^ I know absolutely no one from the show. All new faces to me.
I watched the first episode last night and while I liked it okay so far, I am missing the gravity and weight that Hanks/Ron Howard brought to the world. The new, young Langdon is fine, I guess, but he's not Tom Hanks. Probably not fair of me to say because he's a hard act to follow.
I did read that Hanks and Howard decided not to adapt The Lost Symbol because it would come across as a little repetitive with similar elements that they already covered in the other films, and that's fair enough. I can definitely see that. So turning it into a prequel show makes sense. But I'm a little confused about it being a prequel... if it is they don't seem to care about references to Twitter and such. But I guess that's fine. Just odd.
But I do look forward to continuing the show.
I just hope this season wraps up the book. Are they planning to do more seasons?!
No idea on future seasons, sorry.
Maybe the lack of gravity/weight is due to things being paced w. an eye towards episodic storytelling as opposed to a movie?
Yeah, there's some good elements, but I think that's right, tension gets sort of deflated due to so many episodes. After reading a little I think season 1 will probably cover the book and depending on the success of the show they may do some separate stories, because Dan Brown is involved, a producer or something. I'm not sure if it's still meant as a prequel, I'm guessing not with the current modern setting.
I've seen the first 4 episodes so far. The budget seems noticeably low at times. Especially when Langdon was doing some super low budget Indiana Jonesing to find the capstone. It was actually pretty cringy and honestly should have just been scrapped due to budget.
I finished the show. I'll just post my IMDB review...
"I was really looking forward to an adaptation of this for like the last 7-8 years after reading the book. I was really hoping for another Ron Howard/Tom hanks film because I love them and can watch them again and again, but they had good reasons for not doing a 4th film. Those films benefit from great momentum and tension, and this new show, while it has it's strong points, much of that is deflated too frequently with the episodic series. But overall I did enjoy the show, aside from some distracting low budget elements (I mean, c'mon, I thought digital hand removal would be pretty easy these days?! We can still tell his hand is under there, ugh)"
That’s a pretty even handed review. I understand going all in on loving or hating a project and do it myself, but pointing out things in both categories always works best.
Yeah, I mean, the positive aspect of the long series adaptation is that the characters are developed pretty thoroughly, so it's a give and take. I'd still prefer the Hanks/Howard take, though. The low budget is kind of unforgivable.
Oh, and honestly I don't remember a lot about the book to know what was and wasn't changed.
BUT, I'm currently reading Origin! Apparently a new Robert Langdon book released in 2017! I had no idea it existed! And I read that Dan Brown is working on another Langdon story currently.
Anyway, I'm saddened to see that Origin apparently hasn't attracted the attention of Howard and Hanks for another film either. But I'm enjoying it quite a lot so far. It's more of the same, so I get it, I guess that's why Ron Howard isn't all that interested. But I'm hoping he and Hanks can get together for another Da Vinci Code film at some point as they are some of my favorite re-watchable films. (Angels and Demons being probably the best of the films so far.)
Origin, so far, is very much about Catholicism vs. Atheism, so I can see how a studio may be too hesitant to invest in it due to the controversy. But hell, who gives a crap... The Da Vinci Code already introduced some major controversy, so I feel like that cat's out of the bag. But anyway...
Maybe Dan Brown's next book will spawn another Howard/Hanks film... **crosses fingers**
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Nov 12th, 2021 09:52 AM
