“Could you elaborate on that? I'm not seeing arguments about it on the forum, and I'm curious what the negative reaction is”
It wasn’t anything overly negative – just a little grumbling whenever Dr Jekyll and Ms Hyde was raised.
Personally, I have two opposing views when it comes to the Ms Hyde (and lesser extent Sister Hyde) film.
Objectively:
The film has some excellent transformation scenes that hold up pretty well 20 years later. I still find the first and penultimate scenes very compelling. However, the plot is full of holes, the acting is subpar (Sean Young is almost comatose in most scenes) and it’s played for pretty poor laughs. Clearly visionaries like Mako have produced work that is infinitely better.
However, Subjectively:
” What I'd really like to see is a Sister Hyde story where the transformed man retains some self-awareness when he is a woman, so he is still evil and sexy and all that, but he isn't 100% a different person. It'd be more interesting (and hot) to me if the female persona was acting on impulses the male was repressing, and if he had to live with the guilt after he became a man again. With a movie like this, it's almost like he's a werewolf or something and he really has no responsibility for what his female self does. The only real drama is whether Ms. Hyde will take over forever, basically killing him, or if he will transform at an awkward time and damage his reputation. That's not nearly as compelling to me as a man genuinely wrestling with his feminine side, a repressed aspect of his personality that enjoys being an evil skank!”
Me too!
There are some excellent stories out there that cover exactly this subject. I really enjoy The Rise of Miss Hyde by Argus on FM. Also The Phantom Transgenderer of Old London Town (I forget the author) is a great twist on the Sister Hyde concept.
Any examination of Stephenson’s original text goes into much detail regarding “the duality of man”. The original Hyde was indeed a reflection of Jekyll’s dark side – they were two sides of the same coin.
Bring this forward to 1995 – does Helen simply have the balls (sorry) to act where Richard found himself constrained by morals?
Taking this into account – rewatch the restaurant scene through this prism. How does the mental transformation take place? When does the Helen personality take control? Is there a slow insidious change into Helen? Or does Richard undergo a psychotic fracture when confronted with the evidence of womanhood? Or a bit of both?
This is what keeps drawing me back to the film – the potential for reinterpretation. Clearly things would be much more interesting if Richard WAS Helen and had to cope with the guilt of his/her actions.......
It’s probably why Hydeaholics like myself (and others) could spend paragraphs discussing each scene – the what if’s, the imagining what is going on inside Jacks/Hyde’s mind, the significance of each and every sound FX etc etc
Now I fully appreciate this might make those of us who enjoy this discussion a little niche – even in our little community.
And
that’s why I created the thread. A place for safe discussion of ALL things Jekyll & Hyde – from the failings and missed potential of a 90’s B movie, to the amazing work of Mako, to the wonderful artwork of Smooch and all of the other work in between.
(Sorry for the ramble but I really wanted to express my thoughts on the matter)