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Rad Russian posted:With the budget they have I wish they'd show a bit more of the battles too. Even Game of Thrones can do one big battle a season. Hope they drop some $$ on CGI at least and show some big overhead shots + more direct fighting strategies in season 2. Historically Mongols had unique tactics for the age with their horse archer harassment that pretty much annihilated any army they faced. Wish they'd show more of that vs. traditional armies of the time. They pretty much steamrolled everyone because no one knew what to do with massed horse archers. They were totally OP. The real-wolrd mongols tended to use infantry soldiers from conquered nations for bloody siege warfare.
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Jan 10, 2015 00:22
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so what i've gathered from this thread is that you weirdos enjoy throwing 'white guy' around and applying it to some wop who can barely string a sentence together in English. well done, now please focus on your western-funded yellow drama. utter mental cases all of you.
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Jan 10, 2015 03:08
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Yellow drama, are you loving serious?
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Jan 10, 2015 16:32
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Bularin posted:Fun, if silly, but it did manage to reign itself from going full retard like Spartacus. Once again the gods spread cheeks to ram cock in loving rear end.
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Jan 10, 2015 16:37
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Going back a bit, I didn't really mind not showing the failed siege. I think an abrupt shift in viewer expectations can be useful and telling the story through closeups of the tableau worked for me, especially with Jingham narrating. My dream would be a sort of prequel season devoted to the Secret History of the Mongols, but I doubt that will ever happen.
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Jan 15, 2015 06:55
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I'm still wondering how they were able to bring their massive cookery set to the battle. And what did they do with the dish afterwards? Massive tupperware?
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Jan 15, 2015 07:54
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mrfart posted:I'm still wondering how they were able to bring their massive cookery set to the battle. And what did they do with the dish afterwards? Massive tupperware? I would unironically watch like 1/3 of an episode devoted to showing how the nitty gritty of logistics worked, mostly because I don't think it has ever been done on the screen. 
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Jan 15, 2015 07:59
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Xoidanor posted:I would unironically watch like 1/3 of an episode devoted to showing how the nitty gritty of logistics worked, mostly because I don't think it has ever been done on the screen. Me too. I actually think the way Marco found out that Ariq was lying about sending his army to support Kublai's in attacking the Song was one of the smartest parts of the show. It was believable that the son of a traveling merchant would understand the logistics of sending a mounted army to war better than a Prince taught by Chinese scholars and dazzled by his uncle's stories.
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Jan 15, 2015 18:04
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Velisarius posted:so what i've gathered from this thread is that you weirdos enjoy throwing 'white guy' around and applying it to some wop who can barely string a sentence together in English. well done, now please focus on your western-funded yellow drama. utter mental cases all of you. fuckin lol
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Jan 15, 2015 21:14
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I thought Kublai's wife looked familiar, and it turns out she's Joan Chen, who I haven't seen in anything since Twin Peaks. That is some amazingly graceful aging, right there. I'm just starting this show and so far it seems like it's going to remind me of Spartacus more than GoT. Though the first episode was better than Spartacus' godawful pilot. edit: And is it really true that Marco Polo's actor learned English during filming? If so, why the hell would they do that? There have got to be literally thousands of generically attractive Italian-American actors floating around that could have given Marco's lines more emotional weight. It's especially odd since his accent ends up being so all over the place. Seems easier to have a native English speaker put on a convincing Italian accent than for an Italian speaker to learn English on the fly. Maybe they wanted to use that to really up the "fish out of water" feeling, but it didn't quite work. He's definitely the weakest member of the main cast, but at least they don't try to shove him in every single scene. Basically all of my favorite scenes so far are the ones he's not in. Grizzled Patriarch fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Jan 16, 2015 |
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Jan 16, 2015 03:56
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My wife and I just finished this today. It was kind of silly at times but in general I thought it was really good. Partially because we went in with very low expectations after the bad reviews and the hilariously awful trailer for the show. In general I echo the sentiments that it's great they sort of tricked people into watching a show with like three white people in it ever and only one of them actually being a character. The way every man in any position of power in the show has major issues with their parentage and their identity is a more interesting way to play at how these culture's intersected each other beyond the typical "well in this country we talk like THIS, in that country we talk like THAT" like other shows would do.DarkCrawler posted:It's seriously odd that nobody hasn't done a big-budget Genghis Khan show yet. Maybe because like every other episode would be a a massive battle, siege or sacking once they got out of the steppe Ahahaha perfect description. It's true that while it's an amazing story, televised would actually be boring if it's just ten episodes of "unstoppable badass horde conquers the known world and ushers in modern civilization" and extremely expensive. I can almost understand it though, I mean most of the US still pronounces the name Gangguess and previous attempts have been generally laughable (the person has been played by both John Wayne and Brian Dennehy, with most other efforts being direct to video trash). Seeing how the show developed, I feel like Marco Polo and the sensationalized first episode in general was like a trojan horse to actually get people to watch Kublai Khan: The Series and was pretty smart. I really like the cynicism of the blue princess storyline which was dumb as dogshit as first but had a lot more twists and turns than I expected. I like how Chabi is written because of how whenever she speaks to the blue princess or to Mei Lin's daughter she has this subtle "well, that's nice but unfortunately you're just worthless gutter trash...." look on her face while giving high complement. People who liked this would probably like Red Cliff. It's about the about the middle third or so of the novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Sadly, the version on Netflix is the crap US theatrical version. Red Cliff was originally released as two films, each about 148 minutes. The US version on Netflix is those movies edited down to one single 142 minute movie. Really great cast and it's pretty accurate to the book (though of course historical accuracy is again not the real point, the book's called "Romance" of the Three Kingdoms for a reason for its awesome feats of heroism and combat prowess). Costumes are great along with most of the performances, and while again it's not 100% accurate the way the power structures work, the way the characters strategize and address each other and so on is really well done. Lots of awesome sets and setpieces like in Marco Polo with tons of extras/etc. Similar to Cao Cao, Kublai Khan is fascinating here because he has the wisdom and experience to pick out and surround himself with extremely talented people in all areas, but is just stubborn enough to fully take heed of their advice. Khutulun throwing a fight was so weird. Just because, due to how the show played out there was no need for it. Byamba owns though she at least has really good taste. I'm hoping if there's a second season we see more of them. When she first threw the match I figured she was doing it to quickly unite their armies, but that ended up being pointless anyway with Kaidu/etc. being exiled, though it's not like she knew that would happen. I guess though besides the minister of finance, it puts a charismatic couple of characters with another faction that would probably come into conflict with Kublai in later seasons if they happen. Jingham weirdly ended up being one of my favorite characters. I like how his clothing subtly becomes less Chinese and more Mongolian in each episode until the last two where he's mongoliannomadroyalty.jpg. I hated the guy at first but the direction and script did great credit to the identity crisis he was going through throughout the show. Marco's actor was very strong in the beginning and end, but sort of bland in the middle third of the series. He was convincingly guarded, nervous and wily in the first and last few episodes. You can see how the character keeps attempting to adapt his own concept of courtliness and such to being able to put on a good face as much as possible. Subcomputer posted:On another note, I'm wondering if Altan Urag ever gets annoyed with soundtrack producers, something along the lines of "We have other songs you know, you might even pay us to do some new songs. But no, same ones, always same ones..." This was funny, my wife recognized a lot of the filler samples and beats they use during the establishing shots for battles and when they're traveling. One of them is a Japanese taiko song she has the cd of. Another is sampled from some Enigma song.  Lycus posted:Then the scene was badly edited, because at the end of the scene, Hundred Eyes had defeated all the soldiers and it was just him and the evil chancellor in the room. Then the next time we see Hundred Eyes, he was telling Marco that he failed. If the evil chancellor had run out while Hundred Eyes was fighting the soldiers, the scene would made better sense. This was the only bad editing in the show. That entire scene cuts off with him about to like own the entire universe, but then suddenly he just walks off when we see so few guards in the hallway/room (all of which he just destroyed). All they needed was an extra second of like twenty guys rushing in or of Sidao escaping at an intersection. It was the one "wait, what just happened" moment in the show for me. Though still not as stupid as the minister of finance's commissioned painting of him decapitating Kublai Khan. Like if I were the painter, I'd have snitched on him before the paint dried. AngryBooch posted:I was kind of willing to accept movie kung-fu as the setting's "magic" like in Game of Thrones and just take the series as fantasy. But the super-manipulator villain now having a painting of himself holding the decapitated head of the emperor on his wall is ridiculous. I hope the first scene of season two (if it ever exists) is his new friend Jingim showing up at his house, seeing the picture, and stuffing Ahmad into a rug. They could cover the male nudity issue by having season two just open up with Ahmad being graphically tortured to death for making that painting. It was so stupid. The only way he'd possibly have a claim is if he psychically knew way ahead of time that Kaidu was going to be exiled and that Byamba was going to choose to go there too to stick with Khutulun. Lycus posted:The hashshashin storyline was probably my favorite storyline for Marco as a character because I actually got the impression that he was using his traveling merchant background for something useful. I liked that much better than "let me school you about siege engines". He doesn't really school them about it so much as mention that they can use the trebuchet model with a better counterweight to break the wall instead of taking damage by getting close with catapults. They were still designed for Kublai Khan by engineers from Damascus/Iraq (at that time) like what most people will agree happened. It's not like he personally invented and showed them how to do it, he was just the man Kublai put on the scene to make sure the engineers knew that yes, you need to do what you have to do so that it shoots x far and is y distance away so that it breaks a wall while not being arrowed, you have all the budget you want, make it happen. He mentions Alexander specifically because we learn in like episode one or two that Kublai Khan respected Alexander but also claims every city named after him to his name. To me that kind of is where Marco's performance breaks down. He's given some genuinely smart and manipulative things to say and do but sometimes fails to deliver it as such. I really did like the hashshashin storyline though because it felt like a perfect merger of people and spiritual manipulation for political gain. I liked that they used the more romanticized "history" of the assassins where whoever the old man/bad enough dude was at a given time would arrange for these guys to be brought in relatively young and keep them all drugged and sexed up, convincing them they were already dead and in heaven for years. They'd be so dedicated to getting their poo poo done because after years of training in weapons, loving and drinking the old man could go to any one of them and go "Huh weird Alah said if this warlord doesn't die within the next week all of you get kicked out of heaven forever. Dang. Whelp, here's some weapons and stuff good luck. Remember if you come back without killing him Alah will really destroy you." Grizzled Patriarch posted:I thought Kublai's wife looked familiar, and it turns out she's Joan Chen, who I haven't seen in anything since Twin Peaks. That is some amazingly graceful aging, right there. I was thrilled to see she was in this, I was always a big fan even she has been in some real poo poo. I'm hoping they snag Rutger Hauer at some point to be some background merchant or something, even for just two seconds, so that we can finally have three awesome things that have both Rutger Hauer and Joan Chen in them.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoBuSVfB6MM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsdI3UBRJrM Neo Rasa fucked around with this message at 05:30 on Jan 17, 2015 |
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Jan 17, 2015 05:22
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Well this is interesting minor s2 news, Altan Urag, the band that I mentioned had a bunch of music traditional and "folk-rock" as they call it used throughout the series, is bragging on twitter and facebook about the production company being in Mongolia scouting locations. I wonder if this means they'll be doing the Kaidu becoming a major thorn arc since his whole becoming a de facto independent state is taken as the reason Polo said "gently caress this, I'll spend forever and a year attempting to sail around most the empire instead to deliver Kokachin to the Khan of the Persians...". Although (without being an expert on all the terrain in Kaidu's state at the time), finding new Kazakh locations would be more "accurate".
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Jan 23, 2015 02:16
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I came so close to turning it off in the first episode with Hundred Eyes' prescient fighting bullshit but now I'm so glad I didn't. This is right up there with Sleepy Hollow where it boils down to the two types of watchers, those that can put up with hilariously dumb poo poo and enjoy a show or people who can't. I can, so I got to enjoy a foot binding lunatic uncle get pressure pointed to death by a blind fucker  I'm actually rewatching it and it's even better the second time through, I was apparently way too high the first time because there was a ton of poo poo I missed like the finance guy was painting his wall mural throughout the season, first time through I was just like what the gently caress did you have that there the whole time? When nope they show him all throughout the season painting it (still weird he'd put it up though). Midnight City fucked around with this message at 17:37 on Jan 31, 2015 |
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Jan 31, 2015 08:14
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This show was not terrible. A pleasant surprise. Many flaws, but overall not terrible. In Episode 9; Why did that one dude admit to hiring the assassins, and also doing basically all the bad things in Season 1? What was his motivation and purpose? Something vague about stopping the war? Also in Episode 10; Why does that asshat have a literal mural of him killing Kublai? What building is this in?
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Feb 4, 2015 09:17
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JIZZ DENOUEMENT posted:In Episode 9; Why did that one dude admit to hiring the assassins, and also doing basically all the bad things in Season 1? What was his motivation and purpose? Something vague about stopping the war? I think he just wanted to save Marco Polo
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Feb 4, 2015 09:22
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9: A combination of saving Marco, who he knew was being scapegoated, and not wanting to personally be a part of conquest anymore. 10: It's just a dumb thing, I think.
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Feb 4, 2015 09:30
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Yusuf's heart wasn't in it anymore, he realized Kublai would never stop with his conquests (Kublai even wants to conquer the West) and Jia Sidao picked up on it immediately so Yusuf thought he was also failing Kublai at the same time, plus he wanted to save Marco. That whole story line and scene where he informs Kublai about what he did was probably my favorite part of the whole show. And to counter argue the white savior complaint some people have made, I didn't really see it. Most of the show goes out of the way to have us see Marco or whites aren't saviors, his own dad/uncle are shown to be pieces of poo poo, the white priests are cowards who refuse to travel, the rather huge story line of Hundred Eyes training Marco the whole season but Marco still gets hilariously beaten by Jia Sidao in like 5 seconds, it's not Marco who realized it was hilarious ninja assassins it was Hundred Eyes, etc. Even during the battle when Jingim is about to die it's not really Marco who saves him, it's his brother Byamba. Then there was a Muslim guy (Yusuf) who was the only one that came closest to acting purely out of a sense of honor. I think they purposely tried and mostly succeeded in avoiding any kind of white savior trope. Midnight City fucked around with this message at 18:02 on Feb 4, 2015 |
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Feb 4, 2015 14:04
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Wow that's poo poo writing and a complete 180 from the character, considering before that he literally stated he serves his God by serving the Khan.
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Feb 4, 2015 18:15
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Uh, no. You seemed to get even less of the show than I did watching it completely high the first time. Yusuf's character was from the very beginning, the very first episode actually to be completely against the entire war with South China. He counsels Kublai that he should let them remain in the walled city and 'milk them for tribute, not kill the cow'. Then throughout the season he keeps trying to avert the war, when Kublai is poisoned he councils Jingim not to attack, outright accuses Ahmad of trying to force 'his war', etc. The one thing you did remember accurately is that he says he serves Kublai to serve Allah but you didn't remember he said it so transparently Jia Sidao saw right through it, told him as much, and Yusuf orchestrated himself to be dead within the end of the same episode.
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Feb 4, 2015 20:18
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You must be high now, and also a prick! The fact that Yusuf and Jingim didn't want to fight the war is irrelevant. Yusuf had his council heard, and then discarded. From this point he then does basically every bad-thing-tm that happens to the Khan for the rest of the season. There's are several scenes before Yusuf has his meeting with Jia Sidao where he communicates the principle that his purpose is to serve the Khan. And most importantly when Marco is tracking people down to solve the mystery, he interrupts Yusuf when he is praying to Mecca. In this scene Yusuf states that his servitude is his way of clarity and purpose in life. Even if we disregard all that character back story, it still makes no loving sense. Assuming Yusuf wants peace, then hiring the assassins harms his goal. A huge component of the assassination subplot was that it would fuel a quicker conflict between the Mongols and the walled city. Yusuf straight up acknowledges that if Kublai dies, one of the blood relatives would be the new Khan. And all of them are more likely to attack the Chinese. Even Jingim, who was pro-peace at the onset, is now pro-war because he thinks the assassination attempt on his father came from the Chinese. It's bad, sloppy writing. And you're a dick. edit: I guess the one thing you can say is that Yusuf did give Sanga the death penalty when didn't have to. JIZZ DENOUEMENT fucked around with this message at 00:06 on Feb 5, 2015 |
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Feb 4, 2015 23:58
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JIZZ DENOUEMENT posted:You must be high now, and also a prick! The fact that Yusuf and Jingim didn't want to fight the war is irrelevant. Yusuf had his council heard, and then discarded. From this point he then does basically every bad-thing-tm that happens to the Khan for the rest of the season. There's are several scenes before Yusuf has his meeting with Jia Sidao where he communicates the principle that his purpose is to serve the Khan. And most importantly when Marco is tracking people down to solve the mystery, he interrupts Yusuf when he is praying to Mecca. In this scene Yusuf states that his servitude is his way of clarity and purpose in life. Quoting all of this because you're a complete loving retard who is blaming writing for you failing to grasp even mild subtleties. Yusuf didn't hire the assassins you twit, Ahmad did. Yusuf confessed to Kublai that he did it in order to save Marco. Kublai knew he was falsely confessing it and wouldn't accept it but Yusuf sent messengers to every corner of the Mongol empire before he walked in there to tell Kublai to force Kublai to kill him instead of Marco. Sorry you couldn't follow the plot of a show and then raged out like an idiot?
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Feb 5, 2015 00:19
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JIZZ DENOUEMENT posted:You must be high now, and also a prick! The fact that Yusuf and Jingim didn't want to fight the war is irrelevant. Yusuf had his council heard, and then discarded. From this point he then does basically every bad-thing-tm that happens to the Khan for the rest of the season. There's are several scenes before Yusuf has his meeting with Jia Sidao where he communicates the principle that his purpose is to serve the Khan. And most importantly when Marco is tracking people down to solve the mystery, he interrupts Yusuf when he is praying to Mecca. In this scene Yusuf states that his servitude is his way of clarity and purpose in life. No one said that Yusuf did it, he took the blame because he wanted out. Stop trying to cover up your inability to comprehend by flinging insults everywhere.
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Feb 5, 2015 00:32
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It seemed clear to me and most everyone I've spoken to about the show that Yusuf's confession was false. He was the red herring of the assassination investigation and turned out to be an okay guy. Lycus fucked around with this message at 00:55 on Feb 5, 2015 |
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Feb 5, 2015 00:53
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Yusuf essentially committed suicide by cop. I'm not sure why it was necessary in order to save Marco since Marco's "crimes" had nothing to do with what Yusuf confessed to and Kublai could have just executed them both... but I suppose that since Kublai held Yusuf in such high regard he wanted to grant Yusuf's final request which was the pardoning of Marco. Then again he also held Marco in high regard so IDK. Also, why didn't Marco think about trebuchets before the first attack on Xiangyang?
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Feb 5, 2015 04:28
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Randandal posted:Yusuf essentially committed suicide by cop. I'm not sure why it was necessary in order to save Marco since Marco's "crimes" had nothing to do with what Yusuf confessed to and Kublai could have just executed them both... but I suppose that since Kublai held Yusuf in such high regard he wanted to grant Yusuf's final request which was the pardoning of Marco. Then again he also held Marco in high regard so IDK. If I remember correctly, one of the things he confessed to was conspiring with Jia Sidao and telling him when they planned to attack the section being repaired. That absolved Marco since it "explained" why the battle was lost instead of Marco helping to set up a trap. Randandal posted:Also, why didn't Marco think about trebuchets before the first attack on Xiangyang? That would've been the better way to write it, I agree. Lycus fucked around with this message at 04:41 on Feb 5, 2015 |
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Feb 5, 2015 04:38
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Randandal posted:Yusuf essentially committed suicide by cop. I'm not sure why it was necessary in order to save Marco since Marco's "crimes" had nothing to do with what Yusuf confessed to and Kublai could have just executed them both... but I suppose that since Kublai held Yusuf in such high regard he wanted to grant Yusuf's final request which was the pardoning of Marco. Then again he also held Marco in high regard so IDK. Also, why didn't Marco think about trebuchets before the first attack on Xiangyang? He didn't do it solely for Marco, this is why I took exception to him saying it was lovely writing, I think it was exceptionally good writing. Yusuf didn't just go "hmm I want Marco to live so I'm going to sacrifice myself", he had a complete crisis of character from many different fronts. His character and scenes with Kublai were the only thing (besides the scenery/props/costumes/set) that I felt the show was truly great at, like Emmy worthy, so I paid closer attention to it the second time. Reasons for Yusuf suiciding by cop: he didn't trust Kublai anymore to stop with just South China (he tells Kublai point blank this and Kublai asks him "you didn't think I would be able to stop myself?", he felt like he was failing Kublai because Jia Sidao had planted seeds of doubt in Kublai's mind about Yusuf's goals during the parley with Sidao/Kublai (this is after the battle they lose as a trap and Kublai acts like a baby during a temper tantrum), he wanted Marco to be saved not only because he believed in the trebuchet design but he genuinely liked Marco after reading his diary and talking to Marco in the cell, and the final reason that you asked specifically why he felt he needed to do it to save Marco is because Jingim explained to Marco while talking to him in his cell that the Mongol empire essentially needed a scapegoat for the failure and Yusuf understood that and didn't mind it being himself (this is mirrored when Marco tells Yusuf that he doesn't fear death but he's terrified to die labeled a traitor). Last question about why Marco didn't think of trebuchet before that, it could be bad writing but I think they alluded to it by the speech Marco gives while having the opportunity to plead for mercy that Marco does not want Kublai to attack the west after he's done with South China, so he never had a reason to until his life depended on it. It could've been handled better I agree. Midnight City fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Feb 5, 2015 |
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Feb 5, 2015 15:58
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I think the show makes it pretty clear prior to his imprisonment and subsequent release that Marco wasn't particularly invested in the war and so never put a huge amount of thought in to what he could do to help. And then he's imprisoned and needs something to save his life and clear his name, something that will be worth more than his death - which he pretty clearly explains in a monologue, before sitting and thinking desperately for the night and finally hitting on the trebuchets. He didn't think of it prior to that because he had no reason to.
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Feb 5, 2015 16:12
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Just finished the final episode. I had fun, it was an enjoyable first season, and I'll watch the second. The only thing I questioned was, after they knocked down the wall, and they're people were getting shot with the guns, why not pull them back and trebuchet some more boulders in there?
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Feb 15, 2015 20:10
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Historically, it would have made sense to pull back and maybe even see if they can get their "thunder-crash bombs" to work with the stresses of the counterweight trebuchets* and frag the defenders since as soon as the walls started coming down Emperor Duzong of Song said "Well, gently caress" and wrote off the city denying any requests for reinforcements. (These were iron canisters of gunpowder with a fuse, not exactly fancy explosives but could do the trick if you were smart/lucky with timing the fuse length.) It had been used against the Mongols in North China by the Jin, and Khubilai would then use them against Japan. Established storyline however, they would likely have to admit that the Mongols already had gunpowder and that the Song guns were just a nasty surprise in where they were located not that they existed. As far as throwing stones with the counterweight trebuchets, they'd actually have to knock down more wall onto the defenders, because unless one of those balls of rock hits something hard it will tend to just sink in like a bullet. *Or just launch them with the regular siege weapons they were designed for once they have a safe area.
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Feb 16, 2015 00:07
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I marathoned as soon as it came out and thought it wasn't very good until mid season when it turned really good, like Spartacus it got a rough start, but in this rewatch I'm noticing a million things that I didn't the first time and it really is tightly scripted with a lot of subtleties. One thing I never put together was why Sidao was torturing his niece with the foot binding, he was doing it because she kept talking about dancing and he associated dancing with prostitution from the mother and the mother's friend. Vag Assault Weapon fucked around with this message at 09:58 on May 16, 2015 |
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May 15, 2015 04:19
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