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JulyDiaz

EPISODE 103 — Zardoz

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I am adding this as it was just released a couple of days ago and just seems too serendipitous to be coincidence:

 

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Unfortunately, this got me thinking about Zardoz again (Which is another reason I think June needs to say her piece on this film. I mean, you have to purge yourself of Zardoz or the seed of insanity this movie plants in your brain is just going to grow and grow).

 

I know there are people on this forum who love this movie and people who really "get" it, so perhaps someone could enlighten me. If I am reading the end of this movie correctly it posits: stagnation is bad, impotency leads to stagnation, impotency is a result of denying yourself basic human imperatives (i.e. procreation); ergo, go have some babies, because in doing so, you are achieving the fundamental purpose of human existence and will therefore experience life's ultimate fulfillment. If this is correct, why did Boorman choose to end the film with a static shot of Zed and Consuella staring grim faced at the camera with a look that says, "What the fuck were we thinking? Having this child was the biggest mistake of our lives..?"

 

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Great Zardoz talk everyone, but what about Paul saying that framebridge will "suck off a picture off your instagram?" It was upsetting.

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2ardo2.

2 Zar 2 Doz

 

Also:

 

Zardoz: How Consuella Got Her Groove Back

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I just tried writing a quick summary of this movie's plot and timeline, and reached 850 words before I realized that wasn't possible. Instead I'm just gonna point some shorter bullets for Correction and Omissions.

 

Correction/Omission 1.5: "Looks Can Kill"

Since the crystals can store, read, interpret, and transmit data, I think they can also be used as weapons. Specifically, you can literally give a look that kills by transmitting malicious information into another person's crystal, like a virus attack. The fact that this requires both parties to have brain crystals to make (even a remote bit of) sense, I think that means Zardoz has a crystal in his brain. Considering it's revealed he comes from a line of chosen people selected for breeding by Arthur Frame/Zardoz, it doesn't seem too far-fetched an assumption.

 

 

Fucking tour de force post, crumbcake.

 

Doesn't Arthur/Zardoz posit that a Brutal had to infiltrate the oasis in order to give the immortals the gift of sweet, sweet death? What is the purpose of a crystal weapon of this nature in a society where no one can die?

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2ardo2.

 

Return to Zardoz.

 

Zardoz 2: The Zardozening

 

ZarDos

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The more I think about it, the more I think the gang should have done a full 60 minute pod on the boner lecture scene.

 

They live in a rustic paradise (ish) without regard for hunger, aging, crime, poverty and with full access to all the knowledge in human history. How do they spend their Saturday afternoon? Boner lecture.

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Well, when you can't get boners, I guess all you want to talk about is boners! Think of how much time, money, and energy is spent by men who can't get boners on trying to get back their boner-having ability. Imagine if no one on Earth had boners. We would do nothing but research and discuss boners for the rest of our lives.

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Well, when you can't get boners, I guess all you want to talk about is boners! Think of how much time, money, and energy is spent by men who can't get boners on trying to get back their boner-having ability. Imagine if no one on Earth had boners. We would do nothing but research and discuss boners for the rest of our lives.

 

This movie is weirdly boner-centric. If all men lost the ability to get a boner it wouldn't mean that sex would no longer exist. Lesbians don't have boners and they seem to be doing okay. I mean, I know that faulting Zardoz for an obsession with heteronormativity is missing the much bigger flaws with the film (lack of plot, magic marker beards, costume design, clear hatred of women).

 

I guess I'm just saying that the remake should have more lesbians. Maybe just all lesbians.

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I guess I'm just saying that the remake should have more lesbians. Maybe just all lesbians.

 

I'm gunna make my own Zardoz, with guns and lesbians. In fact, forget the Zardoz!

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I haven't seen the film so I'm just going by what is on the podcast but if the Immortal want to die so bad why don't they just wander off to wherever the savages are and let them shoot them, why wait till Z comes there? Better still just starve to death or kill yourselve some other way. Just because there's no disease don't mean you can't slit your wrists

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I haven't seen the film so I'm just going by what is on the podcast but if the Immortal want to die so bad why don't they just wander off to wherever the savages are and let them shoot them, why wait till Z comes there? Better still just starve to death or kill yourselve some other way. Just because there's no disease don't mean you can't slit your wrists

 

They cannot commit suicide because they are reborn back into the Vortex at the same age as when they die. Connery kills Zardoz five minutes into the movie, but we see Zardoz again towards the end when some of the reveals start flying so he can helpfully lay out his exact plan with nonsense exposition. You know, like in all well crafted movies.

 

I am still not clear on how Connery's infiltration into the Vortex allows them actual death, but that is the crux of the central narrative. This fact causes Zardoz to lure Connery to "Wizard, Oz" which emboldens Connery to infiltrate the floating head via the kitty litter dump which then throws upheaval into the Immortal community which then [puts bullet in head]. /jokerecycling

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They cannot commit suicide because they are reborn back into the Vortex at the same age as when they die. Connery kills Zardoz five minutes into the movie, but we see Zardoz again towards the end when some of the reveals start flying so he can helpfully lay out his exact plan with nonsense exposition. You know, like in all well crafted movies.

 

I am still not clear on how Connery's infiltration into the Vortex allows them actual death, but that is the crux of the central narrative. This fact causes Zardoz to lure Connery to "Wizard, Oz" which emboldens Connery to infiltrate the floating head via the kitty litter dump which then throws upheaval into the Immortal community which then [puts bullet in head]. /jokerecycling

 

If we keep hacking away at this we may make sense of it yet....

 

I think Zardoz's plan with Connery was to not only make him genetically superior, but also intellectually superior to everyone else in the world. Having read an entire library of literature has made him the only person on Earth with truly free will and the ability to think critically. Zardoz knows that despite the Eternal's elevated caste position, they are still a bunch of sheeple. Basically, Zed has a degree in Liberal Arts is what I am saying.

 

Zed sees that the world is a lie. He is now an intellectual barbarian, which I guess is what Boorman felt was the ideal man. In other words, humanity needs to always strive for knowledge, but also needs to embrace its barbaric animal side. So once Zed gets to the Vortex he thinks, "Yup, just as I thought, it's all bullshit," and destroys the Tabernacle (the church?) which grants the Eternals their immortality (the illusion of Heaven). Freed of this constraint, and finally embracing the pleasures of sex, the Eternals can now experience joy, pain, and the sweet release of death. For the first time in their lives, they are stripped of the security blanket of a guaranteed resurection and see death for the ineffable mystery that it is.

 

I don't know why the Eternals can't just destroy the Tabernacle themselves, maybe it's out of fear, or maybe it's because they wouldn't just be committing suicide, but also murder. Maybe their moral code dictated that since destroying the Tabernacle would result in everyone's death, and since some may not actually want that, it was just something they wouldn't do or even think of doing. In any case, Zed had to be the catalyst and decide for them. Which, I guess, was Zardoz's plan from the jump...

 

P.S. I just re-read all of that and I don't know if what I just said makes sense, but fuck it. I'll stand by it.

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Cameron, reading your synthesis both elates and saddens me. I think I was getting some of this through sheer osmosis - hence why I kind of liked the movie after watching it, and still do.

 

But it also saddens me because I realize now that without the mountains of cocaine and LSD that were surely consumed during the writing of this script, a more coherent and thus awesome movie might have emerged.

 

Then again, if it was too coherent, it might not be as good, if that makes sense. To paraphrase Gelman's hilarious take, "it's like we're ALL God and God is all of US, man!"

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I think that Tom Hardy's Bane voice came from a combination of Sean Connery and the aged Friend. Watch a clip of the two interacting, and tell me that's not Bane. "Take control of your Vortex, Brutals! No one cared who I was until I read The Oz."

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i say; check out a podcast called projection booth, they actually interviewed the director about this movie: http://projection-booth.blogspot.se/2014/01/episode-148-zardoz.html

its soooooooo interesting.

 

he basically says that alot of the stuff didnt work,and then he wanted to edit it totally different.

 

 

no im not affiliated with the guys doing that pod,i just think its interesting

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