La Ron S. Readus
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The REAL Problems With Netflix's CURSED (VIDEO SCRIPT)
🕑 Added 2020-07-20 20:01:01 +0000 UTC
Does Netflix’s Cursed have problems? I think so. Are they the ones the internet say that they are? ABSOLUTELY NOT. And here's why.
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Readers, I wouldn’t necessarily call this a review of the season, but more of a first impression.
And that’s because as of this recording, I watched the first 3 episodes of the Netflix original series Cursed.
/It’s based on the novel written by Thomas Wheeler with illustrations by Frank Miller that does its own take on Arthurian legend, this time telling the origin story of Nimue, who would later be known as the Lady of the Lake./
It was a premise I was interested in seeing after diving so deep in Arturian legend during my late 20’s, and that I had to re-hype myself about watching because I originally thought Frank Miller’s involvement also involved writing, and I choose to love myself.
But I pleasantly learned that Miller didn’t have a hand in writing the scripts in the episodes that I watched, because there were no women of the night in them at all
Yes, I know I’m in the minority when it comes to Frank Miller’s writing and takes on certain characters. But if there’s a list of properties he shouldn’t be allowed to touch, Superman and Arthurian legend should be at the top, despite him touching Superman MULTIPLE times already.
/The story pretty much tracks with Nimue’s overall connection with Excalibur; she’s on a quest to deliver it to Merlin after a group of zealots of the church devoting their lives ridding the world of magic slaughtered her village, and now its a race of who gets control of the sword and has a say in who becomes the One True King./
All the while, we’re supposed to see Nimue fight adversity for being a sorceress and become a depiction of the Lady of the Lake that we’ve never seen in tellings of Arthurian legends before
And it isn’t that the show doesn’t hold the mark as far as telling us that story.
It’s that there are things actively against it -- at least for me -- that keep it from telling that story in a way where the show beckons you to keep watching it in order to see how it plays out.
The first episode was the hardest.
Wheeler did the teleplays for it and episode 2, but the writing for episode 1 felt rushed at times; especially in the beginning of it.
/It felt like he cared more about giving us proper exposition on Nimue instead of letting it naturally happen./
As a result, it affected the flow, which shouldn’t necessarily be a problem considering the entire season consists of 10 episodes that are almost an hour in length each.
/Add that with the way it and episode 2 were edited, along with the result of certain production decisions that made the final cut, and the first few episodes of the show -- and, as a result, your first impressions of the show overall -- just feel...cheap./
The third episode brought a slight improvement to the critiques I had about the show’s quality.
/The sets were a bit more grand than they were in previous episodes. There was a bit more spectacle with the cinematography. There weren’t any weird edits or cutaways that took away from the flow of the episode or its scene transitions.
/And it's because of these fluctuating adjustments in episode quality, you come to the conclusion that the problem with Cursed is that it’s a show that has Witcher-sized dreams, but on a BBC Merlin-sized budget. You can clearly see what the show WANTED to do, yet find yourself disappointed when you see what the show was ALLOWED to do./
And after coming to that conclusion myself after watching the first three episodes, I made the horrible mistake of seeing if there was anyone that shared my opinions.
But all I could find were reviewers stating that the show was bad because of three specific things:
- Nimue being the protagonist
- The narrative was a derivative of actual Arthurian legend
- Arthur is black
So allow me to address that why out of all the ACTUAL problems the show has, these three ain’t it, Chief.
Nimue is a prominent magical figure in Arthurian legend that, I believe, gets the short end of the stick a lot. And if anyone in Arthurian legend deserves a proper reimagining, it’s her.
Depending on which fables you’ve read, her only job is to give Arthur Excalibur, help raise Lancelot, take Excalibur back when Sir Perceval tosses it back in the lake when Arthur’s sailing to Avalon, or get Merlin magically twitterpated in order to become his student, and DASSIT.
Giving Nimue a larger role in her connection to Excalibur outside of “Arthur is worthy of wielding it and becoming the one true king” and Merlin outside of “I know you want dis magic ass” is actually a great way of establishing her role in actual Arthurian legend, and the way Cursed sets it up is actually pretty decent.
You can argue all you want about whether or not Katherine Langford’s performance delivers that. I’m not, because as someone who has only seen the first third of the season, I don’t have a right to until I watch her performance in its entirety.
But considering that the coding regarding individuals’ problems with the story being about Nimue is that it fails in being progressive and focuses on being “female fronted”...
Tells me that these people dislike the show more because its main character is a woman first and foremost, and less because they’re being fairly critical of a huge yet mysterious figure in the lore that the show is based on, and how she’s getting fleshed out in this original take based on it.
And speaking of original takes based on established stories, Cursed is first and foremost an original take based on established stories.
You have every right to like them or dislike them. You have every right to be critical about them. I definitely felt that way with the show's creative decision to turn Merlin into...a magic Jack Sparrow.
But saying that Cursed sucks because it’s not faithful to Arthurian legend is absolutely LAUGHABLE. Because Arthurian legend isn’t faithful to Arthurian legend.
Unless you’re a well read individual, the majority of people’s immediate knowledge of Arthurian legend consists of Disney’s The Sword in the Stone, Joshua Logan’s Camelot, and/or the Merlin miniseries starring Sam Neil.
There’s a timeline where Arthur pulls Excalibur from the sword in the stone. There’s a timeline where Nimue gives Arthur Excalibur straight from the tap.
Lancelot is NOT an original Knight of the Round Table. But both he and his story involving his affair with Guinevere was so popular at the time that every depiction of Arthurian legend henceforth established it as part of the official “canon” of the legend.
There are so many moving parts to Arthurian legend written by so many people over the course of the years that trying to cohesively establish a proper canonical timeline for it is damn near impossible.
So no. It not being faithful to the legends isn’t what’s part of the problem with Cursed. If that’s the case, then that argument could be made with Smallville, or Gotham, or BBC’s Merlin -- all of which always boils down to personal taste and preferences.
And I’m absolutely sure that the people who stated what they stated about Cursed would defend any and all of those previously mentioned shows that are reimaginings in their own right because of said personal taste and preferences.
As far as Arthur and Morgana being black? *shrugs shoulders* Fuck you; die mad about it.
There are plenty of reasons why Cursed the series doesn’t work for everyone. Legit reasons that upon watching the show you can either easily pick up on yourself, or can have it brought to your attention by someone else.
For me, it was things like editing, fluctuating production budgets per episode, and those factors getting in the way of the story that I could see that it wanted to tell but couldn’t get into because of it.
Others might think that the acting is sub par, or that they don’t care for the way certain characters were depicted throughout the season compared to how other media depicted them in the past.
But there will never be a need to base your dislike of the show around underhanded misogyny, ignorance and racism. As a matter of fact, doing so tells me a lot about your intention of watching this show -- or any show that takes creative liberties with certain properties like this one -- to begin with.
There’s that small bit of attention that you wanted. Now go back to the kiddie table and let us grown-ups finish our discussion.
I’ll link Thomas Wheeler’s novel that the show is based on in the description below in case anyone is interested in reading it either before or after they watch the show for themselves. I’m personally gonna start reading it after I watch the remaining seven episodes of season 1
Hmm... Now that I think about it, Readers your homework assignment for the day is to write in the comment section below if you want to see me do a proper comparison video of the novel and the show once I’m done
Otherwise, if you’ve seen it, write in the comment section below what YOU thought of Cursed Season 1.
Whichever you decide to answer, I’d love to know your thoughts.
