elijahaldrich-15214 Reviews

The Wingfeather Saga: Escape to Peet's Castle (2023) Season 1, Episode 4

Too many narrative changes

[3/10 · 15 February 2023]

Adaptating a narrative between mediums is not easy. But the best adaptations keep the narrative as similar as possible after the necessary changes. The Harry Potter series of an excellent example of adaptation done right. The vast majority of changes are omissions rather than complete narrative and character changes.

Alas, The Wingfeather Saga is not an adaptation done right. Not only are there omissions, but the actual addition changes add little to the narrative and take valuable time that could have been used to include important moments from the books.

The characters are also vastly changed. They have apparently all achieved the pinnacle of their arcs. None of them have the struggles or flaws contained in the book. In the novel, Janner wants to know more about his father and his purpose in life. In the show, he couldn't care less about who his father is, and Esben is mentioned in casual conversation by Nia and Podo when a chapter of the book is literally titled "A Stranger Called Esben." Janner's entire drive is to find out more about his father and grow into his responsibility as a protector of his siblings. And he gets none of it.

A major trait of Tink in the novels is his fear of heights. It's something he had to overcome and when he does it has strong implications for his character. That doesn't exist here. He's already fearless.

Leeli has little development in the first book and that's the same here. As for Nia and Podo, well they're essentially the same characters, they just do completely different things than they did in the books.

I wanted to love this show. I was incredibly excited for it. The animation is very good and so is the voice acting(when it isn't lost in a bad sound mix), but the narrative had been changed almost beyond recognition in ways that make the show itself far poorer.

Depending on how they end this season, they could still end up on the right track for season two, plotwise, but I'm afraid the characters have been hollowed out too much to fix.

The Wingfeather Saga (2022– )

A promising, if uneven, start

[7/10 · 3 December 2022]

I've only read the first book of this series with my daughter and we both loved it. It's an excellent story, well told with wonderful characters, and a placed in a charming world.

The first episode of the TV show attempts to bring us into the world Peterson so wonderfully wrote, and it ends up (by the end of the first episode) feeling rushed and uneven.

It deviates pretty strongly from the book in some key areas-notably the character introductions-and makes me worry a bit for how it will handle the narrative going forward. Already, the discovery of the dangers of Glipwood Forest has been subverted by an intro that was far different in the book and better done in the short film.

There are also audio mixing issues where the voices don't always clear the mix and come out muddled and incomprehensible. The music is also mixed poorly and feels too rote in places and ill fitting in others.

Perhaps I expected too much from the animation after the short film, but I felt a little let down initially. Thankfully, it's done well enough that I was drawn in and enjoyed it after readjusting my expectations. The character designs are excellent and the voice actors do a great job with their characters.

Criticisms aside, there is so much potential in this show already and I am looking forward to seeing the rest of this season and reading the other books with my daughter soon.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022– )

Four Episodes in, Four to Go and No Goal in Sight

[3/10 · 17 September 2022]

I decided to watch at least half the season before posting a review in case the first few episodes were better/worse than the rest. Alas, four episodes in and nothing of importance has happened in the five or six storylines that we've been dragged through. Some are decent(Elrond and Durin), others are abysmal(anything with the Harfoots and Galadriel), and the rest are profoundly meh.

The cinematography and score are excellent, as is much of the production design. However, the writing is exceptionally poor, full of bad idioms and metaphors and word choice that has no place in a work based on Tolkien's Middle-earth.

And while this is an supposed to be an adaptation of Tolkien's works- and I acknowledge and accept that changes have to be made to translate his tales to this medium-none of the myriad changes are justified by the narrative. They've thrown away nearly everything Tolkien did write of the 2nd Age and replaced it with their own silly and half-baked narratives.

It's peppered with Lord of the Rings call-forwards. Sometimes ripping off entire lines of dialogue and copying character arcs for completely different-often made-up-characters. The world is expansive, but also flat. Very few locations feel like they have purpose or character. Most are simply a wide establishing shot and a scene up on a set that barely resembles the prior establishment view.

The show is entirely plot driven as the characters are almost all poorly written and characterized, thus the actors have little to work with. Things and events happen and characters do things because they need to for the future, not because the writing got us there naturally. And the plot itself meanders and goes nowhere while it is simultaneously the only driving force of the show.

The showrunners have obviously taken notes from their mentor J. J. Abrams and have filled the screen with easter eggs and potential mysteries and dilemmas that they clearly have no plan to address satisfactorily.

The pacing is all over the place, the editing is sloppy, and the action choreography is some of the worst I've seen since Supergirl on the CW.

All of it ends up in a product that mostly looks expensive, but feels underdeveloped, sloppy, and cheap. And it's not adapted from Tolkien's writings. It's the most expensive insult of an attempted homage to grace the small screen since The Wheel of Time.

I really wish I could recommend this.

But I can't.

Not for the casual viewer, and not for the Tolkien nerd.

Halo (2022– )

A poor adaption, and a bad show

[2/10 · 5 April 2022]

Another adaptation that hates to material it's adapting.

Adaptation is hard, especially when you're adapting something as beloved as Halo. Which is why my preferred theory of adaptation has always been to hew as close to the source material as possible, while making the changes that have to be made for the medium it's being adapted into.

Last years Dune is a brilliant example of this.

Sadly Paramount adopted a different theory of adaptation: do your own thing and put in elements of the source material.

The Shining is a great example of that kind of adaptation.

However, unlike The Shining, there's no competence in the storytelling, no logic in the characters, and bad production design and effects.

Halo: Forward Unto Dawn came out as a web series ten years ago and has comparable effects.

Could they have made a good show that largely ignores the canon and source material? Sure. But they don't.

None of the changes are justified so far, so it becomes a giant mess as it goes on.

Perhaps it will become a good show as it continues. For now, however, it's painfully mediocre as a show, and terrible as an adaptation of the story of Halo.

Halo: Unbound (2022) Season 1, Episode 2

This second episode is pure filler

[1/10 · 5 April 2022]

It's a sad state of being when you have so little material to work with that the *second* episode is pure filler material. That and it goes far beyond established lore and uses pointless exposition to tell too much too soon.

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017)

If you are a fan of Guy Ritchie, this is a film for you

[8/10 · 14 May 2017]

The moment I heard that Guy Ritchie was directing a King Arthur film, I was excited. I loved his most recent entries into the Sherlock Holmes films, and Man from U.N.C.L.E. Ritchie's blend of character and dialogue driven humor, his signature cinematography, non-linear editing, and adding on top of that the fantasy element made for a wildly kinetic look and style. I was not disappointed.

From the opening scene the cinematography and editing served up Ritchie's style. The sheer energy in every scene is almost breathtaking. Even when slow motion is used, the atmosphere is as taught as a bowstring. All the battles are incredibly exciting, even when at times it is hard to follow what exactly is going on.

Pemberton's score complements every scene, adding to the raw British energy that pulsates through the film. At times it felt more like watching a Celtic Rock concert with film accompaniment.

The characters are well drawn stereotypes, and the actors all inhabit their respective characters with aplomb. Each character inhabits their own place and allows Hunnam's Arthur to take the spotlight and grow into his character. Jude Law also does terrific as the villain, a man driven by a desire for power at any cost.

That said, there are some problems with the film. Some of the editing, due to it being non-linear,(again, this is a GUY RITCHIE film) can be confusing, events happen very quickly, and the film could easily have gone on for another thirty minutes to flesh out some of the world Ritchie created.

However, those are my only gripes. It's not a thought provoking experience, there are no mind bending Nolan or Villenueve'isms. Just a simple entertaining story well told that is more of an adrenaline rush that the Fast films could hope to be.

My one warning to someone watching would be this: DO NOT GO IN EXPECTING A HISTORICAL FILM! The characters reference everything from kung fu, vikings, characters named George and Blue, to other uses of language that are completely foreign to period films.