Netflix’s The Sandman ticks off its source material’s boxes but can’t capture its magic
Neil Gaiman's groundbreaking horror comic has been reborn as a generic fantasy series
TV Reviews The Sandman
Netflix’s The Sandman is an adaptation of the iconic and groundbreaking DC Comics series written by Neil Gaiman, and while it sometimes stunningly faithful to the source material (with its haunting Dave McKean covers and fantastical art from people like Sam Kieth and Mike Dringenberg), it actually bears a much stronger resemblance to an adaptation of a different iconic and groundbreaking DC Comics book that was published just a couple of years earlier: Watchmen.
Zack Snyder’s movie is also sometimes stunningly faithful, pulling dialogue and images straight from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ book and even retaining the Cold War anxieties of the original even though it came out decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall. But beyond the faithfulness, it seemed pretty easy to argue that Snyder didn’t really get it. The movie doesn’t really say anything the way the comic did; a lot of characters move around like puzzle pieces just trying to get into the spots the original book put them in; and (in one notable example) Snyder seems to completely miss that the politics of one character are supposed to be, you know, bad.
Sandman, thank the Endless, is not as dopey or mindless as anything that Zack Snyder has put his name on, but how much praise can you really give something for doing what is essentially the bare minimum in replicating an acclaimed work of art and transferring it into a different medium? Gaiman’s Sandman is really good. It would be pretty good if you rewrote it as a novel, or a video game, or—most relevant here—a TV show. But unless there’s a compelling reason for Sandman to be a novel or a video game or—again—a TV show, it’s hard not to just say “read the comic instead.”
Netflix’s Sandman doesn’t really have that compelling reason, which is to say that it’s…still pretty good? If you want to see Sandman, if you want to see the personification of an abstract concept naked and trapped in a basement for 100 years, if you want to see a madman with a magic ruby impose his will on the patrons of a 24-hour diner, or if you want to see a murderer with too many mouths, Netflix’s Sandman has all of that and more. But ticking off those boxes (good as those boxes are) is really all it has to offer.
The series, for those who have not read the books, centers on Morpheus, the Lord Of Dreams (often just called “Dream” for short) as he goes about rediscovering what makes humanity special and rebuilding his fantastical dream realm after being captured by a mean human—all while pursuing a rogue nightmare and learning how to be less of a dick.
Narratively, it hews very close to the first two volumes of the books (it starts with Dream’s imprisonment and ends at the “Cereal convention”), but at the risk of trying to be overly cute with it, the most important thing it loses in the transition is the dreaminess of all of it. Morpheus’ realm, the place where he creates dreams and which is supposed to be home to all sorts of incredible fantasy (as in the genre), creatures, and vistas, is typically depicted here as a wasteland with a lot of empty fields. Similarly, Dream’s ornate palace seen in establishing shots is one disappointingly dull room with flat stone walls.
Also, despite Gaiman’s talent for fairytales, the Sandman comics often skewed more toward horror than anything else, with an ever-present spookiness that isn’t really replicated here. A brief team-up with a certain British hellblazer is greatly sanitized in the show, not only in its depiction of a dilapidated apartment belonging to someone utterly consumed by their dreams but in that certain British hellblazer herself—who is confusingly stylish and charming for someone who everyone else seems to regard as a…chain-smoking, trench coat-wearing, Sting-lookalike dirtbag, which she is very much not in this incarnation. (At this point it’s worth noting that this show does not explicitly take place in any version of the DC Universe, despite a couple of superhero Easter eggs, so there’s no Martian Manhunter, Arkham Asylum, or Wesley Dodds Sandman.)
But both here and in the books, Sandman aggressively and explicitly turns into a horror story at one point thanks to the aforementioned madman with a ruby, and while the episode concerning the 24-hour diner in the show is faithful to what happens in the book, a few specific decisions from the writers completely sap it of the this-will-fuck-you-up horror of the original. That one was about robbing people of what makes them them and seeing how they react, sort of a cosmic-level terror, whereas this version uses the same events to make a point about free will that even Dream doesn’t buy when it’s presented to him.
Speaking of Dream, Tom Sturridge’s performance as Morpheus—with his wild black hair and perpetually pursed lips—is often very flat, but it’s clear that’s by design. He sees himself as being above every other living thing, and his tangible softening over the course of the story is one clever choice the show makes, even if his growth at the end of the season renders one stand-out episode irrelevant by seemingly undoing its emotional catharsis. (Speaking of that stand-out episode, which features Dream’s sister, the show makes the puzzling decision of combing two of the best stories from the books into one because they follow the same theme, so it’s one good episode instead of two great episodes.)
Gwendoline Christie’s disappointing Lucifer doesn’t get to do anything interesting (possibly to account for her CG wings needing to be there); Kirby Howell-Baptiste’s Death is great (she’s more somber and mature than she is in the comics, which helps some of her story’s emotional beats hit really hard); and Patton Oswalt’s talking Raven named Matthew is much less distracting than he could’ve been. Almost every episode pairs Dream up with a different character, especially early on, which wisely gives Sturridge an opportunity to play his Super Goth against more dynamic personalities, and though that manipulation is heavy-handed at times, Sturridge’s watery eyes do a lot of good work whenever someone works up the nerve to make some emotional plea to the Dream Lord.
The best performance in the show, though, comes from Boyd Holbrook as The Corinthian. The character is an escaped nightmare from Dream’s realm who was created to mirror the worst of humanity’s impulses, and he accepts his duties with a…big toothy grin. The Corinthian is supposed to be irredeemable, an unrepentant murderer who kills for fun, but his role in the story (and the amount of screen time he gets) requires him to be at least somewhat understandable, if not outright sympathetic.
This is damning with faint praise, but Netflix’s The Sandman, like Zack Snyder’s Watchmen, is one of those “this is as close as anyone could’ve hoped for” adaptations. It follows the comic closely and hits all of the good stuff from the comic, so it is at least a pretty good version of that story—because, again, that story on its own is good. But the transition to live-action doesn’t really reveal anything new about Morpheus or his siblings or their shifting perspectives on the lives of mortals or why we should watch, not read, this all unfold.
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While I don’t have more than a passing interest in this show the Indiewire article mentioning how much of the production is a love letter to Powell and Pressburger (lavish classic studio-era sets and practical effects) has piqued my curiosity a little.https://www.indiewire.com/2022/08/sandman-netflix-tv-adaptation-1234747695/
Wow. How you liking the smell of your own farts?
“but how much praise can you really give something for doing what is essentially the bare minimum in replicating an acclaimed work of art and transferring it into a different medium?”As if you know jack shit about that process. Christ, just making something SLIGHTLY above average requires lightning to strike perfectly over and over again.
We’re supposed to celebrate and laud “slightly above average” now? For what?
“Christ, just making something SLIGHTLY above average requires lightning to strike perfectly over and over again.”I could see this argument work for big feature films, but for a TV series?
For an adaption of a comic book? Yeah.
The MCU exists as a refutation of this argument.
no, it does not.
You don’t have to have any understanding of the process in order to critique the result. It doesn’t matter how hard it is to make something, all we need to know is does it work? Yes or (in this case, mostly) no.
Welcome the the world of TV critics
Ok, but I really am curious how someone who hasn’t read the comic would react to this, since presumably that’s going to be the majority of viewers.
I’ve not read the comics but I enjoyed the first two episodes I watched this morning quite a lot.
Have never read comics and planning to watch tonight as the trailers looked great. Will report back.
After binging more than half of it, I’m pretty comfortable (definitely more than with Dune) saying newbies should be able to follow it just fine.
Yeah I think my biggest issue is that they don’t trust the viewers enough and feel the need to overexplain too many things. Some of the dialogue and directional choices feel as clunky as a CBS procedural.
The overexplaining is brutal. Whenever it would’ve been more effective to let the viewer figure things out on their own, someone – or everyone – comes over all Basil Exposition. The pre-title preamble falls just short of having Dream come on with a flip chart explaining the mythology and setting out what you’re going to see in the first episode and why.
Like I said elsewhere, I think it’s partly the effect of having to get a whole lot of background info to the viewers in a very short time. I feel like it does get a lot better after the first few episodes, once the story gets rolling.
My issue is that it’s mostly exposition the audience would be better off without, not just unnecessary or clumsy.
I definitely had a moment in the middle of the season where I was like, oh jeebs, is the rest of this going to be so damn exposition heavy? (Thankfully, I feel like it dialed back after I made that observation.)
I didn’t read the comic. My wife did. She likes the show. I was bored to tears.
This is a big failing of the reviews here and has been for a long time. They all can’t help comparing whatever they are watching to “the source material” when usually less than 10% of the people watching the show have read it.
While I respect this opinion, I think I disagree with the sentiment. The whole appeal of adaptations is that they’re trying to distill into another medium what made the source material so special, which is why it’s so frustrating when so many shows or movies turn adaptations into generic anystories.
If I’m reading a review of an adaptation, I at least want to get a little bit of the reviewer’s opinion of how well they nail the adapting. I also think it’s refreshing when a reviewer knows their stuff and doesn’t presume their audience is ignorant of a pretty well-known series, as far as comic books go.
Totally agree implying it is redundant and unnecessary since it doesn’t add anything beyond the comics is not the right way to judge it. Saying, “read the comics instead” is not really something many TV viewers are ever going to do. There are comic readers and non-comic readers, and the first group is MUCH smaller than the latter.
Saying an adaptation could have been better if it stayed closer to the source material can be fair criticism. Saying what he says, that it shouldn’t have been made because the source material is better, isn’t. I’ve been recommending the comic for years, and I’m real glad that the people who can’t get into the comic, for a reason or another, have another way to discover this story, even if the way isn’t optimal.
In total fairness, being compared to the original source material is simply the risk you face when you engaging in the process of adaptation in the first place. And it’s a perfectly reasonable one; part of the point, after all, is to see what’s been kept, what’s being removed, and how effectively or closely the adaptation translates the original. Whether 90% of the viewing audience hasn’t seen it or not (which, well, I can’t help but doubt; Sandman isn’t exactly obscure, it’s got a pretty devoted following, and I can’t help but suspect that most of the audience will have at least some familiarity with it), it doesn’t really seem fair to suggest that reviewers should consider it solely or even largely as if it’s completely original and stand-alone; comparisons between an adaptation and the thing it’s adapting are both unavoidable and perfectly reasonable.
The show is clearly adapted to better fit the era and the medium, using the ability to pull elements from later comics earlier on, and rearranging away all the ancient DC universe elements. And thank goodness. Imagine watching something technically new that had a late 80’s/early 90’s era understanding of the world, paced in 15 minute chunks with random flashbacks and side stories… Instead, everything is smoothed out to make more sense, and feel more natural to the current audience.Reading the original is great. Watching the show is satisfying. They’re different experiences, and you may prefer one over the other, but that doesn’t mean only one is worthwhile.
I’ve read it but it was at least 10 years ago so I’m fine/oblivious to most changes to the source material
It fleshes out smaller characters like Johanna Constantine (and gives her John’s Aster club disaster background). It all works well for fans and non-fans alike. I dunno what they want here, like a 1:1 adaption ala Watchman? That woulda been confusing as fuckkk.
Having read the comics I was beyond excited– after seeing the trailers. It is probably my second-favorite comic series ever (after Watchmen) and I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed the first episode. Casting seems spot on, and the changes to the source material make sense (some of the more ‘out there’ concepts from the book—and that is saying A LOT— would take so much exposition to explain it wouldn’t be worth it) and the more Corinthian there is the better as far as I’m concerned. The art direction and effects are spectacular so far, as well. Really looking forward to watching the rest.
I’ve been vaguely familiar with the comics for some time, but finally checked out the Audible series. Really enjoying this take on it, and I hope to pick up the comics after watching this, big fan so far.
that would be me, then! i really love much of gaiman’s work & i attended a life event with him a couple of months ago which was priceless but i’ve never read any of the comics, they just don’t seem interesting to me. but i have netflix so i’ll probably watch the first couple of episodes at least. who knows, maybe they will be just what i need.
How interesting. I think Sandman is simply above everything else Gaiman has written and don’t think I’ve ever met a big fan before who wasn’t familiar with it.
[Raises hand] I’m a big fantasy/SF fan, and I’ve loved many of Gaiman’s books and short stories. Comics, though, is just a medium I’ve never really managed to get into.
And you’re not alone—after I made that comment, a few facebook and other social media friends have admitted the same thing. Which… sure I get. When I got into Sandman in Junior High in the early-mid 90s, I wasn’t a regular comic reader (aside from occasional issues from my older brother’s collection), but it did occur right at the same time I was discovering manga (the little we were starting to get in English at the time) and I admit comics as a storytelling form just really appeal to me and connect, even if for a long time it seemed like most easy to find comic’s content wise didn’t. But, I know people who just have a barrier when it comes to comics—especially long ones (I stupidly tried for years when I was younger to get my mom to read certain comics I thought would connect to her, but aside from Fun Home, I don’t think she ever was able to get more than a few pages in simply due to the format.)
What I have found strange is a couple of people who say they are big Gaiman fans *and* are big comic book readers, but have never been able to get into Sandman (one even admitted that he did however love Carey’s original Lucifer spin-off.)
Alright two episodes in, probably done for the night. Overall I like it. It’s a visually stunning show and the characters are all interesting. The story just seems a bit oddly paced where I don’t really feel the urge to keep binging. Quite oppositely, it feels like a show that would be better enjoyed if watched over a few nights.Not having a problem following the plot BTW.
For a minute they’ll wonder why everyone is dressed so weird, but then they’ll see it’s based on a comic, and they’ll say “Oh”
I decided to soldier through and made it through the sixth episode and man am I glad I did. Because now I think this show is fantastic. Whatever pacing issues the first two episodes had are gone, IMO, and each of the last four episodes were really good. I don’t mind that the stories sometimes feel a bit disconnected – I don’t think a show has to be heavily serialized to be good.I particularly liked the last two episodes quite a bit. The 24/7 diner episode was great – David Thewlis is basically a master at playing a creepy weirdo at this point and I thought the horror / tension was built up just fine. And then Kirby Howell-Baptiste was a spirited casting choice to play Death and having her take Dream along her day job was great and contrasted well to the second half of the episode with Dream meeting an immortal man every hundred years.The only minor gripe I have is I really don’t think Patton Oswalt was the right choice to voice the raven in this show. I like him as an actor, he’s just too recognizable of a voice and it kind of takes you out of the world whenever he talks.Will definitely finish the show tomorrow.
Yeah I think the first two episodes suffered from trying to convey a LOT of information to the viewer in a very compressed fashion, and there was a little of not trusting the audience to figure certain things out for themselves. Some of the dialogue was as clunky as anything on NCIS. (“As you know, my son Randall died in the war…”) But once it got its wheels under it, it just moved.
There definitely is some clunky stuff with exposition – as a new viewer, I didn’t mind it as much though as it’s all new info for me.Finished last four episodes. Still think the two episodes I mentioned were the best ones but generally enjoyed the last arc of the season. I do think they underdeveloped Lucienne (not sure if spelling right) so the subplot of her and Dream having a spat didn’t work as well as it might have if we saw a bit more of her earlier on.A little confused on what Desire’s plot was. Maybe it was meant to be intentionally vague, don’t remember them ever detailing the consequences of Dream killing someone related to him.Hopefully it gets a second season.
It’s kept similarly vague in the comics; Dream simply talks about spilling family blood “with all that entails”. I can let you know what those are if you don’t mind lore-related spoilers.
I’m a big fan of the comics and I also think it’s really great. Better than I expected. I’m kinda on board with your criticism of Patton Oswalt but I really am glad they retained the humor of the comics so it isn’t just gloom and doom. For all the goth atmospherics of Dream the comics really were very colorful, fabulous, multifaceted, etc. It wasn’t just moodiness. I hope the show keeps that tone. So far so good.
My husnand has never read the comics despite my badgering, and he’s loving this.
I’m quite excited for them, I think the show is good enough to motivate people to read the books for the full experience. I wish I could read The Sandman for the first time again! Jealous of all the new kids on the book, I hope y’all enjoy!
Have not read it or even know the origins of the story, but absolutely love the show.
as someone who hasn’t read it, it was all over the place in quality. dream and rose walker were TERRIBLY cast. dreams whacky haircuts and “i cut myself” wardrobe were all bad. the actress portraying rose was kinda of flat and rigid, but still likeable, but seemed like a CHILD playing a 21yo young woman.
SPOILERS:as soon as you start getting invested in dream’s plot, its dropped almost entirely to catch you up on the characters who are going to matter in the second half of the show, until you get to the diner episode, where its pretty clear that non of these characters matter and are definitely all doomed. instead of being invested in the villain showing off, i was annoyed at a bottle episode full of one-off characters while the villain sat there silently for the entire episode. what is supposed to be one of the best episodes had me skipping it out of boredom and predictability after 15min. all conflict was resolved entirely too easily. if you set up TWO villains and have them dropping bodies left and right, they should definitely NOT be easily defeated, and it definitely should take longer than 20 seconds.
This should have been a homerun for me, dark high fantasy stuff is my jam. I could barely get through episode one, it was one of the most boring things I’ve ever watched. The pace was slow, the characters weren’t memorable at all. I feel like you could have done the entire episode in 5-10 minutes instead of 50. Won’t be watching the rest.
I haven’t read the comics, but I enjoyed the show despite the first few episodes slogging hard. I almost quit the show, but then iut picked up with Death.
I have not read the comics at all and I’m halfway through episode 8 and really liking it so far.
Thats me. Stylishly made, imaginative but i didn’t really care about a single character in the show. Maybe the guy in the pub.
Just finished it all now and came here to post my own two cents so here’s what I posted over on io9:I’ve never read the comics, I am a fan of hot goth boy with the incredibly large jawline, and I do love a good immortal-character story, so I very much enjoyed this!I must say, the thing I loved the most, was just how well it did multiple stories one after the other in a single season.It wasn’t an overly-stretched-out-movie or anything like a Disney 6ish episode tv show, or Stranger Things season Netflix Event, instead if felt more like it was a book translated into another longform of storytelling (TV) and that was really refreshing and great!
– even though it was originally a comic not a book :OAs someone who’s seen all of TV’s Lucifer though, it did feel a bit funny thinking how this is meant to be the same version of the Morningstar character as that (though obviously told through wildly different impressions of said character), Gaiman did both of those right? I’m not wrong there?I couldn’t help myself imagining TV’s Lucifer saying the lines this Lucifer did from time to time, just as a mental comparison/what-if lol.I really liked this Lucifer too though!It still weirds me the F out that this is all meant to be in the DC universe, I feel this (and Lucifer TV) work so much better in versions of “our” world, at least in my head. Though Constantine is welcome in “our” world too 😀
Sometimes a story is so perfect for its own medium that it should really stay in that medium.
I honestly can’t wait for all the people who are about to be calling the show “woke” because they assume there’s no way a comic from one of the Big Two in the ‘90s would be stuffed this full of LGBT material and the show writers must have shoved it all in…and then discover that no, it really is all straight (so to speak) from the original comic.
Well, if they get to “A Game of You,” no matter what choice they make you’re guaranteed a rousing bit of “is this transphobic?” discourse which will give people a lot of space to say both true and untrue things about how far we’ve come.
Gaiman has said he regrets part of how he wrote that one, so with him being personally involved with the show, it’ll probably have some changes.
I think “A Game of You” fits into a similar space as ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’: maybe not the best kind of rep by today’s standards, but at the time it was some of the only media that showed trans/gay people at all, and was very important to people in those communities. There are older gays who’ll let you take ‘RHPS’ when you pry it from their cold dead hands, and I wouldn’t be surprised if “AGOY” has similar fans.
Listen, we’re gonna have to contend with all the actual Sandman fans upset about Lucien, Death, Unity, Johanna Constantine, etc., etc…
Hey I love the comic but after the disaster of the Paper Girls adaption I think this one is spot on even if the story is shuffled a bit and antagonists added for tension. Of course it’s clear that having Gaiman involved in any adaption of his work is key to quality now anyway. Good Omens was fantastic too.
I had heard positive things about Paper Girls and was thinking about watching it.
What were your issues with it? Adaptation things or things in the show proper?
Entirely adaption problems. It’s a fine low budgety YA show. But like Locke and Key, they just took the basic premise/character names and are doing their own thing entirely. For example, there are a lot of time travel shenanigans that happen in the comic that they cut entirely. Removing any of that “Ohhh, so that’s what that meant/that’s why that happened” revelations that happen in the comic. It’s obviously low budget and Paper Girls would need a better budget for a proper adaption.
I can get that dissapointment. I still might watch it since I don’t know the source material other than the general plot but making things too streamlined is one bummer of adaptations.
Say what you will about the MCU but I think that’s why I’m a big fan. It makes changes but it still manages to hit those weird comic book notes to me.
Unlike mid 90s early 2000s adaptations were it’s “this comic character was bitten by a radioactive cat and now has nine lives. This movie version is a cop with a cat necklace and can see in the dark sometimes.”
Wait… what disaster? Everyone has been raving about how good Paper Girls is (*note: bought every issue; haven’t decided whether to watch it as yet).
“Of course it’s clear that having Gaiman involved in any adaption of his
work is key to quality now anyway.”
It is? And yet American Gods got actively worse the more control over the three seasons that Gaiman had…
American Gods. Yeah. That’s my worry with The Sandman. I’ve watched maybe 6 so far and it’s great. But I liked the first season of American Gods too and that got shitty real fast.
One really weird part is that the story’s “present” is updated to 2021, and then seems to just hope we won’t notice that this would make Unity Kincaid around 120 years old.
Not just Unity, but Alex too. When the Sandman tells him he’s been imprisoned for a century, I was thinking WTH?Only saw the first episode, and it was slow, but I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt since all establishing episodes can be slow. I’ve been re-reading the TPBs in preparation for the show (plus Amazon had a sale on them). There are changes, but it could have been worse.
Having and Endless in your basement or [spoiler] being impregnated by one [/spoiler] extends your lifespan… is something I just made up and was not true in the comic, but it’s something.
I assumed we were vaguely meant to think that keeping Morpheus in his house for all that time, caused him to age slower. But, it certainly wasn’t clear.
I was going to reread the comic, but in the end decided not to, so I wouldn’t have the comparison too close in my mind.
I had the same issue with that, especially as it wasn’t even commented on at all. Maybe all that sleep plus what the sleepie sickness took away from her slowed down her aging . At least they made her Rose’s great-grandmother.
You suck, Sam.
I can hear your diaper scrunching as you type
I’m not a horror fan, which might explain why I felt the horror elements of the comic verged on nihilistic excess – especially the 24-hour diner scenario, which had me wondering what the point of it all was, aside from being extreme for the sake of extremity, shattering norms, etc. I think it’s smart to set this version within its own DC universe bubble, since the comic periodically raised the question of where the hell Batman and Superman were while all this monstrosity was going down. And I wonder whether the primary reason this version of the story didn’t find its own reason for being – over and above what you can find in the source material – is the fact that Gaiman was so much involved in its development? Maybe the author thought he got it right on the first try.
To be fair, “24 hours” was kind of an anomaly in Sandman and the comic never really relied on that degree of horror again. I think Gaiman was still tinkering and trying to find the story’s voice in those early issues (especially with the clunky narration) and despite some powerful moments, it didn’t really settle into a groove until the Doll’s House arc.
Starting off inspired by the more horror-based Swamp Thing was probably part of the reason for that.
Yep (and to be fair the back half of Moore’s Swamp Thing, which I admit I don’t like *quite* as much as the first half, already swayed away from horror). Of course Gaiman himself was meant to take over Swamp Thing from Rick Veitch around the time Sandman was launched (taking turns writhing is with Hellbazer’s Jamie Delano) but bowed out over the upset with DC censoring/cancelling Veitch’s “Jesus” storyline.
But yeah, Sandman was definitely initially sold as a horror comic, as this pre-release ad makes clear
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sandman_(comic_book)#/media/File:Sandmanadsmall.jpg
Pretty good theory. The tone of that story (and to a degree the Constantine story that…follows? Is right before it?) is so dark and disturbing that I almost stopped reading it after that arc. Glad I didn’t as the rest of the series has a much different tone to it. Still some horror elements, of course (can’t have Hell without them I suppose) but nothing else as horrific as that story, thank Goodness.
I think, because Sandman was one of the first comic book serials that became, if anything, bigger in graphic novel collections (and tellingly it was Doll’s House that was the first to be released in that format,) it’s easy for readers now to forget that the early issues, like with most serials in any format really, were a large amount about seeing what would stick. I assume pretty early on after that, Gaiman did start conceiving each story arc fully before it would be serialized, but a lot of the early stuff was obviously written by the seat of their pants.
Yeah, Gaiman has said it was more of a formal exercise than anything – 24 pages, 24 hours, even though it doesn’t translate to one hour per page. There’s never another character as nihilistic as John Dee again either. I remember being so shocked in the comic when he shoots the lady who gave him a lift and empathised with him all the way along. (A scene excised from the show, for the best in my opinion.)
The tension from having read the comic, really added to that scene in the episode though. But John Dee is a much better character on screen than on page. They really nailed the casting and writing here.
Yet here’s Barsanti saying “the Sandman comics often skewed more toward horror than anything else.” Which is true, I guess, if someone forced you to make a choice. But otherwise it’s a ridiculous statement.
FWIW I just finished the episode that adapted “24 Hours” and I think it’s much better than the original source material. It’s less “crazy extreme horror” and more psychological (while also fitting into the larger narrative).
I remember 24 hours being one of my favourites reading it, and after watching the episode I decided to dig out my big leatherbound volume one and revisit it – and my god did they ever improve upon the source material here. The episode far exceeds the comic, which horrors are juvenile and far too “edgy” in comparison.
It would be pretty good if you rewrote it as a novel
Just chiming in here to mention the 1996 short story collection Sandman: Book of Dreams. Some nice stuff by a lot of authors (Clive Barker, Lisa Goldstein, Gene Wolfe. Barbara Hambly, & John M. Ford to name some off the top of my head). The standout, for me is “Seven Nights in Slumberland” by the late, great George Alec Effinger, which features Little Nemo.Anyway – unless this series is completely awful, I’ll give it a try. I remember, before Snyder’s Watchmen came out, a bunch of set photos that made me think “wow, this is going to look just great!” And when the movie came out, the only part I really liked was the opening with the Dylan song, which.. you know, was not in the comics at all.
The standout, for me is “Seven Nights in Slumberland” by the late, great George Alec Effinger, which features Little Nemo.I just read the Marid Audran trilogy last year! I found it an interesting twist on the usual Cyberpunk genre conventions, as it places its story in the Muslim/Arabic world*, with the so-called “Western” world of US, Russia, and Europe having lost a lot of their power through internal squabbling and balkanization (I don’t recall if the series ever goes into China and Japan).Futher down this rabbithole: The minimal Wiki research I did to recall some of the details of the trilogy unearthed a related property I was unaware of: Circuit’s Edge, a video game developed by Westwood Associates and Published by Infocom (in their autumn years). The story is set in between When Gravity Fails and A Fire in the Sun. And, best of all, it’s on Internet Archive!*I’m unsure of how well it captures that mileau or the hypothetical (it is set in the future, after all) lifestyles of its inhabitants. Or the one trans character, for that matter. None of it raised any red flags for me, but I can’t really speak with authority.
Okay – that video game (though I am not into video games) is something I will check out. Thanks!Effinger was able to transfer/transform his home in New Orleans’ French Quarter to the futuristic Budayeen smoothly – and I really like that he pretty much went with the attitude of “well, in this future, the West had its chance to be top dog, now it’s the East’s (again).”People talk a lot about what s-f should be adapted into a series, and there’ve been some very successful ones (The Expanse springs to mind). I would love a Marid Audran series. It’s got cyberpunk, Muslim, New Orleans-esque and noir detective elements AND it’s often cynically funny. I do get that Effinger never was a sales powerhouse in s-f publishing, and he’s gone now, so there’s not a ton of current interest. But honestly when I reread the books I just think – this series would write itself..
Watching at 1.25 speed significantly improves the experience IMO
I admit I know nothing about the comic, but this looked pretty decent so I’ll give it a try. I’m fine with generic as long as it’s good, too.But that guy in what I assume is the main role looks like Robert Pattinson playing Stuart Townsend playing the vampire Lestat—I guess that’s faithful to the source material?Also I didn’t know Boyd Holbrook was in it. I always like him—Logan, The Predator…okay, that might be it, but I’m still feeling pro-Boyd.
It very, very much is faithful (although the show didn’t do the effect the comic did with Morpheus’s eyes, presumably for budget/makeup reasons):
It does it once, in the first episode.But not throughout, the way the comic did. I’ve only seen the first episode, but I have to say that for live-action, that choice was the right one.
According to Gaiman, they tried the snow-white skin, totally black eyes, and giant hair, and it didn’t really work in live action.I wish they’d at used the all-black eyes more, though. Along with wishing there hadn’t been first person narration throughout the first episode. Leaving viewers new to the story as scared of Dream as the antagonists were until he gets out and we “meet” him would’ve been a strong move, I think.
Gaiman said they tried it with the eyes but they felt like it ended up really distracting from Sturridge’s performance
Apparently, Gaiman has stated that it doing the eyes that way didn’t look right and it robbed Sturridge of his ability to use his eyes to act.
I think he just looks like somebody combed Robert Smith’s hair.
Robert Pattinson playing Stuart Townsend playing the vampire LestatMan, that description is spot on. And helps explain why he looks so familiar despite me having seen literally none of his other work.
The comic book version is sometimes said to be Peter Murphy with Robert Smith’s hair, but there’s a not-coincidental resemblance to Neil Gaiman ca. 1989 as well.
Its not generic, barsanti doesnt know what the fuck hes talking about.
I believe he was inspired as an amalgamation of a young Neil Gaiman, Robert Smith, and Peter Murphy of Bauhaus. And likely any other 80s goth icons that come to mind. And yeah, no doubt also a bit of contemporary Twilight influence.
The thing to remember is that Dream is the original Sad Boi, so looking like a teenage Goth trying desperately to be taken seriously so his mum knows it’s not a phase is entirely appropriate.
As a big fan of the comics I don’t get where the reviewer is coming from–I thought it was great. Granted, I’ve only watched the first episode, maybe it slides downhill, but the first episode was close to perfect in terms of how I imagined an adaptation. The casting is spot-on for Dream, and whoever the DP is, they shoot him in ways that make him look exactly like the comic, it’s unreal.
After watching the first episode, I would say that the biggest difference between the comic and the show is that the show treats the audience like idiots, feeling the need to do exposition dumps instead of letting the viewer absorb the story naturally.a few examples would be the unnecessary intro sequence, and the Corinthian coming to Burgess to explain the background of the Endless.
it seemed pretty easy to argue that Snyder didn’t really get itNot to defend Snyder’s Watchmen, particularly, which I thought was… fine, except for not being the incredible experience of the original comic (honestly, I didn’t expect it to be), or the new Sandman adaptation which I’m still really looking forward to — but it’s always easy to argue that something or someone doesn’t “get it,” because that’s nearly meaningless, impossible to prove or deny.
Good art (like Moore’s Watchmen, or Gaiman’s Sandman) is a lot richer and more complex than something you can just boil down into a bullet point list or thesis. Art is also a relationship between creator and the person who experiences that art, or “subjective.” Accordingly, our understanding of art ought not be the same. Further, adaptations also reflect the artist doing the adapting; they speak in their own voice, with their own vision, as they should.So it bugs me when people talk about “getting” art or not — which I find insipid, reductive, gatekeeping, and hostile to how art actually functions… and frankly, if I was going to let anyone tell me who “gets it” and who doesn’t, Sam Barsanti would be near last on that list.
I understand your point here, I promise I do, but I think it can be easily argued with Watchmen in that they didn’t have powers in the series —which was the entire point (obviously aside from Dr Manhattan, and I’m not sure you can argue those were ‘powers’ so much as a change to his state of being)—yet they’re punching through marble in the very first sequence. The whole ‘what sort of state of mind do you have to be in to dress up and fight crime while seemingly being no different from anyone else, otherwise’ didn’t really matter in Snyder’s version.Totally agree with good art being richer than bullet points, but that was a pretty major bullet point for Snyder to have missed. That being said I didn’t hate the movie—it actually looks really good and some of the performances were really good (particularly Haley as Rorschach).I’ve only watched the first episode of Sandman this morning before work. I really enjoyed it even with the changes, and I have to say they NAIL the look (and the feel, for the most part) of the series. The final credits are worth watching at least once as they’re pretty cool, too, and feel like an homage to the amazing covers from the comic series.
Also with Watchmen the idea of Dr Manhattan being the one blamed for the attacks doesn’t make sense. The whole idea of the squid is that it gives the world an outside enemy to unit against. An alien threat of unknown origin we have to be ready for. Dr Manhattan is an American man who is transformed and is lauded as the American super man and effectively used as a unique wmd to threaten the world with. The idea that countries with an adversarial relationship with America in the 80s would’ve just let them off the hook just because New York was one of the cities attacked seems naive, especially considering Manhattan immediately leaves Earth. There’d 100% be politicking and blame being thrown around and leaders asking America what they did to Dr Manhattan that made him go off the deep end and kill their citizens. Snyder undermined Ozymandias’ whole plan because he didn’t have the guts to do the squid, which 100% worked in the tv show.
The reason they feel like an homage to the covers is because Dave McKean, the original cover artist, came back to do the credits for the show.
You know I read that not too long after this article was posted–apparently he was ‘semi-retired’ but agreed to come back to put together the credits as he loved the source material so much.
Both Moore and Gaiman rely heavily on a ton of nigh-unfilmable metatextual material, too. Half of “Watchmen” was consumed with a comic-within-the-comic that was metaphorical, and excerpts from books-within-the-comics that fleshed out character backstories. “Sandman” is less overt that way, but there’s always a TON of stuff that interrelates with a wealth of classic literature, half-forgotten DC comics series, old testament mysticism, and the like.
Comics like that will by their nature have to be pared down to the bare essence to be a coherent story. Otherwise something like Sandman would be 75 episodes of backstory before we even got to issue 1. It’s just sort of the nature of changing the storytelling medium.
I still wish I could read the John Peters-helmed script from the 90’s. Gaiman deadpanning “foolish mortals, your puny weapons are no match for the king of dreams” during a Q&A is still one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard.
At least one of the script revisions from the John Peters-produced era is VERY easy to find online (I’ve read two different drafts—one was terrible, the other, and I think both had that “puny” line, was not all that bad if one sees it as an attempt to make a mid 90s Summer blockbuster adaptation of Sandman, which I gather is what the goal was.)
I’ve always felt that there is no human creation more completely subjective than art. It exists because someone’s soul was moved to make it, but it only really becomes art when someone else’s soul was moved and their mind was opened by taking it in.If a velvet Elvis painting moves your soul and makes you see the world differently, then it’s art for you, even if it’s art for no one else in the world. So while it’s perfectly reasonable to write or talk about what worked for you and what didn’t in any given piece, is there really need to try to bully anyone else over whether they “get” your velvet Elvis?
I believe the preferred term is “Velvis”.
I mean, Sam Barsanti’s entire history of articles in AV Club is full of people calling out the fact that Barsanti never quite gets it–it being whatever the subject of the article is–so I guess Barsanti would know what it feels like.
Seems legit.
The real problem with Watchmen was the opening sequence was absolutely brilliant and everything that followed wasn’t.
Jackie Earle Haley’s performance tho
Absolutely agree with the larger point about people not “getting” art as weak criticism, and with the idea that Barsanti’s day job as Newswire scold has damaged his reputation as a critic (weirdly, I don’t think that same stink has adhered to Hughes’ critical pieces). But in this case, I’ll agree with his assessment of Snyder’s understanding of Watchmen. It’s a weird movie because it moves from Snyder slavishly recreating specific comic book panels as moving images on the big screen, and then doing stuff that contradicts the comics fairly directly. Every character in the story other than Jon is supposed to be a human being with no special powers, but Snyder can’t help himself from directing Dan and Laurie’s fights as if they have super-strength, and at the end of the film, Ozymandias looks more like the Flash than Ezra Miller ever has. Dan and Laurie in the comics are both middle aged and each to some extent gone to seed, but Laurie’s just Malin Ackerman in the movie and Patrick Wilson’s fat suit disappears at some point, when Nite Owl being fat becomes inconvenient to Snyder’s fetishized action scenes. It’s like someone producing a super-faithful version of the Lord of the Rings…just with a pro-industrialization theme. It’s either a willful subversion, or someone not “getting” a major point of the original.
I don’t think Laurie was supposed to be middle-aged? If anything, the comic makes a point of her being a younger replacement for Jon’s first wife.
Doing the math, she’s supposed to be in her mid or late 30s during the story’s present day. However, she’s definitely drawn as a mature woman by Gibbons—still very attractive, but not model-thin or gymnast-fit, if that makes sense. Even at the age of 30, Ackerman’s more convincing as teenage Laurie than older Laurie.
IMO, Watchmen is one of those things that was extremely innovative for its time but not particularly timeless. A lot of the ideas and innovations (meta commentary on supes, meticulous formalism and structuring, etc.) have been developed further and improved since then. The plot is fine but that’s not what made Watchmen important. What made it important was the evolutionary leap in comics. Even then one could argue that it wasn’t an evolutionary leap in comics in general but of superhero comics in particular. Moore was making innovative editorial points about comics and superhero comics that needed saying at the time and have since been well absorbed into comics writing, all Western narratives, etc. So really it was of its time. Sandman however is a timeless masterpiece that was more concerned with larger issues like transformation, story telling, etc.
I think there’s a difference between having a slightly different interpretation of a thing’s meaning and getting it 100% wrong. Snyder really couldn’t let go of the idea that you’re supposed in at least some sense to admire these vigilantes, which is the opposite of any concievable point Watchmen was trying to make. For me the big ‘tell’ was that he left out the ordinary human gracenotes. The squabbling couple, the news vendor etc. – obviously he thinks they’re filler or something, rather than an unfavourable comparison of ordinary, everyday human life to the twisted ‘heroism’ of the main characters. Although trying to make the owlship sex scene a moment of triumph, rather than one of sad absurdity (Dan can only perform sexually if he’s dressed up as an owl and beaten up some muggers – I don’t think we’re meant to read this as particularly healthy) was another sign.
I think the news vendor appears in the extended cut, but just more proof that it should have been a miniseries (you know, like HBO’s Watchmen).I thought the biggest whiff was depicting Ozy as a mustache twirling Bond villain from the start. The whole point is he thinks his carnage is a hero’s plan to stop dooms day. But Zack Snyder isn’t one for nuance.
Watched the first 2 EPs this morning, and it’s pretty spectacular. Using the letter grade scale, an A- so far (just a few very tiny dings …)I was very sceptical, I’m someone who bought the original comic as it was released, who has loved just about everything Gaiman has done – and have always been apprehensive about any of his comics/stories/novels not translating well to another medium. I think they got this perfect, even with the changes – at least through 2 episodes 🙂
Right there with you in having bought the originals as they were released (and the collections over the years—finally received the “Absolute” editions as a gift a few years ago). I re-read the series from start to finish at least once a year (the originals, I don’t re-visit the things that have been released since quite as often). I’ve only watched the first episode of this so far, but I was very impressed with it, and am looking forward to the rest.
Mark Maron interviewed Gaiman recently…I think it just was released this week, and it’s a great listen. Gaiman explains how the show came about and how he only agreed to it if he could be the show runner. It’s not that he had a huge desire to be the show runner, but it was the only way he could insure that the finished product was fully within his control, and would represent his vision. He also made some interesting points about casting. The first question he and the casting director asked themselves was “Is there any reason this character has to be white and is there any reason he has to be male?” Not for some ‘woke’, inclusion reason, but for the simple fact that if the answer to those questions is No, then you have MANY more actors to choose from, and you can get the best person for the role regardless if they match the gender or ethnicity of the comic book character.
He’s written pretty extensively about endless (no pun intended) meetings with studios and reading dozens of terrible scripts in his decades long effort to get this adapted to a live action format so I’m both not surprised that he’d only agree to do it if he were in charge and also pretty excited that he seems happy with the finished product.
Excellent, thanks for the heads up! WTF is in my “check on occasion” podcast rotation, I hadn’t seen the Gaiman EP yet (I see it now, from Aug 1). It’s been a while since I revisited the comics – though the 14 year old daughter is reading my copy of the first hardback compilation 😀 – but the characters fell right into how I remember them, because for me, they’re more personality, a “feel”, and abstract concept than some rigid gender and ethnicity.
He’s not the show runner though (and in an interview last week here in Canada on CBC’s Q radio show, he made that pretty clear.) He’s heavily involved, but has said that, I think after Good Omens, he decided this was way too complex for him to be showrunner. (And given that as he gained more power in that capacity at American Gods, the show got worse, this might be good?) Allan Heinberg is the showrunner. However, Gaiman has a lot more direct creative control than is typical, and that was one of his demands, but he’s not the show runner 😉
I’m 99% sure he referred to himself as the show runner on WTF. I was going to check the transcript, but it hasn’t been put up on the site yet. It could be I’m remembering it from the bit of the interview when they were discussing Good Omens.
That’s fair, I still need to hear the interview. But on the CBC release at least he seemed to want to make it pretty clear he wasn’t the show runner (though he did say he, David S. Goyer and Allan Heinberg, who he calls the show runner, are in charge.)
God forbid someone tries to be inclusive
I didn’t mean for it to sound like I am against inclusion…quite the opposite. I actually never use the term woke except when discussing how meatheads react when they complain about things like that, such as all the Star Wars meatheads who lost their collective shit over a black stormtrooper.
I’m past my edit duration, so replying to my original post, but now 4 EPs in, and my post above is still right on. The wife loves it too, she read a few issues here and there, and knows the general story, but I’d say she’s closer to someone not familiar with the source than someone very intimate with it (like myself).
I’m also having a chuckle at blaming “CGI wings” for Lucifer’s lack of role, when set photos show that there were actual wings on the costume.
It’s a little of both. There’s a Vanity Fair video where Gaiman gives commentary on the final trailer. He says there that they’re CG-enhanced, practical wings.
So, the gist of this review is that it’s too faithful to the source material? Not that it does a bad job of translating the story into live action, only that you don’t see the point of adapting it into live action at all? Okay? That’s… a novel approach to a review, I guess. I think it’s phenomenal. Exactly what I wanted it to be. I didn’t want them to change a ton of things that work perfectly well about the story just to differentiate itself from the source material. Usually the complaints are the exact opposite. This is a real ‘you can’t win either way’ kind of situation you’ve got going on here.
I think the gist of the review is that it faithfully dramatizes the stuff that happens, but doesn’t really nail the vibe of the comics, which was what I was kinda worried about with the series, seeing some of the screenshots that were released. Still interested in watching it though.
I feel like “vibe” is just too subjective, even for a review. I’m a longtime fan of the comics and I think it totally nails the vibe/tone/spirit of the story. I’d be pretty surprised if most of us aren’t really happy with the result. I was worried before seeing it too, but it allayed my concerns very quickly. And I say this as someone who has been pretty consistently disappointed by Gaiman adaptations up till this point. Even the ones that people largely liked, I’ve found to have made the translation to screen in too diminished a form. I think you’ll probably like it.
I’m genuinely surprised how anyone can say that this show nails the Sandman vibe. Don’t get me wrong I don’t hate it at all, and so far am quite content with the show. But it can’t be denied that it’s much more dark in style, much more noir. What I loved about the comics is how technicolour, wild and fantastical they can get. Very much like a fairytale, even the darker and more horrifying parts. Morpheus always made a very dramatic contrast (regularly to the point of comedy, as characters now and again remark upon) against that dreaminess, that fairytale brightness. So far I’m three episodes in and while I’m enjoying it, I’m already kind of a little disappointed in how Hell is probably going to look. His encounter with the Fates threw me off, that was not even remotely as vibrant as I had hoped it would be.
I like the series (two episodes in) a lot for the most part. But I admit, I agree with that—the tone isn’t, for me, really quite captured and is a bit flat. Of course that was always going to be the hardest part to capture. I felt that Variety’s review, in general, meshed with my own takeaway (so far,) especially this:
“It’s always asking a lot for an onscreen adaptation of a comic to match
its inspiration, but Netflix’s version rarely captures the same visual
spirit outside of, perhaps, “24/7,” directed by Jamie Childs. Otherwise,
Dream and his cohorts too often get lost in dingy darkness or wide,
muddy CGI landscapes that ring too false to be truly engrossing. Even
Lucifer’s black feathered wings can’t match the majesty of the ones
rendered in pen and paper with veins and the stretched leather of
unfathomable age. That “The Sandman” ends up looking a whole lot like
Netflix’s adaptations of “Locke and Key” or “Shadow and Bone” is
remarkable, considering how wildly different Gaiman’s self-consciously
gritty comic is from those YA fantasy novels.”
https://variety.com/2022/tv/reviews/the-sandman-review-netflix-neil-gaiman-1235333550/
I found the first episode hard to get through. Watching at 1.25 speed has made the experience more enjoyable though.
I thought the “glossiness” of the adaptation was particularly noticeable in the third, Constantine-focused, episode. Britain as seen through John Constantine in that era was grungy, greasy, low-rent, working class. Mad Hettie fit right in.Here, Johanna Constantine’s London is pristine, and so is she. Even Hettie seems more like a kooky friend than a mentally unwell unhoused person who also happens to be hundreds of years old and know the secrets of the universe. Constantine isn’t seen smoking or drinking, and she pays her taxi by tapping her debit card, in her own name. (Somehow that little detail really doesn’t seem right to me.)
Also, the Newcastle Incident is heavily toned down, and looks more like a “previously on” from Doctor Who than a really fucked-up thing that Constantine was significantly to blame for and still feels intense guilt over and that drove him/her temporarily insane.It’s all rather too Netflix-sanitized for me. Otherwise I like it a lot.
I do also miss the music cues that were such a big part of that issue, though of course I understand that the licensing costs would be prohibitive.
Yes, now that I’m nearly done the series, I completely agree that episode three is where they really really should have tried harder to make it gritty. I got in an idiotic Twitter argument when I commented on someone’s tweet that I was disappointed that Joanna seemed, well, so *put together*. OK, they went on about how messy her apartment was (but it didn’t even look all that messy,) but I wanted much more messiness about her in general. The person arguing with me said I clearly didn’t know Joanna Constantine from the comics, and how she was always seemed to be much more held together than John—but this isn’t meant to be the Joanna Constantine from the past, but (at least as I read it) a different Joanna Constantine who is meant to be a John replacement. Frankly, she made me think more of a grown up Hermione from Harry Potter or something (couldn’t she have at least had a flask or some other cliche drunk symbol? Or acted genuinely afraid like John did in this part of the comic?) All the locations and the episode in general just felt way too, well, as you say, glossy. (There are other instances like this, without major spoilers—like the violinist Death comes to who in the comic from what I recall lived in a kinda squalid garret, and here had a beautiful apartment.
I think there are two factors that contribute to this:On the one hand, it seems like they’ve tried to even out the tone a bit. The comic, especially in this early run, would shift tremendously in style and tone from issue to issue. Partly that was part of the design, with each issue of the first arc a pastiche of a different horror style. Partly it was because Gaiman was still finding his voice, and throwing lots of stuff at the wall to see what would stick. And partly it was because of editorial edicts and attempts to tie it into the DC universe.The Netflix show smooths things out, omitting things that were always an awkward fit (like Justice League cameos), and bringing everything else more closely in line with the dominant tone. So the grittiest parts get less gritty, the most whimsical parts less whimsical, etc.Then on the other, they’ve just made things less gritty throughout. I think that’s in part because in the late ‘80–early ‘90s, The Sandman aligned itself very closely with a bunch of alternative sub-cultures: punk, goth, gay, lesbian, transgender/non-binary, BDSM, radical feminism… And since those things were in (sometimes aggressive) opposition to the establishment, it gave the comics a bit of an edge. Now that most of them are widely accepted in mainstream liberal culture, it would be awkward and regressive to try to present them as edgy. (Not that members of many of those groups don’t still face prejudice and harrassment, but they’re not so underground and anti-establishment any longer.)
But also, there’s a bit of nihilistic nastiness in Gaiman’s writing that cuts the overall humanist sweetness, and I find that’s largely missing here. In “24 Hours,” the most shocking thing isn’t really the violence, but the revelation of the evil in each of the characters, which Bette’s rose-colored glasses has hidden from her: Marsh raped her son in prison, Judy is abusive, and so on. The shocking thing is that John Dee is right: people are awful. The Netflix adaptation, “24/7,” tones down the victims’ sins considerably, so that they become forgivable, and thereby puts Dee in the wrong: this is not who they “really” are. And you see a similar tendency throughout the show.
Without that edginess and that nastiness, I don’t think you could have the visual grit and occasional squalor of the comic. It would just feel superficial and fake. So instead we get a gentler, less challenging, and glossier Sandman.I would have preferred it if they made it slightly less comfortable, if it occasionally made for queasy viewing. But still, I think it’s a fantastic adaptation.
“But I admit, I agree with that—the tone isn’t, for me, really quite captured and is a bit flat.”I’m not sure if it’s possible to recreate the tone of the comic where very specific comic book things contributed heavily to the tone. You’re not going to be to recreate on screen, for example, different colored word balloons for Delirium. Or Dream’s otherwordly paleness and thinness. Or the intentional Warner Brother-like cartoony-ness of Cain killing Abel over and over again. It’s just too much to ask.
I disagree. You’re totally right that you can’t get everything right, little things that are unique to the comic medium, but it was absolutely in their ability to not make everything around Dream as dark and serious as he was. Cain and Abel are pretty on point in that regard actually, but even they just look so desaturated and dark even if their behaviour as close to the original. Creating that look was a choice, and I do think they could’ve made another choice. Like, why was everything surrounding the Fates dark, dour and spooky? They could’ve done something different there, something to contrast them against Dream buuut nope.
Fair point. I agree that it was a bit too dark. I was pleasantly surprised with Matthew, Cain, Abel and other humorous aspects. But still too dark.
It absolutely would be hard to do that in a live action series. Still, I guess even the fantasy settings were a bit more distinctively *weird* or stylized? As the Variety critic I quoted says, they felt a bit too “typical Netflix fantasy adaptation”. (And again, I genuinely am largely pleased with the show.)
I have to question a complaint about the adaptation not capturing the “vibe” when they also refer the source as a “horror comic.” Sure, it had horror elements, but to describe the entire run as a “horror comic” seems as reductive as, say, calling Watchmen a “superhero team comic.”
The point of an adaptation is to do or say something different from whatever you’re adapting. Otherwise, you’re not “adapting” anything.
Through three episodes, unless the series implodes over the next 7 episodes, I couldn’t disagree with this review more. The Sandman is, so far, one of the best comic adaptions ever produced to a series.
So, in short, your big criticism of the adaptation… is that it’s an adaptation?
This is honestly a laughably bad take with as involved as Neil is. It didn’t get it? I think that was you, Barsanti. Comparing to Watchmen would be accurate had you said “the series” since that was fantastic and totally got it
After binging 5 episodes I think it’s a solid A-, and that’s coming from a huge fan of the graphic novels and spin offs. Probably as good an adaptation as I could ask for, and so far it’s exceeding my expectations.Once again, Barsanti writes a review as if he already had his mind set before watching the show. Haters gonna hate.
Doesn’t reveal anything new? What are you stoned? It isn’t supposed to be new stories it is supposed to be a translation to the screan and it does that so well. Trying to compair it to Watchmen is pedestrian and lazy. Watchmen would have benefitted by the episodic treatment. It is ridiculous to compare the two as they are different mediums.
As for your “dreaminess” comment about the Dreaming, a couple quick points. 1) The Dreaming is not in the books as often as you seem to remember it being
2) The “wasteland” depiction is because Deam has been gone for 100 years and he could not tend to his realm. What do you want? For the Dreaming to be perfect without its beating heart? It is the realm of the dream lord and if the lord is gone the realm falls to ruin.
So far I’m just disappointed they couldn’t get the actors from Lucifer. If Tom Ellis had shown up I think I would have peed my pants a little.
Sure, but Tom Ellis’ take on Lucifer was pretty different from the Sandman version of the character.
Perhaps, and while he could have handled it extremely well I was beyond satisfied with Christie. I was more disappointed Lesley-Ann Brandt wasn’t Mazikeen.
I think Christie is so amazing in this. I can’t imagine another actor capturing Lucifer so well.
From what I read, Gaiman really tried to have Ellis play Lucifer but they realized that he really wasn’t a good fit for the tone they were going for.
Sounds like the Sandman season 2-3 and Joker 2 cancellation announcements are being sent out to press tonight. MCU isn’t doing super hot but at least it’s putting out material.
while it sometimes stunningly faithful —> while (it’s?) sometimes stunningly faithfulLord Of Dreams —> Lord of Dreamshews very close —> hews very closelycombing two of the best stories —> combining two of the best storiescould’ve —> just notransition to live-action —> transition to live action
what’s grammatically or stylistically incorrect about “could’ve?”
It’s tacky
All contractions or just that one?
Not sure how anything about this show qualifies as “generic”. Are you sure you’re not just, you know, really jaded?
Well I said I’d just watch the first episode or two. It’s now 2 in the morning and I just blew through the entire season.I’m
stunned. I can’t imagine anyone doing a better job adapting Sandman
than this. I wouldn’t have believed it possible, honestly. I don’t think
I’ve been this impressed, seen an adaptation that got it this right,
making changes that enhanced the story while at the same time getting
the spirit of the original correct, since the Lord of the Rings films.
Never thought I’d see it in my lifetime.
I wonder
if Sam has ever had the joy of hearing dialogue he knows by heart from
another medium being spoken out loud by actors who really know what
they’re doing. I’ve imagined John Dee asking “Are you going to kill me?”
and Dream answering “I could. Perhaps I will.” in my head hundreds of
times. Seeing it play out in an authentic, authoritative context was
absolutely breathtaking.Such great acting, so many
talented performers. Vivienne Acheampong as a refreshingly developed
Lucienne, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, largely wasted on Killing Eve, here
perfectly finds the balance between Death’s well-known cheery
disposition and her less-noted gravitas, Vanesu Samunyai giving us a
great, hurt, brave Rose Walker, Sarah Niles as Rosemary, looking in her
rear view mirror as her blood slowly freezes, Thewlis giving possibly
his best performance since Naked, on and on. And I know I’ve seen the
guy who played Nimrod before, but I can’t find his name anywhere.And
so much promise for the future. The glee I felt when we met Will
Shaxberd, or when I realized Lady Johanna Constantine’s appearance means
we’ll get the Thermidor arc. Martin Tenbones. The little non-mention of
Thessaly in episode 3. We can only hope Netflix doesn’t implode before
we get to see the Season of Mists arc, at least.Of
course, with an adaption like this you can’t include every classic
moment. I was a little sad we didn’t get to see the final fate of
Ruthven Sykes (why include him at all in that case?) or hear Dream say
“There is much here I do not understand,” etc. Everyone is gonna have
their little moments that they miss. But the only thing I really took
issue with was the choice to have Lucifer battle Dream in Choronzon’s
stead. I completely believed, in the comic book, that some sleazy demon
would be stumped by Dream’s wits; but it seemed to stretch credibility
that the Morningstar would be so easily bested.
“But the only thing I really took issue with was the choice to have Lucifer battle Dream in Choronzon’s stead. I completely believed, in the comic book, that some sleazy demon would be stumped by Dream’s wits; but it seemed to stretch credibility that the Morningstar would be so easily bested.”
Ah, that was one of the things I liked. In the comics, Lucifer’s animosity always kind of seemed to come out of nowhere, which I was fine with because it’s Lucifer and all. But this change makes it more personal, makes Lucifer being pissed at Morpheus make more sense. In my opinion.
The only change that really grated on me is where they went with Lyta. Knowing what’s happening with the baby in the future (if Netflix does a 180 on how they usually operate, and make more seasons), NOT having that be “the child that gestated for so long in dreams” is…. disappointing.
I’ll get over it, though. Because this was so beautiful.
I was originally surprised when Choronzon had Lucifer as his champion but then it hit me. You don’t hire Gwendoline Christie and then have her just stand in the background during a scene like that.
A line I was hoping for that got cut was, “You’ll take my child over my dead body, you spooky bastard. Over my dead body.” That, and the preceding, “You call that nothing?” “Exactly nothing” exchange.
I think that line comes later, when Dream visits Daniel and Lyta after Daniel is born. But I am very curious as to how Lyta and Rose having such a close friendship will change things.I really wanted to hear “And do you know what we’re going to do now, Phillip? We’re going to take turns.”
But beyond the faithfulness, it seemed pretty easy to argue that Snyder didn’t really get it.I know this criticism of Watchmen gets brought out a lot but it always boils down to two things, neither of which I agree with, so I’m just gonna use this as a place to get them out there [WATCHMEN SPOILERS]:1. Giving the heroes superpowers.2. Glorifying Rorschach (which I’m guess is what the ‘the politics of one character are supposed to be, you know, bad.’)To point one:
While it’s been a long time since I read Watchmen, I did read it multiple times and I am pretty sure that there’s no
explicit textual evidence that they don’t have some superhuman levels of
physical strength/agility/reflexes etc. In fact, there is explicit
evidence to the contrary in Ozymandias, who does exhibit those
traits (as well as superhuman intelligence, it’s implied) and to me this
opens the door for the other heroes to have lesser/less well-honed
versions of those abilities.
Second – the plot of the
graphic novel involves the kidnapping of various telepaths/psychics, who
form a part of the villain’s plot. In a world where these types of
people exist, why not people with superhuman strength etc?Third
– it actually makes Watchmen make less sense (to me, at least) if the
heroes don’t have any sort of physical advantage. I can buy that
Nite-Owl’s gadgets protect him, to an extent, but how are the other
heroes e.g. the Jupiters, Rorschach, etc. actually meant to do the
work of heroing when they’re just regular people? Why is it a big deal that America sends them to Vietnam in-costume if they’re just a bunch of weirdos? Why even allow them to exist at all, and make special legislative changes permitting their existence as long as they work for the government, if they’re not special at all?
And
fourth – even if I’m wrong about all this or I’ve forgotten some key
detail of the novel (or Alan Moore’s said something that contradicts it)
I’m generally fine with Snyder heightening the action a bit in this
case, if only for the sake of providing some action so the film could
get financed.
The way I view it is that Watchmen (the film, if not the novel) is set in a
world where the ceiling for human physical prowess is higher than our
world (reaching around Captain-America levels) and that the heroes, due to being obsessive/damaged people/fascists, are among the few
people compelled to reach those heights. I don’t find it particularly
hard to overlook what they do in the film, especially when all it is is punching hard/jumping a bit higher etc.
2. Again, I might be wrong, but I am pretty sure that nothing Rorschach does in the film is any different, or is portrayed noticeably differently, from what he does in the novel. The one exception is the way in which he kills the child rapist in his backstory, which is actually less sadistic than the novel (although it had also become overused in the movies by the time Watchmen came out).Beyond all that, the only other real change Snyder made was making Dr. Manhattan the centerpiece
of Ozy’s plan, rather than the big alien thing. And, to me, that’s
actually a pretty smart change that streamlines the narrative without
destroying the message, and honestly is probably better than the novel’s version.To be clear: this movie still has flaws. There’s the godawful use of ‘Hallelujah’ on the sex scene; it telegraphs Ozymandias as the villains, and there are times when Snyder genuinely does take too much glee in the violence. Snyder’s whole aesthetic is also one I’m not generally a fan of, and it’s layered all over this one. But I think this one gets unfairly criticized because view it through that aesthetic and then can’t separate it from Snyder’s other work, which absolutely does glorify fascism and objectivism and God-like superheroes.
Rorschach’s backstory was a change I actually liked, since if it was supposed to be the moment he snapped it seemed more realistic to brutally murder the guy versus sadistically leave him to die.I agree Ozymandias’ plot streamlines the story, though I don’t think it quite works since Dr. Manhattan was known to have come from America so (even if he was above such loyalties by that point ) I’m not sure how he’d be seen as an outside threat that could unite the world.
Dream doesn’t speak in white letters on a black background. Triple F minus. A thousand years jail for all involved.
To answer what’s the point, there are a ton of people who’ve never read the comic now exposed to this work and are seeking it out. I read the comics when they first dropped and am a long time fan and disagree with the take. You’re entitled to your criticisms but I don’t see them, I thought it was a great adaptation and truly enjoyed it. Each to their own, nothing wrong with not liking it but I truly feel this was a worthwhile adaptation that did some great things (as for the “watered down Constantine” hard disagree).
i’m a big fan of the comics and loving the first 4 episodes so far. i’m also curious what a non comic fan thinks. i’m just really happy to see the comic brought to life. i have a copy of volume one in my hand as i watch lol.it’s like a 7hr film. reminds me of the the 90s miniseries’s that were made, like Ted Danson in Gulliver’s Travels, and Sam Neil starring as Merlin, in Merlin.
Can’t disagree with anything said above about Snyder, but comparing that to this is ridiculous. Sandman, likely due to Gaiman’s involvement, is 10 episodes straight of classic characters torn straight from the source material and as fully realized in live action as possible. Some of the episodes are better than others -— 4 thru 6 are an absolute masterpiece — but NONE of it was bad or a letdown at all. I think fans are just spoiled at this point. I honestly can’t imagine what more we expect?
Get the fuck outta here. its an almost perfect adaption.
I think it improved significantly as it went along. Once it stopped trying to explain the universe of the show to audiences and just let us go along for the ride, it’s really quite beautiful.I made a point of NOT rereading the comic before watching so that I wouldn’t be comparing everything ad nauseum, which definitely helped my enjoyment. I was able to rediscover things from the comic rather than expecting them. (For example, I had forgotten about some of the Hellblazer comics Easter Eggs, like The Family Man, that were in Sandman.) I think Kirby Howell-Baptiste is the standout casting choice. I cried at the compassion of her Death multiple times during that episode in a way that the comic never inspired in me. (In general, I think that the 4 Endless we meet in S1 are all excellent adaptations of their comics characters. I also love the changes to Despair, even though we only see her briefly.)The one casting choice I feel fell the flattest was Jenna Coleman. I love Coleman in most everything I’ve seen her in, but she just was not able to capture the anarchist, “bollocks this” spirit of a modern day Constantine. I could tell she was really trying her best, but it just didn’t land. (1789 Constantine worked much better, even if it was super brief.) I was very into the idea of the gender flip for the role, but she may not have been the best casting choice for that.
Despair is wearing Crocs in her scene with Desire. That is an inspired costume choice for the embodiment of hopelessness.
The entire reimagining of Despair’s look was *chef’s kiss* perfect.
I don’t think Neil Gaiman is as good as his fans say he is, and while I read a couple of the comic books, I wasn’t inspired to stick with them. This show is tedious and boring, in my opinion. Lots and lots of talking, and little else. Even the battle between Lucifer and Dream is fought with words. Material that is mostly made of language naturally works better on the page than the screen. And Sturridge seems to utterly without personality (or the character does—I can’t tell), and it seems to me that the character should have some magnetism.I didn’t care for the book American Gods, but I thought Season 1 of the show was really great fun–full of surprises and energy. If I were allowed only one word to describe this show, I’d say “inert.’
It’s ok to prefer action over story. Different strokes, etc. Sandman is unlikely to change, if it goes longer than this one season, and life’s too short to sit through stuff you don’t like.
a generic fantasy seriesI’ve seen a few shows be described as this. Wheel of Time. Percy Jackson. Narnia. All are different, all have good and not so good things about them, and all decent productions better than most. The Sandman now joins them.
Maybe generic isn’t the pejorative you think it is.
Just finished, overall I liked it. Sturridge was pretty good, although they could have Robert Smithed up his hair some more.Episode 6 was my favorite, big Hob and Death fan, both actors were good.Thewlis and Holbrook were standouts, thought the actor doing Hal was solid.Not sure about Christie, seemed to ham it up a bit.Frye and the actor for Rose didn’t wow, Frye seemed almost too earnest, and Rose just meh. Also was it just me or did they really push the “we’re all best friends here in Hal’s house” vibe just a little too much?I’ll definitely check a second season if it gets one.
You are wrong. it totally captures the magic. But yes, the casting of Lucifer sucks. That chick sucked in Game of Thrones, she sucked in Star Wars, she sucks in Sandman. I dont know how she keeps getting jobs.
That chick sucked in Game of Thrones, she sucked in Star Wars, she sucks in Sandman. I dont know how she keeps getting jobs.She’s very very tall. But then they could have gone with Elizabeh Debicki, instead. I would have liked to see her take on Lucifer.
Does it live up to its reputation of being Sleepwalker done wrong? Its Humanistic core remains intact, yet it doesn’t skimp on fantasy. The
changes weren’t major & most are arguably improvements. It will
probably appeal to fans & rookies alike. Even if Netflix prematurely cancels it like it does everything I get invested in, at least we’ll have this season.
https://mattthecatania.wordpress.com/2022/08/07/does-netflixs-the-sandman-bring-us-a-dream/
Bad take is bad. But take comfort, you’re virtually alone on that hill and you’ve got the edgelord market sewn up.
Snyder seems to completely miss that the politics of one character are supposed to be, you know, bad.Yeah, that sounds about right for Zack Snyder who, no matter how much he claims otherwise, really can’t comprehend why Superman isn’t a planet-destroying amoral cosmically arrogant god.a.k.a., Zack Snyder’s kind of guy.
It’s probably impossible for me to view this adaptation impartially. I’ve been going through a rough time recently, and by “recently” I mean consistently for the past two years. Just in the past couple of weeks I ended up in hospital, not for the first time this year, and it was an even more unpleasant experience than the last time. There were nights where I would go to sleep and almost wished I wouldn’t wake up.Except I had this to look forward to. I’ve loved the comics for a long time now and reread them several times. I’ve been giddy with excitement since this was announced, and each new trailer and clip only built on that. I needed to see if it could live up to my expectations. And somehow, it does. Tom Sturridge is perfect, Kirby Howell-Baptiste is inspired casting, David Thewlis gives us a different, and better, John Dee than the comics, and the whole thing looks so beautiful. I’m so happy this exists, and I’m so happy I could be around to see it. As far as I’m concerned, magic: captured.
Well, having sort of leafed through the comics in no particular order at various points in life (so I’ve got a rough map of what it’s all about, a notion of the general vibe and a memory of some of the incidents but no particularly intense expectations of what happens when or how it’s going to look when it does), I was compelled enough to breeze through more episodes than was healthy for my sleep cycle last night. It certainly felt like they were trying to do more than get through some tick-list of visual set-pieces (which was palpable in Watchmen) – there’s a vague but interesting through-line about how many of our choices are our own and how many driven by our environment (poor Alex!), and what we should and shouldn’t take responsibility for as a result.
Got mid-way through the third episode, and my summation is really that Sandman-the-show is bad in the same ways Incredibles 2 was bad. Nothing in it is objectionable: it’s well-cast, it’s competently shot, the effects are not egregiously awful, the story beats are clear, the pacing is smooth, but it has absolutely nothing to say. It just exists, and to me that makes it far worse than something much more objectively incompetent that was at least trying to say something. I’ll take a buffoon stumbling towards profundity over a slick operator selling polished nothing any day.
This contains no spark, it’s all so depressingly rote and clean and predictable.
Pretty much my experience as well. It’s kind of too bad, I feel with a director with a bit more vision this could’ve turned into something great. All the elements are there, but it seems like a 1:1 adaption of the comics which just doesn’t translate properly. Like Ford once said to Lucas, “you can write this stuff, but you can’t say it!”, which pretty much sums up my feelings about a lot of it. It works on paper, less on screen. For all the dislike Witcher 2 gets for not being true to the cannon I think it actually succeeded at that point (and overall I really liked the series actually). But, Netflix being Netflix they’re probably ok with that since this is flashy cgi with easily digestible story, even if it doesn’t truly hold up as a tv-viewing experience. Still going to finish though, but 4 episodes in it already made me groan more than I care to admit.
I thought it actually had quite a lot to say, and was frequently more explicit about its themes than the comic was this early in the game. (Particularly in episodes 4, 5, 6, 9, 10.) The way certain stories were adapted felt like Gaiman was looking back on his work with the benefit of 30+ years of additional insight and intentionally opting to making them wiser and kinder than they were upon release. That’s not to say that some nuance from the comics isn’t lost. But the choices made feel deliberate, and a lot of additional nuance is gained that wasn’t there originally. e.g. all of the antagonists are written more sympathetically, which deepens the (already very gray) grays of Sandman, and complicates how Dream chooses to deal with them.
My favourite bullshit criticisms: 1. “Yeah, it’s faithful to the source but the director didn’t ‘get’ the material”2. “Yeah, it’s faithful to the source but it lacks the ‘magic’ of the original.”Mm-hmmm.
I’m up to ep 8: It’s kind of boring and needs a bit more direction overall. Both David Thewlis and Jenna Coleman should have gotten more screentime, they’re the best parts of the series. Not bad but not great.
My main beef with this adaptation is all the exposition. Between the prelude and the spoken word narration from Dream himself, it feels like there’s a lack of mystery to the whole thing.
I’m actually glad they didn’t ditch Dream’s narration for this adaptation. He can get quite verbose in the comics and I was worried his character would lose something if they opted to make him *too* stoic and inaccessible to the audience. Re: exposition—that got most noticeable for me during the Doll’s House episodes, but then I re-read the comic over the weekend and shit—there’s about twice as much exposition in the original text!
On second episode, enjoying so far but wow has Joely Richardson aged AT ALL since last i sawr her… in Nip/Tuck.. like 10 years ago? Must be that Redgrave blood. Ohhh to be fabulously wealthy…
Given the start of the comics are rough going as its trying to find its footing, and thus some of the weakest material – they have done a remarkable job here. The duel with Lucifer still makes no fucking sense still, but most everything is so far a vast improvement on the source – and I say that as someone who has collected and got the comic book series signed – and bought the big leather luxury editions.
The first 6 episodes were great. Then this takes a huge dive off the quality cliff. The acting, writing, and directing in the back half is just atrocious. It almost feels like a different series as if they ran out of money midway through the series. I turned off episode 10 about a third of the way through and won’t return to finish it out.
Eps 1-6: A-/B+
Eps 7-10: D/D-
I miss the old AVClub more and more with each passing day.
I agree that the bustling weirdness (and horror) of the comics are toned down here, for sure. But I will take that in exchange for rewriting the first arc to separate it from the DC universe and better tie it to what’s to come. Having the Corinthian in the story early on is genius. Having Morpheus face off against Lucifer specifically rather than a random demon is a great idea, too. The story is hitting a heavier emotional weight, even as we lose some of the cooler visuals.
Just wanted to say, loving Razane Jammal’s casting as Lyta Hall. She was giving me all kinds of Gal Gadot vibes (…for those who know…)
Unless you’re a fan/stan of fantasy or the comic series this was a waste of time. No wonder they released all the episodes together; weekly releases over +2 months would quickly reveal its lack of depth to even the most kindest of critics. The cinematography, etc. is decent but hardly eye opening; the underworld scenes, especially of the crowds was downright sloppy.
The acting was shitty, everyone seemed off key. There was no natural rapport, chemistry or flow. The lead actor looked like he decided getting stoned was the best way to portray an apathetic deity. Even the seasoned actors performances felt as if they were handed their scripts just days before production – in their heads trying to remember their lines/direction while not missing their marks. ‘I said my line, now say yours while not giving away we’re glancing at the teleprompter cue from the corner of our eyes’, ‘we’re supposed to be in some fantastical realm but actually standing on a green screen set’ or ‘All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up’ vibe.I’m that 90% unfamiliar with the source material nor am I in the entertainment industry, but many casting choices of character were poor – Lucifer Morningstar as a dowdy, middle-age matron of hell? The Corinthian’s on again/off again US southern drawl was annoying; his immature, entitled, cavalier attitude is hardly the personification of humanity’s worst nightmares. He should have had an angrier, resentful, spiteful bone to pick with the Sandman, the world and most other deities combined. If those interpretations were meant to be satirical the joke fell flat. Any sense of tension or urgency they meant to pose was lost in translation.I think a B- is kind, though in the traditional summer doldrums of TV offerings it’s OK if you’re bored. I haven’t seen the trailers, I stumbled across a FB friend’s old post about being excited to see its premier and put it on my viewing bucket list.
So, I have read the comics an I completely disagree. I watched the first episode last night, and I could not have been more relieved by how it turned out. This could have been a disaster, but instead it was beautiful, thoughtfully shot, and well-acted.