|
Post by pupdurcs on May 9, 2021 5:31:32 GMT
If you don't like it after 2 episodes, then you don't like it. But like the actual Alan Moore graphic novel, the reward is in the whole experience and how it unfolds and the layers and growth you see in the characters. There is a reason this show won almost every award going and King dominated awards season with her performance (overall, she was phenomenal). This was the best show of the year it came out, imho. But not everyone will feel the same. I liked the show from the start, though in hindsight, the early episodes were some of the slower ones, more interested in set-up for what's to come later.
I'd stick it out and watch the whole thing. At least you will be able to rebut people who say you didn't "get it" because you gave up too early. The episodes keep getting better though. The Looking Glasse episode was phenomenal (episode 5). The Hooded Justice episode (episode 6) was one of the best directed pieces of television I've seen. I'd say things start to pick up a fair bit with the third episode, where Laurie Blake is the focus.
So yeah, keep watching. If you get to episode 6 and aren't digging it, then it probably just isn't for you. But by far the best stuff is still to come,imho
Lindelof can't really be blamed for how the Jeremy Irons parts unfold either. That was a technique used in the Moore graphic novel, which told sub-stories, where the full significance to the overall story wasn't revealed till much further in the book. Lindelof in this instance is paying respect to the source material.
|
|
|
Post by theycallmemrfish on May 9, 2021 6:40:13 GMT
pupdurcs Wait, Hooded Justice was in this?? He died before the events of the comics... I'm assuming a flashback?
|
|
|
Post by pupdurcs on May 9, 2021 7:10:04 GMT
pupdurcs Wait, Hooded Justice was in this?? He died before the events of the comics... I'm assuming a flashback? Yep. He's in it. It's A flashback episode. It's filmed in black and white. Really remarkable episode in terms of visuals, writing, acting...everything
|
|
|
Post by Martin Stett on May 9, 2021 12:04:35 GMT
Well, I didn't especially like the structure of the book either. Irons is especially annoying because the rest of the show is shit, and then he's all "I'M GOING TO BE IMPORTANT IN SOME UNDEFINDED WAY" and it is fucking infuriating that it's trying to hype me for some big reveal when the show can't get its fundamentals straight. But I felt that Moore did a great job of writing characters with intense personalities you can latch onto. My main problem is that there isn't one character in two episodes that isn't a plot device to move things forward. Even the protagonist - ESPECIALLY the protagonist - is a blank slate with a "mysterious" past (how I hate the old guy in the wheelchair...) that keeps searching for answers because the plot demands that she must solve the mystery, and not because there's any organic part of her being that drives her. What I mean is that she ONLY solves the mystery because there's a mystery and the plot demands solving. I can't imagine her doing anything else - I can't see her actually arresting the old guy in episode 2 because she doesn't have any established sense of justice, and I can't see her not arresting the old guy in episode 2 because she doesn't have any established common sense. She doesn't arrest him immediately because... the writer says that she doesn't. She keeps secrets from Tim Blake Nelson (poorly, I may add - did she keep the coffee mug on her dash THE WHOLE TIME SHE SPOKE TO HIM) because... the writer says so, though I can't understand why. Yeah, I don't get it. I'm not afraid to admit it either.
|
|
|
Post by pupdurcs on May 9, 2021 12:13:41 GMT
I dunno....It's really hard to have a viable conversation about whether this show works or not if we can only talk about the first two episodes. I can see where you are coming from in terms of characters seeming to have vague motivations early on , but it's kinda deliberately set up that way to build things up. Every character gets exponentially deeper and more complex as the show goes along. It is what is is. I couldn't see what the fuss was about Breaking Bad was in the first few episodes and considered quitting, but sticking with it paid off immensely and I'm glad I did. Anyway, hopefully you give it till at least Episode 6 before checking out permanently
|
|
|
Post by Martin Stett on May 9, 2021 12:32:02 GMT
I dunno....It's really hard to have a viable conversation about whether this show works or not if we can only talk about the first two episodes. I can see where you are coming from in terms of characters seeming to have vague motivations early on , but it's kinda deliberately set up that way to build things up. Every character gets exponentially deeper and more complex as the show goes along. It is what is is. I couldn't see what the fuss was about Breaking Bad was in the first few episodes and considered quitting, but sticking with it paid off immensely and I'm glad I did. Anyway, hopefully you give it till at least Episode 6 before checking out permanently Eh, I liked Breaking Bad at first, it was a goofy black comedy. Then it got great, then it fell flat on its face. I may give it one more episode which had better be damn good, but having a good conversation about it isn't very important to me if the show can't keep me going for 9+ hours. I'd rate the individual episodes It's Summer and We're Running Out of Ice - 6/10 Martial Feats of Comanche Horsemanship - 3/10 And that rating for episode 2 isn't just boring, that is flat out terrible. I was actively finding something else to do when the old guy was being rescued, because there were so few actual facts about him that he could literally be anyone at all, he could LITERALLY BE SATAN IN THE FLESH or Batman in a Mission Impossible mask, and Lindelof could point his finger and say "wow, I sure pulled a twist there, didn't I?" while breaking my ribs as he elbowed me. That's it! The show is smug. This is a show that thinks it is clever and maybe it is, but who cares?
|
|
|
Post by pupdurcs on May 9, 2021 12:51:12 GMT
Well, if you aren't enjoying it and dislike what you've seen so far enough to want to check out, then you gotta do what you need to do. Life is too short. I can only give my personal opinion on the show overall...that it is one of the very best TV limited series of the last few years, and one of the highest points in the Superhero genre to date (and it truly needed to be to overcome the strong genre bias to win the Best Limited Series Emmy). And that the show rewards patience if you want to give the show time to impress you.
But hey, one man's masterpiece can be another man's trash. Some people here defend The Irishman like it's The Godfather, while I think it's one of Scorsese's most aggressively mediocre films. So I can understand the concept of not being on a particular hype train .
|
|
|
Post by Martin Stett on May 9, 2021 23:04:20 GMT
Yeah, I'll give it more time. I'm a fan of Jean Smart and it sounds like she's in the next episode, so I'll give it a shot for her. I'm not sure when (maybe tonight, but I'm pretty tired), but I'll get to one more, since reading up here it sounds like episode 3 is "the hook."
|
|
|
Post by Martin Stett on May 10, 2021 2:08:02 GMT
WHOA! A character with personality!
Okay, that was a good episode. Once we get away from the main character, things begin to look up. It's nice following someone that isn't a walking black hole of charisma. The plot is still moving at a crawl, but it has a different tint to it from someone with some kind of clear ethos and a sense of humor (something this show has been lacking in). Unfortunately, there is still way too fucking much of Jeremy Irons and his subplot that is almost as annoying as the damn Black Freighter, but there's finally something to latch onto, so I'm back in so long as nothing so mind-numbingly terrible as the second episode happens again.
If there is another episode as fucking dull as ep 2, I'm done for good.
|
|
|
Post by Martin Stett on May 13, 2021 3:22:04 GMT
Five episodes in. Fuck, I hated episode 5 maybe even more than episode 2, but by this point I may as well follow this fucking dumpster fire through to the end.
I'll get the little things out of the way: WHY THE FUCK DID WADE GO INTO THAT PLACE WITHOUT BACKUP? For that matter, WHY THE FUCK DID JUDD WRECK HIS COOL POLICE SHIP BLOWING UP THAT PLANE IN EPISODE 1? WHY THE FUCK DID EVERYONE LAUGH OVER CRASHING THE DAMN SHIP THAT WILL COST TAXPAYER DOLLARS WHILE THERE WERE DEAD COPS ON THE GROUND AROUND THEM?
Um... Sorry, off track there. That's just the silly "police" work that got my panties in a twist. It's not like Jeremy Irons is pretending that he's in Doctor Fucking Who in some side story that has zero relevance to the plot after five epis-oh-wait-this-show-is-actually-that-bad. Irons got an Emmy nomination for this while Michelle Gomez got snubbed every time she appeared in Doctor Who? I get that DW is a British show, but they're doing the same thing, it's just that Gomez did it better and this irks me.
Continuing with the little things, I am really tired of the portrayal of those wacky cults and the young people indoctrinated to believe that everything is sin. I get it, it's like making fun of the Amish since they don't watch TV anyway, but in a dramatic story it is cheap and one-dimensional. A great way to portray someone who has escaped from a cult is Kyoko in anime series Madoka Magica, who tells the story of her time in the cult but we never see it in a flashback. This keeps our negative views at a distance and allows us to focus on how the victim sees her youth. In contrast, Wade just turns his back on the cult and this seems to affect him very little. Oh, intellectually I could say that he's a part of a new cult (Squidaholics Anonymous) and has transferred his fear of Nuclear Destruction into a fear of becoming seafood, but I don't see much of how this drives his decisions. To go back to Kyoko, her whole character arc is shaped by her time in that cult, in her faith and loss of faith. Every decision she makes is driven by her upbringing and subsequent discarding of that upbringing.
Which brings me to THE BIG PROBLEM. None of these character have philosophy. What drives them? What is important to Angela? To Adrian? To Wade? To Judd? What is Angela's worldview, and does Lindelof plan to reinforce it or destroy it? The novel that this trash fanfic is purporting to continue was about differing worldviews. Doomsday vs. Squid, Unpleasant Truths vs. Pleasant Lies, etc. etc. Characters all had different views of the Comedian and what he represented, and this affected their decisions throughout the story.
But Angela only cares about solving the nebulous "mystery" surrounding Judd's death (and for some inexplicable reason, telling nobody at all about Will when I can think of no earthly reason not to arrest him immediately). There is no philosophy to undermine or reinforce. She is a pawn of the writer. She has no agency. Wade has no agency, he's just a pawn to move the plot along - what is there in the story to support or undermine his core beliefs? Does he have core beliefs? We're meant to believe that he is shook by "the revelation" of what happened on Squid Day, but a cop who investigates fucking guys in Rorschach masks has never come across this before? THIS IS THE WHOLE BASIS OF THEIR FUCKING ORGANIZATION. This isn't some world-shattering revelation, it's what you would fucking expect people wearing Rorschach masks to show you (and apparently, he has never heard of a deepfake video either).
And what of Judd? He's the one interesting piece of this puzzle. (And a puzzle is all this crap is.) The opening of the show has the masked man show the town that their sheriff is corrupt, and then try to stop his lynching. The end of that episode shows the lynching of a sheriff. Clearly, Judd was corrupt, but how? One little hint was the Klan outfit, but that was one little hint. Another was the reveal of Senator Twatface saying that he and Judd were trying to stop a war, but there is still no real indication of why Judd was murdered. What is his big secret? Cut out all of the crap, and that is what this show is really about... but we have had nothing going on in the actual murder investigation, because the writer is more interested in "myyyyysteeeeeriooooouuuussss" happenings with Centennial Man and Rude Businesswoman that have no context and are thus mysterious.
The novel was based around a man's death as well, but the novel was about how people saw that man and what his views meant to them. There has been no such development of Judd. There has been no such development of anyone.
|
|
|
Post by Martin Stett on May 14, 2021 3:13:37 GMT
Episode 6
A core problem with this show is that Lindelof walked in carrying dynamite. By making this show so very overtly political and divisive from the get-go, he needed to be *perfect* to justify his use of imagery, or it would blow up in his face. If the whole racism angle that the show so bravely made its defining feature in the first episode amounts to nothing more than this simplistic vengeance tale, I will be very upset, because he will not have come near justifying his use of the Klan and lynchings that so intrigued me at the beginning. At the moment, it is nothing more than one shallowly written, pissed off child wanting to feel better by hurting someone else.
The character of Will isn't a bad one, really. But in this show, I don't see how he adds anything. Just as Wade's episode didn't add anything. This episode has nothing to say except that "racism is bad." Thanks, that's an amazing observation. Oh, and I guess "vengeance is bad" too? We're meant to sympathize with Will because he loses his family over the course of his crusade, but his wife and child are barely in this. Oh, they get plenty of scenes, but no development whatsoever. When the breakup happens, it is jarringly sudden. This has been coming for a long time, apparently, but heavens know that they didn't show ANYTHING about his life coming apart. This means that it has no punch at all. I didn't care. I didn't care about him losing his family, and I didn't care for his standard superhero backstory.
On a side note, I found the black and white cinematography to be really ugly in this episode, but that's a matter of taste.
P.S. It's okay that Angela gets nothing to do in this episode, since that is justified by the plot... but we're six episodes in, and she still hasn't had one single piece of actual, you know, character development in the whole damn show. She's a pawn, and nothing more.
|
|
|
Post by Martin Stett on May 16, 2021 1:01:20 GMT
Episode 7
Continuing the death spiral of mediocrity... I don't have the energy to give a shit anymore. This is stupid. It's really fucking stupid. Never hide your protagonist's motivations for a "big twist." The payoff is never worth it. The payoff is never worth it because the people are an enigma, and the people are what make the twist possible. If you don't have people, your twist doesn't work. This is fucking writing 101. Your character's motivations must stay consistent and clear enough that an audience knows who they are or what they are trying to be. Mystery is all well and good, but it means nothing if you've kept EVERYTHING about a character hidden to facilitate it. It's a cheat, a con job.
I don't have much else to say. Well, I'm gonna complain about Lindelof's use of white supremacists as the villains. White supremacists are bad. We all know this. Damon Lindelof knows this. Instead of grappling with the philosophy and making any sort of rebuttal against it, he is content to make them the driving antagonistic force and leave it at that. Using the Nazis as the villains in Indiana Jones is fine because that's pulp fun. This is not trying to be pulp fun, it's trying to be *artistic.* As such, using a dangerous and popular philosophy as your antagonistic force, you shoot yourself in the face. White supremacists believe that they are right, and it is up to you, using them as the villains, to prove otherwise. But instead, they're just "the bad guys."
Meanwhile, Adrian Veidt continues to be the most annoying subplot in existence. Even if he affects the plot in some way, it won't be worth spending all of this time with his bullshit.
|
|
|
Post by Martin Stett on May 17, 2021 3:00:25 GMT
Episode 8
Credit where credit is due. This episode rocks. The nonlinear narrative works wonders for crafting an excellent character in Cal. It is less successful in Angela, but for the first time the show is actually trying to make something out of her. In fact, this is just solid filmmaking all around.
The problem is that we have hidden everything about these characters - EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - until this point for a "twist." And thus, every episode leading up to this has been completely useless. The show has been hiding the characters behind a veil of secrecy. That veil can *maybe* work if the characters have a fascinating life in what we actually see - sort of a bait and switch in which we think a character has certain motivations until the reveal that they have been lying this whole time - but instead, we're given blank slates with no motivation at all, and we're expected to forgive the show keeping secrets from us once those motivations are revealed. And look: I like this episode. It is easily the best yet on its own merits. But I cannot forgive the writers deliberately hiding key elements of *who these people are* without doing anything at all to make their fake lives interesting.
|
|
|
Post by Martin Stett on May 18, 2021 3:11:35 GMT
Aaaaand finished. Thank heavens, it is finally over.
This was just a dumb finale. Monologuing everywhere - Lady Trieu, Adrian, Will, Senator Twatface, none of them ever shut up - with easily solved black/white morality and no actual grappling with anything difficult. And as a whole, my episode 7 complaints stand. The show doesn't meaningfully offer counterarguments to the "evil" viewpoints presented by the villains, and the show hides its protagonist's motivation completely, making her a bore. It's a shit show. 3/10
|
|
|
Post by Martin Stett on May 18, 2021 3:26:11 GMT
And, uh... did they just forget about Lubeman? I mean, seriously, you write in a character like that and he's never mentioned again? Good lord, people! DID YOU MAKE THIS UP AS YOU WENT ALONG!?
|
|
|
Post by Martin Stett on May 18, 2021 17:45:50 GMT
I've only seen 1 hour and 45 minutes of this video so far, but it is a very detailed analysis of how everything in this show falls apart under basic narrative scrutiny. I assume that it'll do the same once I reach the "themes" section, considering that I don't know what the hell Lindelof wanted to say in the end.
Edit: Damn, that takedown of the show's theme is dead-on accurate. I'm removing the other analysis video I posted, as this is the one that people should watch. He hit on my two major gripes - the simplicity of making "white supremacists" the villain and Angela's blank slate making her a useless character - but he had months to work on it whereas I'm scrambling for thoughts in the immediate aftermath.
He also remembers the novel more clearly than I do, which means that he's more pissed about changes made to Moore's characters. I just kind of treated them as new characters (especially Adrian, who was clearly not the Adrian of the novel) and decided to see them from that angle, since I couldn't recall them absolutely clearly.
|
|
dazed
Based
Posts: 2,622
Likes: 1,787
|
Post by dazed on Apr 20, 2024 13:29:10 GMT
rewatching this again and forgot how amazing of a show this is. it was as if it was tailor made for me.
this and chernobyl are leagues above other limited series.
|
|
|
Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Apr 20, 2024 17:15:26 GMT
I still can't believe this wasn't a recurring series. The world & lore are so vast, the potential was literally endless.
|
|
|
Post by pupdurcs on Apr 20, 2024 17:35:33 GMT
I still can't believe this wasn't a recurring series. The world & lore are so vast, the potential was literally endless. Absolutely incredible show. Wish it ran for several seasons as well. HBO should have offered a dump truck of money for all the principles to return. Or even treated it like True Detective and make it an anthology thing where you can bring in a new team of creators and take the story in different directions, but set in the same world. Regina King gave one of the most deserving Emmy winning performances ever. Great an actress as she is, glad they didn't give it to Cate Blanchett for Mrs America, which was more obviously baity, but not on the same level as King's work.
|
|
|
Post by Martin Stett on Apr 21, 2024 0:32:02 GMT
Worst show I've ever sat all the way through, who's with me?
|
|
Archie
Based
Eraserhead son or Inland Empire daughter?
Posts: 3,655
Likes: 4,356
Member is Online
|
Post by Archie on Apr 21, 2024 0:41:30 GMT
Worst show I've ever sat all the way through, who's with me? when are you watching the sopranos martin
|
|
|
Post by Martin Stett on Apr 21, 2024 0:45:04 GMT
Worst show I've ever sat all the way through, who's with me? when are you watching the sopranos martin Oof, it's that bad? I actually picked up the first season from the library but watched the first season of Star Trek TNG instead... and if I stick with TNG on top of attempting to keep up with new shows/anime, that means I'll get to it in a few years, minimum.
|
|
Archie
Based
Eraserhead son or Inland Empire daughter?
Posts: 3,655
Likes: 4,356
Member is Online
|
Post by Archie on Apr 21, 2024 1:07:50 GMT
when are you watching the sopranos martin Oof, it's that bad? Well, it's no Andor.
|
|
|
Post by mhynson27 on Apr 21, 2024 4:14:36 GMT
Worst show I've ever sat all the way through, who's with me? You must already know the answer to that question
|
|
|
Post by Martin Stett on Apr 21, 2024 10:22:26 GMT
Worst show I've ever sat all the way through, who's with me? You must already know the answer to that question
|
|