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Zaggitz posted:Hi, is this show good? All I know about it is my favorite tv director works on it. The Magicians: Not Quite a Hate Watch Yet
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Feb 27, 2016 00:40
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This is neither a good show nor good books but we're all good posters here, pull up a chair and join us Except for me, I'm not a good poster
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Feb 27, 2016 01:05
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Zaggitz posted:Hi, is this show good? No. (I haven't read the books so this isn't based on the show being different). Most of the characters barely exist as people, the plot is basically non-existent (although that's sort of starting to change), there's no sense of what's at stake or how anything works, so it's very hard to care about anything that happens. It's not exactly bad, it's just very mediocre. There's really nothing about it that stands out in any way.
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Feb 27, 2016 03:14
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Tiggum posted:No. (I haven't read the books so this isn't based on the show being different). Most of the characters barely exist as people, the plot is basically non-existent (although that's sort of starting to change), there's no sense of what's at stake or how anything works, so it's very hard to care about anything that happens. It's not exactly bad, it's just very mediocre. There's really nothing about it that stands out in any way. Congratulations, you may as well have read the books! Reminder, the author is a sports journalist.
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Feb 27, 2016 03:57
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Ersatz posted:Exactly. In my mind that's what the books are about. Quentin grows from an insecure, angry, and depressed teenager into a man who is comfortable with himself and with others, and who is far more interested in solving problems than in getting the benefits of having done so. Alright I agree with all of that, and I would add that Quentin also becomes comfortable with his mediocrity, relative to other magicians. The stark contrast between "I can accomplish anything" in the first book with "I guess I'm just not that awesome after all" in the third book and the steady progression toward that endpoint is why I enjoyed the books. I mean he is still a magician and has all of the talent that that represents, but coming to the realization that he's not "the chosen one" or whatever was really cool and refreshing, especially since people were warning him about that at the start of the first book
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Feb 27, 2016 04:56
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To be fair, anyone that gets admitted to Breakbills is already super smart, so it makes sense that Quentin (and everyone else) comes in thinking that they are hot stuff and better than everyone else.
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Feb 27, 2016 08:57
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I dunno, I've really been enjoying and looking forward to this series every week, and I enjoyed the books.
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Feb 27, 2016 16:16
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mastajake posted:I dunno, I've really been enjoying and looking forward to this series every week, and I enjoyed the books. Same, goons/nerds just like to hate things. Especially those who post a bunch in TVIV.
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Feb 27, 2016 17:46
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QuarkJets posted:Alright I agree with all of that, and I would add that Quentin also becomes comfortable with his mediocrity, relative to other magicians. The stark contrast between "I can accomplish anything" in the first book with "I guess I'm just not that awesome after all" in the third book and the steady progression toward that endpoint is why I enjoyed the books. I mean he is still a magician and has all of the talent that that represents, but coming to the realization that he's not "the chosen one" or whatever was really cool and refreshing, especially since people were warning him about that at the start of the first book Didn't Quentin do a bunch of neat poo poo at the end of the first book or was it just pretentious "making it sound better than it actually was" show boating?
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Feb 27, 2016 23:08
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The Magicians: A Bag of Working Dicks
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Mar 1, 2016 03:11
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Where did Penny get a vest in Antarctica?
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Mar 1, 2016 03:13
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QuarkJets posted:IIRC, none of that amazing poo poo could be accomplished by Quentin on his own. He had to borrow power and/or spells from others in order to do anything meaningful. "The Power of a God" was literally handed to him. I thought that the book made it clear that literally anyone could have done the same thing, if they had been at that time and place No they make it clear that The fact that Quentin had grown in self realization and acceptance as well as just like a person was why he gave up the power of a God Whole book series is Quentin coming to the realization that being a overachiever may not be the best way to live your life. Everyone tells Quentin this and that he has to be happy with himself as a person. The book is a coming of age story but its the coming of age of a Manchild I liked the books. Hollismason fucked around with this message at 03:22 on Mar 1, 2016 |
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Mar 1, 2016 03:19
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Why are some f-bombs censored and others aren't? edit: Margo is my favorite now. That wish was amazing 
cochise fucked around with this message at 03:47 on Mar 1, 2016 |
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Mar 1, 2016 03:39
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While not being the 'chosen one', Quentin is far from mediocre, he's easily top 5 of his class. He's invited to advance one year, he did the whole survival challenge in the Arctic and during the books accomplishes plenty of things (3rd book spoiler including saving a whole universe, and yeah, the power was not his but he's still the one who figured out how to save Fillory and tried to save it many times, he did greater stuff than probably many mages with higher "power level" than him, like the russian mage who for all his knowledge and power is stuck in Ice Brokebills moping about the past and doing stuff in his basement that won't ever be relevant to the world.) . The only main characters who are shown to be far ahead of him is Alice and Julia (book 2 spoiler) who made a deal with a god and isn't even human .
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Mar 1, 2016 05:07
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The nails in the board was a really cheap joke but it made me laugh much harder than it should have.
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Mar 1, 2016 09:15
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So if i remember the book correctly they completely skipped the final test where they have to reach a certain part of Antarctica using only magic, unless it comes later. It means they skipped one of the best scenes in the book. What is even the point of going to Antarctica, just to have the characters stand there awkwardly and talk about how weird it was to be transformed into birds? It was such a horrible scene. If you don't have the budget or the will to adapt the novel why even try? What is gained by half assing it? Also the actors who play Quentin and Alice really have no chemistry together.
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Mar 1, 2016 11:52
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OK, so that was another episode where nothing happened. The whole gin/djinn thing was obviously a meaningless B plot. Gay best friend's new boyfriend is evil I guess? But since we have no real idea who the bad guys are or what they want, we don't know what that means. Penny's girlfriend left, but she hasn't really done anything anyway, so who cares. Doing the nail spell without words might mean something to us if we had any idea how magic works, but we don't. And the whole fox/sex thing was just confusing and meaningless. Can they turn into foxes any time now? Or do they have some kind of fox powers or something? What did that have to do with mind control? What did any of this mean or accomplish?
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Mar 1, 2016 16:45
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Ok, significant parts of this show are kind of just bad. Or at least this episode. I guess I can understand why they opted not to do the final test for budget reasons, but the winter brakebills was so... boring. They drive some nails into the board and that's it? I know we're supposed to assume that a ton of time passed during the episode, but nothing on the screen really gave that feeling.
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Mar 1, 2016 16:52
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nutranurse posted:I know we're supposed to assume that a ton of time passed during the episode, but nothing on the screen really gave that feeling. Were we? I thought it was, like, a couple of days. The Antarctica stuff was concurrent with the djinn stuff, so it can't have been that long.
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Mar 1, 2016 16:58
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Tiggum posted:Were we? I thought it was, like, a couple of days. The Antarctica stuff was concurrent with the djinn stuff, so it can't have been that long. Oh jesus, then that's even worse.
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Mar 1, 2016 16:59
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Tiggum posted:OK, so that was another episode where nothing happened. The whole gin/djinn thing was obviously a meaningless B plot. Gay best friend's new boyfriend is evil I guess? But since we have no real idea who the bad guys are or what they want, we don't know what that means. Penny's girlfriend left, but she hasn't really done anything anyway, so who cares. Doing the nail spell without words might mean something to us if we had any idea how magic works, but we don't. And the whole fox/sex thing was just confusing and meaningless. Can they turn into foxes any time now? Or do they have some kind of fox powers or something? What did that have to do with mind control? What did any of this mean or accomplish? I saw it as The Beast had possessed the new boyfriend at the end - hence the moth or whatever on the mirror. Not that he was The Beast the entire time. This episode was really bad. The writers / showrunners have absolutely no clue what they're doing or how to adapt the material.
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Mar 1, 2016 17:04
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Weaker episode. I continue to really like Penny's actor, though. I'm pretty disappointed they cut the race. We're over halfway, right? There's going to be a bit of a crunch coming soon if they don't advance the latter half of the book plot soon, unless we're not getting book 1 as a season. Which would be kinda crappy as there isn't much else to end a season on save for Martin and Alice's magical blues
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Mar 1, 2016 20:02
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I may have laughed loudly at the gin=djinn thing
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Mar 1, 2016 23:23
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Mortanis posted:We're over halfway, right? There's going to be a bit of a crunch coming soon if they don't advance the latter half of the book plot soon, unless we're not getting book 1 as a season. Which would be kinda crappy as there isn't much else to end a season on save for Martin and Alice's magical blues I don't see how the show could get to that scene at this point, too much that leads up to it is different/has been changed or dropped. And even if they try to shoehorn it in, you know they will gently caress it up somehow. (Which is too bad, because the whole sequence leading up to it would be LotR-level badass if done properly)
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Mar 1, 2016 23:39
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Pretty much all that's left now is graduation, they get the cacodemons (unless they cut this, which they probably will), and then they go to Fillory. So I assume all of that will occur in the first 12 minutes of the next episode, possibly interspersed with Margot and Elliot having sex with the hot guy while sneaking booze into Amish country or some poo poo.
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Mar 2, 2016 00:52
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I like that this show is different than the books but at same time, the Antarctica scene in the books had a lot good parts that the show cut or butchered I am a little disappointed. They could have showed how difficult magic was instead the show makes it just kind of look like hogwarts for adults.
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Mar 2, 2016 04:00
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To be fair, SyFy's largest demographic is adult males who probably wish they could go to Adult Hogwarts
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Mar 2, 2016 04:39
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Not that I'm complaining but it seems the point of the last few episodes was to get Olivia Taylor Dudley in as few clothes as possible.
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Mar 2, 2016 06:25
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They should have stretched out the time in Antarctica.
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Mar 2, 2016 09:49
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If it was a budget issue then they could at least have spent the entire episode there, and dropped the pointless Elliot and Julia storylines Quentin, Alice and Penny are the main characters, so why not use the Antarctica set to full effect and further the story with them?
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Mar 2, 2016 10:09
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Oasx posted:If it was a budget issue then they could at least have spent the entire episode there, and dropped the pointless Elliot and Julia storylines But the Julia storyline is the only thing worth watching for.
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Mar 2, 2016 15:33
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Oasx posted:the pointless Elliot
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Mar 2, 2016 17:51
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Zaggitz posted:Hi, is this show good? All I know about it is my favorite tv director works on it. I'm enjoying it quite a bit, but it's a cavalcade of flaws. The scripting is acceptable if not great, but there are weird pacing issues - scenes sometimes feel like they're cut short without explanation. The quality of the acting is uneven; Stella Maeve is killing it as Julia but the rest of the cast are less impressive. The nihilism of the Brakebills students ("IT'S LIKE HOGWARTS... BUT THEY gently caress") feels kind of cheap and exploitative, like a Bret Easton Ellis novel. The main character of the story is a self-loathing, mopey emo kid and that's a little off-putting. Having said all that, I'm finding the story interesting enough to be liking the show overall, and I've also now read the first book since it started, which I really enjoyed. Related: it took me an embarrassingly long time to connect that Lev Grossman the novelist is the excellent technology writer I've been reading for years in Wired and Time.
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Mar 2, 2016 18:30
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shadok posted:("IT'S LIKE HOGWARTS... BUT THEY gently caress") feels kind of cheap and exploitative, like a Bret Easton Ellis novel.
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Mar 2, 2016 20:34
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Oroborus posted:Not that I'm complaining but it seems the point of the last few episodes was to get Olivia Taylor Dudley in as few clothes as possible. 
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Mar 2, 2016 21:07
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So I finally got to watch this last episode. Oh my god that fox sex montage. 
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Mar 2, 2016 23:02
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Really, all that's left at this point is graduation, ~*~ennui sex~*~ and then Fillory. I assume they're traveling there in the next episode at this rate. I don't even think that Quentin is going to sleep with Margot. I figure they'll just gloss over that, and then just after graduation have Penny zap them into Fillory. No Neitherlands. They'll not even wander around and meet the river nymph, they'll not battle into Ember's tomb with the two body guards, they won't meet the talking bear at the tavern, they'll just ZAP straight into The Beast's chamber with the captive girl and kill him and free her. MAYBE we'll see a ram god. I understand that a LOT of the book needed to be cut to make it to air, but WHY cut so much poo poo and then make up superfluous garbage scenes (not all are garbage scenes, but like 75% of the additional poo poo is- Cancer Puppy is the best)? This show is perfectly mediocre. Decent enough to watch, but not good enough to give a poo poo if it gets a second season. Mouse Dresser fucked around with this message at 00:38 on Mar 3, 2016 |
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Mar 3, 2016 00:34
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It kinds of makes me wonder why Hogwarts didn't have anything like a college or graduate program. Presumably there's a fuckton more magic poo poo that people would be interested in learning after getting the equivalent of a High School Diploma, but I guess having college students throwing keggers in the Room of Requirement and taking the magic equivalent of Adderall to get through finals wouldn't be suitable in a children's book. Now that she's writing additional books in the same universe maybe college-level and post-graduate education will get looked at Did The Magicians have a magic-adderall? I can't remember anything like that
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Mar 3, 2016 01:53
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QuarkJets posted:It kinds of makes me wonder why Hogwarts didn't have anything like a college or graduate program. Presumably there's a fuckton more magic poo poo that people would be interested in learning after getting the equivalent of a High School Diploma, but I guess having college students throwing keggers in the Room of Requirement and taking the magic equivalent of Adderall to get through finals wouldn't be suitable in a children's book. Now that she's writing additional books in the same universe maybe college-level and post-graduate education will get looked at Rowling was asked once if there are universities for wizards in Potterworld, apparently there are not. Just the 11 magical high schools. Presumably anybody who wanted to be a research wizard after Hogwarts would do it at the Ministry of Magic or their local government equivalent.
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Mar 3, 2016 05:40
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No wonder the wizards in Harry Potter live in the medieval era technologywise, their education system sucks.
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Mar 3, 2016 21:31
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