|
There's something very Tim Burtonesque about the editing, costume design and gestures that the character is making. Ruby is looking like Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman while acting stiff like Burton's Batman who couldn't move freely with the awkward costume. The scene where they fall on the bed and Batwoman awkwardly leaves, then suddenly raises the grappling hook is so Batman 1.
|
#
¿
Oct 13, 2019 04:21
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 17:57 |
|
|
I feel like this could have all the setpieces to be a decent show but the CW coat is so thick and it's already showing and leaking.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 14, 2019 13:30
|
|
|
Gonna be honest, I'm with Alice on the red wig. I kinda think that red wig looks strange and slightly out-of-character. Eh. Also for at first I thought the bartender was Caity Lotz and for a brief moment in time in my head canon the legends were in the party. Xelkelvos posted:I kinda agree now with the complaints that everything felt rushed. But more precisely, lots of characters were introduced, but not all of them were introduced in a way that connected back to Kate directly. Kate's stepmom was essentially a non-entity in the first two episodes and yet the stinger was meant to feel significant when it wasn't. Mary is much more present, but she's not had enough time to develop despite all of the character details that seem to be foisted on her. Luke Fox is there, but there's literally no explanation as to why. And the opening two scenes the one with Kate doing escape training and the ceremony for the spotlight breaking are so disconnected, you could've put them in two different episodes or seasons. I'm starting to like Alice as a character (not as a villain exactly) because yeah there's some semblance of a mystery there, but the villain of the week thing sucked. Thomas was an incredibly lovely character. "I finally, after struggling my whole life, achieved the point that I wanted and now I'm gonna either try to kill someone with years/decades of experience fighting criminals or kill a bunch of important people by sabotaging my own party, nothing is gonna go wrong". The only good part out of that plan is that there wasn't even any tension on whether he'd get away with it or not: He just got arrested to Arkham. But the plot itself was so hamfisted. Also I know that people don't hold Ruby Rose in the highest regards as an actress but I do think she's being used less-than-optimally here. Mary is my favorite character and ironically I feel like she plays the role of "dumb spoiled brat on the public eyes, secret helper of Gotham's disenfranchised" fantastically. Vietnamwees posted:I'm surprised no one in Gotham at this point has put together that Bruce Wayne & Batman have both been absent for the exact same amount of time yet. Then again, this is the same universe that can't figure out that Superman & Clark Kent look EXACTLY the same. I think that if a major vigilante like Batman existed in the real world you'd never be thinking "it's some billionaire in a suit". First you'd have to think of all the billionaires in a certain city, keep tabs on the gossip/news of when they're back in and out, assume that they're actually interested in putting their lives in danger, discard people with military connections (I mean, the gear itself isn't an indicator: Rio's druglords have access to military equipment from multiple countries including helicopters and rocket launchers, and Gotham is a notoriously corrupt city with a bunch of people who got wealthy off illegal means. Batman could be someone with a cartel background, or even someone hired to put out the competition, or even a disgruntled vet with the same family-got-killed background like the Punisher). Bruce leaving the city at the same time as Batman would be easily dismissed as just that he doesn't think the city is safe anymore. Bruce Wayne would have to sell the image that he's afee levels of eccentric for anyone to make the connection and he instead just sold his public image as a irresponsible playboy, depending on the canon. More realistically the fact that in such a massive city that some people see as an NY-equivalent, filled with billionaires and rich people and a huge social inequality, a "secret vigilante" that cops just turn a light in the sky and then he mysteriously shows up would very likely be interpreted as just an excuse for a segment of the non-corrupt cops to be operating outside the circle of corruption in the city and the light is just symbolic: Think about it and how loving stupid you'd have to be to believe that a light in the sky is actually a signal to call someone who will then drop everything and pop up. It's too ceremonial and too fantastic, you'd just assume that's smoke and mirrors and they already dispatched their paramilitary force an hour ago before giving the bad guys a heads up. It'd be fair to assume that Batman isn't one person but multiple people, and the bat-signal is only turned on after the job is done so the next day's journals can talk about the miracle story about how you turn a light in the sky and a bunch of evildoers got arrested. If you approach the story from the angle that "super-powered heroes exist" then that becomes even truer because Batman doesn't really show any super power. He reads to me like Gotham's government/police doing something ceremonial to make it look like the city isn't as God-forsaken as it is because neither Wonder Woman nor Superman give a flying gently caress to it. Your first reaction to Batman would be that they're like the Sombra Negra - quote:The Sombra Negra (Spanish for "Black Shadow"), also known as El Clan de Planta ("The Plant Clan"), are (as of 2014)[1] death squad groups based in El Salvador, allegedly composed mostly of police and military personnel, that target criminals and gang members for vigilante justice. - rather than a very ripped Bill Gates going out a night. Elentor fucked around with this message at 14:26 on Oct 21, 2019 |
|
#
¿
Oct 21, 2019 14:08
|
|
|
Yeah we must not talk about how we like Mary otherwise they'll suck the joy out of her.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 22, 2019 05:07
|
|
|
nine-gear crow posted:Oh nice. I've been enjoying things so far despite it's first year flaws. Glad to see the CW has a lot of confidence in it and that it's doing well ratings wise, so people actually do really like it despite what the userbases of IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes are trying to claim. I'm TV-show starved enough to feel like giving this a go and I'm glad some people are enjoying it but I'm watching this mostly in the hope that it will bloom into something better like, say, LoT did, and if I were to rate this show right now it would really not be high.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 27, 2019 06:25
|
|
|
Shameless plug but if you want a nonsensical story about a violent female superhero who wakes up in a bat cave with an all-female cast in a dystopic place I can certainly oblige.
Elentor fucked around with this message at 12:34 on Oct 27, 2019 |
|
#
¿
Oct 27, 2019 12:31
|
|
|
I'll give my show criticism some updates.howe_sam posted:This is nuts, Batwoman isn't even Legends season one bad. While I think if forced on a chair to watch for all eternity as my hellish torment I'd pick this one up purely because its dullness is better than staring at the Hawk couple, this show seems to suffer of The CW tropes on steroids. Thinking back on Arrow S1, which also had a lot of insufferable family drama, there were at least some mysteries afloat and they were multi-layered. Not good, not great, but it was the premise of the show. The premise of this show so far is that two wealthy characters in a position of power want to find out what happened to their daughter/sister. This is an interesting premise. "What happened to Beth?" could be an entire season of True Detectivesque or even X-Filesesque mystery. It's not like Arrow didn't do it right off the bat, no pun intended, and managed to stretch it for seasons while still providing goalposts that were to one degree or another interesting. Right now we have: Beth: How does she have so many resources? Why? Her main character seems to be a Stockholm syndrome victim who got psychotic, fell in love with an isolated almost feral kid, and that doesn't make for a character who would need to create this huge network across the city over the years. We know Cath Hamilton knew about her and that she is not past doing anything illegal or criminal to shut her down, so considering Beth is a crazy psychopath, how did she even make to episode 1 alive? This would be an interesting mystery if her entire motivation didn't seem to so character-driven. The drama makes very little sense: She stopped believing in sisterhood because her sister found her, sensed her, and didn't do anything after she didn't reply. Which she didn't because she saw that as the best case scenario to her entire family being murdered otherwise. However the boy who imitates her perfectly well is a-ok in her book. I'm assuming at some point the two of them killed the jailer together and escaped and then ????. Became criminal masterminds that remained untouched and undiscovered by the police while influencing the entire city for years as an elaborate plan to get vengeance on her dad who got convinced by her partner that she wasn't there. Like, think about it, her motivation is "Thank you for convincing my father that it wasn't my voice and it's a good thing our captor threatened to kill my family so I couldn't reply to my sister, that really opened my eyes to how lovely they are and now I'm gonna get an entire elaborate shadowy organization going to get vengeance on them. I need corrupt cops, gang members, a lot of money, staying outside the media, and then eventually convince my father I'm his daughter before killing him. I guess I'm fine with his wife who faked my death as well." Jacob acts, constantly, as an rear end in a top hat - the typical CW antagonist who's on the good side. He's extremely one-dimensional. He looks like a worse version of Quentin Lance, and he reduces both the main character and the villain's motivations to what plot-wise is essentially daddy issues. Beth seems to have no agency of her own other than be guided towards hatred or love for her family. Almost every interaction between Kate and her father is confrontational and to add salt to the wound, his number 1 agent seems to be the person Kate loved and got split from because she denied "the below allegation of homosexual conduct". Her realization that she'd be a vigilante is when she noticed how her father would never make her a Crow, something that even Beth knew (???) so the entire story is a circle jerk about : 1) A woman who lost her sister in an accident, did not deny allegations of homosexual conduct and thus got expelled from the army, and then got denied entrance to her own father's private agency as cherry on top. 2) A woman who did deny "allegations of homosexual conduct" and thus got approved, and then later on became what Beth sees as the surrogate daughter of their own father, much to Kate's misery. 3) Their father who is like the Gendou Ikari of the Arrowverse and is constantly looking grumpy and unreasonable even in situations where he's in the right. 90% of his actions seem to revolve around, intentionally or otherwise, taking a dump on his daughter's feelings. Mary seems sad over her absent stepsister not paying attention to her, but I don't even remember Jacob acknowledging Mary's existence in the past few episodes. 4) The sister who really wants vengeance on her dad and the main character for not looking for them enough even though she knows that A) they were in danger B) her stepmother paid for her not to be found C) her best buddy ever can fool even her with his mimicry and was the plot device used so that she wasn't found. Everything revolves around this. There's no external mystery. Mary is the most interesting and least one-dimensional character. Jacob seems to be more responsible for Kate's woes than Beth's woes, to which in this episode she says she shows forgiveness and that's fine, but this character square is where everything starts and ends. We're presented a show in the format of a soap opera but you need a lot of branches in a soap opera for it to work. Every other character lacks agency. Luke Fox is basically a slave-character to Batwoman. This is the same tech-savvy character that shows up (see: Felicity, Mr. Terrific, etc) and once they show up the main character's tech knowledge drops to zero. Pre-Felicity Arrow he could use tech act like a 007 level agent and invent gadgets, track anyone anywhere, etc. Post-Felicity he's reduced to "I'm a dumb action hero" and whenever something slightly technical is said the general response is "please, speak English". They also not only lack agency but their lack of agency is played for comic relief ("yeah, sure, you go out and have fun while I stay here" he says while doing... unpaid work? I don't know) and the fact the show is savvy about it doesn't make the character more interesting ("Your father was better at this", "Yeah I know" etc). If anything it makes me feel sorry for the dude. To make things worse Batwoman's prowess is written exactly backwards: She's mastered every tech-gadget she's never seen immediately, but sucks super hard at hand-to-hand combat and has very slow reflexes, for CW superhero standards. Her friend gets shot: Good thing Mary is 24/7 available at ghetto hospital because Kate surely can't even bandage her. Batwoman has a fight of the week: She gets overpowered physically, saved by her dad, and then once again saved intellectually by Luke Fox. Like what the gently caress? I propose Beth, Kate and Jacob go to a group therapy session, Beth and Mouse get some serious psychiatric treatment (and then get in trial for who knows how many people they've murdered), Sophie and her husband leave to some place where wealthy crazy people aren't trying to kill her and her loved ones, Cath gets arrested over who knows how many crimes by now, and Mary and Luke, the two most competent and sensate characters, take control over the Crows and rename them the Bats. Elentor fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Nov 11, 2019 |
|
#
¿
Nov 11, 2019 17:21
|
|
|
Ubik_Lives posted:Her resources seem to fluctuate based on how the audience is supposed to perceive her. At the start, she's got a full gang that can outfight the Crows, because she's supposed to be seen as a full on super villain. As her motivations become more personal, her gang has all but vanished, leaving just her and Mouse. Yeah it's bothering me how inconsistent this is. It's been six episodes and I have a strange feeling of a rushed pacing, underdevelopment, and a big ratio of plot holes for plot exposition which shouldn't exist considering any "plot hole" at this point should be perceived as a mystery to be solved. Also I was rewatching John Wick 2 and it also bothers me how somehow Ruby Rose is somehow less expressive here than there. She's suffering from the Oliver Queen syndrome where the character is just standing still looking at the horizon and delivering flat lines. The great thing about a character like Sara Lance is that whenever she has to move the plot forward there's the jovial attitude that she's like a babysitter taking care of the time idiots, and she's still prone to do crazy poo poo herself (being a wildcard). And yes, I understand plenty of people are not Ruby Rose fans but I still maintain she's being underused. Batwoman is written like she has to fit an existing mold from other CW shows but the character doesn't really exist and hasn't been given time to exist. She's hellbent in not living a normal life, while her vigilante life is moved by Bruce's absence. Phylodox posted:I dunno, I feel like Amell and Lotz in particular had rough starts, acting-wise, but got by on their natural charisma and the fact that they were obviously super duper enthusiastic about what they were doing and having a total blast doing it. Rose, on the other hand, comes off as pretty listless by comparison. She might be trying to play cool and aloof, but it just seems like she’s bored and apathetic most of the time. That's because her character isn't doing anything in-character. Like, pretend you're Kate and you're about to method act. What exactly are your motivations? Why? Are you saving Gotham because of: A) A strong sense of justice B) Daddy issues C) You feel obligated because you wore the bat suit once and now you restored people's hopes when in truth you're actually worried about your sister. Are you more interested in: A) Living your normal life B) Living the vigilante life C) Balancing both in a way that's healthy How do you react to your sister who has thus far shown to be crazy, have a criminal mastermind and has a fair amount of murders under her belt? How do you feel about the justice system? A) You trust it and believe that by putting your trust into it you can make Gotham better B) You mistrust it and want to do justice with your own hands Like, consider the exchange in the last episode "about how the bad guy has a point". Why would Kate talk about the system? The story starts with her losing the woman she loves to homophobia; Her father himself leaving the army to create a private organization; That organization, itself, becoming corrupt. Is Kate, fundamentally, against any sort of killing? With Batman, this is something that is written as a core of his character (yes, I know some writers didn't/don't do that). When that is core to his character, the story usually revolves around it in some way shape or form, sometimes to ridiculous extents: Batman shows horror when Superman kills an Alien invasion; Batman shows horror when Superman kills the Joker; Batman shows regret for not killing the Joker years ago. Is Kate gonna do her best to prevent the police from killing criminals or look shocked at it? Not really. I have no idea how the comic that people are referencing go, but as far as the show is concerned, Ruby is essentially written into a character that has no well-defined personality. Why is Luke calling her to warn her about things he's individually researching? Doesn't Luke have a life and a job? What did Kate expect to accomplish by asking her date to go to a crime site? Like, think about it. You're endangering her life, you're almost guaranteeing that you'll have to dump her sometime in the night to do heroics, you also have less time to do investigative work against a serious threat because instead of observing poo poo in the shadows you're trying to engage in a social activity with someone. When this plot is used by people who want to infiltrate a place and investigate like a casual observer, it never is with a random civilian they care about. Instead, the plot is there simply because we need the format of "Hero tries to have a normal life, 1 episode later she finds out... that she can't." Like, it's a lovely format but I get that in a CW show we're gonna get it: Did it really have to be written so poorly? Elentor fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Nov 14, 2019 |
|
#
¿
Nov 14, 2019 04:47
|
|
|
Vietnamwees posted:I thought Lucas Fox's job was to tend to Bruce Wayne's affairs, like literally look after his stuff in Gotham, INCLUDING the Batman stuff, isn't it? Yeah but he doesn't really "do" Batman stuff - in the first episode he modifies the suit and gives Kate the gadgets. In the second episode he acts surprised when the computers beep and act super scared when they turn on. He presses Esc with a big zoom on the Esc key in an attempt to stop, and then everything turns on and he says "I did not mean to -" so I think it's safe to assume that whatever his work was it did not involve sitting on the Batcave using Batman's network to do Batman's work.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 14, 2019 05:39
|
|
|
I very much doubt that we are ever gonna see Batman in any shape that is not a shadowy figure with no real face or form used as a plot device in some dreamlike memory or maybe an alternate version of batman from an alternate reality that shows up and by the end of the episode when they ask him "can you help us find our bruce" he will stop, look back and say "If bruce doesn't want to be found, then no one can find him, not even bruce. Trust me. I would know." before going away. Of course this may change in like 3 months and I'll look like a fool but I always felt that between how big the Batman name is and how similar Batman and Green Arrow are in terms of superhero profile, that they're kinda incompatible. Especially because it's kinda easy to distinguish Green Arrow from Batman in the comics because of how different their personalities can be, especially if you take comic book Black Canary into consideration, and their couple dynamic. The Arrow from Arrowverse (as far as I watched) already feels Batmanlike with his constant brooding and debates about the value of life and not becoming a monster and everything being so overly dark. Elentor fucked around with this message at 08:37 on Nov 22, 2019 |
|
#
¿
Nov 22, 2019 08:35
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 17:57 |
|
|
Just wanted to say that even though I tried, I didn't like this show as much as I wanted, but ultimately I'm happy it exists. Hope all you fans are getting your mileage out of it and happy holidays.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 25, 2019 06:05
|
|