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Post by MelMac on Sept 19, 2007 0:04:54 GMT -5
1. Not abuse the suit (even though both Ralph and Bill tried to in little ways now and then). On a slight tangent, one wonders if in Live At Eleven, whether Ralph's loss of the mind push power was due either to the GG taking it away from him (as he could not control himself from abusing it) or he lost it due to his own insecurities about using it properly after Pam got so upset and called him a "jerk". IMO, the reason he loses the power is because the plutonium worked out of his and the suit's systems. Based on Ralph's comments, it fades throughout the ep, such as it taking him so long to get the guy to confess on air that he almost caused the nuclear meltdown. And, the effort to make it work at that point almost makes him pass out, which wasn't a problem at the first of the ep. So I'm more inclined to believe it's not because of abuse or it not working well after Pam called him a jerk. Now, if the greenguys prevented him from getting it again - even if he came into contact with plutonium - that's a different story. ----------------------------- But, back on topic. I think the green guys did do a closer study too on Earthlings to make sure they didnt' end up with someone who was a meglomaniac with the suit and all its powers. "GAHeroine's" story aside, Ralph and Bill didn't fall into that temptation long and they worked together to solve the problem.
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Post by Nicol on Sept 19, 2007 0:07:03 GMT -5
This is a very interesting discussion. Beck got the suit in 1935, as he had it 25 years and it was taken from him 1960. Mona, I have been curious on where you got this 1935 date and 25 years.. I have watched this ep several times in the last few days and can't find where he says that, He does say that in 1937 he caused the suicide of the Business rival. but I can't find the 1935 and 25 years reference. The 1935 date makes sence but isn't stated, Though he could have had it since 1921 when he started his miraculous rise to fame after he bought a wheat field using his dead fathers life insuarnce (the commentator on the TV says this) Note: I am asking out of pure interest.
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Post by Nicol on Sept 19, 2007 0:14:58 GMT -5
EDIT: I was writing this while mmderdekea was writing, so pardon me if some of this post conflicts. So what can we figure out about the official Beck timeline? The episode only mentions two dates: 1920, when "the dream began." Was that his birthday? the commentator on the tv in the diner says this (paraphrazed) in 1921 at the age of 21 as a clerk in a drugstore JJ beck took the life insurense of his dead father and bought a wheat field in kansas...." So he was 2o or 21 in 1921 1921 Bought a wheat field with the life insurence policy of his dead father. which means he was born in 1900 or so
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Post by Videofox on Sept 19, 2007 0:21:18 GMT -5
Ok...Bill was fussing at the diner guests during most of that newscast so I missed some of the details. Good catch! Which would put his "death" around the age of 81. Looked pretty good for an 81-year-old man, despite being sick! Maybe his long use of the suit slowed his aging somewhat. BTW...I checked the episode again to be sure, and he does indeed say 1935. So the rest of it is pure speculation based on that. If the suit was taken away in 1960, that's where the 25 years comes from. But he never did say exactly when he got the suit, so we're just guessing here.
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Post by Nicol on Sept 19, 2007 0:29:11 GMT -5
Ok...Bill was fussing at the diner guests during most of that newscast so I missed some of the details. Good catch! Which would put his "death" around the age of 81. Looked pretty good for an 81-year-old man, despite being sick! Maybe his long use of the suit slowed his aging somewhat. The suit slowing down the aging proces I have always wondered about especially when it came ro JJ and the suit and that once he lost the suit (taken away rather than him freely passing it on) it all caught up to him, contributing to his health problems later in life. I know far fetched but I don't see why it couldn't happen as it seems the suit heals injuries it would make sense that the suit would also slow the aging process as well. Maybe not by alot but some. Say by 10 years meaning JJ in 1961 might have been 60 or so but he looked 45 to 50 to everyone around him.
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Post by Nicol on Sept 19, 2007 0:34:15 GMT -5
BTW...I checked the episode again to be sure, and he does indeed say 1935. So the rest of it is pure speculation based on that. If the suit was taken away in 1960, that's where the 25 years comes from. But he never did say exactly when he got the suit, so we're just guessing here. he says 1935 when the sucide happened. Ok sorry my goof on that one...thought he said 1937. but you are right it doesn't say that is when he got the suit. and so that is just speculation.... oh well more of SJC mysteries
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Post by mmderdekea on Sept 19, 2007 9:26:51 GMT -5
Right, we know he had it at least 25 years based on the dates in the show. Whether he didn't age that much in the suit is entirely specious--you can either believe he did age normally or he didn't. We have zero data to speculate on that. However, at age 81, he is pretty much infirm and needing oxygen; medically, having some emphysema seems likely, which usually is induced by a history of smoking. He apparently has been ill for at least a little while, so we know that having HAD the suit certainly does not protect one from aging normally and getting sick once one no longer wears it. We know that. We don't know if it keeps someone from aging.
I absolutely believe that without overtly telling us in specific dialogue, that the suit helps the wearer heal up. I've mentioned this before on another link--Ralph's sunburn apparently healing up, his beast in black wounds apparently healing, his diarrhea healing up (at least he never mentions them again nor seems incapacitated by them after the suit is on awhile). Does that mean he's not aging? We simply don't know. A person not aging normally would attract a lot of attention, per se, and put the GG at risk of exposure more than someone aging normally. Especially someone in the news so much like JJ Beck. Also, IF JJ had not aged normally while in the suit, to get to looking 81 after the suit he'd have had to age A LOT, like double, in the 20 years he was suitless. That doesn't make sense, really.
Mona
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Post by jopierce on Sept 19, 2007 9:49:15 GMT -5
I guess I missed this - BECK WAS 81??
Does that mean that Marshall was YOUNGER than Beck? I mean, he was not an 81 year old man in that episode. 71, maybe. Honestly, I thought he was just a few years older than Bill, based on his fitness and whatnot.
**shakes head at the wonderfulness of GAH incontinuity**
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Post by HoudiniDerek on Sept 19, 2007 10:06:15 GMT -5
I can see Beck being that old as well as Marshall. After all, my grandfather was fit and incredibly active over the age of 80. I can see it for both of them. As for the VANITY idea, I guess if we are seeing Beck losing the suit in the early 60s....does it matter?
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Post by Nicol on Sept 19, 2007 10:12:49 GMT -5
I can see Beck being that old as well as Marshall. After all, my grandfather was fit and incredibly active over the age of 80. I can see it for both of them. As for the VANITY idea, I guess if we are seeing Beck losing the suit in the early 60s....does it matter? I agree My grandfather still went to the gym into his 90'S granted he didn't do a whole lot but he still kept fit. And speaking of old age if you want a good example just look at Culp he is in his late 70's and still doing good. and in some of the photos I have seen he does, just like Katt and Connie, look younger than he really is... I think JJ just looks older because he was sick...Illness as dibilitating as his could make you apear older. Even then though I don't think JJ looked in his 80's. and no I don't think the events depicted in Vanity matters if JJ lost his suit in the early 60's. They still could have happened
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Post by Maxwell - F.B.I. on Sept 19, 2007 12:45:18 GMT -5
I still get a kick out of how completely DARK Culp's hair is in this episode, apparently so that it appears in stark contrast to Marshall's age-wise.
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Post by Videofox on Sept 19, 2007 13:04:25 GMT -5
I still get a kick out of how completely DARK Culp's hair is in this episode, apparently so that it appears in stark contrast to Marshall's age-wise. Which was kind of odd to me, as I noticed on the last viewing that Bill and Dunn were wearing the exact same suit! Guess that was a way to foreshadow the upcoming revelation.
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Post by HoudiniDerek on Sept 19, 2007 21:51:21 GMT -5
I have never noticed the hair or the suit. I was always too enthralled with the story.
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Post by Videofox on Sept 19, 2007 23:30:56 GMT -5
Ok... I went back and checked the episode again, this time turning up the volume to better make out what the newscaster was saying while Bill was in the noisy diner. I swear on a stack of instruction books that the newscaster said Beck was 22 in 1920...making him born in 1898? Making Beck *83* years old when he and Dunn left with the Greenguys. Sorry, but Dunn doesn't look 83...so he has to be somewhat younger than Beck. They could still have known each other long before getting the suit and were friends. I see Dunn forced to be Beck's conscience in the last decade or so before he was fired by the greenguys, having to fight an uphill battle trying to talk Beck into doing the good deeds that needed doing, when Beck really wasn't interested anymore. Beck therefore probably still did a lot of good throughout his career, but wasn't doing it out of a sense of heroism or justice...it was just to shut Dunn up. Dunn, for some reason, was extremely loyal to Beck, but Beck did something so incredibly selfish that finally drove Dunn away ("left me in disgust twenty years ago"), shortly before the greenguys returned. Dunn probably didn't see Beck again until he heard Beck was dying, or until Beck called him to help blackmail the new hero team. Just trying to figure out how some good Beck stories might play out folks...never mind my babbling.
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Post by jopierce on Sept 19, 2007 23:38:26 GMT -5
Oh, great, with all this talk, I now have a little plot bunny running around my head about Beck's fascination with planes....
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Post by believeitornot on Sept 20, 2007 9:46:15 GMT -5
Response to Jo and Maxwell's 20-30 year career: There is also the goofy clay lamp or something that Maxwell has signifying his first real bust in 1953. I personally am of the 20 year camp as, yes, he was in Korea. Now, he could have gotten out of Korea a little early, say 1953, after his gunshot to the lung wound, and be so patriotic and upset he wasn't okay'd to stay in the war he right away applied to join the FBI. It COULD have happened that way, and then they rounded up to 30 from 28 or so. But, that means that Vanity never occurred, which we assume happened after the Korean war when Bill went to South America. (Mind you I'm perfectly happy believing Vanity never occurred and don't really consider it truly part of my reality of Bill; what a mess of an episode!). So, 20+ years is really the most likely scenario here for Bill's career. I'm surprised Culp himself didn't keep tabs on those discrepancies and catch the plot errors. Mona The Korean War did end in 1953. It only lasted 3 years, 11 years of MASH notwithstanding.
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Post by mmderdekea on Sept 20, 2007 9:50:54 GMT -5
Okay, change my post year to 1952.
Mona
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Post by believeitornot on Sept 20, 2007 9:52:03 GMT -5
What about this scenario, pun intended. Maybe the aliens had to find someone who was genetically compatible with the suit as well as a fairly decent person, at least in the beginning. Just a thought.
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Post by Nicol on Sept 20, 2007 10:01:51 GMT -5
Ok... I went back and checked the episode again, this time turning up the volume to better make out what the newscaster was saying while Bill was in the noisy diner. I swear on a stack of instruction books that the newscaster said Beck was 22 in 1920...making him born in 1898? Making Beck *83* years old when he and Dunn left with the Greenguys. Sorry, but Dunn doesn't look 83...so he has to be somewhat younger than Beck. They could still have known each other long before getting the suit and were friends. I see Dunn forced to be Beck's conscience in the last decade or so before he was fired by the greenguys, having to fight an uphill battle trying to talk Beck into doing the good deeds that needed doing, when Beck really wasn't interested anymore. Beck therefore probably still did a lot of good throughout his career, but wasn't doing it out of a sense of heroism or justice...it was just to shut Dunn up. Dunn, for some reason, was extremely loyal to Beck, but Beck did something so incredibly selfish that finally drove Dunn away ("left me in disgust twenty years ago"), shortly before the greenguys returned. Dunn probably didn't see Beck again until he heard Beck was dying, or until Beck called him to help blackmail the new hero team. Just trying to figure out how some good Beck stories might play out folks...never mind my babbling. The other thing about thier freindship. It must have been a strong one, and Dunn sometime later after 61 tried to repair the realationship The only evidence we have of this is when JJ tells in the Ep that in 1968 Dunn was with him when he cheated a guy named Price in a crooked deal. The ep was in 1981 and twenty years before was 1961. So Dunn left in disgust over something JJ did around 61 then came back in time to witness this doublecross with Price in 68. Interesting... So did he leave once again after the Doublecross in 68 then again came back 13 years later (81) to find as he says in the ep JJ in the condition he was in? Oh all the interesting things in this EP....
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Post by mmderdekea on Sept 20, 2007 10:04:18 GMT -5
If plutonium brought out a skill of Ralph's I feel it may be possible he could continue to do it on his own. Otherwise, the plutonium caused a temporary energy "kink" in the suit that affected Ralph in that mindpush way. That may be what happened, given that a strong electrical charge also short-circuited the suit a little in "The Shock" episode. So, the suit may have innate faults along those lines, strong energies from outside affecting it's utility/powers, which may or may not put the wearer at extra risk at times.
It's also possible that the plutonium enhanced or brought out a suit power Ralph obviously has the capacity to perform, but didn't know about until he was glowing. The suit has brought out other powers on it's own before, like clairvoyance, which, oddly, I think also freaked out Ralph enough (seeing Pam dying and rushing to try to save her life), that Ralph also did not want, consciously or subconsciously, at that time to continue using that power. The same could be occurring with the mind push power.
I'm not decided yet whether the plutonium sort of short-circuited the suit along the lines of "Shock" electricity and created a Ralph power he has no capacity to have without plutonium exposure, or if it brought out a power Ralph has the possibility to do, but for whatever reason's could not, or chose not, to maintain. I think either explanation is valid.
Mona
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