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The Expanse #6: better to go down swinging than rolling over


AncalagonTheBlack
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2 hours ago, Ran said:

I did have bits and pieces that were a little silly, though:

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It seemed a bit absurd that Elvi did not immediately do a typical medical  assessment of Holden -- like asking him "Are you on any medications?" -- just to stretch out the blindness plot line. Fine, she's a scientist, not a doctor, but... I don't know, seemed pretty obvious!

While Klaes's sendoff was pitch perfect... I admit, I do not understand why he did not just shoot Marco, taking him down with him, or at least having a chance to do so. There's no way that he thought he was going to get out of there alive. I know, maybe it was the long game of hopefully managing to record their conversation, and hopefully Marco giving away some hint of his plans, and hopefully someone then finds that hidden communication log... but, again, just shooting him in the head would probably have done a world of good. Not for Earth, I guess, his attack would have gone unstopped, but after that I doubt Filip and co. are up to keeping the Free Navy going.

 

Spoiler

I totally agree that there is no reason for Ashford not to shoot Marco almost asap

 

2 hours ago, Ran said:

Speaking of casting, I do feel the later seasons are hamstrung by the very obvious absence of Jared Harris as Dawes. The OPA basically just vanishes in season 5 and we have a lot of talking around it. Shame, but that's the nature of

I agree that Harris's absence is a shame (perfect castingright there imho). OTOH, I think it's pretty clear that the OPA was always a collection of various factions, most of which become Inaros's Free Navy.

Edited by Rippounet
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Thanks for redirecting here, good to see thoughts on it from others. And seeing the season 6 trailer, maybe we'll get an answer about what Dawes is up to seeing as Ceres ends up featuring and that's his usual base...

While I agree that the OPA was factionalized, I just felt that there was something missing in not seeing the leadership of the OPA trying to do something about the Free Navy, even if it was just trying to meet with Inaros and try to moderate his actions, or collecting a counter-fleet or what have you. Obviously, the death of Fred Johnson is part of what may throw the OPA into disarray, but still, you'd think Dawes would be doing something.

Spoiler

Of course, reading book-spoilers, I see Dawes ends up siding with Inaros. Now I recall there was some throwaway line in the show that Dawes will dance to Inaros's tune or something such, or would allow himself to be bullied into doing what Inaros wanted, and I guess that's a take.

Similarly, it felt really weird that no one was getting on the horn with Mars about Inaros, his stealth tech-clad asteroids, and especially his MCRN warships. Couldn't we get a single scene with Avasarala button-holing some Martian diplomat on Luna and trying to work the back channels to figure out what's going on?

Obviously, they have only so many hours, but it did feel like we have a real imbalance on the politics side -- we mostly see Earth or Belter politics, while Mars is just sort of assumed.

Looking back on the prior thread as well, one question:

Spoiler

Were people just assuming that the TV show was following the book's plan of wrecking Earth with post-asteroidal long-term winter? It seems like they chose to dial that back considerably on the show, where deaths are in the range of a few million rather than the hundreds of millions or billions some seem to have thrown out as possible.

Am I wrong about that?

 

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3 minutes ago, Ran said:

Obviously, they have only so many hours, but it did feel like we have a real imbalance on the politics side -- we mostly see Earth or Belter politics, while Mars is just sort of assumed.

Agree 100%. A few short scenes here or there would have covered the political angle better.

Though to be fair, the books have always focused more on individual characters than broader politics. I'd say it's simply not the story they set out to tell.

 

3 minutes ago, Ran said:

Looking back on the prior thread as well, one question:

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Were people just assuming that the TV show was following the book's plan of wrecking Earth with post-asteroidal long-term winter? It seems like they chose to dial that back considerably on the show, where deaths are in the range of a few million rather than the hundreds of millions or billions some seem to have thrown out as possible.

Am I wrong about that?

 

There was a heated discussion here over this issue. Many thought the destruction had indeed been dialed back considerably. Others disagreed.

I think in the end, the consensus was that we'd have to see the first episodes of season 6 to confirm it one way or the other.

 

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2 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Though to be fair, the books have always focused more on individual characters than broader politics. I'd say it's simply not the story they set out to tell.

Is Avasarala as featured in later books as she is in the show? I recall they brought her forward into the TV in the earliest seasons, but I don't know how involved she is in stuff later on. I think so long as she's a focus, books or TV-show wise, it does create a little bit of an imbalance. 

Switching to another topic, I saw a lot of people discussed the confusion you sometimes get in the battles -- particularly in what happens in the big confrontation between the Rocinante and the Free Navy, where Drummer and Josep switch sides. I'm sure people have suggested this, but IMO they should have taken a tip from MMOs as well as their own take on the battle displays and present significant objects in a scene with overlayed titles and so on. It might seem hokey but I think it would have worked if done right. Basically give viewers the sense that they're seeing the battle through a holographic real-time display or something, that just happens to have perfect fidelity. 

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On 11/21/2021 at 9:12 PM, dog-days said:

Looks good! Feeling excited. Great to see Draper back on the Roci. Sad there's no sign of Jared Harris though. I think S1 of The Expanse got started at around the time his career moved up a level and his schedule filled up. 

Frustrating, especially because Harris has continued to promote the show and occasionally does stuff on social media with other castmembers etc. I think there's been some hope that he might have shot a cameo for the final season, but that might be wishful thinking more than anything.

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4 hours ago, Ran said:

Is Avasarala as featured in later books as she is in the show? I recall they brought her forward into the TV in the earliest seasons, but I don't know how involved she is in stuff later on. I think so long as she's a focus, books or TV-show wise, it does create a little bit of an imbalance. 

Switching to another topic, I saw a lot of people discussed the confusion you sometimes get in the battles -- particularly in what happens in the big confrontation between the Rocinante and the Free Navy, where Drummer and Josep switch sides. I'm sure people have suggested this, but IMO they should have taken a tip from MMOs as well as their own take on the battle displays and present significant objects in a scene with overlayed titles and so on. It might seem hokey but I think it would have worked if done right. Basically give viewers the sense that they're seeing the battle through a holographic real-time display or something, that just happens to have perfect fidelity. 

I think she became a major character starting with book two but they added her to the show in season one.

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5 hours ago, Ran said:

Is Avasarala as featured in later books as she is in the show? I recall they brought her forward into the TV in the earliest seasons, but I don't know how involved she is in stuff later on. I think so long as she's a focus, books or TV-show wise, it does create a little bit of an imbalance. 

Switching to another topic, I saw a lot of people discussed the confusion you sometimes get in the battles -- particularly in what happens in the big confrontation between the Rocinante and the Free Navy, where Drummer and Josep switch sides. I'm sure people have suggested this, but IMO they should have taken a tip from MMOs as well as their own take on the battle displays and present significant objects in a scene with overlayed titles and so on. It might seem hokey but I think it would have worked if done right. Basically give viewers the sense that they're seeing the battle through a holographic real-time display or something, that just happens to have perfect fidelity. 

Avasarala is always a significant character by nature of her title and role in the story. I'd say the show gives her the same amount of screentime as the books do. Her presence does diminish later in the story but we would get into book spoilers in order to explain.

The battles are tough to depict -- even in the books they get chaotic and especially so as the writers keep to the real physics of space combat and strategy. I think the books do a better job in describing them due to the technicality of a lot of the ship maneuvering and I also feel like the books had more space combat scenes in general (though it's never really military sci-fi). You should definitely continue the books. I think the series gets better past the first 2 novels, it's different enough from the show that you might appreciate the perspective, and it will have more content than what the show has and can cover.

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2 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

This is one property where I think the live-action adaptation easily equals the books. While there are changes and cuts, there are also improvements. 

Yeah, this is certainly a series where reading the books and watching the show are both worth it and I'm very curious about the reaction of the show-first viewers in contrast to the readers. I think even moreso than ASOIAF because this series is still lagging behind the book storyline even upon it's finale. Ashford is by far the best contrast and the show pulls his character off so much better than his book counterpart.  Same with Drummer though with less disparity/ conglomeration of characters. I give the show writers a lot of credit there.

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The books feel very episodic compared to the TV show, not in terms of not being a single story (because they are) but where each book feels more of a discrete entity following up on the last, with their own focused cast of characters (literally each book has its own exclusive POV character who doesn't recur elsewhere, or for a while; Holden is the only one with a POV in every book IIRC) and storyline. 5/6 and 7/8 are more single stories split into two volumes apiece.

The biggest change the TV show made, and I think for the better, is "bleeding" character arcs and storylines between books, so Avasarala (who only debuts in Book 2 and is almost missing entirely from other volumes) is much more of a constant player throughout the series and a major Book 3 character is introduced in the Book 2 storyline in the books and so on. It makes the whole thing feel more of a piece rather than a matinee serial.

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21 hours ago, WarGalley said:

Yeah, this is certainly a series where reading the books and watching the show are both worth it and I'm very curious about the reaction of the show-first viewers in contrast to the readers. I think even moreso than ASOIAF because this series is still lagging behind the book storyline even upon it's finale. Ashford is by far the best contrast and the show pulls his character off so much better than his book counterpart.  Same with Drummer though with less disparity/ conglomeration of characters. I give the show writers a lot of credit there.

Yea, I really have a hard time choosing which version of this series I enjoy more. The show actually does make changes, that improve the source material and in other cases it's the other way around. Ashford and Drummer are by far the best thing the show did right, while killing a certain character at the end of season 5, might be the worst thing the show did, IMO. Reading the final book now, makes me rather upset that certain moments will be impossible for the show to do.

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6 hours ago, sifth said:

 while killing a certain character at the end of season 5, might be the worst thing the show did, IMO. 

I'm sure the showrunners would have liked to keep that character around, but when the actor gets the kind of accusations he got, reputational concerns supersede creative ones and he had to go. But the success of the show's divergences so far (such as Ashford and Drummer as you mentioned) mean I trust them to handle this one as well.

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I think @sifth is of the view that they should have recast the role rather than killing the character off. Would have been a jarring experience but if the character has an interesting story and has all these connections to the main cast, I can see the argument for it. I'm sure the producers gave it a long, hard consideration before they made their decision, though.

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3 hours ago, Ran said:

I think @sifth is of the view that they should have recast the role rather than killing the character off. Would have been a jarring experience but if the character has an interesting story and has all these connections to the main cast, I can see the argument for it. I'm sure the producers gave it a long, hard consideration before they made their decision, though.

Yup, you got it. I'm always in favor of recasting over killing off a character because of an actors bad behavior. I'm also not a fan of using CGI to bring dead actors back to life, which several movies have been doing in recent years and I personally just find disturbing and disrespectful.

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1 hour ago, sifth said:

Yup, you got it. I'm always in favor of recasting over killing off a character because of an actors bad behavior. I'm also not a fan of using CGI to bring dead actors back to life, which several movies have been doing in recent years and I personally just find disturbing and disrespectful.

I can understand that, and if there was more than one season left I can see that they might have done it, but part of the success of the Expanse show is how well all the actors have made the characters there own - a new actor would be constantly in Anvar's shadow and wouldn't have long enough to pull away from that comparison. (Unlike, say, Donal Finn taking over as Mat in Wheel of Time - Barney Harris may be the best actor of the Two Rivers lads in Season 1, but with only one season the shadow he casts isn't nearly as large as any of The Expanse's actors would be).

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21 minutes ago, Denvek said:

I can understand that, and if there was more than one season left I can see that they might have done it

I'd have said the opposite -- the fact that there was only one season left would have made me inclined to recast rather than change whatever pre-production writing had been done on the final scripts.

Now, whether they knew it was the final season or not at the time, I do not know. Similarly, I don't know if the producers have explained why they made that choice rather than recasting.

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I would have preferred recast, too, or 'retired' and then recast if they do come back to finish the last three books in some form.

That being said, there is a book death that served as inspiration for Alex's death in the show, which could not have been repeated in the show with that book character. So I think they may have somewhat planned this.

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