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Post by Vandelay on Dec 25, 2021 22:44:04 GMT
Watched the finale now. Found the season consistently enjoyable all the way through, with very little that I really didn't like. Equally though, there wasn't much that I absolutely loved or had me really desperate to see what was next. I felt it could have benefited from an extra bit of detail about the world as a whole. I never really got much of a sense of who the major powers were (beyond the White Tower) and their relationship with each other. Even the general geography was unclear and whether there are different countries or regions. The obvious touchstones for comparison, Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones, covers that lore so well that this felt very lacking in that regard. No idea whether the source material offers much in that regard, but I assume it does and that the show was rushing through it a bit too much. Perhaps another episode or 2 would have helped. The finale was probably one of the weaker episodes. I liked the Dark One's more subdued manipulation, but the big battle fell a bit flat. The resolution was far too easy and we are going into the realms of people being too powerful, so threats become pointless. Resurrection in particular is never a good sign. Intrigued by the speech from the mystery man about the 5, although also not sure why I should particularly care about the box, beyond it being some sort of weapon. The final sequence was badass, but made zero sense as to why that girl deserved a tsunami in the face. |
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dogbot
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Post by dogbot on Dec 25, 2021 22:50:31 GMT
All will become clear about the folks in the ships.
There are lots of different countries, fwiw. That's kinda related, too.
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Post by GigaChad Sigma. on Dec 26, 2021 8:16:31 GMT
I never really got much of a sense of who the major powers were (beyond the White Tower) and their relationship with each other. Even the general geography was unclear and whether there are different countries or regions. Yeah, this a key area where it failed to deliver. |
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MolarAm🔵
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Post by MolarAm🔵 on Dec 26, 2021 8:29:23 GMT
I think, generally speaking, epic fantasy things need 10+ episodes for a season. Especially if they're adapting books. There's just too much stuff to cover, so you either end up sacrificing necessary detail, or sacrificing the pacing.
Tbh I was amazed that this ended up as coherent as it was.
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neems
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Post by neems on Dec 26, 2021 10:22:22 GMT
Pretty disappointing finale, to echo everybody else. The rating on Prime dropped a star in the space of a week or so as well.
And maybe my memory is patchy, but shouldn't there be a bunch of other stuff before the 'boat people' turn up?
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Post by ToomuchFluffy on Dec 26, 2021 19:36:59 GMT
Do I get this right that this season is basically the show's version of "The Eye of the World"? So the whole thing resolves with Rand taking the power from the eye and using it against the shadow army at Tarwin's Gap? |
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neems
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Post by neems on Dec 26, 2021 20:15:45 GMT
ToomuchFluffyWell, it is 'The Eye of the World', but that's not how they resolved it. Would have been better if they had.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 26, 2021 21:41:59 GMT
ToomuchFluffyWell, it is 'The Eye of the World', but that's not how they resolved it. Would have been better if they had. Yeah it would have been. I thought this final episode sucked aside from the credits scene. I didn't rate anything else that happened and Perrin is just a waste of space in this. |
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lexw
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Post by lexw on Dec 28, 2021 16:36:00 GMT
Pretty disappointing finale, to echo everybody else. The rating on Prime dropped a star in the space of a week or so as well. I thought it was pretty good myself. Different to what I expected but well-done. I mean, not keen on Rand, but that's true of book-Rand too. Prime user ratings, good or bad, don't mean anything because 90% of people who leave Prime reviews are either lunatics or utter cretins. Or they're there to write angry one-star reviews for technical issues (usually long since fixed). Plenty of good stuff is rated significantly lower than mediocre stuff or trash. EDIT - A good example is The Underground Railroad - it made a lot of "best show" lists this year, has 94% RT, and is obviously a good show. But guess what? It has as 3.6 stars, wonder why? Tells you a lot about who is rating shows and why, frankly. But anything that runs for a long time tends to end up in the 4.5-5 range too because eventually only fans are watching it and leaving reviews. I mean, The Magicians has 5 stars for god's sake. Have you ever watched The Magicians? It's hilariously bad. But after 5 seasons, everyone who went "Argh" and dropped out has left. |
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Post by Vandelay on Dec 28, 2021 17:03:24 GMT
Pretty disappointing finale, to echo everybody else. The rating on Prime dropped a star in the space of a week or so as well. I thought it was pretty good myself. Different to what I expected but well-done. I mean, not keen on Rand, but that's true of book-Rand too. Prime user ratings, good or bad, don't mean anything because 90% of people who leave Prime reviews are either lunatics or utter cretins. Or they're there to write angry one-star reviews for technical issues (usually long since fixed). Plenty of good stuff is rated significantly lower than mediocre stuff or trash. But anything that runs for a long time tends to end up in the 4.5-5 range too because eventually only fans are watching it and leaving reviews. I mean, The Magicians has 5 stars for god's sake. Have you ever watched The Magicians? It's hilariously bad. But after 5 seasons, everyone who went "Argh" and dropped out has left. Not to derail too much, but how does The Magicians compare to the books? I really enjoyed the book series and meant to check out the TV series, but never got around to it. A slightly more on topic question, as someone that quite enjoyed this first season, but wasn't completely won over, is it worth giving the books a read? Tempted to give it a try. |
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neems
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Post by neems on Dec 28, 2021 17:07:15 GMT
I actually watched the first season of Magicians, and I liked... bits of it, I guess. I thought the bad guy was pretty interesting, although you could tell who it was going to be pretty early on.
I take your point on ratings, but it feels like a significant drop in the space of a week or so. Tbh I think they ran out of money (or time perhaps?) in the final episode which is why we ended up with not much happening (and a couple of pretty shonky looking effects).
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lexw
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Post by lexw on Dec 28, 2021 17:48:04 GMT
I actually watched the first season of Magicians, and I liked... bits of it, I guess. I thought the bad guy was pretty interesting, although you could tell who it was going to be pretty early on. I take your point on ratings, but it feels like a significant drop in the space of a week or so. Tbh I think they ran out of money (or time perhaps?) in the final episode which is why we ended up with not much happening (and a couple of pretty shonky looking effects). I mean, I'm S4 of The Magicians, it's enjoyable trash for me (though I only watch it when playing a slow-paced game or something usually), but I guess my point is, it makes even the weakest bits of WoT look like, well, classic GoT. It's nowhere near a 5-star series. But it seems like any show that runs more than a couple of seasons gets to that 4.5+ rating eventually. The only times I see other things happen are when a bunch of lunatics are mad about "THE LIBERAL AGENDA" or there's a big technical fault (like one season of Australian Survivor, which is, really, otherwise one of the best seasons of Survivor ever made, has one episode which is a copy of the previous episode, and this has pulled it down hard to like 3.5 or something - even though it's actually, even with that, great). If you look at the negative reviews on WoT they largely fall into the "insane people and cretins" categories. 1) Insane book readers who are shrieking about how "this isn't the books!!!!" (something none of the book readers here have said, note, despite it deviating in some interesting ways) and thus giving it 1 star. A lot include some "LIBERAL AGENDA" stuff. 2) Cretins who watched one episode and decided it was terrible and needed a one-star review. As with The Underground Railroad (which has tons of 1-star reviews about being "woke" or "liberal") with WoT there's stuff like this: "There is also a lot of what can be most politely described as quotas, check boxes and political messages not so subtlety placed into the story." "woke themes beating us over the head" "As with virtually ALL modern day fiction it forces 3rd wave feminism onto the viewer and ticks all the usual boxes, the most predominant being to hate on men and portray them as weak, untrustworthy and totally inferior to women. It's a flawed idea where superiority is demanded over real equality. Another common feminist theme I noticed in The Wheel of time was the Paganism, Occult, Witchcraft, Serpent/Devil worship, Ouroboros symbolism (Hecate's wheel) etc. Why these always go hand-in-hand with modern day feminism is beyond me but it is undoubtedly conscious and deliberate." (Holy shit LOL!) "this woke nonsense has to stop" "I had enough of this battle between genders" "I watched 3 minutes. It was enough." "Non of the actors apart from Rand are appropriate for a "blood runs strong" isolated hamlet" (lol what the fuck, Rand is expressly NOT of the same ethnicity and at least somewhat lighter-skinned than the rest of the Two Rivers people, it's literally a plot point! Everyone else seems ethnically more similar so the only way to read this is "country folk should be white") "Leave behind rendering his story as your priority and instead put political correctness in its place, particularly American identity politics." Most of these have a lot of "helpfuls" on them, too, which is kind of creepy. I'm reminded of the whole "OMG STAR TREK BECAEM WOKE!!!" stuff of a few years ago or "RUE ISNT BLACK!!!" from Hunger Games (yes she is, and it's unquestionable). I haven't found a SINGLE negative review saying "Wow the last two episodes sucked" or anything like that. It's mostly like "This show completely betrayed the books [blathers on for paragraphs] oh and btw I'm a racist/sexist!". Literally the majority of "betrayed the books" one-stars (which is the majority of one-stars) include a "I'm a racist/sexist" bit, it's wild. Sorry for so many insane quotes I just kept finding them so I kept putting them in, and I've barely scratched the surface. EDIT - I realized there was an easy way to see if it was those two episodes or similar - just go by most recent critical reviews. Aaaaaaand. Nope. They're just the same "ITS NOT THE BOOKS ALSO LIBERAL AGENDA!" or "LOL WORSE THAN HERCULES" drivel. Not a mention of the ending or anything. |
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neems
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Post by neems on Dec 28, 2021 18:08:19 GMT
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lexw
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Post by lexw on Dec 28, 2021 18:15:02 GMT
Deep breath mate  It's actually kind of fun/weirdly reassuring to see how demented the one-star stuff is. I was wondering if I'd see some devastating critiques but nah. Just insane people, racists, and dimwits. Real Amazon (not Prime) reviews can be amazing - good example with that clock. |
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Post by GigaChad Sigma. on Dec 28, 2021 23:08:35 GMT
I'd suggest The Magicians is more entertaining than WoT.
I've not read the books so have no issue with any deviation from source material. It's just not very good. The last episode has made me fairly indifferent to a second season.
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lexw
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Post by lexw on Dec 29, 2021 0:49:42 GMT
I'd suggest The Magicians is more entertaining than WoT. To you? Sure. To a general audience? I don't buy it. It's low-budget Whedonesque snark with some unfortunate attitudes so certainly has an audience. I might even characterise it as the poor man's The Order (I know it predates it). And The Order was the poor man's Vampire Diaries. Which was in turn the poor man's Buffy/Angel. My point is about the fallibility of Prime reviews though, if you want me to pick something even crappier and with a good score I'm sure it's out there because as I said, virtually every show that runs at least a few seasons ends up with a 4.5-5 score. If WoT keeps going it will too. I'm guessing you're not on Prime writing up a one-star review anyway because who even does that for Prime shows? Weirdoes - that's who. (Also I'm guessing I probably just sold at least one person on The Magicians with all this!) |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 29, 2021 8:34:06 GMT
I'm not on Amazon writing a one star review, but the last episode of this was pretty crap. Even without the book comparison, the acting of the kids is wooden, the effects are poor and the decisions of the people involved make little to no sense (see battle). It was full of "what the hell are they doing that for" moments. Also, in what way did the climactic show down between the dark one and Rand feel at all climactic? And what did the Lew's scene add (aside from confusion as it was yet another scene my wife asked me to explain)? And then there was the horn... explain sod all yet again and have the general's best guys and anyone else nearby become incompetent (I'm used to Perrin in that role now... He really can't act) for reasons and off you go.
Really also don't understand why they spent an episode about a warder (and so much time on sexual relationships) and then had a rushed last couple of episodes. I'm beginning to think Barney must have wondered what the hell he'd got himself into as he could act.
I know they're long books with a lot to take in and lots of internal monologues, but they've got the whole medium of vision to help and I'm not sure they've done a good job. I wasn't a great fan of the books but can honestly say I preferred them to the series which isn't something I expected to say. To me, the show's writers are poor. Maybe they're under orders from Amazon to have X many sex scenes and X many swear words, but it's not great. They should have let the books be themselves rather than trying to make them GOT lite.
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MolarAm🔵
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Post by MolarAm🔵 on Dec 29, 2021 9:39:55 GMT
Tbh I'm surprised that people were so down on it, it was good enough for me. I even agree with most of the criticisms, they just didn't hit as hard for me.
Obviously I'd like for it to be more than just "good enough", hopefully it grows a bit in S2.
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Post by Phattso on Dec 29, 2021 9:47:31 GMT
I have no idea about the books at all, but I thought those eight-odd episodes whipped along at a decent clip and I was entertained. Decently high budget fantasy? Sure. Why not?
Agree on the points of having NFI on the geography of the place, but then... do I need to, to follow the story? See also: The Witcher. That throws half a dozen nation names, faction names, ranks, and all sorts of made up horseshit at you in the first few episodes with no larger context to place them in. But it was still entertaining, and by the end of season 2 I'd gotten my head around it (clearly wasn't paying attention during the games). So I suspect Wheel of Time will get better on that front now they've established the various factions and we have an idea on who the goodies and baddies are.
I'd watch another season.
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Post by grey_matters on Dec 29, 2021 11:44:19 GMT
Yeah, I liked it quite a bit despite agreeing with some of the criticisms. Young'uns are mostly shit actors but once they get a purpose or power this matters less. I find Lan to be the glue that holds things together. Everyone is a bit better in their scenes with him including Rosamund Pike (who is usually excellent anyway). There's some good lines in there too, I don't know if they came from the book but it helps a lot (versus, say, Foundation). Maybe not knowing the book and having low initial expectations helped but I'd watch an S2 tonorrow.
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lexw
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Post by lexw on Dec 30, 2021 15:37:01 GMT
Tbh I'm surprised that people were so down on it, it was good enough for me. I even agree with most of the criticisms, they just didn't hit as hard for me. Obviously I'd like for it to be more than just "good enough", hopefully it grows a bit in S2. Yeah feel similarly. Most of the criticisms are legit. They just don't feel like very strong criticisms for me, not ones that impacted my enjoyment. I also, just going to put this out there, feel like if you like The Expanse, like if you've ever praised The Expanse, you should lose the licence to complain about wooden acting, even bad acting at all. Because holy fuck. The kids are "wooden" here? If that's "wooden", the entire main cast of The Expanse is solid mahogany (maybe barring Shoreh Agadashloo and Dominique Tipper, but the former is a scenery-chewer). I'm not saying it can't be criticised, but I do find there's some very selective stuff when people critique acting, like terrible acting is fine for one show, but not another. As for "x sex scenes" and "x swear words", I'm just rolling my eyes. I feel just reading that made me closer to be being a grumpy old man. |
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Bongo Heracles
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Post by Bongo Heracles on Dec 30, 2021 16:07:34 GMT
The difference I suppose is, like for all bad adaptation, if you’ve read the books your mind fills in the gaps.
If you haven’t, you finish an eight episode series not knowing who anyones name is, where they are, what they are doing or why they are doing it.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 30, 2021 16:21:50 GMT
Lexw, roll your eyes all you like and call me a grumpy old man if you want, but it's my opinion. I don't personally see a need for saying bollocks etc when it wasn't in the books and I question why it's in the TV series. I also don't see the need for time to be spent hoping in and out of bed when it again wasn't in the books and there's more content than they can fit in as it is.
As for the Expanse, I didn't get past the third episode of that as I found it a bit boring. The "wooden" comment was my wife's view, but I agree with her that they're not great (aside from Matt). Perrin is particularly poor and Bland isn't the best.
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lexw
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Post by lexw on Dec 31, 2021 16:36:48 GMT
If you haven’t, you finish an eight episode series not knowing who anyones name is, where they are, what they are doing or why they are doing it. I mean, I get where you're coming from, because I've experienced the same, I'm just not sure if it's the show that's the problem (it's not impossible) or the subject matter is inherently usually uninteresting to me. I can't speak for you, but for me, sometimes even in genres that can in theory interest me, my eyes just completely glaze over and I stop being able to retain or really absorb information about a show. Like I know "everyone" loves Scandi noir, and I loved the first two seasons of The Bridge (the real version), but every other "AMAZING" "MUST WATCH" Scandi noir I've tried I've just rapidly lost patience/interest with and been reduced to "Who is this guy?" "What does he want?" "Why did that guy get spectacularly murdered?" "Are we supposed to care for some reason?!". Is it the Emperor's New Clothes, or is it more like the Emperor is wearing new clothes, and I just find them incredibly boring? |
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Post by oldskooldeano on Dec 31, 2021 22:07:21 GMT
Does that include S1 of Forbrydelsen, the one that started it all? That is upper tier TV, a stone cold classic.
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Post by DakeyrasUK on Dec 31, 2021 23:48:31 GMT
Watched the first few episodes of this (no idea of the books plots) and was really enjoying it. Thought it would be a big mystery as to who the actual dragon reborn would be and would be a guess all the way through a second season at least.
Episode 7 comes and it just rushes to a conclusion far too quickly for my liking. And by the end of episode 8, boom the whole focus of Morraine is done... wtf? Then it tries to tempted me to a second series with a reveal of people on a boat? I can assume these are invaders or religious nut jobs coming to wreak havoc, but beyond that why do I care about them?
Was clearly for those in the know as it left me thinking meh.
Will give season 2 a go, but felt episodes 7 and 8 were far too rushed. I guess they can't win with us all on pacing though.
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MolarAm🔵
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Post by MolarAm🔵 on Jan 1, 2022 0:08:36 GMT
I just thought the boat thing at the end was cool. Yeah I know who those people are, and that helps, but it was a really good visual in a show that needs more of that kind of thing.
Though the Blight looked amazing too, tbf.
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Post by ignatiusjreilly on Jan 1, 2022 0:12:10 GMT
Yep, the boat people are very good in the books.
And Morraine has plenty more to contribute.
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lexw
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Post by lexw on Jan 2, 2022 0:57:51 GMT
Does that include S1 of Forbrydelsen, the one that started it all? That is upper tier TV, a stone cold classic. I think that's what's translated as "The Killing" here and if so no, by the time people were pummelling me with Scandi noir recommendations I think that was not one of them anymore. I considered watching it a while back but the combination of Scandi noir with a 20-episode season put me off (usually 20 episodes of anything means at least 4-5 kinda-duff or filler episodes - though there are exceptions). It's on iPlayer so I might see it eventually. The one downside/upside of Scandi noir is you can't "lazy watch" it because you need the subtitles, thus can't watch it whilst doing anything else. I think this helped it succeed in some ways because when people pay more attention to a show and can't be scrolling Twitter or playing a game or making food, they engage with it more and appreciate what it is doing more, but it limits when I can watch it. |
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Post by arnvidr on Jan 2, 2022 9:55:50 GMT
I really enjoyed this.
Read book 1 again this fall, and none of the changes made for the show bothered me. Some of them were a bit "why?", but the little "behind the scenes" things rationalised some of them fairly well. Like adding the sex stuff, which I gather was mostly to show the kids as being older than they are in the books.
The critique I most agree with is the rushed feel of some of this. Stretching it out to a few more episodes so they could explain some things more in depth would maybe have been better. And the final battle was daft.
Also was surprised by the season 2 teaser. My 20 year old memories thought these guys showed up in book 6 or 7 or something like that, far into the series. Guess my memory is wrong?
Anyway, I expected this to be utter shit, it turned out to be quite enjoyable. Thumbs up!
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