3 ms·

well, let's see: bog-standard cgi, overbearing music that sounds like music in any other big recent(ish) "fantasy" production, stilted dialogue laced with awkwa

by cmm 4y ago

well, let's see: bog-standard cgi, overbearing music that sounds like music in any other big recent(ish) "fantasy" production, stilted dialogue laced with awkward exposition, nobody among the cast seems to know how to fucking act (except the guy playing John Dee, he's excellent though also exactly the same as everywhere else, so he just steals every scene he's in), that stupid raven, shall I go on. still watchable, weirdly enough, but just not good.

metroholografix 4y ago
Not to mention the lead doesn't have the chops to carry this thing through. In casting him, they went for surface (looks) rather than substance. To paraphrase the great Malcolm Tucker: He comes across like he should still be at school with his head down a fucking toilet.
Supermancho 4y ago
The raven feels like a studio note. Hey, let's get a grating voice^ to do narration and exposition cleanup, and it can completely counteract the dark moody theme for people who don't like that! ^ No offense to the great Patton Oswald, but the audio is boosted to make the choice seem even worse. He's supposed to be a voice for the Sandman, but instead he's a bullhorn.
- jjkaczor 4y ago
  I have never read the comic/graphic novel, so - was coming into this blind. It was going well, until Mathew opened his mouth and spoke - and all I could think of was... "Happy!"... Another graphic novel adaptation where Patton Oswald did voice acting... But that character worked with his voice, this... does not.
tptacek 4y ago
The music is a definitely weak point. The guy playing John Dee is David Thewlis, one of the best cinema actors of all time. Matthew the Raven is not well handled (he's not well-handled in the book either!), and his dialog is unearned and superficial. "Dreams don't die" is the Goonies wishing well speech repurposed. I groaned audibly. Episodes 2-4 were interesting as a fan of the books (though not of Preludes & Nocturnes, the weak first book), but if I weren't one of those, I'd have been happier skipping them. Episode 5 is good; episode 6 is unimpeachable.
- devchix 4y ago
  > The guy playing John Dee is David Thewlis, one of the best cinema actors of all time. He's Lupin in Harry Potters, for a quick reference (for others). I take it you've seen The Landscapers? Exceptional performances from both Thewlis and Olivia Colman. I came to Sandman as an adult, and I was not a comic reader as a child. Maybe that's why I love it, not having the fluency to recognize the uneven writing and things you listed as weakness? I remember being absolutely floored when I read the first few, and also being convinced it could never be successfully adapted. I thought there were so many nuances, so many allusions to myths and folklore woven into Gaiman's writing that a film adaptation would absolutely butcher the original material by its inability to render all the shades; (e.g. the Cain and Abel sub-story is played for laughs and misses the sinister undercurrent - it is after all a story about a man murdering his kin and lying about it to God). So far I'm pleasantly surprised by the series. I thought the casting and costuming of Morpheus dead-on. In the book he's drawn as a tall and pale Gothic priest. I appreciate that the production design tried to keep close to the visual framing in the book, I look at each frame and I could see the original in the derivative. I'm worried that the complexities of the books and its branching anthologies, after the world-building phase is done, will be reduced to stupid modern clichés, e.g. "when dream dies humanity would die" and similar treacle. For example how are you going to make sense of the story where Dream meets his friends every 100 years for a drink at an eternal tavern, I forget who was there, Newton and Pascal? That's not an episode to view but a novella or in its best form, a 20-page comic.

by cmm 4y ago

metroholografix 4y ago

Not to mention the lead doesn't have the chops to carry this thing through. In casting him, they went for surface (looks) rather than substance. To paraphrase the great Malcolm Tucker: He comes across like he should still be at school with his head down a fucking toilet.

Supermancho 4y ago

The raven feels like a studio note. Hey, let's get a grating voice^ to do narration and exposition cleanup, and it can completely counteract the dark moody theme for people who don't like that! ^ No offense to the great Patton Oswald, but the audio is boosted to make the choice seem even worse. He's supposed to be a voice for the Sandman, but instead he's a bullhorn.

jjkaczor 4y ago
I have never read the comic/graphic novel, so - was coming into this blind. It was going well, until Mathew opened his mouth and spoke - and all I could think of was... "Happy!"... Another graphic novel adaptation where Patton Oswald did voice acting... But that character worked with his voice, this... does not.

tptacek 4y ago

The music is a definitely weak point. The guy playing John Dee is David Thewlis, one of the best cinema actors of all time. Matthew the Raven is not well handled (he's not well-handled in the book either!), and his dialog is unearned and superficial. "Dreams don't die" is the Goonies wishing well speech repurposed. I groaned audibly. Episodes 2-4 were interesting as a fan of the books (though not of Preludes & Nocturnes, the weak first book), but if I weren't one of those, I'd have been happier skipping them. Episode 5 is good; episode 6 is unimpeachable.

devchix 4y ago
> The guy playing John Dee is David Thewlis, one of the best cinema actors of all time. He's Lupin in Harry Potters, for a quick reference (for others). I take it you've seen The Landscapers? Exceptional performances from both Thewlis and Olivia Colman. I came to Sandman as an adult, and I was not a comic reader as a child. Maybe that's why I love it, not having the fluency to recognize the uneven writing and things you listed as weakness? I remember being absolutely floored when I read the first few, and also being convinced it could never be successfully adapted. I thought there were so many nuances, so many allusions to myths and folklore woven into Gaiman's writing that a film adaptation would absolutely butcher the original material by its inability to render all the shades; (e.g. the Cain and Abel sub-story is played for laughs and misses the sinister undercurrent - it is after all a story about a man murdering his kin and lying about it to God). So far I'm pleasantly surprised by the series. I thought the casting and costuming of Morpheus dead-on. In the book he's drawn as a tall and pale Gothic priest. I appreciate that the production design tried to keep close to the visual framing in the book, I look at each frame and I could see the original in the derivative. I'm worried that the complexities of the books and its branching anthologies, after the world-building phase is done, will be reduced to stupid modern clichés, e.g. "when dream dies humanity would die" and similar treacle. For example how are you going to make sense of the story where Dream meets his friends every 100 years for a drink at an eternal tavern, I forget who was there, Newton and Pascal? That's not an episode to view but a novella or in its best form, a 20-page comic.