samsepi0l

The Careful Massacre of the Bourgeoisie (1984)

in terms of plot points, its virtually the same as the final product. the characterizations is where it differs. ill be real, the original script is even more corny than canon mr robot is, like its pretty bad. ill just go through it chronologically to point out whats interesting in case anybody wants the cliffs notes without reading for themselves.

one thing i find kind of endearing is elliot was originally a much more conspiracy theory prone type. his paranoia about the men in black following him, and his early suspicions about a group of powerful people running the world, are spliced with belief in dinosaurs not existing and aliens being on earth:

im guessing they cut that because it makes elliot a bit too overtly kooky and unserious

also, minor note, the original rons coffee scene (ron is phil in the original), esmail is already dropping lolita references:

and behold, what would have been the worst stylistic choice of all time: flashing definitions of the terms elliot uses on-screen for the audience. im so glad this didnt make the final cut

another huge change is that instead of hearing "e corp" as "evil corp," the companys name is bleeped out every time its mentioned:

a couple of quick casting change notes, too:

angelas boyfriend, ollie, was originally going to be "ali," an iranian guy

joanna was originally filipino

darlene is "marlene"... a more obvious reference to marla singer from fight club

romero was originally supposed to be a hippie, and trenton was only 16

angelas hair is only blonde for the first half of episode 1. she dyes it black after shes kicked off the e corp account during the meeting where elliot frames terry colby. how emo of her.

a lot of characters who were added in later seasons have their names taken from cut scenes in the original pilot. for example,

leon, as we later know him in the dark army, has a name inherited from a cut side character who serves as a defense secretary

sharon knowles takes her name from a cut location near allsafe, "sharons deli"

tyrell is also much more goofily patrick bateman-esque in the original. full nudity in the first episode, i bet the network hated that idea. from some of his dialogue, you get the sense they intended for him to be more active as a hacker type in the first season. he seems to have a sort of fifth sense for suspecting elliots involved in fsociety already.

mr robots characterization is a little different, too—he almost cries when he and elliot have their talk on the ferris wheel at coney island, and fakes an almost-suicide-attempt to bait elliot into rescuing him. its a long scene, so i wont screenshot it for you here, but its pretty hokey. im glad they went with the angrier, brasher, less emotionally unstable characterization for mr robot in the end.

adding to this another ask i got about the same thing:

Speaking of the women in Mr Robot, any thoughts on Tyrell's wife? (No, I did not forget her name...)

an interesting fact about joanna is that she is the character who underwent the biggest change from the original pilot script to the final product. i would recommend reading the original pilot script if you want a laugh because some of the choices are genuinely horrible (such as flashing the definitions of "hacker" words like AFK over the screen when theyre mentioned in dialogue??? lol???) but in some ways elliots character is a little more kooky and charming. also, qwerty was a cat, not a fish!

the intention for tyrells original characterization was obviously a lot more overtly aggressive, alpha male esque, patrick bateman expy deal. to the point where its actually comical lol. this is best shown by his interactions with joanna:

lots of changes to unpack here. first, joanna is filipino, so they dont have that mutually-intelligible-but-not-totally-aligned native language. this is important because joanna and tyrell speaking to each other in danish and swedish respectively shows they are close enough that it WORKS, but they are not "speaking the same language"—and i mean that both literally and in colloquial terms. we see in the final product that their marriage works largely as a business agreement: joanna gets to mould tyrell into her perfect husband, completing her vision of a perfect life, and also gets to enact her ambitions through him, while tyrell gets some semblance of love. do they want the same thing? sure. they both want tyrell to become cto, eventually ceo. but they dont want it for the same reasons.

another big change from the original script thats very important is the balance of power between the wellicks. their sex life provides the best metaphorical example: joanna puts on the APPEARANCE of being the submissive, the led party, but she controls tyrell through her desire. the one time we see them have sex, tyrell tries to get out of it ("im too tired," he says, like the stereotypical prudish wife in r/deadbedrooms) but joanna wont take no for an answer. both in his work life and in his sexual life at home, tyrell plays at being dominant, but its just that—an act. he is in fact entirely at the whims of others.

joanna serves as a lady macbeth type in the narrative, shaping tyrells goals and how he goes about achieving them. whats interesting is that the plots she directs tyrell through are... very feminine lol. like sleeping your way up to the top is something you would expect a woman to have to do, not a man. there is such a weird gender role fuckery happening here where joanna, wanting to be in the role of the traditional stay at home wife, is directing her husband, the supposedly dominant party, to debase himself by sleeping with other people for power.

its telling that the two memories she reminisces on when tyrell is gone are times where she had total control over him.

one is when she comes home from shopping (spending tyrells money) and finds tyrell has left her a gift (giving her an offering) and then comes down the stairs wearing a goofy matching outfit (which im sure she picked out in order to use him as a walking accessory)

the other is, of course, the cubic zirconia earring story. "tyrell fucked another woman just to give me some cheap thing i wanted thats an imitation of the real thing." and make no mistake, those cubic zirconia earrings are also tyrell, symbolically. he is told by everyone in these actually rich circles—price, scott knowles, joannas father—that he doesnt really belong. he can fake the aesthetic and mannerisms of an influential, successful man, but hes a fake. a copy. like those cubic zirconia earrings. humble, cheap origins trying to imitate the real, expensive, exclusive thing.

what joanna obviously WANTS is the tradwife fantasy. she wants to stay at home, shopping and eating and trying on clothes and plotting her husbands rise to power, while appearing as the pretty, harmless, well-mannered trophy wife. as for why she wants this, i have two guesses that go together. the first is that, as we see from the deleted scene where tyrell meets with joannas father, joanna obviously grew up spoiled and doted on. yet she leaves home, marries down, and tries to create a version of this same dynamic with tyrell—a sort of self-made trophy wife situation—rather than just living on the coattails of her father her whole life. i also think she was chasing a do-over of the child she abandoned in her teens. one of the few times we see her look truly emotional is when she brings up that abandoned baby, and she is clearly very attached to her and tyrells child in her own possessive way.

i always love to talk about it because i think it's something elliot actually doesn't show a ton of self awareness about. id really recommend @dolores-h4z3 post here too: https://www.tumblr.com/dolores-h4z3/816894287995387904/mr-robot-elliot-asexuality?source=share

but to add, i think the mr robot pilot is an excellent series opener for a lot of reasons, but especially because it introduces much of elliots neuroses in shaded ways. virtually everything you need to know about him you can start to glean from those first 50 minutes. a particularly damning one is how when he lies to krista about going to angelas birthday party, he says he even got a girl's number there and is thinking about calling her. this is such an unnecessary elaboration, and it's what clues krista into the fact that he's lying, because it's so obviously just what he THINKS a psychologist would want to hear. he is performing what he thinks normalcy is or should be. of course krista already knows his whole deal and suspects a past of CSA so she immediately gets what he's trying to do and knows his focus on normal romantic/sexual relationships as almost CENTRAL to performing normalcy is Very Telling. even as mastermind, lacking the memory of what happened to him, he is overcompensating, trying to fix a wound he doesn't know he has.

it's the same with how obsessed elliot is with cheating and lying in relationships and other forms of let's say "sexual betrayal." he hates ollie because he lies to angela, but he won't ruin her happiness by telling her (which, uh, wouldn't a good friend tell her???). his reasoning for this decision is because he thinks angela has bad taste in men and the next boyfriend might be worse. notice he later says the EXACT SAME THING about krista and her bad taste, yet shows far more intiative to break up krista and the guy she's seeing. you could be generous and say it's because he wants to help krista like she tries to help him. ill be more cynical and say it's because he wants to POLICE her the way he thinks she's policing him. how elliot sees her profile (and yes i do believe this is him superimposing his biases over what she actually wrote) is downright nasty. at this point in the show he views her as ineffective, incapable of helping him, just another mindless consumerist drone:

there is already so much unevenness to what elliot considers worth going after, how involved he should get to make sure the people around him are also having normal, healthy, good relationships. he is in fact completely obsessed with doing this and it comprises most of his meddling.

and then ofc episode 2 opens with a very big effort from tyrell to convince elliot to stay with him using romantic coded language (where you belong, here with me) and by invading his personal space... followed by elliot going home and seeing shayla being harassed by vera. im not equating tyrell and vera, although they have tons of similarities, but by pointing out just how purposefully juxtaposed scenes like these are, maybe you can start to see the patterns the show is creating early on to highlight just how much of elliots issues and preoccupations surround issues of relationships and consent but ESPECIALLY control.