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The Witcher (2019)
Terrible writing, bad pacing, confusing timeline, no character development, lack of identity, but with a decent protagonist
I have played Witcher 3 and read some of the books, I'd say I love W3, they did an excellent job with the characters, the world and the overall writing, and the books are brilliant as well. Now coming to the show, starting with what I liked - Cavill's Geralt is absolutely spot on, he nails it. The production value is also decent and some of the side characters like Tissaia and Jaskier are done well. Fight scenes are top notch, Cavill brings the physicality to them that was required.
Now to the bad. Everything is rushed, the pacing is terrible and it's full of awkward timeline jumps that are done so badly that it will confuse even the avid fans of the series. Dialogue at some instances are horrific and the majority of the jokes did not land. The storytelling suffers because of the terrible pacing and the timeline jumps. There is no room for character development, if you do not already know these characters, the show doesn't make any efforts to make you relate to them or care for them(except for Geralt). Infact some of the character and their arcs are changed for the worse in the show. For example, in the books and in W3, Yennefer is sometimes arrogant but she's also genuinely intelligent and cares for people she loves. In the show she does nothing smart, we are just forced to believe that she's intelligent and she throws everyone around her in a dustbin. Yennefer's character segments are all either her whining about what she didn't get from life or acting smart(instead of doing anything smart). She's a complete fool in the show. Other characters like Calanthe, Vilgefortz and Eyck of Denesle are also portrayed horribly.
The casting is bad as well. Except for a few actors, none of them seemed like they belong in a Slavic/East European medieval fantasy setting. Beauty is subjective but some people look better than other in general, Triss looks nowhere near as good as she's supposed to, and infact the minor female character(Renfri) that we meet in the first episode looks better than almost the entirety of the rest of the major female cast whom we know are supposed to look beautiful.
And talking about Slavic roots, well, there doesn't seem to be any here. There is no hint of the Slavic folklore and culture present in the show. W3 did the adaptation of the folklore so brilliantly with all the different East European(and Scandinavian) dresses and costumes, the various folk monster/beast designs and lore, the stories and superstitions of the land, the little intricate details within the accents and the language and the different cultures, and the rituals and customs of the local people. These are the things that differentiated the witcher series from other medieval fantasy stories. There's none of that here. It feels like a generic 2019 superficially diversified medieval show with high fantasy elements. This ain't witcher.
To sum this up, it's not a straight up bad show, but a painfully mediocre one. Though if not for Cavill's brilliant portrayal of Geralt and the very obvious high production value of the show, maybe I would give this a 3. What they needed to do was to take it slow and do what they did in the first episode(which was the best of the season imo) i.e. Start with Geralt's adventures and stories and build up the main narrative(a shorter, more focused one than what this show had) towards a longer season of 13 or 24 episodes. That gives us more time with the characters, and gives the writers more room for exposition and world building, which would have eventually resulted in a more coherent experience. For season 2, I'm hoping they would honor the Slavic foundations and the identity of the witcher series, improve writing and pacing, and deliver quality over quantity without a rush for completing the saga. They might need to change up the writing staff and rethink their decisions for this to happen; but looking at the fan reception of this season, I highly doubt that will happen.
Game of Thrones: Beyond the Wall (2017)
Game of Clichés
Game of Thrones as a TV show was unique, because of the realistic developments in plot and engaging storytelling. We as an audience, felt invested in the characters and the plot, and eventually grew to care about it all. Scenes were actually powerful, with some amazing writing, dialogues and acting. Since season 5, the writers have banked on the audience's investment in the characters and plot, without bringing in too many new developments, and most of the episodes consist of events rather than actual story. But this season went one step further into the darkness by having zero storytelling, just events after events after events. Me as a viewer, has no reason to watch these episodes, expect for the reason that I have grown to care about the characters and the story through previous seasons. There is no unique quality of dialogue or storytelling happening here that one would be willing to invest their time in. I can recall only a single scene at the top of my head that had a bit the game of thronsy flavor, the confrontation of Jamie Lannister and Olenna Tyrell. That type of dialogue and tension is the reason why we fell in love with game of thrones in the first place.
These are some of the major flaws of this episode:
SELLING JON SNOW TO THE AUDIENCE. We grew to like Jon Snow through all these seasons because the character selflessly committed himself to the right thing no matter what. Recently though, the writers are treating him as a stereotypical hero(Jon Snow fights bad. Jon Snow gets girl. Jon Snow gets rescued by not so important characters and they die but who cares about them anyways.) So many good characters are being given a second grade treatment, in favor of the "Oh So Mighty Jon Snow". Jon is invincible, he just won't die, you have failed to create any real tension.
FORCED CONVERSATIONS AMONGST THE FELLOWSHIP. The conversations and dialogue quality has been on a downfall for the last two seasons. But the conversation amongst the fellowship was so unnatural and superficial, it felt like they needed everyone who knows each other from somewhere in their past, should at least have a word or two with each other. Instead, you could have written some good conversations amongst just a few of them, but no, quantity over quality.
FLOW BREAKING WINTERFELL SEGMENT. I have no idea, where the whole winterfell segment is heading towards but the way it is handled, is absolutely terrible. Do you recall any of the penultimate episodes of any season, "Hardhome", "Watchers on the Wall", "Battle of the Bastards", any of them, breaking the flow of the major current sequence, to show something else? NO. Well hold tight, coz Dan and David found a way to break an already thin flow of the Eastwatch sequence, repeatedly, with something that could have been handled much better.
CONTRIVED ROMANCE BETWEEN JON AND DANY. I do not have a problem with them being together. But I expect more development than just "a pretty girl meets a good guy", from a show like Game of Thrones. These characters have shared the screen for not more than 4-5 scenes, and you expect us to get invested in this relationship? There is no realistic conversation or development that would lead up to this, as there was with all the other relationships in game of thrones that would justify the bonding. Jamie and Cersei, Tyrion and Shae, Jon and Ygritte, you take any duo, there was a well established connection and chemistry between them. But here, the relationship is handled in the most half arsed manner. Does all that the writers care about is entertaining the kids who go woohoo at the idea of Jon x Dany? Is this what it is? Is Game of Thrones reduced to just pleasing the mainstream?
VERY CONVENIENT AND DUMBED DOWN ACTION SEQUENCES. A single walker stays alive while the rest of them dies, the Other had just a single walker that wasn't converted by him in the pack. The walkers and the bear only manages to kill the extras in the group. When the ice layer formed again and the walkers started walking over it and closing in, why the hell did they not just break the ice again with the hammer? Jon continues moving away from the group while fighting walkers for no apparent reason. Night King is an Olympic medal winner for javelin throwing. That's the best they could show, in what could have been the most powerful action sequences in the entire got history? Chains appear out of nowhere to pull out the dragon.
VOID OF ANY REAL TENSION OR EMOTIONS. Oh look! Jon and the fellowship are cornered from all ends by the walkers, WILL. HE. SURVIVE? Oh look, Jon got sucked in the chilled water, WILL. HE. SURVIVE? Oh look, they are all coming to kill Jon, he has nowhere to go, WILL. HE. SURVIVE?
LET'S JUST THROW BENJEN STARK UNDER THE BUS. Couldn't have handled the return of Benjen Stark in a worse way than this. He had to stay behind to kill the walkers because the causal audience only want to see Jon escaping alive, screw Benjen Stark.
The writing has been stripped down to the level of pleasing the lowest common denominator of audience, who don't care about the realistic characters or the deep storyline. This episode just takes the bad aspect to the next level. Not only does it fail to deliver anything emotionally, but it also manages to totally ruin many of the epic moments and reunions that I was looking forward to. A consolized episode, full of clichés. There are a ton of shows with this type of generic writing and and flashy moments. If I wanted to experience contrived romance, braindead action sequences, and an illogical and terribly executed timeline and plot, then I can watch those shows anytime.
Westworld (2016)
SUPERFICIAL. A missed opportunity to deliver a strong script alongside an already great technical team and cast.
The only reason I am writing this review is because currently, Westworld with a rating of 9.2 falls under the tier of series' such as Game of Thrones, Fargo and Stranger Things.
The following points highlight why I do not consider it as good as it is being reviewed and rated by most.
* STORY IS A MESS
It is one thing to keep the story rich with several plot points and story lines and other to JUMBLE it up so that the audience cannot actually keep track of what's happening. There is nothing really happening and the audience has been kept for a supposed big surprise. Whether they will actually be able to deliver something that justifies all of the build up that they are doing and is LOGICALLY CONSISTENT at the same time is yet to be seen. For now, we can just wait. Usually, the stories that actually deliver, reveal the CHARACTER MOTIVATIONS from time to time and then narrate a story that will be true to the characters being written. Here, all the characters are totally VAGUE and the writers are free to bend their strings according to their own will. The script and concepts of Westworld have taken inspiration from many good classic sci-fi movies such as The Truman Show but all of those concepts are mixed in together haphazardly to create a mess.
* THE FUTURISTIC REAL WORLD OF WESTWORLD WOULD ALREADY BE SAVVY ENOUGH WITH AI TO BE THIS FASCINATED WITH "WESTWORLD"
Westworld is made from our PERSPECTIVE(people in 2016) and how we would feel if such an AI themed park existed. An organisation would not get hands on such highly SENSITIVE and dangerous AI out of the blue and get permissions from concerned authorities(government) to operate a theme park using such delicate technologies unless that technology is considered safe. If they are indeed considered safe, in that case they would be used in many other more important fields and tasks first before considering to be used for entertainment purposes. Thus, The Real World of Westworld would not be this NAIVE and unfamiliar to such advanced AI anyway.
* THE BASIC CONCEPT OF AI IN MOVIES AND TV - SYMPATHY, EXISTENTIAL CRISIS AND HATRED, IS NOTHING WE HAVEN'T SEEN BEFORE
Let me say this because this needs to be said - Playing with our heads to create sympathy for AI is nothing but nonsense because the whole concept of artificial intelligence is that it's ARTIFICIAL. AI will NEVER feel emotions like humans do, they might become smarter than we are but they will never feel. Whatever emotions we might think they exhibit is always an ILLUSION for human minds in thinking that they are expressing emotions but for them it's just a bunch of INPUTTING, PROCESSING and OUTPUTTING.
* GOING IN TECHNICALITIES OF THIS MICHAEL CRICHTON'S WORK IS LIKE KILLING YOURSELF
One guy makes story lines, one guy programmes AI, one woman is responsible for quality control and one guy is the head of all final decisions. They interact with each other CASUALLY without any meetings and discussions on all types of decisions, no matter how important the decision might be. There is no TESTING, beta or alpha, and the updates are directly implemented on the final product. Is this the way the organisations work in real life? The reason I mentioned Crichton was because this reminded me of Jurassic Park, the shortcomings that it had are clearly reflected in Westworld too even if this is made in 2016.
* "THEY COME BACK BECAUSE OF THE SUBTLETIES" BUT IRONICALLY, THE SUBTLETIES ARE TOTALLY MISSING FROM WESTWORLD
The obnoxious interiors with perfectly cut tiles, rooms separated by glasses and bar lights, with absolutely nothing else isn't subtle but SHALLOW. DIALOGUES are poor. Some scenes and settings are used in such REDUNDANT amounts that they seem to work as fillers and are REPETITIVE. These things only display a LACK OF IMAGINATION on writers' part.
* REPRESENTS A CULTURE OF HOLLOW SCI-FI MOVIES AND SHOWS
Westworld is not alone in this. Many movies like ex machina, star wars have similar SHORTCOMINGS and if Westworld also becomes critically acclaimed, it would encourage other writers to come up with scripts with such shortcomings and big production houses will put their money in those scripts. The culture of insubstantial stories might have worked in 70s but you need to come up with something substantial that matches the standards of series such as True Detective and Game of Thrones. This does not mean that there aren't any good sci-fi movies. The Truman Show, Terminator, Interstellar(another reason why I was disappointed), 12 Monkeys etc. are some of the better films of this genre but then that's my personal taste & choice.
THE GOOD : TECHNICAL TEAMS – effects, sound, costumes, cinematography etc. are splendid in their jobs, the ACTING is brilliant except for Sidse Babett Knudsen(Theresa Cullen), maybe she is meant to act this way(they might have something for her), the DIRECTION is good, everything is top notch as for the film making is concerned but for the thing that it stands on, the SCRIPT, is unfortunately VERY WEAK.
Since obviously, Westworld is made with brilliance it can be a GUILTY PLEASURE but nothing much else for me. I am a huge SKYRIM fan and the role-playing and story lines thing gave a nostalgia of RPGs and MMORPGs.
Modern standards for TV Shows have elevated massively in the last decade or two. Delivering on those standards is not easy but when you are making such a highly budgeted mature rated show, you gotta work harder on the CORE to at least make it match the stunning PRESENTATION being delivered.
Gone Girl (2014)
A Little Different Interpretation
I actually interpreted the ending in a way that no one did and I do not want to feel stupid so I would just share my interpretation of the conclusion.
The opening scene showed Amy's husband rubbing her hair saying some words. Now that same scene is also at the end, re acted though and a little different.
But what I concluded from this was that she was only thinking all this up in her mind to get revenge from her husband for cheating with her and nothing actually happened.
We often think of insane plans and executions in our minds that may not be possible so easily in reality. The same type of plan and its execution is shown the movie. I liked this movie because of this interpretation that Fincher was showing just the tensions and secrets of a marriage through this and nothing actually happened. The same is also visualised in the scene where Amy's says,"That's marriage.", in a way that she just wanted to teach a lesson to her husband and everything was normal again.
Do anyone have the same thoughts?
24 (2013)
Way to the Indian TV future
I was waiting for a long time for any such American TV series to come to India. Almost all TV Series of India are filled with crappy and endless melodrama. These nonsense family shows are just a commercial venture that have spoiled our TV cinema. Not even a single of those directors even have some respect for this art and thats why no such serials as 24 came out.
YRF Television brought us some good stuff that were having a limited and nice script and casting was also good. One of my favourite was Kismat http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1848141/?ref_=fn_al_tt_7 . These too were able to reach a limited population because of their late timings.
Now, Anil Kapoor, a great Indian film actor, after playing a small role in American TV Series 24 took step to bring us the same quality stuff. It was a risky attempt but he did a handsome amount of promotion and chose the most famous channel for his show. I would love to thank 24 cast and crew for bringing to us this special series and also congratulate them for its success opening.
After analyzing the 1st episode, I can say that the script is a nice one with a good amount of suspicions and thrills with a few 'Bollywood specific' errors that can be ignored. Casting is also excellent with Anil Kapoor, Anupam Kher, Tisca Chopra and many more good actors. I am hoping for its best in the future and may the public like it too.
It is the way to the Indian TV future.