Jump to content

Neil Gaiman's SANDMAN adaptation for Netflix


Werthead

Recommended Posts

Just binged all 10 episodes. Overall, very interesting, and I am especially interested in seeing season 2 when they treat the Charles Vess fairy folk storyline.

Likes:

  • The character of Dream. Definitely enjoyable this portrayal. I dont mind that he looks like Gaiman, at all. I like his tools, helm, ruby, sand.
  • The visuals, it looks splendid
  • It does make you think about dreams, what you dream of and possibly why you do. One quote was Morpheus saying " we all search for home in our dreams"  I thought that was memorable.
  • Fry made for a great Fiddler's Green and the Gregory scenes were touching.
  • The first episode was for me the best, when he is captured. Definitely a standout. Also another great turn by Charles Dance.

Dislikes:

  • It does feel incredibly woke this show and I was not expecting that, definitely felt like it went overboard on that and to its detriment
  • While the actress playing Death certainly did a good job, I feel casting wise they should have cast a Caucasian actress as in the comics, also to make it feel more as if they were actually brother and sister. 
  • Similarly, while Brienne did her best to be as icy as possible as Lucifer, I feel this was a casting mistake and Lucifer would be better played by a male actor.
  • Didnt really love the whole Rose Walker dream vortex storyline and felt the second half of the season was a little less interesting than the first. Agree with Iskaral that the way they resolve the conflicts feels rather underwhelming as well.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I finished watching all 10 episodes.  After some reflection, I decided not to read the comics beforehand.  I'm glad I made that decision because it allowed me to come to the show with fresh and welcoming eyes.  I enjoyed it, and I will watch the 2nd season.  I'm also going to read the comics (when I finish the Boys!).  I don't think it deserves quite as much praise as is being thrown its way.  

Likes:

  • I thought episodes 4-6 were simply outstanding television, and more importantly, their sum was much greater than their parts.  Episodes 1-3 were also great tv. 
  • The visuals, the acting, and direction, were for the most part superb. 

Dislikes:

  • There were definitely times when the show felt a bit twee.  Fiddler's Green, Morpheus-Lucienne interactions, the relationship between Unity and Rose, the rapport between the guests at the hotel and Rose, bringing Gaunt back as a dream.  
  • There was a certain amount of suspense lacking in the second half of the storyline.  They should have done something to emphasize the stakes were real, and the damage Rose was causing irreversible.  
  • Agree with Calibandar that the show indulged in a particular kind of California woke.  It's great to see lead roles given to African-American actors, but there is more than one kind of minority in the world.  If they had done it a little less programmatically, it would have been more powerful. 
  • The overarching Desire-Dream feud needed more menace and space.  
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Calibandar said:

It does feel incredibly woke this show and I was not expecting that, definitely felt like it went overboard on that and to its detriment

I have to ask… have you read the comics?  This is as faithful an adaptation of any written work into a television medium as I have ever seen.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think I said before, I don't tend to mind the gender / race swapping on paper, but if you are going to do it then it's a good opportunity to bring in great quality actors and let them show off their talents. Instead it feels like they brought in people who were just not that great instead and that opens you up to more criticism of being woke because it all feels like pandering. 

I really thought Constantine was pretty dreadful in the role, she is in most things, but also there were some really weird mis-steps. Lucienne felt very daytime tv in her delivery and it didn't work for me. I can't believe they got the doctor from Ted Lasso in here, because she demonstrated that she wasn't just terrible in that, but basically used the same performance in Sandman, I'm really baffled as to how she gets work as an actress. Truly. Brienne was fine as Lucifer but I do think she is pretty limited, Brienne is going to be her pinnacle. 

Sometimes it worked though, hiring Chabuddy as Abel and Shanjeev Bhaskar as Cain fit I thought, though it could be been a bit darker. Funnily enough almost the entire cast of one of my fave shows,  90's UK Asian comedy Goodness Gracious Me, is in this show. Maybe highlighting how few Asian actors there are around. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I never read the comics and I thought this was really good for the most part. Impressive visuals, some fantastic acting and solid writing for the most part. Episode 5 is a masterpiece. 4 and 6 were really strong too. David Thewlis and Boyd Holbrook were great, and so was Kirby Howell-Baptiste.

But the whole thing felt weirdly structured for a 10 episode season. The strongest episodes were 5 and 6 and after that the show spent too much time on clearly the most boring arc where the main character (Rose) was played one of the weakest actors . Strange choice to pick someone with zero TV or movie credits for an important role in such a high profile show. And the ending of the Doll's House arc was both predictable and felt like a copout.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I have to ask… have you read the comics?  This is as faithful an adaptation of any written work into a television medium as I have ever seen.

I've read some of them, not the whole arc. There were some with art that really didnt appeal to me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I have to ask… have you read the comics?  This is as faithful an adaptation of any written work into a television medium as I have ever seen.

If you want to complain about Sandman being "woke," the time to do it was in the letters pages of the comics in 1989. Otherwise it's a bit like complaining Game of Thrones has too many castles in it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I complain about shows so frequently, that I'm pleased to say that I'm enjoying this particular adaptation. I'm 3 episodes in. I have some issues with the show, but overall I'm very impressed that this turned out as good as it did. I'm fairly shocked too; I considered the comics to be one of the more challenging projects to adapt well.

With the course correction of Westworld, the consistently high quality of Better Call Saul, and the surprise pleasure of Sandman, I have to say this has been an unexpectedly enjoyable television viewing interval lately.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As far as I can tell, these days, being woke is best described as just not being a cunt to others. And it follows that the people who regularly complain about wokeism are usually on that particular spectrum, to one extreme or another.

Btw, these people have always existed. When I was growing up, they were the ones grumbling about Ron Atkinson getting taken off the air as Political Correctness Gone Mad. A few years ago, they would have been sneering at all the Social Justice Workers getting uppity all over the internet. 

Now we have the likes of Tucker and Piers and Neil fucking Oliver, and all their little imps, getting triggered to fuck by what they are calling wokeism, when they don't even know what it means. I wonder why. 

I'll tell you fucking why. 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I have to ask… have you read the comics?  This is as faithful an adaptation of any written work into a television medium as I have ever seen.

Aye. Some real Tell Me You've Never Read The Sandman Without Telling Me You've Never Read The Sandman energy right there. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Aye. Some real Tell Me You've Never Read The Sandman Without Telling Me You've Never Read The Sandman energy right there. 

 

I can remember reading the comics back in the early 1990s and thinking about how far they pushed the envelope for the time.  @Werthead is absolutely correct that the time to complain about the “wokeness” of “the Sandman” was during the comics run in the early to mid 1990s.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Calibandar said:

Dislikes:

  • While the actress playing Death certainly did a good job, I feel casting wise they should have cast a Caucasian actress as in the comics, also to make it feel more as if they were actually brother and sister. 

Sorry, haven't read the comics, but was there a biological process that spawned both the Angel of Death and the Lord of Dreams from the same loins? 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Corvinus85 said:

Sorry, haven't read the comics, but was there a biological process that spawned both the Angel of Death and the Lord of Dreams from the same loins? 

 

No, and Death is billions of years older than Dream, who is also black (or even non-human) when being seen through different eyes

Link to comment
Share on other sites

24 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

No, and Death is billions of years older than Dream, who is also black (or even non-human) when being seen through different eyes

Actually, they did have parents. Time is their father and Darkness is their mother. I think. It’s been a while since I read Overture. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, Quijote Light said:

Actually, they did have parents. Time is their father and Darkness is their mother. I think. It’s been a while since I read Overture. 

Fair enough, I don't remember that at all (but then it's been the best part of 30 years)

 

Actually, if it's in overture, then I never read it in the first place (when they circulated my school, the main story hadn't been finished, to the best of my knowledge)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...