The story of a coup.
This presents us with a world where eugenics are the law. To the point where they're at stage five or six of the 10 total of genocide, the 9th being eradication. Where slavery is ruthlessly enforced by the caste system. The good news is that after introducing us to that it does provide us with someone who is doing all he can to overturn it. The bad is that he's the villain. And at no point does this manage to get across why we should side against him and with the royal family, who are established to be indifferent to all the problems of the city of Attilan they rule over, with 1400 citizens total. Why not simply make it that at the start of this, the King is going to make these changes, and the antagonist is desperate to stop him? Similar to how the South preferred Civil War to giving up owning people. Considering how many still feel that way it would be relevant.
I mean, best I can tell is it's an appeal to power. They're basically saying "they are in charge and it's not for the rest of us to question them". I don't think it's random that this came out not very long into Trump's first, and hopefully only, term. It reeks of government propaganda. Then again, a lot of the time, so does Agents of Shield. And that one still managed to very openly criticize him. Maybe this was meant as a counter to that? By the way, the only good thing about the existence of this show is that it might direct more people to watch that one; it's far superior to this. I mean, you'd think based on this that Donald was overwhelmingly popular across the entire country, when that was never the case; there was a vocal protest movement against him from the time he first announced his candidacy. This despite all the times he encouraged his supporters to violently attack them, sometimes managing to convince them to do so.
I personally think the politics mean that we shouldn't even consider supporting this. It is completely unacceptable to fight for, rather than against, fascism, especially today when it's on the rise and might win. I do appreciate that the rest of this is also terrible. It's extremely clear that this was originally intended as a 150 million dollar feature film. And honestly, the moment that was shut down, it should almost definitely just have been completely dropped. In no way does this have enough plot for eight episodes of 40 minutes each, for 5 hours and 20 minutes. It is unbelievably padded. The opening in the finale, both perfectly fine if we're grading on a curve, are really the only times where anything happens that matters at all.
So what must we endure in the remaining, I somehow hear you ask? Bland fish out of water comedy, unengaging melodrama and an endless series of terrible decisions by those who should know better, purely so that things can happen the way that they do. After we see the superpowers used some in the pilot, this bends over backwards to explain a way why we don't see them that much after that point, because in reality they don't have the money for that. Maybe this could have worked if it was animated? I mean no disrespect to anyone who draws for a living; it clearly requires talent. However, if you are skilled enough, you can draw really wild scenarios that are incredibly difficult to replicate in live action. These were originally conceived in 1965, a time where pretty much any far out concept they thought would appeal to readers could make it into comics.
When we actually do get special effects, they usually are way too ambitious. I realise that the Moon city requires CGI. At the very least for the invisibility dome. But if they were gonna do this many such sweeping shots of the exterior, they really should have done as much as they could have of that with miniatures. Also, why do they keep feeling the need to let us know that's what we're looking at in text? More than halfway through, this opens one scene in a location that we're at this point completely accustomed to by telling us that's where it's taking place. Lockjaw the 2000 pound dog is just not ever completely convincing. And it's ridiculous in my opinion that they insisted on doing that entirely on a computer. All they needed was to get an actual bulldog, a trainer, and then make it look bigger in post. There definitely are some very impressive prosthetics.
There's not a huge amount of action, which is honestly a relief considering how mishandled it always is. I do want to give credit to the choreography team; they clearly were making an effort. Unfortunately, it's usually difficult to make out it or the geography, because this goes back and forth between quick cuts, where the camera is entirely to close for us to make out anything other than that a person is hitting someone else, and then these medium or long shots that enable us to realize what just happened, yet are too far away from the subject for us to feel anything about it. The kind of camera you might like for a fighting tournament game, though only used in brief lulls or after someone has already won. While I prefer interesting a-holes to boring goody two shoes, no one on this is actually compelling. And it does not appear that the people working on it had any idea that the leads are so unappealing. We just have one scene after another where they treat people badly who are doing nothing wrong, sometimes even ones who are helping them. When there is character growth, it's too little too late, and feels unearned. There isn't a single good acting performance here. This means it's because bad direction.
This presents us with a world where eugenics are the law. To the point where they're at stage five or six of the 10 total of genocide, the 9th being eradication. Where slavery is ruthlessly enforced by the caste system. The good news is that after introducing us to that it does provide us with someone who is doing all he can to overturn it. The bad is that he's the villain. And at no point does this manage to get across why we should side against him and with the royal family, who are established to be indifferent to all the problems of the city of Attilan they rule over, with 1400 citizens total. Why not simply make it that at the start of this, the King is going to make these changes, and the antagonist is desperate to stop him? Similar to how the South preferred Civil War to giving up owning people. Considering how many still feel that way it would be relevant.
I mean, best I can tell is it's an appeal to power. They're basically saying "they are in charge and it's not for the rest of us to question them". I don't think it's random that this came out not very long into Trump's first, and hopefully only, term. It reeks of government propaganda. Then again, a lot of the time, so does Agents of Shield. And that one still managed to very openly criticize him. Maybe this was meant as a counter to that? By the way, the only good thing about the existence of this show is that it might direct more people to watch that one; it's far superior to this. I mean, you'd think based on this that Donald was overwhelmingly popular across the entire country, when that was never the case; there was a vocal protest movement against him from the time he first announced his candidacy. This despite all the times he encouraged his supporters to violently attack them, sometimes managing to convince them to do so.
I personally think the politics mean that we shouldn't even consider supporting this. It is completely unacceptable to fight for, rather than against, fascism, especially today when it's on the rise and might win. I do appreciate that the rest of this is also terrible. It's extremely clear that this was originally intended as a 150 million dollar feature film. And honestly, the moment that was shut down, it should almost definitely just have been completely dropped. In no way does this have enough plot for eight episodes of 40 minutes each, for 5 hours and 20 minutes. It is unbelievably padded. The opening in the finale, both perfectly fine if we're grading on a curve, are really the only times where anything happens that matters at all.
So what must we endure in the remaining, I somehow hear you ask? Bland fish out of water comedy, unengaging melodrama and an endless series of terrible decisions by those who should know better, purely so that things can happen the way that they do. After we see the superpowers used some in the pilot, this bends over backwards to explain a way why we don't see them that much after that point, because in reality they don't have the money for that. Maybe this could have worked if it was animated? I mean no disrespect to anyone who draws for a living; it clearly requires talent. However, if you are skilled enough, you can draw really wild scenarios that are incredibly difficult to replicate in live action. These were originally conceived in 1965, a time where pretty much any far out concept they thought would appeal to readers could make it into comics.
When we actually do get special effects, they usually are way too ambitious. I realise that the Moon city requires CGI. At the very least for the invisibility dome. But if they were gonna do this many such sweeping shots of the exterior, they really should have done as much as they could have of that with miniatures. Also, why do they keep feeling the need to let us know that's what we're looking at in text? More than halfway through, this opens one scene in a location that we're at this point completely accustomed to by telling us that's where it's taking place. Lockjaw the 2000 pound dog is just not ever completely convincing. And it's ridiculous in my opinion that they insisted on doing that entirely on a computer. All they needed was to get an actual bulldog, a trainer, and then make it look bigger in post. There definitely are some very impressive prosthetics.
There's not a huge amount of action, which is honestly a relief considering how mishandled it always is. I do want to give credit to the choreography team; they clearly were making an effort. Unfortunately, it's usually difficult to make out it or the geography, because this goes back and forth between quick cuts, where the camera is entirely to close for us to make out anything other than that a person is hitting someone else, and then these medium or long shots that enable us to realize what just happened, yet are too far away from the subject for us to feel anything about it. The kind of camera you might like for a fighting tournament game, though only used in brief lulls or after someone has already won. While I prefer interesting a-holes to boring goody two shoes, no one on this is actually compelling. And it does not appear that the people working on it had any idea that the leads are so unappealing. We just have one scene after another where they treat people badly who are doing nothing wrong, sometimes even ones who are helping them. When there is character growth, it's too little too late, and feels unearned. There isn't a single good acting performance here. This means it's because bad direction.