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selenakAttention, anyone who has watched the most recent French two part filmed version of The Three Musketeers (part 1: "D'Artagnan", part 2, "Milady") - do you regard it as worth watching? As it's now available via German public broadcast (in their streaming archive, that is), I started to watch D'Artagnan, and while because it's a French version we finally get the correct pronounciation of everyone's names, the first half an hour or so which I watched before breaking it off exposed me to a whole new set of WTFs in addition to some old ones. Basically, my reactions were these:
- so we're going for the brown-grey uni look of historical movies and shows from the last two decades AGAIN, sigh. Despite this being baroque and an extremely colourful setting - I mean, the Musketeers' uniforms had bright blue as a dominating colour, for starters. When do we finally get colour back in historical films and shows!!!!!
- two Miladies? Ah, okay, the other one is someone else
- D'Artagnan gets buried alive and everyone else killed at that tavern encounter? Just getting knocked out isn't good enough for you anymore, movie people?
- whle the "D'Artagnan runs into all three Musketeers and ends up with duels" sequence is well executed, why on earth is Athos this old and introduces himself with his full title instead of keeping it secret?
- seriously, thouugh, why the old Athos?
- so Constance isn't married in this version, go figure; it probably says something about our times that the only film which let her keep the husband and hence made Constance/D'Artagnan adultery was the 1960s one
- otoh, Anne/Buckingham is still a thing in this version, but apparently not her jewelry as a love token, but instead we get a fake arranged (by Milady at the Cardinal's ordes) rendezvous as a trap
- OMG, what is it with the high body count again - D'Artagnan and the Musketeers kill all the Cardinal's men?
- speaking of body count: second female corpse of the first half hour. (Because if there is one thing The Three Musketeers has been missing, it's dead women, apparently). This one in Athos' bed so he gets framed for murder
- you know, given his book backstory, the film might be going somewhere with the irony of everyone singing Athos' praise as the most honorable and brave who would never ever kill a woman he's bedding as the very modern style trial that immediatley ensues, but I'm not sure that's where
we're going - must find out before continuing, because wtf?
- oh, and Athos is Protestant now. Okay?
Also, Stranger Things ended. Now I enjoyed the show while never being a passionate fan. If you want my ST opinions: the third season was bad but otoh introduced Robin, hooray; generally speaking in terms of the horror factor the first season was best when the Upside Down was just unknowable and, well, strange, while the actual villains such as they were were humans exploiting other humans, but I liked the character development most of our heroes got through the ensueing years, plus a lot of the homages to 80s tropes were just fun, so I certainly don't regret the show continued beyond that first season. (Though the fact that shooting this show took a decade while the Watsonian time passing between seasons was much shorter made it inevitably visible both the original child actors and the adult actors playing teens in the first season looked increasingly older than their characters were supposed to be.) In terms of the overall series finale, I liked how the characters ended up and am impressed that in great contrast to, say, the HP epilogue - which just to clarify I don't hate, either - most of our heroes remained single instead of ending up with their first love forever and ever, and indeed a season 5 plot point was while it's okay to find out you don't work as a romantic couple, that doesn't mean you can't be friends or that your friendship isn't incredibly important. I also was amused by Mike in the montage being shown wearing dark horn rimmed glasses while writing, because the only reason for that I can see is to make him at least vaguely resemble a young Stephen King in one last homage. Overall, for me, the series ended on a high note.
- so we're going for the brown-grey uni look of historical movies and shows from the last two decades AGAIN, sigh. Despite this being baroque and an extremely colourful setting - I mean, the Musketeers' uniforms had bright blue as a dominating colour, for starters. When do we finally get colour back in historical films and shows!!!!!
- two Miladies? Ah, okay, the other one is someone else
- D'Artagnan gets buried alive and everyone else killed at that tavern encounter? Just getting knocked out isn't good enough for you anymore, movie people?
- whle the "D'Artagnan runs into all three Musketeers and ends up with duels" sequence is well executed, why on earth is Athos this old and introduces himself with his full title instead of keeping it secret?
- seriously, thouugh, why the old Athos?
- so Constance isn't married in this version, go figure; it probably says something about our times that the only film which let her keep the husband and hence made Constance/D'Artagnan adultery was the 1960s one
- otoh, Anne/Buckingham is still a thing in this version, but apparently not her jewelry as a love token, but instead we get a fake arranged (by Milady at the Cardinal's ordes) rendezvous as a trap
- OMG, what is it with the high body count again - D'Artagnan and the Musketeers kill all the Cardinal's men?
- speaking of body count: second female corpse of the first half hour. (Because if there is one thing The Three Musketeers has been missing, it's dead women, apparently). This one in Athos' bed so he gets framed for murder
- you know, given his book backstory, the film might be going somewhere with the irony of everyone singing Athos' praise as the most honorable and brave who would never ever kill a woman he's bedding as the very modern style trial that immediatley ensues, but I'm not sure that's where
we're going - must find out before continuing, because wtf?
- oh, and Athos is Protestant now. Okay?
Also, Stranger Things ended. Now I enjoyed the show while never being a passionate fan. If you want my ST opinions: the third season was bad but otoh introduced Robin, hooray; generally speaking in terms of the horror factor the first season was best when the Upside Down was just unknowable and, well, strange, while the actual villains such as they were were humans exploiting other humans, but I liked the character development most of our heroes got through the ensueing years, plus a lot of the homages to 80s tropes were just fun, so I certainly don't regret the show continued beyond that first season. (Though the fact that shooting this show took a decade while the Watsonian time passing between seasons was much shorter made it inevitably visible both the original child actors and the adult actors playing teens in the first season looked increasingly older than their characters were supposed to be.) In terms of the overall series finale, I liked how the characters ended up and am impressed that in great contrast to, say, the HP epilogue - which just to clarify I don't hate, either - most of our heroes remained single instead of ending up with their first love forever and ever, and indeed a season 5 plot point was while it's okay to find out you don't work as a romantic couple, that doesn't mean you can't be friends or that your friendship isn't incredibly important. I also was amused by Mike in the montage being shown wearing dark horn rimmed glasses while writing, because the only reason for that I can see is to make him at least vaguely resemble a young Stephen King in one last homage. Overall, for me, the series ended on a high note.
No actual spoilers because the biggest thing they get wrong is horribly spoilery
Date: 2026-01-03 10:00 am (UTC)(There's a recent film version of the Count that I do recommend though).
no subject
Date: 2026-01-03 11:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-01-05 03:36 pm (UTC)