[SPOILERS] Black Sails - Season 4 on the Horizon.

[Zorral]

4 hours ago, Corvinus said:

I can only be bewildered at your attitude for this show, and season 2 especially. I see your reasons, but I can only be bewildered. What one person calls pontificating, another may call it deep thinking and analysis. 

I know what you mean.  But to me it seems neither deep nor analytical.  However, politically, for instance, Eleanor shows herself deeply astute in understanding of these men and their culture. That moment particularly grabbed me.  They do politics of societies and cultures -- and then the betrayals, very well.  The business between Max and Anne was pretty good, but the writers got Anne going as an agency figure too late -- and by now its still someone else who looks at how things are and makes the decisions.

From previous posts here about the season Eleanor evidently also proves herself super villain as the season progresses.  Sorry about that! But we'll see.

Really, considering everything, I should be liking this all much more than I do -- the era, the location, the history, everything, is very much Stuff I Like.

Maybe I just don't like Flint?  All the others seem a lot more interesting to me, especially Vane.  But who care whether I like him or not -- that's not the point, I don't think.

And thank you, for not being all defensive, but just, well, genuinely baffled.  I feel that way so often myself by others' responses to things I admire or don't admire.  

 

 

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

18 hours ago, Zorral said:

Ay-up -- it was excruciatingly dull.  And it went on FOOOOOOOOOOOOREVER!

I know this opinikon is a minority opinion, but there it is.  Even these first four episodes -- the the opening was an extraordinarily strong opening and first episode -- feel too long. I am always antsy when there are still 15 - 20 minutes more to go.

I'm not talking about a dearth of action scenes -- because the action scenes are plentiful.  It's so much pontificating, perhaps.  Too much talking, as I wrote above, and not enough showing. It's just that so many of the characters seem stuck in glue somehow, not moving, either forward or backward, and at best sidewise. They keep doing the same things and receiving the same outcome.

The most interesting element, which we haven't really seen enough of, is the very rough 'revolutionary democracy' that supposedly sprouted not only among pirate crews, but among other sorts of shipping, in a very real opposition, historically, to the extreme and rigid hierarchy of the British navy.  Ultimately this kind of rough democracy and revolutionary sentiment played a huge role in Boston's rebelling against Britain -- the sailors and dockhands, and other so called dregs were very much part of the independence cells run by Sam Adams and whose actions were directed by him.

 

 

 

I do think the show has a problem with 'talking' not 'showing' , and there are certainly elements of it that I find very difficult to get over: John Silver and the rest of the more cartoonish characters like Charles Vane. But it feels a bit like you want the show to be more of a historical drama than it is, which I think I would also like, but I accept that its roots are still a little trashy.. this is Michael Bay remember!

[Zorral]

3 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

I do think the show has a problem with 'talking' not 'showing' , and there are certainly elements of it that I find very difficult to get over: John Silver and the rest of the more cartoonish characters like Charles Vane. But it feels a bit like you want the show to be more of a historical drama than it is, which I think I would also like, but I accept that its roots are still a little trashy.. this is Michael Bay remember!

But then -- shouldn't it be faster?  

But yah, you have put your finger on it, which I hadn't thought of myself, duh -- that I'd like it to be more of an out-and-out historical.  But I'm certain I'd complain then too, about all the historical stuff they have wrong!

 

[Corvinus85]

42 minutes ago, Zorral said:

But then -- shouldn't it be faster?  

But yah, you have put your finger on it, which I hadn't thought of myself, duh -- that I'd like it to be more of an out-and-out historical.  But I'm certain I'd complain then too, about all the historical stuff they have wrong!

 

When you combine fictional characters from a novel with historical characters, you cannot get an out-and-out historical. And what Channel said, Michael Bay has been a producer for this show from the start, though I'm not sure how involved he really has been. Even so, this show couldn't have been much better no matter the route they would have taken. 

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

10 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

When you combine fictional characters from a novel with historical characters, you cannot get an out-and-out historical. And what Channel said, Michael Bay has been a producer for this show from the start, though I'm not sure how involved he really has been. Even so, this show couldn't have been much better no matter the route they would have taken. 

Yeah took me a while to realise some of the characters actually existed and so did some of the situations. I found that really interesting, but I don't watch the show as an indepth examination of the facts.

I do think the show started out as trash though, I initally had it down as Network junk that appeals to only those with very low expectations. That it got to the point that I'm think of it as an historical drama rather than a soap opera with pirates is a huge achievement. 

[Zorral]

21 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Yeah took me a while to realise some of the characters actually existed and so did some of the situations. I found that really interesting, but I don't watch the show as an indepth examination of the facts.

I do think the show started out as trash though, I initally had it down as Network junk that appeals to only those with very low expectations. That it got to the point that I'm think of it as an historical drama rather than a soap opera with pirates is a huge achievement. 

Yah -- I went through that to a degree too.

Because of my primary professional focus, historical and geographical knowledge of this period -- European, Caribbean, South American and North American -- is fundamental, as it shapes so much of what happens later.

I do give Black Sails points for not ignoring the slave trade and slavery, which during this period, was explosively ramping up to its greatest numbers.  It's pretty difficult to look plausibly at this era's pirates in the Caribbean without including slavery and the slave trade.

 This interactive database digital map provides in 2 minutes the range and scope of the Africa - Atlantic slave trade into the New World during its entire history.  

[Corvinus85]

2 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Yah -- I went through that to a degree too.

Because of my primary professional focus, historical and geographical knowledge of this period -- European, Caribbean, South American and North American -- is fundamental, as it shapes so much of what happens later.

I do give Black Sails points for not ignoring the slave trade and slavery, which during this period, was explosively ramping up to its greatest numbers.  It's pretty difficult to look plausibly at this era's pirates in the Caribbean without including slavery and the slave trade.

 This interactive database digital map provides in 2 minutes the range and scope of the Africa - Atlantic slave trade into the New World during its entire history.  

I am certainly not the historian you are, and have no knowledge of sail ships but there are two things I want to break up:

1) Since you bring up the show's handle of slavery I thought they did pretty well with the part in season 1 where Mr. Scott was placed in the slave hold, and how the slaves played a role in the battle that took a place.

2) The show certainly made a strong effort in showing what it took to handle and maintain a sail ship of those sizes like a sloop or a man o' war, as well as the challenges in finding the right navigational paths, and these aspects were, imo, well integrated into the plot. Now since I don't anything about sail ships, I don't know how realistically any of this has been portrayed, but they certainly made me believe that they were realistic. The only aspect I could tell was not realistic is the interior size and usage of cabins, but they have to have room for all the filming equipment and crew. 

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

Season 3 also has a whole island run by slaves and there is quite a large storyline involving them. I think the show did a decent, if not very indepth attempt at involving slavery in its narrative.

[Zorral]

12 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Season 3 also has a whole island run by slaves and there is quite a large storyline involving them. I think the show did a decent, if not very indepth attempt at involving slavery in its narrative.

That's the sort of thing I include in giving Black Sails points about the slave trade and slavery.  Maroon settlements of shipwrecked and escape captives all through the New World during this era.  In the lower colonial North America, the Floridas (which included much of what became the Alabama territory, etc.), the Great Dismal Swamp until finally drained, were primary destination for the self-emancipated of the era.  Jamaica's maroons in the mountains played decisive roles in Jamaica's political and military history. 

So many escaped slaves found a place within a pirate crew -- which had a lot of resonance in one way and other in Boston in particular.

The Floridas were usually controlled by Spain until Andrew Jackson decisively got rid of both the Spanish and the British.  The colonial era captives understood very well that getting to the Spanish St. Augustine meant not only freedom, but getting armed.  The Spanish made these escapees their first line buffer against invasion from the English of the colonies to north, meaning specifically South Carolina (a slave colony from the beginning, a colony pretty much of the already mature slave society of Barbados) there are a lot of historical reasons that Charles Town plays such a large role in Black Sails -- it doesn't become Charleston until the Independence war), and then Georgia.  In fact Oglethorpe's Georgia was a buffer between South Carolina's runaways and their freedom in Florida.

All these places where escapees could find autonomy and freedom from the plantation prison system were no longer available after the War of 1812 and Jackson's Native American removal and genocides.  The entire south became this vast prison system, as the gained territory went into Cotton cash crop production at a rate that couldn't have been imagined, without either slave labor or the cotton gin.

Speaking of historical resonances of all this -- Oglethorpe actually returned to England to take part in the British campaigns to put down the Prince Charlie Scotts' rising against British rule which culminated in Cullodon and the horrors of the aftermath, that drives so much of the first seasons of Outlannder.

[Zorral]

Upon reading back once I posted -- I apologize for the history lecture - that tone of mine -- argh!

But there are four really fine books for anyone interested in all this, by the brilliant scholar and writer (i.e. his books are easy to read, lacking academic jargon and stodge): Marcus Rediker:

The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic Outlaws of the Atlantic;

Sailors, Pirates, and Motley Crews in the Age of Sail;

Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age;

 The Slave Ship: A Human History

 

[AncalagonTheBlack]

Tom Hopper (Billy Bones on Black Sails) joins the cast of GoT.The actor will be playing the recast role of Dickon Tarly.

 

[Astromech]

3 hours ago, AncalagonTheBlack said:

Tom Hopper (Billy Bones on Black Sails) joins the cast of GoT.The actor will be playing the recast role of Dickon Tarly.

 

Odd casting choice. Isn't Dickon several years younger than Sam in ASOIAF?

[Corvinus85]

8 hours ago, Astromech said:

Odd casting choice. Isn't Dickon several years younger than Sam in ASOIAF?

Details. 

[Zorral]

I am delighted to report, that having watched 6 episodes so far of Black Sails' season 3 -- I am knocked out!  This season is so much better than the previous two -- much more interesting, much better paced, and with very strong narrative continuity.  It's also much more interesting to look at.  It doesn't feel as claustrophobic as the first two seasons -- except when we're supposed to be inside Flint's head.  Those damned visions / dreams / whatever don't DO anything . . . .  But this season we're not so focused on him or on suffering.  Plus often we see sea vistas with those beautiful white sails billowed out between blue water and blue sky.  The manueverings for domination on both the maroon island and in Nassau are also interesting.  Though it still made no sense when 

Spoiler

Silver goes back to get a pardon.  It feels as if the writers just arbitrarily do this to keep him in Nassau and the gold thread going.  So why did they spend all this time about changing the gold to jewels, etc. only to turn it around again?  This is poor narrative strategy -- the glue thing again.  Characters not moving, not moving on, not developing, but stuck in place in every way, the thing that contributed so much to the tedium (for me -- obviously not everyone)  that ruled so many of the episodes of the first two seasons.

 

 

[Astromech]

14 hours ago, Corvinus said:

Details. 

Ha ha, what was I thinking?

[Zorral]

Finished watching season 3.  Woo -- This was really good!  The ending was -- legendary.

Spoiler

Has there ever been such an ambush?

One wonders if the final season can live up to all the moral, philosophical, political and metaphysical implications of this season, and the development of the souls of these primary characters.  Because

Spoiler

we know what happens with Long John Silver . . . .

 

[Astromech]

I can't wait for tomorrow's season 4 premiere. I've been watching the trailers and other shorts on Starz On Demand.

 

 

[Corvinus85]

7 minutes ago, Astromech said:

I can't wait for tomorrow's season 4 premiere. I've been watching the trailers and other shorts on Starz On Demand.

 

 

 Me too. Also watched the season 3 finale. I thought it was going to start tonight, since Starz usually shows their series on Saturdays, but alas one more day.

[Astromech]

Yeah, hopefully Starz will have it on On Demand before it premieres tomorrow evening.

[Martini Sigil]

This is the first show that I consider A-list to air this calendar year.... psyched as well.... The Expanse is on deck