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March 28, 2024, 04:01:00 PM

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Utopia (Amazon 2020)

Started by surreal, July 24, 2020, 04:39:16 PM

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surreal

I thought this had gone away after Fincher(?) dropped it - the remake of the Channel 4 series Utopia.  It's been announced at ComicCon and first trailer is here:

https://variety.com/2020/tv/news/utopia-trailer-comic-con-amazon-1234713342/

Written by Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl) and starring John Cusack.

Bet they don't do the school shooting bit, that was rather dark...

chveik

not really interested, Gillian Flynn is a mediocre writer. a third series would've been nice though

Sebastian Cobb

The original was great,  so I also would've preferred a continuation.

Alberon

Another thing I might be more interested in if it wasn't a remake of something I really liked.

It certainly doesn't look as visually unique as the original did.

Sebastian Cobb

The colour grading on the channel 4 one was really spectacular.

Small Man Big Horse

If it contains this speech I'll be enormously impressed - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxVrVV-fDSs - but I doubt it will, or if it does it'll be watered down.

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on July 24, 2020, 04:50:58 PM
The original was great,  so I also would've preferred a continuation.

I loved the first series to pieces but the second was a more mixed affair, the storyline started to drag a bit and the ending was disappointing. Hopefully if the US version is better than it looks it'll go on for a bit longer, and give us a more satisfying conclusion than the UK one did.

chveik

Quote from: Small Man Big Horse on July 24, 2020, 08:52:06 PM
I loved the first series to pieces but the second was a more mixed affair, the storyline started to drag a bit and the ending was disappointing. Hopefully if the US version is better than it looks it'll go on for a bit longer, and give us a more satisfying conclusion than the UK one did.

well it was cancelled...

and the first episode of series 2 is incredible

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: chveik on July 24, 2020, 09:09:10 PM
well it was cancelled...

Oh I know, and I have held a grudge against Channel 4 ever since, though I'd always hoped Dennis Kelly might have continued it as a comic, which would have been nicely fitting.

Mister Six

Quote from: chveik on July 24, 2020, 09:09:10 PM
well it was cancelled...

and the first episode of series 2 is incredible

Yeah but the rest of series 2 is a limp retread of the first series that goes nowhere until the final episode. What a waste of a great cast and concept.

Mister Six

Watched the trailer. Yay, Kima from The Wire! But it looks like they're basically giving away everything at the start rather that dip-drip-dripping the mystery, which is predictably mundane and American.

BritishHobo

Agreed with some that while series 1 was great, series 2 really trailed off. It felt like a repeat that didn't know where to take the story, and then instead of rounding it off they just plugged in a forced cliffhanger to artificially extend it, a gamble that obviously backfired. I think a series 3 would have felt like definitely one too many, although I really would have loved seeing Wilson Wilson in action.

Not sure I can be arsed giving it a try. I do increasingly wonder why they bother recreating these things so faithfully instead of just doing their own thing.

kitsofan34

Rewatched series 1 a week ago, started on series 2 tonight. The opening episode is probably the strongest of the series, but I consider it to be the death blow to an already niche show. Flashback to a bunch of characters only the hardcore would know, the entire episode filmed through a specific camera filter, I mean I love it but christ it was hardly gonna' rope any new viewers in was it? Rose Leslie was a much stronger Milner than Geraldine James, who I thought was a tad underwhelming.

Though it's a highly flawed show I am terribly fond of Utopia, but special praise needs to be made for Cristobal Tapida de Veer's score which is astonishingly good. I'd recommend both series 1 and series 2's ost, if you can find it. If you can't, please feel free to pm me.

Blue Jam

Hated the original series, won't bother with this one either.

Just me?

olliebean

Quote from: kitsofan34 on August 11, 2020, 08:53:20 PMThough it's a highly flawed show I am terribly fond of Utopia, but special praise needs to be made for Cristobal Tapida de Veer's score which is astonishingly good. I'd recommend both series 1 and series 2's ost, if you can find it. If you can't, please feel free to pm me.

Both are on Spotify, or YouTube Music if you prefer.

Dog Botherer

really liked the original series, thought Gone Girl was crap but Cusack gives me hope.

probably won't watch it.

olliebean

This dropped yesterday on Prime. Watched episode 1 today; can't remember the original well enough to say exactly how closely it follows it, but felt like it's trying to be a 2nd-rate copy rather than do anything new. Particularly disappointed with the music, not a patch on the soundtrack of the original.

Both series of the original are also on Prime, so I may end up rewatching those instead.

phantom_power

SPOILERS:



All the changes are to the detriment so far. RB is a cliche psychotic killer rather than the more interesting interpretation in the original. There is far too much explained up front. Jessica Hyde is explained too early and you don't get the creepiness of RB going around asking where she is before anyone actually knows who she is or what her importance is. The cast are pretty bland all told. And probably least important but to my mind most egregious is the replacement of that creepy gas mask thing with a boring needle. So far it seems to be the epitome of an Americanisation of a show that smooths out all the rough edges and makes it less interesting as a result

olliebean

I can't help feeling the only reason it was made at all was because someone with commissioning power felt the original was too original for American viewers.

phantom_power

Yeah. It is as if they liked the premise but the execution was too edgy for them, despite that being a lot of the point of the original

Puce Moment

Wow, it really does sound like they have taken literally EVERYTHING good out of a show that was already really good but not great.

The water coooler (sorry) power of something like True Detective has been an argument for not dumping whole series' of shows onto Netflix and Amazon, letting people react to the drip-feed of information. This is something that I assumed they would absolutely mine the shit out of for Utopia given all the "Jessica Hyde" posts on social media back when the UK show started. It was a fantastic marketing technique but it sounds like they already spunked that in this US version. Bonkers.

olliebean

Really pleased when
Spoiler alert
Mary Sue got shot
[close]
in episode 2, although
Spoiler alert
god knows why they would ever trust Jessica Hyde after that.
[close]

phantom_power

I suppose they might have felt they had to change it a bit as the UK version is available and would spoil the mystery but every change is for the worse. I wish Amazon had just financed a series 3 of the UK one

olliebean

After 3 episodes of this (actually 2 and a half, plus another half that was still playing while I mostly did other things), I'm done with it. I think I will do what I was thinking of doing, and watch the original instead. This one is just so clunky, it almost hurts to watch it.

buzby

I got some ads for this on youtube last week and thought it looked like a typical US bastardisation of a UK show. I also I thought it was a bit cheeky calling it an 'Amazon Original' given it was a remake. If it doesn't feature the famous yellow bridges of Skelmersdale I'm not interested.

olliebean

Pretty damn cheeky having "Created by Gillian Flynn" in the credits as well, although perhaps after seeing it Dennis Kelly insisted on that.

Blue Jam

Does RB still go "WHERE WIZZ JESSICA HYDE?"?

Icehaven

I'm disappointed to hear this isn't so good, I loved the original and I read a slightly depressing interview today with John Cusack (who I also love) in which he basically said he's relying on this to get his career back on track. Doesn't sound  like it's going to, unless they're right and the Americans take to the dulled down version.

olliebean

Maybe it doesn't seem so bad if you haven't seen the original.

kidsick5000

Maybe I'm coming at this in the wrong mood but I hate their approach to the comics community has Big Bang Theory levels of disdain.

frajer

Like others I'm a big fan of the original so went into this with a great big dollop of trepidation and was surprised to find it's okay... but never much more than that.

It might be genuinely good if it wasn't a retread of a genuinely great, unusual and interesting series. But it doesn't seem to have any ambition beyond that. And as olliebean pointed out, it's remarkable they have the balls to says "created by Gillian Flynn, based on a series by Dennis Kelly" in the credits.

I've only watched the first 3 episodes but it's staying so closely to the original plot that it feels largely pointless. I hope it starts veering off more, but given that the changes they have made so far are to its detriment then that doesn't fill me with hope. The
Spoiler alert
killing of Samantha
[close]
is a shocking moment and works well as a "fucking hell, that's different" but then why would the group dynamic emerge in the same way as it does after? Maybe it doesn't and they're going to follow through on this new angle, but based on ep 3 it doesn't look like it.

Also I'm sure Dennis Kelly got paid along with his namecheck, but if Cristobal Tapia de Veer didn't get some sort of financial compensation for this shameless "inspired by" version of his sublime original score I'd be pretty pissed off.