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Post by stephen on Apr 18, 2018 1:52:09 GMT
If there is a season of television this year that can top what The Terror brings to the table, we're in for an incredible 2018. The Terror fuses the moody atmosphere of Taboo with the austere horror of The Thing. Having seen all ten episodes, I can say that it sticks the landing beautifully. Jared Harris gives his best performance here, and if he and Paul Ready don't get Emmy mentions, it's highway robbery.
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Post by Pittsnogle_Goggins on Apr 22, 2018 23:05:43 GMT
The first three episodes were painstakingly slow. Does it pick up at all or is the entire series like that?
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on May 14, 2018 19:42:25 GMT
so I'm four episodes in and what I was afraid would happen seems to be happening. There's plenty to like (moody cinematography, wonderful FX, great sense of location, palpable sense of tension, and Jared Harris's goddamn amazing performance), but...some key things not to like. It brings the same flaws to the medium that most miniseries do (even the good ones like john Addams). That is to say, it feels like a very long movie with all the deleted scenes kept in. As I keep watching the show I can't help but often think "hmmmm, yeah, this would never have survived the cutting room floor for a feature film." Most of the flashbacks feel unessential (except for maybe one or two involving Harris), but I could probably point out at least five or six others that just slow down the pace. The first challenge a miniseries faces is justifying its length, and so far The Terror hasn't quite measured up. That said, I think the biggest thing that bothers me at the halfway mark is how the source of the crew's anxieties has shifted almost completely from an environment that wants them dead to a single, large, supernatural polar bear that wants them dead. It's become a really long monster movie, and it's ceased surprising me. What I loved about the first episode is that awful things kept happening because these ships were in a dangerous place, and the filmmakers were able to dredge a lot of terrific atmospheric horror from that. It was also surprising. A character dying of consumption and then hallucinating in his cabin, the ship striking ice and a man falling overboard, a diver seeing the body later and panicking (by far the show's most terrifying moment)...these were all intense and surprising moments, and most of all they perfectly struck the balance between the supernatural and the literal. It wouldn't have made the show scarier if for instance we knew all this bad luck was the result of some Eskimo curse. It's scary because all these things feel like coincidences. They hint at darker secrets without sacrificing plausibility. Bad things will happen because bad things can happen and that's part of the voyeuristic fun; seeing just what nasty bit of bad luck will chip at their psyche and haunt their dreams next. That's what the first episode promises; the environment was the antagonist. Now four episodes in, it just feels like a setting. Hope it gets better towards the end, but I wish they had just made a 140-minute movie out of this and cut out all the flashbacks, the monster (or make the monster much more vague and an agent of the environment's bidding, not just a superintelligent large bear that completely takes over the role of antagonist), the Eskimo girl, and the weird gay subplot (obviously they're going to use that character to initiate chaos among the crew later, but soooooo much screentime ). So far I'd give it a soft 7.5, because there's so much to like but it hasn't quite gotten there for me. Hopefully it'll improve. Be back soon.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on May 14, 2018 19:56:26 GMT
one other thing. I loooooove the music. It's super creepy and effective, and really helps to get you in the tortured headspace of these characters. Cannot praise the music highly enough.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on May 15, 2018 6:09:26 GMT
Well my rating has gone down to a 6. Really lame ending. Glad this thing is behind me tbh, and I can't really recommend it to anyone else, which is a shame because Jared Harris is amazing and this story has so much potential. Oh well...I suppose we'll just have to wait for the next period arctic survival horror project.
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Post by theycallmemrfish on May 29, 2019 0:08:03 GMT
Just added this to my Hulu watchlist.
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Post by stephen on May 29, 2019 0:52:31 GMT
Just added this to my Hulu watchlist. Keep us posted. Between this and Chernobyl, I want Jared Harris in every historical disaster movie.
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Post by theycallmemrfish on May 29, 2019 1:22:30 GMT
Just added this to my Hulu watchlist. Keep us posted. Between this and Chernobyl, I want Jared Harris in every historical disaster movie. The beauty of waiting until things are out entirely is that I can power through everything. I have a couple episodes of Barry left, then it's on to this, then Chernobyl should be done so that would be next.
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Post by Weaver Addict on May 29, 2019 1:52:16 GMT
Keep us posted. Between this and Chernobyl, I want Jared Harris in every historical disaster movie. The beauty of waiting until things are out entirely is that I can power through everything. I have a couple episodes of Barry left, then it's on to this, then Chernobyl should be done so that would be next. I was planning on doing that with Chernobyl but I couldn't resist. I'm glad I didn't because its riveting. Another ace performance by Jared Harris and thumbs up to Stellan Skarsgaard and Emilty Watson. And a huge shoutout to the crew chief and miner Glukhov (Alex Ferns). Talk about stealing every scene he's in. Did some digging and I guess he was big deal on some show called EastEnders in his younger days.
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Post by theycallmemrfish on Jun 15, 2019 16:21:38 GMT
Just finished the first episode. Seems to be a slow burner (I hope)...
Also, if anything has taught anything, it's listen to a character played by Jared Harris is probably best for everyone...
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AKenjiB
Badass
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Post by AKenjiB on Jul 29, 2019 6:26:15 GMT
Really excited for this! It’s worth noting that my grandparents were Japanese-Americans placed in internment camps during WWII, so maybe my excitement is partially driven by simply seeing this story being told, but it looks genuinely creepy and visually interesting to me.
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Post by Pittsnogle_Goggins on Jul 29, 2019 23:49:06 GMT
Hopefully this will be better than season 1.
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