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I think the fact that I loved the books is keeping me from watching this, and hearing about how quickly it's tearing through the first book's plot feels like it's validating my decision. Other people who liked the books: is it worth a shot regardless?
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Feb 4, 2016 17:30
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Kind of surprised they didn't go niffin with Alice after introducing the concept earlier in the season.
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Apr 14, 2016 23:10
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FRINGE posted:This show (and probably books) have no internal consistency at all. The metaphysics of harry potter look like a deep doctoral dissertation compared to this thing. The books are better about it, if only because when something is different from normal they have the time to explain why and how. That said, they're also intentionally vague about the limitations and capabilities of magic except where plot-important.
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Apr 15, 2016 14:36
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I finally got around to watching the first season on Netflix over the weekend and... I actually kinda enjoyed it? I expected not to--I liked the books and I knew enough about the differences in how the show was doing things to know I'd probably disapprove--but aside from the fact that I thought Julia's story was largely fumbled (shoulda had Free Trader Beowulf right off the bat) and the end of the season finale was dumb as hell (I know it would've cost too much, but I really wanted the Beast to be as bestial as he is in the book) it was pretty all right. I even liked Quentin's self-aware narration in the season finale. I was also pretty surprised that Penny turned out to be my favorite character. I wouldn't have guessed he'd spend the back half of the season as the only sane guy. I've noticed in season 2 trailers that Penny has his hands back and I hope that's not as much of a cop-out as it seems. Like, I know he's going to be a way more on-screen character in the show than he was in the second and third books so having to show him handless for all of season 2 would've been a pain, but I hope the consequences of that still matter. Like, I dunno, maybe he has nerve damage or something and can't cast complex spells, I dunno. I've also noticed they're teasing Alice vs. the Beast pretty hard in all the trailers, so they better save enough of their CGI budget for that one. Harrow fucked around with this message at 15:41 on Jan 16, 2017 |
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Jan 16, 2017 15:19
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I'm looking forward to it, despite myself. I liked the book series quite a bit, but I also thought that reviews really played up its brilliance and subversiveness. They're entertaining fantasy books written pretty well and with a few clever twists, nothing transcendent. So the fact that the show takes a lot of liberties with it, simplifies some things, and amplifies some character traits really doesn't bother me. Also I really didn't expect Penny to be my favorite character but I'm looking forward to watching him be angry about his hands.
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Jan 25, 2017 15:27
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I'm amused at how they decided to handle Penny's hands. Keeping him handless would've been a huge pain in the rear end for both the actor and the crew. I figured they'd just go for nerve damage from the reattachment or something, but making the uselessness of Penny's hands a consequence of his short temper is a pretty funny way to handle it. Penny and Eliot remain my favorite characters.
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Jan 27, 2017 15:42
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Transistor Rhythm posted:I read these books, could hardly stand the show though. Have they made it to Fillory yet? Yeah, they went there towards the end of the first season. Things are definitely different than they are in the books, though, especially with Julia, Alice, and the Beast, but I find it entertaining enough. I really liked the books but I didn't think they were the brilliant, subversive books that some reviewers treat them as, so the liberties the show is taking don't bother me too much. And I'd definitely say that the show improves during the first season--I only really started liking it around the middle of the first season (though there are some hilarious scenes in episode 4).
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Jan 27, 2017 16:24
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ZorajitZorajit posted:Honestly, Quentin's plot in that episode felt like one of those bullshit holodeck episodes of Star Trek and I didn't really care for that episode. Unless you're talking about the deliberately super-racist Penny, which yeah, that was weird. I guess the best thing I can say about this show is that it's self-aware more often than it's not. I thought the super-racist Penny was funny just because the joke was at Quentin's expense, not Penny's. Plus, we got to see real Penny get pissed off about it, and Penny getting angry is never not entertaining. I also liked that Quentin's a lovely singer even in his dreams. The episode as a whole was weird and felt like filler, though, and a show with 13-episode seasons really shouldn't have filler. Fast Luck posted:I flat out didn't really like the books but somehow they still hooked me enough that I read them all, and wanted to check out the adaptation too. After the first book when (half of this happened in the show already and half I think won't happen but spoiler tags to be safe) Quentin cheats on Alice and then she dies I was pretty much just like, okay, I hate absolutely every character now, and then kept reading anyway. Who knows, it's just like I feel sort of attached to the world and the weird difficult grinds they had to go through to get from place to place. I really don't think Quentin got anywhere close to actually likeable until the third book, at which point he's like 30 and has finally started to at least try to grow up. He still does some boneheaded selfish poo poo, but it's also the only book in which he actually sort of is the hero (because it's Alice in book 1 and Julia in book 2) and not just wishing he was. (I have no idea if I need to spoil that because who the hell knows how much the show is going to take from the books from here on out, but hey, better safe than sorry.) Nihonniboku posted:6) not really showing how dirty and raw Julia's journey was. My biggest disappointment in season 1 is about Julia's journey, because it left out so much of how smart and resourceful she was in the process of finding her magical community. Bringing in Free Trader Beowulf towards the end actually kind of made it worse. It really should've been about them the whole way--have her decipher their riddles in one episode, try to track them down in the next, and then hang out with them for the rest of the season. If Marina had to be there, she could be on the edges tempting the group with a fast track to easy power or something to keep roughly the same role of "self-interested, amoral hedge magician." In the show, Julia just sort of lucks into learning magic after being assaulted by a dude in a bathroom. Harrow fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Jan 27, 2017 |
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Jan 27, 2017 23:30
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QuarkJets posted:I think these changes are actually really good. The costumes are fine and to be faithful to the books they'd have to basically create fully-CGI characters, which would be pointlessly expensive for characters that barely have any screen time I don't mind cheaping out on Reynard, but I wish they'd made Ember an actual ram. I really think the reveal of his incompetence and selfishness would've hit much harder if he'd looked like this majestic, Aslan-like beast before revealing that he actually sucks a whole lot.
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Feb 2, 2017 14:58
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I really expected they were going to save the showdown with the Beast for the season finale, so this has been a surprising first part of the season.
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Feb 16, 2017 17:51
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So, I don't really get why they didn't just have the showdown with the Beast at the end of season 1. Just budget constraints? What was gained by having a really unsatisfying showdown, then two more episodes, then a real showdown with kind of an arbitrary setup? I dunno, I'm probably too picky.
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Feb 21, 2017 17:34
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