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Merlin... WTF?
Chanus
Harbinger of the Spicy Rooster ApocalypseThe Flames of a Thousand Collapsed StarsRegistered User, Moderator mod
Harbinger of the Spicy Rooster ApocalypseThe Flames of a Thousand Collapsed StarsRegistered User, Moderator mod
Has anyone ever watched this? I just suffered through the first two episodes hoping it would be decent.
What the hell?
The evil Knight has a shield with magic snakes on it, but they can't prove it because the one witness died of a snakebite? Was everyone in Camelot suffering from blunt-force head trauma?
What the fuck is that?
I've always thought I should write, but haven't ever been happy with anything I can come up with. Someone got paid for this shitacular. That gives me hope. I didn't know all you had to do was defecate on a page and put in some stuff about magic and swords and the BBC would make a show about it.
Fuck.
Sorry... had to rant. I want that 45 minutes of my life back.
What the hell?
The evil Knight has a shield with magic snakes on it, but they can't prove it because the one witness died of a snakebite? Was everyone in Camelot suffering from blunt-force head trauma?
What the fuck is that?
I've always thought I should write, but haven't ever been happy with anything I can come up with. Someone got paid for this shitacular. That gives me hope. I didn't know all you had to do was defecate on a page and put in some stuff about magic and swords and the BBC would make a show about it.
Fuck.
Sorry... had to rant. I want that 45 minutes of my life back.
Allegedly a voice of reason.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin_(TV_series)
Anthony Stewart Head as Uther Pendragon.
And yeah its been underwhelming
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No, that was the NBC miniseries/movie "Merlin" starring Sam Neil (it's weird that I knew exactly what you were talking about - it's in a "medieval narration montage!" shot where "the Saxons" axe a monk in the back from like 30 yards away).
I watched part of the first episode of this new one with the sound off. From what I saw, Camelot apparently came around before Merlin, and Merlin was actually a pretty boy-band wannabe who defended weak page boys from the knife-throwing medieval equivalent of frat boys.
Huh. And here I thought Merlin was a wizard.
Don't be silly, we can't market old dudes or even middle-aged dudes to the OC crowd!
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One would think
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Turrible.
This made me lol, a lot.
We watch it for 30 minutes, and I'm ready to change it but I figure they seemed to have an interest in it and far be it for me to come into someone's house and tell them to change the channel. So I just keep quiet while I surf the interwebs on my laptop, there's only 30 minutes left, I can hold out that long. The hour is over and I'm glad this boring show is over. Then...it continues. He then mentions that apparently they were showing the first two episodes over two hours. My eyes roll back into my head, but luckily his girlfriend got him to change it so I guess she didn't like it either. I agreed and we watched something else.
In short, I thought it was boring as hell. While I never really watched the show, it kind of reminded me of a medieval version of Smallville, though I have nothing to base that on since I never watched it. It's just the first thing that cam to mind.
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From the first episode, I can tell you that Merlin isn't a wizard, he's a teenager with superpowers.
They somehow managed to make Merlin the farmboy who goes on a quest. Damnit, BBC. Wrong archetype! There is no point in calling him Merlin if he's not the older mentor figure, the one who out-Gandalfs Gandalf. He's not interesting if you keep him young.
And since Young Merlin is an ignorant country bumpkin, his magic has to be inborn to justify it. A fluke of fate. Something he has absolutely no hand in achieving. He didn't study or work for it. He just has it. A swear to god, Harry Potter ruined wizards forever. Used to be that magic was a side effect of great knowledge and wisdom, something attained through effort and cunning. You didn't mess with a wizard, not just because he can call down lightning, but because he was smarter than you.
Nowadays, you have to be born special.
So yeah, Merlin is a teenager dealing with bullies and peer pressure who secretly has a superpower he tries to keep hidden. Evil forces are afoot and the great future hope of the kingdom is a spoiled jock. The premise is retarded. The plot is retarded. Don't watch it. Ever.
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It's a complete revamp of the tale, like Smallville was to Superman.
The show is still enjoyable as a guilty pleasure, since nothing else is on.
Is this not the version that we're talking about? Because you're right about both of those assessments.
No we're talking about the currently on TV show.
Which I am watching now.
Man it's bad.
They don't even have magic just being an inborn thing... there are wizards who have studied magic, but Merlin is just special.
The '98 miniseries though was awesome.
Here's a scene where Arthur and Merlin are sleeping together:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJum6HSjOdc
I liked that when I was a kid.
It balances with Morgana and Guinevere.
49 seconds into it: Only interesting thing I thought was "Boot to the head!"
After watching the whole clip, the acting/writing is sooo dull. I can't judge a show based solely on a clip, but if that were a marketing ad, I'd never want to watch Merlin.
No. This is something T.H. White used in the Once and Future King. It's not referenced in Le Morte d'Arthur or any of the Merlin fragments that predate it. Ironically, those complaining about the source of Merlin's magic being an inborn trait rather then from wise learning are also wrong. The older stories in which we draw the character of Merlin generally note that he is born of a the union of a mortal woman and an incubus. This is the source of his magic, shapeshifting and powers of prophecy.
Merlin has none of that. The only character with any sort of depth is Gaius, and he's generally shoe horned into whatever stupid plot is the focus of the episode. None of the episodes actually advance anything beyond the most trivial aspects of the story, and are otherwise aimless if not outright ridiculous. Finally, the setting of the show feels completely inconsistent. It doesn't feel like a medieval fantasy castle, it feels like a hastily arranged set.
It's a shame, because I wanted to like Merlin. But honestly, it's got nothing going for it.
Of course it's dull, and I would imagine the writing would be terrible, because that scene was completely improvised to be human and realistic.
But if you want marketing, here's a real trailer for it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPxq3myiQF0
Force once THAT kind of jungle fever lesbian-ism dosn't have me excited.
Also, how can an audience that is surrounding a guy completely not see a snake coming out of his shield and biting another guy
I think what made me like the 98 miniseries is that you felt that Merlin was powerful as fuck, but was still able to make simple human errors, which were exacerbated because he was so powerful and influential.
This just has no internal logic.
Expecting a cheese-ball show like this to have internal logic may be setting the bar a little high. This show really seems almost like it should have been done as a weekend morning kids show.
The inborn magic complaint was against the trend of wizards in modern fiction in general rather than just this one instance. What does piss me off is that Merlin is a dude with superpowers. That's all his magic amounts to. Arthurian legend doesn't seem quite the right place to have this sort of magic system.
And in Arthurian legend Birth was like, what gave people everything... unless I'm wrong, there weren't knights who practiced magic but then Merlin was suddenly huge... he had special circumstances that made him exceptional, but he wasn't just born in a land where magic was totally fine except for the fact that it was outlawed... except he had natural inborn magic.
And then in the second episode they make his inborn magic useless anyways... in the first episode he has "magic" which is just telekinesis, and then in the second episode to move a lock on a door he has to say something.
Really, you never get the feeling that Merlin has any real power... he just comes off as having special powers because the writers realized they were writing about Merlin so oh right he can do magic.
Again, the 98 miniseries made Merlin not only of special birth, but also having studied what he was doing, and it made him incredibly powerful and influential... but because he still was human, as were everyone else, things weren't a super happy fun time with fairies. This is a super happy fun world with fairies but Merlin's just too stupid to do anything.