Miscellaneous Movie Musings

[tracilicious]

Originally Posted by Gemini Cricket

I'd also like to hear you address the huge problems the movie had with its storytelling. We can stray from product placement for a moment.

What is the moral of the story? Love doesn't last? Love doesn't wait for you? There are worse things than being stuck on an island, you could find out that the love of your life forgot you and got married to someone else?
What great messages!

I really love Cast Away. I won't address product placement (though for me it was very necessary in this story), but I will address the above.

I don't think a story necessarily needs a moral, but for me Cast Away's moral is triumph of the human spirit. He clings to hope by not opening the angel wings package, he creates comradery with an ordinary object to help him survive the constant isolation, he takes his one chance at freedom from the island with bravery and adventure, then in the end even when all seems lost he delivers his package and journeys into the unknown. Life really sucks sometimes but it doesn't end. Even when the most crippling of blows are dealt the indefeatable human spirit survives. He takes his map and goes off to find out what else life has to offer. You don't get a better ending than that, IMO.

I will say though, that one thing really annoyed me about Cast Away. He's gone for four years, in that time she marries and has a two or three year old child. So basically, she would have married within the year he died and got pregnant right away. It seemed a bit rushed to me in that respect. One of my favorite movies ever though, for precisely the reasons iSm described in his original post.