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http://www.vulture.com/2009/08/mad_men_replaces_bobby_draper.html
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Feb 1, 2017 16:29
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 10:42 |
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Dunno when they'll go up, but Syfy shows always do.
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Feb 1, 2017 21:46
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It's a shame all but a handful of actors on this show are any good but that's the Syfy price we must pay.
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Feb 2, 2017 22:26
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Good directing can go a long way to properly establishing her as Imposing, and I would not say that the directing on these first two episodes was very good other than the entirely-CGI ship fights. Why is the camera almost always eye level on her?
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Feb 3, 2017 13:32
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Kesper North posted:Worth noting that Frankie Adams is a boxer, for those complaining about her physicality. In the books she's often described as a real looker, though. 404notfound posted:The books point out how it's all highfalutin affectations anyway, and in various times of stress, Alex tends to lessen or drop the accent. One of my issues with the show is how few of the Martians, specifically all of the ones we just met, don't have a southern drawl. It's a defining characteristic of Martians, and yes, it's this weird over-utilized point of pride for them.
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Feb 3, 2017 21:08
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You will surely find out, and there were some hints as to why, but not done nearly as well enough as in the books. Fake Edit: I swear I like this show a lot, but these first two episodes have some serious flaws.
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Feb 3, 2017 21:15
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Eiba posted:Mars is a whole planet. The Mariner Valley is just one region, and even then not everyone there has an exaggerated drawl like Alex. It's like asking why there aren't more Texan accents in this group of American marines. To be fair, I am going off of the world built by the books here, which very much makes a thing out of the accent being the norm. The show is an entirely different beast, granted. Eiba posted:Man, I don't get this. I love the books to death, but so far the show's been better in pretty much every way so far. If we want to really dive into it, we can. To be clear, my issues are mostly about the TV show as a good TV show, not as a comparison to the books (however, the books handled the Dresden capture much better). Season 1 is pretty great, and the way it differs from the books are specific, with purpose, and above all, entertaining. See Donkey Balls, an episode written by the book authors, with a plot entirely made up for the show. It's well paced, funny, stressful, and firmly defines every character on the Roci while doing some colorful world-building. Everyone shines. And on the whole, the season's plot's pace suits the split genre, half hard-boiled detective story and half a survival road trip. The characters push the plot, not the plot pushing the characters. Season 2 has started out really bizarrely when compared to Season 1, which I just recently rewatched. For the most part, the acting is too stilted and subpar; the blocking of scenes is too stagnant (more on that later); and the editing is way too tight, allowing almost nothing to breathe -- most of the scenes that don't involve the Roci crew and Miller are too rushed. This post speaks to that feeling: ZorajitZorajit posted:Y'know, one thing that really surprised me about this episode was the density of plot. Like, that's just not very common in modern writing. Year, source material, etc., etc. But I can't think of very many series that give this much dialogue over to questions of "how will this affect the world around us." I'm not really going to offer a qualitative opinion of that, but the self-hating lit-fic educated genre-writer side of me is watching this thinking "No, no, how does this develop the character! No one cares about the plot!" Season 1 doesn't feel like this usually. Characters did have little speeches they'd give which attempt to put everything in cultural context with dialogue that's not very realistic at all, especially Miller, but they were treated with scenes that weren't frenetic. Everything felt earned. Even when exposition needed to be dumped onto the viewer, it usually wasn't blatant and was coupled with solid character development. Not all of Season 2's first pair of episodes is bad. The CGI battle scenes were a joy to watch, and all of the Miller scenes (with the exception of the Thoth Invasion) were fantastic, which I feel is mostly due to Tom Jane and the Roci actors. Tom Jane forces a scene to pace well. If you compare his scenes of Season 2 with Bobbie's, it's a night and day difference. He pauses, he collects himself physically. Do you remember how many scenes in the first season involved Tom Jane taking his time to do blocking bits like Stand Up or Cross A Room? It was all the loving time. Characters are drat near still in Season 2 unless the scene actively calls for something different. So at the end of the day, most of these problems are directoral. Breck Eisner did these two, and he did none of Season 1's. I also would be willing to bet that Syfy really pushed for Big Action for the season premiere, so the Thoth Station invasion had to make it into the first two episodes. The editor had to really cram all of this in, with footage from a borderline director. I think in someone else's hands, maybe one of the 4 guys who directed season 1, things would have come out better. Especially if they didn't need to cram so much poo poo into these two episodes. And finally, Thoth Station's invasion, specifically Miller's scenes once it's boarded, feels off. This is the one scene where all of the problems of this season premiere show themselves. You get the sense that, what, there are like 10 people on the station? That station is loving huge, and the direction does nothing to really give you a sense of the space. It feels like a set, in the way that (another Syfy show, one that is not good) Dark Matter's station sets feel like a set. The blocking is weird and without motivation for anyone other than Tom Jane, and when his invasion lackies shoot up the Matrix folks with hundreds of bullets, they're all facing eachother in a big circle and should have shot eachother up. Badly. Tom Jane also wanders around and immediately finds exactly what he is looking for, Dresden, one room over, on a station that is loving Gigantic, according to the ship fight that the viewer just saw minutes before. Dresden's rant feels less like the pointed words of a charismatic sociopath and more like an actor just spewing out lines quickly. This scene reeks of bad direction from the start to the end, because the director simply went by the plot, which is the sign of a lovely director. The boarding party breaks in, kid gets shot, Miller notices gel, scolds his men, they find weird people, the weird people get mad, they shoot the weird people, Miller leaves everyone alone for some reason, he finds Dresden, Holden and Johnson show up, Dresden says insane poo poo, Miller shoots Dresden. All of this happens, and the director does nothing on his own accord to make any of it feel earned or the least bit realistic in physical flow. poo poo happens because it was written to happen. I really do like the show, and I'm not at all saying it's poo poo and should be dropped or whatever extreme bullshit TV IV is known for. These were a pretty flawed pair of episodes with plenty still in them to enjoy. I am looking forward to getting on with it now that Syfy's blue balls orgasm of a premiere is done. Platystemon posted:Miller putting Dresden down like a dog doesn’t have the same impact without the reveal. This is part of why the Thoth Invasion felt so off at the end of it, too. The invasion in the book was half an infantry battle and half Miller discovering the truth of that station, Dresden, and coming to a personal epiphany about who he is and what the system has become. There's none of the personal reflection in that scene. It's just action, baby! I'm fine with pure action, they gave it to us with the ship battle. So where's the character-driven emotional payoff I'd grown accustomed to with Season 1? grilldos fucked around with this message at 22:55 on Feb 3, 2017 |
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Feb 3, 2017 22:52
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Toast Museum posted:They're right though; it's not a Mars-wide accent in the books. They often (usually?) refer to it as the "Mariner Valley drawl" in the books. Others mimic it occasionally as a joke, but as an actual accent it's a local/regional thing. Eiba posted:No they don't. One or two odd characters have the accents in the book, and it's an accent associated with Mars, but it's not exactly common. Bobbie doesn't have the accent, nor does anyone in that short story that takes place on Mars. If I'm wrong then I can accept that. The feeling I got was that, like Texas, a lot of people have that accent and that's the stereotype, but plenty of people don't. I'm probably projecting as an accent-less North Texan. Eiba posted:Wow, I'm sorry, I guess i don't really want to get into it that much. The lasagna scene was wonderful. Everything involving the crew and Miller was great and had a clear and resonating arc. Eiba posted:Thoth seemed like a small operation, yeah, but I assumed that meant it was a small operation in the TV show. It was a huge abandoned station with a few scientists being creepy in a room. Considering I know what's going on from the books, I think it actually makes sense for it to be a much smaller, creepier operation. The books strained my credulity by making it a huge thing. He's a true sociopath who should have had a more terrifying, controlled, and commanding composure. There's a chance they're adjusting what exactly was done to the scientists for the show, which I can understand. That said, the way that scene was put together was not good at all. Eiba posted:For what it's worth I think we should probably agree to disagree. You seem... pretty passionately disappointed by these episodes that I personally enjoyed the heck out of. That's okay. I hope my previous boggling incomprehension didn't come off as too passive aggressive or anything. The vitriol in my effortpost more has to do with overcompensating for the lack of critique I've seen for these episodes from nearly every outlet I've been reading up on. It feels like everyone is just so loving horny for a good space opera to be back again that they're quick to forgive some pretty blatant issues with these two episodes, issues that need to be fixed up if this show wants to be the hit it has the potential to be (and Syfy expects it to be). Space operas have always struggled to cross over into mainstream appeal, and these issues could keep it from doing so. It's also particularly disappointing after a truly stellar first season. I think the worst possible place a space show can be in is having the full attention of Syfy executives. Again, there was a lot to love about these two episodes, namely almost every scene with the Roci crew and Miller, save that final scene. We'll see how the rest of the season shakes out. grilldos fucked around with this message at 02:02 on Feb 4, 2017 |
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Feb 4, 2017 01:57
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Disregarding the book, the Dresden stuff still feel off. The start of the scene has him ignoring Miller in a creepily calm way until physically assaulted, and then suddenly beginning to verbally spit out spaghetti while slowly backing up. The dialogue itself lends itself to a proper monologue too, one of those cliche TV diatribes by the arch villain. They even have inserts of the Holden/Johnson/Miller trio coming to the realization that this is not a normal man. If they 1) had the same lines, but Dresden stands still and vamps like Glenn Howerton and 2) had a proper audience of the belter boarding party in there with them, that scene would have been so much better.flosofl posted:I'm not saying he wasn't. However, I think Miller saw everyone buying into the bullshit and letting Dresden get away with it. Or even worse, letting him continue his work in a kind of Belter version of Operation Paperclip. Like I've said before, Tom Jane is making up for a lot of poor directing here. He's the only reason the end of this episode wasn't straight up loving awful. WhiskeyWhiskers posted:I thought Johnson was going just bluffing to have all the data unlocked. I didn't really think he meant it. Same. (And to throw some more wrenches into this thread, I don't think Chad Coleman's work in this episode was very good at all. He was honestly borderline okay in Season 1.)
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Feb 4, 2017 04:54
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The inept crew's tactical shittiness was fine and written well, it allowed Tom Jane to yell at them a lot in his fun way. My issues with that scene are mostly that it was not directed well, at all, to the detriment of the effectiveness of that scene. And again, pretty much all of the other Miller and Roci crew scenes were fun and great. The Miller/Amos scene and the lasagna scene the two obvious highlights. The ship fight was wonderfully dynamic. I'll repeat myself again by saying my goal isn't to poo poo on the show or call all of it awful, I'm just offering a counter to the blinding praise I'm seeing for these episodes. These are issues that I hope are resolved before they turn off the less hardcore sci fi viewers that the massive marketing push is trying to snag, Game of Thrones style. Say what you want about that show, but they spend big money on great directors and it usually pays dividends. Syfy executives are notorious tinkerers and quick to pull the plug, and I don't want them to shoot themselves in the foot again here.
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Feb 4, 2017 15:51
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etalian posted:Yeah the Season 1 martians seemed like a believable professional military while season 2 martians are gung ho parodies out of a Tom Clancy novel.
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Feb 11, 2017 22:14
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To be fair all of the UN related dialogue is awful, which is out of her control.
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Feb 18, 2017 03:49
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Jesus some of you are awful about what you consider to be spoilers and what you don't.
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Feb 18, 2017 19:47
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This thread is adorable.
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Feb 24, 2017 05:34
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And with none of the emotional weight of the short story. I guess Hot New Tech Usually Results In Death is the super dope parallel we needed.
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Mar 2, 2017 20:38
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The biggest soft-science thing of this franchise is an utter lack of AI because they simply wanted the thing to be about human beings and thus Not Boring. There is a reason the introduction to the Cant is a subjugated human blasting his arm off as he's mining resources claimed for others. And laughing it off.
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Mar 3, 2017 01:30
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It's not sci-fi AI unless it's sentient. 
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Mar 3, 2017 01:35
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counterfeitsaint posted:Diogo at Ceres, when the rear end was smashed to dust. gohmak posted:When the wellwallas fell.
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Mar 7, 2017 16:55
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