Raised by Wolves Is Original Sci-Fi at Its Most Polarizing (2020)

https://www.rogerebert.com/streaming/hbo-maxs-raised-by-wolves-is-original-sci-fi-at-its-most-polarizing

by walterbell • 12 months ago

72 68 12 months ago

blinded3• 12 months ago

I liked it a ton. Its nice to see hollywood take a chance on new IP. Not exactly the same comparison but The Silo series by Apple also comes to mind.

junipertea• 12 months ago

The Silo is a book adaptation, not a new IP.

throwawayffffas• 12 months ago

It's "new" IP in the sense there has been no previous tv show or movie and that is not attached to a large existing franchise. It's not marvel or Star Wars.

comeondude• 12 months ago

It was so weird and visceral. Wish they didn’t cancel it.

madaxe_again2• 12 months ago

Distribution sucked. Wouldn’t be surprised if 80%+ of their audience pirated it.

walterbell5• 12 months ago

It's on iTunes now.

scheeseman486• 12 months ago

I'm still pissed off about this one. People call it a mystery box but that's a bit unfair, the story, motivations and worldbuilding do make sense it's just extremely weird.

Did end on a hell of a cliffhanger though.

pringk02• 12 months ago

I remember when the pilot had Ridley Scott’s name attached to it in some way and I couldn’t help but wonder: What is it with that man and pregnancy in space?

madaxe_again2• 12 months ago

2001: A Space Odyssey. He’s cited it as being profoundly influential on his thinking and film making. The Star Child is the dream, Scott creates the nightmares.

lwansbrough• 12 months ago

Absolutely love the title sequence of this show. Maybe my favourite part about it. :/

gibagger2• 12 months ago

It was pretty poetic and enigmatic, wasn't it?.

As for the show, I have mixed feelings. They just kept jumping the shark time and time again so at some point it got sort of normalized.

faeyanpiraat2• 12 months ago

The first season was excellent, and then in the 2nd season they did ruin lots of the story lines with just lame choices, and then the ending went completely downhill for me. It pissed me off, just like GoT.

There was this other series called Murderbot which had some similarities in the setting of the story. It was not that great compared to the 1st season of Raised by Wolves, but it was consistent throughout the whole series (so far) in quality, and it is much more satisfying.

Anyways if you like scifi and haven't checked out The Expanse yet, that is a masterpiece.

datahack• 12 months ago

I’ve been listening to the audiobooks of the expanse via our local library. Absolutely fantastic series — you are spot on!

Also, remember to support your local library.

block_dagger2• 12 months ago

I watched and read the entire series. Much of it is boring and poorly written both from a style perspective as well as character development. It’s famous but doesn’t live up to many scifi masterpieces imo.

blinded3• 11 months ago

Its great!

Have you read / listened to The Sun Eater Series?

leto_ii• 12 months ago

the ending went completely downhill for me

The series was cancelled after 2 seasons, so many plot lines were left unresolved.

YeGoblynQueenne2• 12 months ago

The first season of The Expanse was great. Then it got progressively more meh with each season.

(obviously my personal opinion eh?)

For a really nerdy-oriented SF series try Three Body i.e. the 2023 Tencent version of The Three Body Problem. Again in my opinion the 2024 Netflix version, was one of the boringest things I've ever watched. I'm pretty sure if that had been my introduction to the Rememberance of Earth Past series I would have been left distinctly unimpressed.

For an example of what I mean by "nerdy-oriented", avoiding spoilers there's a scene where some of the characters are observing a certain celestial phenomenon. In the Netflix series they are sitting outside looking at something that should not be visible by naked eye. In the Tencent series they're sitting in a proper scientific station, i.e. a big room lined with PC workstations and side-rooms with bigger machines and printers, and they're starting endlessly at a single red line on a monitor while munching on junk food.

Another thing: a certain Chinese army base in the 1960's is decorated with picture-perfect, period hardware, big mainframes that a character is shown physically disassembling to service. In the Netflix series... honestly, I don't even remember. The attention to detail that only a proper nerd would notice is, to me, something genuinely new, like I've never see anyone go to all that trouble before to make sure a certain demographic won't scrunch up their face and go "that's not how computers looked in the '60s".

I should also say that there is certainly quite a bit of overacting (or over-directing) in the early episodes but they get over it later.

walterbell5• 12 months ago

Have you compared the 26-episode (Director's Cut / Anniversary Edition) and 30-episode versions of the Tencent series?

There's also a 6h fan edit, https://disembiggened.com.

mdiesel• 12 months ago

I watched the Tencent version after reading the books, and it's the first time I've been able to get properly engaged while reading subtitles.

My goto for showing the difference between the Netflix and Tencent shows is the Shi speech about bugs. It's an important moment, but the Tencent version does a much better job of conveying that.

ghssds• 12 months ago

TBH, The Expanse also suffers from a major drop in quality after season 3. It is so hard for series to maintain quality over time I now prefer miniseries as the quality is more uniform from the start to the end in my experience.

gibagger2• 12 months ago

The first book/season is such a banger because it's pretty great horror sci-fi at that point.

Eventually the whole protomolecule thing settles down, and afterwards you have essentially politics and genocide in space, which can be good but almost feels like a different genre.

unsnap_biceps• 12 months ago

The books really shift tone between books 3 and 4 and 6 and 7. I felt the show did really well with the tone shift, however, I do understand how people might not enjoy the results as much as I do.

dleeftink• 12 months ago

I found it pretty consistent! The improved CG in later seasons also clearly shows.

Eddy_Viscosity2• 12 months ago

The expanse drop was entirely due to budget cuts from amazon, who were going to cancel it but didn't because Jeff Bezos liked the show. They did get a budget cut and had to make some decisions about how to execute the story with more limited resources. They still did a pretty good job imho, but would love to have seen what they could have done with full budget.

BunsanSpace• 12 months ago

The murder bot books are a bit silly from the get go, so the show leaned into the campy vibe to sell the comedic aspect.

As someone who loves the book, I think the show is a 10/10 for capturing the feeling. Though if you where expecting as more serious scifi I can see why you think it's of inferior quality.

animal531• 12 months ago

I quite like the show, even though it feels a bit more like a young adult series.

Terretta2• 12 months ago

As someone who loves the book... 10/10 for capturing the feeling

As someone who read all the books (fun vacation pop read), I think gendering the murderbot was a significant loss.

I also think going with an Eddie Redmayne (https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.... or https://starschanges.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/eddie-re...) or (given wardrobe) even an Asia Argento (https://www.shutterstock.com/editorial/image-editorial/MfT7Q... or https://todaymix.ru/uploads/posts/2020-01/azija-ardzhento-59...) could have worked to maintain the conceit.

It's hard to have no gender reveal for 7 books, but it makes the introspection so much more interesting.

everyone• 12 months ago

Really? it was dumb as a brick imo.. Also they did that slimy practice of having a busy and intriguing 1st episode, then a whole season of bland filler, concluding in an action packed final episode. I honestly felt scammed after watching S1 of that.

mrmincent• 12 months ago

I loved it, it was so weird and different to anything else I was watching at the time. I was sad-but-not-shocked to see it get cancelled. Would love to see it finished via a book.

jose_mr• 12 months ago

"Ridley Scott directed the first two episodes of the series, and using his name as part of the marketing is a fair move (even if it was created by Aaron Guzikowski, who wrote Prisoners.)"

Interesting observation made by Nick on www.rogerebert.com

gregopet• 12 months ago

Ridley Scott can be terrible with stories (or picks projects with poor stories), as long as individual scenes are great.

I've had trouble watching some of his work to their end, there was just so much WTF and random stuff.

His name on a project is for me a signal to carefully check some reviews before committing.

gsich• 12 months ago

Very good show, got cancelled sadly.

guerrilla2• 12 months ago

This is one I really didn't like. It's just too weird for me. It thrns my stomach to even think about it. Really dusgusting somehow.

I say this as a big fan of horror and sci-fi and Alien* in particular.

JohnKemeny• 12 months ago

Why? Is it the androids raising children or something else?

justinclift2• 12 months ago

The extremely poor acting and non-sensical plot turned me off.

guerrilla2• 12 months ago

I don't know how to explain, just some visceral ick factor I've never had before.

wangii• 12 months ago

I have only one problem w/ the S1: the creators just not have the guts to kill Mother or Father. Don't get me wrong, I like them but it could make the whole series more distant and cold.

on S2: a total disaster.

mojo74• 12 months ago

I liked it. It was strangely hypnotic viewing. Travis Himmel looked like he was stoned in it (his acting style?) and the plain weirdness of it reminded me of old Heavy Metal comics of the seventies. The nearest I have had to that was reading the Prophet series. Themes of religion and general human weirdness https://imagecomics.com/comics/series/prophet

scarredwaits• 12 months ago

Excellent title sequence too (both visually and the music).

franze• 12 months ago

I never thought I would weep for a psychotic, hallucinatory, pregnant weapon of mass destruction. Yet here I am.

Mistletoe2• 12 months ago

I beg HBO Max to show me any sci fi it has and it has never shown me this once and I’ve never even heard of the show. Guess HN had to save the day this time. I don’t see it available to stream anywhere? I’m opposed to pirating on moral grounds, what are my options now?

https://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbywolves/comments/18510kf/whe...

mixmastamyk• 12 months ago

Look it up on justwatch.

Mistletoe2• 12 months ago

I did, it’s just blank. Don’t think I’ve ever seen that before.

https://www.justwatch.com/us/tv-show/raised-by-wolves-2020

OldGreenYodaGPT• 12 months ago

I believe it was an ancient AI trapped on a planet, sending signals into space in hopes someone would come and set it free.

SideburnsOfDoom2• 12 months ago

What I wanted from "Raised by Wolves" was out there, big concept Sci-Fi

What I would have settled for was a decent Space opera.

What I got was a Shaggy God Story, a wild hallucinated fever dream, a wooly, baggy technicolour Biblical riff, that promised a lot but made little actual sense. I slogged through season 1, and then gave it up.

xtiansimon• 12 months ago

No love for “Lost in Space” (2018–2021)?

an0malous• 12 months ago

This is the best show I’ve seen since Game of Thrones. It’s so unique and mind expanding.

The problem with the modern data driven approach to TV production is that it optimizes for the shows that are just good enough to get people to keep their subscriptions, and the truly visionary stuff gets cancelled.

The best shows always take a while to build up popularity because they’re so new that people aren’t willing to give them a chance at first. Breaking Bad and Mad Men didn’t become popular until season 2 or 3. TV execs have no vision anymore, it’s all run by hill climbing algorithms that look for the nearest maximum now.

The golden age of TV is behind us now. It’s just yet another example of enshittification.

aeve8902• 12 months ago

Cool show, weird plot, but what totally ruined for me was... Travis Fimmel. IMO this guy has zero range. Always the same lazy, drunk-ish style since, I don't know, Vikings. Ragnar in Kattegat, Ragnar in Azeroth, Ragnar in space, Ragnar in Dune.

walterbell5• 12 months ago

https://ragnantmedia.com/heartfelt-farewell-travis-fimmel-bi...

aeve8902• 12 months ago

Oh wow. I didn't know. Praise Sol I guess?

atombender2• 11 months ago

Agreed. I think the overacting suited his character, but it got old very fast. Then I tried to watch Vikings, and was put off in the same way. I think he could have potential if directed correctly, but so far he has been overacting with the same kind of psychotic swagger in every role I've seen him in.

atombender2• 11 months ago

I thought it was one of the most original sci-fi shows ever made for TV. But it was also constantly frustrating, dragging out the central mystery while filling the time with too many standard tropes (rhe scenery-chewing bad acting of Travis Fimmel, the annoying kid that keeps disobeying the androids).

If the first season had been reduced by half and followed up with some answers, it would have been fantastic. The second season was frustrating because it kept adding new mysteries and conflicts rather than filling out the world building and backstory. It was well made enough that it could have gotten somewhere, but it was apparent that the second season had a lower budget, and I was not surprised to see it get canceled in the midst of the HBO cost cutting. (I've been waiting for an interview with Aaron Guzikowski where someone asks him what the ending would have been if they'd have time to tell the whole story. Sadly, no such interview seems to have happened, and Guzikowski hasn't done anything since that show.)

While mystery shows are intriguing, it's gotten a bit much. I feel we need to get back to stories where we don't go several seasons waiting for a real answer and resolution, while constantly under the threat of cancellation.

Raised by Wolves Is Original Sci-Fi at Its Most Polarizing (2020)

Related Stories