[VolandoVengoVolandoVoy]

I think it's a pretty bad ass series. The series finale is tonight!

[Chaos]

Is that episode 12?

[VolandoVengoVolandoVoy]

No, 13 of season 7.
Twelve was last week...and a great episode. Don't want to spoil it for you if you haven't seen it yet.

[Roustabout]

I agree with the OP, that it's been a bad ass series for the past 7 years. But, I was disappointed in last night's finale. I thought there could have been a better way to resolve things than the way it played out. In my opinion, last week's episode was much better.

[runsonmagic]

Sons of Anarchy is amazing, on every level. If you are a fan of Jack Donovan's writing, and want to know what a gang or tribe following his ideals might look like, check out SOA. Jack has written about the show, here.

And the music... my god, the music:

Also, potential spoilers on this thread. They're hard to avoid. Like Game of Thrones, this isn't a show afraid to kill off it's major characters or use unexpected reversals.

[VolandoVengoVolandoVoy]

(12-10-2014 09:37 AM)Roustabout Wrote:  

I agree with the OP, that it's been a bad ass series for the past 7 years. But, I was disappointed in last night's finale. I thought there could have been a better way to resolve things than the way it played out. In my opinion, last week's episode was much better.

Agreed. They could have ended it last week...maybe with a wounded Unser getting back up and shooting Jax just as he was killing Peggy Bundy.

[YossariansRight]

It really didn’t have that “oomph”. Nothing really surprising. Jax offing himself was easily seen coming. I’m glad they didn’t leave it up to imagination though, leaving us before the splat. I guess Vic Mackey’s (Michael Chiklis from "The Shield") the only truck driver in CA.

I’m also glad Nero survived. Wendy & the boys too.

Connor: Surprise survivor. IRA guys: Surprise kills.

Bye, RoboCop...what a short cameo that was. Same for August Marks. Both should have been harder to kill.

The hobo chick makes an appearance. And they broke the color barrier; that must have been the "unwritten bylaw" Jax mentioned last week. So all the shit that Juice put up with for being half black was for nothing. A sad irony to Juice’s story.

President Chibs & VP Tigg. Again, no surprise there.

[Killer Joe]

I personally think it sucked balls. The only believable biker characters are Opie, Otto, Tig, Luann and Gemma. Even suspending my disbelief over its lack of authenticity, the plot is convoluted and dumb and the music is downright terrible.

Can anyone recommend more realistic or at least better scripted biker movies and/or TV Shows?

[Leonard D Neubache]

Got bored of it around late S3/early S4.

The show couldn't decide if it wanted to be about organised crime or family drama and just tracked this painfully boring path between the two. Maybe it picks up later.

Sometimes these shows just don't translate well to being watched two or three episodes at a time. Watching three lacklustre episodes over three weeks can still leave you wanting more since the drudgery is delivered in small doses and doesn't quite kill the anticipation, but when you have Netflix and you literally sit through two and a half hours of blah blah blah you suddenly remember that you have better stuff to do with your time, like shitpost on RVF.

[Easy_C]

And Bobby. There's a guy I knew in one of the veterans groups who was a dead ringer for Bobby.

As for other TV shows. Nope. There's a couple good books out there if you don't mind that outlet.

[Steve McQueen]

(02-27-2017 09:43 PM)Killer Joe Wrote:  

I personally think it sucked balls. The only believable biker characters are Opie, Otto, Tig, Luann and Gemma. Even suspending my disbelief over its lack of authenticity, the plot is convoluted and dumb and the music is downright terrible.

Can anyone recommend more realistic or at least better scripted biker movies and/or TV Shows?

Agree, I dont understand the love for this show, its fking shite

Good biker movie that I recall was this about an undercover cop infiltrating a biker gang, based on a true story. Charlie Sheen is the lead and its worth a watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByJzPwLVR7Y

[luckskywalker]

(02-27-2017 10:49 PM)Steve McQueen Wrote:  

(02-27-2017 09:43 PM)Killer Joe Wrote:  

I personally think it sucked balls. The only believable biker characters are Opie, Otto, Tig, Luann and Gemma. Even suspending my disbelief over its lack of authenticity, the plot is convoluted and dumb and the music is downright terrible.

Can anyone recommend more realistic or at least better scripted biker movies and/or TV Shows?

Agree, I dont understand the love for this show, its fking shite

Good biker movie that I recall was this about an undercover cop infiltrating a biker gang, based on a true story. Charlie Sheen is the lead and its worth a watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByJzPwLVR7Y

There is something similar called Gangland Undercover (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4341996/). Maybe the same story but more recent made.

[AnonymousBosch]

(02-27-2017 09:43 PM)Killer Joe Wrote:  

Can anyone recommend more realistic or at least better scripted biker movies and/or TV Shows?

SOA was a show written and acted by wanna-be tough guys.

Try any of the 60's American International Pictures Bikerspoitation Films, some of which had the involvement of Sonny Barger and the Hells Angels. They're not particularly realistic but have entertaining actors and are good fun.

I'm a sucker for any of the Biker Films starring William Smith, who goes toe-to-to bareknucks with Clint Eastwood in 'Any Which Way You Can'. The Losers (1970) has a bunch of bikers recruited by the CIA to take on the Viet Cong. Chrome and Hot Leather (1971) isn't quite as good, but worth a look. Smith is the kind of relatable genuinely-masculine actor that has evaporated from modern movies, replaced by unconvincing 'weak' guys like the wanker who played the lead in SOA, whose ridiculous monkey walk cracks me up every time.

Check out Smith's history - it's awe-inspiring and I can't imagine any modern young actor comparing:

Quote:

Smith enlisted in the Air Force in 1951 where his articulation of multiple foreign languages attracted the interest of the National Security Agency. From there, Smith was involved in covert flying missions during the Korean War till it ended in 1953.

After his tour in the military, Smith then returned to his studies graduating cum laude at UCLA ultimately teaching Russian there. Fiercely competitive, Smith was extremely involved in sporting activities especially bodybuilding; a sport in which he won various titles and holds several records. These include, among others, a record for discus throwing, performing 5,100 continuous sit ups, reverse curling his own body weight, arm wrestling champion and also a Black Belt in martial arts.

If all that wasn't enough, Smith had originally intended to continue his career with the US government while completing his doctorate studies. But a studio contract with MGM came calling and Smith soon found himself inundated with an incredible amount of work on assorted television programs such as THE VIRGINIAN, GUNSMOKE and DANIEL BOONE. His lifelong love of horses was a natural progression into westerns and a passion that helped him immensely in the many small screen sagebrush shows he appeared in.

Quintus: did you ever write him up?

[Leonard D Neubache]

A relevant selective quote from one of Mark Steyn's old posts on the death of Christopher Lee.

Quote:

...Before he was an actor, he was an intelligence officer, and had, as they used to say, a good war, attached to the Special Operations Executive, or the "Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare", responsible for espionage and sabotage in occupied Europe. Afterwards, Lee stayed on to hunt down Nazi war criminals. Back in London in 1946, he lunched with a Continental cousin, now the Italian Ambassador to the Court of St James's, and confessed he had no idea what to do next, except that he had no desire to return to his pre-war job as a switchboard operator at the pharmaceutical company Beecham's. "Why don't you become an actor?" suggested the Ambassador. So he did. Two years later he was a spear carrier in Laurence Olivier's Hamlet, in which he met another up-and-comer playing Osric, Peter Cushing.
...

Quote:

...By now, Lee, in his mid-eighties, had more work than ever. On the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, he was the only member of the cast who'd actually known Tolkien. Yet my favorite moment in the series isn't even on camera, but in the DVD commentary. It's the scene on top of the tower where Lee's Saruman gets stabbed in the back by Grima Wormtongue, for which the director, Peter Jackson, wanted Lee to let out a scream.

The actor felt obliged to explain to Sir Peter why that would be all wrong. He proposed to let out a small groan, a quiet gasp, as the air is pushed out of his punctured lungs. The director was resistant, so Lee said: "Peter, have you ever heard the sound a man makes when he's stabbed in the back?"

"Um, no," replied Jackson.

"Well, I have," said Lee, "and I know what to do.'" And from somewhere deep in the recesses of his memory an old SOE agent conjured the sound a Nazi makes when you plunge the knife in.

A full life, on-screen and off.

...men that didn't need acting lessons on how to play tough guys.

[AnonymousBosch]

Here's Smith showing how a man could get Swolested even back in 1971.



Damn, I love the body language of that photo.

[Leonard D Neubache]

^ I only just noticed that kitty there has a serious set of claws and they're being used to good effect to hold on to her gains.

I'm guessing that guy has some serious battlescars on his back.