True Detective: The Night Country is dark and full of terrors!

[IFR]

1 hour ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I liked the Watchmen mini-series sequel… but their treatment of Dr. Manhattan made absolutely no sense at all… he can’t modify lithium?  That’s oddly specific for a character that is essentially a capital “G”… God.

I agree with you. I liked the miniseries. It's far better than anything Moore has produced since the 1980's. As far as I'm concerned, Alan Moore hasn't been relevant for nearly 35 years in terms of producing quality work. And believe me, his work of Watchmen, V for Vendetta and From Hell (which I view as his magnum opus) earned a lot of good will from me. I think I gave up when I tried to read his Neonomicon (as a fan of cosmic horror). It was so comically stupid that I had to concede to myself that Moore had become the haggard spectre of a once-genius artist.

That said, I respect his position on denouncing adaptations of his work.

[Ran]

 First off,  my ritual fuck you to DC, HBO, and that scab Lindelof for participating in pillaging Watchmen when they all know that they have abused Moore's rights.

24 minutes ago, IFR said:

From Hell

That's from the 1990s, not 1980s, though.The League of Extraordinary Gentleman, Promethea, Lost Girls, Top Ten... IMO, he's written a lot of great stuff in the 21st century as well. LoEG is a ridiculous masterclass in Victorian literature and popular culture while also interrogating all the ugly, nasty sides of it. As it progresses he pushes into post-War Britain (featuring his unvarnishedly brutal take on "Jimmy" Bond), and eventually contemporary Britain as well.

Neonomicon doesn't strike me as at all stupider than the Lovecraft mythos, but to each their own. He followed it up with Providence, which eventually ties together the ending of Neonomicon.

Edited February 21 by Ran

[IFR]

10 minutes ago, Ran said:

First off,  my ritual fuck you to DC, HBO, and that scab Lindelof for participating in pillaging Watchmen when they all know that they have abused Moore's rights.

True enough. That said, it's a really good miniseries.

12 minutes ago, Ran said:

That's from the 1990s, not 1980s, though.The League of Extraordinary Gentleman, Promethea, Lost Girls, Top Ten... IMO, he's written a lot of great stuff in the 21st century as well. LoEG is a ridiculous masterclass in Victorian literature and popular culture while also interrogating all the ugly, nasty sides of it. As it progresses he pushes into post-War Britain (featuring his unvarnishedly brutal take on "Jimmy" Bond), and eventually contemporary Britain as well.

You're right about From Hell. I Googled it before making that comment and saw that it was published in 1989. I assumed that was the completed edition, not that it began at that date.

I haven't read LoEG, but I may give it a chance, since it does seem like you and I have enough overlap in our tastes that I may enjoy it.

15 minutes ago, Ran said:

Neonomicon doesn't strike me as at all stupider than the Lovecraft mythos, but to each their own.

As for this, I can only say to each their own indeed. We do differ widely in our opinion on this work.

[Ran]

21 hours ago, IFR said:

We do differ widely in our opinion on this work.

I don't know how deep you are into Lovecraft scholarship, but Providence includes S.T. Joshi as a character in the final issue. Joshi seemed bemused but not unpleased, as Moore had clearly inserted him because he had read some of his scholarly work on Lovecraft.

I would also point to this site run by dedicated Lovecraft/Moore fans/scholars which have extensive annotations for Moore's various Lovecraftian works. I don't know if they might give you a different perspective on the issues you had with it. There's a lot of depth, I think, in what Moore is doing with the Lovecraft mythos.

ETA: Oh, also, Issa López signed on to a multi-year development deal, including showrunning season 5 of True Detective. Oh dear. Well, popular is popular.

Edited February 22 by Ran

[Iskaral Pust]

I finished the season but didn’t love it.  Better than S2 but I have to wonder why I keep watching TD hoping that the S1 magic will repeat.

They told the story they wanted and shrugged off the many plot holes.  The core was resolving the oppressor-oppressed tension and processing spiritually the unresolved griefs/traumas.  The narrative required that the mystery had to conclude with the colonial, capitalist, male bad being called to justice by the indigenous, spiritual, female good.  It completely fits that there weren’t individual perpetrators, but rather a group action crime and a group action justice.  “Virtue-noir” is a decent name for it.  I wonder how this era of art will be viewed in the future.

Aside from the theme, the tone of claustrophobic horror continued and peaked with physical claustrophobia as they squeezed through the ice tunnels.  I don’t enjoy horror tension.  S1’s gothic philosophizing feels slow on rewatch now (perhaps knowing the ending is an anticlimax) but it struck a better tone.

[AncalagonTheBlack]

True Detective’ Renewed For Season 5 At HBO As Showrunner Issa López Strikes Overall Deal

https://deadline.com/2024/02/true-detective-renewed-season-5-hbo-issa-lopez-overall-deal-1235834470/

Issa López, who served as showrunner for True Detective: Night Country, the fourth and most successful iteration of the crime franchise, will oversee the next installment as part of an overall deal she signed with the network.

It’s yet to be decided as to whether season five of True Detective will be related to Night Country or will be an entirely new story.

However, what’s clear is that, despite creator Nic Pizzolato’s criticisms, López’s season has brought a return to form for the True Detective universe, becoming the most-watched season with 12.7 million cross platform viewers.

[dbunting]

Ugh. Just when I think I'm out they drag me back in

[IFR]

18 hours ago, Ran said:

I would also point to this site run by dedicated Lovecraft/Moore fans/scholars which have extensive annotations for Moore's various Lovecraftian works. I don't know if they might give you a different perspective on the issues you had with it. There's a lot of depth, I think, in what Moore is doing with the Lovecraft mythos.

I appreciate literary allusions and will readily acknowledge that this is a talent of Moore, and one of the things that drew me to his writings. I do consider Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and From Hell as masterpieces, and some of the best writing in any form that I've read. The layers, depth of research, nuance and detail are a joy.

I think no amount of these techniques could save Neonomicon for me though. The core concept of the story simply fails for me.

Spoilers for those who really want to ruin their day and check out Neonomicon. Trigger warning as well, since acts of violent nonconsensual material are also discussed.

Spoiler

I understand that Alan Moore was providing a transgressive, modernist take of Lovecraft, depicting the "blasphemous rites" that Lovecraft shied away from.

But Alan Moore really goes above and beyond the call of duty here. Half the "story" is a woman getting raped and impregnated by a fish man, all depicted in loving, pornographic detail. Call me crazy, but I think that's probably in the running for the stupidest concept ever.

I'm not a squeamish person, and it is my view that people should be able to depict whatever content they desire. And so long as I find value in what is achieved by the work of art, I don't object to the manner by which the artist achieves it. I enjoyed works like A Clockwork Orange (both the book and movie), Donaldson's The Real Story, and, of course, A Song of Ice and Fire (both books and television adaptation).

But I do think when it comes to the horror genre, and especially cosmic horror, that there is often something much more powerful in the implication of horror than the direct depiction. So many movies come off as completely silly because they insist on depicting what should be implied. And that could not be more true in the case of Neonomicon, when Alan Moore chose to extensively depict explicit, extended sequences of rape by a fish man. It's really hard for me to think of an idea that I find more idiotic than that, and so I fear no amount of literary techniques could save that story for me.

 

18 hours ago, Ran said:

ETA: Oh, also, Issa López signed on to a multi-year development deal, including showrunning season 5 of True Detective. Oh dear. Well, popular is popular.

I would do the same if I were running HBO. All HBO cares about is critical acclaim and ratings, and it enjoyed both with this season of True Detective. If neither the critics or the general audience are going to recognize that the emperor has no clothes,  HBO might as well carry on as though his clothes are as majestic as ever.

On another note, I called Pizzolatto out for his childish antics, so it behooves me to do the same for Kali Reis, who is busy slugging it out on X, calling the detractors of the show racists and misogynists. She engaged in a particularly heated exchange with a critic on Forbes who gave the season a pretty bad review.

I really believe that the show runner and adjacent talent are unable to see or recognize the criticisms of the show. They see the ratings, and the critical reviews and view that as an objective reflection on the quality of the show. I think they actually do consider any criticisms as racist and misogynistic in nature. They are in their echo chamber. And likely will double down on the kind of storytelling that was witnessed in season 4.

A pity. But such is life, I suppose.

Edited February 23 by IFR

[TheLastWolf]

14 hours ago, dbunting said:

Ugh. Just when I think I'm out they drag me back in

Beat me to it.

I sincerely hope they acknowledge and learn from their shortcomings, but it sold as it was, so not much hopes rested.

Will wait out the next season completely before deciding to plunge or not.

Edited February 24 by TheLastWolf

[dbunting]

6 hours ago, TheLastWolf said:

Beat me ot it.

I sincerely hope they acknowledge and learn from their shortcomings, but it sold, so not much hopes rested.

Will wait out the next season completely before deciding to plunge or not.

Why would they learn when according to the article this season was the most successful? It was probably better than I give it credit for, I was soured right off the bat and it tainted my viewing.

I hope it's a new fresh "mystery" again so I can start w a clean slate.

[Freshwater Spartan]

Just finished. A couple thoughts. 

Overall liked it. Second best season after the magical first season. Appreciated the setting and creepy vibes. Solid acting and characters. Not thrilled with the reveal on who killed scientists or rather our "true" detectives not pursuing THAT case. A real true detective would put those murderers away and not back down to mob justice. Of course our two detectives were revealed to  be quite comprised so no real heroes in this one.

Virtue noir is very clever term. I see a lot of similarities between this and the  stupid morality we see in most recent Quentin Tarantino movies.  

Hope we get a season 5.  (Seems likely). Really do love the anthology big budget crime series as an idea.

Alan Moore is cool.  Watchman show was cool too.   Jerusalem was a great book.

Remember if a tv show does everything you hope it would do there isnt much point in watching it.

 

 

Edited February 26 by Freshwater Spartan

[TheLastWolf]

3 hours ago, Freshwater Spartan said:

and the  stupid morality we see in most recent Quentin Tarantino movies

(*Raised eyebrows*)