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Sandman
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I quite enjoyed the first season.
One minor thing - it’d have been cool (but probably legalities prevented it) to see some of the Sandman-inspired characters crossing over by the actors who played them in other shows. Lucifer and Mazikeen, John Constantine, etc.
It was really fun though. Probably the best comic book adaptation I’ve seen, and for a title I never thought was filmable.
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@Arkandel yes yes yes all this.
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I quite enjoyed the first season.
One minor thing - it’d have been cool (but probably legalities prevented it) to see some of the Sandman-inspired characters crossing over by the actors who played them in other shows. Lucifer and Mazikeen, John Constantine, etc.
I have to disagree there. Doing that would be trying to place the Netflix show into some shared universe of continuity with the other shows referenced (Lucifer, Constantine, etc.), which I think would actually distract from the Sandman show overall. I think that’s at least one of the reasons they leaned into Johanna Constantine rather than John, because he’s recognizable from other media. (Something that was overall a rare occurrence in the Sandman comics, even though they were part of the DC universe.) I doubt it was legalities that prevented it – I’m pretty sure there were times people asked Gaiman about the Lucifer actors and he indicated that the Sandman show was simply a separate thing.
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@Arkandel I don’t especially want those kinds of Easter egg castings in the series, but somewhat related, I would have died of joy if Etrigan had made an appearance.
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(Something that was overall a rare occurrence in the Sandman comics, even though they were part of the DC universe.)
True to a point, but less so in the instalments being adapted for Season 1.
Off the top of my head, the DC legacy characters who were involved in Preludes & Nocturnes and The Doll House included:
Wesley Dodds (1939 Sandman), Cain, Abel, Gregory, John Constantine, the Etrigan, Hell’s Triumvirate (borderline, since all the characters are public domain, but the triparty rule was the result of other DC titles so I’m counting it), Scott Free, J’onn “the Martian Manhunter” J’onnz, Dr. John “Destiny” Dee, Dr. Jonathan “the Scarecrow” Crane, Destiny, Matthew, Brute, Glob, and Hippolyta and Hector Hall (filling in the role of 1974 Sandman).
Also, while not present in the story, the absence of both the Bogeyman and the Family Man from the Collectors’ convention are plot-relevant, and caused by their deaths in Saga of the Swamp-Thing and Hellblazer respectively.
(Edited because I got the titles backwards. Feh.)
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@insomniac said in Sandman:
Also, while not present in the story, the absence of both the Bogeyman and the Family Man from the Collectors’ convention are plot-relevant, and caused by their deaths in Hellblazer and Saga of the Swamp-Thing respectively.
TIL. Huh. That’s a really cool detail.
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@insomniac said in Sandman:
Saga of the Swamp-Thing and Hellblazer
Incidentally, I would love to see television adaptations of these. Someone tell Eric Kripke and/or Rockne S O’Bannon.
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@Arkandel Yeah, Sandman does a really good job of including these sorts of details without making them necessary to know about for the story to work.
That the other two biggest Vertigo titles had both recently done a serial killer plot also probably does show a point about the idea of the serial killer convention that doesn’t quite translate to a 2022 adaptation. Not that it doesn’t work in the show, but the media landscape today isn’t quite as inundated with serial killers as it was in 1990 (and even more in the years after, with the film adaptation of Silence of the Lambs premiering in '91) so that part of the joke–of there being so many serial killers that they’d hold a convention–doesn’t quite hit the way it did in earlier readings.
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I am such a wuss. I haven’t watched the show in a week because the end credits of episode 8 involves showing a tarantula’s legs creeping up from behind the graphics and I can still feel giant spiders crawling on my back or poking over the top of a chair to caress the back of my neck.
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I loved this overall, but I was baffled by the casting for Rose Walker. This is Vanesu Samunyai’s first acting role, and you have to extend some grace for that, but I honestly found it awkward and immersion-breaking to watch her often blank expression, carbon copy line deliveries, and the way she was completely unphased by the insane things happening around her while literally everyone else was giving their all, and I wish they’d chosen someone with more experience and range considering how important the character was to this season. Otherwise, basically 10/10!
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I honestly found it awkward and immersion-breaking to watch her often blank expression, carbon copy line deliveries, and the way she was completely unphased by the insane things happening around her while literally everyone else was giving their all, and I wish they’d chosen someone with more experience and range considering how important the character was to this season.
I hate to say it about any actor who seems like a decent person, let alone a kid, but yeah.
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@GF Frankly this is the same as any other child actor. For example you can’t put the boy who played Jed on the stage next to a veteran stage actor like Stephen Fry and not expose him. But that’s why directors need to protect young actors in important roles through what they are given to do.
In retrospect I wonder how much they plan to expand the cast in future seasons. There are a lot of characters we haven’t seen yet, including half of the Endless.
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@Arkandel I vote for Jason Michael Lee as Destruction. Bring in some of that Earl vibe to the job.
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@Wizz Yeah I sadly have to agree. This isn’t a universal thing for
childyoung actors; I thought that Jed’s actor was actually notably more engaging, despite being younger than her. But I think Rose’s actor was a bit underwhelming, and contributed a little to my sense of the back half of the season taking a lil dip. -
Are we referring to 21 year-olds as child actors now?
I do agree that it feels like a little more experience will do her well, though I did actually like her quite a bit for the role.
I have bigger qualms about how some of the representation was handled, at least in the first half. Not great when every queer person is a villain and every poc is subservient. Like, they’re not major qualms, I think the show righted some of this by the end of the season, but it was enough to give me pause.
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@Selira I think criticizing Sandman - of all shows - over its representation of race or sexual/gender orientation is probably unfair.
But more specifically many of its villains were white old men. Many of its best and most powerful characters - like Death - were POC. Other major ones were gender-flipped (Lucifer, Constantine) compared to the comic. Several very sympathetic characters weren’t straight.
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@Selira I think criticizing Sandman - of all shows - over its representation of race or sexual/gender orientation is probably unfair.
But more specifically many of its villains were white old men. Many of its best and most powerful characters - like Death - were POC. Other major ones were gender-flipped (Lucifer, Constantine) compared to the comic. Several very sympathetic characters weren’t straight.
As an avid lover of the comic and the many artists that worked on it (Like Jeffrey Catherine Jones, one of the most underrated, amazing, phenomenal artists of any generation), I loved all of the changes. They elevated what they changed and I am very happy with what they produced. I’m glad they didn’t fuck it up and even with my bar set that low, the series blew my expectations away.
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@Arkandel And many of those changes were in the second half of the season. In the first half we see Lucienne, Paul, Garry, Kate, Nada, Rosemary, Mazikeen, Rachel, Agilieth, Cain, Abel, Ruthven, Kevin and Ric the Vic (as well as a very brief appearance by Rose) as POC characters. There’s a pretty strong pattern of these characters being subservient to white characters, victims, or villains. Death doesn’t appear until the second half, nor do the Walker/Kincaid family in any kind of prominent role.
Just because a show was clearly trying – and to be clear, I think Sandman most certainly was! – doesn’t mean it’s above critique where it stumbled. I’m not saying it ruined the show – I loved the show! – there were just some things that had me a bit
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@Selira I refer to anyone who does not have chronic back and knee pain as a child.
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There’s a bit of a (justified) uproar online about the fact Netflix hasn’t approved Sandman for a second season yet.
I mean, I get it, it’s an expensive production. It’s also probably the best thing they’ve put out in years. And they do have a reputation for killing fan-loved shows only to replace them with utter junk.
I’m already debating whether maintaining a Netflix subscription is worth it as it is.
