Break The First Two Rules of Fight Club Here

[SlickSlider]

The first rule of Fight Club is you don't talk about Fight Club.

The second rule of Fight Club is you don't talk about Fight Club.

But if you want to talk about Fight Club, this is the thread to do it in.

I want to discuss one of the most intense and thought provoking films of my movie going lifetime. I have yet to read the novel of which I intend, and I have read from other fans that the film closely matches the novel in plot and layout.

If you have not seen the movie or read the novel, I highly urge you not to read this discussion. The movie (and book) takes you on a ride where you think you understand the road as it developes, until you get to the whammo of a shocking plot twist close to the end of the film, and you find out that the story was somewhat if not drastically different from what it forced you to percieve. If you know the plot twist before you reach that point, the journey won't be the same and it won't have the full affect on you. So I'm warning you, so far as urging you, not to read this discussion if you haven't seen the film. There...you have been warned.

Still here?

Okay then.

Spoilers in abundance up ahead. Watch your head, it's a low clearance.

Welcome, space monkeys! There are a few things I've questioned regarding the movie events and characters. They may be fully explained in the novel but I have the feeling that Chuck Palahniuk left a lot of this to the reader's interpretation. I do have my own ideas to answer these questions, but I think even my answers could be up for interpretation. The Narrator had no spoken name for most of the movie (and book) but it became easy to refer to him as Jack (or Joe in the book) even though Jack was not the character's name at all, nor was Cornelius or Rupert. So when did Jack "create" Tyler Durden? We saw "Jack" meet Tyler on the plane. He was desperate, he couldn't escape his life or his insomnia. The support groups weren't working anymore because of the other tourist Marla Singer, and then he opened his eyes and there was Tyler Durden beside him, to show him the light and change his life. We already know that "Jack" was Tyler Durden all along, but in his awareness he had just met Tyler then and there. But was that when "Tyler" was created, or had he existed much earlier? Jack had had insomnia for a long time (6 months prior to meeting Tyler on the plane, I think it was), so how do we know that he hadn't been Tyler since long before, but it was only on the plane that the two alter-egos finally met up?

When do you think Jack lost it? His marbles, his grasp on reality, ect. When did he begin to step over the edge and what was the cause or the beginning of a succession of causes? Was it his tedious job and constant reminders of the futality of life (thought the grisly crash sites and endless bullcrap greedy coldhearted corporate mentalities that labelled dead crash victims as statistics and liabilities rather than individual persons with value and reason) and his cold, distant boss? Was it when he realized how much importance he'd placed on material things and the complete lack of joy he got from them?

I wonder, if Marla Singer hadn't shown up to ruin his blissful false support group visits, and he had been able to continue sleeping like a baby at night, would he have had no need to invent Tyler Durden, or was Tyler there all the time regardless, looking for a chance to take control of Jackl's life? Wait, of course Tyler existed even before he met him on the plane. Tyler blew up his condo. It was the bombing of the condo that led Jack to seek out Tyler for a place to stay, but Tyler had planned that all along so obviously he was at work long before Jack met him on the plane. My question is, how long prior was he at work? For how long prior to meeting Tyler, had Jack been Tyler?

I have more questions and comments and philosphies to come, but for now, enjoy what I've left here, you non-khaki wearing space monkeys!

EDIT: As you space monkeys are aware, Jack created Tyler as a way to better his life, to escape the life felt trapped by. But did his subconscious create Tyler at a sudden point, or had Tyler always been there, waiting for a chance to take control of his life?

[SlickSlider]

Here is an observation:

Nothing new about this, nothing that isn't already obvious:

Tyler, Jack, and Marla were never in the room at the same time. When Marla walked out, Tyler walked past...when Tyler passed by, Marla returned. You never saw the 3 of them in the same place at the same time. Even when they were close by, with Tyler in the basement and Jack and Marla at the top of the stairs, Marla and the other "Tyler" were not in visual range. In fact, Jack and Tyler never spoke at the same time in front of other people. In Fight Club, when Tyler spoke Jack was always silent and looking confident. Jack and Tyler never spoke at the same time in front of the Space Monkeys because when they looked at Jack they saw Tyler and not a seperate person as Jack saw him. Yet when Tyler had his fight with Lou, it was Bob and Jack who picked him up and carried him across the room. I found that odd, that "Tyler" was helping to carry "Tyler" while others could see him. The others had to have seen only one person carrying Tyler, so why did we see the Jack/Tyler, to show us that it was what Jack thought he was experiencing? Interesting. Then, later on in the movie, in the limo, Jack and Tyler were arguing while the Space Monkeys were in the backseat entirely confused. So what led to this break in protocal, that Tyler allowed Tyler to talk to him in front of others? And, where was Tyler sitting? Was he driving and imagining the other in the passenger seat, or was he in the passenger seat and imagining the other in the driver seat? How could that be possible? How was the car being driven for as long as it did before running off the road? Yet when we saw the flashback later in the movie, it did appear that no one was in the driver seat.

It was that night that Tyler "abandoned" Jack. But why? I've watched that scene a few times, the bedroom monologue, and I need to watch and listen again to what Tyler told him. Did Tyler at that point decide to carry out his plans on his own, since it became clear that Jack was not trustworthy enough to fulfill Project Mayhem? Apparently so, because he gave instructions for the others to withhold info from Jack and prevent him from getting in the way.

There is so much more that is on my mind about this story. More to come.

[dgmodel]

When do you think Jack lost it? His marbles, his grasp on reality, ect. When did he begin to step over the edge and what was the cause or the beginning of a succession of causes? Was it his tedious job and ...

i like to believe that it was from the lack of sleep... have you ever had insomnia or not gone to bed for a days... it like living in another world...

secondly wtf is a space monkey~!?

[SlickSlider]

i like to believe that it was from the lack of sleep... have you ever had insomnia or not gone to bed for a days... it like living in another world...

secondly wtf is a space monkey~!?

Yeah, I have done that. No doubt the insomnia had a big affect on him and contributed, but I think that he had been insane for a long time prior to that.

Sorry about the referance....Tyler called the guys in Project Mayhem space monkeys, ready to get shot into space and sacrificed for the greater good. On a Chuck Palahniuk message board I joined, the posters also jokingly refer to fellow Fight Club fans as space monkeys because of the film.

[iamme]

secondly wtf is a space monkey~!?

i have no fucking clue...but thats where i got my old user title from

[HAZE]

LAlate, you forgot to sign off as SlickSlider.

[misk]

....why are your posts so godamn long....i can't read that schtuff

[SlickSlider]

LAlate, you forgot to sign off as SlickSlider.

You think so? Nah.

[SlickSlider]

....why are your posts so godamn long....i can't read that schtuff

I'm sorry. Just take it a little bit at a time.

[misk]

...no.......paraphrase that shit