance. You could explain his behaviour in AoD as a form of extreme frustration. He lost his girl, his hand, his mind through pure terror and is now stucked in the past with primitives, who want to kill you. I can "understand" that after all of this he goes "screw you! I will insult these apes, bang their hottest chick and ride back home". In the course of the story, he finds his bravery and courage from the time, he helped Anne Knowby, back and he returns to his time as a hero. This is his state of mind/character, when he is back home.

Question is: What kind of guy is he 30 years later?

In my ideal version he suffers from post-traumatic disorder aswell. But after AoD he might also suffer from the loss of his hero role. Of course he tells no one about the things happening in the cabin. And maybe he even has to keep low-profile, because it is still a mystery for the authorities how his friends/linda disappeared while on vacation with Ash. In my version our hero is also deeply frustrated for living in a trailer and still working as a stockboy, because in the movies, we saw, that he has impressive engineering skills, that could have land him a much better job in all these years, if not his state of his mind was so damaged. So he still goes to bars late at night, drinks down the terrible memories and maybe, while drunk, he might even mumbles the truth to some teens like Pablo and Kelly, who think that he is a creepy lunatic.
There could still be a female barfly who ask about his hand. And he could still tell her the story of the rescued boy, but not impress her but just to have a explanation, that is less strange than "evil went into my hand". After telling that, he could still see, how impressed she is, think "meh, if she really wants" and still bang her, but without the silly lothario-act behind it. So in my version, I could use the same story tropes, but tune them a little bit down, for a more realistic approach.

For the return of the deadites I would have two alternatives in mind:

*Version A is quite near to the real product: Ash has a date in his trailer who loves poetry. But he does not show her the book or even reads from it. She might find it on her own, while he gets her a drink. "what the hell is this?" she asks. "Nothing!" and he rapidly puts it away. Then they still smoke some weed. But in my version Ash falls asleep while drunk and his date search again for the book, thinking it might be his dairy or something else personal. Then she reads the notes from Prof. Knowby aloud ALONE, not with Ash, how has to know much better! After he sees the first deadite at the bar, he could still find some clue like the weed bag later. So you would not have to change the structure of the episode at all.

*Version B would be quite different. In short: Ash is a paranoid and alcoholic mad man, who is raged by all these people, who don't belive the stories, he tells late night at the bar. The hero from the past is insulted by the kids as a aging loser. So he thinks "Loser? I show you what kind of loser I am...". So in secret he uses the book on purpose to unleash the dead and, after people are terrorized, he saves them in somekind of lunatic scheme to impress them, to show them the hero, he was and still is...until the dangers become bigger as he tought. That would shift Ashs role from hero to villan in some degree, but it would be a interesting character development, I think (more interesting than dump pothead at least), and at the end of the season he could still redeem himself as the hero, he was meant to be.

So what do you think?

(sorry for the crappy English, but I am not a native speaker)
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Hey Muzzlehatch .. 

You're English is better than mine and I am English! 
cool.png
  ...... I haven't seen the show yet but both of your ideas sound far better than the one I've read about ... I like your A theory although that was already sort of done in the remake. You B theory, crazy Ash who eventually earns respect by saving the day is more in keeping in spirit with the original trilogy as a character arc for Ash. 

Which country are you from if that's not a rude question? ..
 
Random idea:

I think Amanda may be the El Jefe the episode is titled after though I am basing this notion largely on a few points.

*In speaking in terms of tone, when Ash isn't on screen, we are seeing straight forward horror in the same vein as ED but when he is, we're much closer to EDII and AoD. Are they building Amanda's character in line with the way Ash was built where the more she deals with the force, the more calloused she becomes toward it? (And to be fair, she's already had one of her meat hooks damaged.)

*And then there's the line "We know who you are..." Fisher is certainly destined for something great whether for good or bad is still unseen and I personally cannot wait to find out.

That being said, it's a lot of fun to be an Evil Dead fan!
 
Tim said:
Random idea:

I think Amanda may be the El Jefe the episode is titled after though I am basing this notion largely on a few points.

*In speaking in terms of tone, when Ash isn't on screen, we are seeing straight forward horror in the same vein as ED but when he is, we're much closer to EDII and AoD. Are they building Amanda's character in line with the way Ash was built where the more she deals with the force, the more calloused she becomes toward it? (And to be fair, she's already had one of her meat hooks damaged.)

*And then there's the line "We know who you are..." Fisher is certainly destined for something great whether for good or bad is still unseen and I personally cannot wait to find out.

That being said, it's a lot of fun to be an Evil Dead fan!
Click to expand...

I liked Amanda's character much more than I thought I would so I really like this theory. I bet she'll be very important in the overall story.
 
Swofty said:
Hey Muzzlehatch .. 

You're English is better than mine and I am English! 
cool.png
  ...... I haven't seen the show yet but both of your ideas sound far better than the one I've read about ... I like your A theory although that was already sort of done in the remake. You B theory, crazy Ash who eventually earns respect by saving the day is more in keeping in spirit with the original trilogy as a character arc for Ash. 

Which country are you from if that's not a rude question? ..
Click to expand...

Ahoy Swofty,

thank you very much! I am happy you liked my ideas.

I really love the show so far. Which ED-fan could not? Finally seeing Ash back on the screen! But these weak plot points were so unnessescary in my opinion. If the writers just spend a few minutes more thinking about it, how Ash could call the deadites back etc.. Sam's directing in the pilot is superbe. But the writing feels sometimes quite lazy. The Ash of the first half of the pilot feels more like Bruce from MNIB than Ash. But when the deadites are back and the shit hits the fans, he is more the guy we know and love. So I hope my concerns with his characterization in the beginning of the pilot will vanish with the rest of the episodes.

It's not a rude question at all! I am from Germany! A Kraut-ite so to speak... ;)

Tim said:
And then there's the line "We know who you are..." Fisher is certainly destined for something great whether for good or bad is still unseen and I personally cannot wait to find out.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that is what I thought as well. I think to remember, that Ash and Amanda were desribed as soul mates somewhere. I gues she is destined to be a hero (or something very bad?) aswell.
 
Muzzlehatch said:
Ahoy Swofty,

thank you very much! I am happy you liked my ideas.

I really love the show so far. Which ED-fan could not? Finally seeing Ash back on the screen! But these weak plot points were so unnessescary in my opinion. If the writers just spend a few minutes more thinking about it, how Ash could call the deadites back etc.. Sam's directing in the pilot is superbe. But the writing feels sometimes quite lazy. The Ash of the first half of the pilot feels more like Bruce from MNIB than Ash. But when the deadites are back and the shit hits the fans, he is more the guy we know and love. So I hope my concerns with his characterization in the beginning of the pilot will vanish with the rest of the episodes.

It's not a rude question at all! I am from Germany! A Kraut-ite so to speak... ;)
Click to expand...
 
Muzzlehatch said:
Ahoy Swofty,

thank you very much! I am happy you liked my ideas.

I really love the show so far. Which ED-fan could not? Finally seeing Ash back on the screen! But these weak plot points were so unnessescary in my opinion. If the writers just spend a few minutes more thinking about it, how Ash could call the deadites back etc.. Sam's directing in the pilot is superbe. But the writing feels sometimes quite lazy. The Ash of the first half of the pilot feels more like Bruce from MNIB than Ash. But when the deadites are back and the shit hits the fans, he is more the guy we know and love. So I hope my concerns with his characterization in the beginning of the pilot will vanish with the rest of the episodes.

It's not a rude question at all! I am from Germany! A Kraut-ite so to speak... ;)

Click to expand...


I don't think this is about lazy writing. This was deliberate. Sam loves to torture Ash as well as Bruce, so I wouldn't be surprised if this was his idea in the first place.

And by the way, I'm from Czech Republic, so we are basically neighbours. ;)
 
Hurley said:
I don't think this is about lazy writing. This was deliberate. Sam loves to torture Ash as well as Bruce, so I wouldn't be surprised if this was his idea in the first place.
Click to expand...

That is certainly true. But for me it feels more like "torturing your actor friend on cost of the character". But I know, there are many people, who like the dump way, Ash uses the book to impress his date. So I guess it is more a question what you prefer: Grim and stoic Ash from EDII or badass-idiot Ash from AoD?
 
@Muzzlehatch - I think, at least, it's arguable that this version of Ash still loves Linda that much.  It's been thirty years and he can't say 'she was killed' or 'I had to kill her'.  That's the only thing that has me holding on hoping they'll excavate something of his original character.  I'll forever agree with you that the Ash' behavior makes linear sense and is perfectly reasonable in the movies (hey, you'd be an angry dick if someone tried to immediately kill you even though you came in peace to their world).  You hit the nail on the head - they Flanderised where Ash was in AOD and made it worse to the point of turning him unlikable (the racism is so fucking unnecessary, I will maintain this until I'm in the cold, cold ground).   And your ideas for him releasing the evil is muuch better than what they went with.

@Hurley and Muzzlehatch: I completely believe that Ash releasing the Evil while high is a commentary/anklepoke by Sam to Bruce on Bruce's now very public love of pot.  It works as an inside joke but doesn't feel like it works for Ash, if you get my meaning?

@Tim - I'd actually really love for it to be Amanda.
 
Yeah, I think it's pretty obvious that Ash is not El Jefe. I'm so confident in this that I'd probably be disappointed if he actually turned out to be the real thing. That would seem too much like a rehash of ED 2's plot, without the surprise element. They're also going out of their way to say that it could be Amanda, with that first deadite pointing at her and saying "we know who you are" and everything. Personally, I'd love it if they pulled a fast one and revealed that Pablo is actually El Jefe, since he was the one who brought it up in the first place and he starts the show as a rather weak character and just an Ash fanboy. It draws a nice parallel to Ash himself and how he became a "hero". Pablo wants Ash to be El Jefe and is constantly trying to make him believe that he is, so it would be an interesting arc for the character if he himself turned out to be El Jefe instead. Maybe that's what his grandfather was trying to tell him when he told him the story of El Jefe. His grandfather was trying to tell him that he's the one.

@Muzzlehatch: I actually didn't have much of a problem with the way Ash released the evil once again, but I do like your ideas better than what we got.
 
Why is getting blackout wasted and doing something dumb and regrettable not a worthy enough plot device for releases the evil once more? I think it fits well with the Ash they've established this time, and you could argue that it fits with every Ash.

Were the reasons for unleashing the evil really so epic the last few times?

1) Press play on a tape recorder
2) Press play on a tape recorder
3) Fumble a word

It fit the scale of this show, and got things moving along quickly.

Yes, it was stupid, and lazy. Ash fucked up.

Isn't that the point?
 
I think that's definitely the point - pretty sure everyone's on board with Ash doing something stupid or lazy that results in the evil being released (even if its just his stupidity in allowing someone else to get their hands on the book). What I think people aren't cool with is the idea that marijuana wouldn't cause that level of carelessness.

I'm also on board with the idea of Ash having a little more emotion - that was really a great element in the other films, even if it was more laughable than anything at times (looking at you, crying Deadite Ash). Ditto for physicality - I'd love to see more on him as the aged hero who WANTS to go and kick ass, but gets winded too quickly and needs the others to pick up the slack. That sort of vulnerability rounds out the character - even if he's still pitching one-liners while he holds the stitch in his side.

I'd also love for the other characters to take center stage - yes, the show is about Ash, but it seems weird for him to take both the role of the hero AND the role of the wise man. Best case scenario, he whips the rest into shape quickly and it turns into more of a team show (early seasons of Buffy vs later seasons of Buffy).
 
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