I think there’s a difference between taking inspiration from a source and re-enacting it. Lots of art gets information and inspiration from this or that, but creators tend to put their own spin on it and develop the work into something that stands on its own merits, independent of its origins. I’d argue Firefly managed to do that successfully. Comparisons can be made, but it doesn’t line up enough to prove it advocated for the Confederacy. Given the movie, where the Alliance’s plans to drug entire planets full of people into docility and compliance were discovered, I really can’t believe they could be construed to represent the Northern side. I’m not saying the show didn’t have its issues, it did, but that wasn’t one of them.
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I wouldn’t say Firefly is pro-Confederacy but given the “Old West but in space” setting it’s easy to see parallels with Westerns set shortly after the American Civil War.
So maybe not trying to redeem the slavers so much as imagining a similar conflict in which the rebels hadn’t been a bunch of assholes fighting for an indefensible cause.
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Exactly.
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I just watched the first three myself, actually impressed by how closely they’ve stuck to the source material overall.
One character I’ll miss is Captain Ashford. His character was significantly changed the books but in fun and interesting ways.
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I wanted to like it …
On that show—as far as I got through it anyway—God and the Church are good, Satan and Michael Emerson are evil, and secular skeptics are fools who don’t know how the universe really works
Notwithstanding the massive deviation from the real world, it should be possible to construct a fictional narrative like that—that I might want to watch—but Evil made it pretty hard
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Yeah, everything I have to say is spoilers, lol.
I guess I was a bit confused about the extra stuff they chose to include. Unless my memory is totally failing me, the attack on Earth was an almost total surprise in the book. The show has spent a lot of time building an investigation by Avasarala wherein the attack is far more foreshadowed. I remembered being pretty shocked by the rocks falling, but in the show it’s a given before the event happens.
I kinda wish they’d spent that time instead on the novella about Amos. We have such a brief flashback. That story fills out Amos’s character so much; his ideals about loyalty, how he manages to find his moral compass in others, etc. It just seems to me that foreshadowing the rocks falling took away from visceral shock of the attack, while not leaving enough time to really give The Churn a good fleshing out.
But… Amos is my favorite character, so there’s that.
Edit: Oh, and I kinda wish they’d taken the time to explain why Naomi left in the first place. I think they are going to, since they showed the monument to the ship. She wasn’t lured away in the show either (the attempt to get the Roci, and instead her buying the ship to rescue her son etc). I guess it isn’t that I dislike the differences so much as I get puzzled as to why they chose them.
Edit 2: Also, and the disappearing ships. I suppose they are leaving that out because it has been said that nothing of the later books will be in Season 6. ( But they are already talking about the creepy entities that disrupt reality and killed the gate builders, oddly ) I kept waiting for them to talk about it, since the suspicion was that they were being stolen, and that kicked off a lot of inquiries in the books.
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How I loathe that man’s character; dude is a really good actor.
I can hang for another season simply* because I’m highly intrigued by the idea of evil forces using current day tech to sow chaos and discord… but it had better go somewhere within the next 3 eps of the next season, or I will drop it like every other show that has lost my interest.
I don’t believe in ‘sunk costs.’
*Also, because Michael Colter is fine as fuck, so that makes it much easier to ignore most of the issues of the first season.
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Based on me telling my partner what you said about both American Gods and Breaking Bad (and I like to think a small amount of my own recommendation as well), my partner decided to give it a go. We [re]watched the first two episodes last night, and wow, I had forgotten just how solid it really is.
Also, she spotted the body pack for Cranston’s wireless mic in the first episode that I had never noticed. She truly is the one for me.
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Nearly done on the last season of the Crown… I have to say that Gillian Anderson is just killing it as Thatcher. She is a pure delight to watch playing a woman I can’t stand. The scenes where she and the Queen are fighting over the SA sanctions, both at the Commonwealth meeting (and I also loved how the number of leaders in the room with Thatcher kept growing in that scene), and after the Queen had her displeasure leaked, where Thatcher revealed that her son had business interests in SA were so well done. Also, man, she was so awkward in the episode where she and her husband are invited to Balmoral. I’m struck by the fact that when they come down for drinks before dinner, all dressed up when everyone else is still in outdoor clothing, and the Queen makes everyone else go change, that was her trying to make the PM feel more comfortable.
And Josh O’Connor is great as Prince Charles, but man, they are playing him to be a real, self-centered, jerk who really takes it out on Diana. When he mocks her attempts to perform for him on the video, and then basically ignores her for months after that…, well, it’s clear where they are placing the blame.
But as always, Olivia Colman is amazing to watch!
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I think a lot of the changes were sensible concessions for adapting to the TV format.
The show had already clued viewers in to the Belter plot to drop the rocks on Earth at the end of the last season, so putting Avasarala in a heated race against the clock to discover and stop the terrorists was a better use of her character’s screen time than just pushing more busywork on her (or having Shohreh Aghdashloo sit out the first chunk of the season entirely). Plus it gives the heartbreaking impact of the attacks even more emotional weight since she came this close to being able to do something to save Earth… or at least save her husband.
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I also highly recommend the prequel, Better Call Saul; which is equally as well done.
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Just started a rewatch with the kiddo… I kind of like it better than Breaking Bad, actually.
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As someone who read that book twice in high school (second time the unabridged version), should I even bother finding out what streaming service it’s on?
I watched that back in the day, as it were. Ya know, in the beforetimes. And I wouldn’t even have thought to check had it not been for this convo… but it turns out I still have two seasons of that yet to watch. Last I saw was McKean workin’ for that Emmy.
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Agree on Gillian Anderson, but I love her anyway. They aren’t pulling too many punches with Charles but so what? They reconstruct real life footage for him and Diana and we was a total arsehole. The only person they really went easy on so far was Montbatten: they needed him as a good guy and apart from his debacle in India he was also a paedophile child trafficker of vulnerable children from a care home in Northern Ireland so fuck him.
Though having him played by Charles Dance makes him hard to like anyway. See also Edward in the new casting. Loved how they replicated Dance in GoT skinning an animal and setting up the dynasty with his son but Tobias Menzies played Lannister.
The show runner called royalty a virus recently so I don’t think it will end well for the Torygraph / Daily Heil crowd. I think the penny is beginning to drop with them already.
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Last episode of the season. Not a spoiler to say I almost peed myself… twice… is it?
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Rewatch, for the good of my soul.
So we came here to burgle your turts.
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As someone who has read it once or twice a little more recently than that, I can tell you that it’s still too soon to say.
The first ep wasn’t bad, and it looks better than the previous made for tv adaptation.
Go with your own best judgment and, as with all Stephen King adaptations, keep your expectations low.
Even his best books dont necessarily translate well to the screen.
McKean deserves an Emmy for his work on BCS.
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Oh yeah, no doubt!
Yeah, I was not too keen on that once I learned about the child trafficking…
Charles Dance plays an awesome asshole!
I guess we know how he feels about the Monarchy!
I’m pretty struck by the cycles in the British media (at least seeing it from this side and sort of expressed in the show) of the royal family either being loved or hated. It’s pretty clear that it was a love cycle up to Harry’s marriage, and now it’s on a down cycle, primarily because this past season of the show is reminding everyone how dickish they were to Diana.
I do think, overall, the show is pretty sympathetic to the Queen overall, even if the show is pretty anti-monarchic in orientation…
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