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Arrested Development Season 4 Remix Out (May 4th)
- Thread starter Smokeymicpot
- Start date
There was some really good stuff in season 4 buried under a whole lot of filler. Hopefully this will bring it to life.
They were trying to shop it to networks to air. He even brings it up in this announcement when he's talking about syndication.
I mean, it definitely works out as Season 5 marketing but that's not the actual reason it took so long to show up. They wanted to try and get Season 4 on TV.
I can't imagine that in all the time and care and planning they took to do this, recording new narration VO, that they didn't cover this. I'm also certain that while some jokes will be lost in the recut, there will be all new jokes as well.
Hype!
I'm super excited about this. I really REALLY wanted to like Season 4, but it was just too different (from characterizations to layout of the show) and I couldn't get into it. Hopefully, re-arranging the format to more closely resemble the format of the original run will make the whole thing click for me.
Did you finish it originally? The show purposely mischaracterizes a lot of characters until you get to their episodes (George Micheal being by far the biggest example of this, as him suddenly being a tech guru in charge of Fakeblock makes no sense until you find out
Fakeblock is literally just a fake block you can tap
I'm already wondering what I'll do on future rewatches of the entire series. Will I alternate versions of S4 or will I just watch both versions back to back. Can't wait to see how different it is. What a new start.
I never finished season 4 and forgot about most of what happened so I'm excited. Wonder if Ron Howard did some additional voice work.
Ron Howard recording new narration is great news. I loved season 4, but one of its bigger problems that doesn't resolve itself upon rewatches is that the narrator is given way too much dialog and sometimes over-explains things.
Chronological order fixes the early pacing issues but damn if that buildup didn't make the george micheal episode amazing. Itll be interesting to see how it impacts the whole thing.
Also, for all the drawn out boredom of George Sr and Lindseys early episodes, the 2nd Tobias and Gob episodes are some of the best in the entire series and the entire season was worth it just so they could exist.
Also, for all the drawn out boredom of George Sr and Lindseys early episodes, the 2nd Tobias and Gob episodes are some of the best in the entire series and the entire season was worth it just so they could exist.
I quit right before the Buster episode. I keep telling myself I will go back and finish it and I haven't.
Unfortunately, too many creeps on the show for me to enjoy it anymore. I just can't help but think about what Tambor, Baio and (to a lesser but still gross extent) Cross have done to women. :(
It used to be my favorite show, too. It actually makes me really sad I can't watch it now.
It used to be my favorite show, too. It actually makes me really sad I can't watch it now.
Accused of sexual harassment and assault by two of his Charles in Charge costars.
I loved seasons 1-3 but never watched S4 because I heard it sucked, should I watch the original or the remix?
I enjoyed Season 4 for what it was but this Remix seems much preferable. Interestingly when I did a full series re-watch with the wife we petered out a few episodes into Season 4 because she wasn't feeling it.
Yeah I'm with you. It's been awhile since I watched season 4 but the only episode I remember actually being not just pretty funny but funny PERIOD was a Gob focused episode in the middle of the season. The whole season was just sloppy and I feel like there were no real attempts to actually tell any jokes? I mean, Season 4 was one of the earliest examples of Netflix's big push towards making original programming and then there was the fact that the cast seemed to be in very high demand at the time which had a pretty big impact on the writing and the direction the show went in. Maybe (heh) I'm wrong but I feel like the cast hasn't been in as high a demand as they were back when season 4 was filming? I'm sure I'm wrong about that but it's just an observation
Yikes. Guess he was serious when he said Trump spoke and thought like him
Season 4 has a lot of great stuff but it's hampered by horrific VO by RH that explains the jokes more often than letting them just occur.
It's also bloated with the episode lengths being too long.
It has some of my all time favorite AD jokes (we are so lucky to be in your company), but as far as AD goes, it's bottom tier.
For the record, I just did another rewatch in March and S4 stands out. I also loved it when it first came out (I found the old GAF thread when it came out and read through it since I watched the entire thing that first night...time definitely reshaped my perspective).
It's also bloated with the episode lengths being too long.
It has some of my all time favorite AD jokes (we are so lucky to be in your company), but as far as AD goes, it's bottom tier.
For the record, I just did another rewatch in March and S4 stands out. I also loved it when it first came out (I found the old GAF thread when it came out and read through it since I watched the entire thing that first night...time definitely reshaped my perspective).
I'm looking forward to this, but season 4 was fantastic on a rewatch. The way things interconnected and wove together was amazing, and it's a shame the format turned off so many people.
Honestly you should probably watch both. The thing with Season 4 is they set it up specifically to work around everyone's schedule so it splits the family up and each one gets their own episode (or episodes) instead of everyone being in every episode. Sometimes it works better than others (The two GOB episodes are hysterical IMO) and it's kind of difficult to watch for some because the payoff is all in the final few episodes. But because of the way it's structured, you have to actually watch everything up to that point, you can't just jump in on the last few and have it make any kind of sense. Which means sitting through episodes you may not find too interesting or getting entire episodes of characters you don't like as much as others.
The remix will probably tell the same over-all story of the original Season 4 but there will absolutely without question be new jokes and things, sometimes I assume at the expense of jokes that had to be cut or altered due to formatting. If you're short on time or something, it's possible the remix might be the best way to go (even though it might technically be longer? Going from like 12-15 episodes to 22) but if you have the time and the patience you should definitely watch both versions. And for what it's worth if you do manage to get through the original cut, like all Arrested Development it gets MUCH better on a second or third watch. Especially since you'll know what happens and can thus pick up all the plot threads, hints, and new jokes going through it again.
The original is completely worth watching, but only if you watch it all the way through. It won't click until about 10 episodes in, partially because the narrative makes some earlier jokes hard to pick up on (but also partially because some of the earlier episodes aren't as good). But as a whole it's a hilarious season. Unfortunately, it's not like a Twin Peaks Season 2 type deal where you can just fastforward through most the bad parts and still get all the good stuff. You really have to watch the whole season, because the episodes are really tied together.
Also, just a primer on the format. The show doesn't explain its format very well, because the main character doesn't follow it and the format doesn't become clear until you've finished multiple characters episodes (which won't happen until halfway through the season):
Every character has 1-2 episodes. With the exception of Micheal (and, to a smaller extent, a character who has a very important post credits scene in the last episode), every character's arc is started and finished within these episodes. Micheal is the only character who appears in every episode, but his arc lasts all season and jumps around time much more than the rest of the cast because of it.
For two episode characters, the first episode generally begins with a flashforward to around 2012. The episode than jumps back to the end of season 3, and explains how that character got to the point in the flashforward. The second episode explains how they get from that point to Cinco de Cuatro, and then has a "On the next Arrested Development" that gives some more set up for what they might do next season. Characters with one episode follow an abridged version of this arc, starting with the flashforward at the beginning of the episode, but getting to Cinco de Cuatro within one episode.
Just keep in mind that it isn't really Arrested Development Season 4, it's Arrested Development The Movie Act I. It does not have as consistent of quality as the originals, but it tries a lot of unsafe, cool new things and I think it deserves more praise than it gets for that. There are some jokes that only work because of the format (Andy Richter's quintuplets are used in a really funny way). It does have some problems, some that can be fixed with a recut (Ron Howard having too much narration, early episodes being too long), and some that can't (bad green screen in some parts, some characters having a weaker supporting cast than others).
This is a really good point. I remember when they were going to do an Arrested Development Movie, one of the problems they were having was that getting the characters and audience on the same page with events that had happened since Season 3 ended would have taken up over 1/3rd of the movie's run time. So they decided to do the "prelude" as a TV season to get everyone up to speed with what had happened so they wouldn't waste time on it during the movie.
In that respect, AD Season 5 is The Movie Act II, and Season 6 will be the Final Act. They just broke the movie into two more seasons instead of following their original plan.
So it'd be kinda like:
Seasons 1, 2, and 3 - Arrested Development The Series
Season 4 - Arrested Development The Movie: Prelude
Season 5 - Arrested Development The Movie: Part I
Season 6 - Arrested Development The Movie: Part 2
Season 5 had already been shot and was in editing when the accusations came out. They would have had to rewrite and reshoot the whole thing to change it so if they do anything, it'll be with Season 6.
There's times where he's just talking over people so they don't repeat dialogue from other episodes, I think. It's not Scandalmakers level narration but can get pretty bad at times.
Did you not see the sexual abuse allegations? From when he was on Charles in Charge?
Edit: oops, I'm slow
Does this add new scenes because it sounds like it does. Excited to check it out and might rewatch all 4 seasons again. Best comedy indeed!
What amazes me is how the Russo Brothers are now doing movies like IW. Wow!
What amazes me is how the Russo Brothers are now doing movies like IW. Wow!