#yes I cut out my rant about a certain creator and their tv show I wasted enough years on them

[belovedfinch]

I'm still in shock that 1899 is cancelled, I just don't understand why they would make it in the first place knowing it has a planned out 3 season story?! It did so well all over the world and was in the top 10 for a long time.

People on Twitter are like "well it was boring" , "I didn't understand it", and "it was slow to start". AGAIN it is a 3 season story, it's not supposed to make sense, that's part of the mystery. You really be reading a book and figure everything out in the first 8 chapters?

As someone who found dark late (after season 2 was released) I felt lucky because I had so many questions after S1 and I didn't have to wait for S2 to get those answers. But isn't that also part of the fun? finding little easter eggs and rewatching it and noticing things you didn't notice the first time. Which we have been doing on here for 1899 and talking about how excited we were for S2.

This series has a start and an end, fully fleshed out story in three seasons. 1899 shows so many cultures, it really makes you think about society because these people don't even understand each other for gods sake! and yet they still have relationships and conversations.

Netflix use to be about making stuff normal tv channels wouldn't, it took risks on peoples ideas and we got some really amazing shows out of it, but Netflix has been on a steep decline. It's not what it use to be which is quiet sad, there are so many amazing tv shows that they have cancelled after one season and I personally don't think I'll be staying around any longer, you put prices up but choose to cancel majority of your shows after 1 season?

[kinetic-elaboration]

August 16: AHS 5x02 Chutes and Ladders

Went grocery shopping today and then watched AHS. These episodes are so long. They are too long. I mean, I know that AHS tends long in general and that's, like, fine, it's part of it, but this ep was 71 MINUTES without commercials. 71!! That's a very short movie.

And it's not just long, it's self-indulgently long. Like, I know we all sometimes feel when watching certain shows that it's really a shame they probably had to cut so much and hurry it along and blah those TV studios or whatever right? But honestly more often that not, now that I've seen a sufficient number of Netflix and streaming shows that don't have set episode lengths, I've come to the conclusion that at least 80% of the time the creators benefit from the enforced time limits. Sometimes having variable episode lengths, including longer ones, is nice and it allows for some creative episodes or some extra content but usually to me it just feels like... bloated and indulgent. Like the creators weren't asked to cut and so they didn't and so they never made any choices about anything and it's just all out there, a mess.

Anyway, this is both OT and sounds much harsher than my feelings. And is hypocritical because I never cut jack but like I also don't write ~ professionally ~. I write in the Self Indulgence genre.

But the point is that this episode of AHS was so.... unnecessarily and self-importantly long. It did not have to be that long. It was not 71 minutes of information long. It was just that every scene needed to show off the scenery, the costumes, and the dialogue had to be slow and measured and etc. etc. etc.

This season is obviously very stylish, as I mentioned before, and I admire that. Lots of fancy gowns for Lady Gaga. Lots of Art Deco rooms. A whole weird white room that reminds me of an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark? I like the look of it but I don't need so many scenes devoted to letting me look at the scenery.

And the content is like... fine. There are some characters I like (Liz! Liz! Liz!) and some story lines. Some of it just isn't for me, isn't for my taste. I don't think the Detective character is interesting. I don't think he's interesting after the twist. I don't really care about his kids either. I think the Countess and her vampires are okay but to me they're mostly style. I also don't really like vampires generally, as I also mentioned before--obviously they can be done well but they're not my favorite creatures.

I liked the model a lot, at least as a model just fucking around on the runway (what would Tyra say?) though he got less interesting after he turned and we entered Vampire Lore time. It was fun watching him and Original Vampire Lover interact especially since I'm also watching Freak Show and of course, the same actors playing very different roles opposite each other also appear in that. It's definitely enjoyable watching the repertory style cast over the seasons.

I really dislike serial killers and that this season makes me put up with TWO is just... infuriating. I just am not amused or impressed by sadism. I'm not! I'm not and I don't care. The whole Style of the Evan Peters Character backstory is very nice, stylish, of course, but then what's the big scary reveal? He's a bored rich baby who likes to kill people. Ah, yes, how unique and unexpected of him. Torture porn torture porn torture porn. I started zoning out when it was literally just depressing to me. And it's frustrating because, like, the concept of the hotel as a built-evil place with hidden rooms for evil purposes IS interesting. There IS something there. I just wasn't impressed with how it is actually played out or developed.

I did like Chloe Sevigny ranting about anti-vaxxers. She's right and she should say it! In every episode!

But yeah, overall, just... too long. I'm sure it's supposed to be lush and beautiful and disturbing and just the sort of thing you sink into and enjoy like a bubble bath but with blood and sex but like... I'm just not sufficiently into it and I'm a little annoyed that I'm being asked to put so much time into something that could be so much more efficient and compact.

[chaninfused]

You're definitely not the only one!!! 💀 there are few exceptions where the movie adaption has turned put pretty good actually (lotr for example) but something is ALWAYS butchered up in conparison to when you read it. The original medium is a book, so everything in this book is exactly how the content creator wanted it to be and when you as the reader love the worlds and characters and plot they have created alone with words and sentences, when you have built your own picture of everything, of COURSE the imagination of someone else (additionally restricted by the medium film cause while movies obviously grant other possibilities than books, e.g. music, the story wasn't made for it) is not equivalent to the world one has created by themselves. Also this might just be me but 99% of all times the actors do NOT fit the visual of the characters I have thought of and this - at least for me - takes a big part of the fun (for examply Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice or the cast in Emma). ALSO when the script cuts minor (or even major scenes ugh) and they sometimes even have the sheer audacity to change the story and add their own plot??? ALSO when the whole atmosphere of the movie is so very different from what I felt while reading because of the director's personal interpretation (here I'm thinking about Polanski's take on Oliver Twist which was so dark and gruesome because of his own ghetto experiences) hjvtr I'm quite sorry, this became a whole rant but it's a topic that often annoys me deeply 😭🤣💀

no, no, no please rant because this is one of, if not the, biggest pet peeves of mine and it makes me so frustrated every. time. >:(

the thing is, something will have to change, as you said, and that tips the balance more often than not. I understand that directors have the creative freedom and blah blah but PLEASE just call the thing a spin-off if you’re gonna change so much 🤦‍♀️ I hate it. I hate it so much 😭

[big rant ahead whoops 🤪]

I’m a huge fan of a series of unfortunate events, the books obviously, and oh my god, when I tell you the netflix series made me angry, I’m not exaggerating. the opening sequence was good, I’ll give them that, but other than that, everything about the show made me upset (my sister was a huge fan of it, which is why I was forced to watch it and grumble about how this and that were different in the books 🥴). characters that were supposed to be dead were alive, side characters in the books suddenly became crucial acting characters in the plot, original events were altered or entirely removed, new events were added, the original sequence of events was put in a blender and then laid out- and I can go on and on about how the series largely differs from the actual books, but that’s not the worst part. a series of unfortunate events was fun to read because of the series of unfortunate events that occur relentlessly (you can guess where the title came from wink wonk 🤪) but also because of the narrator. the books are narrated by the author, lemony snicket (that is not his real name, lemony is also a character in the series), and his narration added so much to the books. the style, the rhyme, the metaphors, and the references, reading a series of unfortunate events was an experience because you don’t find that kind of narration everywhere. that, unfortunately, was not present in the tv series and it took away so much from the story. it made the series bland :/

and yes, visual representations! let’s talk about that. what’s with directors ignoring character descriptions 😐 it’s fine if your actor isn’t an exact replica of the character, but it’s questionable when the actor doesn’t even fit most of character’s main physical traits 💀 it shows how half of the people responsible for making these adaptations don’t even read the books. and yes I’m talking about the casting for agatha in the school for good and evil and I’m not sorry about it. the girl has been described one way throughout the series and illustrated as such on the covers only for the casting director to pick the exact opposite 👁👄👁 why? I feel personally violated because these are characters I grew up with. next thing I know they’ll make reena white 💀 it’s like all this time, the descriptions in the books were telling you something and based on that you created this character in your head then bam! your entire world is a lie. and it’s even worse when they put these inaccurate actors’ characters on the covers of the books...just don’t do it. it’s cringeworthy, and it has to stop. please. you can ruin things on the screen but leave the goddamn books alone, I’m literally begging 🤲

OH AND ALSO? THE CHEAP AND POOR REPRESENTATION OF CLOTHING. IF YOU WANT TO ADAPT FANTASY THEN YOU BETTER BE READY TO MAKE CLOTHES THAT DON’T LOOK LIKE COSTUMES FROM DAISO. FULL STOP.

another thing that bothers me so much is the media’s need to create romance and sexualize things, it’s a thirst at this point. through books, delicate and complex relationships are portrayed in a way a screen can’t show you in limited time, amid crammed events. there is a certain beauty in the way some characters interact that’s easy, so easy, to mess up on screen. the unnecessary sexualization just destroys it. the random romance ruins it. there’s almost no respect for these relationships. take kaz and inej from six of crows as an example. the two have traumas that hold them back and they try to overcome them throughout the duology for each other. in the end, they don’t kiss, they don’t [censored], but the intimacy between them is illustrated through kaz cleaning inej’s wounds with his bare hands, through inej letting him do that for her, through kaz not holding her back and instead using his resources to aid her dreams, through inej knowing that kaz will come for her whenever and wherever, through them being vulnerable with each other. it’s something so fragile, beautiful, and pure and I know, I just know, they will be having a heated make out scene in the second episode of that future netflix series, and it makes me so upset. 

and I get it, it’s exciting for some to see their favorite characters on screen and be able to share this with the wider non-reader audience but 😔 I just think it’s sad and frankly offensive to the readers when this so called adaptation is nothing like the books. and yes, movies will never do the books justice, which is why I never watch them if I’m a fan of the books. I don’t want to have them ruined by someone’s quick cash grab project 🤐