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Author Topic: "The Expanse" by Amazon [Formerly by Syfy]  (Read 94371 times)
Bungee
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on: January 19, 2015, 02:19:26 AM

Trailer etc.

Seems like a legit effort by Syfy, I'm intrigued.
« Last Edit: February 11, 2019, 06:01:54 AM by rattran »

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Evildrider
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Reply #1 on: January 19, 2015, 02:47:45 AM

How Thomas Jane has fallen :(
Bunk
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Reply #2 on: January 19, 2015, 07:39:40 AM

Fallen? From being the Punisher, or from being a Gigolo on tv?

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Signe
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Reply #3 on: January 19, 2015, 08:21:06 AM

I've never even heard of him so I suppose it's a step up for me.

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Threash
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Reply #4 on: January 19, 2015, 08:29:30 AM

How could you not? he was a vegan cop on Scott Pilgrim!

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Johny Cee
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Reply #5 on: January 19, 2015, 10:07:44 AM

Fallen? From being the Punisher, or from being a Gigolo on tv?

He was in Boogie Nights, to film star (Punisher, the Mist, etc.) to HBO to...  Syfy channel.


I managed to make it through the first book in this series, and found it pretty meh, though there seems to be a bunch of people who love it.  The plot was Scoobie Doo levels of extremely complicated shenanigans and the antagonist made no sense.

The world is kind of more interesting.  Earth with the numbers, Mars is independent and more technologically advanced, and they balance each other out so that the other settlements in the asteroid belt/around other planets in the solar system maintain some independence.  I mean, it's incredibly convenient that Mars is somehow technologically ahead of Earth balance out their numbers advantage and blah-blah-blah.


It was like reading bad Scalzi.  Everything John Scalzi writes fits together like a perfect jiggsaw puzzle, but generally people enjoy him enough or find enough nuance in the portrayals to give him a pass on his convenient plotting.  The Expanse books felt just as ridiculously engineered but without that charm to make you overlook it.

But then again, the books have been pretty popular so what do I know.
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Reply #6 on: January 19, 2015, 10:44:55 AM

Could be good. It's got a decent cast.

Khaldun
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Reply #7 on: January 19, 2015, 02:15:07 PM

I enjoyed the series somewhat. The central characters began to grate after a while--you could buy them being at the center of events once but not every time, though there was some effort to explain how their accidental celebrity began to be a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. It could make for decent space opera if they put some money into it.
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Reply #8 on: January 19, 2015, 02:55:06 PM

How could you not? he was a vegan cop on Scott Pilgrim!

You know, I think that's the only thing I ever saw him in.  I looked him up, though, and he looked familiar.  Thanks for the reference.  I looked up some of those comics, too, and I really hope this is good.  It looks really fun.

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Reply #9 on: January 19, 2015, 03:15:06 PM

Looks pretty good.
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Reply #10 on: January 19, 2015, 07:22:12 PM

I enjoyed the series somewhat. The central characters began to grate after a while--you could buy them being at the center of events once but not every time, though there was some effort to explain how their accidental celebrity began to be a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. It could make for decent space opera if they put some money into it.


Being circumspect so as not to spoiler:

I didn't get it.  There were some parts that showed promise, but too often it felt like they knew where they wanted to go and weren't afraid to massively hand-wave shit to get there while winking and saying "it's space opera"...  plus the Scooby Doo shenanigans and the Complete Monster antagonist with a plot that didn't make sense.  Literally, it was the Underwear Gnomes plan.

The author (Corey) is a pseudonym for the Daniel Abraham and writing partner.  Abraham is one of those guys that SFF boards love but he hasn't really had much mainstream success, and I wrote alot of the love off as fans trying to get behind a more accessible work of a beloved author.
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Reply #11 on: November 25, 2015, 09:36:27 PM

The pilot episode just released and I gotta say, it's pretty good.  Probably SyFy's best effort since BSG, as I don't consider Defiance to be a "best effort."  First thing you will notice... is this show has to cost the network a metric fuckton of money to make.  The CGI is pretty top notch and there's just enough viscerality to stave off the uncanny valley.  This is probably due in part to the filters used.  They've done a nice job eliminating video effect; things are suitably "dusty" in this sense.  

The overarching ambiance of the show fits together nicely, and some scenes are frankly pretty breathtaking.  Script?  Fairly well writ, though get ready to crank up the volume as there's a lot of hushed tones and complex jargon to pick up on.  The acting is passable, with a few notable faces of course.

That said, it does indeed feel like Game of Thrones in space (as reviewers have stated).  Personally, I'm not a huge fan of GoT.  Way too many characters and subplots to follow.  This show follows a similar methodology.  That, and expect it to be heavily serialized.

I suspect many will fall in love with it, but for me... I dunno, probably not.  And I'm as hardcore a sci-fi geek as there is.  In the sci-fi sense, this show has just about everything you'd want to see; from augments, to low-G mutant sexcapades, to capital ships and space stations.  Then again, this is just the pilot and the remainder of the series may be clownshoes.
« Last Edit: November 25, 2015, 10:54:12 PM by Ghambit »

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Reply #12 on: November 26, 2015, 11:22:38 PM

Yeah, that was actually pretty good. Decently hard/gritty sci-fi. A few spots I was confused (what did the girl at the start see and freak out about?)
Nice strong ending. I want to see more.

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Evildrider
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Reply #13 on: November 27, 2015, 12:18:05 AM

Yeah, that was actually pretty good. Decently hard/gritty sci-fi. A few spots I was confused (what did the girl at the start see and freak out about?)
Nice strong ending. I want to see more.

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Reply #14 on: November 27, 2015, 03:31:43 PM

Book spoiler answer to your spoilered question:
Tannhauser
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Reply #15 on: November 29, 2015, 08:28:11 AM

Best show on Syfy since Battlestar Galactica.  I'm hooked.
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Reply #16 on: December 16, 2015, 06:56:41 PM

This is so fucking good, it's not funny. Gritty, dark and realistic enough to pass a bunch of bullshit tests.

I dig.

Tuned in, immediately get to watch cringey Ubisoft talking head offering her deepest sympathies to the families impacted by the Orlando shooting while flanked by a man in a giraffe suit and some sort of "horrifically garish neon costumes through the ages" exhibit or something.  We need to stop this fucking planet right now and sort some shit out. -Kail
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Reply #17 on: December 17, 2015, 12:24:03 AM

It diverges from the books in a number of ways (some of which make a lot of sense for a TV adaptation, some less so), but nothing that fundamentally breaks it.  Definitely enjoying it.  Hasn't been any solid grungy spaceships sci-fi on TV since BSG.
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Reply #18 on: December 17, 2015, 11:59:46 AM

Holy crap.

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Reply #19 on: December 17, 2015, 01:53:13 PM

It diverges from the books in a number of ways (some of which make a lot of sense for a TV adaptation, some less so), but nothing that fundamentally breaks it.  Definitely enjoying it.  Hasn't been any solid grungy spaceships sci-fi on TV since BSG.

From what I've read, the major change is the TV show is following characters that are important in later books in season one, so that you are introduced to major characters in season 2 etc now.
Venkman
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Reply #20 on: December 17, 2015, 04:56:27 PM

Yea pretty much just that.

This show captures the books almost perfectly. I'd agree with the best since BSG comment, except I haven't watched anything on SyFy since BSG smiley
Segoris
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Reply #21 on: December 17, 2015, 06:24:33 PM

So yeah, this is really good.

As for SyFy's shows, this year has actually been okay for them. The Expanse being the best one so far, imo. Dark Matter, 12 Monkeys, and Killjoys were good enough to watch. And I like Dominion well enough to keep it on my DVR (though that started in 2014 I think).
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Reply #22 on: December 30, 2015, 03:56:35 PM

There was a min-marathon on this morning and I gave it a shot for two and a half episodes. ( end of ep1, all of 2 and 3) I'll pass.

There might be a good story here, but I couldn't tell. Three things killed it for me:

1) The heavy Orange/ Teal "all scenes must be one color" cinematography. It was obnoxious and led to a very flat, boring look.

2) There's no low-end on the sound. I've got hearing loss but even I picked-up the terrible audio, meaning it was incredibly hard to hear most of the talking. (Why is sound compression a thing on a TV show?)  I checked on both the other TVs to be sure it wasn't just the one in the bedroom. I know the female Persian woman from other things and her voice was totally off so I couldn't understand her, which is what tipped me to it.

3) The concept felt like it was trying too hard. I didn't care about Mars, Earth or the guys on the blown-up shuttle (freighter?) It felt more like I was jumping into the middle of a long-running series. When I found out I wasn't in the middle I realized there was no more backstory I couldn't get into it. I hate in medias res in general, though, so that's very me-specific.

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Reply #23 on: December 30, 2015, 07:53:15 PM

Don't agree on the story--it's nice to have something that just jumps in and trusts in the intelligence of the audience.

But agree on the sound editing. It's actually pretty terrible on most of the dialogue.
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Reply #24 on: December 31, 2015, 03:44:57 AM

Agree about the orange & teal palette, it's egregious. However it's almost universally endemic now so I have to try and shrug it off or I find 95% of all shows and films annoying.

Also agree about the terrible sound. So, so muddy. But, after the first episode I started being able to understand the dialogue much better. I think I've adjusted to the accents, which are pretty well done. It reminded me of watching The Wire the first time, when I had to put subtitles on for a few episodes and then it all started to become clear.

Those two technical issues aside though, I'm loving this. I think it's very well done and it's a nice change to see some hard science fiction that isn't dross. I was quite impressed when I saw a Δv symbol on a tracking monitor on one of the ships  awesome, for real

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Reply #25 on: December 31, 2015, 09:05:08 AM

Yeah, I'm enjoying the hell out of this.  I hope the ratings are good enough to justify the cost because i want to know where the story goes.  I guess i could just read the books if it gets canceled.

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Reply #26 on: January 01, 2016, 07:40:30 PM

I've heard some people say the sound is really good, and others say it's really bad. Maybe it depends on your setup. Using just TV speakers I do find it hard to understand some of the dialogue in parts.

Overuse of filters and post-processing normally bothers me a lot but I didn't mind in this. That's why I never got into Breaking Bad, the first episode was so desaturated and brown with filters that I couldn't watch it.

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Reply #27 on: January 02, 2016, 02:49:48 AM

Syfy's website for this show is pretty cool if you're like me and wanted some more background on the setting.
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Reply #28 on: January 03, 2016, 02:30:45 PM

Thanks to this thread, I gave it a shot.  Loving the series so far.

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Reply #29 on: January 03, 2016, 02:41:59 PM

I wanna invest in it, but later on does it get any more grounded?  I can't do another scatterbrained over-plotted series. 

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Reply #30 on: January 03, 2016, 02:44:34 PM

If they stick to the books, it will eventually get overplotted, yes. Quite considerably so.
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Reply #31 on: January 04, 2016, 06:30:02 AM

Caught this over the weekend. Rather good. Mars Navy are badass...

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Reply #32 on: January 07, 2016, 05:16:55 PM

Glad to see Syfy has all the episodes up for streaming. It's pretty good.

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Reply #33 on: January 07, 2016, 05:24:50 PM

Really enjoying this.  I like the stranded crew storyline as well as the Julie Mao storyline. 

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Reply #34 on: January 08, 2016, 12:31:01 AM

If they stick to the books, it will eventually get overplotted, yes. Quite considerably so.

I dont know, compared to the shit going on at any given time in Game of Thrones, the Expanse series is usually fairly tightly wound.

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