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In 2001, Neil Gaiman released a fantasy novel called American Gods, the story of ex-con Shadow Moon and his fantastical road trip across contemporary, mythological America. Wikipedia calls it "a blend of Americana, fantasy, and various strands of ancient and modern mythology" and I'd argue that's pretty true. It proved to be pretty popular, and ended up winning a Hugo award, along with a bunch of other accolades. Even fifteen years later, American Gods is still one of Gaiman's most popular and acclaimed works, and accordingly there have been several attempts to turn it into a television series. HBO had a crack at it a few years ago, but it never got past the development stage. However, back in 2014(!) Gaiman got a deal with STARZ going, and the book is finally making its way to the small screen. Here are the opening credits. They're pretty loving rad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ow1qPRIs8A My favourite bit's the sphinx reimagined as one of those cute, robot puppy. :3 There's a lot to be excited about here: Goon fave Bryan Fuller (Hannibal, Pushing Daisies, Wonderfalls) is adapting Gaiman's book, with the help of David Slade (Hannibal, Hard Candy) and Michael Green (uh... The River?). The casting is loving insane too:  Ian McShane (Deadwood, Kings) as Mr Wednesday, Shadow Moon's new employer and as trustworthy as a bent penny. He's a man on a mission.  Ricky Whittle (The 100) as Shadow Moon, our hero. Seen here on a bad day.  Pablo Schrieber (The Wire, Orange Is The New Black) as Mad Sweeny. He's a bit tall for a leprechaun, but he's got a proportionate quantity of the fighting spirit.  Gillian Anderson (The X-Files, Bleak House, Hannibal) as Media, a modern god for a modern world. Into cosplay.  Kristin Chenoweth (Pushing Daisies, The West Wing, Wicked) as Easter, a fertility god of the old world who's found a new position in life. Jonathan Tucker, Crispin Glover, Laura Browning, Peter Stomare, Orlando Jones, Jeremy Davies and Beth Grant will also be amongst the show's regular and recurring cast. I've not said anything about their roles, because a big part of the fun of the book (and the show) is meeting the parade of deities that Gaiman invented or reinterpreted, but you can work them out pretty quickly through a quick google search. It's running on STARZ at the rate of an episode a week for eight weeks, starting next Sunday (April 30th). Quick note about spoilers: They're always something of a problem in threads dealing with book adaptations. So, mods permitting, I think this is the best, and simplest, solution I've been able to come up with. Just don't. Don't talk about anything that hasn't aired yet, even under censor bars. Not even any of that coy, bullshit, "You're going to be excited to see what happens next week!" type talk. It's not fun for the people who are coming to the series fresh, and the inevitable conversations about exactly what constitutes a spoiler and whether someone, or anyone, has crossed a line are boring AF. Let's just not, please? I know a lot of people aren't going to be the happiest about this, and I get it, I do. But there are going to be heaps of other places to discuss this show online. if you're absolutely dying for Something Awful based book chat, maybe try the Book Barn, I guess? I don't think there's currently a thread. Trailer discussion is fine though, as long as it doesn't pertain to anything not covered in the books.
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Apr 24, 2017 14:23
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Longbaugh01 posted:So Open Source Idiom...any particular reason you picked the poo poo POST tag for this? I wish I could say that it was some clever clever allusion to an event from the novel. I wish I could say that. Honestly, I just got a bit overwhelmed by all the tags, and mistakenly thought I could go back and pick one later. Not so much. 
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Apr 27, 2017 09:15
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MiddleOne posted:Seriously? You couldn't wait more than 3 posts before immediately disregarding the OP and diving into 'can't wait and see what happens' book chat? This goes for everyone else doing it too, you suck. Yeah guys, seriously, cut it out. (Though some people have been great, and all deserve a cookie.) I've been lenient because the show hasn't actually started, but once it does (i.e. after tonight) kindly shut the gently caress up and talk about what's actually in the episode. Also Sparatcus is rad. P.S. I super suck at making .gifs so I encourage people to dump their super lovely moving images into this thread, and I'll update the OP accordingly. Open Source Idiom fucked around with this message at 09:04 on Apr 30, 2017 |
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Apr 30, 2017 08:58
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Rocksicles posted:Fuller 101, nothing in the background is accidental. My favourite is when one of his characters from Dead Like Me has a nonspeaking blink and you'll miss it cameo in an episode of Pushing Daisies. It's very sweet -- she's at the counter at the Pie Tin with her son.
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May 15, 2017 15:02
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ymgve posted:On a separate note, did they really need to screw up the gay sex scene with bad 90s CGI? That fire-cum scene looked like someone just learned Poser. The show's clearly decided that it's not going to let the CGI budget or time budget of a television show stop it from showing whatever it wants, photorealism be damned. Some shots are just going to be a bit shittier. Perhaps they'll get more money or a better production house next season? See also: that one shot of the viking longboat on the high seas, and the shot of that tree grabbing Shadow, both in Episode 1.
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May 15, 2017 18:55
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hangedman1984 posted:Trip report for those of us unwilling to click a link to Breitbart? The article is whatever, they cut some stuff out about Fuller wanting to send a specific message about homosexuality but it's largely factual, if organised provocatively. The worst is in the comments. Hollywood is depraved, gay sex makes me want to vomit, I hope Muslims kill everyone in Hollywood, obligatory jokes about goat loving, the Middle East is full of closeted homosexuals and this is why they are a weak country, please God save us from the gays and whatever other conspiracy theory I believe in, homosexuality was sent by the one world government as a form of controlled depopulation, liberals suck. I didn't make it very far though, so maybe there's some amazing nuance I'm missing out on.
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May 16, 2017 14:45
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withak posted:Who was the person in the top hat reflected in the security camera display? Maybe Abraham Lincoln became a god? Looked like one of that limo kid's goons, but in a hat.
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May 17, 2017 20:25
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SiKboy posted:The eye has been getting progressively more noticable as the series progresses, they went out their way for the light to hit his eyes and reflect differently from each one (I'm assuming McShane is wearing a contact). Both eyes moves which real glass eyes dont do as far as I know, but theres really a limited amount they could do about that. He mentions his single eye in the first episode.
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Jun 6, 2017 06:08
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precision posted:The main annoyance for me in the fact that next week is the finale is that they did a lot of promo material for two characters who have not even been in the season aside from one of them having one scene (Mr. Nancy). And they announced casting for really exciting characters but I guess they're not in this season at all The season was originally ten episodes long, but they had to make two episodes worth of reshoots to fix problems with earlier episodes. Hence the current version of the show. (That's also why several of the credited regulars have been in two or fewer episodes this season. Crispin Glover's been in only one!)
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Jun 12, 2017 16:41
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Johnny Truant posted:Ah, I did not know not that, thanks. Do you know why they had to reshoot? Bunch of small reasons, from what I understand. The original set for Jack's Crocodile Bar was apparently a godawful piece of poo poo, and they ended up rebuilding nearly the entire thing and refilming all the scenes from the first episode. The original Djinn sex scene apparently looked really bad, and they had to redo that as well. And I understand that there was an episode in the middle of the season that would have intergrated some of the Laura flashback episode, but that was scrapped because everyone thought it was absolutely awful, and they instead decided to bulk out the Laura stuff into an entire episode. They also spent a lot of time and money scouting a location that they didn't end up using this season, but they're apparently moving some of that to next year so it's not completely wasted.
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Jun 12, 2017 19:44
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Steve Yun posted:
Yeah, you can't really see it in that shot, but she's actually fondling its balls. Make of that what you will. Open Source Idiom fucked around with this message at 21:18 on Jun 12, 2017 |
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Jun 12, 2017 21:09
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Alternatively, they could try and tie in some of the Wonderfalls god stuff, since that'd fit pretty well. Alex Rice (Deanna from Totem Mole) is still acting, and probably available.
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Jun 16, 2017 09:46
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Knorth posted:
Hannibal? Justfied? Lost?
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Jun 19, 2017 02:52
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Toxic Fart Syndrome posted:Maybe netflix will peel off a couple ten millions from that $9B programming budget for 2018 to just let him do whatever because, I mean, what are they spending it on? 13 Reasons Why cost 5 million dollars an episode to make. For a show starring unknowns who spend most of their time talking. Insane.
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Nov 30, 2017 05:29
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IIRC correctly,. Anderson wasn't even a regular on this show. It'd be much easier for her to bail, compared to someone like Ricky Whittle. That said, we can probably say goodbye to Kristin Chenoweth too.
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Jan 6, 2018 15:31
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Cojawfee posted:Is there a thread for that show yet where I can preemptively bitch about him refusing to do the second season because he has unrealistic goals? You know there's more to this story, right? I mean, look: it's not just Fuller who left the project, it's also Brian Michael Green -- the other showrunner. Now two actors have quit in solidarity. To me, that sounds a bit more complicated. (I think that it's also notable that neither Fuller nor Green seem to have said much about the matter.) Steve Yun posted:Place your bets. Will he: I contest the idea that Fuller is some sort of crazy diva. He's a perfectionist, yes, and he has noncommercial impulses. Why are these contemptible qualities in a creative type?
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Jan 12, 2018 07:39
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http://tvline.com/2018/04/03/american-gods-season-2-new-media-gillian-anderson/ Gillian Anderson's leaving is official, but it appears that they're not so much recasting as creating a new character to take up the role of "New Media". Which is a little bullshit given that's Technical Boy's field, but whatever. Bet they'll cast Greta Lee.
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Apr 6, 2018 16:12
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Prav posted:i didn't expect it to make it through production at all, so if it's even kinda watchable i suppose that's a win As far as I know, it technically still hasn't. Last I heard they'd still stalled midway through filming the finale.
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Oct 10, 2018 03:16
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Counterpart too. And, look, they made three seasons of Ash vs Evil Dead, despite the ratings tanking from the second season. And they never cut the budget on that thing either. Nothing but respect for the way they've treated their shows.
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Oct 10, 2018 06:19
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Tom Clancy is Dead posted:They've wrapped filming and are in post. Uh, not quite. They literally just wrapped today. https://twitter.com/MrRickyWhittle/status/1051688110407348224
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Oct 15, 2018 13:12
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Javid posted:I also hope Season 2 is on par with 1, but that would also reduce the chances of the above happening. Given the poo poo that Freemantle media was pulling behind the scenes this year, part of me is hoping not. (I also think American Gods tanking would make Counterpart Season 3 is a lock for renewal, so that's another good reason.)
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Jan 3, 2019 10:21
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Tom Clancy is Dead posted:Yeah I'm not sure all the blame can be put on Fuller anymore since they fired the showrunner after him, too. Didn't the season end up wrapping without a showrunner because no one wanted the job?
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Jan 7, 2019 06:15
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I was pretty disappointed with that, but the lighting and the music were still on point, and there was some wonderful acting. Loved the scenes in the carousel room. Thought the dialogue and writing in general was less intelligent, and I'm not even talking about cliched nonstarters like Mr. World's bunker scenes. Scenes go by without any frisson, they just pass passably. Not to mention that the entire thing was far less sexy. Not too keen on the shot composition either. It's fine, but it doesn't seem as purposeful; sometimes it was just quick and dirty. Blah. I did appreciate the actress playing Bilquis though, I get the sense she's actually a really good actress. I just wish that we'd have seen what Fuller and Green had wanted to do with this episode.Definitely would have had a wax lion shoutout during the coin machine bit, I know that for certain.
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Mar 11, 2019 10:39
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Billzasilver posted:The first season was meant to be two episodes longer right? Any chance this episode was meant to be setup and the next episode was meant to be the true season finale/premiere? Yes to two episodes longer, but the subject matter of this episode was originally the finale. The other episode would presumably have expanded the Bilquis and Nancy subplots from the actual first season finale into a full episode, or at least that's my guess.
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Mar 11, 2019 11:24
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You'd think that if Gaiman didn't like Lucifer he'd not guest star in an episode, yeah?
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Mar 19, 2019 06:00
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Just read that the show's also fired the Djinn and the Taxi Driver, so the poo poo storm only continues to swirl.
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Dec 15, 2019 23:45
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ExiledTinkerer posted:They are getting close to a season 3 cold open that is just a title card stating all the black gods perished on the way back to their home planet in a tragic spaceship accident. Look, I mean, they did hire a black trans actress to play Ms World. But, like, I don't think that's going to make the show better all of a sudden.
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Dec 17, 2019 02:26
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beanieson posted:Now that they got rid of Counterpart this was literally the only thing to watch in Starz. I think I’m going to cancel it and pick up Disney+ for my kid. no but what about the new season of weeds new season of weeds
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Dec 18, 2019 01:05
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It seems to have some sort of Amazon deal, so they'll end up dragging it out to a fourth season. Wouldn't expect much more than that though. (I'm reading between the lines here, so don't quote me on this.)
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Jan 11, 2021 02:39
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Ugly In The Morning posted:He was asking for 10 mill an episode for a show that got 750k viewers at best, his firing was the least shocking firing ever. This was Starz just slinging poo poo. You remember what happened to Michael Green, Freemantle Media, the two days Starz claimed Neil Gaiman was running things.... Bryan Fuller's been very, very quiet about the whole thing.
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Jan 18, 2021 11:17
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Okay actually watching episode two. "I own the biggest IT company in the world. I'm a loving god!" Bilquist way more interesting this season than she's ever been. I get the feeling they're repositioning her as the new Media, given that Gillian Anderson isn't coming back, and the last actress was poo poo enough that they're not asking her back this year. Show still looks like poo poo. Weirder than last year, though the Gods more remind me of Supernatural villains than the actual fundamental figures of power and terror that they were in season one (and occasionally tried to be in season two). The way this season wrote off the Djinn. Lol. "The only destiny I want is a normal life." loving lol I'm largely indifferent to this though. Their casting for Hinzleman is perfect though, and this episode had Ian McShane comically play wrestle with an old man, so he's having fun.
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Jan 18, 2021 13:19
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sticklefifer posted:Probably depends on how well Jonathan Tucker's new show does, since he's a lead. But even then, they could easily just say "this is his TRUE form" since we've already seen multiple incarnations of multiple gods, and like 50 Jesuses. He's a regular on two different shows right now, so I dunno when they'll find the time.
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Jan 19, 2021 05:17
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I've been getting good vibes from this season. It's not hard to be much better than last season, but the show's got solid bones this year. Edit: It's not going to be Season 1 levels of good (and the visuals are nowhere near what the first season was capable of) but it's still good stuff.
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Jan 25, 2021 08:33
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This season has been pretty good. The show's never going to look as good as season 1, and it's never going to have anything as good as the police interview scene either, but I'm enjoying it a lot.
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Feb 23, 2021 09:19
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Loomer posted:To be honest it was way nicer than most of the actual gay orgies I've been to. Mad invite bro.
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Mar 15, 2021 10:17
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DamnGlitch posted:Forgetting New Media existed was a vast improvement for S3, and turned out to be an rear end saver because I'm sure that characterization, which was already moldering and cringey at the time, would have aged like a corpse after the atlanta spa shootings. It was always bad.
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Mar 28, 2021 22:54
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