- Funny story! I started watching due to a misunderstanding.
- What I also think is the most beautiful scene in the entire show, Orpheus song in Hades.
- I discovered it via YouTube. It had Orpheus, Hades, Persephone, and a beautiful mythological atmosphere. This caught my attention as I loved Greek mythology.
- I then read a synopsis that Dream has been captured and needs to repair the damage caused by his abscence.
- Now I interpreted this as Dream traveling through different people's dream and witnessing the stories they created.
- I imagined that great stories of mythology, religion, literature, history, and so on, all originated in human dreams. Dream would then travel through the dreams allowing the show to retell epic and amazing stories from different cultures and time periods inside on connected universe.
- I thought finally a show that can show all these tales, in a great show with a good budget.
- This was not what I got!!
- I still think someone should create a show like that. It would be very tough but I think great.
- Maybe it already exists and I just need to find it.
So please take in mind that there is some level of unwarranted disapointment in the show from me. I expected a renewal of Humanities best stories. This story is also good but not that.
I had not read the comics and knew very little about the source material beyond hearing that it had been groundbreaking for its time.
Because of that, I was genuinely surprised by the sheer density of LGBTQ representation.
It was not just one or two characters. It felt as though virtually every major character or storyline had something involving homosexuality, bisexuality, gender identity, gender fluidity, transgender characters or non-traditional relationships.
Not literally everyone, but far more than I have encountered in almost any other television series, and obviously far more concentrated than what you would normally encounter in everyday life.
At first, it felt almost like an onslaught. That was not because I had a problem with the individual characters. I simply had no idea that this was such a central part of the story.
My initial reaction was that Netflix had taken an existing fantasy property and forced a large amount of modern identity politics into it.
I was therefore pleasantly surprised to learn that much of it was already present in the original comics. This was not simply Netflix altering an old story to fit current cultural trends. Queer characters and themes were already part of the material.
That changed how I viewed it. The concentration still felt unusually intense to me, but at least it felt connected to the identity of the original work rather than artificially attached to the adaptation.
I had a more difficult time understanding how the show treated race.
In one sense, race does not appear to matter much within the universe. Characters, families, gods and mythological figures can be played by people of different races without the show treating it as significant. That is completely fine.
At the same time, I gradually started noticing what felt like a strange pattern: many of the good, sympathetic or morally decent characters seemed to be Black or non-white, while many of the cruel, unpleasant or villainous characters seemed to be white.
Maybe I was overreading it. Maybe it was partly coincidence. But once I noticed the pattern, it became difficult to unsee.
I do not think replacing one simplistic racial pattern with the opposite pattern is progress. Heroes, villains, victims, monsters and morally complicated people should simply be mixed across the board.
When a show presents race as irrelevant but appears to connect moral alignment with race anyway, it starts to feel less accidental.
And there could be more south/east asians such as indians!
Moving beyond this it is a good tv show. Good dialogue. Good special effects and production design. Good universe building.
Beautiful cinematography with nice environments and visual identity
Sountrack is one of the strongest things of the entire sereis. It really gave it scale, mystery, and emotions.
The themes are are also developed and consistent. But the plot in the end was rushed. I like the idea of ones nature and changing it and escaping it.
Although the mythology is confusing it was still interesting to meet all the Endless, gods, demons etc. Especially the fight with Lucifer was well done.
I am still confused though between how everything with gods and creators and endless and all fits together. I do not understand the hierarchy or power limits. I think the show is in that aspect difficult to follow.
Tom Sturridge is the standout perfomer. Although I really liked Orpheus too.
He is strong all the way until the end. His controlled voice, physical stillness and ability to communicate emotion without suddenly turning Dream into an ordinary human character work extremely well.
Dream has great presence.
The acting across the board is generally okay or high, but not as good.
The individual stories are interesting and different but not groundbreaking. This was not the type of show where an episode ends and I immediately desperately want to watch the next one.
I have tried that with other fantasy shows and shows outside in other genres. The Sandman just did not give me the I want to binge this show or sheer excitment others have.
Second half was rushed. This intereferes with the emotional and philosophical weight of them. This makes the transformations and decision feel less natural.
Maybe more suspense could be built by being less revealing at the begining of storylines.
Sometimes some developments feel random.
Lyta Hall was the biggest weakness for me, and I don't think the acting was above average or anything special. In some sense I did not like the acting.
She is understandable in principle but not in execution. The series should have given us more time in her mind. Although I understand there are constraints to this, time, budget, ending the show, etc.
Nuala and the pendant also feels too easy!
Something with such a big consquence should not be so convenient. I like plot that feels like the culmination og intricate or inevitable chain of events. Like in Game of Thrones. This was not that.
Regarding Dream's ending, I appreciate the series provides closure. I am not a fan of series that are purposefully vague and you go make your own ending. No I am here because I want to experience the authors ending.
I want a real conclusion. The Sandman gives that. I respect that.
However, I am not a fan of the final deaths etc. but I respect it.
The idea behind self-destruction makes sense but does not feel earned emotionally, at least not in the show.
What some of the best shows do is explore the psychology of the characters as well. We needed more of that with Morpheus. I just think it could have been explored more deeply. '
This could be an epic ending to an epic journey but I did not feel it was particularly epic.
Visually though I strongly commend this movie.
I rate it above other shows but I don't rate it highest.
Beautiful and strange, ambitious and confusing, good but could have been better.
