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The Magicians - SyFy [SHOW SPOILERS ONLY]


RedEyedGhost

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12 minutes ago, kairparavel said:

 

Can someone explain The Beast and his finger pilates? I'm never going to read the books. Or will the show reveal it at some point? 

Do you mean all the hand movements when the characters are spell casting?  I saw a Buzzfeed article just now that mentioned how it was choreographed: 

Quote

Some of Grossman’s thoughts were about what he, a fantasy expert, thought The Magicians could give to the genre’s fans that they had never seen before. Which started with the portrayal of magic itself. “I’ve never seen people do the arcane hand motions and have these wonderful orbs and lines of force develop around them in a way that I always pictured it, which exists in a lot of fantasy novels,” Grossman said. “I’ve just never seen anybody do it onscreen properly.”

“I would be at 10,000 feet saying, ‘Here’s my childhood dream of what I’ve wanted to see onscreen,’” he added.

Grossman’s wish has come true — the spell-casting in The Magicians is unlike anything we’ve seen before — thanks to Paul Becker and Kevin Li, whom Gamble hired to choreograph each spell: They specialize in finger tutting, a precise, geometric, yet flowing offshoot of the interpretive hip-hop dance tutting, but done only with one’s arms, hands, and fingers. “We now have the basic vocabulary of the kind of movement of hands and fingers that would make something catch fire or blow wind,” Gamble said.

The hand choreography was probably the most enjoyable part for me, though after Fragile answered my earlier question, I feel a bit more comfortable getting into the rest of the story.  

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Gotta agree with everyone about Julia's almost-but-not-quite-though-a-bit-yes-no-you're-absolutely-right-it-really-was-rape scene. That was unnecessary and gross. But if people are (understandably) offended by that, I foresee a LOT of people jumping ship if they keep a certain part of book two. I personally left the series on hold for more than a year after I read that. 

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Still having to adjust to a twitchy Quentin and some-other-guy named Penny (book Penny reminded me of a friend of mine, so somewhat disappointed he's not here).

Pardon if I'm sounding smug but having red the books, I wasn't terribly riveted by the threat of expulsion plot element in this ep.  I'm also starting to like TV Julia more than the rest of the characters, though TV Elliot I like well enough.

Eta

Having just read Kairpavarel's link, I guess Josh is not gonna show up.

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4 minutes ago, Knight of Ashes said:

Still having to adjust to a twitchy Quentin and some-other-guy named Penny (book Penny reminded me of a friend of mine, so somewhat disappointed he's not here).

Pardon if I'm sounding smug but having red the books, I wasn't terribly riveted by the threat of expulsion plot element in this ep.  I'm also starting to like TV Julia more than the rest of the characters, though TV Elliot I like well enough.

Also waiting for a version of Josh to show up and hoping he's not too different from the book version.

After reading some of the criticisms of this adaptation as well as my own experiences with other adaptations, I'm pleased I am completely in the dark when it comes to this series and the novels it is based on. It's very nice for a change.

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I'd recommend watching it.

Definitly not the best current SyFy show (but The Expanse and 12 Monkeys set the bar quite high), but it's really entertaining ! 

If like, me, the idea of a "Hogwarts for younf adults, is damn exciting to you, check it out ! I dont know the original books, but those first two episodes were really enjoyable and even if there are definitly some misteps (thinking mostly costumes here ! ^^), there is the potential for quite dark stories (but I feel the fun and lighter touch will always be there, and that's probably why SyFy greenlighted it, to balance with the bleakness of its other new shows) ! 

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I enjoyed the second episode a lot less than the first.  All of you who have not read the books...enjoy your ignorance!  I wish I didn't know these books so well.  Then I might be able to enjoy it more.  But the deviations this time around were a bit too much for me.  I really hate that people just showed up for Julia like that and took her to the factory, I loved in the books how she had to work so incredibly hard and struggle to find them and learn any bit of magic she could.  And after a good setup for the Beast at the end of the first episode, I felt they kind of short changed it by having it so quickly over and mainly in flashbacks in the second.

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16 hours ago, Good Guy Garlan said:

Gotta agree with everyone about Julia's almost-but-not-quite-though-a-bit-yes-no-you're-absolutely-right-it-really-was-rape scene. That was unnecessary and gross. But if people are (understandably) offended by that, I foresee a LOT of people jumping ship if they keep a certain part of book two. I personally left the series on hold for more than a year after I read that. 

Given the nature of who's involved in that scene and what it would take to create such a character, they might change or skip it altogether.

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4 hours ago, denstorebog said:

Given the nature of who's involved in that scene and what it would take to create such a character, they might change or skip it altogether.

They might tone it down, I agree, but I don't see them missing out on the opportunity to have 

Spoiler

their own Red Wedding, and it is kind of important to the gods plot

 

And I think the seeds are there already: didn't Kady give the book/sigil/whatever they used to summon the Beast to Julia's friends at the end of episode 2?

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23 hours ago, Arkash said:

If like, me, the idea of a "Hogwarts for younf adults, is damn exciting to you, check it out ! I dont know the original books, but those first two episodes were really enjoyable and even if there are definitly some misteps (thinking mostly costumes here ! ^^), there is the potential for quite dark stories (but I feel the fun and lighter touch will always be there, and that's probably why SyFy greenlighted it, to balance with the bleakness of its other new shows) ! 

They'd have to change it somewhat to keep it light -- the first two books do not end well (though in the final one, things do more or less work out). I think it might be possible to do it with somewhat minor changes.

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I wasn't so sure about this from the commercials. It just didn't seem like the type of show I'd be interested in, but I set my DVR to record it just in case - mostly because of the good run of shows Syfy has been churning out lately.

I finally got around to watching the first three episodes over the past couple of days and I am really surprised by how much I enjoyed it. It feels sort of like a WB show, but not in an all together bad way. I don't think it's anywhere near as good as The Expanse, but it's an entertaining show on its own. I think it's benefiting (in my mind, anyway) from me having low expectations going in. It's exceeded them, easily.

One thing I don't get after reading through this thread though... what rape are y'all talking about? I feel like I must have missed a scene or something.

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On ‎1‎/‎26‎/‎2016 at 2:49 PM, Astromech said:

After reading some of the criticisms of this adaptation as well as my own experiences with other adaptations, I'm pleased I am completely in the dark when it comes to this series and the novels it is based on. It's very nice for a change.

I agree, completely.  Of course, having to wait for this week-to-week makes me want to just pick up the books, but luckily I have too much else to read.

 

20 minutes ago, MisterOJ said:

One thing I don't get after reading through this thread though... what rape are y'all talking about? I feel like I must have missed a scene or something.

I guess the scene in the bathroom where the guy used magic to rip off Julia's shirt.  :dunno: 

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3 hours ago, Jack Bauer 24 said:

Is Penny annoying in the books because I'm really not digging him in the show.

While this is so not Penny in the books, he was annoying in a different way but mostly to Quentin himself (though, book Quentin wouldn't have hid behind a tree from Book Penny).  Anyway, one character assessed book Penny as something like self-centered but not a total asshole or something like that, and I agree. 

About the ep3,

I guess Book Quentin is seeping more into his tv version as he was being a bit of a douche to Julia: getting back at her for friendzoning him.  Kinda pathetic.

Also, I'm not buying Alice's leaving (if I'm wrong, fine), even if all I know about this is the tv series.  If I'm wrong, fine, but it feels like another fake-out to me.

Also, fuckbooks. Hahahahaha-... *ahem*

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One other thing I meant to mention that I found sorta odd about the show... several of the characters smoked on screen. It's been so long since I'd seen television characters smoking like it was no big deal that I found the visual of it jarring.

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