Originally Posted by penchief:
I agree. At times it works but most of the time it doesn't. Kristen Stewart would have been a better choice for sulky lesbian character.
Kristin Stewart would never agree to do TV at this point in her career.
Ellen Page is Ellen Page in absolutely every role but I wouldn't say that the Director of this series has been, by any measure, a strong point of this series, either. [Reply]
Originally Posted by penchief:
I agree. At times it works but most of the time it doesn't. Kristen Stewart would have been a better choice for sulky lesbian character.
John Goodman would've been a better choice for a sulky lesbian character.
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
Just started it.
I cannot state strongly enough how much I dislike Ellen Page. I would like this show substantially more if there was literally any other person on earth playing her role.
I said it in post #39 but I'll say it again: Ellen Page is atrocious. She takes me out of my suspension of disbelief in anything she's in. She's so bad she is the anti-fourth wall. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud:
I don't see it as "light-hearted" at all. IMO, it's way too heavy-handed and there's not enough, if any, humor.
Of course, the biggest issue with this series is that it's based on a comic from nearly 14 years ago and since then, comic book movies, both amazing and amazingly bad, have been released as TV series and feature films, so there's nothing really original about it, whatsoever.
Also, the "twists" just aren't that cool. I knew from the second episode that Ellen Page's character
Spoiler!
was obviously the person that caused the apocalypse.
So, when it happened, it was like "Meh". I also don't really care for the format nor the "slow reveal" of each character's powers, which is weird because apparently, the first comic was like 8 pages long, so why does it take 10 hours before we have an idea of everyone's special gifts?
Finally, and this is a real stickler to me and probably not many others, but the music is absolutely horrible. There's no Main Theme to the music and unlike well written and well produced Super Hero movies (or movies in general), the music doesn't signify much of anything for each character whereas in great Comic Book films, each character has their own Theme or even a short Motif, which identifies the character for each scene.
I'm about halfway through Season 2 and I'll finish it, if for no other reason than having a "talking point" but it's nowhere in the same league as The Boys.
I'm also absolutely certain that it'll pale in comparison to the upcoming Marvel series' on Disney+.
It's pretty clear your tastes are a whole lot more refined than mine in this area. Thanks for the insight on scoring, I had no idea characters had themes in comic book movies. Now I'm going to watch for that. Thanks for turning it into work!!:-) [Reply]
Originally Posted by vailpass:
Thanks for the insight on scoring, I had no idea characters had themes in comic book movies. Now I'm going to watch for that. Thanks for turning it into work!!:-)
Themes or Motif's are common for most high profile characters, from Indiana Jones to Jaws to Star Wars, each character, whether it's Indy, the shark, Luke, Vader, Leia, Lando, Yoda and now Rey and Kylo Ren - even Woody & Buzz in the Toy Story movies - all have their own musical themes or motif's.
Same for Captain America, Iron Man, Black Panther, etc. In Endgame, the same music is used for Tony when he's dying in space as the music in his funeral scene (they're in different keys but it's the same music and motif).
Umbrella Academy's music is all over the map. They're in early 60's Dallas and while there are some old school R&B tracks played in some scenes, there's also songs from this era used as well, which to me, is totally confusing.
The music switches from orchestral to electronic in some scenes, yet that music is never "re-purposed", so it's basically filler that's completely pointless. [Reply]
I am kinda with the majority of people here... the second season was way better than the first, Five is the best character out of them all, and Ellen Page is just ass. [Reply]
I finished Season 2 last night and while it was much better than Season 1, the ending was quite underwhelming, IMO.
There is some potential for great storytelling but for whatever reason, the decision to focus on lame characters like Diego and Allison is strange to me because they're the two least interesting characters.
Spoiler!
And the way they causally dealt with Vanya, who's suddenly a lesbian, whose anger towards her fellow "siblings" completely disappeared, as if she didn't destroy Earth and Moon in the other timeline because of that anger, is just lazy, dumb writing.
Originally Posted by DJ's left nut:
Just started it.
I cannot state strongly enough how much I dislike Ellen Page. I would like this show substantially more if there was literally any other person on earth playing her role.
Just finished the second season. Meh. Better than the first season, but still pretty lousy. How can you have a superhero series with such boring superheroes? There was so much potential for a more exiting story, but it just felt lazy and full of deus ex machina trope. [Reply]
Gotta admit I was kind of excited seeing a bunch of positive reviews here before watching. But it just fell flat. The actress that plays Allison seems capable and interesting. But man, that character is just worthless. Rumor power? Klaus too. That character is sooo annoying and super useless. For many of them, their character's motivation just made no sense at all, and felt shoehorned into the plot. Like Diego's insistence on messing up the JFK timeline. The family just glossing over their sister repeatedly attacking them and blowing shit up?
And then Lila:
Spoiler!
It felt like they sort of recreated her character through the series.
All of a sudden she has everybody's powers? WTF?
5:
Spoiler!
Had the ability to just rewind time by ~20 seconds and didn't use that sooner? And his teleporting power was just shit. X-Men's Nightcrawler showed what that kind of thing should look like. That scene when he was teleport fighting his older self was just cringy.
Originally Posted by Fish:
But it just fell flat. The actress that plays Allison seems capable and interesting. But man, that character is just worthless. Rumor power? Klaus too. That character is sooo annoying and super useless. For many of them, their character's motivation just made no sense at all, and felt shoehorned into the plot. Like Diego's insistence on messing up the JFK timeline. The family just glossing over their sister repeatedly attacking them and blowing shit up?
Rumor power, tentacles, speaking with the dead, a super strong "Ape Man", a guy that can "bend metal", a shitty father figure and a kid that can time travel out of any situation seem like characters a child in psychotherapy would create, not an adult with an iota of imagination, not to mention, the girl who can destroy the world with a blink of an eye. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Tribal Warfare:
Season 2 is a metric ****ton better than the 1st
Originally Posted by 007:
Completely agree
Originally Posted by penchief:
Totally agree. Season one kept my interest. Season two was thoroughly enjoyable. Loved the story line and loved the character development.
Other than Vonya, all of the characters were way more interesting. I wasn't a big fan of Luther in season one but he became one of my favorites in season two. Allison is great but all of the male characters are home runs.
Side note: It took me a while to figure out who Elliot was because the character was so different from where I recognized him. He was the right hand man in Mikes crew (Todd's uncle) on Breaking Bad.
Originally Posted by BigRichard:
I am kinda with the majority of people here... the second season was way better than the first, Five is the best character out of them all, and Ellen Page is just ass.
Agree with most. Second season way better than the first.
People bagging on it just need to lower their expectations with anything on Netflix. They are going for volume, not quality. This is just cartoonish escapism fun. You want the same thing but done right, go to Amazon and see Boys. Maybe Netflix will start producing quality product regularly but I'm not holding my breath. [Reply]
Originally Posted by BigRedChief:
People bagging on it just need to lower their expectations with anything on Netflix.
They are going for volume, not quality. This is just cartoonish escapism fun. You want the same thing but done right, go to Amazon and see Boys. Maybe Netflix will start producing quality product regularly but I'm not holding my breath.
The Umbrella Academy is budgeted at $10 million per episode or $100 million per season.
They are definitely going for "quality" but many of their shows are hit or miss.
If Umbrella Academy launched on CBS, NBC, ABC or Fox, it would have been cancelled after 4 episodes. [Reply]
