Almost everyone I talked to loved the series finale of BREAKING BAD. I've described it as one of the most satisfying finales ever for a television series. But apparently Oliver Stone isn't a fan, and slammed the finale and the show for its "fantasy violence" in a recent conversation with Forbes.
WARNING: There are spoilers posted below, so if you haven't seen the series finale of BREAKING BAD, do not scroll past the animated version of the show. You've been warned.
"There’s too much violence in our movies – and it’s all unreal to me. I don’t know if you saw the denouement [of Breaking Bad], I happen to not watch the series very much, but I happened to tune in and I saw the most ridiculous 15 minutes of a movie – it would be laughed off the screen."
"Nobody could park his car right then and there and could have a machine gun that could go off perfectly and kill all of the bad guys! It would be a joke. It’s only in the movies that you find this kind of fantasy violence. And that’s infected the American culture; you young people believe all of this shit! Batman and Superman, you’ve lost your minds, and you don ‘t even know it! At least respect violence. I’m not saying don’t show violence, but show it with authenticity."
"I wouldn’t criticize everything. I’m just saying it’s the level of violence. If people think that bringing a machine gun to your last meeting is a solution to a television series that’s very popular, I think they’re insane. Something’s wrong. It’s not the world we know."
I'm not going to shit on Oliver Stone's opinions, but I will argue that it's hard to take what he says seriously when he admits he hasn't watched that much of the series and only saw the last fifteen minutes of the finale. Maybe if he watched more of it he would realize it isn't just "fantasy violence" and there are consequences for these actions. Wasn't the "Ozymandias" episode pretty much all the shit hitting all the fans from the previous seasons? And while the series did feature some violent images and moments, was any of it so over-the-top that it didn't seem plausible in a real world setting?
What I'm really interested in hearing is what you all think. Is Oliver Stone right or wrong, and why?