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[personal profile] jack
I've watched about a third of the way through the first series, so my thoughts are a bit premature.

Grim remakes

I quite like the trend of grim remakes. I think there's two main things I like. One is the same thing as fanfiction, of putting the same characters into a new setting often brings out new stuff out of the same premises, which is really interesting. The other is, making it "grim" or "adult", often means engaging with the premises more deeply: plumbing for implications the original shied away from; taking characters emotions seriously when the original had them more as a joke; etc.

And like fanfiction, it still benefits from all the character building in the original, people watching it often already have sympathy for the characters, and know how they'd react, so the new version doesn't have to re-establish all that.

But obviously, they also go wrong: it's easy to slap on the same half a dozen markers of "gritty-ness" that every other remake used, and not put any thought into it at all. And it's proverbially overdone. I liked Watchmen for exploring new aspects of superheroes, and saying, "what if, instead of sanitised, we faced how gory it really would be?" But having fifty new comics just like Watchmen isn't doing anything new, it's doing the same thing.

So I was primed to like Sabrina, but also cautious.

Good Stuff

A lot to like. It conjured up vivid characters. Sabrina seems very much the same sort of person, but in situation that's messy in a much more dangerous way. The aunts are very memorable, as is Ambrose. The high priest is really creepy. The snatches of Sabrina's parents are good.

It did a good job setting up Sabrina's interest in both the mainstream world around her, her friends, her school, and the witch heritage she comes from. But see below before big caveats here.

It created an atmospheric setting kind of modern but also reminiscent of the 60s, to the point I had to look up when it was supposed to be set. Apparently the comics were set then, the show is technically modern but deliberately took a lot of the aesthetic.

And in that modern/retro hybrid it did a good job of showing a world that had a realistic variance of gender expression and other diversity, whether or not the characters had caught up to modern terminology or attitudes, or not.

Could be better

There's a lot of interesting ideas in the worldbuilding, but some of them feel under-specified. What's his name is the high priest AND the headmaster AND chief minion AND prime minister, or what? How much of this is in the vicinity of Greendale and how much is worldwide? I didn't get a clear idea.

Likewise, "older students have life-threatening 'hazing' and torture, especially when supported by school authorities" is realistic -- that happened a lot. But it didn't ring quite true, I was expecting a lot more "did it go too far"? And her aunt debates whether the headmaster can get away with it -- but we have literally no idea what recourse anyone has. She can't remove her from school, she signed a contract saying she would go. If he mistreats Sabrina, will there be an outcry? Or will everyone just do what he says because he's the high priest? Or something else? We don't know. How dangerous are the things they're doing? We also don't know. So it's all very creepy, but we don't really know what's at stake when.

Maintaining a "retro" feel is quite a good choice, but eventually the seams start to show, when you start asking, does anyone have a mobile phone or not? Do they have google, or not?

Wicca and Satanism

This was the biggest question in my mind.

Witch society draws a lot on modern Wicca and Satanist cultures. But also, despite having good aspects, and paying lip service to "the important thing is being free from traditional conceptions of 'good behaviour'", the major feature of it is a cult devoted to the sinister figure of Satan and his chief minions.

That's really insulting to the real world cultures, which are explicitly not that.

IIRC the figure of Satan was modelled after not just a generic concept of Satan, but the Satanists' version of it, and they sued for copyright infringement, but I can't remember what happened in the end.

I'm not sure what I would have done: I appreciate taking the "Sabrina characters, but evil", but that take on it is a problem

Date: 2019-06-06 06:32 am (UTC)
ghoti_mhic_uait: (Default)
From: [personal profile] ghoti_mhic_uait
Have you read the comics? I feel like it's really important that this wasn't a remake of the TV series but an adaptation of the comics, but I haven't actually read them so I don't know whether it's better or not.

I agree that it's main failure is the dodge satanism, and I haven't watched the second season yet (although I intend to).

The semi-retro thing matches Riverdale, which is same universe (I'm not sure whether the comics are same universe, but the TV series the towns are next to each other, and it's obvious there is some connection). Have you seen that? Becuase I think it does help for believability to watch them both, even though they're only tenuously connected. I'm behind on that, too.

Date: 2019-06-06 03:39 pm (UTC)
ghoti_mhic_uait: (Default)
From: [personal profile] ghoti_mhic_uait
Yeah, that sounds about right. Also, bother, because I'd half thought I might be able to borrow from you :) Maybe I'll get round to it eventually.

That makes sense too about the comics being a gritty reboot - I read some of the first go round, and they weren't very much like the original TV show, but they also didn't strike me as quite so much like the new one either.

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