Reading and (mosty) watching roundup: The Expanse (finally), Owl House, What If...
I've been slacking on my reading lately, partly because said reading wasn't gripping me, partly because I've been watching TV and scrolling Yuletide-related posts instead, but I did finish one (1) book, and should post about the other media consumptions stuff, too, so :P
42. James S.A. Corey, Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse book 1) -- Huh. I've been ( Read more... )
42. James S.A. Corey, Leviathan Wakes (The Expanse book 1) -- Huh. I've been ( Read more... )
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Also, haha, a couple of people have mentioned vomiting in Farscape as a benchmark for vomiting in The Expanse, but either I did not get to the vomiting in Farscape (I intend to go back, but I stopped right around the time the two Johns split up) or it wasn't severe enough for me to remember...
Either I overlooked the immoral parts you describe are in the book, or they chose to downplay them.Honestly, Amos feels like a fairly different character in the show vs the book. I like the both, and show!Amos seems like he's got more interesting things going on. It's possible book!Amos starts showing some of that same complexity in later books, but on the surface, they feel pretty different. Book!Amos is this big bruiser who reaches for his gun a lot, but I don't get the sense that the other characters think of him as this "mad dog on a leash" which ( ... )
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Second, I'd like to get more specific about how my being a comic book fan first affected my viewing of 3 and 5:
Episode 3 (Avengers that weren't) ... Hank Pym as the hidden villain is neat, but him offing the Avengers to make Fury hurt was neither terribly believable to me nor terribly interesting.
I loved Hank Pym being that insane because to me it's the closest any part of the MCU has come to portraying Hank Pym as being capable of being that homicidally batshit insane. I've never been fond of Tony Stark, but I will always resent the MCU making Ultron his bad idea rather than Hank Pym's. In the comic books, Hank Pym can be every bit that fucked up, and I loved seeing the MCU show at least one homicidally insane Hank Pym.
Episode 5 (zombies) -- eh, I just don't care for ( ... )
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I've picked up enough about comics fandom by osmosis/reading fic with 616/other comics canon by my favorite MCU authors that I was not surprised to see a much darker version of Hank Pym, and I've heard about Marvel zombies from YouTube I think, but of course just knowing about a thing and being a fan of it leads to different levels of appreciation. Glad to see that it looks like a lot of episodes really worked for you!
(Also, lol, I kind of love that "zom-com" is a thing. Not MY thing, by a thing -- that's still kind of awesome.
Ooh, and I either did not realize or had forgotten that you are also a B5 fan -- cool! :D
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I thought I remembered you like to get a comic book fan's take on MCU things. It's why I jumped in with how I've been taking MCU What If....
...of course just knowing about a thing and being a fan of it leads to different levels of appreciation.
Exactly! I understand how episodes 3 and 5 didn't work for you like they did for me. I just wanted to share how my being a comic book fan made a difference.
Glad to see that it looks like a lot of episodes really worked for you!Yeah, I'm surprised how strongly I reacted to 3 and 4 especially. I mean I can be somewhat detached watching MCU stuff because it isn't the comics. I didn't much care for the first episode, even after I realized why that version of Bucky felt so weird. I mainly enjoyed the second because I thought it was a great tribute to Chadwick Boseman. Three and four really got me in the feels. Clint/Hawkeye and Stephen/Doctor Strange have been favorites of mine since I was a kid. I think, even though ( ... )
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(For example, I did not realize Stephen had a canonical love interest who wasn't Christine.)
re: your B5 facts -- awesome! I love Garibaldi -- he is my favorite human character (Londo and G'Kar are my favorites overall) -- and of course I love Marcus Cole, too, but I feel like that almost goes without saying.
The White Star is really lovely! I also love the look of the Vorlon ships -- they're so organic-looking!
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I think The Expanse is the one rare occasion where I've continued to watch the show, but I never felt the urge to pick up the books past the first? Partly because it feels like the show keeps a lot of the stuff I like (the worldbuilding, space, divisions along cultural/political lines instead of one big human empire, etc), but also it felt like the characters got tweaked to fit the show vs the book? So I guess they're kinda parallel, but running along just slightly different axis?
he had this idealistic "I will just tell people the facts and it'll be for the best" view AND that other people called him out on the consequences of those idealistic impulsesYeah, Holden is...kinda meh as a main character? I kinda regulated him to a 'what happens when an idealistic person gets dragged into a tense political minefield that's very messy and starts setting off everything', which...is ( ... )
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That seems to be what I'm leaning towards as well, and, yeah, that's very unusual for me, since I'm much more of a reader than TV watcher. And it's exactly as you say, because the show does a really good job of running with the aspects I liked best (i.e. the worldbuilding)
'what happens when an idealistic person gets dragged into a tense political minefield that's very messy and starts setting off everything', which...is interesting for moving the plot along? But then it's all like 'Holden, you're the one Good Person'Yep. I find the first part of that neat, though not infinitely interesting -- like, I wouldn't want an entire series of Holden blundering about setting off mines with his idealism (excellent metaphor btw), but I have zero interest in "Holden you're the One Good Person" stuff, I find. That just doesn't feel like a realistic reaction to me, given the world that's set up. Or ( ... )
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I remember it gets a little better once things start getting way, way complicated? Mostly cause the cast expands a lot with each season, and the Roci crew each gets more separate arcs, though I think at one point someone explicitly tells Holden not to go into an already messy situation, cause he'll just make it worse XD
I'm hoping Naomi gets some actual arc or something before the Holden thing, at least...
I think she does get her own arc before they're all official couple type? It's been a while, but her and Holden are mostly on/off till about s4, so she does get some time to her own self between then!
but we better start punching each other. POW! SPLAT! POW! (I mean, I know, comics. But my suspension of disbelief apparently has limits even for comic book things. :P) Right? Good old fistcuffs, LOL. I guess at some point, they figured they had to ( ... )
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Or if they'll drop that in favor for the episodic everyone likes to see?Oh, hm, I hadn't thought of that, but I guess a departure from novel-in-space could be the biggest change, if JMS was interested in redoing it that way. I suspect he still wants to tell a single coherent story, though ( ... )
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