Starz Original Series SPARTACUS: Blood and Sand

[Golgo-13]

Get ready for blood and sex;

...... hopefully it's as well written as HBO's ROME.

http://www.starz.com/originals/spartacus

Premiers Jan 22 at 10pm.

 

[Superfreak]

Get ready for blood and sex;

...... hopefully it's as well written as HBO's ROME.

http://www.starz.com/originals/spartacus

Premiers Jan 22 at 10pm.

hopefully, but the previews don't seem to point to much in that direction.

 

[cheungcheung]

I don't think it's called 'Blood and Sandals'

I think this show looks like a nice mix between Gladiator and 300.

 

[ChickenScratch]

It looks great, can't wait to see it. I've got a huge love affair with digital back lot films. It's look comes in very close to 300, Gladiator and Rome from what I've seen. The action scenes also look a lot like 300 and a lot of the type of choreography Sam and Rob Tappert are using on Legend Of The Seeker, only with more graphic depictions.

 

[Golgo-13]

I don't think it's called 'Blood and Sandals'

I think this show looks like a nice mix between Gladiator and 300.

Yeah it's called 'blood and sand'. I tried to edit it yesterday, but it won't let me.
....Mod, edit plz....

hopefully, but the previews don't seem to point to much in that direction.

Th previews for Rome didn't look all that hot to me either, but that show turned out great. Plus with this, there's much more room for them to tweek the story around, whereas with Rome you couldn't, as it was history based.

 

[haephestus]

The more I see of this, the more excited I am to see more.

Early reviews of the first four episodes have confirmed that there is much more story/character-development/plot than what the previews indicate. And with the staff involved in the production, I would expect a pretty fair balance between action scenes and character development.

I think some of Joss Whedon's favoured writers are also joining for the second season, so I would only expect things to improve as the series progresses.

Cheers.

 

[cheungcheung]

well steve deknight has been involved from the get-go and with the cancellation of Dollhouse, Jed Whedon & his wifey Maurissa are joining season 2 of Spartacus.

Those two are responsible for some of Dollhouse's best eps (but also the worst ep as well).

 

[TheVileOne]

Lucy Lawless is going naked in this series. That's all you need to know.

 

[Superfreak]

Yeah it's called 'blood and sand'. I tried to edit it yesterday, but it won't let me.
....Mod, edit plz....



Th previews for Rome didn't look all that hot to me either, but that show turned out great. Plus with this, there's much more room for them to tweek the story around, whereas with Rome you couldn't, as it was history based.

The previews for this are hot... unlike those for Rome. I therefore expect the opposite. Terrible previews for Rome resulted in a fantastic show.... great previews for this show... I'm expecting a poor facisimle of Rome, with 300 production style.

 

[KenK]

Lucy Lawless is going naked in this series. That's all you need to know.

Yup, and it's lovely!!!! (stumbled across a scene on a porn site.)

 

[Golgo-13]

One week to go, and Starz is going all out on the advertising...

 

[Lord Blackbolt]

Lucy Lawless is going naked in this series. That's all you need to know.

that would be exciting...if it were 10 years ago.

 

[Monsieur Xavier]

I'm expecting a poor facisimle of Rome, with 300 production style

Bingo. The show doesn't look bad but it is not on the same quality level as Rome.

 

[Superfreak]

saw the opener:

acting is good, narrative is good. The battles are decent... right up until the f/x and the attempt at introducing epic scale to the battles get in the way.

more work has to be put into the 'romans' to make them come across as serious rather than comical: a problem I assign to the actors/actresses playing the Romans.

F/X: pathetic. They tried to go too far with them. The '300' blood effect is going to get old really fast, and they've overused it in the first episode already. The arena effects are pretty bad... and I think they should have gone the 'Rome' route, and have a smaller fighting area and crowd.

Sex: the sex is great, but like the blood effect, overused in the opener.



this show could be really really good. I just think the direction needs a little bit more inspiration on how to deliver scenes, without falling back on the very weak special effect crew.

 

[Pythagoras]

that would be exciting...if it were 10 years ago.

Maybe 12 years ago.

 

[Lord Blackbolt]

just saw the first episode....meh. Too much violence and nudity isn't always a good thing. seems like they just added that to get more attention.

 

[Prison Mike]

Xena gets nekkid in this.

 

[TheVileOne]

I agree. The editing on the fighting is way over done and too much like 300.

Understood why, I mean when Gladiator came out a lot of movies and TV shows tried to be like Gladiator and failed.

Still the acting is good and all the hot nudity is off the charts. Its just great to see a show like this embrace sexuality.

Thank God that Rob Tapert isn't a prude about America seeing his wife naked . You rock Robert Tapert.

 

[Bad Superman]

that would be exciting...if it were 10 years ago.

I disagree. That NEVER gets old. . .

As for the series itself, it looks promising.

 

[Bad Superman]

Get ready for blood and sex;

That reminds me a bit of one of my favorite quotes from Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead:

"I can't say it is, really.
Eh we're more of the love,
blood and rhetoric school.



Well, we can do you blood
and love without the rhetoric
without the love...



and we can do you all three
concurrent or consecutive.



But we can't do you love
and rhetoric without the blood.



Blood is compulsory.
They're all blood, you see.



Is that what people want?


It's what we do."

 

[Golgo-13]

Just saw the first ep OnDemand; the slow mo blood spilling got tired really quick.

The nudity & sex, seemed to just be there for the hell of it..but it's nudity and sex, so no complaints from me in that department.

The blonde actress who plays the Roman guys wife, and who's father in the Senator (?); she tries way too hard to be sexy that it doesn't even look sexy. Even the first scene with her, when she's in her husbands tent, in the fur coat, and she's talking i was already tired of her. Then when she disrobes and we get a full nude shot of her; that should have been the highlight of the scene but i was so tired of her acting by that point, that i didn't really care if she got nude or not and wanted the scene to end.

The guy that plays Spartacus is good.

The F/X is a little way too over the top. With the series 'Rome', by them shooting on location, you got a sense of realism. In this everything seems to be either set pieces or green screen. very distracting.

I'll continue to watch to see where this goes......

 

[ChickenScratch]

Watched it twice last night and loved it. The whole thing looked great, I liked the story and the actors were decent except for the blond. I loved the depiction of the sex and violence in excess, bacchanalian excess.

Besides, I'm a total nerd for digital backlot.

 

[ChickenScratch]

Double for some reason.

 

[DACrowe]

well I watched it. That was....entertaining.

But boy was it trashy and derivative. I hope the special effects get better, because they are cool but still quite artificial. But I can see this becoming an easy guilty pleasure for many people. It has no chance (zero) of being something considered classy or artistic like Rome. The writing, especially the dialogue, is horrible--and yet I loved every minute of it. The buckets of gore. The massive amounts of nudity and sex that it began to resemble a porno and the stylish anime/comic book violence.


But it is still very trashy and very derivative. I saw:

-A very obvious attempt to ape the Zack Snyder style of 300. Right down to using some of the exact same shots for battle scenes in the snow at the beginning of the episode and the second sex scene Spartacus has with his wife.

-Roman political melodrama set to sexy interiors a la Rome (as if Rome hadn't sexed it up enough though...)

-The basic plot of Gladiator being recycled. Yeah, Gladiator was very obviously inspired by the original Stanley Kubrick Spartacus film. But the element of the redemptive slave owner, vengeful need to be with wife after betrayal and put in shackles, etc. Very Ridley Scott.

-Musical knock-offs from cues for the battle scenes of Kingdom of Heaven.

-Several shots ripped straight from Braveheart.


And did I mention all the blood, sex and bad dialogue?

I think I may have a new guilty pleasure to DVR.

5.5/10. Enjoying it, doesn't mean it has to be rated well.

 

[Golgo-13]

I just watched it again, and the blonde is even more annoying the second time around.