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Neil Gaiman's Sandman - Now Netflix/WB co-production

Goose

By Goose,
in Film, TV & Radio

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PeteJ

PeteJ

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Posted

Annnd finished. 

 

Heard of Sandman before but never read it or seen trailers (or this thread) before watching, so going in as fresh as possible. 

 

Really enjoyed it from start to finish. It's very uneven with its tone and pacing but it was occasionally brilliant and never less than interesting. 

 

Mostly very well made with some average performances mixed in with a couple of great ones. The guy with the gem was excellent, Rose's friend less so. 

 

I really liked the imagination and creativity in the story, though would have liked more from gem guy who I thought was being setup as a big bad and whose story was better than anybody else's in the series. 

 

Bonus episodes, first I really didn't need but second was good. I hear this is a really expensive show to make, and honestly from what I've seen it doesn't really need to be. The effects could be dialled right back and you'd basically have the same show. I say this not knowing what happens in the story next, of course.  

 

Enjoyed. Will watch more if made available. 

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footle

footle

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7 hours ago, Festoon said:

 

Forgot this, yes, Lyta was pretty poor.

 

Which is a problem.


even the characters who recur, outside dream/lucienne/matthew, won’t recur that often. Maybe they get an episode, or a set of four episodes where they turn up for a few minutes.

 

whole comic series spoilers, clearly.

 

Spoiler

Hell, Barbie will turn up for an arc - but isn’t going to be most of it.
Lucifer has one more epsiode and maybe a kicker?

Death and the rest of the endless outside of Delirium are more occasionally recurring characters.

 

perhaps Thessaly? (But even there it’s an arc and a half as a supporting character, so six episodes?)

 

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Headache

Headache

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Anyway, just watch the new episode that dropped. Definitely weird that they felt the need to force the two stories into one episode. It's a streaming platform, why not have one episode be 10 minute animated one? It felt like they weren't confident people would continue on to the next episode if they suddenly switched over to animation. 

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JohnC

JohnC

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Gaiman confessed to sabotaging an earlier movie adaptation of Sandman.

 

https://deadline.com/2022/08/the-sandman-neil-gaiman-sabotaged-movie-adaptation-1235100792/

 

He thought the script was shit, so he anonymously sent a copy to Ain’t It Cool News ("which back then was read by people" - ouch). That led to the script being torn apart and the movie project disappeared.

 

It was Jon Peters work. The same guy people here may remember the story of how he wanted Superman to fight a giant spider, didn't get his way, so Wild Wild West happened.

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Unofficial Who

Unofficial Who

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On 22/08/2022 at 20:28, Thor said:

I actually found that alright, what I didn't like the was paedo guy played for laughs. It wasn't funny. 

 

On 22/08/2022 at 21:49, Stanley said:

Yeah I felt uncomfortable there for sure, but I think you are meant to - and the whole show does kind of veer from comedy to horror at times. But yeah, even in the context of the already awkward ‘aren’t serial killers cool’ schtick it felt egregious. 

 

Sadly as someone who experienced being attacked (and surviving) being assaulted by a serial abuser as a child I think he nailed the character. Genial and harmless looking to the point of being laughable in public but absolutely fucking terrifying in close quarters where he thinks he's safe to do his worst. The whole "you hurt me, now I have to hurt you" and his sudden charge down the hallway was incredibly uncomfortable to watch to the point where I wondered if someone involved in that scene was working off previous experience.

 

On a lighter note my favourite episode was the stand alone episode with Hobs and the bet with Death. As for the rest of the show, I think it was a good adaptation of something that was definitely of a time. It feels like something written by a young man in the 90's and I would have loved it to death in the 90's.

 

Watching it now though...I got a lot of Derek Zoolander vibes from it but I think that's in part down to Ben Stiller completely satirising that period so well it virtually killed the genre overnight.

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Stanley

Stanley

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Yeah it definitely feels of its time but that’s no bad thing imo, I loved it for that. It even made me dig out my old Sisters and Mission records. Tower of Strength is a beast of a song! 
 

Sorry to hear about your experiences @Unofficial Who I can’t even begin to imagine what that must have been like for you. 

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Unofficial Who

Unofficial Who

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35 minutes ago, Stanley said:

Yeah it definitely feels of its time but that’s no bad thing imo, I loved it for that. It even made me dig out my old Sisters and Mission records. Tower of Strength is a beast of a song! 
 

Sorry to hear about your experiences @Unofficial Who I can’t even begin to imagine what that must have been like for you. 

 

It reminds me a lot of half forgotten late 90's magical realism shows that I can't remember the name of that used to be my jam back then. Pensive pouting and goth music for the win!

 

And thanks, been a lot better in the ten years plus that I first wrote about it here. I've had lots of help to deal with processing those experiences, years ago that sequence would have fucked me up for weeks. Probably helped that the introduction of said character a few episodes before was in itself a content warning.

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Kingpin

Kingpin

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I just finished watching everything. It’s only reading this thread that I understand that the last one is a bonus. It certainly felt like a weird add on after the conclusions of the previous one but I like the idea of dropping random episodes every now and again. 
 

I’m aware of the comics but never read much of them. I was fairly fresh going into the show and it worked for me. I liked the meandering nature of it and the side stories. 
 

Slightly concerned reading here that S2 isn’t already coming but fingers crossed. 

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ckny

ckny

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Well that was fucking dreadful.

 

I understand it's following a comic or something but what the fuck. It was pretty good until David Thewlis was killed off, then it just became a totally different show and a mawkish load of shit. The Lucifer 'fight' was hilariously shit. The acting in general was sub-BBC daytime levels of terrible. Scenes ostensibly taking place in America had me genuinely laughing out loud - stick a US style mailbox outside a typical British cul-de-sac, that'll do; put up a parasol and we'll convince everyone Cleethorpes is Florida! Everyone involved should be embarrassed really.

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Thor

Thor

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Posted
2 hours ago, ckny said:

stick a US style mailbox outside a typical British cul-de-sac, that'll do

While I agree with some of your criticisms (though not as vehemently), I actually thought that little bit was alright, reminded me of Grove Street from the GTA games. 

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SpagMasterSwift

SpagMasterSwift

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Posted
On 31/08/2022 at 09:53, ckny said:

Well that was fucking dreadful.

 

I understand it's following a comic or something but what the fuck. It was pretty good until David Thewlis was killed off, then it just became a totally different show and a mawkish load of shit. The Lucifer 'fight' was hilariously shit. The acting in general was sub-BBC daytime levels of terrible. Scenes ostensibly taking place in America had me genuinely laughing out loud - stick a US style mailbox outside a typical British cul-de-sac, that'll do; put up a parasol and we'll convince everyone Cleethorpes is Florida! Everyone involved should be embarrassed really.

 

Agree with this, I'm a couple of episodes off finishing it but after the two ones I just watched about the Vortex I'm out. All these characters that turn up for 5 minutes then disappear, nothing gets developed. It's just a load of bollocks. Thewlis was good, there seemed to be an arc happening at least, but then I feel like I'm watching some other show. Maybe I just don't get it. Is it meant to be a jumble of nonsense because, you know, dreams..?

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Darwock

Darwock

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I was going on the assumption that these are all introductions that will become meaningful much later on. It’s reputation seems to be that it’s a bit of an epic as far as comics go, so I’m guessing it’s hard to do all the world building necessary for the eventual pay-off.

 

At least that’s what I hope, because it was quite jarring - especially the jump it took after that particular episode.

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Chindie

Chindie

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And finished.

 

Enjoyed it overall but, like the comic, it's absolutely not for everyone. It's a very peculiar mix of new romantic-y, goth-y 'tone' mashed into mythology and fantasy with some new age-y mysticism and teen 'adult' themes, smashed into Dr. Who. The first half, which is dark and a bit nasty in the main, is better than the second, where it gets particularly silly (but still enjoyable, if you go with it).

 

If you can go with it, it's an enjoyable series. If any of that melange of stuff above puts you off, you'll be chewing your hands off.

 

Also, shout out to Boyd Holbrook. He's one of those actors that has a kind of inbuilt charisma that means he is very, very good in basically anything. The character here is barely there, but he does a bloody good job.

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odb

odb

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It hasn’t really proven to be that popular yet. Being top shows for a short period of time is great but it has to sustain viewership the first week numbers will include the people that like it binging it and people trying the show who could ultimately drop it later on. Also even if the numbers are high relative to other shows, shows have different budgets and so expectations are different.  Big numbers isn't necessarily what netflix wants to get out of their shows, they want more subscribers and that's probably why their hesitating to renew because that data isn't completely in yet.

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Bazjam

Bazjam

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I think this could be hugely damaging to Netflix if they don’t renew. They’ve had so much bad PR recently when it comes to cancelling shows, that if they did it to a beloved IP like this, and one that’s performed well both critically and in the worldwide charts, it could be the final straw for many when it comes to a Netflix subscription. I mean really, what would be the point in getting into any new shows they make.

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footle

footle

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2 hours ago, odb said:

 

It hasn’t really proven to be that popular yet. Being top shows for a short period of time is great but it has to sustain viewership the first week numbers will include the people that like it binging it and people trying the show who could ultimately drop it later on. Also even if the numbers are high relative to other shows, shows have different budgets and so expectations are different.  Big numbers isn't necessarily what netflix wants to get out of their shows, they want more subscribers and that's probably why their hesitating to renew because that data isn't completely in yet.

 

it’s beaten this year by…

stranger things 4

bridgerton season 2

extraordinary attorney (or if it isn’t yet, it will be soon, though that has many many more episodes)

It’s just beaten by the Witcher 2, though it’d be interesting to compare with season 1, and sandman is much less conventional.
 

the budget and politics probably kill it though.

 

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odb

odb

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7 hours ago, footle said:

 

it’s beaten this year by…

stranger things 4

bridgerton season 2

extraordinary attorney (or if it isn’t yet, it will be soon, though that has many many more episodes)

It’s just beaten by the Witcher 2, though it’d be interesting to compare with season 1, and sandman is much less conventional.
 

the budget and politics probably kill it though.

 

 

More budget I feel than politics, the average viewer wouldn't know that certain characters were race/gender swapped unless they read the comics. And there's more people who don't know that Sandman is this acclaimed series than do. Outside the internet geek sphere echo chamber, hardly anyone talks or knows about it. The drop out rate must be significant for them in hesitation to renew and I can't blame them if so.

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Festoon

Festoon

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3 hours ago, Peter St John said:

I think the thing that impresses me the most about these Nielsen ratings is just how strong Gilmore Girls is holding up: https://variety.com/2022/streaming/news/lightyear-sandman-ratings-nielsen-streaming-top-10-1235357352/#!

 

One of the best shows ever, imo. So watchable and easy to watch.

 

Except when that cunt Christopher reappears in the last season.

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