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Jack Ryan - Amazon Prime Series


Rhom

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13 hours ago, Rhom said:

When he last wrote, he either had to shoehorn them as an ally (Bear and the Dragon) or go back in time (Red Rabbit.)

Rhom, you really need to read Red Storm Rising if you haven't - 1/2 the characters are Russians/Soviets, and one Soviet General in particular is the primary sort-of antagonist.  The chapter with the Battle of Alfeld ranks up there in the top 5 of any warfare written in fiction or otherwise IMO, think as good as Blackwater Bay in ACOKs except circa 1988 era equipment.

That said I do agree with your sentiment.

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1 hour ago, SerHaHa said:

Rhom, you really need to read Red Storm Rising if you haven't - 1/2 the characters are Russians/Soviets, and one Soviet General in particular is the primary sort-of antagonist.  The chapter with the Battle of Alfeld ranks up there in the top 5 of any warfare written in fiction or otherwise IMO, think as good as Blackwater Bay in ACOKs except circa 1988 era equipment.

That said I do agree with your sentiment.

I did read that a looong time ago.  I thought it was a great WW3 scenario.  I really remember liking the submarine scenario as they escaped out to sea.

I may need to read that again sometime.

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17 hours ago, Rhom said:

I did read that a looong time ago.  I thought it was a great WW3 scenario.  I really remember liking the submarine scenario as they escaped out to sea.

I may need to read that again sometime.

Cool, I just thought I'd mention it as it's by FAR my fav TC novel, and has a large Russian component, even more so than Bear/Dragon, which was IMO TC's last "good" work (Ok, maybe Red Rabbit, but that's it).  The submarine chapters and arcs are fantastic, for sure, especially the chapter where the Capt of the  USS Chicago meets the drunk Norwegian Captain he inadvertently saved who blew his perfect approach on a huge Soviet convoy/objective.  I collect all kinds of books, and have first edition HC Red Storms from a bunch of different countries, the Australian one with orange flames on the cover flap is my favorite.  Have lots of other online/library access to it as well, if you wish to borrow it, PM me and I can sent one of my many copies to you gratus. 

Just finished Iron Fist 2, had to post phone Jack Ryan, watching it all tonight.

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8 minutes ago, Rhom said:

I watched the first episode last night and liked it.

Is it bad that it made me grumpy that Cathy is an Infectious Disease specialist instead of an eye doctor?  :lol: 

Me too, but I'm guessing you can guess where they are going with that. 

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1 minute ago, BigFatCoward said:

Me too, but I'm guessing you can guess where they are going with that. 

I did guess that.  Didn't see any other reason to change an otherwise inconsequential part of her character.

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So I have a question

Who is that European guy Hanin talks to in the first episode? In some kind of workshop in the compound, she brings tea and he starts to speak Arabic and she tells him he can speak English.  For some reason I thought this was the same guy as that Matice guy (seemingly the only actual field agent the CIA has available for these operations).  So much so that I was constantly expecting a storyline about Matice being a traitor, right up to the point where he hunts down and kills Ibrahim right at the end.  So who was that other guy then?

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1 hour ago, john said:

So I have a question

 

  Hide contents

Who is that European guy Hanin talks to in the first episode? In some kind of workshop in the compound, she brings tea and he starts to speak Arabic and she tells him he can speak English.  For some reason I thought this was the same guy as that Matice guy (seemingly the only actual field agent the CIA has available for these operations).  So much so that I was constantly expecting a storyline about Matice being a traitor, right up to the point where he hunts down and kills Ibrahim right at the end.  So who was that other guy then?

 

Spoiler

He is a former Chechen rebel, who joined the war in Syria for ISIS or whatever other groups.

 

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I watched the whole thing over two days. It was enjoyable enough, but I wasn't especially impressed. I'd give it 2 1/2 stars out of four. Frankly, I've never understood Hollywood's persistence with the Jack Ryan character. I always thought he was very bland in the Clancy books, more of a character model in some ways than an actual character. His motives are truth, justice, and the American way. Yay!

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13 hours ago, Pecan said:

I watched the whole thing over two days. It was enjoyable enough, but I wasn't especially impressed. I'd give it 2 1/2 stars out of four. Frankly, I've never understood Hollywood's persistence with the Jack Ryan character. I always thought he was very bland in the Clancy books, more of a character model in some ways than an actual character. His motives are truth, justice, and the American way. Yay!

In the 80's that was a character model.

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Episode three felt very Clancy like.  As in, I remember clearly in Patriot Games when he spent four pages giving back story on random Maryland State Trooper number three... only to have an IRA terrorist kill him on page five.  The seemingly unrelated backstory of the Air Force Officer that lead to a plot driving decision felt 100% Clancy.

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I finished the season during our flight back from Spain.  Pretty good overall, although this type of story has been done well by others in recent years in British/European productions.  This had more budget and more expansive production values, but not any particular X factor by comparison. 

Ryan himself is a bland character and always was.  The value of Clancy’s Ryan series is the nuanced perspective of causes percolating into effects which become causes in turn, and using the mindset of an analyst to solve the situation rather than a lone wolf loose cannon racking up a huge body count. 

The climactic terrorist attack was over-elaborate, and there were a lot of thin points in the plot. 

The redemption subplot was a bit forced.  Ryan the marine was wrong to bring the kid on the helicopter, but his crusade to save Samir is meant to show us that he retains his belief in humanity and will do it again.  But we never get to see if Samir gets radicalized as an adult.  

Plus Hanin is a heroine in the story but she supported her husband while he was in various terrorist groups for years and only turned on him when one of his terrorist acolytes started perving on her teenage daughter.  And the overall story of Suleiman radicalized in a French jail kind of ignores the point that he was rightly jailed and his brother was carrying an illegal handgun received from a terrorist/mobster.  We’re supposed to see racism in his unsuccessful job interview — and there is/was undoubtedly some racism in France toward Muslims — but a stodgy private bank (to wealthy European people) unimpressed by a candidate claiming that poor people in third world countries will increasingly use mobile payments doesn’t sound like racism.  It sounds like Suleiman was trying to tell BMW how to make super cheap bicycles to sell in Africa.  He may be right but it’s not what they’re interested in doing.

Setting aside the accuracy of the backstory and history involved (the Lebanese civil war and refugees reaching France), which is far more complex in reality, even if I accept Suleiman’s story at face value as portrayed, there is no sympathy for his descent into mass murder and terrorism, nor much sympathy for the wider culture he represents: the perma violence, the hate of and indiscriminate violence toward “the enemy” (with a subtext that the enemy’s great sin is looking down on Arab culture or their culture being more economically successful), the treatment of women (Hanin was offered to Suleiman by her father for a night of sexual use, and this is relayed to young children as the start of their romantic meet-cute), and casual violence and exploitation by armed bullies/parasites.  So showing us all the middle eastern POVs added nuance and agency and perspective, but it never justified or made acceptable.  

If anything, the story suggests that the Middle East is irretrievably broken by a backward culture and that developed countries should not even accept refugees from there.  I don’t think that’s the kind of message that Clancy ever intended. 

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18 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Plus Hanin is a heroine in the story but she supported her husband while he was in various terrorist groups for years and only turned on him when one of his terrorist acolytes started perving on her teenage daughter. 

Pretty sure Hanin started having doubts the moment she saw dangerous terrorists congregating in their house. She may have supported him in the past, but most of his activities until then were more low key, as we see from the beginning that no one knows who he is, and Ryan learns of his name through the bank transactions that were taking place. I felt that Hanin realized that her home had become a dangerous place to live, not simply because of would rapist assholes, but because she saw her husband on a path that would be have led to all of them getting blown up by a drone.

Spoiler

And that scenario almost happened, if not for the hostages.

 

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44 minutes ago, Corvinus said:

Pretty sure Hanin started having doubts the moment she saw dangerous terrorists congregating in their house. She may have supported him in the past, but most of his activities until then were more low key, as we see from the beginning that no one knows who he is, and Ryan learns of his name through the bank transactions that were taking place. I felt that Hanin realized that her home had become a dangerous place to live, not simply because of would rapist assholes, but because she saw her husband on a path that would be have led to all of them getting blown up by a drone.

  Reveal hidden contents

And that scenario almost happened, if not for the hostages.

 

Does that make it any better?  The basic scenario is the same: she supported him as a terrorist killing and maiming others, until it brought danger to her own family. 

He was a well known and experienced leader of terrorists before this story.  The only change was the escalation to massive acts of terrorism in western countries, rather than his prior local activity for ISIS. 

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Just now, Iskaral Pust said:

Does that make it any better?  The basic scenario is the same: she supported him as a terrorist killing and maiming others, until it brought danger to her own family. 

He was a well known and experienced leader of terrorists before this story.  The only change was the escalation to massive acts of terrorism in western countries, rather than his prior local activity for ISIS. 

No, it doesn't make it better. But the show was never really clear how much she knew of his activities prior to all this. They met when he was fighting in Iraq, but we don't know how much he exposed her to his activities. She claims that he was a better man before, and that he changed in recent time, only. She may have been just fooling herself...

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14 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

I finished the season during our flight back from Spain.  Pretty good overall, although this type of story has been done well by others in recent years in British/European productions.  This had more budget and more expansive production values, but not any particular X factor by comparison. 

Ryan himself is a bland character and always was.  The value of Clancy’s Ryan series is the nuanced perspective of causes percolating into effects which become causes in turn, and using the mindset of an analyst to solve the situation rather than a lone wolf loose cannon racking up a huge body count. 

The climactic terrorist attack was over-elaborate, and there were a lot of thin points in the plot. 

The redemption subplot was a bit forced.  Ryan the marine was wrong to bring the kid on the helicopter, but his crusade to save Samir is meant to show us that he retains his belief in humanity and will do it again.  But we never get to see if Samir gets radicalized as an adult.  

Plus Hanin is a heroine in the story but she supported her husband while he was in various terrorist groups for years and only turned on him when one of his terrorist acolytes started perving on her teenage daughter.  And the overall story of Suleiman radicalized in a French jail kind of ignores the point that he was rightly jailed and his brother was carrying an illegal handgun received from a terrorist/mobster.  We’re supposed to see racism in his unsuccessful job interview — and there is/was undoubtedly some racism in France toward Muslims — but a stodgy private bank (to wealthy European people) unimpressed by a candidate claiming that poor people in third world countries will increasingly use mobile payments doesn’t sound like racism.  It sounds like Suleiman was trying to tell BMW how to make super cheap bicycles to sell in Africa.  He may be right but it’s not what they’re interested in doing.

Setting aside the accuracy of the backstory and history involved (the Lebanese civil war and refugees reaching France), which is far more complex in reality, even if I accept Suleiman’s story at face value as portrayed, there is no sympathy for his descent into mass murder and terrorism, nor much sympathy for the wider culture he represents: the perma violence, the hate of and indiscriminate violence toward “the enemy” (with a subtext that the enemy’s great sin is looking down on Arab culture or their culture being more economically successful), the treatment of women (Hanin was offered to Suleiman by her father for a night of sexual use, and this is relayed to young children as the start of their romantic meet-cute), and casual violence and exploitation by armed bullies/parasites.  So showing us all the middle eastern POVs added nuance and agency and perspective, but it never justified or made acceptable.  

If anything, the story suggests that the Middle East is irretrievably broken by a backward culture and that developed countries should not even accept refugees from there.  I don’t think that’s the kind of message that Clancy ever intended. 

You've pretty much just saved me from writting the same thing - binged the lot in one day; and I loved that it tried to create nuance and investigate cause => effect => cause; with some backstory for people who maybe didn't earn it; but... that nuance and investigation seems too paper-thin for me; though it was enough to keep the wife invested and interested in binging the lot; which is VERY rare for her.

 

It's been ~25 years since I read a Clancy book (Without Remorse is the last one I remember). For the first time as an adult, I've felt the desire to read any of them; I've always felt that what seemed like subtltey and deeper investigations to my teeneage self just wouldn't translate to me adult perception. From this series and what's been said on this thread; I may have to give them another go (or would the 80s permeate them too much to bear?)

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