S01.E01: The Gales

[Mr. Sparkle]

A sudden attack by the mysterious Gales prompts Queen Sorsha to seek help from an old friend.

Streaming on Disney+ November 30th. 

[Tachi Rocinante]

Not bad. It started a little cutesy but then got dark real fast.

If it can balance the humor with the action like the movie, it should be fun.

[thuganomics85]

Been ages since I seen the film, so I'm glad we got a brief prologue/voiceover montage of the main events here.  All in all, it was a decent start even if made sure to run through almost all of the fantasy tropes it could.  A princess fighting back against an arranged marriage and society in general?  Check!  A playboy prince who might possibly throw his roguish ways aside for the simple servant girl (at least on the surface.)  Check again!  Snarky badass heavy with a big-ass cleaver?  Double check!  Sinister villains and a journey to parts unknown.  Why, of course!  The veteran of the party getting taken out early on?  Yup!  And it all ends with them waiting till the very end to bring back the titular star/main character that everyone knows right before we cut to black.  Classic fantasy!

Definitely great seeing Warwick Davis and Joanne Whalley again and they seemed to be having fun reprising their roles after so many years.  The rest of the cast mainly worked and were a solid of mixture of those I'm unfamiliar with and those I recognize (Erin Kellyman!  Ralph Ineson!)  The only I'm iffy on was Tony Revolori, who I like, but felt a bit too modern compared to everyone else and I couldn't help but always think "Why is Flash Thompson here in fantasy world?" whenever he showed up.  Do relate to his character's dislike of death and communal baths, heh.

Scenery was great.  Looks like they shot this in Wales according to IMDB.

I know Val Kilmer can perform like he use to, but I'm still wondering if we'll get a glimpse of some kind of Madmartigan.

In nothing else, considering how Disney has been famously shy about portraying any kind of gay romance in their stuff, it's nice seeing them not shy away from Kit/Jade as a potential couple.  Sure, it's probably a low bar to jump over in this day and age, but yay for small victories, I guess?

Mainly a lot of set up here, so I'll wait until the second episode to see if I can get a better idea about this show going forward.

[Mr. Sparkle]

3 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

made sure to run through almost all of the fantasy tropes it could.  A princess fighting back against an arranged marriage and society in general?  Check!  A playboy prince who might possibly throw his roguish ways aside for the simple servant girl (at least on the surface.)  Check again!  Snarky badass heavy with a big-ass cleaver?  Double check!  Sinister villains and a journey to parts unknown.  Why, of course!  The veteran of the party getting taken out early on?  Yup!  And it all ends with them waiting till the very end to bring back the titular star/main character that everyone knows right before we cut to black.  Classic fantasy!

Yup. All of this. It reminded me of all the quest movies I watched on cable growing up. Conan, The Beastmaster, Red Sonja, and of course, Willow. The LotR distant shot of our team heading out over the breathtaking scenery. 

This first episode was fairly uneven. Pretty boring, then the attack at the castle wasn't bad. Comedy? Intense drama? A little of each? 

Maybe the second episode will be better. 

[Bort]

I can’t decide if it was supposed to be easy to guess that the muffin girl was Elora.

Kit railing at her mother only to have Sorsha fire back with, “You think I’m tough? You should’ve met mine,” got a chuckle out of me but also, no shit. Be glad you never met your grandmother, Kit.

[Mr. Sparkle]

12 minutes ago, kariyaki said:

I can’t decide if it was supposed to be easy to guess that the muffin girl was Elora.

Didn't the baby have red hair? I thought Elora was going to be red-haired girl. 

[Featherhat]

1 hour ago, kariyaki said:

I can’t decide if it was supposed to be easy to guess that the muffin girl was Elora.

Once "Muffin Girl" actually went to the prince and broke it off *and* then joined the quest, including magically not falling in the ravine despite an earthquake, I was pretty sure she was Elora because otherwise they wouldn't have bothered with the character beyond that scene in the great hall where she sees the prince flirting with the noble ladies and realises his insincerity. 

Kit is an entire book's worth of tropes all by herself, almost all of them played er, straight but I'm willing to give her time to grow more nuanced. I really liked Jade though. 

In comparison, whilst the story doesn't have a huge amount of respect for him it is interesting that TR's character is the "wrong" guy and he's openly scared of dying and public bathing but he has been allowed to contribute his knowledge and personal beliefs. 

[MrWhyt]

5 hours ago, thuganomics85 said:

The only I'm iffy on was Tony Revolori, who I like, but felt a bit too modern compared to everyone

all the dialogue felt too modern 

[Bort]

1 hour ago, Featherhat said:

Kit is an entire book's worth of tropes all by herself, almost all of them played er, straight but I'm willing to give her time to grow more nuanced. I really liked Jade though. 

Kit manages to have an inferiority complex AND thinks she’s the center of the universe. That takes skill. Pile on daddy issues AND mommy issues. I did like Jade too. I like that as much as she clearly cares about Kit, she doesn’t let that override her common sense.

1 hour ago, Featherhat said:

Once "Muffin Girl" actually went to the prince and broke it off *and* then joined the quest, including magically not falling in the ravine despite an earthquake, I was pretty sure she was Elora because otherwise they wouldn't have bothered with the character beyond that scene in the great hall where she sees the prince flirting with the noble ladies and realises his insincerity. 

I also thought that muffin girl being able to part that magical barrier and get through it was the big red Elora flag waving the hardest.

[Mr. Sparkle]

The castle scenes reminded me of Merlin, and that is not a compliment. 

[raven]

6 hours ago, kariyaki said:

Kit manages to have an inferiority complex AND thinks she’s the center of the universe. That takes skill. Pile on daddy issues AND mommy issues. I did like Jade too. I like that as much as she clearly cares about Kit, she doesn’t let that override her common sense.

Kit is awful.  Her best friend/girlfriend has the opportunity to fulfill her dream of becoming a knight but we must all tip toe around Kit lest she become upset.  The person who told Jade that if Kit were a true friend, she would be happy for Jade was correct, yet Kit's first thought was "you're leaving meee".  Shut up, Kit.   It doesn't help that to me, these "teens" all look about 30.  OK, mid-20's.  The potential betrothed dude does look 30.

I concur that Jade is awesome.  

They may as well have painted "Elora Danan" on Dove's forehead.  The most annoying thing about the movie was the constant repeating of "Elora Danan" and that's going to happen in this show as well, I bet.

The bad guys were actually the best part - that crow/eagle/crone whatever was well done.  

I'm not a huge fan of the film and I don't hate it either - it was just there.  Madmartigan FTW, though.  I watched part of the movie yesterday and the unsung hero is the midwife who escapes the castle with infant ELORA DANAN (repeat); treks over fields and through snowstorms, living in the woods, only to get torn apart by dogpigs and forgotten.

[Featherhat]

3 hours ago, raven said:

Kit is awful.  Her best friend/girlfriend has the opportunity to fulfill her dream of becoming a knight but we must all tip toe around Kit lest she become upset.  The person who told Jade that if Kit were a true friend, she would be happy for Jade was correct, yet Kit's first thought was "you're leaving meee".  Shut up, Kit.   It doesn't help that to me, these "teens" all look about 30.  OK, mid-20's.  The potential betrothed dude does look 30.

It's a bad sign when I actually thought her playboy brother showed a more interesting personality subversion by trying to smooth things over with Graydon despite getting put down by both his mother and sister and admitting that he loved his sister and wanted to help her. I know he's the damsel so he's not in as many eps and they needed to show that he's worth rescuing immediately but I wish they'd done a little something similar with Kit. She barely said anything that wasn't a sneer, brag or complaint the whole 2 episodes.

I thought it was hilarious that she was so shocked that Graydon didn't want to marry her either, that he wanted to marry for love and wasn't chomping at the bit to marry the woman who mocked him publicly. I get that she's young and I completely understand her hating the idea of forced marriage to a stranger but she never once considered that he didn't want it either but was being dutiful. 

[Shanna Marie]

14 hours ago, MrWhyt said:

all the dialogue felt too modern 

That's the thing that keeps throwing me out of the story/world. I can deal with American accents in fantasy. I know intellectually that there's no reason everyone in a fantasy world has to be British-ish. But I can't deal with fantasy characters who, like, sound like they're just about to head to, like, the mall, like, okay? And there were way too many "likes" in one of Kit's speeches for me. That, plus the "slow dancing at prom" style dancing in the royal hall made it feel like this was heavily targeted to American teens (when the primary audience is probably Gen X, maybe Gen Y who saw the movie as kids or teens or caught the VHS release. The movie's been off the radar too long for today's teens to care). I think part of the issue is that there's such a mix of American and British accents, for no good reason. Most of the adults sound British and most of the kids sound American. Maybe Kit and her brother sound like their dad, but then it sounds like he's been gone a while, so wouldn't they have been influenced more by their mom and the other adults? The "fantasy characters who sound like SoCal teens" thing threw me out of the Shannara series (well, along with it not being very good and mangling the book), so I hope this doesn't ruin this series for me.

It's a pity the prince is our damsel and will likely be mostly offscreen because the casting for him was perfect. He really looks like he could be Val Kilmer's son. They have similar facial features. He's also nailed the young Val Kilmer persona. His body language and voice inflections were right out of Kilmer in the Real Genius/Top Secret era. I think they did a good job of acknowledging Madmartigan and explaining/creating a mystery around his absence to cover the fact that Val Kilmer is currently too ill to work.

Anyone who's read The Tough Guide to Fantasyland probably got a giggle about cooking stew when they stop for the night on the road. Yeah, I'll just whip up something that has to cook for several hours when we stop for the night after a long day of travel. However, I do like that they showed that cooking is a valuable skill. I was afraid they were going to go all "not like other girls" with Kit and Jade, where they're superior because they do boy things like fight. But Dove/Elora has her own strengths even if she can't swing a sword.

All that said, I didn't hate it, and I imagine it'll pick up now that Willow has joined them (I've only watched ep 1 so far). I like most of the casting, it looks nice, and I enjoy most of the humor. I'll watch the second episode tonight and that'll determine whether this will be something I watch on Wednesdays because I'm eager or when I get around to it if I remember to.

16 hours ago, Superclam said:

Didn't the baby have red hair? I thought Elora was going to be red-haired girl. 

That must have been part of the disguise. She'd have been too obvious to hide with red hair, so she might have been magically changed. And they may have taken Jade in because she made for a good red herring. Though I wasn't expecting them to find Elora so soon. I figured she really was off with Madmartigan, and sending her husband off with Elora to keep her safe was Sorsha's sacrifice. I doubt they'd have had Willow be so wrong about recognizing her, so we won't learn that this is what happened and Dove is a decoy.

[Bort]

3 hours ago, Featherhat said:

I thought it was hilarious that she was so shocked that Graydon didn't want to marry her either, that he wanted to marry for love and wasn't chomping at the bit to marry the woman who mocked him publicly. I get that she's young and I completely understand her hating the idea of forced marriage to a stranger but she never once considered that he didn't want it either but was being dutiful. 

That center of the universe thing. It absolutely does not occur to Kit that Graydon wouldn’t want to marry Her Awesomeness.

[sharifa70]

20 hours ago, MrWhyt said:

all the dialogue felt too modern 

This. I don’t expect archaic Shakespearean English, but maybe try to work a little harder at toning down the “moms” and “it sucks” and “like, totallys”? They sound like cosplayers at a Comic Con, not characters in a high fantasy series. I love Willow and this world, but the dialogue is killing me.

[Noneofyourbusiness]

9 hours ago, Shanna Marie said:

The "fantasy characters who sound like SoCal teens" thing threw me out of the Shannara series

Shannara at least has the excuse of being set in the real world's future.

Edited December 2, 2022 by Noneofyourbusiness

[Ariah]

Well, that was seriously disappointing.

The production values were from the 90s, dialogues written like poor fanfiction and the plot was totally predictable.

One good thing was seeing Warwick and Joanne on screen. 
 

Having said that, hello my new angry watch! Haven’t had one for a while.

[nodorothyparker]

I know most pilot episodes suffer from exposition overload, especially when they have to work this much to set a story outside of normal time or space like this one does, but ye gods, this one nearly bowed under the weight of it. I don't envy the actors at all trying to establish their characters as anything but walking bags of tropes when every time they got more than two lines there was whole 'nother round of exposition dumping or lightning round world building.

If I didn't know Warwick Davis has worked pretty regularly I honestly would have thought he was rusty. His line readings really ... weren't great. But again, there was a whole lot of exposition dumping for him too before he had to rush into the big Elora Danan reveal. Assuming this is being played straight, I'll admit to being a little disappointed that the big mystery about her was that she was in the kitchen the whole time. Part of me was hoping too that Madmartigan's absence (Val Kilmer's health issues aside) would be tied to whatever happened to Elora Danan, which would have at least helped explain why Sorsha has devolved into the wearily duty-bound queen in a fantasy epic trope. I will give the show credit for nailing the casting of the son in acknowledging the Val Kilmer-shaped hole in the story. That kid has the look and mannerisms of original recipe era Willow down.

I have a real nostalgic love for the movie so I'm willing to give this a little time to settle in before forming too strong of an opinion either way. If nothing else, it gave me an excuse to foist the movie on my teenagers in preparation for it.

[steph369]

On 12/1/2022 at 12:08 AM, MrWhyt said:

all the dialogue felt too modern 

The dialogue is awful. Feels as if it’s written by 12-year-olds.

[call me ishmael]

On 11/30/2022 at 7:27 PM, Superclam said:

Didn't the baby have red hair? I thought Elora was going to be red-haired girl. 

I think Ellie Bamber may have red hair in real life.  Maybe it will change.

Edited December 6, 2022 by call me ishmael
It’s important to spell correctly

[silverstream]

I feel like I'm in the minority here, but I really liked it. I thought Jade would turn out to be Elora Danan (because of the red hair) and was surprised when it turned out to be Dove, who I'd pegged as the comic relief/heart of gold character.