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Post by theplague on Jan 18, 2017 10:02:58 GMT -5
We never found out what Festive Fun Bakery was.
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Post by The Little Snicket Lass on Jan 18, 2017 13:03:38 GMT -5
Was anyone as upset as I was that they left out the Sebald Code from the TV series? I guess they wanted to make the spy glass more important but I love the Sebald Code and have actually used it before when writing to a friend.
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Post by gliquey on Jan 18, 2017 13:17:13 GMT -5
Was anyone as upset as I was that they left out the Sebald Code from the TV series? I guess they wanted to make the spy glass more important but I love the Sebald Code and have actually used it before when writing to a friend. I didn't mind them replacing it with the subtitles and spyglass. I too love the Sebald code and have used it several times when passing notes to a friend in class, but I think it's one of those things that works better in a book than in a live-action television show. Because in the books, when we see someone speaking in Sebald code (Frank/Ernest to the Baudelaires in TPP), I think the fact that it would be incredibly difficult to count every 11th word and keep track of the message while the person is speaking adds to the humour of the scene - that sort of faint unrealism is standard for ASOUE and gives the books such an interesting tone. But in the TV show, it would just be silly: no-one would be able to keep up while watching. So to have subtitles and a spyglass that works out the message for you (though of course, the message we saw in "Zombies in the Snow" wasn't using Sebald code, presumably because they wanted the message to fit on one screen of subtitles rather than several) is a logical adaptation in my view.
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Post by The Little Snicket Lass on Jan 18, 2017 15:37:48 GMT -5
True, I 100% get why they did it the way they did, but I still feel slightly disappointed, regardless. But the lack of the code and the fact that we never saw Orwells sword come out of her cane are the only two tiny complaints I have. Also, wanted to post what may be my favorite facial reaction shot in the whole series: View AttachmentI think I kinda need to steal this for my avatar. Hahaha With your permission, that is.
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Post by immortal94 on Jan 18, 2017 17:51:53 GMT -5
Ended up flying through the whole series in a night. Wrote a full fan review: gongsters.com/o/Netflix-a-series-of-unfortunate-events-reviewI agree on the fact that as a childhood fan, the smaller things that made the books feel special like the secret code were left out. However, it would have been a different beast all together to make it work well on-screen.
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Mythfairy
Reptile Researcher
...*(beLIEve)*...
Posts: 12
Likes: 1
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Post by Mythfairy on Jan 21, 2017 7:33:02 GMT -5
I'm very pleased with how this turned out. It's been a while since I've last read the books so I gotta go back and re-read them to connect some dots. My main concern with this adaptation was the portrayal of an excessively goofy Count Olaf but I think they managed to balance him out well. I was glad they didn't dumb down some of the darker aspects of the series just to cater to an overly sensitive generation. I will re-watch it after I re-read the books and come back for a more thorough "review".
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stalkthis
Bewildered Beginner
Posts: 7
Likes: 6
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Post by stalkthis on Jan 21, 2017 13:05:47 GMT -5
RE: The quagmire twist,
My wife has never read the books, and we watched the series together. Watching the Very Fancy Door scene in episode 7 was hard. She was so excited, and then immediately suspicious, and then so mad. Like, we almost didn't watch episode 8 that night, she was so frustrated. I hadn't really realized the impact that sucker-punch might have on someone who has no idea who the Quagmires are.
My wife wanted the Baudelaires to be happy so badly. She kept saying that the Quagmires had it easy, and that V, K and S deserved their parents to come back. It was quite an interesting insight into the effectiveness of the scene and build-up. Of course, she eased off slightly at the mansion burning scene. Slightly
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Post by Liam R. Findlay on Jan 21, 2017 13:19:37 GMT -5
It is indeed interesting to consider how people who haven't read the books might respond to it! My parents think they're the Baudelaire parents and I'm interested to see how they responds to the 'reveal', considering they have no reason to care about the Quagmires, having not read the books.
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Post by A comet crashing into Earth on Jan 21, 2017 15:42:25 GMT -5
stalkthis, how did your wife react to the ending of ep. 8, seeing two Quagmires at Prufrock instead of all three? That's the thing I imagined would have the hardest impact on a newcomer. Liam R. Findlay, I'm also curious to hear how your parents will react to that when you get there.
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stalkthis
Bewildered Beginner
Posts: 7
Likes: 6
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Post by stalkthis on Jan 21, 2017 19:55:21 GMT -5
She didn't notice that there was a missing kid until I brought it up, at which point we were too far into a playful "emotional distress" conversation about how terrible the Baudelaires have it. I think I may have exacerbated that by singing the song with the show, and when she asked if a certain character dies, responding "Everyone dies, eventually."
However, I don't think that the 'death' of Quigley has as great an impact as it might to us, even with our knowledge that he survived, for a couple of reasons.
We have only 3 scenes with the Quagmire children:
The first might be seen as a throwaway reference with unimportant characters for the purpose of illustrating Snicket's point. She has no reason to identify triplets as important, and the children look young. I personally didn't make the connection the first time through either.
The second is the parent reveal, where most of the emphasis is on the parents and the reveal. Yes, it's not asking too much to note 3 children and Mother Quagmire says their names, but the focus of a newcomer is on the Parents and the whiplash, and is fairly short.
The third is a longer, less compressed scene, where you can take the time to recognize that this family (who we still have only the one mention of the childrens' names for) has three children (although they avoid showing all three up close at once, probably because Duncan and Quigley share an actor, which could dilute the feeling that there are three distinct children). Even to me, the Quagmire children seemed young, and secondary in focus.
Finally... The quagmire children are not as charming as the Baudelaires in their few moments onscreen. My wife's reaction to (i think?) Quigley's question "What kind of school [teaches eavesdropping]?" was to call him a jerk. Granted, she was exagerating her distaste of the Quagmires for comedic effect, but the sentiment is a valid observation, I think.
That response got away from me. Sorry.
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Post by Teleram on Jan 22, 2017 19:32:12 GMT -5
Um, this is a pretty compelling look at how the Netflix series differs from the 2004 film:
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stalkthis
Bewildered Beginner
Posts: 7
Likes: 6
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Post by stalkthis on Jan 22, 2017 21:19:23 GMT -5
That is an incredibly insightful video. A rare thing for a youtube movie critic.
I disagree on his interpretation on a few things (I think Josephine's inability to become more fierce etc etc is actually way more tragic for her), but I agree mostly, particularly with his even-handed approach to the characters (although I don't know if I'd call Netflix!Poe annoying. Except for the specific scenes in Wide Window and Miserable Mill he screengrabbed).
I think his discussion between Carrey and NPH very accurately sums up my feeling.
Personally, once I accepted Warburton and NPH, the rest sortof fell in to place. I just still prefer Carrey and the Bleaker tone. If they start transitioning into that area with Season 2 and 3, I'd appreciate it.
EDIT: His stuff about the children's introduction is also accurate, and brings up a weird point: This is a tv series, with 90 minutes per book. The first episode has a bit of dead space in it (musical number?) that could easily be cut to give us a longer, less compressed introduction to the children. Instead, we get a single, 30 second moment total. To contrast, the movie (which as noted, had a third of that time) spends the same 30 seconds giving us a much more rounded introduction with tangible establishing actions.
It's strange to me that they didn't take advantage of that extra time in the series.
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Post by lorelai on Jan 26, 2017 13:52:00 GMT -5
Re: Quagmire parents I have a theory about Peru. What if Peru was never the point, but the plan was to have the Quagmire parents explain VFD to the Baudelaire orphans? When Mother and Father get out of the cell, they seemed surprised to be in Peru, otherwise why state--questioningly and then affirmingly--where they are, instead of saying something like, "let's go". Given Jacquellyn's mentione of Peru in the TBB flashback, there seemed to have been some other plan in place (she says something to the effect of things changing), but now Peru was the meet up point. Given that Peru is where the Baudelaires will get answers to their questions, or so Monty believes, what if the whole idea was: Quagmires get captured on their way to tell Bauds about VFD and get taken to a jail in Peru, VFD (not knowing how this plan might come together given that the villains are willing to be this extreme, and now realizing Olaf is in play) desperately tries to get the Bauds to Peru because the City is really just as dicey if you think about it (plus maybe Peru was safe at one point, but we see from the book series that not everyone is always as in the loop as they should be), Quagmires are calling Monty to just establish a meet up point in Peru, and the lory call could have been in reference to THEIR own children. It's made clear Father isn't talking to Sir, and given their concern about the triplets, the fact that maybe they'd been asking questions would be enough to worry either parent. Also, if this entire Peru kidnapping was in fact a move by the villains as opposed to a VFD plan, that would go a long way to explaining why the Quagmires were so worried about their kids. What was supposed to be a quick stop after some other business gets them taken to another country, and back home much later than they probably said they would be. All of this would also explain why Mother and Father are reading a paper about the Baudelaire fire; they're invested in the case now, even more so than before, because once Peru was absolutely unsafe, their priorities shifted to getting back home, but the orphans still need help, and who better to give them that than the parents of three children.
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Post by tk on Jan 27, 2017 4:26:45 GMT -5
AH! I'm simply in love with the Netflix series! Just gonna rant a little!
Things I absolutely LOVED:
1) Mr. Poe
omg I hated Mr. Poe in the books because he was seriously SO useless and annoying, and the coughing fit put me off! But the Netflix version is just so funny!
2) Lemony Snicket
The fact that he has an American accent made me really happy, idk why. In the movie version, with Jude Law portraying him and everything, just didn't feel right. Maybe because Daniel Handler is an American himself?? Idk man. Also, I love how Snicket flits in and out of scenes and speaks in between other characters' lines, like that scene where Mr. Poe was trying to pronounce Damocles Dock -- I laughed so hard at that scene!
3) Mini sub-plots/introducing VFD earlier in the series
I haven't reread the books in a while, but I think the first mention of any secret organizations started in book...6? 7?? I'm not sure haha. So it's nice that they included VFD very early on in the series. I thought I wouldn't like the small plot changes in the series initially (especially when they made it looked like Mr. & Mrs. Quagmire were actually Mr. and Mrs. Baudelaire -- I was like, "!!! What is this??? We all know they both perished in the fire!" but when they revealed that they were the Quagmires, I got so excited), but actually I'm really okay with it!
4) The Person Who Looks Like Neither a Man Nor a Woman!!!
My fave troupe member!!! He/she's so funny! I just think that Count Olaf's acting troupe has more personality overall, idk they just really stand out individually. Not just some background characters~
5) Sassy Klaus
Klaus has always been my favourite character, but in the Netflix series, I just feel like Klaus is just sassier (is that even a word??) and I love it! He just looks like he's always Tired of Your Sh*t™ haha
and of course
6) It's so true to the books!!!
I thought they were going to cut off certain small scenes, like the scene where the Baudelaires stayed over at Mr. Poe's house, but they included it and it made me so happy! Some of the things were so true to the books, like the sign over Dr. Orwell's eye clinic -- I think it's almost the same like the illustration by Brett Helquist! (But I was surprised they gave Sir a face -- I half expected a CGI'd cigar smoke obscuring his face throughout the two episodes hahahaha)
Needless to say, I am super excited for the next season! I'd just started rereading TAA last night (had to climb a chair to reach the books on the top-most shelf...it's so dusty ^^; ) I'm so excited!!!
Okay I'm done~ xD
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Post by Hermes on Jan 27, 2017 7:50:08 GMT -5
Hey tk! I think I agree with all of this.
VFD is first mentioned in book 5, but the first clue we get that it is an organisation is in book 7, when Jacques says 'I work for the Volunteer -'.
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