Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Review of the Leaked Episode of True Blood and Wise Words From Anita Blake...

I watched the leaked pilot episode to True Blood last night. And well, um, let’s just say I was disappointed. Yes, 99% of the time the books are always better than the movie/TV show/any visual representation. When you read a book you love you fabricate the characters and their behaviors in your mind. Even if the author says something describing the character, you may already have your heart set on what they are like.

The show wasn’t disappointing because of the characters though. Sure I didn’t picture Sam the way the actor on the show is, or Lafayette, or Bill, or even Sookie, but the show was disappointing because of the “creative” differences between the books.

The first five minutes it is mentioned that New Orleans has been destroyed by the hurricane; that’s understandable, it has already happened for us even if it didn’t already happen in the first Sookie book. It was the graphic, cheesy sex scenes that made me want to turn the show off. I think the show would have been better on basic cable rather than HBO who needs to sell the show with sex.

SPOILER: They show a video of a sex scene with a vampire; which is absolutely stupid. It’s like soft-core porn, but then the vampire gets all crazy demonic for the camera (head turning, eyes glowing, the works). You hear about Jason taping his rough sex escapades with several women in the book… but I don’t care to see it explicitly played out.

I’m team Eric myself, but even I was disappointed with how Bill is portrayed. Bill looks more like a 40 year old zombie than an attractive vampire. I couldn’t take the brooding look, the overhanging brow, as he looked up with his head down, trying to seem all mysterious. He definitely looked dead, that’s for sure.

Lafayette isn’t as flamboyant as I thought he would be. No big deal on that one. I didn’t care to hear him dance around the kitchen yelling “p***y” and how men are afraid of what’s between a woman’s legs though. He also briefly mentioned the sex parties he as gone too… looks like HBO is going to bring in more sex because it is mentioned somewhere in the books.

Overall, the show is a bit cheesy (that’s okay, I can do cheesy) but HBO has gone a little too far to sell the show with sex. I think that most of the fans of the Southern Vampire series are going to be disappointed… I think Bill fans will be even more disappointed.

I don’t have HBO and I wouldn’t pay for it just for the show. I might be able to get into it if I really wanted to maybe. Definitely watch the first episode for yourself. I want to support Charlaine Harris, but I’m not too thrilled about the HBO version of the Southern Vampire Series.

Despite my detests, I started reading Blood Noir. I know I said I wasn't going to read it, but it came to me through the library and I had nothing to read; so I gave in. I'm only half-way though but I had to share this gem:

According to Anita Blake (or Laurell K Hamilton), if you are only allowed to have sex missionary style and only in the bed, well, "it's like a small death. It kills the soul" (page 11).

I won't share anything else, but I thought that was golden. I literally laughed out loud.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is the so-called leaked pilot available online somewhere? Not a torrent either.

Lindsay said...

We found it as a torrent. He doesn't remember exactly, but it was something like UTorrent.com or something.

It is pretty close to the premiere episode, but they toned down some of the sex scenes and Tara's behavior.

ggentry said...

i was able to find the entire season on thepiratebay.org.
(Normally i would watch my shows on the networks website, but as hbo hasn't made this available... it's their loss on ad income and a cleaner show for me.)

As for your review, i fully agree, the artistic differences went a bit far. There is always a need to make minor changes to make the show interesting on screen, but the director emphasizes details that were basically minor in the book, and more importantly rewrites and adds in things that effectively changes the personality and roles of characters. I can understand a need to have more balance in screen time for each of a tv series' main actorse, and i think the season does have merit if it was standalone, but as a representation of the book, kinda weak.