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Post by ironhammer on Feb 28, 2024 23:57:18 GMT -5
Shogun, the James Clavell novel, about an English sailor marooned in 1600 Japan and later on becoming a key player (or pawn) in the power struggle of the samaurai in Japan has a new adaptation from FX. After many false claims about other shows being the next "Game of Thrones" on TV, after watching the first two episodes, I can say Shogun actually achieves that lofty title.
The novel is really really good. Some folks are put off by its sheer mass, at over 1100 pages long. But when you actually get down to read it, you don't feel it's length. Its a thrilling page-turner that keeps you wanting to go on and see what happens next. There is a reason it was a best-seller when it was first published despite the length of the novel.
There are certainly some shared similarities with Game of Thrones in terms of the political intrigue, machinations and backstabbing as most characters in the story aren't out-right "good" or "bad" but have shades of grey, scheming to enlarge their power or just to survive. Toranaga also face a somewhat similar predicament as Ned Stark did after the ruler of the kingdom dies. Although obviously there aren't any dragons, ice zombies or magic in Shogun. And while there is also a fair amount of sex in Shogun the novel, its not as gratuitously described as in Game of Thrones.
But more than Game of Thrones, Shogun is also about meeting of different cultures, how each see the other as the savage outsider, in this Clavell was quite perceptive in portraying the Japanese, the English Blackthrone and the Portugese as each having their own motives dealing with the other and struggling to communicate across a gaping cultural divide.
What do you think? Seen the first two episodes on FX or Hulu? Worthy to compare it to Game of Thrones?
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Post by bbg95 on Feb 29, 2024 1:13:36 GMT -5
Shogun, the James Clavell novel, about a English sailor marooned in 1699 Japan and later on becoming a key player (or pawn) in the power struggle of the samaurais in Japan has a new adaptation from FX. After many false claims about other shows being the next "Game of Thrones" on TV, after watching the first two episodes, I can say Shogun actually achieves that lofty title. The novel is really really good. Some folks are put off by its sheer mass, at over 1100 pages long. But when you actually get down to read it, you don't feel it's length. Its a thrilling page-turner that keeps you wanting to go on and see what happens next. There is a reason it was a best-seller when it was first published despite the length of the novel. There are certainly some shared similarities with Game of Thrones in terms of the political intrigue, machinations and backstabbing as most characters in the story aren't out-right "good" or "bad" but have shades of grey, scheming to enlarge their power or just to survive. Toranaga also face a somewhat similar predicament as Ned Stark did after the ruler of the kingdom dies. Although obviously there aren't any dragons, ice zombies or magic in Shogun. And while there is also a fair amount of sex in Shogun the novel, its not as gratuitously described as in Game of Thrones. But more than Game of Thrones, Shogun is also about meeting of different cultures, how each see the other as the savage outsider, in this Clavell was quite perceptive in portraying the Japanese, the English Blackthrone and the Portugese as each having their own motives dealing with the other and struggling to communicate across a gaping cultural divide. What do you think? Seen the first two episodes on FX or Hulu? Worthy to compare it to Game of Thrones? I'll need to check it out. The length of the book shouldn't be an issue for Game of Thrones fans, as those books are all about that length too. The best of the books is the third, A Storm of Swords, and it checks in at just under 1100 pages (looks like it's 4000 words shorter than Shogun at 424,000 to Shogun's 428,000). But it's pretty much all killer no filler (okay, maybe the early Catelyn chapters are a bit weaker than the rest). Anyway, Game of Thrones was great when it was adapting the first three books, which were all great. A Storm of Swords had so much material that they needed two seasons to adapt it. It was significantly weaker in its fifth season, when it was adapting the much weaker fourth and fifth books. And it was basically a disaster in its last seasons when it had no source material to go on other than a rough outline that Martin produced for the major plot points for the rest of the series.
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Post by XAsstCoach on Feb 29, 2024 2:10:44 GMT -5
Thought the 1980's adaptation of Shogun was good. Definitely check out this new rendition...if its available on iTunes.
Note that I never read the book, just found the mini-series very intriguing.
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Post by ironhammer on Feb 29, 2024 5:21:52 GMT -5
Thought the 1980's adaptation of Shogun was good. Definitely check out this new rendition...if its available on iTunes. Note that I never read the book, just found the mini-series very intriguing. I saw the two episodes of the 2024 version, throughly enjoyed them. Granted, its been a while since I read the original book by James Clavell, but personally, I think this version more accurately reflect the book than the 1980 series. (I mean there are differences from the book in the 2024 series too, but in terms of spirit, I think this version better reflect the book). That 1980 NBC series wasn't bad for its time, but its primarily a version of the story seen through the eyes of Blackthorne, since we didn't get subtitles of the Japanese characters when they speak. But here in the 2024 version, we got to see the Japanese characters more throughly fleshed out. In the book, the Japanese characters weren't background characters. There are long passages devoted to Toranaga, Mariko, Yabu and Omi's internal thoughts and desires, and how that translates into how they acted in the story. We got more of that in the 2024 version since there are more scenes of the Japanese characters on their own without Blackthorne and fully subtitled.
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Post by ironhammer on Feb 29, 2024 5:25:53 GMT -5
Shogun, the James Clavell novel, about a English sailor marooned in 1699 Japan and later on becoming a key player (or pawn) in the power struggle of the samaurais in Japan has a new adaptation from FX. After many false claims about other shows being the next "Game of Thrones" on TV, after watching the first two episodes, I can say Shogun actually achieves that lofty title. The novel is really really good. Some folks are put off by its sheer mass, at over 1100 pages long. But when you actually get down to read it, you don't feel it's length. Its a thrilling page-turner that keeps you wanting to go on and see what happens next. There is a reason it was a best-seller when it was first published despite the length of the novel. There are certainly some shared similarities with Game of Thrones in terms of the political intrigue, machinations and backstabbing as most characters in the story aren't out-right "good" or "bad" but have shades of grey, scheming to enlarge their power or just to survive. Toranaga also face a somewhat similar predicament as Ned Stark did after the ruler of the kingdom dies. Although obviously there aren't any dragons, ice zombies or magic in Shogun. And while there is also a fair amount of sex in Shogun the novel, its not as gratuitously described as in Game of Thrones. But more than Game of Thrones, Shogun is also about meeting of different cultures, how each see the other as the savage outsider, in this Clavell was quite perceptive in portraying the Japanese, the English Blackthrone and the Portugese as each having their own motives dealing with the other and struggling to communicate across a gaping cultural divide. What do you think? Seen the first two episodes on FX or Hulu? Worthy to compare it to Game of Thrones? I'll need to check it out. The length of the book shouldn't be an issue for Game of Thrones fans, as those books are all about that length too. The best of the books is the third, A Storm of Swords, and it checks in at just under 1100 pages (looks like it's 4000 words shorter than Shogun at 424,000 to Shogun's 428,000). But it's pretty much all killer no filler (okay, maybe the early Catelyn chapters are a bit weaker than the rest). Anyway, Game of Thrones was great when it was adapting the first three books, which were all great. A Storm of Swords had so much material that they needed two seasons to adapt it. It was significantly weaker in its fifth season, when it was adapting the much weaker fourth and fifth books. And it was basically a disaster in its last seasons when it had no source material to go on other than a rough outline that Martin produced for the major plot points for the rest of the series.Oh Shogun should have a more satisfactory ending...
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Post by mikegarrison on Feb 29, 2024 5:53:10 GMT -5
The 1980s miniseries was very good.
I've read the book many times, though it's been a few decades since I last read it. It's quite good, almost as good as Noble House. As with the rest of Clavell's Asian series, it is based on real people and history, although fictionalized. All his Asian books exist in what might be called a near-parallel world to our own.
The real-world William Adams did arrive in Japan on a Dutch ship in 1600, and stayed there until his death 20 years later. He became a samurai and was a vassal of Tokugawa Ieyasu ("Toranaga" from the novel). The Tokugawa Shogunate ruled Japan from 1603 until the 1868 Meiji Restoration that brought the emperor back to control of the government.
The story does have some similarities to Song Of Fire And Ice, but without all the magic or the open warfare. Like Tai-Pan and Noble House, it is a story about political maneuvering between bitter enemies who can't just openly move against each other, but instead try to trap each other into a losing position. Rather like chess where you try to trap your opponent and avoid traps all at the same time.
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Post by akbar on Feb 29, 2024 6:40:07 GMT -5
Very much looking forward to watching this series.
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Post by XAsstCoach on Feb 29, 2024 8:29:25 GMT -5
Saw it on the AppleTV store, but not available thru AppleTV. Can watch it through the Hulu app, as well as others
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Post by bbg95 on Feb 29, 2024 10:14:01 GMT -5
I'll need to check it out. The length of the book shouldn't be an issue for Game of Thrones fans, as those books are all about that length too. The best of the books is the third, A Storm of Swords, and it checks in at just under 1100 pages (looks like it's 4000 words shorter than Shogun at 424,000 to Shogun's 428,000). But it's pretty much all killer no filler (okay, maybe the early Catelyn chapters are a bit weaker than the rest). Anyway, Game of Thrones was great when it was adapting the first three books, which were all great. A Storm of Swords had so much material that they needed two seasons to adapt it. It was significantly weaker in its fifth season, when it was adapting the much weaker fourth and fifth books. And it was basically a disaster in its last seasons when it had no source material to go on other than a rough outline that Martin produced for the major plot points for the rest of the series.Oh Shogun should have a more satisfactory ending... Well, I would hope so. It would be hard to be worse. To be fair to D&D, they screwed it up, but I really do think they expected that Martin would get at least The Winds of Winter done by the time they had to adapt it. But here we are, 13 years after the release of the last book, and it's nowhere in sight. I place most of the blame for the debacle on Martin. D&D can clearly adapt great works of fiction. They just seemingly can't write their own. Anyway, it seems that Shogun is only one book, and they adapted the whole thing for this season? If that's the case, then yeah, I would expect it to end better.
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Post by mervinswerved on Feb 29, 2024 11:20:39 GMT -5
D&D can clearly adapt great works of fiction. I fully expect them to butcher the Three Body Problem Netflix series. Nothing much against them (it's probably unfilmable), but the decision to change from the Chinese setting isn't very encouraging. Side note: if anypne likes sci-fi and hasn't read Cixin Liu's Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy, you're missing out. I think it's the best work of the 21st century, hands down.
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Post by gtrich on Feb 29, 2024 11:43:30 GMT -5
I'm not sure if AMC was having bandwidth issues the first night, but for me, episode 1 was grainy, blotchy and almost un-watchable; especially on any inside/dark scenes. I watched episode 2 last night and the picture was much clearer. I was streaming straight from Hulu, but it seems like the Youtube TV forum on Reddit was complaining about it as well.
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Post by bbg95 on Feb 29, 2024 11:47:15 GMT -5
D&D can clearly adapt great works of fiction. I fully expect them to butcher the Three Body Problem Netflix series. Nothing much against them (it's probably unfilmable), but the decision to change from the Chinese setting isn't very encouraging. Side note: if anypne likes sci-fi and hasn't read Cixin Liu's Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy, you're missing out. I think it's the best work of the 21st century, hands down. Fair enough. I'm not familiar with that series. I'm just saying that when they adapted the first three ASOIAF books, they did a very good job. There were some things I didn't like (most notably, the way they kind of swapped a lot of things with Barristan and Jorah--Barristan is like a top five book character for me, and Jorah is way more unlikable than he is in the show), but it was good overall. The problems arose when they didn't have good source material.
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Post by mikegarrison on Feb 29, 2024 15:37:53 GMT -5
Side note: if anypne likes sci-fi and hasn't read Cixin Liu's Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy, you're missing out. I think it's the best work of the 21st century, hands down. I've heard of it, of course, but never read it. It's not the genre of science fiction that I tend to prefer.
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Post by manyshaped on Feb 29, 2024 16:05:03 GMT -5
D&D can clearly adapt great works of fiction. Side note: if anypne likes sci-fi and hasn't read Cixin Liu's Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy, you're missing out. I think it's the best work of the 21st century, hands down. i would put the inheritance trilogy and/or the broken earth trilogy by nk jemisin ahead of liu's, but ymmv
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Post by mervinswerved on Feb 29, 2024 16:12:52 GMT -5
Side note: if anypne likes sci-fi and hasn't read Cixin Liu's Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy, you're missing out. I think it's the best work of the 21st century, hands down. i would put the inheritance trilogy and/or the broken earth trilogy by nk jemisin ahead of liu's, but ymmv Haven't read the Inheritance trilogy but loved Broken Earth.
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