9.3 KiB
Episode Discussion: The Magicians S01E01
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Author: u/23143567 *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/3xen31/episode_discussion_the_magicians_s01e01/
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Score: 20
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Created: 2015-12-18T23:41:40
Post:
A new TV Show by Syfy that is of particular interests to our community over here, since it's based on the series of books by Lev Grossman previously featured on /r/rational here: The Magicians Recommendation
The pre-released episode can be found online.
My thoughts: It seems like a pretty good opening to me. The plot moves rather fast thought and there isn't as much character development as I'd like to see, but I'll reserve my judgement since it's a pilot. The threads from the further books seem to be interweaved together and I worry that as a result we may get a shallow exposition of the book world.
Overall: It's promising with a good dose of skepticism.
What are your thoughts on that one?
Comments:
u/alexanderwales [+19] Time flies like an arrow (an hour later)
The books were almost entirely defined by the theme of growing up and I'm a little bit worried that the show is already missing that. The Chatwin children were aged up by a large amount, making them into young adults instead, which bugs me to no end. The whole thrust of the first book (and arguably the series) is about the bridge between childhood and adulthood, the endless disappointment of adult life after the promises of childhood fiction. If you age up the Chatwin children you're changing a large part of what the series was about and incidentally removing some of my favorite moments.
I also think the Fillory reveal is going too fast, which means that they're missing more of the thematic elements that made me love the books; Quentin lacking purpose and drifting through life even after discovering magic was the point. Making him a clear and obvious chosen one just shits all over that.
That said the pilot episode was better than I expected from Syfy, and for all I disliked some of the changes to one of my favorite series, maybe the show can do its own thing.
u/OutOfNiceUsernames [+9] fear of last pages (11 hours later)
The Magicians got itself a TV adaptation?
I don’t even know how I feel about it. To me, that story was not only unique and memorable but also very easy to hate. Things like the structure of the second book, the revelation about what happened to the girl, and the way it all felt like a commercialised Narnia fanfic made difficult taking it seriously — the moment you tried criticizing it as a standalone work, it started crumbling apart.
What made this story special to me, in contrast to all these drawbacks, was Quentin’s inner monologue, which demonstrated how even the most beautiful environments provided or most unique chances given can be poisoned when the observing mind itself is depressed or unhealthy. That, and the scene where they accidentally summoned a God that routinely devoured one of his classmates.
These were the things that felt very real about this story; and such an effect should be very difficult to achieve through the medium of television. I haven’t seen the pilot yet, but I think it’s going to be like the ecranisation of Ender’s Game.
u/Escapement [+4] Ankh-Morpork City Watch (a day later)
Lev Grossman wrote a bit about it here. He seemed pretty optimistic about it.
On the strength of the first episode, I am definitely watching the next, but I am not willing to commit beyond that - I am skeptical as of yet.
u/None [+3] (8 hours later)
As most people who reviewed the pilot said, it felt rushed. We are thrust very quickly into the events without much character development along the way. As a result, I didn't find myself very attached to the people in the story -- if the altercation which marks the end of the first episode were to kill off most of the main characters, I'm not sure I could bring myself to care all that much at this point. Hopefully future episodes will flesh them out more.
I think this can be an issue for a lot of fantasy-themed writing generally -- its very easy to lose yourself in "Isn't Magic Cool?" -- and forget that truly memorable stories are, at heart, about people and their relation to each other.
u/alexanderwales [+9] Time flies like an arrow (8 hours later)
I think it must have been a real challenge for whoever wrote the script, because the number one complaint about the first book is that the primary protagonist is depressing and unlikeable. That was one of the things that I loved about the books, because the character was rendered so well and I could relate to him so strongly.
But if you put a depressing and unlikeable character front and center without much magic, a large number of people are going to get to the end of the episode and just think, "I'm not sure I'd care if he dies".
u/Eryemil [+4] (17 hours later)
My feelings are the opposite of yours here. I loved the setting in the books but hated the characters and their childishness so I love the fact that this adaptation is trying to age them a bit more. I don't like kids and find the standard coming of age narrative that focuses on the concerns of children annoying and trivial.
Also, as someone that uses to suffer from depression as an adolescent but has been healthy since, all whiny sadsack characters do is remind me of how much my teenage years sucked and how much time energy I spent obsessing over stupid crap that does not matter. I certainly don't want to relate to characters that constantly remind me of how screwed up I used to be.
u/alexanderwales [+6] Time flies like an arrow (21 hours later)
I don't like kids and find the standard coming of age narrative that focuses on the concerns of children annoying and trivial.
If you're talking about the Chatwins, they're a subversion of the standard coming of age story.
Major spoilers for The Magician's Land (and presumably the series as well)
Needless to say, this doesn't work if Martin Chatwin is a veteran of the first World War, as he appears to be in the pilot episode.
(Quentin and the others only seem to have been aged up a small number of years, making Brakebills into the equivalent of grad school instead of college. But that's less important, because the story was always supposed to be about people who already should have "come of age".)
u/mr8thsamurai66 [+3] (2 days later)
I am a new to The Magicians universe completely, having started with the pilot and never having read the books, though I am now very interested.
As such I have no prejudices, and I have to say I really enjoyed the pilot. I see some people complaining about having aged the characters up, but I actually think the idea of a graduate school version of Hogwarts is really interesting though. I saw theirs ages as a feature rather than a flaw. This also may be influenced by the fact that I'm the same age as the protagonists. I think treating magic as a graduate level area of study makes a lot of sense.
It was exciting, and introduced a lot of interesting elements. I loved all the characters.
u/Kodix [+2] (12 hours later)
Ooh, I really enjoyed the first book of The Magicians (the second one, not so much - it seemed surprisingly generic to me, though I don't recall the details anymore).
Thanks for posting this, will be sure to check the show out.
u/alexanderwales [+1] Time flies like an arrow (18 hours later)
What was your opinion on the third?
u/Kodix [+1] (19 hours later)
Huh, I wasn't aware it existed.
What did you think? Seeing as you said above it's one of your favorite series, I assume you'd recommend it?
If you think it's good, then I think I might give the series a re-read. The first book should be very much worth it, at least.
u/alexanderwales [+3] Time flies like an arrow (21 hours later)
I think the third book makes the first two books seem like they had naturally been leading up to it. It's my favorite of the three and when it came out it erased any misgivings I had about the first two (which was a really impressive trick given that it wasn't planned when the first two were written). So yes, I'd recommend it.
u/Transfuturist [+3] Carthago delenda est. (22 hours later)
I hear (I might have heard that from you, actually) so I should probably get around to reading it.
u/alexanderwales [+5] Time flies like an arrow (a day later)
Yup, there's a fairly major portion of the book devoted to that which I thought circled back to the events of the first book in a really pleasant way.