f13.net

So this just popped up on Prime this weekend.

Is somewhat interesting and has a decent cast (Orlando Bloom, Cara Delvinge, Jared Harris, and Indira Varma for the ones I recognized in the first couple episodes.)

Kinda steampunk meets peter pan.

Meets the Kama Sutra.

Yes, but is it watchable? It looked very predictable to me and not in a good way.

It's watchable, not sure if you will like it, but it is well put together.

Watchable.

The sex is a tad gratuitous, but it's got some really promising world building. I'm super down with a World War I-ish era version of Shadowrun.

Solid production values, decent acting. (Half the time, I hate Cara Delavigne anytime she opens her mouth, but she's a proper badass here and she sells it.)

That said, the allegories for today's racism/nationalism are a bit heavy-handed but that's what the temper of the time calls for, so I'm not gonna shit on that too much. It does turn a couple of well-worn tropes around though.

I had to actually look up what I've seen Cara Delavigne in... and it was Suicide Squad. A movie that I liked yet she was pretty much the worst character in it, and I'm counting the Slipknot dude's who only power was the ability to climb anything and who got his head blown off within like 2 minutes of the mission starting.

She was also Laureline in Valerian. She admits she's a shitty actress because she was so focused on modeling, but she's actually watchable here.

Its like a victorian era Bright.

This might seem dumb, but Orlando with dark hair is a better actor.

Nah, Bright was trash, this actually has a few redeeming qualities.

I actually liked Bright. It was pretty straight forward and knew exactly what it wanted to do. The trailers for this looks like a sandbox mmo with no quest but with plenty of "epic scenery".

I think thats a better description than the one I wanted to use.

I would have said the movie is the equivalent of a good roleplaying setting used by a shitty DM.  :awesome_for_real:

Wow, no.  No.

Both this and Bright are "ok but not great", don't get the hate for either.

Look, I'm ok if you like Bright.  That's fine.  But you CANNOT say that it knew what it wanted to do.  It's a lazy, lazy, lazy film.

It mashes up every other story/movie you've ever seen, the plot makes no sense and, finally and crucially, the worldbulding is TERRIBLE.

Lindsay Ellis did a review that was worth a watch;  let's see if I can dig that out.

Ah, here it is.  https://youtu.be/gLOxQxMnEz8 (https://youtu.be/gLOxQxMnEz8)

Same. I liked Bright, Waterworld and John Carter. Probably better go watch Carnival Row.

You started ok, then just slid off a cliff.  :grin:

Waterworld was alright. It got a lot of shit beccause people were sick of Costner and his antics at that point, but as a film it was a decent enough watch. Apart from Costner pulling his shit.

Don't know about john carter. I see bright more in vain with venom. cheesy fun movies that shouldn't be taken seriously.

John Carter was a good movie that was horribly mismarketed, and would have been a decent start to a franchise if the fuckheads in charge had not been so criminally retarded.

Wife and I are penciling this into our list of shit to watch. And just to join in the current wave of the thread, I really liked John Carter but I had no prior expectation and watched it on a whim. I also like Bright... not for the story though, mainly for Noomi Rapace in that makeup and the visuals in general for that movie. Story was crap though...

What a page of opinions:
Valerian was a mess but she was the good part in it, whatever that is worth.
Bright was better off not being thought about during or esp after but that's fine. Was pretty fun and we don't get Shadowrun esque settings as often as we deserve.
Venom was art compared to just about everything else being thrown about in here.
John Carter was so bland and forgettable I'm not even sure if I've watched it and I think I have twice. Maybe.
Take Waterworld out of your mouth if you aren't going to say good things.


I saw the trailer for this and just got sad that Taboo still hasn't got a second season. I think I would watch it if bothering to open Amazon / remember it exists wasn't so unlikely any given night.

Watched the first episode and it was interesting enough that I would have immediately watched the second had it not been past 1am. Prime Video was down for me most of the evening. It could get worse, but so far it did a pretty good job of setting up an interesting world and setting up the greater plot for the rest of the season. I may have to put on CC to catch some of the garbled fae related slang that I'm not picking up.

Watched it all and don't regret it.

This is actually fucking great.  :drill:

Agree. Just finished the series and it was awesome. Such a detailed and deep fantasy world.

This Orlando Bloom was a revelation.

Who could have guessed he could act? I enjoyed it, though pacing was odd, and the end was pretty thoroughly telegraphed.

I don't know if that was actual acting, but it was enjoyable either way.

It is a steam punk fantasy noir story and does a really good job of hitting those notes. A lot of people just don't get/like noir stuff so I could see this leaving those people cold. But it is really a well done noir story in an interesting setting.

The depth of lore made me search for the novel it was adapted from. As far as I can tell, it's an original work and there's no novel, which is remarkable for a TV series with such a backstory. I started reading the fan wiki (https://carnival-row.fandom.com/wiki/Carnival_Row_Wiki) instead.

Later I chatted with someone who had watched Undone, which we had both enjoyed. I said I had also just finished Carnival Row and loved it... and the other person's face fell: "I did not have the same reaction to Carnival Row."

I thought this was an excellent series! Don't know where they'll go with season 2, but given season 1 came from nothing I have confidence.

Season 2 of Carnival Row just went live at Amazon Prime Video (first two episodes).

There's a 5-minute recap at the start to jog your memory. I've only watched 15 minutes of season 2 so far and baulked at some bad CGI, but I'll give it a good go. People seem to either love it like me or hate it, but Season 1 had one of the best-realised fantasy worlds I've seen on TV.

I hope that five minute recap is DAMN good because I don't remember a fucking thing about this show, even though I liked it.

I enjoyed the first season but the second one sadly feels a bit uncertain about what it's doing. Not sure it's going to be able to do much in the last two episodes and probably good this is the end of it.

Ok still, just a shame they couldn't match the first time around.