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Post by gliquey on Nov 11, 2014 13:17:38 GMT -5
My only question is : imo, some books are less interesting than others, for instance The Miserable Mill etc ... I can really picture them doing something GOOD with volumes like The Carnivorous Carnival or the Hostile Hospital, but not really with that one, or the Vile Village ... I think a lot of people have least favourites, but they're not always the same books. The Miserable Mill seems to be a common least favourite (although I personally like it), but I doubt they'd just skip it out, even if what comes next is better. If they end up adapting all 13 books, everyone will have their favourite shown somewhere. How do we know they won't just make 13 episodes for each book and have a one-off season? How do these things usually work? Is Netflix popular enough for us to expect a reasonable chance of multiple seasons? I doubt they'd have an episode per book if they thought it would be well-received enough for 2/3+ seasons, but I hardly know anything about TV production. I'll be happy with whatever they do. Even if we only end up with a few episodes covering up to TMM. |
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Post by bandit on Nov 11, 2014 13:42:29 GMT -5
I sincerely doubt they would exhaust the whole ASOUE storyline in one season, and Netflix is certainly popular enough for more, yes. I think all of their original shows have been continued into multiple seasons. Also, imagine how horrible the "one episode per book" deal would be: we would get the simple, silly story of TBB dragged out into about an hour, while the tremendous, revelational plots of TPP and TE both get crammed into hour slots as well.
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Post by B. on Nov 11, 2014 14:15:21 GMT -5
I sincerely doubt they would exhaust the whole ASOUE storyline in one season, and Netflix is certainly popular enough for more, yes. I think all of their original shows have been continued into multiple seasons. Also, imagine how horrible the "one episode per book" deal would be: we would get the simple, silly story of TBB dragged out into about an hour, while the tremendous, revelational plots of TPP and TE both get crammed into hour slots as well. Yeah, agreed, definitely. I mean they could vary them in length obviously. I hope they veer off into entire episodes dedicated to past events and flashbacks- I really hope we get to see the rich events and history that play out during and before the series. I hope we see Lemony narrating, and walking about in book 10 with a rhyming dictionary and all his other kooky stuff oh god if lemony isnt a major character i'll cry |
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Post by gliquey on Nov 11, 2014 14:29:19 GMT -5
I think all of their original shows have been continued into multiple seasons. and House of Cards, fittingly, have both had two thirteen-episode seasons and are each renewed for a third. Most of their original shows have had a couple of seasons, so hopefully we'll get a decent number of ASOUE episodes. |
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Post by Violent BUN Fortuna on Nov 15, 2014 13:28:41 GMT -5
I was thinking maybe they'll do 13 episodes per book, to fit with the chapters? So one season = one book. I would love that, certainly, but they might not do it like that; obviously, the books get significantly longer, so either they would have to start off with fewer episodes per book, or end up with more; and I'm sure they wouldn't make each episode match exactly with each chapter, or the first episode would only take us to the Baudelaires leaving Briny Beach with Mr Poe.
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Post by gliquey on Nov 15, 2014 14:34:34 GMT -5
I was thinking maybe they'll do 13 episodes per book, to fit with the chapters? So one season = one book. I would love that, certainly, but they might not do it like that; obviously, the books get significantly longer, so either they would have to start off with fewer episodes per book, or end up with more; and I'm sure they wouldn't make each episode match exactly with each chapter, or the first episode would only take us to the Baudelaires leaving Briny Beach with Mr Poe. I don't think it's likely to happen - Netflix hasn't had an original show get renewed past season 3 so far (because new online-only content is a very new thing), so a plan for a 13-season show is perhaps a bit adventurous. Plus, ageing of the actors would be a big problem. As for "fewer episodes per book, or end up with more", they can vary the time of each episode, but I think dragging out TBB for 13 episodes of any length is too much. I've not watched anything from Netflix before, so I'm not sure how adverts and advert breaks work, if there are any of either, but if it was a standard 30-min ep thing they could have tried a chapter per half-episode (and after the adverts on episode 7, had some sort of recurring scene, maybe involving Lemony or Kit - remember the pregnant V.F.D. member movie script... but that's off-topic and getting too complicated). And the first chapter of TBB is probably something they could get to last a whole episode, with flashbacks instead of narrative description, and maybe a framing device (Lemony at his typewriter, Lemony explaining that he's been researching the Baudelaires - cue scenes of searching through rubble, newspaper stacks in Paltryville, remains of the Library of Records). But the last chapter of TCC... probably not something you could draw out to a full episode. |
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Post by Hermes on Nov 15, 2014 14:48:25 GMT -5
I think they would be well advised not to make it too long, since that reduces the chance that it will actually be completed. Most TV series are open-ended; they take a premise and see what they can do with it. This means you can make a first season, see if it works, make a second season if it does, and so on. ASOUE has a beginning, middle and end, and they have to have the end in mind when they set out. I don't actually think one season of, say, 26 programmes would be unreasonable - that's two programmes on average per book (not distributed equally, though - TMM might need only one, while some of the later books could take three). This still gives each book much more time than it got in the movie. Two seasons would also make sense, but beyond that I'd feel they were spinning it out excessively.
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Post by Violent BUN Fortuna on Nov 16, 2014 8:18:41 GMT -5
I was thinking maybe they'll do 13 episodes per book, to fit with the chapters? So one season = one book. I would love that, certainly, but they might not do it like that; obviously, the books get significantly longer, so either they would have to start off with fewer episodes per book, or end up with more; and I'm sure they wouldn't make each episode match exactly with each chapter, or the first episode would only take us to the Baudelaires leaving Briny Beach with Mr Poe. I don't think it's likely to happen - Netflix hasn't had an original show get renewed past season 3 so far (because new online-only content is a very new thing), so a plan for a 13-season show is perhaps a bit adventurous. Plus, ageing of the actors would be a big problem. As for "fewer episodes per book, or end up with more", they can vary the time of each episode, but I think dragging out TBB for 13 episodes of any length is too much. Mm, yeah, I'm not exactly thinking that this is actually likely to happen, more something which I would be thrilled about if it did happen. True, if they included flashbacks, etc, they could make the first chapter of TBB last a whole episode; I was mostly thinking if it was exactly how it happened in the book, which I appreciate is unlikely to happen. But showing the Baudelaires in their life before TBB would be interesting, and seeing a shadowy figure typing in various situations (Lemony) -- all that would be interesting. Anything shadowy-hinting at VFD would be delightful, but of course it has to be nicely paced, as we don't even hear of VFD properly until TAA. I would personally be delighted to have 13 episodes for TBB, but that might just be me. Another possibility would be for them to condense multiple books into one season; TBB and TRR for season 1, for instance. Well, on Netflix itself, you don't get any adverts -- at least not on Netflix UK, I don't know about elsewhere -- so I don't think that's much of a possibility or issue. I don't know how much they normally change the length of episodes, but I doubt they'd like to vary things too much, beyond a few minutes.
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Post by Violent BUN Fortuna on Nov 16, 2014 8:24:23 GMT -5
I think they would be well advised not to make it too long, since that reduces the chance that it will actually be completed. Most TV series are open-ended; they take a premise and see what they can do with it. This means you can make a first season, see if it works, make a second season if it does, and so on. ASOUE has a beginning, middle and end, and they have to have the end in mind when they set out. I don't actually think one season of, say, 26 programmes would be unreasonable - that's two programmes on average per book (not distributed equally, though - TMM might need only one, while some of the later books could take three). This still gives each book much more time than it got in the movie. Two seasons would also make sense, but beyond that I'd feel they were spinning it out excessively. I would really love lots of seasons, just to give each book a significant amount of time. If they're done well, thoroughly and with the detail of the books -- and with Handler so involved there's no reason to assume at the moment that they won't be -- then many, many seasons would be thoroughly enjoyable, and wouldn't seen stretched out. If it is just one season, though, I think it would be unwise and unfair to make TMM last only one episode -- it's just as important as the others, and if TBB, TRR and TWW all got two episodes it really wouldn't make sense to suddenly cut TMM down to one episode. I understand that many people don't like it as much as the other books -- I do like it as much so I may be biased -- but it would seem incredibly rushed to get through everything that happens in TMM in one episode. |
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veryfriendlydecoder
Reptile Researcher
if we wait until we're ready we'll be waiting for the rest of our lives
Posts: 17 
Likes: 1
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Post by veryfriendlydecoder on Nov 16, 2014 8:27:27 GMT -5
Love this!!
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Post by Violent BUN Fortuna on Nov 16, 2014 8:43:05 GMT -5
If it is three seasons like the other Netflix series so far -- or at least, they've been renewed for three seasons, maybe they'll have more -- they could make each season 13 episodes for each season, giving each book 3 episodes. While I would LOVE many, many more episodes, and many, many more seasons, I imagine that three episodes per book might be something they'd like to do -- giving each book a definite beginning, middle, an end.
Of course, if they do make it 3 seasons long they might do this slightly differently as having 13 episodes per season split equally over the books would mean splitting TAA and TCC between seasons, which they probably wouldn't want to do.
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Post by gliquey on Nov 16, 2014 9:41:14 GMT -5
Assuming they're adapting all 13 books, here is how much screen time I would give each book. Numbers are arbitrary - take them to mean episodes if you wish, but "3 episodes" still means little if we don't know whether an episode is 20 minutes or an hour:
TBB - 3 (even minor scenes are important to leave in here because viewers need to get to know the characters well)
TRR - 2
TWW - 2
TMM - 2
TAA - 2 (possibly 3 - Quagmire character development is mildly important)
TEE - 2
TVV - 2
THH - 3 or 2
TCC - 3 (possibly 2)
TSS - 3
TGG - 3 or 4
TPP - 4 or 5 (important to get a sense of hustle and bustle - completely tangential scenes involving families searching for doilies or transferring documents written in mirrored Hebrew would work here)
TE - 4 or 3
I've tried not to be biased towards TSS or TPP, my personal favourites, or against TGG or TE. This makes a total of 32-38 bits of time, which would mean you need at least 32 episodes if you don't want episodes to cross books. Then again, episodes crossing books could make sense later on - there doesn't have to be a break between TCC and TSS, for example.
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Post by Skelly Craig on Nov 16, 2014 10:09:57 GMT -5
I agree with Hermes on the 26 episodes, but definitely split up into two seasons (making for 13 episodes each). Then the first season could end on a terrific cliffhanger, which is the twist point in the series around Book 7. Obviously I think each episode would have to run around 45min in order to not rush the story.
I'm kind of taking Twin Peaks as a point of reference, which had almost that very structure (30 episodes instead of 26), and considering how much plot and sub-plot they managed to include, I can definitely picture ASoUE managing to fit into such a structure as well.
What I hope most is that the series will communicate the same sense of postmodernism that the books did (while still taking the story's drama seriously). Basically they'll have to be super creative to do something similar to such moments in the books like filling two whole pages full of "never"s; repeating the sentence "He found himself reading the same sentence over and over"; hiding secret messages in the story; or the two entirely black pages in TEE. That's why I also think the intro in the 2004 movie, with the Littlest Elf, was one of the best moments in the entire film.
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Post by gliquey on Nov 16, 2014 12:50:10 GMT -5
I agree with Hermes on the 26 episodes, but definitely split up into two seasons (making for 13 episodes each). Then the first season could end on a terrific cliffhanger, which is the twist point in the series around Book 7. If they're not guaranteed to be renewed for a second season, what happens with the cliffhanger? Do they film two endings, a cliffhanger if it's renewed and a proper ending if it isn't? Or will they definitely know if there's a second season by the time they're filming the final episode of season 1? I'm interested to know how this works in general with TV shows. I agree. The Littlest Elf thing was brilliant; I hope they can find something interesting to do in this adaptation. Handler is working closely on it, so hopefully he will have some good ideas. |
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Post by Strangely on Nov 16, 2014 21:23:12 GMT -5
I've not watched anything from Netflix before, so I'm not sure how adverts and advert breaks work, if there are any of either, but if it was a standard 30-min ep thing they could have tried a chapter per half-episode (and after the adverts on episode 7, had some sort of recurring scene, maybe involving Lemony or Kit - remember the pregnant V.F.D. member movie script... but that's off-topic and getting too complicated). In short there are no commercial breaks nor are their time limits. Being that there's no schedule and no commercial breaks they basically can make episodes as long or short as they want. With that in mind I'm thinking one book per episode with each episode varying in length in comparison to the length of the book. Really breaking the books up into parts would hurt the overall flow of the story, it would be a bit jarring, and things would have to change to fit into that type of structure. So having longer length episodes to accommodate entire books would help retain the books pacing much better. Realistically the first six books could be 60-75 minute episodes. Really there's a limitation on action in those books and there's a lot of dialogue so those books would go by pretty quickly. Books 7-9 could be 75-90 minutes in length. Books 10-13 could be around 90-120 minutes each. I am interested in seeing what they actually intend to do with this show. If it's strictly a kids show than we'll probably see shorter episode lengths and truncated plot lines. Hopefully this is more intended for the teen/adult audience. |
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