arsaib4: "However, one thing I don’t consent with is his blame laying squarely on the shoulders of the film’s star: Bill Murray. (I believe Tabuno said something similar a little earlier.) Jones is a HUGE Anderson fan so I wasn’t shocked to read such a piece, but he was quite explicit in his remarks."

tabuno: What is surprising about this remark is not the remark itself, but the absence about this remark in the rest of the comment. There is very little in the way to support and explain the idea that Bill Murray is to blame of this movie's exquisite failure. Almost half araib4's comment is a description of support of completely the opposite! And the rest of the comment are reasons why the movie could be considered good without regard to Bill Murray except in one of the most controversial scenes of the movie. Not willing to say the Bill Murray was miscast but that his presence in the film required something extraordinary, which in my mind, didn't happen. For me the problem isn't about whether Murray's character projects "a glorious and heroic past" or "unrelieved absurdity, disenchantment and quiet withdrawal" except for the possibility of the role fitting into the concept of the movie itself. What worked in Lost In Translation is that Bill Murray's film persona didn't intrude significantly into the movie because he was forced to become less than Bill Murray but more of a serious personality with humorous traits. However, in Life Aquatic what is presented in is a character that is Bill Murray with a little more depth and slightly reduced comedic bent, but nevertheless, the role that is presented is Bill Murray that for me is so detracting and disruptive that it almost sours the whole movie experience for me.

arsaib4: "I don’t have a big problem with the Filipino pirates, and some of other surreal touches, as after all, the film started out with the mission to track down a "Jaguar Shark." "

tabuno: arsaib4 immediately preceding comment is somewhat at odds with this statement in that of all the scenes that arsaib4 " once again felt that Anderson didn’t quite flesh out his screenplay. The Life Aquatic’s sudden shifts in mood and tone worked against the atmosphere Anderson created during various stretches" it would be the pirate scene as the best example. The scene taken in and of itself in another movie might have worked out great, but the striking difference in this scene and the rest of the movie makes this scene disturbing, jarring so much so that it almost in my mind rips out of the film, tears the fabric of the screenplay that it leaves the movie in tatters, having to be repaired by the end. And what does a mission to track down a Jaquar Shark have to do in supporting the idea about the Filipino pirates as surreal. The pirate scene wasn't surreal it was played out as bizarre where the pirates werely deadly serious while the rest of the cast, the crew of Mr. Murray acting like this was no big deal when in fact it was to the point of absurdity. Mr. Murray most likely would have died in this scene as well as most of the other crew members making this entire scene too fantastic and at odds with the rest of the more amusing and lightness of the movie. For me it was like seeing a beautiful face with a big, red blotchy boil or pimple on it.