Best Scenes Literally Ruined By Fart Jokes

If you think this is a coincidence, you're an idiot. In what might be the film's best scene, Dodd tells Quell not to blink and bombards him with personal questions about his past. It's perfect, tense, powerful... until Quell farts in the middle of it, after which they discuss the fart for 30 seconds.

Then Anderson does it again. In a montage of Scientology Audits ("Processes" as I believe they're called in this film), Quell and another man are told to tell each other whatever they want, but they can't react at all. The montage goes on forever, building this awesome potential as Quell gets crazier and crazier - at first when he's touching things with his eyes closed, he recognizes them for what they are but slowly determines that they're breathing or that a window is a ferris wheel. Back to the exercise where the men tell each other whatever they want, the man is becoming more harsh in his criticism of Quell, each time this is returned to. When it's Quell's turn to say what he wants to the man, he says this, "I wish I had to fart right now, I'd fart in your face."

Are you kidding me? Anderson does this TWICE in the same movie, really? The montage doesn't end there, it goes on forever again, only now the build-up is ruined. It actually makes backward progress too, Quell's touching the wall toward the end of the montage and says the same thing he said about it the first time. All that potential character development squandered.

It's Anderson saying, "I don't need character development. It's not that I can't, let me prove to you that I could really quick before instantly backtracking the characters right back to point A. I don't need to build tension. I could if I wanted to, look at this first Processing scene between Dodd and Quell. Want to bet that I won't ruin it with a fart joke? Watch me. I don't need a plot, I don't need events...."

Guess what? The movie tanked, it didn't even get its budget back. It sucks. Maybe Anderson actually lost a bet, the conditions of which allowed someone to mess with his next movie in any way they pleased. Maybe Anderson said to himself, "what is the lowest form of entertainment?" and answered himself, "fart jokes." He then tried to figure out how he could shoot a film with no plot points, its best scenes containing fart jokes, AND STILL HAVE THE CRITICS PRAISE IT.

Good job, morons, all of you.