idle thought #154
Dec. 29th, 2019 10:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madimpossibledreamerweeeeell you might not know this but I super love Christmas Carol and have watched a lot of versions. The 2019 BBC adaptation is...super mixed.
things I like: the actors. I liked the Neverwhere feel they were going with. I actually found the OCD storyline fascinating. a lot of the set pieces were strong and striking, and filmography was well-done. care and dislike and mutual philosophy between scrooge & bob. expanding on hints subtly in previous renditions/the book.
things I didn't like: hints at a character arc that never happened. neverwhere without hope. edgy choices for edgelord sake. orichalcos. being accused of "it's easy to tear things down" for being an English major and giving constructive criticism. sure, you can choose for a character to not get a redemption arc, but audience expectation is for a redemption arc and there's a crossing of a moral event horizon. complete lack of any *good* characters. a half-hearted attempt to explain that Hobbes was wrong (because Scrooge's mindset, here, is 100% Hobbes' philosophy), except the script is saying one thing (telling us "it's wrong") and doing another (what it's showing us is that everyone is incapable of change, forever trapped by bad things in our past, or only thinking about ourselves and if we're lucky a few people around us). missing the point of one Dickens story among all the bleak Dickens stories showing us how terrible the world is (at the time, and maybe now) that tells us why we shouldn't just give up hope or stop trying.
things I like: the actors. I liked the Neverwhere feel they were going with. I actually found the OCD storyline fascinating. a lot of the set pieces were strong and striking, and filmography was well-done. care and dislike and mutual philosophy between scrooge & bob. expanding on hints subtly in previous renditions/the book.
things I didn't like: hints at a character arc that never happened. neverwhere without hope. edgy choices for edgelord sake. orichalcos. being accused of "it's easy to tear things down" for being an English major and giving constructive criticism. sure, you can choose for a character to not get a redemption arc, but audience expectation is for a redemption arc and there's a crossing of a moral event horizon. complete lack of any *good* characters. a half-hearted attempt to explain that Hobbes was wrong (because Scrooge's mindset, here, is 100% Hobbes' philosophy), except the script is saying one thing (telling us "it's wrong") and doing another (what it's showing us is that everyone is incapable of change, forever trapped by bad things in our past, or only thinking about ourselves and if we're lucky a few people around us). missing the point of one Dickens story among all the bleak Dickens stories showing us how terrible the world is (at the time, and maybe now) that tells us why we shouldn't just give up hope or stop trying.
