Episode 109 - FACE OFF: LIVE!

[Seanothon 10]

I was torn between this and "I could eat a peach for hours"

 

[TheShanster 11]

I remember seeing part of this as a kid and thinking that this is a thing that could actually happen... and when I was older I was like "heyyy remember that movie... that couldn't happen... but it sounds awesome now." I also think the acting in this movie was pretty decent and it made it seem believable enough to me... even now, I agree with Jason it adds up!

 

I thought two scenes that were kind of bizarre and not really mentioned was when we first saw John Travolta's daughter. They show her crying and her face is hidden and then she shows John Travolta her face and he acts like he's scared of her. I thought that that was upsetting. If anyone looked at my face that way I'd be upset, especially if it was my dad.

 

Also how weird was the elaborate weapon case? The chicklets just made me laugh... and I don't think we ever saw him chewing chicklets in the movie... so that was kind of funny.

[TheShanster 11]

Ohhh and on IMDB I saw that they made their blood types different as a type of symbolism. Travolta was O Positive because thats the universal donor, whereas cage was AB or whatever because that is the universal recipient, showing that he takes from others. Even if it doesn't really work because of science, I thought the symbolism was interesting.

 

It also says that a lot of the action scenes were supposed to be green screened but they were filmed because they wanted to add to the realism of the movie... because this is such a realistic movie...

[Bugs Meany 69]

I'm sorry, if I were to get a similar phone call I'd at least be intrigued. I'm not saying I'd believe it right away, but I'd at least hear the person out.

It's like when actor types talk about getting their big break. "Judd Apatow called and said he loved my standup act. I was like 'Yeah right!' and hung up!"

[Cameron H. 23786]

So…Castor is in a coma, right? And, as brought up by before, there is no one monitoring, guarding, or otherwise restraining him. When he wakes up, he immediately calls up his cronies and has them rustle up the doctor and the only two FBI agents in on the whole scheme.

 

Here are my questions:

 

1) How does Castor know where he is? While he was talking to his minions, did he tell them to hold on and take his bloody, faceless ass outside to get the street address? Was it like, “Yeah, it looks like it’s 123 Covert Operations Lane. It’s the large, nondescript government building right across from the Chipotle?” Do government doctor’s involved in clandestine medical procedures keep business cards on their desks?

 

2) How did they track down everyone they needed so they could perform the operation and eliminate all the witnesses? Did the video Castor is watching begin with the Doctor saying, “Hi, I’m Dr. Benjamin James Spatula and with me are Agents Gillian Sandytoes and Tobias Manhood. Today I will be performing a Face-ectomy on Agent Sean Archer, but first, I would like to provide all of our complete home addresses…”

[Jollygreen52 57]

I was appalled by the haircut they gave Sean Archer after his face was removed but before Castor Troy's face was put on. They clearly show little hairs going EVERYWHERE. I'm not a surgeon, but I doubt getting little hairs all over a freshly exposed ketchup face is medically advisable.

[DebsCane 1]

Omissions:

 

This movie basically predicted 9/11.

 

When Castor Troy gets to Sean Archer's home and opens Sean Archer's diary look at the dates:

 

SEAN ARCHER IS DESCRIBING HIS SORROW ON 9/11!!!

 

 

YES Juggermax! And the FBI boss, before he dies, says "You have to stop this war on terror."

[DebsCane 1]

I guess an omission:

 

They spent more time cutting John Travolta's hair DURING THE OPERATION than they do actually unattaching and re-attaching Cage's face.

[BożydarŁojwyż 1]

My Question for Q&A:

(I'm halfway through the episode, maybe someone asks this later)

 

I remember thinking it when I first saw the movie (I was 13 or 14 at the time):

So, they came up with the idea to swap their faces. They cut face from one and sew it on the other, along with hair and all, they fattened (or thinned down) them to look like one another, they installed the voice-changing microchip, and all of that was given to us in the sauce of a coocoo-crazy movie science.

 

If we go to this handwaved pseudo-science, WHY NOT JUST SURGICALLY REPLACE THEIR BRAINS? Not faces, voices and physicality, but just what's inside their heads?

 

What say you?

[Kaminski 47]

I guess an omission:

 

They spent more time cutting John Travolta's hair DURING THE OPERATION than they do actually unattaching and re-attaching Cage's face.

 

That's not an omission, that's SCIENCE! =D

[Joven 373]

Know I'm in the minority but I very much disliked this movie, the hammy acting, stupid scenarios, stupid characters and creepy ass face waterfalls literally made me cringe, its definitely nowhere near as good as Con Air, I'd go so far as to say I hated this movie, episode was really good though.

 

Kinda on the topic of face waterfalls, just googled it and HDTGM was pretty high up, might just be the google spy stuff sifting the episode and the montage up the rankings, but whatever.

 

Are we to assume that Cage has those cigar boxes filled with specific candy and guns stashed all over the place? Like those aren't his special one of a kind guns, they're just mass produced? Because even after everyone assumed he was dead he/archer shows up to the crime apartment and they just shove that same box from the airport at him. I'm fairly certain the FBI didn't just randomly give out what would be a.) evidence and b.) in the fiery wreck of a jet they probably still haven't dislodged from the building, to some random people who were vaguely known associates of his.

 

On the subject of known associates and the airport...his guards/lackeys/minions/whatevers, his kidnapping guys who round up the doctor to give him Archer's face and kidnap Archer's daughter and do his bidding in the church, they were the same guys who were at the airport, weren't they? Pollux got sent to secret sea prison, but they were just roaming free? Waiting somewhere in town that Troy has the phone number to for further orders?

 

About Archer's actions during the shootout at the crime apartment...he kept grabbing the kid and sticking next to the woman during the shootout. So in his mind, he would help whisk them away to safety and protect them...and not, you know, paint a giant target on them? Couldn't help but think that maybe the kid would be safer if he was maybe anywhere else than in the arms of the guy that a huge swarm of people were intent on killing. Granted, the cops apparently didn't care whether he was an innocent or not, since there was a scene when the kid was standing on that little mini disco dance floor where a cop just fires a shitload of bullets directly at the kid, clearly aiming for him, kinda before Archer got there...so who knows.

 

Also, if Troy hadn't woken up, this would be like a whole 10 minutes movie. There's all the setup, build up of him going to the sea prison to meet Troy's brother. Oh no, a kink in the plan, Pollux is kinda suspicious, how will he manage to use his wits and knowledge of Troy to get the infor....oh, it lasts like 2 seconds, he spills the beans immediately, now Archer knows where the bomb is, mission accomplished, sure couldn't have used anybody else for such a delicate operation. If you needed Archer's encyclopedic knowledge of Troy, maybe just implant a microchip (or whatever, I'll edit this when I think of something better) in the undercover guys ear so he can fill in the blanks when necessary?

[Joven 373]

Still googling face waterfall, came across this actual piece of art:

 

"Sometimes one picture is simply positioned over the centre of another; elsewhere the silhouette of a figure is cut out; its ghost-like absence is filled in by more landscape or someone else’s body. Stezaker’s work re-examines the various relationships to the photographic image: as documentation of truth, purveyor of memory, and symbol of modern culture." Yuh huh, ok.

 

http://www.featherof...ointed-harmony/

[Bugs Meany 69]

Kinda on the topic of face waterfalls, just googled it and HDTGM was pretty high up, might just be the google spy stuff sifting the episode and the montage up the rankings, but whatever.

I did a custom search from the beginning of time up until March 1st (this was taped on 3/14) and there was nothing relevant. So apparently the "face waterfall" as a gesture of affection was born on that Largo stage.

[onReload 43]

Two things during the prisons escape.

1. What could Sean Archer's plan to escape POSSIBLY have been? He realizes he need to escape so he steals a cigarette and starts a fight with a guard (which, why the hell in this ULTRA-SUPER-MAX prison would they ever allow him to get that close to a guard?) the gaurds then carry him away for a lobotomy at which point he convinces another con to spring back to life after electro-shock.

 

• He did not know where the prison guards would take him

• He did not know about the other prisoner being there

• He had no reason on earth to believe this other prisoner would be some sort of super human capable of resisting frontal-lobe electro-shock.

SO WHAT THE FUCK WAS HIS PLAN BEYOND PISSING OFF THE GUARDS!?

 

He had been told that the only way they get the boots off is when they're going to be executed (after 3 strikes). I think he just figured he'd improv a way out of there, since he had no other escape options. Pretty crazy but that's the way Nic Cage likes it.

 

Did anyone else feel weird about the treatment of Sean Archer's daughter in this movie? There's an exchange where Archer asks her whom she's trying to be, to which she answers, "myself." Makes sense, she is a teenager, he's her father...but then at the end of the movie, as though to coincide with the other parts of the super-happy ending, she's back in "normal people" makeup! Like, hooray, your daughter has conformed, thank god she's done using eyeliner in a different way!

 

That and, after Travolta Troy beats up Danny Masterson, he tells Archer's daughter "

Dress up like Halloween and ghouls will try to get in your pants." I mean, yeah, Troy is a psychopath, but along with the other scenes about Archer's daughter, this feels like the movie is blaming the rape victim here. Just a thought.

[Cameron H. 23786]

 

That and, after Travolta Troy beats up Danny Masterson, he tells Archer's daughter "Dress up like Halloween and ghouls will try to get in your pants." I mean, yeah, Troy is a psychopath, but along with the other scenes about Archer's daughter, this feels like the movie is blaming the rape victim here. Just a thought.

 

What I thought crazy about this scene is as Masterson is trying to rape her he says something to the effect of, "What? Do you think Mr. Invisible (her father) is going to care?" Look dude, maybe the guy is a bit emotionally absent, but do you really think he's really not going to care if you rape his daughter in the driveway?

 

Also, as a bonus observation, do you know what would have solved all of Castor's problems? If the cold open had played out like this: [bLAM!] Whoops, I accidentally shot the kid...[bLAM!!] Archer falls down dead. Castor walks away.

[Joe Lerini 7329]

There are myriad plot holes in this film, but there's one that always bugged me...

 

Gina Gershon's character, who we find out had at least a sexual relationship with Troy, really doesn't bat an eyelid when Troy - a cold blooded, psychopathic criminal with a tongue sucking fetish - does a 360 degree turn from being the aforementioned psycho to a sympathetic and contrite man. Indeed, the only time she thinks something is up is when Archer as Troy comments on Troy's clothes, and even then that's quickly forgotten about. And I always found it weird that film asks us to sympathize with her when she's killed by Troy as Archer. Fuck her; she was fraternizing with a next level, cuckoo bananas killer.

That's a 180.

[FisterRoboto 7499]

How did no one in the audience pick the best combination? Given how awful some of Travolta's dialogue was ("Dress up like Halloween and ghouls will try to get in your pants" or my favorite "We'll take a break when the case BREAKS!"), why not replace Travolta with Tommy Wiseau? He would have given such a great reading to all of Travolta's lines. Cage/Wiseau.

 

Also, they touched on Adam in the episode, but here's the question no one asked: Who the fuck let him take the kid home?! Was there no one that was like, "Hey, that's the son of the guy who killed your son and whom you have been obsessing over for years now. You also just pretended to be him so that you could murder the shit out of him with a spear gun. Maybe you shouldn't be taking his roughly-the-same-age-as-your-dead-child son home with you!"

[DavidSamuelFoust 0]

Was it noticed at all that when john travolta ( nick cage) was escaping from the electro chair, the gaurds are firing upon them like they have machine guns but they all clearly have like rifles with 10 round clips?

[Quasar Sniffer 4174]

This idea just hit me... Face/Off Premake: Go back in time and do the Cage/Travolta classic with Cary Grant and Burt Lancaster.

[Madrigal Marco 22]

Whoever was in charge of the blue magic marker to hand draw the laser cutting line on both of their faces had to make sure they wouldn't fuck it up, or the faces would be different shapes when they switched them.

Playing kind of loosey-goosey, aren't they? At least use a stencil.

[tyroneslothrop 124]

Paul and June better start doing that vertical face wipe move on their kid ASAP.

[Madrigal Marco 22]

I think this movie is set in an alternate universe in which those face wipes are socially accepted thing, because everyone in the movie immediately understands and is onboard with it. Everyone.

[Juggermax 75]

Couple more omissions:

 

1) the big guy they are torching when castor Troy is being strapped in torture chair is Chris Bauer or frank sobotka from the 2nd season of the wire.

 

2) further incest-y bad guy theme in the movie:

Castor troy gets to bad guy hq, meets nick cassavetes

"you look like you just fucked your mother".

 

Is it possible that the whole archer family suffer from face blindness? Perhaps the facial waterfall was a way to recognize each other?

[stueygeorge 15]

Omission: It was not at all clear what Travolta/Castor's plan was after getting his brother out of jail. Why disclose the location of and defuse the bomb? By doing so he pissed away the money he was going to get without any good reason. Did he decide he liked being an FBI agent better than a terrorist? He mentions something about taking care of their rivals, but what rivals? They are never talked about again, and anyway are there that many Supreme Court Justice-bombing terrorists in L.A.? It seems to me that, if you're worried about rivals, the last thing you would do is not carry out your plan that your client is paying for! He also tells Pollux that, after taking care of these rivals, he wants to get his face back, but how is he supposed to do that with Cage/Archer in jail and all the face-removing surgeons dead? (Maybe he knows about the top surgeons in D.C.?)

 

I love how Joan Davis stabs Travolta/Castor in the arm while he is sleeping to take a blood sample and he barely registers that it happened. I think if someone stabbed me while I slept I might notice.

 

One more thing: In the ambulance at the end, when Cage/Archer reaches over to get his wedding ring back, Travolta/Castor is not covered up and he looks like he's been bandaged across his midsection - IS HE STILL ALIVE??!!

 

I LOVE THIS MOVIE!

[stueygeorge 15]

Face switching -- believe it, people!

http://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/features/face-transplants-face-reality