What does "
rickroll" mean in this context? I don't get it.
It is just 9:30 AM where I live, and I've had the chance to watch the video twice. Once early this morning after cleaning up the results of my dog deciding to crap and pee all over the house during the night, and once now.
I see that consensus has emerged on the list already. I hope I haven't already forfeited my right to comment because the video has been out for a grand total of six hours. I guess I'm about to find out.
I was REALLY excited about this video and I confess to being a little disappointed. I am a writer and like kryptoman68, that may be most of my problem. This is just my opinion and it doesn't mean I don't like the video or hate Adam or whatever the hell it's supposed to mean. As
kryptoman68 pointed out, it's just that I can't watch movies anymore without thinking "get me rewrite." The storyline here is so half-baked, and as much fun as the video is, it could have so much more with a fully drawn story concept. And I can't stop thinking about that. So I hope you will indulge me.
The nature of the institution in which Adam is imprisoned is unclear. Is it a prison? Mental hospital? Work camp? Gulag? How did Adam end up there and how long has he been there? A brief glimpse of a dossier or computer screen or wanted poster could have conveyed so much interesting context here.
Why is a little imaginative context important? Because after the first few seconds, the video becomes unexpectedly unmenacing. Because while we see the constant observation, we're dropped into a situation that appears static and is thus uninteresting. Adam himself is interesting to look at, of course, but since we don't know anything about him, we have no sense of any real stakes.
Is he a rebel leader desperate to run to his band of merry men? Is he here to liberate these people? Is he an iconoclastic loner who is worried that he is going to be shocked or drugged to make him like these people? He doesn't seem particularly worried so why should we be on the edge of our seats?
Adam becomes part of the group ... he takes a look around but finds not so much as a hint of any kindred spirits ready to rebel. It seems that everyone but Adam is a mindless beaten-down drone. No one so much as side-eyes Adam as he marches around singing at the top of his voice or crushes his pills to release the beautiful blue crystals. No guards rush in to beat him; no one is punished at any time.
Why does it matter? Because imagine how much more powerful it would have been if, say, someone with a little spark, someone Adam had tried to befriend with the touch of a hand or a look, had been taken away and Adam could hear them being tortured? And then he or she had come back a mindless drone like all the others ... and then he found a message scrawled in his cell that said "YOU'RE NEXT."
Yes, how much more powerful would that have been, knowing that the consequence of conformity and the numbing drugs was the crushing of the individual spirit? And knowing that that was Adam's inevitable fate unless he found a way?
In writing this is called a setup and it becomes more of a problem when the rebellion actually starts. Without any setup, we don't know what Adam has in mind or why does anyone would choose to follow him. As they rush for freedom, what do they think is going to happen? What are they risking? Their freedom, their sanity, their lives?
This lack of a setup also steps on the message of the song ... because it makes the video all about Adam. Without the setup, the people are not the agents of their own liberation. Adam is. And as a result, when the transformation comes, it seems too easy. All you have to do is follow Adam, and you will be transformed into a fabulous person. The guards with their white gas just fall back and disappear, and somehow the fence is gone and everyone dances madly without any work whatsoever on their part.
All that said ... I loved the colorful transformation and the mad dancing, and Adam's great smirk at the end. Just wish getting there had worked better.
Here goes nothing. I'm going to press Post Reply. Please don't hate me.
