The Originals, director's cut thoughts
Jul. 24th, 2013 11:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedi_of_urthSo in place of doing one for the review project, I managed to watch the director’s cut of the Originals pilot and somehow I think my feelings on this are even more mixed. Oh I’m going to be watching it, but I think I was hoping this would be a noticeable improvement and it wasn’t really.
The Originals:...some number...b
Part of it is I’m coming at it with fresher eyes than I was when the TVD ep aired. At that point I was just ecstatic to be away from the mess of that was things in Mystic Falls and the bitter rage that I had for what had happened to Elena and the show over the course of s4. Now, largely divorced from my feelings about the parent show, this is...not as stellar as I thought it was then.
It wasn’t any worse than it was originally certainly aside from one thing. By cutting Rebekah’s scene with Katherine and the last one with Elijah, Beks had even less to do (in fact now that I think about it it’s losing the last one that hurts the most because it’s when Rebekah declares that she’s DONE with Klaus, which is kind of an important scene). Elijah had about the same amount to do, but substituting his final scene in Mystic Falls with Rebekah and Kat for the one with Sofie and Haley is a bit more plotty than charactery ends up...about even since aside from enjoying the end of Elijah/Kat (and why he and Elena are so much more perfect) I didn’t get a ton out of that and I don’t get a ton out of this.
It is different thoughts, but no feels in that regard. Because I think we have some set up for Haley developing a crush on Elijah and that I can see myself down the road shipping Elijah/Sofie if they ever start to actually connect with each other. For now the threat at the end seemed entirely genuine, unlike when he tries to pretend like he’s threatening Elena these days, nobody buys that any more. In fact Elijah is a lot more threatening here and I’m not sure if it’s the different edit or having some distance from “You don’t have a smart brother” semi-woobie Elijah of 4x18.
Klaus on the other hand, seems even more pathetic, and again it could be either or some of both reasons. I still roll around with laughter when Elijah shows up and is like “I’ve solved all your problems already” and they just abandon Marcel. The voiceovers *really* don’t help him out. One of the problems with this show is going to be that the lead character (apparently) is so pathetic and yet a villain; it’s one thing to have a semi-pathetic hero to anchor a show, you can root for them to be not pathetic, but pathetic and Klaus means there’s nothing to hold to.
I can’t put my figure on what’s bugging me about this cut where I was pumped with the TVD cut. This is arguably better at setting a few things up, even if some of the things it sets up are still stupid (magical mystery baby); I *loved* the slight extension to Elijah and Rebekah’s phone discussion of Klaus; and it didn’t have the parts of the TVD cut that I would be happy to never see again. But something seems subtly wrong with this version, mostly in the second half or last third. Basically after Elijah and Klaus’s big argument after the Haley reveal it started to feel...off. Like the family aspects weren’t coming through for me any more (so maybe after the phone call). Admittedly, around that point in the TVD cut it started dragging a bit too now that I think of it so maybe I’m over sensing it.
And yes, Elijah still breaks my heart in that argument scene. He’s so...needy. He needs to believe there’s hope for his family and he latches onto magical mystery baby as the way to find it again. I also still love his “Look I’ll just go and kill Marcel for you,” no-nonsense response to the witches threats. Basically I still totally love Elijah in this, maybe my complaints have more to do with cutting down Rebekah’s screentime and me somehow having even less patience for Klaus than I did at the time.
(WAIT I FIGURED OUT WHAT WAS MISSING, in the scene with Klaus and Elijah on the bench they didn’t talk about Mikael. This cut was almost entirely lacking in Mikael mentions that were so prevalent in the TVD cut and made me convinced he was coming back. You can’t retcon this, show, just because now you’ve decided the Silas plot wasn’t going to bring other members of the family back.)
I’m speculating the witches know about Davina and somehow her life is tied to Marcel’s and that’s why they don’t want to just kill him. But that doesn’t explain how Klaus doesn’t kill him at any of the 10 times this episode h should have before there was any kind of deal with the witches. He’s immortal, all of Marcel’s followers are vampires so even if
But now I’m going to go back to writing stuff that went AU in TVD s3 so I don’t have to deal with any of this nonsense.
The Originals:...some number...b
Part of it is I’m coming at it with fresher eyes than I was when the TVD ep aired. At that point I was just ecstatic to be away from the mess of that was things in Mystic Falls and the bitter rage that I had for what had happened to Elena and the show over the course of s4. Now, largely divorced from my feelings about the parent show, this is...not as stellar as I thought it was then.
It wasn’t any worse than it was originally certainly aside from one thing. By cutting Rebekah’s scene with Katherine and the last one with Elijah, Beks had even less to do (in fact now that I think about it it’s losing the last one that hurts the most because it’s when Rebekah declares that she’s DONE with Klaus, which is kind of an important scene). Elijah had about the same amount to do, but substituting his final scene in Mystic Falls with Rebekah and Kat for the one with Sofie and Haley is a bit more plotty than charactery ends up...about even since aside from enjoying the end of Elijah/Kat (and why he and Elena are so much more perfect) I didn’t get a ton out of that and I don’t get a ton out of this.
It is different thoughts, but no feels in that regard. Because I think we have some set up for Haley developing a crush on Elijah and that I can see myself down the road shipping Elijah/Sofie if they ever start to actually connect with each other. For now the threat at the end seemed entirely genuine, unlike when he tries to pretend like he’s threatening Elena these days, nobody buys that any more. In fact Elijah is a lot more threatening here and I’m not sure if it’s the different edit or having some distance from “You don’t have a smart brother” semi-woobie Elijah of 4x18.
Klaus on the other hand, seems even more pathetic, and again it could be either or some of both reasons. I still roll around with laughter when Elijah shows up and is like “I’ve solved all your problems already” and they just abandon Marcel. The voiceovers *really* don’t help him out. One of the problems with this show is going to be that the lead character (apparently) is so pathetic and yet a villain; it’s one thing to have a semi-pathetic hero to anchor a show, you can root for them to be not pathetic, but pathetic and Klaus means there’s nothing to hold to.
I can’t put my figure on what’s bugging me about this cut where I was pumped with the TVD cut. This is arguably better at setting a few things up, even if some of the things it sets up are still stupid (magical mystery baby); I *loved* the slight extension to Elijah and Rebekah’s phone discussion of Klaus; and it didn’t have the parts of the TVD cut that I would be happy to never see again. But something seems subtly wrong with this version, mostly in the second half or last third. Basically after Elijah and Klaus’s big argument after the Haley reveal it started to feel...off. Like the family aspects weren’t coming through for me any more (so maybe after the phone call). Admittedly, around that point in the TVD cut it started dragging a bit too now that I think of it so maybe I’m over sensing it.
And yes, Elijah still breaks my heart in that argument scene. He’s so...needy. He needs to believe there’s hope for his family and he latches onto magical mystery baby as the way to find it again. I also still love his “Look I’ll just go and kill Marcel for you,” no-nonsense response to the witches threats. Basically I still totally love Elijah in this, maybe my complaints have more to do with cutting down Rebekah’s screentime and me somehow having even less patience for Klaus than I did at the time.
(WAIT I FIGURED OUT WHAT WAS MISSING, in the scene with Klaus and Elijah on the bench they didn’t talk about Mikael. This cut was almost entirely lacking in Mikael mentions that were so prevalent in the TVD cut and made me convinced he was coming back. You can’t retcon this, show, just because now you’ve decided the Silas plot wasn’t going to bring other members of the family back.)
I’m speculating the witches know about Davina and somehow her life is tied to Marcel’s and that’s why they don’t want to just kill him. But that doesn’t explain how Klaus doesn’t kill him at any of the 10 times this episode h should have before there was any kind of deal with the witches. He’s immortal, all of Marcel’s followers are vampires so even if
But now I’m going to go back to writing stuff that went AU in TVD s3 so I don’t have to deal with any of this nonsense.
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Date: 2013-07-30 07:51 pm (UTC)Because I think we have some set up for Haley developing a crush on Elijah and that I can see myself down the road shipping Elijah/Sofie if they ever start to actually connect with each other.
Yeah, I could definitely see that happening with Hayley. I hope it doesn't tbh; I found Elijah and Sophie a lot more appealing.
in the scene with Klaus and Elijah on the bench they didn’t talk about Mikael.
Ah, I didn't realize that! I loved all the Mikael references, I wonder why they cut that out.
I’m speculating the witches know about Davina and somehow her life is tied to Marcel’s and that’s why they don’t want to just kill him.
This is good speculation, I like it. I am interested to find out what exactly the plan is with Marcel. Even with more dialogue here, we still didn't find out much.
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Date: 2013-08-01 05:24 am (UTC)I could definitely see that happening with Hayley. I hope it doesn't tbh; I found Elijah and Sophie a lot more appealing..
I don't know how I feel about either. I don't really want to see either as a ship and I'm not sold on either of the ladies as characters. I can't see Elijah putting the moves on Klaus's baby-momma (he's *way* more interested in the kid than Hayley) so I kind of wonder if it couldn't be dark and twisted if she did start crushing on him and all his care is based on the baby that she doesn't really want but apparently is being forced to have (seriously, could we get her opinion on this? no? I guess she's just a woman so isn't allowed to make her own choices here). I think there's more potential for Elijah and Sofie to become some sort of behind the scenes ruling duo of everything which could be interesting, but so far I'm not sure what I even want for them or how I see things developing, but I can at least see a way I might eventually ship it.
I loved all the Mikael references, I wonder why they cut that out.
They didn't cut all of them out, Klaus still mentions Mikael to Marcel and Elijah mentions how their parents came to hate them in their big scene, but the original cut just seemed saturated with Mikael mentions that didn't seem to be here. Maybe they wanted to make it less obvious that Mikael was probably going to show up at some point, but I liked it the way it was on that front.