Shadow and Bone - Netflix - April

[Ran]

3 hours ago, kairparavel said:

The Crows are fantastic! Excellent casting all around there. Kaz especially has walked right off the page.

While their inclusion in the story feels clumsy, I do find their side of it a bit more intriguing and interesting than the Grisha side of the story, which feels like fairly rote and predictable YA fantasy so far (now 4 episodes in).

3 hours ago, kairparavel said:

On the Grisha side, the cast is also very good. Ben Barnes as the Darkling works so well. The Apparat is appropriately creepy though he looks nothing like his book description (which is fine really).

Agreed. The casting seems fine for everyone to me, performance-wise, though the crew of actors playing the Six of Crows characters are more interesting purely by being... well, they are trope-y heist characters as well, but that's less usual to see in fantasy so it feels fresh.

3 hours ago, kairparavel said:

My only real complaint is how much they are cramming in to each episode to create the story of what The Crows were doing during this Alina timeline. Too many characters/locations/politics to keep track of for someone who hasn't read the books. 

Yes. And the fourth episode makes this worse, IMO. 

Spoiler

As Linda tells me, the Nina and Matthias characters are now also getting their own storyline, so there's now four story threads (Alina, Mal, the crew, Nina and Matthias), with only two having any genuine sense of connection -- Mal and Alina -- whereas the crew ... I mean, you know they're trying to present them as being connected, but unless they're going to go completely off-books with this it seems to me that at the end of S1 they'll be no closer to being involved in the central plot matter of the Grisha than they are presently.

3 hours ago, kairparavel said:

Was also pretty happy when I saw Leigh Bardugo in her scene. I can't imagine what it's like to see it all come to life, though her smile in that scene said a lot!

I did notice that from having seen her in one of the behind-the-scenes and recognizing her.

Spoiler

Having her be the first Grisha to give Alina a hug seemed quite appropriate.

2 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

My Daughter is 6 episodes in.  She said she was confused by the incorporation of “Six of Crows” into the plot.

It feels clumsy, but I guess they couldn't see how to get the series out over multiple seasons without having it in there to flesh things out.

[karaddin]

I enjoyed the hell out of this and binged through it real fast. I thought the casting was great across the board and on top of the other ones that have been called out, I thought Mei as Alina was great as well. I read the Grisha trilogy back after LonCon so was pretty hazy on the details and couldn't remember if any of the Crows and Nina stuff was in that or not. From the reactions on here it sounds like that might have actually worked in my favour, as I felt the various plotlines worked fine. Thought the visual effects were great for the most part and make me excited for how WoT might look with the budget it has.

[polishgenius]

 

There's been some chat on twitter about mishandling of the diversification of the cast. So far it seems to be a minority of voices (although one lady I respect is in agreement) but.... I've neither read nor seen it yet so I can't comment on the specifics, but one quote by Bardugho herself from the article linked leapt out as bothersome:

 

 

Quote

"When you have a character who is visibly an outsider, who has been treated shabbily, who has been told repeatedly that she looks like the enemy, to then be thrust into the role of saving a nation that has rejected her on many terms, I think that makes the story much richer and more powerful," the author remarks.

 

Don't use racism as story-spice please. Especially using racism against people who are not you as enritchment for your escapism. It really does run the risk of making it less escapist for the people you claim to be trying to give more representation, which is what appears to have happened here.

[Martini Sigil]

we're 4 episodes in and really digging this... it's done really well... a couple of random observations:

--There are no big name actors, and a few mid-level names ... Ben Barnes, Zoe Wannamaker, Tom Weston-Jones...  and yet the performances down cast are all solid... I wish more shows would do this... 

--The actor who plays young  Alina totally looks like she could be the younger version of Jessie Mei Li... fantastic casting....  

[Werthead]

Four episodes in. Some iffy pacing, the effects are a bit too pristine and digital to be really convincing (man, doing in-universe CGI that looks naturalistic is hard) and there is a bit of a tonal problem: the show in almost every respect is YA but then has swearing and people being gorily sliced in half by magic and other people shot and left bleeding out on the ground, which feels a bit of a mixed message.

That actors are all pretty good though and the Grisha trilogy side of things is far superior to the novel. There's also a "typical Netflix house style" feeling to events which is annoying but it feels like this show is kind of fighting against that (as The Witcher did) rather than leaning into it.

The Crows storyline is making me think that a more adult and focused Lies of Locke Lamora adaptation could do gangbusters.

[Ran]

4 hours ago, polishgenius said:

There's been some chat on twitter about mishandling of the diversification of the cast.

Yes, I'm not surprised by that reaction. It was really strongly foregrounded, and it's a thing that is not innate to the Shadow and Bone novels  but rather something being retrofitted and made a key aspect of the character.

As I understood it, the main distinction between Alina and Mal and the people they interact with in the novels is that they are essentially of the serf class, and most of the conscripts in the army are also serfs. Bardugo used to to emphasize this fact as a feature of the novels, the class-based conflict... but the show has entirely replaced this with racial identity politics, instead, and ham-handedly so given the reactions of some viewers.

Edited April 24, 2021 by Ran

[shortstark]

I have read the Crows duology but skipped shadow and bones based on meh reviews here, I generally like to be familiar with the books before watching movies based on them, would a read of shadow and bones be beneficial in this instance? 

[Ran]

8 minutes ago, shortstark said:

I have read the Crows duology but skipped shadow and bones based on meh reviews here, I generally like to be familiar with the books before watching movies based on them, would a read of shadow and bones be beneficial in this instance? 

If that's your preference, then yes, you should read it first.

Linda says she prefers Shadow and Bones to Six of Crows herself, she's not a fan of the heist genre.

Another thing, four episodes in:

Spoiler

The voice over epistolary segments are overwrought and distracting. It feels like they don't trust that you buy these characters matter immensely to one another, It feels like they should have used some other device to try and get these things across -- create more incidents from their past, at the orphanage or in the army, that could be paralleled with current events, perhaps -- then a metric ton of narration.

 

Edited April 24, 2021 by Ran

[Ran]

Fifth episode:

Spoiler

"Percherons"? As the best horses to make a fast getaway? And in a world that does not have a France or a Perche region? Such a silly little mix-up.

Some more clumsiness in the storytelling, clearly motivated by their feeling like they have to rush through stuff. It feels like the Baghra reveal was really, really rushed.

I will say fair play to a couple of aspects of the plot: Arken turning out to be a rebel supporting Zlatan [whose every mention makes me laugh because, silly Netflix, there is only one ZLATAN and he is GOD] and Kaz figuring it all out, with all the pieces right there for the audience to pick up, and then the amusing happenstance of Alina picking the getaway carriage of the would-be kidnappers to hide in was a nice, light note.

 

Edited April 24, 2021 by Ran

[polishgenius]

Zlatan is just a poor man's Cantona and I hope the series acknowledges this.

Edited April 24, 2021 by polishgenius

[lady narcissa]

I'm enjoying reading everyone's reactions to the show/episodes.  I have no idea when I'll be able to see this since I don't have Netflix.  Does anyone know if Netflix ultimately makes their shows available to other services or at least sells DVDs?  Or do they keep everything locked down inhouse?

[Ran]

3 hours ago, lady narcissa said:

Does anyone know if Netflix ultimately makes their shows available to other services or at least sells DVDs?  Or do they keep everything locked down inhouse?

No, it'll be just on Netflix. Don't think they've ever produced DVDs/Blurays of any of their series.

 

Now seen episode 6:

Spoiler

Couple of things I've failed to remark on that I kept meaning too. Archie Renaux (Mal) and Ben Barnes (the Darkling) seem to tower over Jessica Mei Li, despite both being "just" sort of regular tall. She's allegedly 5'3" [I suspect she's a bit shorter than that]. Some websites claim Amita Suman (Inej) is 5'7", but IMDB says she's 5'5", and she comes off as even shorter than that next to the actors for Kaz and Jesper, so either they've deliberately filmed her to look smaller or these websites are mistaken as well-.

And speaking of Jessica Mei Li, it's silly but constantly annoys me that the actress's scar on her forehead is there even after Genya was going around clearing away the scars and injuries on her face. Couldn't they have used make up to hide it and then have the "fix" start fading once she leaves the Little Palace and goes on the run?  It seems like it'd just need something to fill it and then they could match her skin.

In any case, this episode... again, there's just clumsy story telling in every episode, it seems. For example, Polina just knowing 100% that Inej killed her brother, which makes no sense but is there to give personal animus for why she's after her. And then when Inej chooses to kill her, you know, there's nothing that grapples with the fact that Inej broke her apparent vow not to kill [why is she using knives then?] before and now is doing it again. She could have confessed and admitted grief/shame at killing Polina's brother when telling her why she wasn't killing her, which would have tied things together nicely. And Jesper trick-shooting the same spot again and again when he could have killed Ivan easil by shooting him in the head, and he just laughs it off [Linda tells me this is because Ivan is needed for something later.]

Having Kaz outwit the Darkling with a silly Cut-dodging smoke bomb was weird, given that he can't very well actually 'disappear' anywhere what with his shoes clacking away on the cobblestones when he was coming down them. I would have preferred his outwitting him being... well, something better than what they did. 

Nina and Matthias... I like the actors, again, the show is well-cast. But I could not have cringed harder at the idea of these adult people lost in a blizzard and barely equipped to survive taking time to flirt like they were 14-year-olds convinced they were going to live forever. I can't make sense of the show's intentions with its writing, because sometimes it seems like it's trying to lean away from its juvenile YA origins and sometimes it just leans into it with abandon.

The cast really does work pretty well, though. Ben Barnes does the brooding thing with aplomb. I also do like the fact that Inej is so devout, but Linda tells me that they've really pulled back on the veneration of the saints that was evidenced in the novels. 

Nice easter egg with the book that David the Durast was reading in the carriage.

 

[Ran]

And done.

On the whole, I think the best thing about it was the cast -- I found all the lead performers pretty appealing, with no false notes among them (even if they were sometimes given fairly melodramatic juvenilia to do, whether it was overwrought monologues or eye-rolling romantic scenes). Visuals were excellent -- particularly the Fold and the Volcra were really well-realized, I thought. Good costuming and production values. The scoring became less overbearing later in the series, I think, but it wasn't a stand out part of it -- I couldn't hum the theme or anything. I did feel like the show regularly gave in to some clunky devices (the epistolary voice overs) or plot events where you could tell they were stretching things to hurry some things up or fit in the heist crew into a narrative that didn't have them, so that's the down-side of it. And I think there were a few thematic missteps, particularly the over-emphasis on race that would fitfully vanish and then rear up again when it was convenient for the plot.

All in all, I think it was a success, and in fact it was more successful as a narrative than The Witcher was in its first season, to compare it to another Netflix fantasy show.

[Werthead]

11 hours ago, Ran said:

No, it'll be just on Netflix. Don't think they've ever produced DVDs/Blurays of any of their series.

 

 

They did produce DVDs/Blu-Rays of the Marvel Netflix shows, House of Cards (I actually owned the first two seasons before I got Netflix), Orange is the New Black and the first two seasons of Stranger Things. There seems to have been a cut-off on those shows around 2016-17 where no further seasons were released. Some older Netflix shows like Sense8 were also never released on Blu-Ray, whilst none of the shows from the last ~4 years have been released apart from the Marvels (which Netflix didn't own, notably). 

Quote

All in all, I think it was a success, and in fact it was more successful as a narrative than The Witcher was in its first season, to compare it to another Netflix fantasy show.

On Episode 7 and I think I'd disagree with that. The Witcher was a stronger show with a stronger cast (Cavill and Cholotra were outstanding, and Jodhi May playing Queen Calantra as a female Robert Baratheon was excellent) and a broadly better plot, and benefited from being an adult-oriented show and keeping a consistent tone, where Shadow and Bone is all over the place. The key weakness of The Witcher was the weird chronology, which Shadow and Bone does not suffer from.

Of their three big(ish) fantasy shows so far, I'd slot Shadow and Bone confidently into the middle, below The Witcher but above Letter for the King (closer to the latter). None of them are remotely troubling when-it-was-good Game of Thrones, or His Dark Materials for that matter.

[Ran]

9 hours ago, Werthead said:

The Witcher was a stronger show with a stronger cast (Cavill and Cholotra were outstanding, and Jodhi May playing Queen Calantra as a female Robert Baratheon was excellent) 

I think you liked The Witcher more than most, so I can see your perspective. I liked it but didn't love it,  and other than thinking Cholotra's gorgeous and Cavill was born to play Geralt, I can't say I recall much of anyone's performances. 

That said, I was thinking about all the other actors as well. Either they used fewer Hungarian actors than The Witcher used Czech actors, or Hungarian actors are a lot better at acting in English than their Czech counterparts, because there were a lot of subpar performances from tertiary and some secondary characters in The Witcher whereas there wasn't anyone I could think of who struck a discordant note in Shadow and Bone.

It'll be interesting to see what the 2nd season of The Witcher can do with a more cohesive story.

Edited April 26, 2021 by Ran

[Teng Ai Hui]

I'm also done with the series.  I enjoyed it for the most part, but it felt very rushed and as a result somewhat confusing.  I had to re-watch several scenes to fully understand the crows' conversations.  I haven't leaned on subtitles so heavily since Deadwood.  I shouldn't have to do research about small science, merzost, the menagerie, etc.

Also, what was the point of the Nina and Matthias storyline?  Just to show the culture differences between the Ravkans and the Fjerdans?  If so, why was there no cultural info about the Shu Han? 

@Ran, I'm glad you mentioned that issue with Alina and the Tailor.  That frustrated me, too.

Edited April 26, 2021 by Teng Ai Hui

[Ran]

5 hours ago, Teng Ai Hui said:

Also, what was the point of the Nina and Matthias storyline?  Just to show the culture differences between the Ravkans and the Fjerdans?  If so, why was there no cultural info about the Shu Han? 

These are characters that are a part of the Six of Crows novels, so they basically seemed to want to introduce them early and give them a (very tenuous) connection to the plot of this novel. The actual events, I am told, are fairly similar to their actual backstory that's introduced in those novels.

I guess it was also a world-building thing, to expand the scope of the story. As I understand it, the Six of Crows series and its follow-up will feature Shu Han more. It's not clear whether they will try and develop more back story to cover for the crows crew or if they're going to bring the Six of Crows storyline forward to use it for the 2nd season.

[SpaceChampion]

My only complaint is they didn't clearly make the goat that helps Mal escape to be Milo the goat from the train crossing.  Is it the same?  My head canon is that Milo is another amplifier, more powerful than that Stag with the death wish.

 

[Ran]

7 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

My only complaint is they didn't clearly make the goat that helps Mal escape to be Milo the goat from the train crossing.  Is it the same?  My head canon is that Milo is another amplifier, more powerful than that Stag with the death wish.

Spoiler

Yes. It had the bullet pendant that Jesper put on its collar when he handed it over to the barmaid.

Milo as an amplifier is funny. There may be something to it, as in the Afterparty video with the cast, they had a trivia game... and the winners got three Milo dolls with bullet pendants. That's surely confirmation of this theory.

Milo is the Bela of Shadow and Bone. They'll have to work him into every season.

 

Edited April 26, 2021 by Ran

[divica]

18 hours ago, Ran said:

I think you liked The Witcher more than most, so I can see your perspective. I liked it but didn't love it,  and other than thinking Cholotra's gorgeous and Cavill was born to play Geralt, I can't say I recall much of anyone's performances. 

That said, I was thinking about all the other actors as well. Either they used fewer Hungarian actors than The Witcher used Czech actors, or Hungarian actors are a lot better at acting in English than their Czech counterparts, because there were a lot of subpar performances from tertiary and some secondary characters in The Witcher whereas there wasn't anyone I could think of who struck a discordant note in Shadow and Bone.

It'll be interesting to see what the 2nd season of The Witcher can do with a more cohesive story.

Even if that is true most of the main cast is constantly reacting over the top. Alina and mal seem obecessed over each other instead of in love...

In the witcher the main acting seemed much better. Maybe the soldier also had an exageration problem...