Since I've only read book 1 so far, I'm not 100% familiar with the overarching story throughout the trilogy (and further books of the Grishaverse), but from this episode alone, it seems like some big changes have been made in the adaptation. Like Alina being half Han Shu and the blatant racism she has to deal with because of that fact. Also, Mal's meadow line didn't have any type of impact because they didn't previously properly establish that that's a special place for him and Alina.
I expected everything to be a LOT more heavily Russian inspired. The diversity in the cast took me by surprise. And the Fold (or Unsea) was nowhere as near as dark as I would have expected (reasonable from a filming stand point, though). Also, in the books the Grisha are very intimidating to the "powerless" people, but not so much on the show. And the Darkling is called the Darkling, because that helps maintain the air of mystery, power and aloofness. As it's often said, there's power in a name. Not for anything Voldemort was called He Who Shall Not Be Named.
I wouldn't say I loved this pilot, but it was cool enough to keep watching.
An impressive amount of exposition told quite well. Definitely enough here to hook me. Looks good, sounds good, maybe the acting isn’t super but it is teen fantasy after all
Fun concept, but I'm having a real hard time getting over the fact they thought the best way to cross a stretch of desert full of flying monsters was ... on a god damn boat of all things, but NOT even below deck hidden in their cabins !
Oh, no, much safer out in the open right on deck ... wut ??
Why is the top half of everyone's faces twice as sharp as everything else? Reminds me of fanvideos on Twitter.
What a beautiful start into a beautiful world this is!
I'm in love with the world already, and the characters have so much depth right from the bat, just how it's supposed to be. I sure hope they'll keep up the quality, but either one way, it's the world I'm invested in, in one way or another.
Oh so everybody dies...
I had no clue what was going on and I didn’t quite understand it but it was okay, I was entertained enough and it was interesting. I wish they had an intro like Avatar, where they summed up the conflict in 30 seconds with the map, I had to google it afterwards and it was hard trying to avoid spoilers, but I found a map of this world (no clue what’s it called) and from my perspective the fold thing looks kinda not big enough to cause trouble? Like just cross around it? There’s land up and down from that fold thing, don’t be lazy? And problem solved.
Also call me shallow but none of the guys was hot enough for my liking so that’s like -2 points. Hot guys is like the basis of any fantasy show.
Why did Alexei have to die?
At least, this time I felt it a bit more that in the book.
Inej seemed ready to pray at the words Sun Summoner.
I like the characters. I hope they'll improve the grisha trilogy ones because they were a bit flat and predictable in the books. Fingers crossed.
There you go..there’s always an asshole waiting to steal when something good happens. This is why the world is fucked up, too many assholes.
Shout by LeftHandedGuitaristBlockedParent2021-04-23T19:13:14Z
There was enough here to hook me in to continue watching. It suffers from the tired YA tropes and some truly awful exposition in the dialogue, but I like the characters and most of the actors seem decent. Not easy to understand much of what was going on but it settled down. There's a lot of room for improvement, but it already feels head and shoulders above the other Netflix teenage fantasy shows.
I found that I couldn't take the name Pekka seriously.