I’m re-watching The Magicians with my wife, since she’s never seen it. It’s been long enough since I watched it last that I don’t remember a lot of things that happened, so there’s a lot of “I forgot got that!” moments for me, which is fun.
I’m re-watching The Magicians with my wife, since she’s never seen it. It’s been long enough since I watched it last that I don’t remember a lot of things that happened, so there’s a lot of “I forgot got that!” moments for me, which is fun.
I found it to be… fine. The actors and your expectations settle in after a couple of episodes. The Zuko actor is actually pretty good, Iroh is a different take but damned if Paul Sun-Hyung Lee’s enthusiasm for every goony-ass genre part he does isn’t infectious, and Sokka and Katara grow into their show personas. Aang… eventually gets less distracting.
The production design is authentic to the show, and Appa, Momo, and June’s mole-wolf-horse thing are all well done. I don’t think this show was necessary at all, and parts of it are stubbornly weak, but if it gets a new cohort of fans into the universe and watching the cartoons, it could be a net positive.
I liked the first episode of the live action show well enough. I might add it to our rotation.
Moderate your expectations, but it’s fun enough if you are not expecting it to recreate the joy of first watching the cartoon.
It’s like a big budget Ember Island Players. :-)
The thing that bothered me the most is how Aang sounds exactly like Dewey from Malcolm in the Middle
LOL. Fair enough. No two ways about it, he’s a weak link, and that’s a BAD part to have as your weak link, but eventually I found him to be okay. I think they cast him for his look and his ability to play “earnest,” and he does that fairly well. I would have preferred they went with somebody who could pull off the mischief side more convincingly.
Everything you say sounds reasonable. I might give it another go but something about the whole universe my brain was just fine with accepting in animation but it just absolutely bounced off of in live action.
I am not going to lean in too hard on recommending it, LOL. It’s deeply flawed, including too many costumes having that “straight from the wardrobe department” sheen, but with time and lowered expectations, I think there’s some fun there.