Inhumans "THE FIRST CHAPTER" - Inhumans' IMAX film aka the 1st 2 episodes (Use Spoiler tags)

[psylockolussus]

For those who will be seeing today it or the next few days. Discuss it here!

 

[Mike Murdock]

I'll try to give my thoughts here. I wanted to comment specifically on the IMAX portion and I'll do my best for the rest.

Honestly, I thought this was a very solid two hour premiere of a network TV show that will likely be judged harshly by film standards. I don't understand any complaints about the CGI (although there's an obvious budget-saving measure I'll get to when I get to spoiler code). Now it's not "go see this in IMAX" mind blowing. The choice of Hawaii did help a bit since it's at least beautiful to look at, but it kind of just made me wish I could watch the LOST pilot in IMAX.

Now to the specifics:

Spoiler

I think the Inhumans is an extremely difficult project to pull off effectively. I thought they did a good job adapting the different elements. The world building of this Attilan actually worked. Instead of Alpha Primitives, they have a Caste System based on the usefulness of their transformation. The idea of hierarchy based on Terrigenesis is drawn directly from Paul Jenkins's Inhumans run.

This is a bit out of left field, but I would love it if they drew more explicit comparisons to Hinduism. In Hinduism, there are four castes based on the natural roles of mankind (warriors, priests, merchants, and workers/servants). The first three classes are known as "twice born," while the Shudras (servants) are the fourth. I think one could easily see a comparison of those who are transformed by Terrigenesis being "twice born," while those who are unchanged (or mildly changed) are Shudras. Maybe it's a stretch, but I would love to see someone explore that.

But I like the explanation for "Black Bolt's rigid meritocracy" (as Maximus put it). They live on the resourceless moon. They can barely support their population. Because of that, they essentially have a class who has to support everyone else for them to survive (think mutates in Genoshia only those with powers get privileges). When I was leaving, two guys who were in their fifties were commenting that Maximus was actually the good guy and Inhuman society kind of sucks.

Narratively speaking, I thought Maximus's coup was very dramatic and was one of the highlights (particularly when Karnak figured it out and was trying to rescue everyone). I did think some of Maximus's actions after were a bit slow. Hopefully he's given things to do (some of the verbal banter was fine at least). He's too good of an actor to just sit in Attilan doing nothing.

Like I said, I liked the CG for the most part. Lockjaw is going to be the most universally praised. I don't get people's complaints of Medusa's hair. To me, it looked quite good. On the other hand, I'm disappointed that's all they managed to do before taking it off the board for the rest of the series. In fact, I was shocked that the three highest budget items - Lockjaw, Medusa's hair, and Triton were essentially removed from the picture by the end of the first hour. One would have hoped they did more with them while they had the chance. That being said, each one taken off the board made narrative sense and there were similar actions (notably with Karnak but with Black Bolt as well), which were not budget choices at all but were in the same tone.

On the characters, I thought they worked well. Serinda Swan probably bothered me the most, but she grew on me after her hair was shaved. Karnak is a ton of fun. Black Bolt's silent communication (particularly when he's trying to communicate with people from Earth) was good. Gorgon is true to character and the scenes with the Hawaiian surfers were wonderful. Iwon Reon is very enjoyable as Maximus. I didn't like his acting in the trailer, but it's much better in context (once again, the weakest scenes were when he was with Medusa).

Auran is in name only. Honestly, I was fine with her as a villain. The lack of ears bothered me (although I was holding out hope for a while she was just covering them with her weird haircut). In the end, her powers were shown to be completely different so she basically has the same name and kind of same job title, so it's easy for me to pretend she's someone else. She would have been a good casting choice if Auran were in this show, though.

Like I said, this was fine. Would I recommend seeing it in IMAX? I probably wouldn't. I mean, I'm fine that I did since, as a comic reader, I'm clearly bad at making decisions that give me a good value for my money. The $20 I spent here probably gave me roughly the same entertainment as an equivalent five comics would. But I would suggest at least giving this a try on ABC.

 

[ludovica]

...as a comic reader, I'm clearly bad at making decisions that give me a good value for my money. The $20 I spent here probably gave me roughly the same entertainment as an equivalent five comics would. But I would suggest at least giving this a try on ABC.

Thank you for the review, it's encouraging, lurking on the boards I saw often times I share your taste.
And from a fellow comic reader: you are too right.

 

[psylockolussus]

I don't think for a hour/20 minutes, it is worth the price of an IMAX ticket. Well it was just like 10% cheaper compare to when I saw Apocalypse in IMAX 3d. I think the ticket is over priced and the content wasn't worth the price. I did get a Crystal/Lockjaw illustration poster which I appreciated.

I don't think it looks cheap. It does look more expensive than those Marvel Netflix TV shows. Cheap isn't the word for this but undercooked and small scaled. Attilan needed more color, though I did like the minimalist look, I just wish the Attilan sets were bigger as big as Asgard. The open area hallways reminded me of Shield's HQ in the movies. The establishing shots of Atiilan aren't bad, but I wish they were more grand.

Now to the story, it wasn't awful but it didn't make me happy. It wasn't great. Upon seeing the first two episodes, I still wish they turned this into a movie and the IMAX experience would have been much better rather than just seeing 2/8 of the show. Though it did make me curious to see the follow up episodes. But a MCU movie with a beginning, middle and an end would have been better.

The action was very light which is another issue. I didn't like how easy the Royal family was beaten. [Blackout] Medusa's getting her hair cut this early is just ehh. She's less interesting without her hair in my opinion, and this early? They could have showcased her powers more before shaving it. Triton was there for like 2 minutes. Though I'm expecting him to show up again but still. I didn't get why Karnak became useless when he got to Earth. Gorgon's feet look hideous. The actor doesn't look Gorgon to me. Lockjaw looked nice but they made him stupid by sending the royal family into different places. I don't get
maximus' lighter treatment to Crystal while Gorgon/Triton were ordered to be killed.[/blackout] Auran's look isjust eh. She looks like an ordinary woman and is just a major departure from the comics. Black Bolt was the one that I think that was handled best. Maximus' motivation wasn't really presented well. It lacked depth and there was no build up to his revolution.

I also wish they explained the world of the Inhumans much better. Most things felt self explanatory which imo isnt right for this.The terrigenesis, the "workers", the terrigen. I feel like if people didn't read the comics or didn't know the inhumans, they would get confused easily. The flashbacks were also not executed well and felt tacked in just to further show background stuff.

6/10

 

[TheVileOne]

I'm never going to get over the barber clippers.

 

[Dasher10]

I feel like I made the right choice here by skipping this. I also skipped Fant4stic and didn't feel like I was missing out on much after reading the reviews.

 

[Mike Murdock]

I was debating on commenting on Auran in the Auran thread. To me, the only similarity is the name of the character. Given that, I'm not even going to say they screwed up the character. It's just weird they have another character who has the exact same name. After that, I can enjoy her for what she is, which is a fun, ruthless enforcer type person.

 

[psylockolussus]

The opening title was nice though it doesn't match the tone/imagery of the actual episodes. I would use it for the credits.

It would be cool if ABC could reedit the entire series and do a 2hr/30 minutes cut of the series, and showcase it in IMAX. I'd watch that especially if the other episodes are better.

 

[TheVileOne]

The opening title was nice though it doesn't match the tone/imagery of the actual episodes. I would use it for the credits.

It would be cool if ABC could reedit the entire series and do a 2hr/30 minutes cut of the series, and showcase it in IMAX. I'd watch that especially if the other episodes are better.

I agree 100%. It was really the only thing I liked about the presentation.

 

[psylockolussus]

I don't think for a hour/20 minutes, it is worth the price of an IMAX ticket. Well it was just like 10% cheaper compare to when I saw Apocalypse in IMAX 3d.

I checked the IMAX ticket for Apocalypse and it was the same ticket price as this one. really IMAX?

 

[Tymminator]

I think it has a lot of rough potential. The writing/dialogue is not great, and I also have a issue with a few things as well like the fact regular clippers took out Medusa. Scott Buck needs to be replaced with someone who gets these characters better and can have them represented properly, Only Black Bolt comes close to being done correctly IMO.

Thing is, with the right creative team they can save this thing and I hope they get their act together sooner rather than later.

 

[Spider-Fan]

Honestly, I do not think this was a disaster. I liked the episodes overall, but yes it has problems. But I actually want to see the show playout, and I think this could be a good show long run.

 

[ludovica]

MovieBob review, 2.5/4:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uhkTJFtWls
Boils down to:
-it's just a network tv show, it's fine so far
-people are too eager to say Marvel failed
-Anson Mount is good, could be great later on

I want to believe!

 

[Mike Murdock]

We should probably have a review thread. There's no real point of posting other people's thoughts in this thread (as opposed to your own thoughts) and people are being very loose with spoilers in the main thread.

 

[Spider-Fan]

I think this is effectively our review thread.

 

[Dasher10]

What's sad is that the Iron Fist forums were full of people when that got panned. Inhumans moves far slower.

I think what this says is that A. Iron Fist was a known IP and people were more likely to tune in when compared to the more obscure Inhumans and B. people already got burned by Iron Fist and no longer feel compelled to watch something just because it's from Marvel.

 

[Mike Murdock]

Also, it hasn't aired on TV yet and won't air its final episode until November 3 or 10.

 

[MahvelBaby!]

Well.... I want Scott Buck to never touch anything marvel related ever again, I'm pretending this doesn't exist. Jeph Loeb I'm on the fence on, Screw Perlmutter.

 

[Dasher10]

Well.... I want Scott Buck to never touch anything marvel related ever again, I'm pretending this doesn't exist. Jeph Loeb I'm on the fence on, Screw Perlmutter.

Perlmutter didn't want to give Downey a contract extension past Age of Ultron which is why he was removed from the film side. After his pet project just flopped horribly, I can imagine Disney kicking him to the curb as well and only making him in charge of the comics.

In the same way that Kevin Feige only reports to Alan Horn now, I can imagine Jeph Loeb only having to answer to Partick Moran.

 

[Jason Kane]

Perlmutter didn't want to give Downey a contract extension past Age of Ultron which is why he was removed from the film side. After his pet project just flopped horribly, I can imagine Disney kicking him to the curb as well and only making him in charge of the comics.

In the same way that Kevin Feige only reports to Alan Horn now, I can imagine Jeph Loeb only having to answer to Partick Moran.

Though the comic side would be in a evem worse shape than it is right now

 

[Loki882]

Spoiler

Cutting off Medusa's hair that early on was a terrible idea. Also the Royal Family look like idiots for not seeing Maximus "I'm clearly up to something from my very first scene's" betrayal coming. Also they don't do a particularly good job of making him seem like the bad one here quite frankly.

 

[Dasher10]

Though the comic side would be in a evem worse shape than it is right now

He's 74 so he'll retire soon.

 

[psylockolussus]

The 0% rt rating is embarrassing!

 

[Comicbookguy339]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oe7EQXCkAoY

Review from the Weekly Planet. It sounds like the show has seriously messed up the Inhuman society. So in the comics the Inhumans used to have alpha primitives inherited from one generation of Inhumans to the next. The alpha primitives lived under the city and did menial work.
But on the show any Inhuman who does not get an awesome power after Terrignesis gets treated like a lower class citizen and banished to the mines under the city. So they've really made the Royal family a bunch of unsympathetic *******s on the show.

 

[Zarex]

To be fair, the Royal family have always been a bunch of unsympathetic #######s. The right creative team could have made it work.