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Oasx posted:I would be curious whether the producers of the show looked at street dance when coming up with the magic hand movements on the show, they remind me quite a lot of tutting. Yes, they hired tutters to teach the actors and design the spells.
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Feb 23, 2016 15:28
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I really like this show. I read the books about two years back, and despite the differences this is pretty fun. Most of the character personalities are decently to drastically shifted, but I dig all the actors/actresses doing their thing. Penny is pretty great, and Quentin's actor has the sad sack thing down pat. As much as book Quentin is a huge competitive rear end in a top hat that strives to be better than everyone I'm not sure I'd have enjoyed the show as much if that personality was slammed into my face each week. I know that's Quentin's whole deal and what makes his teardown cathartic, but drat it'd be annoying to watch. I guess next week is Antarctica. That's certainly a thing. I do hope they keep the endurance race thing in. And didn't Quentin try and fail to go to the moon?
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Feb 23, 2016 19:26
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IRQ posted:Well looks like we get furry porn next week. Mortanis posted:I guess next week is Antarctica. That's certainly a thing. I do hope they keep the endurance race thing in. And didn't Quentin try and fail to go to the moon? I think the moon trip was afterwards (he based the spells for it on the ones that worked in antarctica, lol too bad space is a little colder). I can't wait to see how hosed up the fox 'hunt' is on television.
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Feb 23, 2016 19:44
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I frankly think that the show goes too far in shifting Quentin away from competitive rear end in a top hat and toward sad sack. He was always depressive in the books, but it was also obvious that he was a smart guy with potential that he'd earned through hard work, and that made him a lot more likeable to me. An example that immediately comes to mind is that, in the first book, both during the Brakebills exam and in a demonstration on the first day of class, he's asked to perform stage magic, and he's not only competent, he's genuinely impressive. In the show, when he's asked to perform magic as part of his exam, he immediately fucks up by dropping his deck of cards. I'd much rather watch an rear end in a top hat with talent than a nice guy who is afraid of his own shadow, but somehow lucked into being important, for no apparent reason. The flawed-but-talented rear end in a top hat also works much better thematically.
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Feb 23, 2016 20:10
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I read the first book years ago, but I don't think that the point of "magic is a lot of insanely hard work, now start memorizing all of this inane poo poo all day every day" was really made clear until Antarctica, which we haven't seen yet. I'm guessing that they'll have to make this come across in dialogue somehow. Up to this point in the story I think that the reader only knew that all magicians came from a group of top-performing obsessive students with a mix of mental issues. Quentin and many of the other characters actually seemed like slackers, only really working on stuff that they're really interested in, and this is coming across in the show really well.
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Feb 23, 2016 20:46
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Oh man! Can you believe how sexy this Harry Potter show is? This definitely isn't like Narnia. gently caress me. The naked secret magic thing feels clunkier than the foxes loving.
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Feb 23, 2016 20:48
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QuarkJets posted:I read the first book years ago, but I don't think that the point of "magic is a lot of insanely hard work, now start memorizing all of this inane poo poo all day every day" was really made clear until Antarctica, which we haven't seen yet. I'm guessing that they'll have to make this come across in dialogue somehow. In the books, I think it's less that Quentin is a slacker, and more that Quentin is the sort of guy who works his rear end off, but tries not to be seen doing it, since he doesn't want to admit that there are other people around who are naturally better at things than he is. In Antarctica, Quentin and the others just go from working their asses off to stay on top of the material (like, say, typical engineering undergrads) to being completely and relentlessly immersed in it. Ersatz fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Feb 23, 2016 |
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Feb 23, 2016 21:03
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I like this TV show and I liked the books. Can someone tell me what Marina holds over Kady to get her to bring the spell books and other stuff? Is it just to do with her Mum or did I miss something in the last episode.
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Feb 23, 2016 21:31
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That death was...kinda rough. SyFy did that part right, jesus.
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Feb 23, 2016 21:33
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Ersatz posted:I frankly think that the show goes too far in shifting Quentin away from competitive rear end in a top hat and toward sad sack. He was always depressive in the books, but it was also obvious that he was a smart guy with potential that he'd earned through hard work, and that made him a lot more likeable to me. It's perhaps the biggest difference. Yeah, they have invented too entire new plotlines like the NY #1witch-bitch, but Quentin is supposed to be core of the story. Of a depressed, competitive, conflicted rear end in a top hat they have made a... sad very dorky guy. It seems they weren't capable of all the psychological nuance so they did the opposite of "show, don't tell" (they started the series telling us how he went to a mental hospital, because you see, he has *problems*), and just basically made "dorky, typical socially-awkward, kind of pitiful guy who falls in Harry Potter world".
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Feb 23, 2016 21:53
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Mons Hubris posted:Well I felt like that episode was better than the others so far. Josh Lyman posted:What kind of moron would have a school in both New Zealand and Tasmania but not in Australia?
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Feb 24, 2016 03:06
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My answer to the "should I read the books" question--sure, read them, see if you like them. My standard librarian's answer to books is you are not obligated to finish a book that bores you no matter what anybody else says, so give it three chapters and then peace out if you just can't stand it. I read The Magicians when it came out and I liked the concept and writing and hated the characters. I liked The Magician King a lot more, mostly for Julia; I liked The Magician's Land the most on first read because I thought it brought things around beautifully and I'd grown to like the characters in spite of myself. When I heard the show was going to happen, I gave all three a reread and I found that all the things I disliked about the characters were...not as dire as I thought, I guess? When I first read book 1, I was pretty depressed myself and I hated Quentin because he just seemed like an insufferable rear end in a top hat and I didn't get why he was always numb when awesome things were happening to him. I wasn't self-aware enough to realize all the things I hated about him and his mental state, I hated about me and mine. Outside that mental state, I was a little more kind to both myself and him, and I think I recognized what he was going through a little better. And he grows up over the books so there's that. I loved that in the end his big forshadowed talent was, like, dull and ordinary even for a magician.  Considerations: the plots of the books are usually secondary and they definitely meander all over the goddamn place if they're really there at all. Grossman's definitely an East-Coast Ivy-Leaguer with a certain snobbery about it, and it bleeds into the books for sure, but he also seems pretty capable of puncturing that elitism as well. If you loved twee British fantasy about magic at some point in your childhood or adolescence, you definitely get what he's skewering most of the time, or you just find it horribly precious, one or the other. If you hate the books, fair enough, they tread a line for sure. They get funnier the further you go, though, I think. On-topic, for what it's worth, I was angry at the tv show for like, five minutes, for being Different From The Books. Then I though, well, I AM entertained and it looks pretty good and they're surprising me plot-wise. I do wish they gave more of a sense of how stupidly hard magic is like the books, but eh, they're doing their own thing and it's interesting enough to keep me watching. Margo and Elliot are perfect, Quentin is annoyingly awfully perfect, Alice is a little off, Penny is way off but funny anyway. I miss Josh. edit NO HOBBITS IN FILLORY nother edit SAFEHOUSE JULIA i want to go to there atomicgeek fucked around with this message at 04:33 on Feb 24, 2016 |
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Feb 24, 2016 04:06
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Tiggum posted:Tasmania is part of Australia. They don't teach geography at magic douche school.
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Feb 24, 2016 04:38
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Besides all my complaining about it being so different from the books, i still think it is bad on its own terms. Quentin doesn't really do anything, things just happen to him while he stands around looking like a sad puppy, and it annoys me that he is attending magic school but never does any magic. They set him up to be this important figure in the first episode, but then spend the rest of the series having him mope around. There is no sense of urgency or importance to anything that happens, it feels like an average college drama just with a little magic added.
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Feb 24, 2016 07:40
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Oasx posted:There is no sense of urgency or importance to anything that happens, it feels like an average college drama just with a little magic added. Not even that, because what drama has even happened? Julia's story is moving, but the Brakebills stuff is all just... whatever. Stuff happens, but it doesn't lead anywhere.
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Feb 24, 2016 08:32
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Oasx posted:Quentin doesn't really do anything, things just happen to him while he stands around looking like a sad puppy, and it annoys me that he is attending magic school but never does any magic. I'm pretty certain that he's done magic in every single episode so far
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Feb 24, 2016 10:12
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When they finally go to Fillory, it'll be a bummer because they won't have Penny find the Chatwin's button. It'll be because Penny can zap them there by wiggling his nose or some poo poo. I really liked the magic buttons, the finite nature of them. Who knows what they're gonna do with the Neitherlands, but they'll probably resemble Southern California beaches or some poo poo like that. It's like they're taking the broadest of strokes from the books and sexing them up to be super sexy and appeal to the teenagers.
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Feb 24, 2016 18:48
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I hated the magic buttons. They're so purestrain Macguffin - all this other magic is hectic hand gestures and don't gently caress up or you'll turn into a niffin and then there's world-traveling buttons that just sort of exist. Though things like magic buttons are pretty common in books like Narnia/Fillory, so it makes a certain amount of thematic sense even though I really dislike the Macguffin nature of them. They make sense and yet don't. My worry is that they'll completely change Alice and Penny ONLY because it's hard to yank out two primary cast members. I really want to see Penny lose his hands and become a space librarian, but I can't imagine the producers being okay with getting rid of two main stars for any length of time. We're already at some big changes without the buttons, and if there's no Neitherlands it's going to be weird. Hopefully good, but weird.
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Feb 24, 2016 20:30
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blue squares posted:The books are more the opposite, really And this is why I'm not enjoying the tv series. I don't give a tiny gently caress about preserving the storyline or being true to the books - but when you completely trash the central theme of the work, you get a mangled mess. Which is what this show is.
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Feb 25, 2016 08:31
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Johnny Joestar posted:they have some interesting ideas and it's very obvious why people could get really into them, but in general the books had this weird aftertaste to them like i'd just read someone's attempt at trying to make fun of YA fiction that managed to have just as much dumb poo poo of its own design layered in I agree with this. The books aren't very good (and you hit the nail on the head with the "weird aftertaste" thing). But, they presented a coherent rule set for magic that made for a compelling world. Magic took years of effort and painful study. The books stayed away from stupid macguffins and deus ex machina bullshit, which no other fantasy novel ever really has. It made for a certain sort of consistency that I liked, at least. But yeah the story was rough.
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Feb 25, 2016 09:16
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If we're talking coherent rule sets (hah), I suspect that The Magicians is almost as inspired by Mage: The Ascenscion as much as it is the Narnia books, that's one of the things that I initially liked about it. The Free Trader Beowulf stuff in Magician King just reinforces this suspicion. Also, regarding the Neitherlands and buttons stuff... while I love it, I could kind of understand if it didn't make the cut. They're really totally superfluous to the actual story in The Magicians, constantly getting in the way. They even say as much with why the buttons were hidden in the first place - because it shouldn't be that easy to get to Fillory, it's supposed to be by invitation only. I wouldn't be surprised if the only reason the Neitherlands show up in the books is because like me Lev Grossman always liked The Magician's Nephew and the crazy creepy primordial Narnia stuff, really intrigued by the Wood Between The Worlds and the implications of all the other pools, and annoyed that it's never shown up in any Narnia adaptations because they all seem to start with The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Josh hosed a tellytubby. Never forget. finna udders fucked around with this message at 17:40 on Feb 25, 2016 |
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Feb 25, 2016 17:38
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Was the scene in this last episode with Julia and Kady's mom casting the tandem spell the first time they've shown spellcasting include chanting as well as hand movements? Pretty sure prior to this (and IIRC it was the same in the books) that while there were sometimes material components to spells there's never been explicit mention of verbal components/chanting. And I forgot Josh found Teletubby Universe and got his freak on. Didn't he talk about several places he'd been, like the vaguely wushu-sounding reality where there was no ground and everyone lived on mountaintops and he hooked up with a warrior princess wife or something?
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Feb 25, 2016 18:40
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WarLocke posted:Was the scene in this last episode with Julia and Kady's mom casting the tandem spell the first time they've shown spellcasting include chanting as well as hand movements? Spells in the books require chanting in obscure dead languages all the time. Quentin at one point can't cast the weird-rear end hedge magic level 1 spell to prove he's a magician so he substitutes in some dead Aramaic language light spell. To be a magician in the books is so hard partially because you have to learn all these languages, have the finger dexterity of a musician, and remember all the effects that can screw up your spell and compensate. Basic hedge magicians learn a bunch of stuff on accident or through gossip and scribbled notes without knowing the actual languages, sound things out phonetically, and add in extra hand motions that don't need to be there which is why Quentin can't perform the simplest Hedge spell.
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Feb 25, 2016 20:55
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WarLocke posted:
Yeah, he went to some warrior-filled world and met up with a lady and arguably fell in love with her. She died (in battle, I think) and he left because the warrior culture didn't suit him. It was during his travels that he decided to become really, really good at portals. He uses the portals in The Magician's Land to trace where Umber opened his portal to to confront the ram god. (I just finished the 3rd book and totally forgot about Josh and Poppy getting married and expecting a baby, too.)
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Feb 25, 2016 22:13
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WarLocke posted:Was the scene in this last episode with Julia and Kady's mom casting the tandem spell the first time they've shown spellcasting include chanting as well as hand movements? Quentin used chanting when trapping Julia's dead brother in the stone.
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Feb 25, 2016 22:15
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Moogulus Caesar posted:I wouldn't be surprised if the only reason the Neitherlands show up in the books is because like me Lev Grossman always liked The Magician's Nephew and the crazy creepy primordial Narnia stuff, really intrigued by the Wood Between The Worlds and the implications of all the other pools, and annoyed that it's never shown up in any Narnia adaptations because they all seem to start with The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. They all start with TLtWatW because it's the first one. TMN is a prequel, not the first book in the series.
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Feb 26, 2016 02:38
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I really need to read TMN. I loved it so much more than any of the others in the series.
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Feb 26, 2016 03:00
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I watch this for the Julia plot line.
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Feb 26, 2016 04:24
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I just reread the trilogy and am looking forward to next season, it hasn't gone balls out crazy yet, but when it happens it's going to be amazing. I guess I'll spoiler this I'm pretty sure Quentin travels to the moon, later on in the books after he gets injured he talks about it in a short blurb QuarkJets posted:Nothing, basically. I thought that was always kind of the theme of the books. Magic is the result of a broken universe, which is why only broken people can use it, and broken people don't really solve problems. Usually the use of magic is either inconsequential or makes a bad situation worse somehow. The few people who mature enough to actually try to do something big and interesting just turn completely into monsters in a big ironic explosion (I guess this is supposed to be a form of transcending your hosed up human life and just becoming like a magic blue elf monster person forever) When you are a god fixing everything is small , IE Quentin is good at fixing things, he grows ginormous in the end of the book and fixes Fillory which is "small" to him , hence fix and repair small objects Hollismason fucked around with this message at 04:58 on Feb 26, 2016 |
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Feb 26, 2016 04:43
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This was probably my least favourite episode of the series so far, aside from mom getting wrecked. That worked pretty well with the whole horror/"magic is serious business" stuff. The rest of it was cringey "The Magicians: presented by The WB". Tiggum posted:Tasmania is part of Australia. If you've been to Tasmania (I live there), it feels pretty right. Place is conspicuously ancient.
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Feb 26, 2016 11:09
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Hollismason posted:When you are a god fixing everything is small , IE Quentin is good at fixing things, he grows ginormous in the end of the book and fixes Fillory which is "small" to him , hence fix and repair small objects This is part of the reason why I don't agree with the people who say the third book is all about tearing Quentin down. Yes he starts out as a little self-entitled poo poo, but by the end of the series he has literally held the power of a god, brought his love back from 'death', and created from whole cloth an entire 'land' which he and Alice proceed to gallop off into the sunset through, in search of adventure I did like the mundanity of Quentin's calling, because besides sounding underwhelming, what can be more noble than fixing things? I mean, a good portion of his actions across the entire series can be summed up as that.
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Feb 26, 2016 20:15
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WarLocke posted:This is part of the reason why I don't agree with the people who say the third book is all about tearing Quentin down. Yes he starts out as a little self-entitled poo poo, but by the end of the series he has literally held the power of a god, brought his love back from 'death', and created from whole cloth an entire 'land' which he and Alice proceed to gallop off into the sunset through, in search of adventure IIRC, none of that amazing poo poo could be accomplished by Quentin on his own. He had to borrow power and/or spells from others in order to do anything meaningful. "The Power of a God" was literally handed to him. I thought that the book made it clear that literally anyone could have done the same thing, if they had been at that time and place Quentin is basically a turd of a magician but he manages to do some really big things anyway because others lend him their abilities
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Feb 26, 2016 20:34
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True, but that's more evidence of personal growth than of being a poo poo magician. Granted, he couldn't have done all that amazing stuff on his own, but he was the guy who conceived of doing it in the first place, and then he convinced others to give him the help that he needed to get it done.
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Feb 26, 2016 20:40
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QuarkJets posted:IIRC, none of that amazing poo poo could be accomplished by Quentin on his own. He had to borrow power and/or spells from others in order to do anything meaningful. "The Power of a God" was literally handed to him. I thought that the book made it clear that literally anyone could have done the same thing, if they had been at that time and place Magician's Land spoilers: No, he has to kill Umber (Ember? Whichever one was still alive and hiding out) to get that power, because the ram couldn't bring itself to commit suicide. And since the god-killing macguffin blade was off being stuck into Reynard, Quentin had to reprise his big sword-summoning spell from his Brakebill test (which I thought was a nice use of symmetry) to do it. And afterwards, Dryad Julia comments that while anyone could have used the power to fix Fillory, most people would be tempted to try to hold onto it afterwards, while Quentin willingly gave it up. I'm not trying to say Quentin was Gandalf or anything, but I felt that he had really grown as a character by the end of the books.
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Feb 26, 2016 20:47
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WarLocke posted:I'm not trying to say Quentin was Gandalf or anything, but I felt that he had really grown as a character by the end of the books.
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Feb 26, 2016 20:56
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Hi, is this show good? All I know about it is my favorite tv director works on it.
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Feb 26, 2016 21:22
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Zaggitz posted:Hi, is this show good? All I know about it is my favorite tv director works on it. Depends on whether you've read the books or not, and how important the show being 'faithful' to them is to you (it's not). I don't think the show is amazing, but it's good enough to watch each week.
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Feb 26, 2016 21:33
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Zaggitz posted:Hi, is this show good? All I know about it is my favorite tv director works on it.
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Feb 26, 2016 21:57
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I think it is very flawed even when ignoring the books, but it is hard for me to judge.
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Feb 26, 2016 22:51
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Zaggitz posted:Hi, is this show good? All I know about it is my favorite tv director works on it. The show could be better, but it's a fun way to kill time.
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Feb 26, 2016 23:25
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