Cinemas are an activity in Red Dead Redemption and Red Dead Redemption 2. Perhaps one of the most striking innovations of the late 19th-early 20th Centuries, cinematography and moving pictures evolved from simple experimentations in 1899 to viable, even popular, forms of entertainment by 1911. Both games feature two shows, which the player can view from two locations across the map.
Red Dead Redemption 2 expands on in-game entertainment with the addition of various Magic Lantern Shows, a precursor of the motion picture.
Locations[]
Red Dead Redemption[]
Settlement | Name | Show |
---|---|---|
Armadillo | Armadillo Cinema | "The Dangers of Doctors and Patent Medicines" |
Blackwater | Blackwater Grand Theater | "Beaumont the Burly: Damsels Causing Distress" |
The cinema in Armadillo is located down the road from the Marshal's office and is a makeshift structure, located in the town school house. The cinema in Blackwater, however, is a permanent structure with a more stylish interior designed for entertainment, in the style of the Nickelodeon Theaters found across America at the time. It is located next to the Blackwater Safehouse.
Red Dead Redemption 2[]
Settlement | Name | Shows |
---|---|---|
Blackwater | Imperial Theatre | "Sketching for Sweetheart" "Direct Current Damnation!" |
Valentine | J.J. Riggins' Traveling Magic Lantern Show | "Mr. Bear's First Winter" "The Legend of Josiah Blackwater" "One of the Wonders of the Age" "Saviors and Savages" |
Saint Denis | Fontana Magic Lantern Theatre | "Mr. Bear's First Winter" "One of the Wonders of the Age" "The Ghastly Serenade" |
Saint Denis | Théâtre Râleur | Four theater shows hosted by Aldridge T. Abbington featuring Benjamin Lazarus, Antoinette Sanseverino, Hortensia, Robin Koninsky, The Petit Flâneur, The Mysterious Maya and Miss Marjorie's Medical Miracle (Miss Marjorie, Bertram and Magnifico) |
The Blackwater Grand Theater and the Armadillo cinema are present in the game, though the player is not able to watch the establishments' shows.
Shows[]
Red Dead Redemption[]
In the era in which the game is set, cinemas were an extremely innovative novelty. Films produced in this era were usually very short, without audio, and often lacked a narrative plot. The player is able to watch a film at the cinema for a fee of $2. While watching the film, an NPC pianist will provide a Vaudeville soundtrack. Two films are available for the player to view in the Cinemas.
The Dangers of Doctors and Patent Medicines[]
The film's plot revolves around a quack doctor who closely resembles Nigel West Dickens.
The doctor has set up a Tonic shop and throughout the film sells medicine to an old man with back pains, a young womanizer with tapeworms, and a little girl with toothaches. However, the medicine the doctor sells to these people ends up hurting them. The old man is energized by the medicine so greatly that he has a heart attack and buries himself in the ground and dies. The womanizer takes the medicine and even though he farts out all the tapeworms, he is overly aroused and ends up humping a tree which he mistakes for a woman and is taken to jail. And as for the little girl with toothaches, the doctor gives her medicine that is effective on her teeth, but the little girl starts hallucinating. She hallucinates a giant monster attacking her mother. The little girl pulls out an axe and chops down the monster, which sadly and somewhat humorously ends up to actually be the little girl's mother. The doctor takes a break after this and sits down on a rock to smoke illegal drugs from Mexico. But as he is about to do this, a group of Mexican Banditos pop out with guns and prepare to steal the drugs for themselves. Luckily, the doctor takes out an invisibility potion and drinks from it, turning him invisible and allowing him to escape. But as the doctor sneaks away, he is suddenly sucked into the ground. The doctor falls through the Earth and lands in Hell, where he is greeted warmly by the Devil ("Welcome dear boy! We have been expecting you!"). The film ends with a warning to not trust medical science (IT WILL KILL YOU AND LEAVE YOU DEAD).
Beaumont the Burly: Damsels Causing Distress[]
This film's plot revolves around a large muscular man named Beaumont the Burly who is introduced to the concept of female suffrage. The film is highly sexist in a humorous and sarcastic way.
The film starts out with Beaumont lifting 300 pound weights in public, but as he is working out, he notices a group of women passing by who pay him no attention. Beaumont is confused by this because "tis usual women wilt at the sign of a performance like this." Beaumont returns home for lunch, but as he is walking, he hears gunshots in a nearby house. When he investigates, he finds that a housewife has tied up her husband at gunpoint because she is tired of taking care of her children and doing all the housework. The woman leaves to smoke opium and Beaumont returns his descent to home. When he gets home, he tells his wife who is reading a book that "it is time for our marital congress to assume." But his wife declines, and shows him a book called Suffrage: A Woman's Right to Vote. Beaumont is heavily confused, and his wife leaves to go to a suffrage rally. Beaumont wanders the streets seeking reason, and along the way he sees a group of tomboys playing cards which Beaumont thinks is "just disgraceful." As he wanders further, he is almost killed by a female construction worker who accidentally drops a wheelbarrow of bricks off the top of a building. Walking along, Beaumont sees a Suffrage Rally taking place in an alley, with groups of women coming together. When Beaumont orders the women to return home, he is attacked, tied up, and thrown onto the railroad tracks. Beaumont in distress declares "America hath lost its reason!!". When he looks to his right, he sees Uncle Sam tied up also. Uncle Sam tells him that they "tried making me a woman!" The film ends with a message to vote against women's suffrage ("DON'T TURN UNCLE SAM INTO AUNT SAMANTHA. IT IS YOUR PATRIOTIC IMPERATIVE TO OPPOSE WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE").
Red Dead Redemption 2[]
Cinema Shows
The player can view two films at the Imperial Theatre in Blackwater, which is inaccessible in-game before 1907. Similar to RDR, these films are presented as animated silent films, with interspersed title cards for narration and musical backing provided by a piano. The player can buy tickets from the ticket booth, and ask what show is currently playing.
Sketching for Sweetheart[]
An early concept film that experiments with blending animation and "live action," presenting an Animator vs. Animation-style scenario.
Taking place on a sketchbook page, a sketch artist (portrayed by a disembodied arm) is shown interacting with his drawing of a Gibson Girl, showing off animation tricks like lighting her cigarette and tickling underneath her chin. Next, he attempts to disrobe the girl: first by pulling down one of her dress straps, then by erasing her midsection entirely and redrawing her exposed undergarments. He tries to apologize by drawing flowers and a box of chocolates, both of which she angrily rejects, instead demanding that he hand over his pen. The girl sketches herself a purse, pulls out a revolver, and takes aim at the artist. She then robs him, stuffing her animated purse with the artist's real valuables. When he reaches for another pen, the girl fires at him, splattering his blood on the page. The film ends with her walking off the page, ducking beneath the artist's now-limp arm.
Direct Current Damnation[]
A public service message from the Lanik Electric Company. The film serves as a condemnation of Direct Current electrical transmission, while praising the virtues of Alternating Current. Direct Current is portrayed as an "evil" and "dangerous" system through a series of comedic electrocutions, while Alternating Current is shown to be a safe and "calm gift from the gods."
The film is a reversal of the real-life "War of the Currents" taking place at the turn of the century, in which Thomas Edison and his Direct Current incandescent lighting took stance against George Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla's attempts to dampen Alternating Current's voltage for use in indoor lighting. Infamously, Edison Electric Light was contracted to run experiments on the electric chair, which aimed to associate AC and Westinghouse with lethal force. The line and scene "an evil menace strong enough to fell a mighty elephant" may also be a reference to Edison Manufacturing's 1903 film Electrocuting an Elephant, in which AC was used to execute Topsy the Elephant for killing a park guest.
Magic Lantern Shows (RDR 2)[]
Magic Lantern shows can be found in both the 1899 and 1907 portions of the game, held at the Fontana Theatre in Saint Denis and J.J. Riggins' Travelling Magic Lantern Theatre tent outside of Valentine. A precursor to the motion picture, these shows utilized lantern-like projectors and colored glass plates to tell visual stories in slideshow fashion, sometimes incorporating rudimentary "animation" through layered slides and simple machinery. A recorded voice accompanies the projection, serving as a narrator. Shows rotate throughout the game, which the player can ask about and buy tickets for at the ticket booth.
Mr. Bear's First Winter[]
A morality tale based on colonial folklore of the creatures living in the Massachusetts woods. The narrator is a man with a husky, baritone voice.
One summer, Old Man Wind tells Mr. Bear that he will blow a mighty cold upon the land. He instructs Bear to gorge himself on fish and meat, then find a den in which to sleep for sixty nights; and to tell his friends what he told him. Though sad that he now had to eat his friends, Bear did what Old Man Wind said. The other animals in the forest teased Bear for being slow, lazy, and foolish for listening to Old Man Wind, presenting various ways in which they will survive the long, cold winter. Still, Bear did as he was told, and snuggled in to sleep for many days. When he woke up, Bear found spring had come, and that all his animal friends who didn't listen had frozen to death, ready to be eaten. This, the narrator says, is the reason why the bear hibernates during the winter, then reminds you to listen to your elders and do exactly as you are told.
The Legend of Josiah Blackwater[]
To be added. |
One of the Wonders of the Age[]
To be added. |
The Ghastly Serenade[]
To be added. |
First Show at Théâtre Râleur[]
To be added. |
Second Show at Théâtre Râleur[]
To be added. |
Third Show at Théâtre Râleur[]
To be added. |
Last Show at Théâtre Râleur[]
To be added. |
Trivia[]
- Both films comically portray the issues surrounding the early 1900s America, i.e. The Temperance Movement and Women's Suffrage.
- Both films also seem to be early examples of cinematic political propaganda.
- The cinema is very similar to the cabaret and comedy club shows in Rockstar North's Grand Theft Auto IV
- Like the television in Grand Theft Auto IV, the movie theater only provides a diversion to the player, and has no significant gameplay value.
- During Undead Nightmare, the survivors at Blackwater (led by town gunsmith Elmer Purdy) will use the town cinema's roof as a vantage point to shoot at the Undead from, and will remain there even when the town is temporarily safe. Likewise, in Armadillo, Alden Renshaw (sometimes joined by Jessie Hargrove) will hide inside the cinema during an attack, attacking any Undead that remains in or pass the building. Obviously, during the course of the DLC, neither cinema is in a functioning state.
- A small segment of the Battle Hymn of the Republic is played by the piano near the end of Beaumont the Burly: Damsels Causing Distress. These notes are heard at the ending of the movie, from the moment that Beaumont is laying hogtied on the railroad till the very ending of the movie.
- The fraudulent salesman in the film, The Dangers of Doctors and Patent Medicines could be argued to depict, or at least be reminiscent of, Nigel West Dickens. One of many reasons for this is that one medicine bottle in the film reads, 'Doc West's Revitalizing Swig'.
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