Memories Are Forever (1) (2.5)

Rate, review & discuss the episodes from the second season

Moderator: Styles Bitchley

Post Reply

How Would You Rate This Episode?

10 (Perfect!)
35
28%
9.5 (One of the Best)
48
38%
9.0 (Excellent)
18
14%
8.5 (Very Good)
17
13%
8.0 (Pretty Good)
3
2%
7.5 (Decent)
2
2%
7.0 (Average at Best)
1
1%
6.5 (Not So Good)
0
No votes
6.0 (Pretty Bad)
0
No votes
5.0 (Just Awful)
2
2%
 
Total votes: 126

Message
Author
User avatar
J.J. Walters
Founding Father
Posts: 4196
Joined: Tue Jan 02, 2007 10:54 pm
Location: Suburbia, USA
Contact:

#11 Post by J.J. Walters »

Jay-Firestorm wrote:As mentioned in my review, Higgins is seen to be writing his memoirs for the first of a number of times in the series.
Thank you Jay! This has been bugging me for quite some time.
Higgins: It's not a scratch! It's a bloody gouge!

User avatar
lutherhgillis
Fleet Admiral
Posts: 528
Joined: Tue Jul 31, 2007 5:54 pm

#12 Post by lutherhgillis »

Jay Huguely said TS brougt up the idea that Higgins is the real Robin back in the first or second season. Along that line of thinking, isn't it hilarious that someone who could write pulp romance novels and be wildly successful could not get his personal memoirs published! Too cool...

The fact they kept the characters real and not larger than life is an element that helped the show be successful.
Who's Dot Matrix, and what has she got to do with this?

Xenos
Ensign
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Oct 19, 2009 10:38 pm

#13 Post by Xenos »

Just watched this last night and have a few questions:

Do we know how Magnum, a Navy SEAL, was not at least investigated for marrying the widow of an NVA Officer? That seems a bit hazardous, no? Sort of "sleeping with the enemy"? Particularly as we are now of the consensus (which settles the issue for me) that Michelle was at least half Vietnamese? Were members of the US military allowed to marry women with close, familial ties to the North Vietnamese?

Sorry for the length, but this is my first post here. Great board.

User avatar
Coops
Fleet Admiral
Posts: 515
Joined: Tue May 06, 2008 12:27 pm
Location: Houston, Texas

#14 Post by Coops »

Near the beginning of the episode, Magnum is taking photos while on a divorce case. After taking several shots, he has second thoughts about the case and chucks the film into the harbor! Suddenly, he sees Michelle on a boat and starts snapping pictures of her. Of course, there would have been no film in the camera! (Noted by CliffW)
Ok, time to de-flub this one.

In the shot of Magnum after he takes photos of "Romeo & Juliet", he finishes the roll, rolls it back into the film cartridge, opens the back of the camera, and then puts that exposed roll of film in his shirt pocket. He immediately bends down, grabs another roll of film, opens the rubberized plastic tube, and just starts to pull out a small length of the film for feeding into the spooler, then the camera cuts away back to "Romeo & Juliet". While we did not see him specifically load the film, his actions prior to the cut away are exactly what one does when reloading a 35mm SLR camera. So, yes, Magnum DID have film in his camera before he shot the photos of Michelle on the yacht. Boy, now do I feel old...
Image

User avatar
IKnowWhatYoureThinking
Macho Taco & Coops Connoisseur
Posts: 1885
Joined: Tue Apr 01, 2008 9:19 pm
Location: NC

#15 Post by IKnowWhatYoureThinking »

Xenos wrote:Just watched this last night and have a few questions:

Do we know how Magnum, a Navy SEAL, was not at least investigated for marrying the widow of an NVA Officer? That seems a bit hazardous, no? Sort of "sleeping with the enemy"? Particularly as we are now of the consensus (which settles the issue for me) that Michelle was at least half Vietnamese? Were members of the US military allowed to marry women with close, familial ties to the North Vietnamese?

Sorry for the length, but this is my first post here. Great board.
You bring up a good point. Maybe it was something that happened and they didn't go into detail on it, or it could've been something that was just ignored by the writers.

Milo Minderbinder
Lieutenant
Posts: 20
Joined: Wed Feb 10, 2010 2:34 pm

#16 Post by Milo Minderbinder »

Regarding the SEAL and surface warfare badge switches, my guess is that the writers either made a mistake or didn't really understand what they meant. Here are some possibilities as well:

If a Navy officer has earned multiple badges, must he wear them all on his dress uniform or does he have a choice? It's not inconceivable that Magnum actually earned both in Navy.

Perhaps the Navy had a policy (or maybe an unwritten protocol) of not wearing the SEAL badge in South Vietnam so as to not advertise the identify of a SEAL member.

I'm not sure about the timing of when he got married, but maybe he was not attached to a SEAL team at the time of the wedding, i.e., maybe that came later.

Also, the woman playing his wife does not look Vietnamese to me.

Finally, hats off to the writers on this episode for working in the issue of recovering the remains of lost pilots as a plot device instead of something more traditional and less thoughtful.

User avatar
Coops
Fleet Admiral
Posts: 515
Joined: Tue May 06, 2008 12:27 pm
Location: Houston, Texas

#17 Post by Coops »

Michelle was of mostly French stock, not vietnamese.
Image

Milo Minderbinder
Lieutenant
Posts: 20
Joined: Wed Feb 10, 2010 2:34 pm

#18 Post by Milo Minderbinder »

Thanks for the info about Michell's Frence ancestry - that makes sense.

I did a little more digging about the rules for wearing the surface warfare and SEAL indentifiers, what the Navy refers to as insignia. Additionally, these two insignia are "warfare" insignia (i.e., surface and special operations).

The rules say in cases where a person has earned more than two warfare insignias, that only 2 may be worn at any given time. The one indicating the current speciality of the wearer goes in the "primary" position and a second one may go into a "secondary" position. If the person is not currently in either specialty, then the primary one defaults to whatever one they earned first.

I didn't see anything that said the person must wear two if two or more have been earned. The operative word is "may":

"Personnel with multiple qualifications, may wear two insignia, placing one in the primary position and the second in the secondary position, within the following guidelines:" (http://www.npc.navy.mil/CommandSupport/ ... 5/5201.htm)

Getting back to Magnum, it would seem to make sense to have him wearing the SEAL insignia in Saigon during the wedding scene since he is deployed in a joint task force doing some type of special operations.

The choice of the SEAL insignia at the end is also interesting. Since he is supposed to be testifying in DC about something that presumably happened when he was a SEAL, then I can see that making sense. You also have to wonder about how military leaders would have considered SEALs at this point in history. Some of them might have considered SEALs to have been a bit of rogue operators in Viet Nam, so having Magnum wearing a SEAL insignia could conceivably have been a bit of a negative thing for his upcoming trip, meaning that it might have put him on the defensive.

Maybe this will get explained later in the show, but it seems odd that they always had Magnum wearing the surface warfare belt buckle instead of showing a SEAL trident, assuming the latter is much more prestigious. Or, maybe they were trying to portray him as a humble guy (and not too much of a James Bond character) who didn't want to show off that kind of thing. For example, I don't think he wears a Naval Academy ring and instead wears the one showing his bond to his friends on the task force. Also, I don't think most people knew too much about SEALs back in the early 80s.

Milo Minderbinder
Lieutenant
Posts: 20
Joined: Wed Feb 10, 2010 2:34 pm

#19 Post by Milo Minderbinder »

One other thing I noticed - this was the first time the show began without any coming attractions before the theme and standard opening sequence. Maybe that is just the DVD, or maybe it's because this was originally shown as a TV movie (according to the MM website).

User avatar
Coops
Fleet Admiral
Posts: 515
Joined: Tue May 06, 2008 12:27 pm
Location: Houston, Texas

#20 Post by Coops »

Coops wrote:
Near the beginning of the episode, Magnum is taking photos while on a divorce case. After taking several shots, he has second thoughts about the case and chucks the film into the harbor! Suddenly, he sees Michelle on a boat and starts snapping pictures of her. Of course, there would have been no film in the camera! (Noted by CliffW)
Ok, time to de-flub this one.

In the shot of Magnum after he takes photos of "Romeo & Juliet", he finishes the roll, rolls it back into the film cartridge, opens the back of the camera, and then puts that exposed roll of film in his shirt pocket. He immediately bends down, grabs another roll of film, opens the rubberized plastic tube, and just starts to pull out a small length of the film for feeding into the spooler, then the camera cuts away back to "Romeo & Juliet". While we did not see him specifically load the film, his actions prior to the cut away are exactly what one does when reloading a 35mm SLR camera. So, yes, Magnum DID have film in his camera before he shot the photos of Michelle on the yacht. Boy, now do I feel old...
A bump for JJ to take notice!
Image

User avatar
J.J. Walters
Founding Father
Posts: 4196
Joined: Tue Jan 02, 2007 10:54 pm
Location: Suburbia, USA
Contact:

#21 Post by J.J. Walters »

Sorry I missed that earlier Coops! You've convinced me. I've removed the flub. Yea! :)
Higgins: It's not a scratch! It's a bloody gouge!

User avatar
Coops
Fleet Admiral
Posts: 515
Joined: Tue May 06, 2008 12:27 pm
Location: Houston, Texas

#22 Post by Coops »

No sweat, J.J.! I know you're a busy man.
Image

Cutter
Lieutenant
Posts: 20
Joined: Tue Jun 30, 2009 1:35 am

#23 Post by Cutter »

I have to mention another interesting point...in the begining after the dream...Magnum is shown swimming and eventually runs into the study...if you watch the crossfade from waking up from the dream to the swim you will see TM standing in the water before he he starts to swim. He of course then pretends it was a long swim.

The funny thing with pointing out the flubs is that it is like having a wife or girlfriend you are in love with....you see the flaws...they are interesting...but don't matter at all in enjoying the experience. :D

MACattack
Fleet Admiral
Posts: 553
Joined: Sat Nov 15, 2008 11:52 pm
Location: Santa Barbara, CA

#24 Post by MACattack »

Michelle is a very attractive woman, but her morals are very confusing. If she really wanted to be with Magnum, why didn't she find a way? Instead she ran into the arms of other men. At least, Magnum got his daughter Lily in the end.
I just don't give a damn!

No need to know!
Fleet Admiral
Posts: 232
Joined: Fri Aug 06, 2010 6:47 am

#25 Post by No need to know! »

What can i say? One of my favourite episodes. Not the best, but almost. I think it´s just great how MPI managed to mix episodes like this one with Drama, with more lighter Comedian episodes without getting cheesy.
Onion´s extra?

Post Reply