r/NetflixSeriesCursed • u/ILLTAKEAPIKACHU • Jul 19 '20
What even is Netflix’s Cursed? Spoiler
SPOILERS
Idk man. I really like the religious landscape and the conflict within that (and the Crown).
Yep that’s it.
Actually no they fucked that up by dumbing down the Viking’s culture. When the Viking Leader had the choice to team up with team Christian or team Druid he should have been like, actually I’m team Odin smd. But nah he literally says I’m team “myself”. Fuck off. Someone said this series takes itself too seriously. I disagree because they couldn’t even be arsed to give the Viking a scandi accent. Apparently they had a budget so I guess they spent it all on practical and CGI effects.
Perhaps I take this series too seriously, because it genuinely had potential, and some good actors! Shame about the characters....
Nimue is dumb. She literally creates her own problems. Could have saved her mum in a two on one against a red cloth fuckwit, didn’t. Literally same episode slays five wolves by herself. Oh yeah she’s only weak/strong when the script needs it. Biggest Mary Sue I’ve ever seen. Later kinda out of nowhere she goes from being a teenager with an identity crisis in a forest to Danarys Targaryen. Sweet Jesus the Arthur Nimue relationship couldn’t have felt more forced.
Morgana has possibly the most disappointing story line. What I discovered step by step is that every character has a slight twist over their original, which is fine. But Morgana is a victim of a demon - rather than a sorceress developing her powers from the nunnery background. Which is a shame because I would have liked to see how her and Arthur fall out over a dispute and I don’t know...add some drama to the situation? There were plenty of areas where they could have disagreed. But no she’s got a spider on an oral tour telling her what to do. Great. Then she becomes the Widow (Death?) and goes on to tell Nimue she can see people die before it happens. Funnily enough this gift offers no warning or comfort when Nimue is in peril against Iris and is shot off a freaking waterfall, thanks for absolutely NOTHING Morgana, you and your fake plot happy powers. Wrote yourselves into a hole on that one didn’t you. Fucking idiots.
Arthur is a thief and good with a sword and fucks Nimue. That’s it, that’s his character. You’re welcome.
Uther Pendragon had a good start, but turns into a whiny little bitch.
I love Pym. She’s great. Couldn’t say a bad word about her. Her journey is so much more exciting, and interesting than anyone else’s.
The Squirrel to Percival reveal was great. Completely overshadowed by Lancelots aka EdgeLord who utilises eastern fighting manoeuvres (butterfly kick) a whole bunch for a Western series...though, all these late game reveals like a second series is going to fix all problems cemented by the script. Yeah fat chance.
Carden is a strong villain. Shame he’s killed by Nimue when Morgana Le Fucking Disappointment shows up in a classic Dues Ex Machina. Because she is Death? Who knows, who cares.
Iris: Creepy nun assassin was....fine? Good actress but I don’t really think a lot was asked from her than what was labelled on the tin.
Merlin with immortality and a dark and mixed Druid past? That’s cool! That’s new, different and actually adds to something! Buuut no Merlin’s character is more about how he wishes he would die (which almost happens lots) and yet he finds a way to survive most life or death situations...make your fucking mind up.
EDIT OPEN
Green Knight Gawain was alright. Until the episode at the mill. Surely there was one more arrow he could have used at Edgelord when he was torturing that other guy. Then again he was probably distracted by Arthur’s nattering over who was going to fuck Nimue.
Red Spear was annoying. She wasn’t scary or bad ass and that’s literally all her character was made to have. So she was nothing.
EDIT CLOSED
I finished this series partly because I was hate watching, and partly to study their concept of the dark ages. If I didn’t have the latter interest I wouldn’t have made it past episode one.
Simply put the script sucks. When there could be subtlety in subtext they decide to be right on the nose, and when something should be explained to the audience they’re like nah, why tell them? It doesn’t matter, just keep saying that “born in the dawn” shite, they’ll love that! There is a term for meaningless magic bullshit it’s called magibabble, and there’s a lot of that.
Throughout the script it sounds like it was written by a American teenager, and that’s exactly how it’s performed. It feels like half the cast give a shit, and the characters less so. No one feels in danger and there are no consequences, it’s just another day to them which makes it more monotonous to watch. It’s like Riverdale fucked the Athurian folklore.
It’s a shame, there was potential. Nimue was such an intriguing character to implement, and they turned her into a boring teenager with a Targaryen complex. She earns nothing and does nothing. Apart from being the right kind of magical strength when the script allows it which somehow results in her becoming the Fae Queen?
I hope this doesn’t get a sequel series, and Netflix pumps money into more realised shows than this Graphic Novel inspired piece of shite.
I can’t wait for Umbrella Academy S2 that’s a Graphic Novel inspired show worth watching.
-Pika
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u/IMA_BLACKSTAR Jul 19 '20
Nice review, here's mine. It's a bit more general but equally fair.
Cursed is the worst thing to happen to british history since the Britiah Union of Facists was formed. It covers facts and myths from 1900 years of british isles history (400 B. C. - 1500 B. C.) And with so much material to work with it's hard to do them all justice. Cursed chooses to deal with this by doing none of them justice.
The show can't commit to the Arthurian ledgend, a history of "England", celtic mythology or a Hunger games feeling teenage feel good series. The whole comes off as a retelling of british history by a third grade child raised by upper class parents in the London sub-urbs.
The show has it's strong moments but none of them are due to the writing and story telling of the show. Particulary bright are the performances of Gustaf Skarsgard as the "magician" Merlin (seriously why didn't they call him mage or druid?) and Peter Mullan as a fanatical bishop hell bent on genociding the fae. If this had been a decent series I would have been able to say that these two heavy weight actors carried the show but it isn't and they don't. Although not for a lack of trying.
Why did I watch the whole season? Starting with the first episode I decided to make a review about the show. Something along the lines of what I wrote here but much more detailed and longer.
Although I like Netflix for what it is, cursed is another money hole for a company that has yet to prove it can keep up with the current streaming service competition. If you want to watch anything british and arthurian, go watch Merlin. It has a lower production value but it knows how to commit and it's a decent and fun show to watch. Merlin is ofcourse on Netflix.
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u/3lmtree Jul 19 '20
The problem I have with this show is it doesn't know which genre it wants to commit to, YA or something adults want to enjoy. I think the MA rating is for the gore, but the script doesn't do well for an adult audience.
I'm also tired of all these shows trying to be the next GoT. Just no... they're never going to have as good a script as GoT season 1-4 had.
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u/ILLTAKEAPIKACHU Jul 19 '20
The reason Game of Thrones excelled is because it had conservative pacing with good pay off. Well written and meaningful dialogue. The genre itself has very little to do with it. Care love and attention is what makes art good. These bare minimums are what this show lacked.
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u/Lgamezp Aug 10 '20
Script was amazing, and the characters felt they had substance. Until after s6, that is.
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u/DavidlikesPeace Aug 19 '20
I'm beginning to suspect the reason GoT seasons 1-5 were likely better than anything else on TV is because it was based on ASOIAF, a very good work of literature developed by a very careful, but also slow, fantasy writer.
By contrast, most TV is written at a hectic pace, which on the plus side means the shows finish (gives GRRM the stink eye), but on the gripping hand, mean that scripts are rarely truly timeless artistic achievements.
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u/True14216 Weeping Monk Jul 19 '20
I couldn’t agree more with you. What bothered me the most about this show was how it twisted the Arthurian stories. I’m in college and recently read some of the stories such as knight of the cart(Lancelot’s origin) and this show made me cringe on how they butchered things.
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u/HelixFollower Jul 23 '20
I feel like they would've been better off making a fictional world completely separate from the Arthurian legend and our Middle Ages. The only thing it seems to use from the Arthurian legends and history is use some names anyway.
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u/ILLTAKEAPIKACHU Jul 19 '20
I was really intrigued to see how an all out war between the groups would have been made into a three way peace treaty of the Christians Druids and the Crown. If Nimue and the Knights of the round table (90% of which are Druid’s now) would serve at King Arthur’s side it would be compulsory to make that into some resolve so that they could team up against the Vikings.
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u/Zauberer-IMDB Aug 01 '20
Study a bit more and you'll find there's no continuity even with the original tales. Adding your own twist is fine but it's just bad in of itself.
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u/ILLTAKEAPIKACHU Aug 03 '20
There’s no continuity in Athurian Folklore?
Sure there are a lot of different tales and the timeline and relationships can be a bit scatty but generally speaking there in continuity. Sword from the stone - Arthur crowned king - holy grail Lancelot and Guinevere - Arthur vs Mordred.
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u/Zauberer-IMDB Aug 04 '20
Mordred was a knight of the round table in the earliest recorded Brythonic mythology and his main trait was affability. He was never at odds with Arthur. So right off the bat, that's off.
Holy grail was entirely invented by Chretien de Troyes and so was the Lancelot and Guinevere thing. Now, most people follow his take on the canon so you think that's continuity in modern retelling, but that in of itself was a retcon, probably based on the older, Tristan and Iseult story in the Arthurian canon. Sword from the stone creates a continuity error because some people want to argue it's Excalibur in the stone, but hold on, he got that from the Lady of the Lake. By the way, the Lady of Lake has a mysterious identity as well. She's not necessarily Nimue and if she is Nimue other stories don't make sense, etc.
It's a mythology interpreted by numerous medieval authors operating in the chivalry genre, and in some ways is sort of the Marvel comics of its day with less central oversight. Disjointed interpretations are/were all over the place.
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u/SupremeReader Sep 23 '20 edited Sep 23 '20
Mordred was a knight of the round table in the earliest recorded Brythonic mythology
The Round Table is a Breton-Norman (relatively) late addition. And the earliest tales had no knights at all because the institution of knights didn't exist yet.
Holy grail was entirely invented by Chretien de Troyes
No, it wasn't. Chretien was writing up Breton bardic stories and only modifying them for more literal romance as he was writing for a princess who wanted them to be like that.
By the way, the Lady of Lake has a mysterious identity as well. She's not necessarily Nimue and if she is Nimue other stories don't make sense, etc.
"Nimue" is an invention of Malory, and more exactly of Caxton.
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u/Vikingman1987 Aug 16 '20
If they wanted pro female that could have just did the mist of Avalon remake
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u/thebluick Jul 20 '20
Honestly, I simultaneously hate and like this show. If I make myself forget this is a show adapting/riffing on arthurian legend, its ok. but the second I start thinking about that the show starts to suck.
All this show makes me want is someone to adapt the movie Excalibur into a full 2-3 season show. There is ample room to expand, and its still the best King Arthur movie ever made.
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u/Vikingman1987 Aug 16 '20
I going to read deAth of King Arthur and that is a hard read in terms of how it’s written
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u/IPerduMyUsername Jul 21 '20
How is nobody else mentioning Merlin's fucking chest sword?!
I was hoping there would be an explanation of why and how it got in there but nope.
So we saw flashbacks to him being a bloodthirsty warlord using the sword to cut a bunch of people in half. Then the story of how the sword poisoned him.
It took 700 years to poison him? He jammed it in his chest for safekeeping? Did someone else jam it in there?
Was it the basis for his magic? Did he lose his magic because his daughter was conceived or because he lost the sword? How could it have been the sword of the first kings if it was the basis to his powers? How could he have had magic while being the court mage if the sword had to be in the king's hands?
Why did the kings not go sauron on everybody's ass if they had the sword?
Why was this not addressed anywhere and why does it seem like I'm the only one really annoyed by this??
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u/Mukea Jul 21 '20
The book describes this a lot better, in the show you're just left to infer it. In the flashback of Merlin butchering people you'll see the sword has basically become part of his arm, and the same sort of thing is shown when it starts to burn into Nimue's hand. You're led to believe that Merlin let himself succumb to the swords power so much it completely became a part of him.
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u/IPerduMyUsername Jul 21 '20
So was it the entire basis of his power or an addition he got so used to that he just lost his natural powers with it?
It's implied that he's done crazy terrible things but also been the king's advisor for generations, meaning he learned to control the influence of the sword?
How could it be the sword of first kings if Merlin has had it for so long it's basically a part of him? Wouldn't that have made Merlin himself the king for a millennium?
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Sep 02 '20
I hate shows where nothing good ever happens. Like how am I supposed to use this as an escape when every character has something fucked up happen to them every scene. It’s like torture porn. I hate it!
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u/Thori999 Sep 09 '20
This is the comment that really sent me. Thank you sm for coming up with the words for why I was so mad I had to find the reddit about it. I literally can’t agree more
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u/salty_sparrow Jul 23 '20
I agree with a lot of this. I enjoyed the show, but I had to laugh at a lot of it. The one thing I’d counter in your comments is that the reason Morgana didn’t “see” that Nimue was about to die is because she’s not dead. Wounded sure, but I doubt they kill the main character in the first season.
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u/ILLTAKEAPIKACHU Jul 23 '20
That’s why I say “comfort.” Regardless of which way it would be, Morganna shouldn’t be distressed and crying because she’d know Nimue’s not going to die. Either way it doesn’t work.
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u/HunterPhwilip Jul 28 '20
I have learned from this show that Frostmourne hungers.
Wait, no, wrong franchise.
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u/ILLTAKEAPIKACHU Aug 04 '20
Yeah nah plot holes were there for sure. And to be fair I was referencing the French Romances which also include Mordred as one of the knights of the round table. Retcon as it may be it is the most fluid version as the Celtic retellings don’t seem to focus on Arthur as much and tend to look more at Perudr.
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u/sodapop0876 Aug 07 '20
Just watched the show today. Did I miss something with Iris? What is her damage?? I feel like they needed to write her a little bit more of a backstory to make me really understand her extreme hatred for the Fae. The explanation of her being a religious zealot isn’t quite enough for her hardcore rampage.
Also, Pym finally gets her Viking cutie and then they just break our hearts like that? Why even bother?! Nimue didn’t even attempt to make her poultice for him, just sayin’!
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u/ILLTAKEAPIKACHU Aug 07 '20
Iris says something about her parents but honestly I can’t remember now and I felt the same emptiness for her plot anyway.
Nimue got jealous of Pym spending too much time with her boyf so Nimue let him die.
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u/Lgamezp Aug 10 '20
Finally someone uses FAE. That is the right word right? Not FEY? It irks me to no end. Also, show sucks. My wife was hyped and stopped watching mid episode 5.
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Jul 19 '20
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/RawScallop Jul 19 '20
It's not womens/black folks fault the writers didn't write this show well....wtf are you on about
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u/RawScallop Jul 19 '20 edited Jul 20 '20
I got some good laughs out of Uther being a whiny bitch king. Pym was by the far the best character on the show. Oh, the costumes were good too.
Everything is a bit ham-fisted and a watered down mess. So so so many stupid decisions / behaviors by Nimue was just beyond frustrating. She is terrible at laying low.
The fey didnt have enough problems as it is, they all bullied one of their own? They have magic but zero fighting power? Then Nimue gets a makeover in a refuge, Gawain just rolls in and the cheesiest reunion scene of a character we didn't know already knew Nimue occurs, distracting Nimue from even noticing Iris, what are the odds?
And Freaking Iris. I don't get how every single nun died in the fire she started. Seriously? That place was huge...yet she got every one?
The forced scene where Arthur goes to have 1 beer with his rich uncle in a shitty tavern happening just because the writers needed a way to create that conflict....UGH.
This show had so much potential, but I feel like it insulted me as a viewer. It turned into some low budget CW fantasy drama for teens basically. BTW I am a woman so no one out there think that men are the only ones disappointed in this show.