Riese's pieces
Okay, so first off, I'm going to say check out the web series that could and got itself corporate cable sponsorship: Riese [Hulu] [syfy.com]. Three ten minute episodes are available so far on Syfy, two on Hulu.
A very quick and dirty run down of the premise: Riese, the deposed princess of a fantastical empire, has grown up in hiding with a wolf companion and as an adult is now on the run from the Sect controlled by her aunt(?), the Empress, while a Resistance fights to find her and return her to the throne. All in a gently steampunk inspired atmosphere.
With me so far?
Okay, so, you know, female protagonist, steampunk aesthetic, sounds fun, right? And, hey, bonus wolf!
So I watched the first three episodes. Please note, I never saw the original ones before they were recut for Syfy's sponsorship/airing/whatever they want to call them.
I really, really, really, really want to like this. I do. It's a webseries, which implies a grassroots, DIY kind of production team that makes me want to cheer them on and support them. It's steampunk, which, yeah, okay, I like steampunk. I'm also very interested in the various ways popular media is doing steampunk, and this webseries having garnered corporate backing via Syfy, it totally counts as popular media. And, I mean, come on. It's a deposed princess running through the woods in googles fighting off bad guys with a wolf companion. I would have been ALL OVER THAT SHIT when I was twelve.
You know, before I started learning about storytelling and literature and folklore and started having the background to recognize all the trouble this series is getting itself into.
And, you know, I feel bad saying it like that. Because part of me really believes that if I just keep watching more of it, it'll show its hidden genius. "Haha, loyal viewer, and here is where you know that we meant it that way all along!" they'll say. "Aren't you glad you stuck with it?" and I will go "I am, tiny show that could get corporate backing! I shall go and sing your praises and never doubt you again!"
Seriously. It maybe still could.
But, ohhhhh, I don't know.
Let's break this down: first off, the cynic in me immediately flinched at the very fairytale set up of the whole thing, with the deposed princess and the once great empire and all. And the wolf. But, hey, Frasier had a wolf and he was all Good with a capital Guh, and the pub shots and previews of this are REALLY PRETTY, and good writing could make that premise totally fantastic, despite my inner cynic's natural reaction of "oh god, bad fantasy cliche".
Even when the whole fantasy cliche is set up by narration that I can really only describe as "awkward". I mean, they've got ten minutes an episode to try and get all this put together. There's the entire empire of Elysium (or possibly Elysia) to build here before we can get going, right? Right?
(Wrong. World building can totally be done gradually as a function of the story rather than an exposition dump over a slightly strained fight scene. But, hey, I mean, that's a classic. Maybe it's a purposeful choice.)
And that's just it, see. It's all so . . . CLASSIC. Like, how can they not see that they're making allusions to Little Red Riding Hood (literally, small child in a reddish brown hood running through the forest intercut with images of a snarling wolf) and Snow White (the evil queen sends a single woodsy adapted guy out to go kill the wayward princess -- well, I mean, the whole Sect wants to kill her, but there's gotta be a figure head, right? And he's way creepier if he works alone. . . .) and Anastasia (dude, I can practically quote the recent cartoon of that word for word along with the DVD. I practically heard the narration in Riese in Angela Landsbury's voice)? And, dude, the empire's called "Elysium" (or "Elysia"), but every time they show the map of the place, all the individual . . . states? counties? kingdoms? regions? . . . are named "Asgard", "Vanir", and "Midgard". There's airships in the shot over the empress's balcony and giant metal wheels in the . . . barn . . . thing . . . but everyone is seen traveling strictly by foot. People wear steampunky bits like goggles and oddly fashioned eyepieces (and in the case of our evil woodsman guy, an entire sleeve and a voice modulator hinting that he's actually made of clockwork himself), which relates back to the Victorian period and the Industrial revolution, yet the structure of the society we see Riese running through reminds you of nothing so much as a Renaissance Fair, and the empress wears eastern Asian influenced clothing while sitting in a garden surrounded by lanterns on pillars. And the wolf -- who apparently used to be a citizen? as in, wolves were citizens like people until the evil empress cast them out -- disappears, like, at the end of episode one and we haven't seen him since -- because Riese is drawn into the plight of the villagers against the baby stealing Sect and has to save the single young mother she's encountered from the doctor who's not even trying not to be creepy about it all in her presence.
What am I forgetting? Let's see, awkward narration, stiff fight scenes, inability to pin down a cultural reference yet not yet managing to reinvent influences in a coherent way (I've just about given up on my theory about why the empire as a whole was named for Greek mythology while all the . . . townships? . . . were named for Norse -- the town Riese's in for most of the aired episodes so far appears to be named for a town in British Columbia), wildly assorted literary and media allusions. . . . OH DUDE, I ALMOST FORGOT THE RESISTANCE! The Resistance, you see, is trying to get Riese back on the throne. So they're looking for her. Apparently by getting into bloody battles (battle? It might have been the same one) in the dark in the snowy woods while shouting lines from 300 at each other. (I'm pretty sure this is an actual exchange: "This is madness!" "MADness?!" -- followed by admonitions never to retreat!) And wearing inappropriate clothing for the weather.
And to top all of that off, and this is almost purely a personal issue, they pronounce Riese "Reece", and I read it every single time as "REE-seh", as it would be pronounced in German (which, per my German-English dictionary, means "giant", and seems to point towards yet another missed/unacknowledged potential cultural reference).
Which, I mean, it could still be so good. If they get their act together regarding all of those bits and pieces and work them together into something coherent (and, you know, give their title character some, like, depth -- her biggest flaw at the moment seems to be she's too good and heroic and helpful, you know, like that quote from Spaceballs: "evil will always triumph because good is dumb"), it could be masterful. Lord knows it's PRETTY. I mean, omg, the production values visually are stunning.
I may try watching it again on mute or something. I suspect it works far better sans the narration entirely. There's a few dialog scenes that'll go missing as well, doing it that way, but only, like, two per episode, and I suspect the gist of those can be worked out pretty well just via the action.
And lastly, does discussing a religious sect (represented thus far entirely by men, other than the ruling evil empress) stealing one of your twin babies for a handful of lines count as passing the Bechdel test? I think that's the only woman to woman conversation. Unless you count back to back scenes of the empress (who has a name, but it just didn't stick in my head at all, half a second later I was convinced it was "Adora" -- which if it is I might go beat my head against something) and Riese talking to themselves while looking at the same family portrait.
So, to sum up: Riese the webseries has some mad crazy potential. And I'm going to keep watching with my little heart full of hope that the whole Greek mythology v. Norse mythology thing is a conscious metaphor, at the very least. Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuut it just isn't quite there yet.
A very quick and dirty run down of the premise: Riese, the deposed princess of a fantastical empire, has grown up in hiding with a wolf companion and as an adult is now on the run from the Sect controlled by her aunt(?), the Empress, while a Resistance fights to find her and return her to the throne. All in a gently steampunk inspired atmosphere.
With me so far?
Okay, so, you know, female protagonist, steampunk aesthetic, sounds fun, right? And, hey, bonus wolf!
So I watched the first three episodes. Please note, I never saw the original ones before they were recut for Syfy's sponsorship/airing/whatever they want to call them.
I really, really, really, really want to like this. I do. It's a webseries, which implies a grassroots, DIY kind of production team that makes me want to cheer them on and support them. It's steampunk, which, yeah, okay, I like steampunk. I'm also very interested in the various ways popular media is doing steampunk, and this webseries having garnered corporate backing via Syfy, it totally counts as popular media. And, I mean, come on. It's a deposed princess running through the woods in googles fighting off bad guys with a wolf companion. I would have been ALL OVER THAT SHIT when I was twelve.
You know, before I started learning about storytelling and literature and folklore and started having the background to recognize all the trouble this series is getting itself into.
And, you know, I feel bad saying it like that. Because part of me really believes that if I just keep watching more of it, it'll show its hidden genius. "Haha, loyal viewer, and here is where you know that we meant it that way all along!" they'll say. "Aren't you glad you stuck with it?" and I will go "I am, tiny show that could get corporate backing! I shall go and sing your praises and never doubt you again!"
Seriously. It maybe still could.
But, ohhhhh, I don't know.
Let's break this down: first off, the cynic in me immediately flinched at the very fairytale set up of the whole thing, with the deposed princess and the once great empire and all. And the wolf. But, hey, Frasier had a wolf and he was all Good with a capital Guh, and the pub shots and previews of this are REALLY PRETTY, and good writing could make that premise totally fantastic, despite my inner cynic's natural reaction of "oh god, bad fantasy cliche".
Even when the whole fantasy cliche is set up by narration that I can really only describe as "awkward". I mean, they've got ten minutes an episode to try and get all this put together. There's the entire empire of Elysium (or possibly Elysia) to build here before we can get going, right? Right?
(Wrong. World building can totally be done gradually as a function of the story rather than an exposition dump over a slightly strained fight scene. But, hey, I mean, that's a classic. Maybe it's a purposeful choice.)
And that's just it, see. It's all so . . . CLASSIC. Like, how can they not see that they're making allusions to Little Red Riding Hood (literally, small child in a reddish brown hood running through the forest intercut with images of a snarling wolf) and Snow White (the evil queen sends a single woodsy adapted guy out to go kill the wayward princess -- well, I mean, the whole Sect wants to kill her, but there's gotta be a figure head, right? And he's way creepier if he works alone. . . .) and Anastasia (dude, I can practically quote the recent cartoon of that word for word along with the DVD. I practically heard the narration in Riese in Angela Landsbury's voice)? And, dude, the empire's called "Elysium" (or "Elysia"), but every time they show the map of the place, all the individual . . . states? counties? kingdoms? regions? . . . are named "Asgard", "Vanir", and "Midgard". There's airships in the shot over the empress's balcony and giant metal wheels in the . . . barn . . . thing . . . but everyone is seen traveling strictly by foot. People wear steampunky bits like goggles and oddly fashioned eyepieces (and in the case of our evil woodsman guy, an entire sleeve and a voice modulator hinting that he's actually made of clockwork himself), which relates back to the Victorian period and the Industrial revolution, yet the structure of the society we see Riese running through reminds you of nothing so much as a Renaissance Fair, and the empress wears eastern Asian influenced clothing while sitting in a garden surrounded by lanterns on pillars. And the wolf -- who apparently used to be a citizen? as in, wolves were citizens like people until the evil empress cast them out -- disappears, like, at the end of episode one and we haven't seen him since -- because Riese is drawn into the plight of the villagers against the baby stealing Sect and has to save the single young mother she's encountered from the doctor who's not even trying not to be creepy about it all in her presence.
What am I forgetting? Let's see, awkward narration, stiff fight scenes, inability to pin down a cultural reference yet not yet managing to reinvent influences in a coherent way (I've just about given up on my theory about why the empire as a whole was named for Greek mythology while all the . . . townships? . . . were named for Norse -- the town Riese's in for most of the aired episodes so far appears to be named for a town in British Columbia), wildly assorted literary and media allusions. . . . OH DUDE, I ALMOST FORGOT THE RESISTANCE! The Resistance, you see, is trying to get Riese back on the throne. So they're looking for her. Apparently by getting into bloody battles (battle? It might have been the same one) in the dark in the snowy woods while shouting lines from 300 at each other. (I'm pretty sure this is an actual exchange: "This is madness!" "MADness?!" -- followed by admonitions never to retreat!) And wearing inappropriate clothing for the weather.
And to top all of that off, and this is almost purely a personal issue, they pronounce Riese "Reece", and I read it every single time as "REE-seh", as it would be pronounced in German (which, per my German-English dictionary, means "giant", and seems to point towards yet another missed/unacknowledged potential cultural reference).
Which, I mean, it could still be so good. If they get their act together regarding all of those bits and pieces and work them together into something coherent (and, you know, give their title character some, like, depth -- her biggest flaw at the moment seems to be she's too good and heroic and helpful, you know, like that quote from Spaceballs: "evil will always triumph because good is dumb"), it could be masterful. Lord knows it's PRETTY. I mean, omg, the production values visually are stunning.
I may try watching it again on mute or something. I suspect it works far better sans the narration entirely. There's a few dialog scenes that'll go missing as well, doing it that way, but only, like, two per episode, and I suspect the gist of those can be worked out pretty well just via the action.
And lastly, does discussing a religious sect (represented thus far entirely by men, other than the ruling evil empress) stealing one of your twin babies for a handful of lines count as passing the Bechdel test? I think that's the only woman to woman conversation. Unless you count back to back scenes of the empress (who has a name, but it just didn't stick in my head at all, half a second later I was convinced it was "Adora" -- which if it is I might go beat my head against something) and Riese talking to themselves while looking at the same family portrait.
So, to sum up: Riese the webseries has some mad crazy potential. And I'm going to keep watching with my little heart full of hope that the whole Greek mythology v. Norse mythology thing is a conscious metaphor, at the very least. Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuut it just isn't quite there yet.