Thoughts on Riese, ch2&3

[fish_echo]

Here's some thoughts on Chapters 2 and 3 of [Riese], a bit late but at least posted before Chapter 4 comes out! These are notes I took whilst watching and cleaned up a bit afterward. I welcome your thoughts and discussion in the comments but I might be a bit slow to respond as I am rather busy at the moment.

[Riese-- 'Fragments'(S1, Ch2)]

1. Oh, they open with speech. Which likely means that the lack of speech in the majority of the first chapter is due less to this story being told without words (which is oh-so-very-awesome when done properly) and more to a stylistic choice solely for the initial chapter. Which is rather as I expected, but is still disappointing.
2. The scene in the medicine stockroom made me think about how one establishes tech level/analogue time period/analogue place in an AU world. Specifically, seeing the sorts of medicine bottles, labels, boxes, packaging, etc resulted in a radical jump up in my estimation of their tech level, especially the boxes with computer printed labels. This could be due in part to having a low budget (it's much easier to acquire things or to mock-up things which are similar to present-day objects than it is to do the same for things of 0.5, 1, 1.5 centuries ago), but even if budget had an influence, they still chose to show the props and thus it's a conscious choice that the director is okay with. And that was contrasted nicely with when one of the nurses came in wearing an outfit that I think is analogous in time to mid-1900's (especially with the pin-on cap)-- this century estimate is closer to what I had gathered from my impression of her waking up in the hospital room. Both of these contrast wildly with the suggestions from cloak + hand-weapons (in the fight scene in chapter 1) which were suggesting to me a time of several centuries ago as an analogue. Obviously this is an AU world (which we knew at the beginning). But I find it interesting to watch how they are establishing the mishmash of time analogues. Oh! a neon 'open' sign (even if it isn't presently lit) and electric lights! So they really are going for a mix of tech. (These comments above were written after the first watching. I'm going to go do a second watch of that scene and pause the play to study the props a bit more. After that: Similar impressions.)
This show is really big on the 'not letting you know the background but dropping little hints'. I've got to admit, I find that a fun device even though it's a bit tortuous when new eps only come out once a fortnight.

[Riese-- 'Bind' (Chapter 3)]

1. I do not trust the doctor, not at all. Something rubs me the wrong way about his overly-cheerful smiling condescending attitude. Which could be some of my issues with being belittled but I'm guessing is more just familiarity with how story-lines tend to go. It's possible he's somewhat well-meaning, but since I don't like his condescending face, I'm going to radically mistrust him!
2. Ah, my old friend backstory, there you are! Even if you are only in hints...
3. And now we see a bit more of the steampunk aspect.
4. She's got what's repeatedly called a bad wound in her side (and various actions/reactions support this) and yet she's out walking about without much effort/observable pain. This is annoying to me as it seems physically unrealistic. I'm holding out for the possibility that this is due to something being not-standard about her (perhaps she has better-than-human-norm pain tolerance or healing powers or something), but I bet that this will turn out to be one of those inconsistencies gets justified as 'artistic license for the sake of the plot, even though it keeps pulling Fish out of the story just a bit'.
5. I maintain that people stealing babies are rarely up to good.
6. Hmmm, oh Doctor, what do I think of you? Clearly he's part of the organisation that our heroine is against (plus, he steals babies!), but there's some hesitation I see. I'm not sure yet if he's cowardly or struggling with the overall morality of the Cult or questions just specific individual instances or what. Which is interesting. I doubt he'll be back in future chapters, though, which means I'm unlikely to get that resolved (which is okay, I like the fact that I'm not 100% sure of his motivations, it makes things interesting, as I said. Not that I'd say no to having it resolved!). But I still don't like his condescension.

When I get another spare moment, I'm planning on linking this to the LJ comm for Riese, which means that for this one time, [ commenting on LJ] is actually preferred.

This entry was originally posted at http://fish-echo.dreamwidth.org/38628.html.