One More on the Telly: Page 98 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

One More on the Telly

Mirth

Meh, I'm more looking forward to Netflix's adaptation of the Witcher series. LoTR has too much baggage associated with the series.

goon

Qwiss! wrote:
Gazza M wrote:
amazon have done well with their exclusives so far, and they're hedging alot on this franchise. hopefully they don't fuck it up

Have they?

I've only watched two. Sneaky Pete, which is great, and the Man in High Castle, which is hit and miss but generally a good watch.

I'd have definitely trust Netflix with it more though, for the amount of content they put out the general quality is very good.

jones

I watched lots of Amazon shows. There are some pearls in there like Patriot which is the best show around by a big margin but a lot of hilariously shit shows too, overall Netflix has clearly better content.

Klaus

Burnwinter wrote:
I think it's likely to feel rather bad and ungainly though, as it'll be aesthetically indebted to the Jackson films but won't have their great level of detail in its production design or, you know, the original Tolkien material to work with.

I actually think it's gonna be the exact opposite. Jackson's studio is involved I believe (I think he serves as some form of producer or something), and the show has a budget per episode that reportedly even surpasses Game of Thrones. Aesthetically it should be spot on.

I think it will be liberating for them to be able to pick among events in the Middle Earth mythology that haven't been too closely described too. Less burden of canon and such. Tolkien was a genius at world-building, but you'd be straining yourself to call him a great author. If they hire a few competent writers this could turn out exceptionally well.

Daz

Are you nerding out Klaus?

Burnwinter

Klaus wrote:
I actually think it's gonna be the exact opposite. Jackson's studio is involved I believe (I think he serves as some form of producer or something), and the show has a budget per episode that reportedly even surpasses Game of Thrones. Aesthetically it should be spot on.

I think it will be liberating for them to be able to pick among events in the Middle Earth mythology that haven't been too closely described too. Less burden of canon and such. Tolkien was a genius at world-building, but you'd be straining yourself to call him a great author. If they hire a few competent writers this could turn out exceptionally well.

It depends on what you'd be hoping to get out of it. If all you want is a thing that looks very Tolkienesque but has better dramatic beats, I wouldn't be surprised if you got it.

I just don't see the real distinctions of Tolkien's work, like the templates of character and plot that draw on traditional epics, romances, and sagas, or his punctilious fidelity to his own "subcreated" vision of language, history and geography, being well represented.

An opportunity to fuse Tolkien onto the story arcs of today's serial drama could be interesting, or it could just be like GoT, enthralling at first but increasingly ramshackle and hollow.

goon

Fucking Syfy cancelled Dark Matter too? What’s the matter with them!

I like my space stuff and they’re all being killed off one by one. Lost in Space better be good. I have to say the trailer didn’t exactly fill me with confidence.

Klaus

Burnwinter wrote:
It depends on what you'd be hoping to get out of it. If all you want is a thing that looks very Tolkienesque but has better dramatic beats, I wouldn't be surprised if you got it.

I just don't see the real distinctions of Tolkien's work, like the templates of character and plot that draw on traditional epics, romances, and sagas, or his punctilious fidelity to his own "subcreated" vision of language, history and geography, being well represented.

And I'm saying that's not a bad thing to me. I read Silmarillion once, and I'm pretty sure that experience shortened my life by a couple of years... and that was back in my late teens when I was heavily into this stuff.

I did the audio books for Lord of the Rings a few months ago, and one of the most striking things was how I found that every single creative decision Peter Jackson made for the movies was for the better. Even the tiny stuff, like giving a line to a different character. Being unfettered from Tolkien's tedious writings is very unlikely to be a bad thing as far as storytelling is concerned.

Klaus

goon wrote:
Fucking Syfy cancelled Dark Matter too? What’s the matter with them!

Dark Matter still hurts. It was getting so good too. It had just managed to establish the kind of form where anything goes. Most entertaining space scifi show since Firefly probably.

If it's any consolation, I think The Expanse is likely to be picked back up, either by Syfy or someone else (hopefully it's someone else). The fan campaign seems to be working. The people who were supposed to tear down the sets were suddenly given orders to halt last week. Twice. Last I saw they have been put on hold until further notice.

banduan

WTF they cancelled The Expanse???

Klaus

Yeah, but it's owned by a third-party production company who are shopping it around right now. People are hoping for Amazon or Netflix to pick it up. The fans are campaigning like madmen to prove that there's an audience for the show,

Do yourself a favour bandy and sign this petition and pass the link around: https://www.change.org/p/amazon-or-netflix-please-buy-the-rights-to-the-expanse-savetheexpanse

Burnwinter

Klaus wrote:
And I'm saying that's not a bad thing to me. I read Silmarillion once, and I'm pretty sure that experience shortened my life by a couple of years... and that was back in my late teens when I was heavily into this stuff.

I did the audio books for Lord of the Rings a few months ago, and one of the most striking things was how I found that every single creative decision Peter Jackson made for the movies was for the better. Even the tiny stuff, like giving a line to a different character. Being unfettered from Tolkien's tedious writings is very unlikely to be a bad thing as far as storytelling is concerned.

Got to say, I don't feel the same way about it. To me the strength of the LotR films is the obsessive attention to the detail of Tolkien's works, which mainly comes from the trainspotting concept artists like John Howe and Alan Lee, the cast, and the amazing homogeneity of look and feel they managed to achieve with the concurrent shoot.

It makes little difference that they gave Liv Tyler a sword and had Arwen replace Glorfindel in the chase at the Ford of Rivendell. That kind of thing is largely irrelevant to the success of the films.

I can't disagree that Tolkien's a "bad writer" by ordinary standards (and an utterly awful poet!). But nevertheless the distinction of his work is its ponderous trajectories, the absence of eroticism and romance, the bombastic language, and the mythic influences. We have enough perfectly good pot-boiler fantasy soap operas there's no need to try to shoehorn Tolkien into that idea.

Gazza M

banduan wrote:
WTF they cancelled The Expanse???

just heard about this as well. how lame

goon

Watched the first couple of episodes of Lost in Space last night. Not bad, cute show. I can tell Dr Smith is going to be an awful and awfully annoying character already though.

Daz

My daughter binge watched it over the weekend and really liked it. I'm going to watch it with her now.

Burnwinter

Atlanta … is good.

QuincyAbeyie

I've only heard bad things about Lost in Time. Both reviews and what people are saying make it seem pretty mediocre.

Finally begun watching Veep, very funny show.

Klaus

Burnwinter wrote:
It makes little difference that they gave Liv Tyler a sword and had Arwen replace Glorfindel in the chase at the Ford of Rivendell. That kind of thing is largely irrelevant to the success of the films.

It makes little difference to you Burnsy, but if you think that the added focus on Aragorn and Arwen's relationship has no part in how successful those films have become across all demographics then you don't know enough women who regularly rewatch them. They've become a fandom phenomenon.

Try telling those fans that the point of Tolkien is the absence of eroticism and romance. Most of them are already rejecting the source material in favour of the cinematic universe. They get the same attention to detail, but with an added romantic dimension, and they don't have to listen to some old prat who's writing jokes about slant-eyed easterners.

flobaba

West world S2 has been so underwhelming so far.

goon

Not watched S2 yet but most of S1 was underwhelming too, it was only the intrigue and the end that made it worthwhile. I was hoping they'd ramp it up in S2.

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