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Comment by browningstreet | Hacker News Reader

Ignoring the lack of faith to the source material:

It's bad.. the dialogue, conflict, etc., are far below the levels we've come to expect in sci-fi shows like Expanse.

This is a complete waste of Jared Harris' talents. In the last episode, the resolution of his incomplete download was dramatized by a bit more screaming, then he was all good.

It doesn't feel elevated or sophisticated at all... it does look very pretty.

But it's not even representative of itself -- they keep talking about "trillions" of people here and there, and the new Book of Boba Fett does a better job of selling large population centers than Foundation ever does.

Also, my son made a point about the "unfilmable" books, which are a lot of dialogue: aren't most cop and lawyer shows mostly a lot of talk, usually in just a few common settings?

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I agree.

I don't care about the books and stopped watching mid season. The production impressed me for the first episode and then it was very bland and boring. There is no drama, nothing that caught my attention. It feels like watching a boring documentary.

> Also, my son made a point about the "unfilmable" books, which are a lot of dialogue: aren't most cop and lawyer shows mostly a lot of talk, usually in just a few common settings?

Nah, consisting mostly of dialogue doesn't make something unfilmable. That description applies to tons of good movies. "Unfilmable" becomes a possibility when there's little way to show anything, other than having characters speak infodumps at the audience. Even dialog-heavy movies need to show you things, even if it's just the physical movement and reactions of characters during the dialogue, or items about the room.

> just the physical movement and reactions of characters during the dialogue

I love how old Spike Lee films would have people talk while "walking" down a street but they wouldn't really walk, just stand there and talk as the background moves by just like the way it feels to have a good conversation while walking.

https://www.andsoitbeginsfilms.com/2013/03/breaking-down-spi...

Not sure what we're disagreeing about -- shows like Suits and Billions are very much two people talking, one of those people talking to someone else, first two people talking again, expand...

Mandalorian has shown how little of a set is required to keep actors busy.

Ah, I misread that your son had claimed dialog-heavy things might be unfilmable and that you'd disagreed based on all the successful dialog-heavy filmed media the exists. The "nah" was a result of that misunderstanding, but was still intended to agree with you, if that makes sense. Sorry about that.

> my son made a point about the "unfilmable" books, which are a lot of dialogue

I'm still surprised about how slow they can make an hour-long episode. Between fistfights, face closeups and gratuitous sex scenes and drama, barely anything advances. It's following the Star Trek Discovery formula but in slow motion.

Exactly. There’s a lot of wishful thinking that the show is criticized because it deviates from the books.

No, the show simply isn’t good. It suffers from the Netflix Disease. High production quality, painfully mediocre writing.

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