|
Wheel of Time remains the longest series of books I've read (followed in a distant second by Malazan Book of the Fallen), but despite my persistence in getting them read I wouldn't say I enjoyed them very much (too many filler pages is my main complaint). I am kind of scratching my head at the idea of making a show based on it because it's very Generic Fantasy and, while it has some cool concepts, the world feels very bland. The first act of book one is one of the most standard Hero On Farm plots of all time, and I don't think anything below LoTR movies level of attention to detail is going to breathe enough life into it to engage the average person. It's a difficult task, but I hope they pull through.
|
#
¿
Jan 2, 2020 23:42
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 11:19 |
|
|
I mean they could go the Hercules/Xena route and just make it campy as gently caress, but I don't think that's going to hold people's interest very long.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 2, 2020 23:49
|
|
|
Sleeveless posted:It basically is, it's a mediocre genre show that affects depth and maturity with gratuitous nudity and a jumbled-up narrative and huge production values that has become not only a ratings smash hit but had a large cultural impact online and off. Which is a shame because if they weren't trying to make it a GoT-come-lately fantasy politics simulator and made a show that was actually about monster hunting it would be a way better show. Well it's easy to list off superficial similarities, but fantasy + tits and dragons doesn't a GoT show make. The fact that The Witcher is high fantasy while GoT is low fantasy makes a stark difference already, even before going into the fact that the source material for GoT is just plainly better. The Witcher is not gonna have remotely close to the same cultural impact.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 22, 2020 19:52
|
|
|
The timeline stuff is extra confusing because media usually goes one of two ways: either have generous use of 'x years earlier/later' for the audience's benefit, or witholding that information to set up a plot twist/oh snap moment later (read: Westworld). The Witcher somehow did neither; it's not a twist that Ciri running away was later in the story, it was just out of chronological order. The audience having to put that puzzle piece together by themselves just seems like they're afraid to use title cards because it's cliché or something. It also runs the risk of having people be frustrated by character seperation: it's literally been the driving force Ciri's storyline that she needs to find Gerald, so you watch the Gerald parts eagerly waiting for a clue for him to cross paths with her. But then you find out that they're literally seperated by dozens of years and that drive for conflict resolution deflates. Lurdiak posted:This distinction is a fake idea. 
Ovenmaster fucked around with this message at 20:32 on Jan 22, 2020 |
|
#
¿
Jan 22, 2020 20:26
|
|
|
GoT isn't low fantasy because it's 'gritty' no, it's low fantasy because the focus is on normal human relations and conflict in a medieval society absent of magic, and the magical elements are rare but disruptive. But that's a very big divergence from The Witcher, to the point where the comparison really start to fall apart, and it's a difference that the viewer will perceive even if they don't understand the concept of low vs. high fantasy. When the witcher Gerald, a not quite human forged by magic to be a monster hunter with an unnaturally long life-span, in the first episode goes to talk to a wizard in an orgy tower with a door that's a magical projection, it sets the tone as 'campy' in the minds of most ordinary viewers, no matter how 'gritty' and 'realistic' it otherwise is. I can't see a campy fantasy show reaching GoT-level acclaim. That's why the high vs. low fantasy distinction matters. Let's not go into how GoT actually turned campy in the later seasons, but that's after everyone was already convinced it was the best show ever.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 23, 2020 02:22
|
|
|
Open Source Idiom posted:I dunno. Surely the increasing popularity of Thrones despite its sillier and campier elements (they're not the same thing) belies the idea that camp isn't popular; people aren't just sheep, if they didn't want to watch a high production soap opera about utterly insane nonsense they probably wouldn't have watched half of that show. I feel like I'm going into speculative territory here, so take this with a grain of salt, but I think to call GoT's acclaim even partly manufactured is doing it a disservice. The later seasons were mediocre to bad (with some good parts) and its popularity was almost solely driven by inertia and word of mouth, but the initial growing base in its first seasons was driven by strong characters, the interpersonal drama and conflict, and the unpredictable plot. It had a good vision with strong writing behind it, and I don't think it was 'despite' anything that people watched it because I don't regard the introductory world-building to be silly or campy. The tone was about political intrigue between lords in castles, and the harsh realities of medieval society, which is not really what most would relate to fantasy. It's significantly easier to set that tone when you don't start with: ".. and the witch-council of Asarbad made a pact to imprison the evil sorceress Fumblesticks ..." or some other nonsense. Even the white walker part in the first episode is sparse on details and played as a horror movie. But that isn't even to say that I think camp is bad, it's just in The Witcher's case it undercuts its otherwise more serious tone. I think that's what people are recognizing when they complain about the show refusing to pick a lane and sticking to it, instead of hedging between Game of Thrones and Xena: Warrior Princess. And that is in my opinion a flaw stemming from the high fantasy nature of the world.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 23, 2020 03:59
|
|
|
Finally finished Locke & Key. It was alright, maybe even good. I steered clear initially because I thought it was for a younger audience, but it's perfectly watchable as an adult. What lowers its overall score for me is that plot progression relies too much on character incompetence, especially in the third act. I'm willing to give it a bit of leeway because the protagonists are 2 teenagers and a kid, but even then there were lots of moments I couldn't suspend my disbelief. Plenty of things happened less because of characters reacting naturally to a situation and more because it was in the script that it had to happen a certain way. The most egregious was Ellie going alone to get the Crown of Shadows while carrying the key for it! Right after it's explicitly stated it's their only weapon against Dodge, where the outcome was so obviously spelled out a toddler could probably guess what was going to happen. The rest of the climax to the seasonal arc the characters also have poor decision making that strains belief, all to reach an entirely predictable end of season stinger. Honestly I would have preferred things to have been wrapped up in this season, but I still think I'll catch the next one when they release it.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 24, 2020 05:32
|
|
|
In the spectrum of show quality there's this fairly thick line inbetween a show everyone hypes because it's so amazing (Breaking Bad), and a show people make fun of because it's terrible (Dexter in the later seasons), and Ozark clearly lands somewhere on that line. Which is why I scratch my head at people trashing it. It doesn't suck, it's a decent show with some failings. No need to be hyperbolic.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 10, 2020 22:38
|
|
|
The new Penny Dreadful is... interesting, but it really needs some of that Bryan Fulleresque mystical quality. The show (judging from episode 1) is about a rivalry between Santa Muerte and her sister, something something prophecy and the apocalypse. The plot is fine, the way they go about showing it is not. It just robs the unknowable quality of powerful, magical deities with opaque motives when Santa Muerte literally just appears for the grandma. She's just there, standing in a shed, talking with an old woman. Might as well have shot a scene of her sitting on the toilet for how mundane it looks. It was utter schlock. Also Natalie Dormer's german accent is atrociously bad, yikes.
|
|
#
¿
May 3, 2020 20:54
|
|
|
Watched the last and final season of You Me Her. Good god, what a shell of a show, an absolute textbook example of phoning it in. Haven't seen much discussion of the show here so I don't think many people watch it anyway, but I was intrigued by the concept and the first few seasons were alright. Season 4 was a big step back in quality and this last season was terrible. They have a paper thin main characters plot they stretch out over 10 episodes, with a bunch of b-character plots of a thickness that has to be measured in nano angstroms. Jennifer Spence either didn't want to be in it or had a scheduling conflict, so they just pretended she was elsewhere. Neighbour friend's only plotline is that he was buying a new house. The only driving force of the story, the ticking clock, is a loving wedding. There's no antagonists to drive conflict so it just becomes a bunch of kumbaya poo poo. The driving drama between the Trakarskys and Izzy has them acting really weird and dumb to justify dragging it out over 10 episodes. It gets resolved in the last 5 minutes (in a montage of PHOTOS). I'm insulted. I feel bamboozled, like I ordered a hamburger and was instead handed a picture of one. This is the candyfloss version of a TV-show. If you removed all the air and compressed it down it'd have less than half an hour's worth of material. Go ahead and skip this season, there are no redeeming qualities. Ovenmaster fucked around with this message at 17:53 on Jun 18, 2020 |
|
#
¿
Jun 18, 2020 16:10
|
|
|
esperterra posted:Chilling Adventures of Sabrina has been cancelled! I wish I could say I was disappointed, but I haven't even gotten around to season 2 yet to have a full opinion. I enjoyed the two seasons but it's probably for the best. If the show was just getting started it'd be sad but the plot's been churning at a breakneck pace to the point that I doubt there's even much more left to explore.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 11, 2020 14:14
|
|
|
Mostly what I remember from Travelers is that Patrick Gilmore's character David Mailer becomes a massive Gary Sue (not in terms of competence, just... everybody likes him and he's portrayed as a saint) which gives me a really creepy vibe because he has a character in You Me Her that essentially evolves into the same character, and I have to wonder if that's that actor's 'thing', nagging the screenwriters incessantly to turn his character into a more and more flawless person.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 21, 2020 17:41
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 11:19 |
|
|
EL BROMANCE posted:They probably don't have enough space for the original dates, but Avatar 2 was originally scheduled for Christmas 2014. 12 loving years now, between Avatar and the sequels. That's 2 more years than between the George Lucas and Disney Star Wars trilogies (from Revenge of the Sith to The Force Awakens). What the hell happened to that production?
|
|
#
¿
Jul 24, 2020 00:06
|
|