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Emmy Award Winner Sam Riegel is truly a treasure we do not deserve.
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Jan 28, 2022 11:26
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| # ? Apr 25, 2024 13:01 |
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I enjoyed the first three episodes but I also got the feeling it’s very impressed with itself about being a fantasy series with swears and sex jokes even though it’s far from a unique idea and a lot of them aren’t all that funny. The lead characters are mostly real cool, but I definitely started to sour on the bard somewhere around the second anal beads joke.
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Jan 28, 2022 16:01
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lol @ episode 2 where everyone runs like normal people except Percy is naruto running
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Jan 28, 2022 16:37
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Escobarbarian posted:I enjoyed the first three episodes but I also got the feeling it’s very impressed with itself about being a fantasy series with swears and sex jokes even though it’s far from a unique idea and a lot of them aren’t all that funny. Also hoping that we don't have more Scanlan rapping. Escobarbarian posted:The lead characters are mostly real cool, but I definitely started to sour on the bard somewhere around the second anal beads joke.
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Jan 28, 2022 17:34
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I'm going to rewatch as a part of the twitter watch party with Fanology tonight (4:30pm PT and they better actually mean pacific time this time) https://mobile.twitter.com/FANologyPV/status/1486868827610574852 On rewatch there'll be 2 main things I'll be looking for:
2 thread questions:
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Jan 28, 2022 18:10
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Ok, yeah. Ep. 3 has much better pacing. I too am wondering if Scanlan can work without Sam being his charming self on screen to dilute some of the crassness of the character. I hope he has somewhat of an arc this season because, so far, he's basically just there to make sex/fart jokes.
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Jan 28, 2022 18:30
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Paracaidas posted:[*]Is the nude P.A.R.T. in the portal painting in Episode 2 Jester's mom? I'm voting Ruby of the Sea here.
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Jan 28, 2022 18:34
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Hulk Smash! posted:Ok, yeah. Ep. 3 has much better pacing. I too am wondering if Scanlan can work without Sam being his charming self on screen to dilute some of the crassness of the character. I hope he has somewhat of an arc this season because, so far, he's basically just there to make sex/fart jokes. And the show is about to bring out his magic blue shits that he uses to scry on people. Scanlan's humor in the campaign mostly came from him insulting enemies whenever he Counterspelled their magic or used Cutting Words. And it would get funnier when they'd react in confusion. But you can only sell the same gag so much in two dozen 22-minute episode before it becomes predictable (even when that's what I think he's classic for). Scanlan does get a bit of development as he goes on. I personally feel his humor changes with (campaign spoiler) discovering Kaylie and experiencing the fall of Emon. Scanlan took a turn from being gross to annoying but clever. But it's all down to Sam and Matt deciding if they want to develop him and his humor or stick to outrageous stuff for the sake of entertainment. Nothing wrong with an occasional dick or poo poo joke but too much could dull Scanlan's moments of being caring and serious. Not to mention the funniest thing of the show so far is Matt Mercer playing an NPC each episode that gets hosed over by the party. Episode 1: Guy that Scanlan pisses on. Episode 2: Guy with the beer barrels that Grog steals from. Episode 3: The security guard that Grog throws later.
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Jan 28, 2022 19:01
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I'm watching the show, thus far I'm not that impressed. The humor is kind of annoying and seems like it'd get old really fast, and the cast seems a little bit too big. I never listened to the podcast. I just started so I'll give it more of chance, but thus far I'm not really impressed.
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Jan 28, 2022 19:21
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I think it's going to be hard for people coming in blind because most of the characters are douchey/edgelordy and it takes time to warm to them. Vex, Vax, Percy and Scanlon are all kinda shitheads at the start.
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Jan 28, 2022 21:07
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You just kinda get used to Scanlan, I was never a huge fan of him until, like a very specific story plot beat that kinda brings everything together later.
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Jan 28, 2022 21:17
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The progression of Vox Machina’s personality goes from ‘edgy teens’ to ‘grownups that care for each other while still making the occasional low-brow joke”. It’s the funny thing with trying to get people into Critical Role. People see the beautiful fanart, cool world-building and funny animations but then you show them the livestream and it feels like something out of an Adult Swim comedy some of the times. I got a curious friend into EXU when it was coming out and they nearly dropped it at the (EXU campaign spoilers) pissing contest and poo poo beard prank . They stuck around. When it comes to Critical Role, you have to deal with their worst if you want to see their best. And some don’t want to invest in something they don’t like for the not garunteed chance it gets better to them. DesertIslandHermit fucked around with this message at 21:35 on Jan 28, 2022 |
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Jan 28, 2022 21:32
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DesertIslandHermit posted:The progression of Vox Machina’s personality goes from ‘edgy teens’ to ‘grownups that care for each other while still making the occasional low-brow joke”. It’s the funny thing with trying to get people into Critical Role. People see the beautiful fanart, cool world-building and funny animations but then you show them the livestream and it feels like something out of an Adult Swim comedy some of the times. If I hadn't already been hooked by Campaign 2, I don't know that I would have stuck through Campaign 1. Early Vox Machina are pretty lovely people at the start, and 70+ hours to get to a part where they go from jackasses to jackasses who actually mean well is a tough sell.
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Jan 28, 2022 22:17
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DesertIslandHermit posted:The progression of Vox Machina’s personality goes from ‘edgy teens’ to ‘grownups that care for each other while still making the occasional low-brow joke”. It’s the funny thing with trying to get people into Critical Role. People see the beautiful fanart, cool world-building and funny animations but then you show them the livestream and it feels like something out of an Adult Swim comedy some of the times. I think it's probably less jarring for folks who have played some D&D yourself, as players pushing the boundaries of the world and being jackasses seems to be pretty standard fare and relatable. Seeing the players get more invested in their characters and the world, and the stakes becoming more serious over time is a fun part of the CR experience for me. I think one significant challenge the animated series (which I'm enjoying) has is that by removing the players and DM as a visible interaction layer, you *only* see the characters interacting, which means missing a lot of the camaraderie and friendship and fun around the gaming table which can balance some of the (sometimes questionable) behaviour of the characters they're playing.
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Jan 28, 2022 22:44
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As a long time connoisseur of dick & fart jokes Scanlan has always been my favourite character.
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Jan 28, 2022 22:47
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Its decent but I just got off binging Arcane and well.
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Jan 28, 2022 23:01
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Yeah, Arcane is just something that Riot spent an insane amount of money and time on. It's so rare for anything to get that type of budget outside of like big budget movies.
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Jan 28, 2022 23:04
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IShallRiseAgain posted:I'm watching the show, thus far I'm not that impressed. The humor is kind of annoying and seems like it'd get old really fast, and the cast seems a little bit too big. I never listened to the podcast. I just started so I'll give it more of chance, but thus far I'm not really impressed. I watched the first episode last night and bounced off it fairly directly. Animation quality is nothing to write home about, story is fairly generic and the characters are largely unlikable. It really feels like it riding on the fact that people get to say gently caress, but not in any clever sort of way. I may however, be biased. My partner has a severe PTSD issue to do with swearing as a result of abusive foster parents, so amazon pre-playing her an ad that starts with 'neat little cartoon animation which immediately develoves into people repeatedly saying gently caress' caused a fairly heavy anxiety attack.
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Jan 28, 2022 23:35
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I haven’t watched yet so I don’t know how well it ties in, but sight unseen I do think that it was a mistake to start with 2 disconnected episodes before getting to the main season arc. Seems like it could turn off people who don’t know that there’s a longer and presumably more interesting story arc incoming.
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Jan 28, 2022 23:57
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Character-wise, I have been enjoying Pike and Keyleth the most. Pike getting her own new story stuff because Ashley was MIA for some of the stream run was nice. And Marisha was definitely the awkward player that got frozen in the spotlight back in C1 for fair reasons (Moon Druids are a lot to play) and dumb reasons (chat mad at every little thing she does). Keyleth feels more authentically nervous and uncertain.Raged posted:As a long time connoisseur of dick & fart jokes Scanlan has always been my favourite character. Fart jokes always felt like a Grog thing to me.
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Jan 29, 2022 00:01
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Grog in the show is painfully generic “big dumb guy” so far
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Jan 29, 2022 00:24
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It's good. I liked it. The first two episodes are very clearly the script they wanted to do a 1 hour special with, then it actually gets interesting
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Jan 29, 2022 01:14
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hollylolly posted:I believe that was a dragonborn. She had a snout. Nemo2342 posted:Early Vox Machina are pretty lovely people at the start, and 70+ hours to get to a part where they go from jackasses to jackasses who actually mean well is a tough sell. Silynt posted:I haven’t watched yet so I don’t know how well it ties in, but sight unseen I do think that it was a mistake to start with 2 disconnected episodes before getting to the main season arc. Seems like it could turn off people who don’t know that there’s a longer and presumably more interesting story arc incoming.  reply but I'll save that until I rewatch and still probably leave it in drafts. The intent pretty clearly seemed to be to introduce the world and Vox Machina's place in it prior to getting to the Briarwood arc. I'm guessing those ITT who didn't see campaign 1 have no idea that 75+ hrs of stream content gets skipped over between killing the dragon and meeting the briarwoods in the closing minutes of episode 2--so they link it together well enough. With that said, I'm not sure how well they did with making new viewers care about the characters and Percy in particular, which is largely the point of pilots that don't dive straight into the big story (Train Job vs Serenity in Firefly was for years the goto example of the difference). It is funny you raise it as being disconnected from the main story arc since (Season... 2? I think? spoilers)It goes well out of its way to set up the chroma conclave arc. It's the sort of planning you can do when you start with a 2 season order. I'm curious if there'll be a Bojackish reevaluation of the first couple episodes after the Conclave arc plays out, since I do think that groundwork contributes mightily to the pacing problems
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Jan 29, 2022 01:29
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Escobarbarian posted:Grog in the show is painfully generic “big dumb guy” so far Grog never won't be the big dumb guy, but he's shockingly insightful at times and he has things he cares very, very deeply about. The show hasn't brought it up yet but (extremely minor character spoilers) Grog and Pike are effectively adopted siblings and he would do anything for her. Realistically, we're not going to get Grog (or Scanlan's) major character arcs until Season 2 but I am curious if they'll have them be more than joke characters at any point in Season 1. Because they really are more than joke characters, but so far the show hasn't sold that.
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Jan 29, 2022 02:03
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According to the Twitter spaces thing (which is hopefully the only time I have to use that dumb thing) episodes 1-3 we designed to get new people up to speed with the plot and a but 9f background about the characters. poo poo gers real from 4 on.
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Jan 29, 2022 02:08
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I did get a bit giddy when the black smoke starting coming off Percy
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Jan 29, 2022 02:40
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They also very explicitly put a stinger into episode 2 to go "Hey, here are the new baddies for next episode!"
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Jan 29, 2022 03:10
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Paracaidas posted:Hell we're seeing that with one hour right now. Lightly optimistic that since they're already foreshadowing Vax and Keyleth and slightly less so Vex and Percy they'll also be starting character growth that wasn't really present yet for the briarwood arc on stream. To be fair, the Briarwood arc is where the character growth started (at least from my memory). Percy has just hit one of his lowest points and everyone is still willing to help him deal with his family poo poo, and the party finally has a clearly evil set of antagonists to play off against (and no real allies to gently caress over with their own selfishness).
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Jan 29, 2022 03:23
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As someone who has never watched C1, how close is this show to the source material so far? Obviously some stuff has been changed for storytelling reasons, but I'd love to know if it remains faithful in any way.
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Jan 29, 2022 05:00
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ApeHawk posted:As someone who has never watched C1, how close is this show to the source material so far? Obviously some stuff has been changed for storytelling reasons, but I'd love to know if it remains faithful in any way. Well there's no Tiberius (Holy gently caress that's a deep rabbit hole that I don't have time to explain here) and a lot of plot happened between VM getting their own castle and the Briarwoods showing up but the story beats presented are more-or-less the same as they were in C1
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Jan 29, 2022 05:12
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ApeHawk posted:As someone who has never watched C1, how close is this show to the source material so far? Obviously some stuff has been changed for storytelling reasons, but I'd love to know if it remains faithful in any way. So we're sort of starting even more in media res than C1 did and there's some careful excising of Orion Acaba's character for a variety of reasons that I'd prefer not to go into here (feel free to ask in the main Critical Role thread though). His character would have been due to exit soon anyway though. The first two episodes telling the story of Vox Machina becoming the heroes of Emon by uncovering that Krieg was secretly the blue dragon Brimscythe is canonical but it wasn't something we ever saw on stream because it happened earlier. Now there are two entire story arcs being skipped in between the first story and the story arc that Episode 3 introduces, but the first story arc was......... uhhhhhhhh, it was okay. It wasn't great. And it is fully skipped, they're definitely not going to go back to it later because that story arc involved Allura sending VM into the Underdark to find Lady Kima, who was missing at the time. Seeing as Kima is very much not missing, there's no reason to do that. The second story arc was quite short (and good) but it mostly just introduced a bunch of guest characters and one minor subplot that they could easily ignore. Beyond that, Episode 3 was more or less faithful to what happened at the start of this arc yes. There will have to be a couple of minor differences coming up because on stream, a guest character showed up to prevent the characters from being arrested and I don't think they're going to do that here. Pike also wasn't around for a significant part of the next arc because Ashley was off doing filming for Blindspot, so that'll be different this time.
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Jan 29, 2022 05:22
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^^^Underdark arc was worth it for Clarota  ApeHawk posted:As someone who has never watched C1, how close is this show to the source material so far? Obviously some stuff has been changed for storytelling reasons, but I'd love to know if it remains faithful in any way. The first two episodes are pre-stream, so not much to say other than it meshes with the descriptions cast have previously given of that arc and the dragon's battle. On the stream, Percy is given a heads up in advance that the Briarwoods will be at the feast and attends disguised as Vax (while Vax does espionage poo poo and other things including sneaking in to the bedroom with disastrous consequences) I love Tal's reaction to the Briarwoods first coming up https://mobile.twitter.com/ArseQueef/status/1487245284237271040 (Flashbacks to the cast all looking younger af and the hideous Geek and Sundry set) "You look delicious", selfdefenestration, birdKeyleth, Vax getting knocked out, and a lot of negating attacks made it in to the scene. On stream, Vax is revived by Scanlan, the Briarwoods flee unsuccessfully a couple of times and Vox Machina aren't arrested (but are asked to come back the next morning). Driver still gets hosed up by Percy.
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Jan 29, 2022 05:37
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Paracaidas posted:^^^Underdark arc was worth it for Clarota +1 for Clarota, but -1 for Orion.
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Jan 29, 2022 05:40
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So I finished watching all of the available episodes and 3 seems to be a bit stronger so I'm probably going to keep watching. I'm wondering how many people are going to be turned off by the first two episodes.
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Jan 29, 2022 05:44
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IShallRiseAgain posted:So I finished watching all of the available episodes and 3 seems to be a bit stronger so I'm probably going to keep watching. I'm wondering how many people are going to be turned off by the first two episodes. Yeah, the first two being rough and the third evening out definitely feels like a Thing. I almost tapped out in the first episode with not one but two projectile vomit jokes in as many minutes. Everybody but Pike and Keyleth were kinda unlikeable. It just goes on, but I did keep watching so I guess I didn't care that much.
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Jan 29, 2022 12:26
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Thank you all for the explanations!
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Jan 29, 2022 13:14
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It was mostly fine so far, the only thing I really disliked was the dragon. I don't want to say it's cg because I'm sure the entire show is digitally animated but it just looks a lot cheaper and out of place.
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Jan 29, 2022 14:07
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I get the criticism so far, but man hearing everyone and seeing them in motion after watching them stream for years is really neat. I'm so excited for the Briarwood arc.
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Jan 29, 2022 14:35
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I’ve enjoyed it, although ep1 and to a lesser extent ep2 did lean a bit too hard into being edgy. Ep3 had a lot of heart though, and the briarwoods are excellent villains.
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Jan 29, 2022 16:10
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You know, the more I think about it the more i feel that the show should keep the major plot beats and work in whatever jokes and other stuff they want, but otherwise should break away some from the stream. There is just too much stuff that happens in 4 hour episodes to condense down into one half hour spot and still have it be good coherent storytelling for people who haven't seen the stream. They are always back referencing/building on running gags which is great when you are watching the streams but makes it so hard to actually adapt. I was already telling some people who bounced off the stream because of its runtime to watch the show and basically treat it as the anime to the source manga. Think they should just lean into that the further in we get.
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Jan 29, 2022 18:01
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