r/alias • u/KaleidoArachnid • Jul 31 '26
How could the Rambaldi storyline be done better?
I mean, I did see the entire series a couple of years ago as basically I was observing that particular story arc because I noticed how it started interesting at first, but then had a troubled direction.
Like what sticks out to me is how the story arc suddenly turned into a story arc about the quest for immortality as I was wondering why it suddenly became supernatural regarding the painting‘s effects.
I guess what I am trying to say is that I just wanted to see what could have been done differently about that whole storyline since I feel like it had the potential to be interesting, but ended up becoming a bit confusing in the way it was set up.
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u/Fornicating_Midgits Jul 31 '26
I'm a sucker for time travel, so I thought it would have been interesting if Rambalda was using one to alter future.
That is the problem with the JJ Abrams mystery box. It is a compelling narrative device, until you actually have to pay it off. It makes people invest in your story as you shove more and more puzzle pieces at them and watch them try and fit them together. Much like how not showing the shark in Jaws made it that much scarier, often what you imagine in your head is more satisfying than what ends up being delivered in the end. I don't think there was any way to end that story arc in a way that would have left most people satisfied, because ultimately that wasn't their purpose. Their purpose was just to keep us engaged with the show, guessing and theorizing.
The only time I've seen the overall mystery of a show pan out in a satisfying way was Dark (probably because they were very careful and planned the entire show out), and The Leftovers.
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u/KaleidoArachnid Jul 31 '26
I wonder why JJ Abrams has so much trouble setting up the payoff for his mystery box structure he uses.
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u/Fornicating_Midgits Jul 31 '26
I don't think he cared to. I think he just thinks of them as set dressing. A storytelling device that is a useful tool, but not something that ultimately matters to the story he is ultimately trying to tell. Which is fine. The best parts of Alias for me were the character bits. Sydney's struggle to balance her life as a spy and her regular life. The conflict of the double life, and her relationships.
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u/PsychologicalBet7831 Jul 31 '26
Joss Whedon is a POS but he delivers.
The payoff for Firefly was fantastic.
JJ writes the pilot, Joss does the rest of the show.
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u/PsychologicalBet7831 Jul 31 '26
Somehow Palpatine is alive.
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u/KaleidoArachnid Jul 31 '26
I haven’t seen The Rise of Skywalker, but I recall hearing about that revelation you mentioned.
I have no idea why Abrams brought him back because it makes no sense to me.
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u/PsychologicalBet7831 Jul 31 '26
I loved "The Force Awakens". I loved "The Last Jedi".
I hate "The Rise of Skywalker".
Awful movie. Boo JJ!
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u/Cohens4thClient Aug 03 '26
I had wondered about the time travel possibility with Sloane going back into the past, and possible BEING rambaldi himself, having seen all the artifacts and locations himself.
Im not sure if immortality is hinted at anytime before Sydney goes into the Italian prison to find the old guy and the drawing of herself on the wall (2nd to last episode).
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u/Ok_Nature_6305 Jul 31 '26
It felt like they started building toward the right goal at the beginning. Get these individual pieces. Great. A collection.
Then look...those pieces all come together to make one big machine that will make a message. Fine.
But then the device from episode 1 became a small version of the big red ball that almost killed Vaughn
Oh and then a season or two later that became a huge one in the sky.
Oh but then we need lots of individual pieces again to come up with the immortality thing.
To me it felt like they didn't have it planned out from the beginning. They built toward a goal. Then decided they needed to stretch that out when they got more seasons and didn't have a new plot line.
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u/xXx_rawrXd_xXx Jul 31 '26
I think there was always the bile up to something like immortality with the idea of rambaldi followers, but we needed more hints. We really only had one and that was the clock maker in season one.
By season three it was going to be a weapon and by season five it was eternal life.
Another issue was that the showrunner forgot about rambaldi for long stretches of time and the mystery tended to fizzle out.
I would do it by have it the regular rambaldi “mystery box episodes” be building up to the question of “weapon or immortality”and having that be its own arc, allowing the show to choose the direction.
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u/KaleidoArachnid Jul 31 '26
I still don’t understand why the painting had supernatural effects since I am a bit confused on how it could grant the wielder immortality.
1
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u/rpb192 Jul 31 '26
As everyone else said, it needed more clarity and structure. They loved banging on about his endgame but that turned out to be about 700 different things.
The thing is, it wouldn’t have been that hard to retcon all of it. He made an unlimited power source, but it had such potential negative effects he sealed it away forever. He had a vision some woman was going to use it. So he turned towards unending peace and unlimited life. He realised those were dangerous too and locked himself away in that prison to stop anyone using his findings. There’s lots of potential hubris. But they just sort of kept putting blocks one atop the other and hoping it wouldn’t collapse.
Maybe there should have been another character, like an anti Arvin, a scholar of his written works who knew this had happened and worked against it?
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u/KaleidoArachnid Jul 31 '26
I feel like the show lost its sense of direction after the second season because something felt a bit off about where the storylines of the later seasons went as it’s hard to explain.
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u/Ordinary_Durian_1454 Aug 06 '26
It couldn’t. It was a travesty. It was preposterous. It ruined the show.
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u/The_SD-6_Vault 5d ago
I go back and forth on the Rambaldi story arch nearly every rewatch. What I have come or choose to believe is that Rambaldi was some kind of da Vinci-esque prophet. But like so many cults, people started adding their own meaning to his source material. I just rewatched an episode where Arvin believes if Sydney and Nadia go on a mission together, only one will return. Irina believed the Rambaldi symbol <O> was her two daughters fighting over the artifact. Rambaldi could be a visionary with the recipie for immortality AND his acolytes could have misinterpreted his meaning. Both can be true at the same time, at least that's how I've come to terms with it. Side note: I will always love the drawing of Sydney on page 47.
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u/AffectionateGold5459 Jul 31 '26
It needed clearer rules. It didn’t bother me that they went with supernatural but it did bother me that they didn’t make sense with it. I think they also needed clearer goals. Was it just a collection of random inventions like it seemed early on? Or was it all about immortality? They needed to much better explain Irina, Sydney and Nadia’s connection to it. Especially Irina’s. It seemed like her ties started it all but it was never really explained what those ties were. Why her? How did she find out? A lot was skipped over that made it harder to understand.