*The Sevens

The Sevens » After

1. jjraabe
   Member

   Wow. John, I truly have to say that was one of the most amazing films I have ever seen, and my three friends will definitely agree. We just saw the 10pm show at Nuart, and we talked about the film the entire 1 hour car ride home. We got into such a heated discussion about the film and what was going, none of us can remember a time when we've done that before.

   This is our conclusion: SPOILERS

   NO REALLY.... SPOILERS.

   ok now I think it's safe.

   The biggest topic we were discussing on the ride home was the different levels of reality the "game" and the character creator occupied. Half of us believed that the three stories in the film take place in the reality we are in now, real life, and that the player is a higher being, or a deity (not exactly a god, because that would be a 10, but they occupy the same realm).

   The other half thought that the player was one of us, living in our reality, and the characters in the movie were the equivalent of characters in games play. Both ideas are essentially the same, the only thing we were arguing about, was whether the player was a deity, or just one of us.

   Either way, they deal with the idea of a creating force being unknowingly trapped in his own creation, and being able to easily "reset" and erase things this creator has given self-awareness to.

   Anyways, we argued and argued and argued, about which version gives more meaning and depth to the story, whether it has more of an impact if we (the audience) is the reality which is being reset, or if we are the resetters. Until we stumbled along this little trip.

   It took us a while to realize that in the second story, Reality Television, the character of Melissa is played by MELISSA McCarthy. Dahlia Salem was played by Dahlia Salem. Her birthday even matched up when we checked it on IMDB. We figured that since the names and backgrounds of the characters and the actors that played them matched up, its irrefutable evidence that the worlds that Ryan Reynold's character creates are the same as the one that the audience lives in, meaning he has to be a higher being. It has a little more impact because it makes us feel/realize that we are just the whimsical creation of a deity, god, (maybe koala?) that is bored/stressed and needs to relax by playing some videogames, or the equivalent. We all felt really unimportant if we just thought of ourselves as NPC's.

   John, please correct us if we are totally totally wrong, we're depressed we couldn't make the 7:30 show, but definitely loved the movie. We're all urging friends, families, other students, to go and see this mind-blowing, amazing piece of film.

   - Jordan, Alex, Rob, Ben

   Posted 1 year ago #

2. catieboles
   Member

   Just saw the movie in LA. John August introduced the film. He said that it wasn't the sort of film that you "get" right away, but rather something you have to think about and then you will have an epiphany at 2 am and be all excited because "I GET IT!"

   I don't get it. I want to be the little kid that says "Hey, he's naked, there are no clothes on the emperor!" Because if the obvious explanation is not the actual explanation, then it is just over my head and I will probably never "get it"

   I do however have another theory, where the director plants the seed in everyone's mind that there is something to get and after driving themselves up the wall trying to figure it out, out of frustration go to see the movie a second and possibly 3rd time to look for more clues. Voila! An absolutely brilliant marketing strategy! I salute you John August!

   Posted 1 year ago #

3. catieboles
   Member

   OOH! Wait, I do get it!

   My initial thought (while watching the film)was that "Mommy" is the creator, that Gary/Gavin/Gabriel are a manifestation of her imagination.

   I have decided that my 1st impulse was the correct one.

   The only other idea I had was that it was all a video game that the player/creator got too involved in and it consumed his life until the people around him were forced to do an intervention. Having a boyfriend who is a gamer makes this explanation all the more appealing to me. But I decided that it is a far too obvious and simplistic explanation.

   FYI... Mellissa McCarthy was appearing as HERSELF in the 2nd story.

   And while Ryan is way hot and has the abs of Adonis, in part one, Margaret told him he is not God, but an Avatar. In Part 3 it is implied (or stated) that 3 more characters are the same type of being as Gary/Gavin/Gabriel. Mutiple Deities? Or is he not really the god/creator, but rather just one of many?

   Posted 1 year ago #

4. John
   The Writer/Director

   There's Viewer Interpretation and Author Intent -- and both are valid. I can only speak to Author Intent.

   To me, all three worlds of the movie are different versions created by G. ("How many versions were there?" asks Mary. "Ninety.") But it's time for G to go back to wherever he came from, even though it means leaving a lot of things he's created and loved. At the resolution, we see a combined version running without him.

   Posted 1 year ago #

5. Matt
   Member

   My Viewer's Interpretation and a request for my readers to see the film, blogged here:

   http://beyondfundamentalism.net/node/171

   Posted 1 year ago #

6. Rothchild
   Member

   No, I will not read your blog.

   I'm glad my interpretation was pretty close to what you were aiming for but I have one big question. Why were some people in his worlds aware that he was a "nine" or their creator and some weren't? Also, are the characters/beings self-aware? That brings up a lot of questions, like why they don't experience grief or despair when realizing they are just the cosmic version of a "figment of your imagination?" That sentence was borderline incomprehensible.

   Posted 1 year ago #

7. toddjnsn
   Member

   catieboles: I think you're on the right track. I think the movie was purposely made to have given viewer interpretation a lot of elbow room. One could say that this makes it harder to accuse the writer of "screwing anything up", etc.

   Google "the nines". First google is wiki about it in reference to checking the sanity of one's math equations and making sure it's in check. Obviously, a key element is a check of sanity. Somewhat obvious that it was at least a component in the movie...

   McCarthy (the large lady), it seems obvious, is the god. It's about her. At the end, it shows that Ryan releasing/destroying everything was her snapping back into reality.

   I think being caught up in video games and you being in your own world is like being on drugs, feeling like you're in your own world -- the movie wasn't emphasizing actually being in a video game any more than him having a crack habit.

   Being a 9 means you're in god-mode over everything you control. Not really such thing as a 10 -- it's the ruler of all rulers. It was reality -- within her mind. It really happened -- in her mind. So if something really happens, it is reality -- but only in the dimension of the mind. You question that? Question sanity (ie the term "the nines")? It's real in that world.

   But in OUR real world -- he didn't exist. Maybe she was a super-Ryan-Reynolds fan, and HE controlled her mind -- and SHE needed to snap out of it. :)

   ... at least that's how my girlfriend was while watching the movie!

   Posted 7 months ago #

8. sieges7
   Member

   Even though the great thing about books television and movies is that are minds are free to interpret whatever we want and stimulate our minds. I think sometimes you have to re-read or watch it over without putting any thought into it and just listen. I believe from the writers point of view he explained everything very clearly and pieced it all correctly. Perhaps its just me and I could be wrong, but a lot of thought doesn't need to be put into it because the movie is self explanitory. However it covers a lot very deep ideas which in turn makes us think we may need to dig deeper to uncover whats really going on. When in fact there isn't really any need to. Then again if you didn't really understand it first time and your looking for answers watching a second or third is always a good way of it clicking. I think I was 12 or 13 when the movie "Donnie Darko" came out and I had to watch it I don't know how many times till I finally "got it". I guess the best way to describe this movie is like a very hard math equation that has already been solved. When you look at it on paper the equation might not make a lot of sense because the answer is already there and because the answer is already there you may want to break down the equation to figure out how it came to that answer. Hoping that by doing that you will find all cause to the answer. Truth is though it is just a really hard math problem with the answer already done, there isn't any reason to break it down it's been solved. Basically if that just made no sense. It is what it is. I thought to myself before I went to sleep How would I feel knowing I lived somewhere that was created by something for its own enjoyment. I would feel fine, at the end of the day it would be my world and I would live in it knowing that the actions I do still take place because I can. I think people should watch this movie without putting to much thought into it. It will stimulate your mind no matter what. However to make sense of the movie you just have to watch it. All the answers are given pretty clearly. Thanks John for making this more personable and a great movie. All the best.

   ~Charles

   Posted 5 months ago #

9. FaizFY1
   Member

   I just watched the nines and was really interested in discussing it and it actually is 2am lol.

   I didn't figure it out straight away like most films but i think i do get it. I always look at new films with apparent 'twists' hoping its going to be something really profound but always ends up pretty dull.

   The Nines to me had real religious connotations, where Gary/Gavin/GABRIEL (the angel gabriel) is an 'angel' or 'deity' of some sort that has a drug problem only his drug problem is in the form of making human lives for himself, lives that he cannot stay in much like a drug hallucination. Ryan Reynolds' character craves human life, maybe because being a deity is not his thing or what i'm not sure, but ultimately Hope Davis' character, and the other two characters in the 'intervention' seen like Gabriel are angels, trying to bring him back to the place that 'cannot be described with human words...' Heaven?

   So like if GOD was a 10 his angels are Nines.

   Just some thoughts. Very impressed with the film, and am glad i picked it up because it showed me that just because a film has a blockbuster character in it and doesn't stay on the cinema for 16 weeks in a row doesn't mean its not a great piece of cinema.

   Other religious connotations - Mary is Melissa's name at the end - Mary/Virgin Mary/Jesus' mother. Im sure there are other connotations will have to watch it again but for now im tired.

   Posted 4 months ago #

10. sonofawildcat
    Member

    catieboles,

    Here is my interperitation. Ryan Reynolds charactars were semi-god like. he would create a world and then wanted to be a "player" in his game. He then would get lost in his creation.
    In "Reality", the guy who talks to him through the glass was a nine, as was Sierra in "Knowing". i figured that out when Ryan lifts his shirt and he had a roman numeral 9 tattooed on his back and Sierra moved her hair and had a roman numeral 9 tattooed on the back of her neck. In all three stories she is trying to get Ryan to realize he wasn't human and he needed to go back to where they were from.

    Melissa said that he called her and told her everything. I think he left that in her conscienceness everytime he created her. She was in all of his worlds because he told her at the end of "knowing" that she was his favorite. He was sad he had to end her reality, so at the end he creates another world for her to live in without him in it to intefere.
    Thats my take on it. It was an awesome movie!

    Posted 4 months ago #

11. Game
    Member

    I came to this site looking for some ideas of what some parts of the movie meant (I just saw it tonight), but I think you guys REALLY overdid it with the "hidden meaning" party.

    I think the movie is pretty clear (in my opinion) in that it is about the addiction people have to video games. Anyone who is, or has been, deeply addicted to a video game (such as myself) will see this movie and understand it quickly (at least the way I understood it).

    I'm not totally clear on a few things in the movie, but I'll just summarize my ideas below:

    - Gary/Gavin/Gabriel (let's just call him Gary) is Melissa's Avatar in the "game". I personally always choose hot female characters for my video game characters, so it is no surprise that Melissa chose a hot guy for hers, and is living out a fantasy of being the publicist of someone that looks like Ryan Reynolds, then his best friend, and then his wife. It is clearly a case of the "SIMS" (the game).

    - The reason why Gary (who is controlled by Melissa in real life) is a "9", and God (the real-life God) is a "10", is that WE control everything about the video game we design, whereas God controls us in real-life. I think maybe 7s are NPCs (non-player characters, or in other words "computer characters"). Telepathic Koalas might be a jab at NPCs. Im not sure. I make fun of how stupid NPCs are designed all the time, so I can see how a Telepathic Koala would be higher up the food chain than stupid NPCs.

    - It seems that Sara is another real-life player (I can't tie this in with the ending of the movie though...), but it seems that she is, conceptually at least, another real-life player that is seeing someone playing endlessly (like if I saw someone in my World of Warcraft guild always online everytime I came on, I might become a bit concerned for him/her), and she tries to get through to him (or her, since we are talking about Melissa here) to stop playing the game. Clearly, Melissa is so addicted and deep into the game that she forgot that she is really a woman.

    (let's call the Real-Life Melissa "MelissaRL", and In-Game Melissa "MelissaIG" for easy reference)

    This would explain why MelissaIG calls Sara a "9" (she is afraid that another real-life human will succeed at getting MelissaRL to stop playing). MelissaIG is a "7" because she is not the real Melissa...she is just an NPC (a computer character).

    Heck, MelissaIG could also be the director's symbolic sum manifestation of all MelissaRL's desires to live in a fantasy world (in other words, the desires that lead to our addiction to games), which is why Sara needed to get Gary away from MelissaIG at least for a short while in order to try to reason with him/her.

    - The bracelet seems like nothing more than a symbolic "log-in" or username/password.

    - The 3 "Garys" in the movie, to me, are just like making 3 characters in an online game (such as World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Everquest, etc). They are just three different characters that Melissa plays. It seems that these three characters are used by the director to depict stages a real-life video game addict goes through.

    - In Part One, Gary burning the children's clothing is probably symbolic of MelissaRL missing out on her daughter's childhood. Many parents who are addicted to video games often miss their children's growing years, playing the game endlessly. It might also be an expression of how stupid the addiction is...like buying dirty crack off the street, hanging out with a dirty street hooker, and being a complete idiot.

    - Part Two seems to be the "climax" of the gaming years. Playing a SIM, getting all excited about the big contract, and so on. Im pretty sure that things falling apart for him was not symbolic, but nothing more than Sara sabotaging him to get him to come back to the real-world.

    - Part Three seems to be the "burnout" stage (which happens after many many months of endless gaming). He has a beard, his car burns out, the colors are faded. Seems pretty clear to me.

    A thought: Maybe the water was a virus...same virus Sara gave her gamer ex-boyfriend?

    The one thing I don't understand, and the reason why I came to this forum in the first place, is how she "connected" to the game when she came out of it. Did the director simply not want to put her in front of a computer so that the movie doesn't become "obvious"? Or maybe the director wanted to create a parallel between computer gaming and one's imagination (since what is a video game but a dots on a screen that let you visualize an imaginary world more easily)? Or maybe she was literally just stuck in her imagination (weak idea, but maybe)?

    But her family, her husband specifically, did not seem "relieved" to see her "back".

    I just don't get the ending.

    Either way, great movie and I can relate to it in many ways. Let me know your thoughts.

    Posted 3 months ago #

12. dysthymiajoe
    Member

    I guess I found my own meaning to the movie. I thought the central theme was "You create your own reality." You make your own world and it is up to you to make it work the way you want. The way you want is decided at your higher level of being. I felt that the Melissa characters were representative of a more helpful person, encouraging you to the places you want to be and the Hope Davis characters were the people who try to "make you see how things are, to be realistic, do quit dreaming and come back."

    I guess it is a more abstract interpretation. The Ryan Reynolds characters were always happiest with the Melissas and more forlorn when with the Hopes. The only time he was pleased with the Hope charaacters is when they were "easing" him into their truth and in the end he was the most upset when he chose the Hope way, obliterating everything in part 1, completely lost at the end of part 2 and saddened in having to leave Melissa in part 3.

    Posted 3 months ago #

13. sonnygivvt
    Member

    Intended or not, John August presented an entertaining exposition of an idea called "solipsism". This is the idea that life, reality and experience are phenomena of the mind, unrelated to any true extra-experiential existence. This idea is fundamentally absurd and irrefutable as such, but can nevertheless be compellingly argued from a negative stance.

    Inherent to the concept of reality as a construct of the mind is the fact that at one point in time you experienced reality in a manner far different from what you know today. Can you remember being in the womb? It was warm and calm. Pain could only come from your own subconscious, unfulfilled desires and unwanted sensations. Then you were "born." But why do you trust what you have been told about your birth? Your parents were there, right? So you have been told. Do you remember?

    Child psychologists acknowledge that even several months after birth, an infant still lacks the ability to recognize shapes, patterns of color or movement. What is the infant seeing? A convoluted mess of something completely unknown. As we observed these shifting shapes, colors, and patterns of movement, we began to assosciate meaning with each one. This process essentially builds an entire system of perspective which naturally reinforces itself. After all, the process of "learning" is about questioning, but questions themselves are never questioned. We simply ask a question, get an answer, file and continue.

    But what is a question? To question the nature of questions is to look into a mirror and stare yourself down. Try it sometime. Stand in front of a mirror and stare into your own eyes. Do not attempt to distract yourself mentally, but rather allow your mind to mull over what it sees. Think about yourself as you stare into yourself.

    Tell me if you can make it even one hour. The average human can do many painful and annoying things for an hour, but staring at itself in a mirror can be confusing, terrifying, and even maddening. This is because you do not understand yourself in the least degree. What can you say about yourself that does not depend on your willingness to accept its' premise?

    The sad truth however, is that when you realize this about yourself, you will find what you have believed and what you have been willing to accept are not easily dismissed. You have created rules for yourself, rules that you will never break free of until you are willing to shed your skin, your name, and your "identity". These are not who you are, they are what you wear. You are something else entirely.

    I could attempt to dissect "The Nines", but like any surgical operation, I will only be as effective and exact as my tools. As it is, the English language is entirely insufficient to describe anything with accuracy beyond it's own insufficiency.

    I will only say that I hope you have taken something away from what I have written above.

    Posted 3 months ago #

14. Malsilive
    Member

    sonnygivvt,

    Your post was amazing, kind of creepy, but interesting.

    I'm so boggled, this movie just messed with my head.

    I would like to think this is just the mind of a crack-head. Maybe this is what they experience. But that doesn't work because of the ending. So it's just some total mind-**** which is why I feel mind-****ed. Makes sense to me, but I don't like the feeling of being mind-****ed.

    All I can say, besides what I've just said, is: "ow".

    Posted 3 months ago #

15. savingsolace
    Member

    Allow me to give you a more comical interpretation of the movie. I posted this on another thread, but I think it would be worthwhile to post it on this one too. But my real "Aha!" moment was quite hilarious and quite bizarre. But after doing a little research I got some shivers. If you think really hard, what this movie is ULTIMATELY saying is that Ryan Reynolds is G/G/G because they've placed people that we know in our world (Melissa and Dahlia) into the movie.

    Allow me to explain:

    In reference to the second act, Melissa and Dahlia are actual people that we know of in our world. But there is no tv show called crim9 or a reality-tv show based on a pilot episode in our world. Therefore, our world is not the second act, but a variation of it. We are merely living in a reality much like the one in the second act, except that G/G/G is Ryan Reynolds instead of Gavin (hence the absence of the tv shows). Without using Melissa or Dahlia's real name, then there is absolutely no way we could come to this conclusion. But by doing so, the movie is actually suggesting that our reality is much like theirs, with Gavin and Ryan being the only difference.

    [I suppose you could argue that the second act's reality also had a Ryan Reynolds, but that would mean there would also be a movie called "The Nines" in that world too which would lead Melissa and Dahlia to -- ouch! my head hurts]

    If anyone has bothered to look up what the name Ryan means, it's quite eerie:

    http://www.behindthename.com/name/ryan

    http://www.weddingvendors.com/baby-names/meaning/ryan/

    Are you totally freaked out yet? :)

    Still don't believe me? Look up Ryan's last name, but omit the S.

    http://www.behindthename.com/name/reynold

    http://www.weddingvendors.com/baby-names/meaning/reynold/

    NOW ARE YOU FREAKED OUT?! (I guess his favorite letter is R now).

    The movie is the most deceptive form of propaganda: tell the actual outrageous truth because no one would believe it anyway, just so that people will think it is entirely fictional... or is that exactly what I'm doing?

    Posted 2 months ago #

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