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Preacher- AMC Comic Adaptation


Morpheus

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On the whole, I am more and more convinced that this is just not a good showPutting aside any problems as an adaptation, the writing just isn't very good. It is strewn with good scenes, at times it hits upon a unique tone or perspective, but then it come crashing down with suffocating mediocrity. The Starr episode really highlighted its problems, everything with the German was great, irreverent, over the top, but the rest of it, following our gang of protagonists, was a drag. The show works when it acts as a live action adult oriented cartoon, when it tries to be a character driven drama and slows things way down, its flaws are highlighted. It feels like it wants to be an "AMC Prestige Drama" like Breaking Bad or Mad Men, but when they try to do moody and reflective they merely reach the level of The Walking Dead. It feels fresh when it focuses on crazy things, it is turgid when it has the characters work through how those crazy things affect them.

They should just focus on the pulp insanity and find a more natural approach to character development rather than pumping the brakes every few episodes to let everyone be tortured and morose. It feels like they are insisting upon a depth that is not there and the characters and writing just cannot support the slower pace as we saw this week.

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On 10/08/2017 at 3:08 PM, Quoth said:

Agree with what others have posted. The ep. was a bit slow. But, there were some interesting points along the way. Cassidy's deep thoughts on immortality. Tulip's interaction with the new neighbor. Idea of using Genesis to fix Dennis was interesting. How would that work anyway? Jessie intoning "Hey, get better"? Would a person's body have to respond to that?  Or maybe "Dennis, don't feel any pain from the cancer" might work.  It would allow nature to take it's course without the awfulness of the situation. But, I'm probably thinking too hard on the details. After all, should Jessie ever shout "Don't move!" to someone, it creates a dilemma for that person, doesn't it? Would it stop involuntary movements? Could the person inhale/exhale? Would heartbeats stop also?

BTW, should Cassidy bite Dennis, yeah he'd "vampire up" and live forever... but... to forevermore be in constant pain? Ummm, wonder if they're  thinking of that. Maybe that's the reason Cassidy is so resistant to the idea?

Maybe if he tells Dennis to "get better" he'd somehow contrive a way to be turned into a vampire? "Make the pain stop" surely would just resolve in suicide unless the voice can make people's pain receptors stop working. If they hadn't sent Arseface to hell it would be easier to hypothesize but thanks to the voice being able to do physically impossible things who knows what would happen.

Have they said being a vampire means living in constant pain? Like I mentioned, we know virtually nothing about vampires in this show which is what makes it frustrating when Cassidy who seems perfectly functional as a vampire has such grave reservations about turning people into vampires. Because if it's just "being lonely when mortals die" then creating immortal friends seems a good solution.

13 hours ago, Morpheus said:

 

They should just focus on the pulp insanity and find a more natural approach to character development rather than pumping the brakes every few episodes to let everyone be tortured and morose. It feels like they are insisting upon a depth that is not there and the characters and writing just cannot support the slower pace as we saw this week.

Oddly it's an inverse in the comics. I always felt it was at its best when being semi-serious and focusing on the characters. The worst parts were the OTT storylines. So I can see why the show tries to have the same mix but it's odd how it turns out so differently.

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3 hours ago, red snow said:

Maybe if he tells Dennis to "get better" he'd somehow contrive a way to be turned into a vampire? "Make the pain stop" surely would just resolve in suicide unless the voice can make people's pain receptors stop working. If they hadn't sent Arseface to hell it would be easier to hypothesize but thanks to the voice being able to do physically impossible things who knows what would happen.

Have they said being a vampire means living in constant pain? Like I mentioned, we know virtually nothing about vampires in this show which is what makes it frustrating when Cassidy who seems perfectly functional as a vampire has such grave reservations about turning people into vampires. Because if it's just "being lonely when mortals die" then creating immortal friends seems a good solution.

Oddly it's an inverse in the comics. I always felt it was at its best when being semi-serious and focusing on the characters. The worst parts were the OTT storylines. So I can see why the show tries to have the same mix but it's odd how it turns out so differently.

But we know it's not physically impossible.  After all, there are a ton of people in hell and we've seen people come and go from hell.  As far as I recall, we have no idea how Eugene arrived in hell.  

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5 hours ago, red snow said:

Oddly it's an inverse in the comics. I always felt it was at its best when being semi-serious and focusing on the characters. The worst parts were the OTT storylines. So I can see why the show tries to have the same mix but it's odd how it turns out so differently.

Ennis is a better writer. 

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7 hours ago, Dr. Pepper said:

But we know it's not physically impossible.  After all, there are a ton of people in hell and we've seen people come and go from hell.

Hell is full of souls, not physical people; under normal circumstances, when people die, their bodies remain behind on Earth. Though I guess in this universe they probably do get new physical bodies in Hell or Heaven, the same way angels get new bodies when they die. But season 1 Eugene has no way of knowing Hell is a physical place, and no way of knowing how to get there. Other than just killing himself, I guess, which leaves the question of where his original body ended up.

How the Saint of Killers works is another question. He has no soul, and his original physical body was killed, so how did he end up in Hell? Maybe there's a proper explanation of that still to come, but I doubt it.

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1 hour ago, felice said:

Hell is full of souls, not physical people; under normal circumstances, when people die, their bodies remain behind on Earth. Though I guess in this universe they probably do get new physical bodies in Hell or Heaven, the same way angels get new bodies when they die. But season 1 Eugene has no way of knowing Hell is a physical place, and no way of knowing how to get there. Other than just killing himself, I guess, which leaves the question of where his original body ended up.

How the Saint of Killers works is another question. He has no soul, and his original physical body was killed, so how did he end up in Hell? Maybe there's a proper explanation of that still to come, but I doubt it.

We watched the angels go to hell and come back (at least one did), we watched the SoK came out of hell.  There is an entrance to the supernatural world, including hell, at the most popular bus stop in the southwest.  So we know hell is an actual place.  I have no idea whether or not Eugene knows where hell is.  I don't recall them saying one way or another.  I do know that Eugene shot his face off and so may have had a very close encounter with hell and have more inside knowledge than what has been explicitly stated so far.  Then again, maybe one of Genesis' powers is to send people to other planes of existence.  But that's not needed since we know there are ways to get into hell from the actual world.  

 

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1 hour ago, red snow said:

my point was more that if the voice can send people to hell then it can probably cure people too.

I just don't get it.  How does sending someone (presumably) through an actual door that exists somehow translate to making cancer cells disappear?  They aren't similar at all.  

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9 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

I just don't get it.  How does sending someone (presumably) through an actual door that exists somehow translate to making cancer cells disappear?  They aren't similar at all.  

Yeah, I don't see that as being viable either given the example of Jesse commanding Cassidy to fly. He can't make you do something that it's impossible for you to do. Maybe if you believe that the human body is capable of healing itself from cancer and we simply don't have the means or knowledge to will that into happening, I suppose. 

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I have to wonder if it's different in the comic and that's where the confusion is from?   Because walking through a door isn't the same as disappearing into thin air, which is what's being compared here.  

Of course, it could always be that going to hell was literally disappearing into thin air, but hell is an actual place where we've seen souls reside and people come and go.  

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24 minutes ago, Dr. Pepper said:

I have to wonder if it's different in the comic and that's where the confusion is from?   Because walking through a door isn't the same as disappearing into thin air, which is what's being compared here.  

Of course, it could always be that going to hell was literally disappearing into thin air, but hell is an actual place where we've seen souls reside and people come and go.  

I think the scene with Jesse commanding Cassidy to fly was lifted straight out of the comic, so I think the show has pretty much more or less stayed true to the way Jesse's power worked in the comic.

As to the Hell issue, I think you are right. Hell is definitely a real place in this world. That said if Jesse commands you to "go to Hell" you would still need to have the knowledge of how to get there in order for you to obey the command in a literal sense. Like you'd need to know where one of the doors to it is, or you'd have to have the ability to create a portal of your own, or whatever. Failing that, you'd be compelled to follow the order to the best of your ability. Much like Cassidy does when he's commanded to fly. He can't fly obviously, so he runs around obsessively flapping his arms, etc, etc. If left to his own devices he might eventually try to launch himself off a height or whatever.

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18 hours ago, Dr. Pepper said:

I just don't get it.  How does sending someone (presumably) through an actual door that exists somehow translate to making cancer cells disappear?  They aren't similar at all.  

I get why you think Hell commands work but I'm having trouble understanding your acceptance of how other commands simply wouldn't work. We'll probably just have to agree to disagree on the robustness of the show's rules.

We can cure cancer, cancer cells die and our bodies can kill cancer cells. We might not know how to make our immune system attack cancer but I'm guessing people in the show don't have a map/manual on how to appear in Hell. Therefore telling someone to be cured of cancer, to me seems just as likely as someone appearing in Hell. Curing cancer is not impossible therefore the voice should be able to fix it in much the same way as hell is real (in the show) therefore the voice can send you there. It requires a bending of chance in the sense you really luck out and suddenly your immune system and your cancer cells result in all the cancer cells dying at once but it's not impossible. It's more possible than a person being able to fly of their own accord as well so to me would be in the realms of working. Now in absolute fairness to the show - we don't know whether "I want you to be cured of cancer" would work or not. It isn't even a question that's came about in the show so until it is covered I guess no-one knows the answer. But that still highlights how I really don't get the rules of the voice.

Going back to the flying command. Why didn't Cassidy disappear and find himself in an aeroplane? Teleportation is only "reasonable" when going to hell? Because that's the way everyone goes to hell? Besides Eugene, everyone else in "hell" got there via death (I don't think Hitler disappeared - unless he did in the TV world), not via some portal into hell. So for me it's a stretch as Eugene should have at least dropped down dead before finding himself in hell as surely that's the easiest way to get there?

For me, the show has not defined the power of the voice very well. At this point the only thing I can trust about it is that you have to hear it and have a soul (which is a cool addition). That seems to be consistent. In terms of what the voice can and can't do - I have no idea as to me the "hell" thing makes the voice far more powerful than I initially thought. This could be used in interesting ways and I really want to see it be tested a bit more. So it would have been nice to see what happens if he told Dennis' cancer to "go away".

18 hours ago, Dr. Pepper said:

I have to wonder if it's different in the comic and that's where the confusion is from?  

 

Not so much confusion but the rules regarding the voice are more specific and far less powerful.

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3 hours ago, red snow said:

 

Going back to the flying command. Why didn't Cassidy disappear and find himself in an aeroplane? Teleportation is only "reasonable" when going to hell? Because that's the way everyone goes to hell? Besides Eugene, everyone else in "hell" got there via death (I don't think Hitler disappeared - unless he did in the TV world), not via some portal into hell. So for me it's a stretch as Eugene should have at least dropped down dead before finding himself in hell as surely that's the easiest way to get there?

 

No, we know there is a bus stop to get to hell and back.  There is a portal.  We've seen it used.  It barely matters how everyone else in hell got there because we know Eugene isn't supposed to be there, meaning he almost surely didn't get there by typical means.

I don't know why you think Eugene teleported.  Preacher had his back turned when he issued that command. We didn't see Eugene disappear into thin air.  We don't know how Eugene got to hell.  HIs close encounter with suicide may very well have offered him inside information into the supernatural world.  

But yeah, agree to disagree.  We'll find out sooner or later.  I'm sure we'll see even more people freely coming and going to hell and maybe heaven too, because it's already been clear that are portals.

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On 8/12/2017 at 5:00 AM, red snow said:

Have they said being a vampire means living in constant pain?

No idea. T'was a wild extrapolation on my part. I presumed that once turned into a vampire, one doesn't age from that point onwards and one's physical state becomes static. Hence my guess that one wouldn't die and the cancer would remain, getting neither better nor worse.

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Much better episode. Herr Star, Featherstone and Hoover are working well so far, and the closer they stick to the comics the better it seems. Dennis acting like a defiant teenager was pretty funny. When he slammed the door and Cassidy gave the how dare you I was cracking up. :lol:

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18 hours ago, Nictarion said:

Much better episode. Herr Star, Featherstone and Hoover are working well so far, and the closer they stick to the comics the better it seems. Dennis acting like a defiant teenager was pretty funny. When he slammed the door and Cassidy gave the how dare you I was cracking up. :lol:

Agreed.... the more absurd this show is, the better... when they try to ground it --normalize it-- thats when it gets blah.

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Good ep this week. Herr Star, Featherstone and Hoover are killing it. :lol: Loved when the "professionals" showed up. :rofl:

Not enjoying Tulip's storyline, such as it is. And can someone please drag Cassidy back into the show?

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