• Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Notes to writers and producers.

    IF👏 YOU👏 MAKE👏 AN👏 ADAPTATION👏 THAT👏 IS👏 FAITHFUL👏 TO👏 THE👏 ORIGINAL,👏 YOU👏 WILL👏 MAKE👏 LOTS👏 OF👏 MONEY.👏

    Witcher died when they started changing things

    Rings of Power died when they started changing things

    Game of Thrones died when they ran out of source material

    Halo died when they started changing things

    It has nothing to do with race, or gender, or whatever bullshit you hide behind for your ego trips. Take your ego out of the equation. Stop thinking “I can improve on this”. No, you can’t. People love this. Just write this. Stop thinking “oh, this would be so much better if I added–” NOPE. Stop. Even if you’re extending the canon, consult the original authors. And if the original authors say “this doesn’t really match the tone”, then FUCKING REWRITE IT UNTIL IT MATCHES THE TONE.

    • okamiueru@lemmy.world
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      First of all, I agree with everything you said.

      PS: spoiler warning for Thee Body Problem, so just skip that paragraph.

      However, I think that deviating from the source, or adding stuff, etc, wouldn’t be so destructive, if the writing was actually good.

      Three Body Problem adapted by D&D, still felt a bit meh, because they made a bunch of changes that were just terrible writing. They didn’t understand the source material, so they made the VR stuff alien tech. They made the stars blink, not the cosmic background radiation. The dimension folding fuck up leading to a giant eye over… Earth?.. Why did they think that made any sense? It happened on Trisolaris, and it was such a goosebump inducing thing… Did D&D just think it might look cool, and… Since you cannot easily show it without showing the aliens… They kinda went “let’s just do it on earth”, even though it made no fucking sense whatsoever, because, they wouldn’t have any reason to play a fucking prank on earth. Shits and giggles weren’t their thing… Gah.

      The Witcher suffered because the writing was actually quite bad at times.

      Game of Thrones… I mean… I don’t know why Dumb and Dumber get their hands on any work whatsoever. They have shown they know nothing of the world and systems they write for, nor characters or development. It’s just embarrassing.

      Halo, I haven’t watched. And Fallout, I just know that Nolan and Joy are absolutely amazing writers. The only concern I had was to what extent people like Tod could fuck things up.

      I think what I’m trying to add is that: Good writers can tell very engaging adaptations within the existing constraints of lore, world and rules, but it doesn’t need to be existing canon. You can always tell new stories, as long as it sticks to the established rules and world building people expect. Bad writers fail at that, and often need to add contemporary trends where it doesn’t belong. The fundamental issue might just be a skill issue.

      Good writing is hard. It requires a lot of effort. You need to be congruent with the world and rules you’ve built so far. Not everyone will notice everything that deviates. Noticing bad writing is catching a lie given the presented imagined premise. Some suspension of belief is of course necessary, or risk being an annoying pedant. But, don’t pretend someone is a level headed strategist, who then sends half their army out of a defensive fortification… to fight an enemy who is known to make dead soldiers fight for them. So which is it, do the people in charge know what castles are for, or did they suddenly become dumb as bread to suit some contrived narrative, or perhaps lack thereof?.. Gah…

      J. J. Abrams didn’t deviate all that much from lore. But my God what a grade A moron he is when it comes to plots points. Thousands of extremely talented master craftsmen, all coming together to tell a story… that only works if you don’t think about it at all. And you might wonder which franchise in particular I’m referring to, as both apply.

      The Expanse TV adaptation is a master class in doing everything right. TV is a different medium, and you cannot tell the story in the same exact way. But the changes they did, still told the same story, and most changes just suited visual medium better. They even had to off a character because of real life reasons, which was a little bit abrupt, but even so, they managed to adapt to that just fine.

      Wheel of Time… weird additions and focus on romantic relationships that detracted from the magnitude and seriousness of the story itself. Maybe I was just a bit too young when I read the books, but I certainly didn’t remember it like that, and it made the characters feel weird, and… immature. Also, somewhat intellectually insulting. Personal sacrifice, and love (? I’m looking for a better word…) for someone, doesn’t require romantic interest.

      I’m rambling.

      TL;DR: Good writing good. Bad writing bad. Bad writing != not 100% aligned with source material. Contemporary tropes for no good reason = bad writing. JJ, please stick to directing. D&D… Maybe take up painting? Pretty please?

      • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        I guess it’s entirely possible that there’s just an epidemic of bad writing.

        When there’s an existing beloved IP, it already had good writing. Being faithful to that = good writing. Not YOUR writing, but good writing.

        It’s theoretically possible to deviate from that existing good IP and still have good writing…it’s just not very likely. Don’t bet on it. Stick to the existing good writing.

        • okamiueru@lemmy.world
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          I think you’re right.

          It also annoys me that the explanation for how common bad writing is, is that it still makes a lot of money. JJ can jump on to any beloved franchise, shit on every established rule and character, make the dumbest imaginable plot points that serve no other purpose than to move you from one visually pleasing trailer snippet location to the next… and people will go see it, and it’ll make a pile of money. So, why should they care?

          • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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            Everyone sees it the first time, but they tarnish the brand. Game of Thrones is the obvious example, but look at Star Wars. No one is clamoring to see the next Star Wars movie. If your outlook is the next 3 years, sure, bad writing will have a good opening day, but only because you’re leeching off the corpse of the previous good releases. If your outlook is to preserve the brand, it’s a terminal viewpoint.

            You can take bad writing and even if it bombs in America, you can throw it at China and they’ll eat it up because they don’t know any better. But once a brand is dead, it’s dead. China is not coming up with new plot lines. Hollywood and streaming studios are strip-mining the IP of the past because there’s an industrywide lack of writing talent, for reasons that I’m too far removed to understand.

            • okamiueru@lemmy.world
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              Luckily, we’re still spoiled for choice. Or, I feel like I am. There are more quality TV shows and movies, than I have time to watch these days.

              I wouldn’t be too quick to dismiss Chinese media industry. They have made some amazing films. Infernal Affairs, comes to mind. But, I’m the wrong person to come up with examples. I’m sure there are plenty.

              Other than that, I agree with you. It’s the enshitification equivalent in Hollywood. It’s just a bit less engulfing, since good movies and shows can still be made, in spite of some of the watered down drivel and ruined franchises for short term profit margins.

          • SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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            JJ Abrams shits on every established rule and character?

            It’s more the opposite. He gets to the core of what a franchise is. It’s just that the hardcore fanbase builds up these things in their minds to be something they really aren’t.

            Star Trek was always at it’s strongest as a TV series. The best the movies could ever do was take a page from Star Wars and be fun action adventure movies. Star Trek II was about a villain with a super-weapon seeking revenge. First Contact was basically Aliens. Star Trek IV was more of a parody of Star Trek than anything else.

            But from the success of Star Trek IV, the exec became willing to put money into a new Star Trek show, and so we got TNG which was better than any of the movies. Similarly the success of JJ Abrams Star Trek meant new Trek shows are being made. Sure the shows are suffering from prequelitis. but new Trek shows are being made and if Star Trek Legacy gets made we might actually have a good Star Trek show on TV again, which is where Trek is at it’s strongest.

            JJ Abrams made the two best Star Wars movies outside of the OT. Of course the bar is pretty low with Star Wars movies, but still he did better than anyone else in making new Star Wars movies, better than even George Lucas at making new Star Wars. And the ST had interesting things to say about our relationship to the past. But to people that don’t really like what Star Wars really is and want it to be something else got really angry about that. And people that have a warped view of the past hate it, but they hate anything new.

      • vortexsurfer@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        An additional problem (maybe the biggest problem imho) is Amazon and Netflix et al refusing to give them more than 8 episodes per season. For things with a huge amount of source material (e.g. Wheel of Time) this forces the writers to make big changes in order to try to tell a big story in a too short amount of time. Combine this with inexperienced writers or writers who think they can do a better job than the source material, and you’ve got a recipe for failure, in my opinion.

        The Wheel of Time, for example, had many small moments that were amazing, almost perfect, but overall the show ends up being disappointing when so many other parts fail completely.

      • misk@sopuli.xyz
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        6 months ago

        I was to about to say the same in less eloquent way. It is worth noting though that The Expanse had both writers of the books heavily involved in the adaptation. You could also see that they drew from Game of Thrones did things, especially with consolidating characters.

        I also wouldn’t be so fast to judge some series that are far from being over like Rings of Power and Wheel of Time. First one is meh but not offensive. WoT needed heavy cuts to the story because of how long it is but it’s still very watchable.

        • okamiueru@lemmy.world
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          Ah, I loved Wheel of Time. I’m making an effort to forget about it so I’m suddenly surprised by season 3 being done. The deviations from the books didn’t ruin it for me, like it seems it did for many. I just found it unnecessary, and mentioned it more as an example of bad writing, and did not mean to imply that all of it was bad. Far from it. Great actors all around, and amazing visual direction, oh, and costume designers! The forsaken, especially Ishamael… the clothing. It’s so good, I want to figure out who worked in it. And I don’t even care much about that stuff either, usually. They did so many things, absolutely brilliantly. Ending of S1 was very anticlimactic, so I get why that that in particular put people off.

          I havent watched Rings of Power. Maybe I should, based on what you’re saying.

          I didn’t understand what you meant by drawing on GoT for consolidating characters. Apologies.

          PS: In case I gave the impression of being a miserable piece:

          • I loved S1 of the Witcher, and largely enjoyed S2 and even S3, though that took concerted effort.
          • 3BP was fine, and entertaining enough. It has the potential to be great, but not with the lack of… insight from D&D.
          • The Expance is one of the best sci-fi series made, and anyone remotely interested should see it, and also keep watching even if the first season isn’t entirely convincing. OK to call it quits if S2 isn’t.
          • GoT went down hill already from S5. The torture porn thing was just… unnecessary and… two dimensional evil that requires a telling lack of imagination.
          • Arcane is a masterclass in… pretty much everything. Especially character development, and as a counterpoint to the above: nuanced “evil”.
          • The Gentlemen TV series by G. Ritchie is a fun time, and imo underrated.
          • Everything JJ has written is vapid shit.
            • okamiueru@lemmy.world
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              Hm. He did have a part in it, but I don’t know how much. I haven’t seen it. I suppose I was too bombastic, and should correct it to “everything JJ has written, that I’ve seen, has been vapid shit”.

              Last time I ranted about JJ, someone mentioned that he had made Person of Interest. So, I watched all of it. It was largely pretty good, except for the very weird filler episodes every season, that very much worked against the overarching plot. In any case, turned out that Jonathan Nolan wrote it, who is pretty good at that stuff. JJ is a decent director, so I don’t mind that part.

          • misk@sopuli.xyz
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            I havent watched Rings of Power. Maybe I should, based on what you’re saying.

            I said it was meh but I guess it’s one of the most positive things you can read about it on the internet :D It’s okay, baffling at times but has some unexpectedly interesting stuff like early hobbits that make it worth a shot.

            I didn’t understand what you meant by drawing on GoT for consolidating characters. Apologies.

            Game of Thrones as a book has massive amount of characters which doesn’t translate well into TV. HBO show relied on some characters taking over roles of others to reduce the overall amount by a lot. The Expanse did something similar although to a lesser extent, for example with Drummer taking on story roles of Bull and Michio Pa.

            The Expance is one of the best sci-fi series made, and anyone remotely interested should see it, and also keep watching even if the first season isn’t entirely convincing. OK to call it quits if S2 isn’t.

            I keep seeing this opinion and I must be a weirdo since I think S1 is the best and not very representative of the rest of this series. I must admit I’m a sucker for good world building and scifi detective stories. I almost felt catfished with where the story went from there, thankfully it was awesome on its own too.

            • okamiueru@lemmy.world
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              I’m sort of with you on S1 of the Expanse. Miller is such a good character. But, as you mention, it has a very different focus and vibe, and doesn’t give the right impression for what comes later. The acting also gets a lot better, as it’s sometimes a little bit rough in S1. If I remember correctly, the writers mentioned drawing inspiration from Aliens, which reflects on the more claustrophobic… horror like thematic. None of which stays after S1. So, I tend to plead for people to stick with it though S2.

              If it was the opposite shift, that is, “fantastical” in S1, and detective noir in S2 and onwards, I’d probably say the same thing about sticking through S1 even if it didn’t hit home.

              That said, I do enjoy the more fantastical theme… But Miller… Doors and corners… Mmm, I won’t spoil anything for anyone. I’m confident you know exactly what I mean.

              Thanks for the clarification on the GoT/Expanse. Hadn’t thought about that.

      • spezz@lemmynsfw.com
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        I stopped watching three body problem after the “universe blinking” nonsense. Watch the chinese version – mich more faithful (except the cultural revolution and anything bad about china)

      • WhoIsTheDrizzle@lemmy.world
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        Absolutely - Nolan and Joy are incredible, Expanse is master class. However, (and I hate to defend them after GOT ending) D&D aren’t the worst - but they are nowhere near these two. The first few seasons of GOT is still fantastic TV. 3 Body Problem had a few issues of missteps in adaptation, but I thought they largely did a good job with the pacing, tone and changes so far. I’d still say it’s a good and entertaining show, just not as tight as Fallout or Expanse, since I can point out a few things that don’t make a lot of sense.

    • leftzero@lemmynsfw.com
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      There are exceptions. The Boys, for instance, succeeded due to it not being a faithful adaptation.

      Don’t get me wrong, the books are fine for what they are, but the only people who’d enjoy (or even tolerate for more than a couple episodes without getting physically sick) a faithfully adapted Garth Ennis book are probably the same that think Homelander is the good guy, who thankfully seem to be a minority.

      Or another one: I very much doubt a faithfully adapted Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep film could have achieved the cult classic status of Blade Runner; as much of a staple of science fiction as Philip K. Dick is, he’s a bit of an acquired taste, and most viewers would probably fall asleep halfway through a faithful adaptation, long after having lost any trace of the plot…

      • spezz@lemmynsfw.com
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        To be an exception, you need to know what you are doing. The Boys adaptation works because it is consistent with the world they built. The writers took the material, said “this is neat” threw it in a blender and made something amazing.

    • kratoz29@lemm.ee
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      Instructions unclear, people are getting tired of video game adaptations.

    • Neato@ttrpg.network
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      Witcher lead left. Still getting 2 more seasons.

      Rings of power is about to have a second season.

      Got started to suck because D and D rushed 2 seasons to try to work for Disney, which was pulled.

      Fallout is popular because it’s good. All of the above changed a ton from the source. Only niche fanboys care how accurate something is and they don’t move the needle on popularity.

      • Huschke@programming.dev
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        Game of Thrones didn’t suck because D&D rushed things. It started to go downhill as early as season 5, when they ran out of source material. People overlooked it initially because Game of Thrones had such a strong hype train. The last two seasons were just so blatantly bad that no one could ignore it anymore.

        • VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world
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          GoT had problems before that. They didn’t just run out of source material, they deliberately skipped a lot of it, mostly magic related.

      • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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        And witcher and rings of power and GOT are absolutely bombing.

        Fallout (the show) is popular because it’s good. Fallout (the show) is good because it religiously follows the tone of the original source. The original source was good.

        That’s the point. Fanboys exist for an IP because it was good in the first place. More accurate = more good, because the original was good. It’s not just meaningless partisanship or fanboyism. You already have a good story. Just tell that story. Vary on that theme.

    • Notyou@sopuli.xyz
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      I agree so much with this. I would also add X-Men. The cartoons have been so much better than the movies. The movies (yes all of them) might have a few good scenes, but they toned down the comic bookness of it. They as a whole suck.

      The cartoons stay killing. Still has the best Phoenix adaptation. The new X-Men 97 shows it can adapt a lot more storylines without skipping a beat.

      I mean X-Men TAS/97, Evolution, and Wolverine and the X-Men. All good in their own way. I prefer my 90s baby, but they are all better than the movies.

      The thing is Deadpool proved you can make it work. Let’s hope Disney learned this lesson too.

      • brygphilomena@lemmy.world
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        What I didn’t like about the X-Men movies is they just kept the same and continues the story. And that’s a big gripe I have with Marvel too.

        Let comics do their thing, have new stories and new arcs instead of some 20+ hour cinematic universe. Its comics, they don’t all have the same continuity. And stop telling origin stories, we know how the superheroes became superheroes, and even if the audience didn’t, it doesn’t matter to be able to tell a story with that character anyway.

      • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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        I’ve never played the game but all I ever heard was that it was an extremely faithful adaption, and that the last episode is almost a 1 for 1 translation from the game to the show.

        • Wilzax@lemmy.world
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          Yeah the only big thing they changed was how they handled Bill and Frank, and they made a beautiful bottle episode of it so it worked really really well for the translation to tv.

        • boredtortoise@lemm.ee
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          The changes are more complimentary to the original, and with Druckmann planning them so maybe that’s key

    • EnderMB@lemmy.world
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      This is spot on. What I would add is that even lazy or easy writing can be saved by an understanding of the tone and background of the show.

      My favourite example of this is The Big Bang Theory. A lot of people hate it because it’s a show that glorified nerd culture in a poor way, but ultimately it’s just a sitcom that exemplified that good people have their own struggles that aren’t dissimilar from each other - whether it’s a struggling actress making their way, a postdoc worker struggling to make their mark, or a genius that learns that ignoring personal growth will affect him professionally. It packs this into a basic plot for several seasons, and then writes an entire new prequel that is more of the same - except with enough tweaks to show that Sheldon’s retelling of events was due to his own naiveté in what it’s like to raise a family. It might not win Emmy’s or be studied for decades after like The Wire, but the writers knew the material and knew how to stay faithful to the core story.

      It is often so obvious when a show has an idea for a beginning and an end, but nothing in-between (Good Place), or when a show is basically just a bunch of ideas and no plot (Lost). I’d probably say that you need good writers, not necessarily good writing, to make a good show.

    • FreeFacts@lemmy.world
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      It’s interesting that people are saying that this is so faithful, considering that they totally messed up the history of the California region. >!The series basically took place in NCR, but they just lazily disregarded the whole rebuilt NCR civilization and turned it into the east coast Bethesda wasteland. So what, did the NCR collapse back into wasteland in a decade or so too? Give me a break.!<

            • GoodEye8@lemm.ee
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              Being canon is not the same as being faithful. Bethesda Fallout games have not been faithful to the original games despite now being canon. The show, despite being relatively good, can be canon and also can not be faithful to the first 2 games.

                • GoodEye8@lemm.ee
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                  The Bethesda games are the series now.

                  And? It doesn’t make the older games disappear. Bethesda choosing to go their own way instead of being faithful to the original games does not invalidate the fact that Bethesda, and by extension the show, is not faithful to the original and breaks lore continuity. As for my personal opinion on the matter I’ve accepted since Fallout 3 that the lore is fucked and doesn’t really matter anymore.

                  They’re exponentially more popular than the first two.

                  This doesn’t really shouldn’t even need addressing. This is something people say when they have no actual arguments. You’re comparing games that are literally a decade apart. No shit modern Fallout games are more popular than Fallout 1 and 2. Gaming in general is exponentially more popular than what it was back in the 90s. Diablo 2 is considered one of the best looters ever, it sold over a million units in the first few weeks and got a Guinness world record for it. Fallout 3 sold 4 times as many units in the first week. That should give insight into how unbelievably pointless your comparison is.

                  And popularity doesn’t mean good. COD is one of the most popular franchises in the world, nobody is singing praises of COD (at least not since the 1, 2 and Modern Warfare).

            • FilthyCheese@lemmings.world
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              That has nothing to do with them completely botching the location of Shady Sands.

              It would have worked if it was Adytum. Maaaaaybe even the Hub. But not Shady Sands.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      Rings of Power died when they started changing things

      Died? It barely got one season.

      Game of Thrones died when they ran out of source material

      The best season of the TV show was season 6, when the writers could finally start paying plot lines off rather than stringing people along.

      • acosmichippo@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        of course, but that’s not the point. the point was making a popular show was absolutely their goal, not sure why they feel the need to posture about being “surprised”.

      • njm1314@lemmy.world
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        By most metrics the Lord of the Rings show was very successful. Now none of those metrics mean much to you or me, but they do by the people who sign the checks I think.

      • Neato@ttrpg.network
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        Second season comes out in August. Popular enough to keep spending money.

        In the end, there’s no way to show is a streaming show is popular. Unlike movies, it’s all hidden.

  • Lemonparty@lemm.ee
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    I just hope it doesn’t overstay its welcome like just about every show these days.

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        You can’t tell me you’re not excited for Days of Our Fallout featuring the inevitable Lucy, Cooper, Maximus love triangle. I personally can’t wait for the day when show creators have Lucy, a woman scorned, running straight into the arms of Super Mutant BigDick. How can you live without the drama of each of the main characters acting irrational over a meaningless event that could have been avoided with a clear line of questioning?

        Yup, I’m gonna need about 15 seasons of low-budgeted, poorly-written, Producer-vetted BS that Amazon will be sure to bring to the table

    • Neato@ttrpg.network
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      Planning 4 additional seasons worries me. That’s a lot of story and actors to plan.

  • ieightpi@lemmy.world
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    As a huge Fallout fan since the aughts, I was pleasantly surprised. The show is faithful to it source material and nails tone the games are known for. Some cameos helped the with dark humor. Story was interesting too, especially the b plot about the vaults.

      • BluesF@lemmy.world
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        That article is confusing, the title suggests there’s a difference in how “should” and “ought” are used, but besides the fact that “ought” sometimes comes with “to” there doesn’t seem to be one.

      • MagicShel@programming.dev
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        The usage of ought is perfectly cromulent. I’d’ve cut the sentence before the “to” -it’s punchier that way. Dictionaries are descriptive and not prescriptive. Fuck the man; write beautiful words.

      • dustyData@lemmy.world
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        I’m universally hated for this opinion on Lemmy, but the whole season is a solid “meh”. But it is a consistent “meh”. If you didn’t care about the characters and plot points in the first two episodes, they’re not gonna get any better. There are two or three outrageously bad scenes later in the season, like truly atrocious writing and awful acting, but they come and go very fast, you won’t notice if you are not paying attention, and they end up not affecting the plot ending.

          • mostNONheinous@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            There is plenty of humor mixed in with the “drama” if you can call it that. I guess the ending was a bit dramatic, definitely left me wanting but I think it was a good place to leave the story for know. I feel it takes the source seriously, while also taking the goofiness of the gameplay seriously as well. It gets better throughout, there are a few campy scenes but again fallout is a bit goofy. The violence mixed with soundtrack has always felt light and cheery somehow, almost maybe what being a bit crazy from living in the wasteland would make most people. Also sometimes the first season of shows haven’t quite hit there true level of quality yet, so far I think Fallout is closer than most out of the gate. Between The Last Of Us and Fallout, both shows have nailed down their universe and tone almost perfectly.

            • PsychedSy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              6 months ago

              Part of my issue is people said amazing things then I just couldn’t get into it.

              I’m also old and grumpy.

              I did enjoy Twisted Metal though.

              • mostNONheinous@lemmy.world
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                6 months ago

                I can relate when things get overhyped I tend to avoid them until I haven’t been forced to hear about it for awhile, some things it’s been months or years, some I may never watch.

          • dustyData@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            It’s not a drama though, the drama is tacked on to fulfill the Amazon Prime Template and drive views from people unfamiliar with the IP. It’s mainly a comedy. It’s just, the jokes are a very mixed bag. They did nail the tone and background of Fallout, but I didn’t find it that funny overall, and when the jokes are bad, they are really bad (like middle school yard comedy level) and suck you out of engagement with the story, which the writers desperately want you to still care about. The thing is the drama is also mid. Often I would have to consciously ask myself “wait, are we on a drama beat or a comedic bit?” To adjust my expectation for the scene, as it can be quite the whiplash, they rarely transition smoothly from one to the other, and they have the same overall tone so they blur and you don’t actually know immediately.

            • PsychedSy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              6 months ago

              I know it’s not actually a drama, but I meant more what you said much more eloquently: I don’t like current show Templates much.

  • Lad@reddthat.com
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    6 months ago

    Make 5 seasons then end it. Nothing worse than shows that go on too long then start to become shit.

    • xenoclast@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I feel like they really only had 2 great seasons. Now we’ll have 4 mid ones instead. Greed fucking sucks

        • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          i’unno, never seen green arrow.

          Have they fucked up their power scaling so bad that they had to make god himself the enemy, and invent a being stronger than god to defeat him?

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            Less power scaling than retreading the same “flashback to that time I was trapped on an island” about three seasons past it’s expiration date.

    • MiDaBa@lemmy.ml
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      6 months ago

      I can’t upvote this enough. I love limited or mini series for this very reason. There are too many shows that just coast after creating an idea or mystery where even the writers themselves have no idea where it’s actually going. These type of shows survive off cliffhangers and shock events and would continue on forever so long as people are watching. I really wish more shows would just end tieing up all loose ends before the final episode. If the show is that great they can start a new story arc either with the original characters or a spin off in the same world. Any show that requires a cliffhanger to keep people engaged isn’t great to begin with and will likely end in viewer disappoint. That’s just my opinion though.

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    6 months ago

    I wonder how many creators are taking less money to get better support at outlets other than cancel-happy HBO and Netflix? Five seasons is a great deal if it works out for them.

    • fenrrs@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I can’t be bothered to watch any series on netflix that are not finished with a proper ending for this exact reason. Fuck them for not giving shows actual endings and just cancelling them.

      • junkie@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Same! Netflix has trained me not to even watch new shows until the show has a proper finale. Fuck em for making so many throw away shows just to pump thier numbers.

        Same goes for Google, it doesn’t matter what miraculous app/hardware they dream up with, cause those fucks are no better when it comes to abandoning thier work. It’s all pump and dump after the quartler numbers are out.

        Enshittification is getting out of control.

      • JayTreeman@fedia.io
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        6 months ago

        Part of that is on the show runners and writers. Netflix makes decisions off of viewership and other metrics, it’s the show runners that decide to have seasons end on cliffhangers

        • reddig33@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          Netflix could always tell the show they aren’t being renewed and give them the opportunity to wrap things up. Even if it’s just with a two hour movie. Traditional networks frequently do this with shows. It would also make better sense because if the back catalog of shows on a streamer don’t end properly, no one’s going to subscribe to watch them.

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            6 months ago

            It’s been said many times before, but I would absolutely include an escape clause (?) in any contract with them, that sets aside a portion of the budget for a “wrap up” mini series/feature length episode/or straight up movie.

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        6 months ago

        Sometimes it’s the enjoyment of what happens in a show that makes it enjoyable, or the just the actors giving a great performance with what they get, regardless of when executives want to cancel it cough firefly cough. I do agree it sucks but sometimes it’s still worth the watch is all. Maybe they’ll realize errors if enough people watch the better stuff even if unfinished in the future, but doubtful. Also I’m a Stephen King reader so used to not so great endings heh but the middle parts can be awesome at least.

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    6 months ago

    Watched the first season before Amazon added ads to their streaming. It was pretty decent. Not decent enough to watch ads or pay more.

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      6 months ago

      More than decent enough to watch it for free, though.

      It’s not like Amazon and Bethesda / Microsoft are going to miss the money… 🤷‍♂️

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    6 months ago

    If they could commit to just five seasons it could be a really good show, but if they plan to try to keep it going and milk it, it’ll be complete garbage by season 3

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      6 months ago

      It really depends. If they go more of an anthology route it will be easier to not tank it. (Not saying they wouldn’t still manage to.)

      • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Anthology is better for longevity, but I could see a lot of people being turned off by introducing all new characters every season.

        • tea@lemmy.today
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          6 months ago

          It’s how the games are though. The different Fallout games exist in The same universe, but don’t involve the same characters every time. I’d love it to be a combo, do 2 or 3 seasons of this set of characters. Tell their story. Then do Fallout: Alaska or whatever, a completely separate series, with a tie-in or two.

          • HowManyNimons@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            Each time the games introduce a bunch of characters, you get to spend 40-100+ hours with them before they move on.

  • Kowowow@lemmy.ca
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    6 months ago

    Wait people are actually watching this I thought it was just getting morbbed

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    6 months ago

    They started with an already well detailed, quite deep, world (including already having various stories), which already had quite a number of fans (thanks to it being in a series of Role Playing Games - which is pretty much the kind of games closest to a TV Series or Movie), didn’t fuck it up by writting a bad script, didn’t fuck it up by getting bad actors and didn’t fuck it up by being cheap on FX.

    It’s not exactly surprising that it was a success…

    It’s maybe a little optimist at this point to expect at least 5 seasons - mainly because that’s plenty of time to fuck it up, especially around the point when the initial story either wraps up or gets boring, which is were plenty of great TV Series turn to shit - but yeah, so far so good.

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      6 months ago

      I wish for the Horizon (Zero Dawn) series to have that kind of luck with good story/writing, acting, and FX… then I always remember that it’s Netflix making it and get disappointed every time.

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      6 months ago

      The entire show outside of Walter Goggins was acted like it was a fanfic project shot and uploaded to 2011 YouTube.

        • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          I saw that shit coming a mile away

          The Ghoul is like crafted in a lab to activate every female “I don’t like bad boys but…” hormone. It would have been extremely unrealistic if she stayed with Maximus.

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                6 months ago

                Dude implies Lucy has the hots for Cooper because he’s such a bad boy and will leave Maximus for him. Incels think all girls leave the nice guys for some bad guys.

                Honestly, people who don’t understand Lucy’s development in the last episode have absolutely lost the plot imo. She just learned that her glorified father figure murdered not just her own mother, but also tens of thousands of people and is likely also responsible for the end of the world. And here we have our online critiques saying her “suddenly” turning on her dad is unrealistic and weird.

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                  6 months ago

                  I didn’t say her turning on her dad was weird; I just said the shift to her “bitter” side seemed too forced and the acting was not very well done in that last episode.

                  (as for the incel thing, ok, now I understand why it was mentioned)

    • swayevenly@lemm.ee
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      6 months ago

      Feel the same. Thought the 1st episode started strong and by the end I didn’t care to see what happens next.

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    6 months ago

    If the other seasons are as good as the first season I’m all for this. Adaptations of game franchises can be hit or miss but this was really well done.