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Oliver Stone and Britney Spears may not often be paired together, but the legendary director and pop superstar had issues with Breaking Bad‘s final episode.
Stone, speaking during a press day for the Blu-ray release of his documentary series The Untold History of the United States, critiqued the episode’s killing spree, in which Walter White sets off a machine gun in the trunk of his car that kills all of the members of the gang holding Jesse Pinkman hostage.
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“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,” Stone told Forbes. “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.”
Stone lashed out at the scene as part of his critique of fictionalized storytelling, claiming that there’s too much violence in movies and that it’s all unreal. Stone said if that Breaking Bad scene were part of a movie, it would be “laughed off the screen.”
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“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,” Stone added. “But I think there might be in Iron Man … there could be some good stories about war profiteering, some good moral tales. I agree. Comics were there for that reason, remember? But when you’ve reached this height of technology level of a Michael [Bay], of a Transformers, I don’t understand the meaning of it and the reason for it, except that it appeals to some visual sense, some kinetic sense of dynamism and a need for action. But action is not always a solution, character is.”
Spears, meanwhile, is a fan of Breaking Bad, telling New York radio station Z100 that she loves the show and teared up at the end. But she wasn’t happy about the show’s sad final moments.
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“I didn’t like it at all, actually. I didn’t think [Walter White] should have died,” Spears said.
In fact, she’s still hoping to see an alternate ending in which an ambulance revives him.
Walter White himself, Bryan Cranston, responded to Spears’ criticism on Twitter on Tuesday, albeit using the wrong Twitter handle for the pop star:
To @BrittneySpear5. Not happy with the Breaking Bad finale? Or just sad that Walt died? Glad you felt for him. RIP W.W. maybe I’m still here
— Bryan Cranston (@BryanCranston) October 9, 2013
Listen to Spears’ comments about Breaking Bad below.
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