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zani-is-a-stan · 5 years ago

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suzani watches the Sherlock unaired pilot

Opening

- This version of John looks way more old and way more dad

- That close shot on the gun tell the viewer that John is suicidal

- The dark silhouette of the cupid statue kind of stands out. Given how the cinematography and shot framing is a lot sloppier in this version, I don’t think this is intentional. But if it was intentional, this would be a signal to the viewer that this is a love story.

- Mmm, pass on both Anderson’s beard and this way of introducing the concept of a Sherlock

- This title & credits sequence is so dated

- Anderson with no inflection is boring

- Dinner with wine is not a great place for John to be saying he’s broke

We meet Sherlock & Molly

- We start to see the beginnings of the geometric and precise framing that are the signature of the show in that one shot of Molly behind the glass

- Its nice to see that Molly’s character required almost no adjustment between the two versions. Given that she was the first character original to the show instead of the books, it’s nice to see that she stuck the landing so perfectly

- It’s starting to be really obvious how loose the editing is. There’s a lot of dead air at the beginning and end of every shot before each cut. Much better in the final version.

The lab

- This version of Sherlock seems a lot more accurate to the book Sherlock from Study in Scarlet than the series ultimately ended up being. He’s softer, more interested in interacting with other people than the antisocial, high functioning ASD (where’s the fic that explores that?) twanging brain haver he is in the first episode of season 1

- I want to read a take on Sherlock that discusses him as having ASD and interprets the violin playing and the mystery solving as his stimming techniques

- The camera shots in this scene are really starting to stand out as very different from the show. It’s not just the editing which is kind of thoughtless – these shots are poorly composed and poorly planned. I don’t think it would stand out so much if the final version of the show didn’t make so many deliberate and stylized decisions regarding with the shots and editing.

The apartment

- The extrapolation of john’s family based on the phone became much cleaner in the aired version

- Comic sans! I mean, mrs Hudson is better than that.

- Mrs Hudson definitely checked out john’s butt …

- “can I just ask … what is your street?” this was very good, if repetitive

- Sherlock needs an assistant? This sherlock has a need for human connection that the other one doesn’t – and he has a lava lamp.

- Ugh the apartment at 221B baker st looks so much more vintage in this setup. Not a fan.

- This sherlock definitely cares more about what other people think than the final version.

- Mrs Hudson is a much softer, premade character in this version. I like the final version better. She seems stronger that way.

The cab ride

- So boring. Such greenscreen. Wow.

- not just the greenscreen. the difference in the shooting and finishing of this sequence in the pilot and the aired episode is so incredibly improved that you can hardly believe there were part of the same thing.

- TOO MUCH SYNTH

- Sherlock has a far too human response to john’s compliments and more doubt in how accurate his deductions are

The crime scene

- Im glad they changed sally’s outfit, and smoothed out sherlock’s taunting of her and Anderson’s affair. Ugh I wish they’d kept sally around. This show needed more normie/casual sherlock opponents. Lack of closeups in this scene do it no favors

- They cut the Rache/Rachel clue. And btw, I do love how this was inverted from the book presentation in the show.

- “no, there are two women and three men lying dead, keep talking and there will be more” – this sherlock prioritizes people over mystery solving, and that’s a little more humanizing as well.

- When he’s deconstructing the scene around the woman in pink, there’s a switch in sherlock’s voice when he’s off camera. I’m wondering if maybe that’s a stat actor reading the script for some reason, or if they recorded the dialogue and the camera angles at the same time and forgot to switch when they were editing that shot? Makes sense given how messy the editing is throughout the pilot.

- “do you know you do that out loud?” “sorry, I’ll shut up” “No, don’t worry, it’s fine” (pleased smile) --- this exchange is so accurate to book Sherlock and Holmes

- This is not the same sally as the first episode. I had to check because I have a little bit of face blindness and there weren’t any closeups, but it’s definitely not her. Interesting how the actress who ultimately played her changed the inflection but brought very little new to the blocking.

a bit inbetween and the pink case

- No Mycroft, hmm. Don’t care for it. It added a lot with a really nice red herring feel.

- John returns to his place for absolutely no reason narratively.

- I don’t care for the red herring moment where john looks at the pink case and wonders if sally was right and talks out loud about it.

- The end exchange of this scene is awesome and should have stayed. “Donovan said you get off on this.” “And I said danger and here you are.” “DAMNIT!” It’s very funny, and it’s a fun spar between the two rather than the ultimate resigned tolerance that series John seems to settle into by season 2.

do you have a girlfriend? a boyfriend?

- Sherlock not eating is a brilliant touch, I think that should have been there.

- This version of the girlfriend boyfriend conversation is far more successful than the aired version, although I prefer the setting in the aired version. It’s flirtier, and the “Everything else is transport” line carries implications I prefer to the one we saw on on the official version.

- Sherlock knowing the cab thing ahead of time really lowers the stakes.

- Angelo and the headless nun thing is fucking beautiful. (although angelo is a bit of an upstager) But, the change in the plot to the John running and leaving the cane behind in the final version is much more relevant to the story.

- Ok, so the cabbie drugging Sherlock did show us that John is smart in his own right (we never got enough of that), but it showed us Sherlock fucking up in a way that is inconsistent with the show version of that character. For us to buy that Sherlock is other level super genius instead of just very smart, he can’t make this kind of mistake. If he can’t make a mistake, then John can’t prove his own intelligence. I do think it was a good idea to put the police back in his apartment now, as it gives us more interesting and fun things about those characters, and the ultimate build to the cab ride and the incorporation of modern technology really contributed to the modernizing of the adaption.

which pill

- WHOA that cabbie did just very much threaten to molest or rape Sherlock. Although if there were no women or gay men on the script team, I can totally see the writers not realizing that this line had that connotation.

- And this version requires a lot more explaining of plotholes with dialogue in a way that is avoided in the final verion. This is unquestionably good, because there’s nothing more graceless in filmed stories than having plot explained with words, especially by a villain.

- Taking the pills out of the bottle looks silly.

- Final version cabbie is better. More self-satified and mean.

- “Either way, you’re wasted as a cabbie” is a way better line in the final.

- Taking him out of the apartment and away from the police phone call was A+ the right choice.

- Everyone know the best cops scream “Who is firing, who is firing?” when someone fires a shot.

i’ve got a blanket

- Sherlock saying “Yeah, maybe he beat me, but he’s dead” is a far shot from the man who shook a dying man and demanded to know if he was right or not. Again, this Sherlock is far more human and far less computer.

- That bit with mrs Hudson at the end was unnecessarily mean, I’m glad they cut it

- “I’m his Doctor.” – this lines should have stayed forever.

Overall thoughts

Ok, so overall changes between the pilot and the aired first episode. Plot was a lot more polished. They scrubbed every trace of human need from Sherlock, which I think was a good choice, at least for the beginning of the show. His literal only love is his own abilities as the show airs, which leaves him with a very interesting and exploitable weakness – his arrogance, where as pilot Sherlock doesn’t seem to care all that much when he makes a mistake. We did lose a couple of scenes that had a lot of good chemistry in them, but I think the plot was much improved overall for the changes. The change of Sherlock from being casually mean to people like Anderson to swatting away an irritating fly is very successful. The focus of Sherlock’s relationship with Lestrade seems of a higher priority than Watsons a little bit, so I’m glad that changed. The lead up to John shooting the cabbie was much better in the final

Honestly the pilot doesn’t look like a pilot as much as it looks like a proof of concept piece. The budget was obviously smaller: that’s why they reused the same restaurant set, it’s why the final confrontation took place in the apartment rather than a second location, that’s why the effects are missing or budgety, that’s why the editing was low-end. This as a pilot was sold on the impact of the actors and the bones of the script, not on any of the look that would ultimately make the show what it was. The color work between the first and second version of this alone was amazing. I also think that the hair change in Sherlock was an excellent choice. It offsets BC’s face/head structure in a way that plays into the strangeness of the character in a much better way. Similarly, the coat and scarf that he wears in the series do exist in the pilot, but aren’t really a signature of Sherlock’s on-screen shape design in the same way.

I think the only thing I would’ve kept is the inflection, delivery & read on the girlfriend boyfriend scene, and the return of the “I said danger and here you are” exchange.

There’s a lot of talk about Sherlock’s sexuality and what was cannon in the books. TV Sherlock they seem to be confused about (Belgravia as an episode left me really confused about what statement the writers were trying to make there, which implies that they’re either not completely sure either, or they’re too straight to understand what they’re doing). In the books, Holmes chooses not to have romantic relationship because it stops his brain from working clearly – it’s a deliberate choice based on the Victorian concept of sex (and women, because they are clearly only sex objects) diminishing the capacity for clear thought and mental performance. This is not the same as him being asexual or aromantic as we not aro/ace people understand the concept in 2019.

Based on the scene as it airs, the girlfriend/boyfriend scene would leave me with the opinion that Sherlock is not just asexual but also aromantic. Possibly one of these by choice rather than nature. Based as how the scene plays out in the unaired pilot, I would think that Sherlock is celibate and also attracted to John, more likely gay than bisexual. (There was quite a bit of smoldering going on in the Sherlock to John direction.)

#sherlock #sherlock pilot #suzani watches #suzani watches the unaired sherlock pilot

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