#i am not particularly happy with some adaptation choices they made - wasn't this supposed to be lila's story?

[mikimeiko]

L'amica geniale | Season 4 (2024), Saverio Costanzo

[humansofstarshollow]

April was unnecessary drama, as most events in TV series so no big deal, suspension of disbelief never sleeps. I ended up liking april and luke's relationship and then GOODBYE WE ARE LEAVING FOR NEW MEXICO. honestly what the fuck. April wasn't needed but once she was there you could have let her stay there. There was no point in bringing her and Anna in, and even less point in brinting them out. Producers, take responsibility for your actions please. Why did they take them from us?? 😪

first of all: you all check out my april+new mexico board because it's real pretty

and also-- I completely agree with everything you said, anon.

i am honestly not the biggest fan of april, nor anna. and even less of luke, when it comes to his and april's relationship.

the whole "I didn't know i had a kid because the mother didn't tell me" trope is one I've never particularly liked but I understand it can work to move the plot along, in a tv show. it adds a lot of drama and angst and always messes up things for everyone.

which i get. plus, something drastic and big was probably necessary to stir the pot that was lor/luke.

what I utterly despise is: a. The way luke decided that it was something he needed to deal with by himself, without even slightly mentioning it to his partner-- huuuge red flag there;

b. the fact that april went behind her mom's back and dropped this bomb on everyone. like, she could have seriously asked anna, making it clear that she needed to know, that it was very important to her. but no, we got this girl that just randomly turns everybody's world upside down like that;

c. lorelai should have grabbed luke and shook him till he came back to his fucking senses because, I honestly cannot believe she would take all that crap without fighting;

d. i will never justify anna's choices but once the cat was out of the bag, I think it was still fair for her to retain the most important parental role in april's life. she had decided to keep it from luke and she was willing to stick to it forever but even once there were two parents, luke was a stranger. he had spent all of a few months with april and he was suddenly #1 dad? no. i'm just saying, anna was a perfectly fit mother who made some questionable decisions but she still had raised april in a loving and healthy environment and she did have to adapt to her daughter going looking for her father, dragging him into both their lives and work with it. I've read of people arguing over anna being made at luke for calling lorelai to help out with the bday party but, i mean, why wouldn't she?

e. Luke's entitlement. yes, it wasn't his decision to not be a part of april's life and it sucks badly that he was never offered the opportunity to even think about fatherhood but-- he was virtually a stranger. he should have taken what anna offered and work things out along with her.

speaking of april and anna appearing and disappearing, randomly-- i suppose the writers had to work around actors' commitments? that's how if generally happens. but yes, I would have enjoyed it if they stayed on and see how things would have organically developed rather than suddenly have april back in ayitl and the happy family around the table.

idk all these may be unpopular opinions

[saint-ambrosef]

okay, now that i have finished season 1, my lengthy thoughts:

(i feel bad for my fiance who has not read the books but had to listen to my scene by scene comparison to them, lol)

I want to start by pointing out that as a stand-alone television show, Shadow and Bone is quite good. The production value is impressive compared to most Netflix shows, with great cinematography, scene direction, and decent effects. It felt comparable to the big screen. Some of the actors were perfectly cast and the acting overall was positive. The plot was engaging. The set designs were adequate considering the limited budget.

But ultimately, this show is a book adaptation. So of course there will be comparison to the original novel. That's where I begin to have issues that casual viewers or those who have not read the books would not have. And disclaimer -- I am NOT involved in the online fandom at all, so I have no idea whether these opinions are popular or not.

ONE: THE CASTING

The casting was really hit-or-miss for me. I'll divide it into three categories: actors who were good but just did not seem to fit the character; actors whose actual skill felt lacking for the role; and those who were both skilled and fit.

My favorite was Jesper. Kit Young did a fantastic job emulating Jesper's iconic cocky, somewhat neurotic, happy-go-lucky personality and ADHD mannerisms. Nailed the character. Ben Barnes also did a great job as the Darkling, as did Daisy Head with Genya. Calahan Skogman as Matthias was also an excellent choice, A+ exactly as I imagined Matthias. Danielle Galligan as Nina worked, too (although personally I imagined her a little curvier).

Everyone else was. Well. I had mixed feelings.

Zoya and Inej's actresses just did not feel like Inej and Zoya to me-- a fault of the script and direction, not a judgement of skill. Zoya is supposed to be this outrageously beautiful, young, hot-headed squaller; her actress (Sujaya Dagupta) looked 30 and not particularly striking. Inej is Suli (we also find out later that Zoya is at least partially Suli, too), which based on the nomadic or itinerant culture, history of mistreatment, and Orthodoxy mostly strongly hints an imitation of Romani and Turkish peoples. So I was very surprised that they cast an ethically Indian actress (Amita Suman) for the role. It's a fantasy world of made-up countries and races so I suppose it doesn't matter that much, but it was odd.

Mal's actor (Archie Renaux) was perfectly adequate, but.... well, potentially very controversial opinions ... I did not find him obectively attractive, like Zoya's actress, despite his handsomeness being a key quality. It's the reason why girls hated Alina. It's why Mal had an easier time post-Keramzin socially. It's why Zoya took an interest in him. He was a bit of a flirt. And Alina by contrast was this scrawny, malnourished, plain girl. It made for a more compelling relationship, imo.

Speaking of Alina -- I'm sorry, but I was not a fan of the actress' skill. Maybe she (Jesse Mei Li) just had bad scene direction, idk, but her consistently bad acting/character interpretation kept distracting me from the story. Her line deliveries fell flat for me. They felt slightly monotone or apathetic. She wasn't very expressive in general and it made me feel :/, especially when she's in scenes with Ben Barnes or Archie Renaux who excel at microexpressions. Very confused why she was picked as the lead actress.

Kaz was miscast. There, I said it. Freddy Carter is a fine actor. He just doesn't give Bastard of the Barrel vibes for me. Kaz is supposed to be a former farm boy turned criminal. He's worn from over a decade living on the streets and in gangs. He has a "rock salt rasp" from a past trauma and pronounced limp, the latter of which is barely shown and the former is absent completely in the show. They don't even hint at his unnatural aversion to skin-on-skin touch (also from his trauma). Freddy is just too aristocratic looking. He has a very dramatic face and is finely-boned, delicate, boyish, fresh-faced. In contrast to Jesse, Freddy is too expressive for the stoic and apathetic Kaz (whose key trait is his inability to express emotion due to PTSD). There's not a lick of savagery or roughness in the actor's physical figure. This was a major miss for me.

TWO: CULTURE

I'm. Very disappointed with how little the show explored the fantastic cultural backdrop of the story. They explain enough to inform new fans of what's going on so they understand the context, but it remains superficial. They mentioned that Fjerdans hunt Grisha as witches (druska/druskelle) without any exploration of what that means for characters like Matthias (Djel, isenulf, Hringkälla??). It glosses over the intricacies of life at the Little Palace, how the Fabrikators work, the lavishness between training and Small Army assignments, the delicate balance with the Grand Palace. Or how every Ravkan adult is drafted into the army at a young age. How Ravkan technology is severely behind the rest of the world due to the Shadow Fold. The intensity of Ketterdam gang life. This lack of exploration is probably linked to the pacing issue (discussed later).

Most especially, they do not expand on Grisha culture. How children regularly are examined once a year at age 7 to determine if they are Grisha, and if so are taken to the Little Palace regardless of the family's wants and compensated handsomely by the crown. The distinction between the different orders (Materialki, Etheralki, Corporalki) and their respective classes, and what it actually means to live as a Grisha in the Second Army. The political tensions between the First Army and Second Army, or strained diplomacy in general, aren't touched on.

One other thing: I think the physical locations they chose for the Little Palace and Grand palace were kinda lacking, not nearly as grand and lavish as described in the books, but I can forgive that due to budget.

THREE: PORTRAYALS

My biggest complaint here is -- dare I say it? -- the Darkling. (An opinion that will probably have me shot on sight by the fandom).

Ben Barnes is a phenomenal actor, but the production's characterization of the Darkling was far too sympathetic, in what I suspect was major fan service to the overwhelming popularity of the Darklina ship. They emphasized his loneliness and "all I want to do is help Grisha" too much, and not enough focus on his cruel, power-hungry, possessive, and manipulative character.

A few scenes in particular stood out to me. The show portrays their initial snog as sorta sweet and romantic, passionate, emotionally motivated. In the book, when the Darkling kisses Alina for the first time, his actions and motivations are described as wild, rough, possessive, desperate without passion, and he even says that it's just about getting over her as a physical distraction, demanding to come to her room later. It's the furthest thing from sweet and romantic. Novel Baghra goes into detail about the Darkling's past and willingly admits that she continually pushed him toward power and to fear weakness -- Netflix Baghra does not mention this.

The show additionally added in a sympathetic backstory to explain his creation of the Shadow Fold -- that his pregnant wife (girlfriend?) was murdered in coldblood by otkazat'sya soldiers for no reason!! he just wanted revenge and justice!! The Darkling has no such excuse in the book, lmao, he was just power hungry and wanted to terrify his enemies and Ravka by tapping into a power he couldn't ultimately control.

So I am overall displeased with how they've made the Darkling into this sorta misguided anti-hero rather than a true antagonist.

Most of my other complaints are minor:

Why didn't they portray Alina's scraggly appearance? A key part of Grisha power is that forceful repression wears out the body. Book Alina is initially described as scrawny, malnourished-looking, always tired and weak, all of which is reversed for the first time in her life when she begins using her summoning power. This wouldn't be that hard to explain or to depict with makeup. Actually, there's a scene later in the season where Mal says Alina "looks health(ier)", which is laughable because she looks exactly the same the whole show.

David!! is supposed to be!! too engrossed with his work!! to notice Genya!! Like that's the WHOLE reason she likes him! He's this plain-looking, unkempt Fabrikator who doesn't give the most beautiful Grisha woman the time of day or notice her beauty because he's ~busy~. He doesn't start to notice Genya until like the third book. Yet in the show, they had this shy back-and-forth look exchanging between the two to indicate mutual attraction.

Speaking of Genya -- we didn't see her nearly enough. And they barely explained what a Tailor is or what they do. (A rare combination of Materialki and Corpornalki powers that can bleed physical properties from objects/materials to human figures in order to change their looks).

Baghra was softened. She is much more brutal and bitter in the books. Constantly calls Alina stupid and berates her insistently. And Zoe Wanamaker is not nearly ancient enough for the role.

Zoya!! They made her kinda cringy! She's supposed to be this gorgeous, hot-headed, effortlessly smooth but sorta bratty squaller. The scene where she tells Mal "I usually like a nice tumble before a fight" or whatever made me laugh out loud from the embarrassment. It was so out-of-character. Stop that.

FOUR: PACING AND PLOT

Besides the Darkling, my biggest issue with the show was the creative liberties they took. Combining the Grisha Trilogy and Six of Crows duology into one mashed-up timeline was a big mistake, imo.

The huge cast of characters made individual investment and proper development nearly impossible. As my fiance mentioned to me, it frequently felt like we were missing an episode or a few scenes because relationships often felt established "off-screen". We have like, three scenes of Genya and Alina interacting, but then they pass off Genya's siding with the Darkling as a major friendship betrayal. Nina and Matthias go from "I actually don't hate you" to suddenly deciding to run away together??

Individual characterizations also suffer. Genya's unwilling position as the King's mistress is barely hinted at and the Queen's abuse unmentioned. Kaz, Jesper, and Inej show up and look cool and do cool stuff but you don't really find out much about them besides vague suggestions that Kaz wants revenge, Jesper is gay and gambles, and Inej is religious. (Is Inej ever called "the Wraith"? Or Kaz's nickname of "dirtyhands" mentioned? Jesper's failed stint at University? What about the story of how the three met and came to work together?). Much like Genya, Inej's trauma from prostitution is barely explored beyond immediate plot convenience despite its essential framing of her character.

Some characters just get glossed over. King Alexander III and Queen Tatiana are barely there. Vasily is shown (?) but never speaks. Nobody even mentions Nikolai as the Sobachka prince.

And weirdly, instead of giving the main cast and supporting characters more screen development, the show decides to focus on very minor characters like Fyodor.

All of these problems can be traced back to one thing: pacing and time restrictions. Had the show only focused on either the Grisha series or the SoC duology, there would be ample time to flesh out the main cast. But cramming the two together necessitated very little time for character development or relationships. I'm not saying the end product is bad or that the pacing isn't sufficiently enjoyable, but compared to the books, a lot was lost in translation.

The overall choice regarding which scenes to focus on was odd, too. The entire last episode was only like a 15 page scene in the book. But then they spent almost no time on Alina's gradual immersion into Little Palace life, or her navigating the politics of becoming a public figure. They invented scenes of her and the Darkling yet breezed over the history of amplifiers and Morozova's three legendary beasts. The whole first episode embellishes how Mal and Alina end up going into the Unsea when in reality, the military made the dangerous crossing all the time, and they just happened to be assigned that time. Or the whole story the show concocted about West Ravka seeking independence (not a bad plot idea, just totally unnecessary in an already bloated storyload).

Then there were the details they changed for seemingly no reason. For instance, novel Alina is born at Dva Stolba on the Shu Han border (a plot significant location in later books), which would actually seamlessly explain why show Alina is half-Shu. But they changed it so her parents were destroyed by the Shadow Fold? This change doesn't affect the plot, so I can't see why they bothered. Or in the scene where Zoya and Alina are sparring -- Botkin (the instructor) is not mad at Zoya because she "dared attack the Sun Summoner", but because she disregarded Botkin's essential rule that no Grisha powers were allowed in his sessions. And in the show, the court is suspicious of Alina because she's Shu. But in the books, non-Ravkan Grisha (Shu, Fjerdan, Suli, etc) were quite common in the Second Army, as Ravka was known as the one place Grisha weren't persecuted. So a half-Shu Sun Summoner wouldn't have been that big of a deal. These are subtle changes that don't really affect the show, but they are nonetheless unnecessary and/or slightly change the tone of a given scene.

CONCLUSION:

Imo, Shadow and Bone is decent TV, but not as faithful of an adaption as I wanted. People are still free to enjoy it. And my opinion is probably an unpopular one. But between the casting choices, plot changes, and timeline destruction, I'm sort of disappointed. The first book alone had plenty of interesting material for an 8-episode Netflix show, so IDK why they felt the need to shoehorn the Six of Crows cast into the mix (actually, yes I do: fanservice).

I'll probably watch season 2. But I admit, I'm kinda frustrated how well the show is being received on a purely personal level. The books are vastly better -- and I'm sure the show will introduce people to the books, and it remained mostly faithful to the overall story, but many will open the cover expecting a subtly different tale than the one they will get.

All I can say is that they better not butcher Nikolai Lantsov or I will riot.

hmm. as an original fan of the Grisha book trilogy i have some. thoughts. about the adaptation into Shadow and Bone but i will wait until we finish the whole season before articulating them.