Streaming The Boys (Amazon)

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minimalism is the emperor new clothes.

a drawing of a can of soup is not effing art

a white wall with a plain white table does not make a satisfying dining room and

some slightly raised eyebrows with little expression and dialogue that an 8 year old can understand is not great television.

It’s nothing to do with minimalism. The scene is natural, full of movement and clutter. For the characters it an exercise in emotional restraint, which is far truer to life than any bombastic drama. An 8 year old wouldn’t understand the ramifications of any of the subtext. They certainly like dragons though.

There’s an old video of Oliver Reed talking about how to act, he says it’s easy, you just need to be quiet for a bit and then explode. That is what people have perceived as their baseline for good acting for years, “I could have been a contender”, when it’s the easiest trick for actors to pull off. Restraint is where it’s been since The Wire, that is the new bench mark.

Dont get me wrong, battles were enjoyable. But action sequences only work in the context of the world they exist in. The last 3 seasons were full of dragons and action. Yet no one likes them, because they lost their subtlety and world building.

Ultimately part of what good writing is is the ability to communicate subtext, to say one thing and have it convey another meaning, good acting is pulling off that doublespeak effectively.

Season 1 of the boys did that well,
Elizabeth Shue was particularly good as was Karl Urban and to a lesser extent Antony Starr, the later more obviously switching between personas.
 
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Just wait until you get to the
whale scene in episode 3
- that is some real C/D-grade sh*t

The quality of writing really seems to have taken a nose-dive this season

Only when you're comparing it to movies I reckon, which will always be the case for a TV show. I actually thought they managed a really CGI-heavy ep fairly well in 3 - the whale, burying Homelander, the fight through the apartment building - all largely fine imo.
 
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Feels like a 4 or 5 episode good story is being stretched to a less good story over 8 episodes. Any themes the show had on "What does it mean to have super powers?" appear absent. Do they live forever and appear young forever outside of traumatic deaths? With 8 hours they could give some answers. Doesn't seem like they're going to. Here's a Hughie/Frenchie/Kimiko scene to fill time.

Did season 1 have those themes though? All I got was "superheroes are w@nkers too" lol
 
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heros spend all their time in green dark dank below ground rooms and caverns.

then out of no where they are all on a luxury yacht skimming across the ocean. Wtf.

oh thats right. This must be a Deep scene even though when we last saw him he was still singing with his Gils.

sure enough along comes Deep from no where. How did he get there. Who knows. But he has stopped singing to his gils and he has bought a giant mother of a whale.

all worth it for the best ever boat smashes into whale scene ever filmed.

2 mins later our heros are back in dark green underground hallways.

the deep has served his purpose

Ex-CIA lady wanted a quiet meet spot where the 4 most wanted blokes in the country could hand over the super terrorist (sorry, 'villain', plz don't laser me Homelander :tearsofjoy:)

I mean yeah it was obviously storyboarded that way to get Deep involved, but it made sense, don't think it was particularly jarring or anything. Once the chopper spotted them police/intelligence knew where they were, that was the point of the video feed shot from the chopper. Deep got the info from the cult dudes, assume they have people in place to feed them info like that.
 
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Then why exactly are you watching the boys? Its just violence, action and cliched characters and storylines. Zero depth.

Ps. Character development in good story telling happens in battles. In fact its accelerated far beyond what talking scenes can do.

You forgot humour! When it hits its hilarious, Dolphin scene last season killed me, don't think I've ever laughed so hard watching a tv show.
 

Bomberboyokay

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Did season 1 have those themes though? All I got was "superheroes are w@nkers too" lol

Season 1 had novelty and an alternate reality to set up. If season 2 persists with quips and "lulz" in place of saying something it'll get old fast.
 
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It’s nothing to do with minimalism. The scene is natural, full of movement and clutter. For the characters it an exercise in emotional restraint, which is far truer to life than any bombastic drama. An 8 year old wouldn’t understand the ramifications of any of the subtext. They certainly like dragons though.

There’s an old video of Oliver Reed talking about how to act, he says it’s easy, you just need to be quiet for a bit and then explode. That is what people have perceived as their baseline for good acting for years, “I could have been a contender”, when it’s the easiest trick for actors to pull off. Restraint is where it’s been since The Wire, that is the new bench mark.

Dont get me wrong, battles were enjoyable. But action sequences only work in the context of the world they exist in. The last 3 seasons were full of dragons and action. Yet no one likes them, because they lost their subtlety and world building.

Ultimately part of what good writing is is the ability to communicate subtext, to say one thing and have it convey another meaning, good acting is pulling off that doublespeak effectively.

Season 1 of the boys did that well,
Elizabeth Shue was particularly good as was Karl Urban and to a lesser extent Antony Starr, the later more obviously switching between personas.
Thats what minimalism is in regards to acting. Trying fo find depth in emotional constraint. I posit like most supporters of minimalism you are finding things that arent really there. Your mind is filling in the emptiness and you are mistakenkly concluding their is depth where there is not but its really in your head. Its the emperors new clothes.

andy warhol is not an effing artist let alone a great one.
 
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Thats what minimalism is in regards to acting. Trying fo find depth in emotional constraint. I posit like most supporters of minimalism you are finding things that arent really there. Your mind is filling in the emptiness and you are mistakenkly concluding their is depth where there is not but its really in your head. Its the emperors new clothes.

andy warhol is not an effing artist let alone a great one.

Jamie intensely questions his loyalty in the last seconds of the scene and he exasperates in reply. It’s causation, there is no room for another interpretation.

Andy Warhol isn’t even a minimalist, he was a pop artist.
 

glenferry23

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Just on that third episode, perhaps I missed it. But did they say/mention how they ended up on that yacht?

It just felt a little sloppy that they’re the most wanted persons in the country who hiding out in a drug bunker, however just popped up off shore in that yacht. And conversely, after that mini rumble with the 7 they’re all of a sudden back there.
 
Just on that third episode, perhaps I missed it. But did they say/mention how they ended up on that yacht?

It just felt a little sloppy that they’re the most wanted persons in the country who hiding out in a drug bunker, however just popped up off shore in that yacht. And conversely, after that mini rumble with the 7 they’re all of a sudden back there.

Yep, there's certainly been a bit of late GoT style 'time-jumping'.
 

Bomberboyokay

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Just on that third episode, perhaps I missed it. But did they say/mention how they ended up on that yacht?

It just felt a little sloppy that they’re the most wanted persons in the country who hiding out in a drug bunker, however just popped up off shore in that yacht. And conversely, after that mini rumble with the 7 they’re all of a sudden back there.

Billy Butcher stole the boat offscreen
 

glenferry23

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Billy Butcher stole the boat offscreen
Yep, I don't really get the confusion over this - there were several lines of dialogue about it.

Ok thanks. I must have missed that dialogue just before I recall him saying the police chopper that he had paperwork proving he purchased it.

Anyway, my point (which wasn’t well explained in my earlier post) that I just thought it was a bit sloppy that they all of a sudden magically appear back in their bunker at the end of the episode.

I get it the 7’s primary target was the super villain which they took care of, however it doesn’t seem plausible that the boys would escape that situation so easily. Minor gripe.
 
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Ok thanks. I must have missed that dialogue just before I recall him saying the police chopper that he had paperwork proving he purchased it.

Anyway, my point (which wasn’t well explained in my earlier post) that I just thought it was a bit sloppy that they all of a sudden magically appear back in their bunker at the end of the episode.

I get it the 7’s primary target was the super villain which they took care of, however it doesn’t seem plausible that the boys would escape that situation so easily. Minor gripe.

"Purchased" lol

I didn't have much issue with them just being back at base the next scene, that's the deal practically every time they leave the basement eg when they go to the docks in ep 2. In bunker, next scene at docks with the out of water boat, next scene back at base.

Actually thought there was more of an issue with what the other heroes were doing during that sequence, think it was just Homelander and Starlight in the tunnels? Not sure what the rest were doing, just hanging out with Deep at the tunnel entrance on smoko I guess lol
 
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