Crawford does try to destroy the machine. It is the first thing he does after the incident with Pretorius. And
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In the very beginning it's explained that Katherine has been brought in to decide if Crawford is fit to stand trial. She gets permission from the lead detective to take him back to the crime scene (which is acknowledged in the writing as being unconventional, but allowed because of Katherine's reputation in the field), and they are accompanied by Browntree as the person making sure that Crawford stays under control.
You're not wrong to think however you think about the film.
I think that the decisions made in the film are consistent with the characters, and I'm just arguing that characters making bad decisions isn't always a sign of bad writing. Many of the bad decisions are baked into the story as a way of seeing how the characters are being affected or warped by the Resonator. I think that the film provides plausible answers to pretty much every "But why did they . . ." question, and further I think that the character choices are internally consistent.
You and I may just have different metrics for "bad writing". For me, good writing is more about characters being consistent and the broader world of the film being consistent. And to me, From Beyond checks both of those boxes.
WARNING: spoilers below
in the end Katherine does destroy the machine. There are repeated times earlier in the film where they try to destroy the machine but are physically prevented from doing so by the creatures.
In the very beginning it's explained that Katherine has been brought in to decide if Crawford is fit to stand trial. She gets permission from the lead detective to take him back to the crime scene (which is acknowledged in the writing as being unconventional, but allowed because of Katherine's reputation in the field), and they are accompanied by Browntree as the person making sure that Crawford stays under control.
You're not wrong to think however you think about the film.
I think that the decisions made in the film are consistent with the characters, and I'm just arguing that characters making bad decisions isn't always a sign of bad writing. Many of the bad decisions are baked into the story as a way of seeing how the characters are being affected or warped by the Resonator. I think that the film provides plausible answers to pretty much every "But why did they . . ." question, and further I think that the character choices are internally consistent.
You and I may just have different metrics for "bad writing". For me, good writing is more about characters being consistent and the broader world of the film being consistent. And to me, From Beyond checks both of those boxes.
Either way, they don’t attempt to do that until much later. After they decide to sleep there.
Yeah, it is unconventional. It’s also bad writing to me as a clumsy throw away line to dismiss their reasonings to get us to not consider how illogical it is.
You’re right that we have different metrics in terms of bad writing, though.