I have never read a Sandman comic, but I'll probably watch this. Pretty much all the major roles have been cast. Looks interesting.
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The Sandman is coming to Netflix
- Thread starter Issun
- Start date
I wondered the same thing, but about Tori Amos and Delirium.
Indeed.
Anyways, this is looking more and more delightful. And if Neil's happy with how it's going (after lord knows how many failed attempts various parties made to get any kind of filmed Sandman project off the ground) it must be going well. Can't wait.
I fully expect, his now reconciled with wife, Amanda Palmer to play that role.
Phantoon
I cuss you bad
The casting looks pretty remarkable - Gwendoline Christie as Lucifer is a great choice, for example. Regardless, I'm wary - The Sandman is an all-time favourite and I think its strengths play well to a comic and not any other medium. I think it'll have to change too much to work as a series.
I tend to agree: I love Sandman, but I really don't see how it will work on TV. I guess we'll have to see.
I do not produce television shows, so I'm not saying this as any kind of authority. That said, I love the original Sandman run, but I always thought the whole concept would work much better as an anthology series, as the original Sandman jumped from character to character and situation to situation pretty routinely. It was a world tour with a cast of hundreds across multiple epochs without even trying. I am generally afraid with this all-star casting that the Sandman series is going to have to focus on a much smaller scope that finds room for "everybody" in every episode. Like, I'm not expecting whacky hijinks with The Endless crew every week like some kind of sitcom B-story, but, damn, when you've got Stephen Fry as Gilbert skulking around, you're going to find something for him to do as often as possible. And a lot of Sandman's best moments were related to how "limited" a character actually was, and how much of an impact they could make as a "background character". Death's visits were very limited, for instance, and it felt like a treat whenever she arrived. She's also, ya know, Death, so she could have been in every "episode", but she wasn't, and I feel her character was better for it. I hope this Sandman will show the same restraint.
I mean, I think I'm just worried on account of recent adaptions of Gaiman works and other long-form comics that have fueled recent TV shows. American Gods, Preacher, and even The Walking Dead come immediately to mind as shows based on stories where the characters travel the country and encounter all sorts of varied folks... but their attendant shows had a tendency to go "these three characters are just going to bum around this same city for the next twelve episodes." And I get why that happens! It just seems to minimize the stories that are told when you have to find a way to shoehorn a main character or two into every episode while you economically recycle sets.
All that said, I love this cast, and the previously mentioned Stephen Fry is amazing casting for his attendant character. I also don't know much about Donna Preston as Despair, but that cast photo is on-point (which I feel weird even saying, because "looks like a character that is the living embodiment of Despair" seems like it shouldn't be a compliment). Also VERY interested in Lucifer and a "new" Constantine.
I would watch an entire show about Lucifer or Constantine!
... Wait.
I mean, I think I'm just worried on account of recent adaptions of Gaiman works and other long-form comics that have fueled recent TV shows. American Gods, Preacher, and even The Walking Dead come immediately to mind as shows based on stories where the characters travel the country and encounter all sorts of varied folks... but their attendant shows had a tendency to go "these three characters are just going to bum around this same city for the next twelve episodes." And I get why that happens! It just seems to minimize the stories that are told when you have to find a way to shoehorn a main character or two into every episode while you economically recycle sets.
All that said, I love this cast, and the previously mentioned Stephen Fry is amazing casting for his attendant character. I also don't know much about Donna Preston as Despair, but that cast photo is on-point (which I feel weird even saying, because "looks like a character that is the living embodiment of Despair" seems like it shouldn't be a compliment). Also VERY interested in Lucifer and a "new" Constantine.
I would watch an entire show about Lucifer or Constantine!
... Wait.
Sprite
(He/Him/His)
It’s not a series you need to read all of to enjoy, so you’d be fine to dip your toe in with a couple that sound interesting and take it from there.
I read the books out of order and didn’t realize I was doing so until halfway through, and didn’t feel like my experience was at all compromised. They work well as individual graphic novels.
When I was talking about this show with my wife, she remarked that doing it as an animated series rather than live action would allow them to capture the variety of art styles that work so well in the books, though it wouldn’t solve the problem of pruning down the big, sprawling narrative while retaining its meaning and its special magic.
Also, it suddenly occurred to me that, if they wanted to turn a graphic novel series into a prestige TV show, then Gillen and McKelvie’s The Wicked + The Divine would hit some of the same notes as Sandman, while being vastly easier to adapt into a format with a single through-line and art style.
Also, it suddenly occurred to me that, if they wanted to turn a graphic novel series into a prestige TV show, then Gillen and McKelvie’s The Wicked + The Divine would hit some of the same notes as Sandman, while being vastly easier to adapt into a format with a single through-line and art style.
Watching random people in the Internet complain to Neil Gaiman doesn't get his characters (or that he has sold out to SJWs) because Desire's actor is non-binary and Death's is black is funny and depressing at the same time.
Ugh. I know, right? Casting anyone but a non-binary actor for Desire would be inaccurate to the books.
So, this is out. Has anyone watched it yet?
Good to know. I may check out a few volumes of Sandman proper (numbered books). I have read and enjoyed a lot of Gaiman's children's books (Coraline, the Graveyard Book, and Ocean at the End of the Lane), but I have not gone much into Sandman proper.
I tried reading American Gods 2-3 times. At every attempt I lose interest in about the middle of the book. I think that one is not for me.
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For a while the Wire was on Amazon Prime. For whatever reason Prime recommended that I watch season 5 (the final season). I watched season 5 first and assumed it was season 1. Then went I went back and watched the other seasons. That is a show where I feel each season is pretty self contained. You can get more out of later seasons by being familiar with the characters, but the seasons stand by themselves.
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Watched the first episode. It's decent, but FX feels a bit like watching an early episode of NuWho. Adaptation is decent, they have changed some stuff to up the drama or to consolidate plot beats, which is A Good Thing. I'm honestly baffled they decided to start with the original arc since it the least interesting part of Sandman and if I didn't know how good it could get I don't know if it would have hooked me yet. But I can't wait to get to The Sound of Her Wings so I'll go on.
(Morpheus is perfectly cast, though)
Phantoon
I cuss you bad
I really liked the first two episodes. Morpheus is indeed perfectly cast, and I'd say Cain and Abel are too. I had no expectations going in; The Sandman is my favourite comic series and I suspect some of the later stories are going to be very hard to adapt into another medium. So far it's been very good indeed.
I'm halfway through (which is pretty much Preludes & Nocturnes). I am really enjoying it. Kind of wish they had got Tom Ellis to reprise his role as Lucifer. Neil should have expected his audience to know this would be a prequel to his show, so they'd expect him to act differently
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
I mean, Neil said that show, with no shade on it, has no relation to his Lucifer. That Lucifer tv series is basically in-name-only.
I thought it was loosely based on the Lucifer graphic novel which was spun off from the version in Sandman?
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Loosely, yes, but so loosely Gaiman says it isn't the Sandman character. Heck, it's barely even the Mike Carey spinning off. And having read Mike Carey's spin off, he doesn't solve mysteries, he gets given an empty patch of existence to be his own type of God.
You can mess with religion all you want, but you mess with copyright laws at your own peril.
If you’re going to give anyone creator credit for Lucifer as most people think of him today, it should be John Milton for Paradise Lost, only about 350 years ago.
I think you really, really don't want that TV Lucifer in Sandman, because he quickly became a very different character from either Sandman Lucifer or Carey's Lucifer. Gaiman gets a consistent Created By credit because that's how the rules work, but tonally and in terms of characterization and plot it became a totally different thing. In general,"created by" rights from comics are really messy and way too narrow, focusing too much on first appearances... (Not saying there shouldn't be credits and compensation for first appearances, but that in many cases "created by" credits don't properly reflect the collaborative nature of comic book characters, especially long serialized ones with shifting creators....)
I'm hearing this a lot, and it's more or less what I expecting.
I think the deal here is basically that Sandman is one of the all time great comic books in terms of a merger between form/content in its medium, and that kind of lightning in a bottle is extremely unlikely to happen across multiple mediums. Adaptations like this primarily exist for people who are constitutionally incapable of reading a comic book, and that's fine. This isn't for me, but my husband is constitutionally incapable of reading a comic book, so this will be his only way to experience something that he couldn't enjoy otherwise. I'm likely to end up watching it with him sometime, even though what I've seen in clips and what I've heard from in reactions makes this mostly seem serviceable.
I'm hearing this a lot, and it's more or less what I expecting.
I think the deal here is basically that Sandman is one of the all time great comic books in terms of a merger between form/content in its medium, and that kind of lightning in a bottle is extremely unlikely to happen across multiple mediums. Adaptations like this primarily exist for people who are constitutionally incapable of reading a comic book, and that's fine. This isn't for me, but my husband is constitutionally incapable of reading a comic book, so this will be his only way to experience something that he couldn't enjoy otherwise. I'm likely to end up watching it with him sometime, even though what I've seen in clips and what I've heard from in reactions makes this mostly seem serviceable.
Now that the Ms. is not monopolizing the big TV I'm coming back to this and just watched Episode 3 and it was good, mostly because it is a self-contained story, like it was in the comics (Constantine unintentionally screwing up somebody they know, again) . Really looking forward to what they'll do with some of the later issues now.
BTW, Princess Melia of Xenoblade fame is a pretty good actress! Who knew? Why hasn't she acted more? (Yes, I know, this is a joke.)o in her
BTW, Princess Melia of Xenoblade fame is a pretty good actress! Who knew? Why hasn't she acted more? (Yes, I know, this is a joke.)o in her
Yeah, that's me, and from what I've seen of this, I enjoyed it (my wife is a huge fan of the comic and enjoyed the show too fwiw, though she's not a die hard comic book reader so grain of salt and all that).
Jenna Coleman is great in this, minor character though she is.