Twilight of the Gods

This is an animated Netflix series based on ancient Norse mythology created by Zack Snyder and animator Jay Oliva. It consists of 8 episodes each about 30 minutes. Snyder directed episodes 1 and 6.

I appreciate what’s being done with this series. I’m at episode 6 and plan to watch the last two episodes tonight. It uses some basic RPG gaming motifs of assembling an adventuring party and progressive quests and sets it within something more like the actual Norse mythology than the Marvelized version (and don’t get me wrong, I do love me some MCU Asgard!).

The animation itself is drawn in a style that I like. It creates an appropriately trippy sort of heavily stylized fantasy landscape. It almost seems to fuse a kind of Disney vibe for drawing the characters (e.g., the bard or skald character Egill) into something like Samurai Jack. (Not that I know that much about anime, I know very little so take that with a grain of salt.)

The sex in it I’m eh about. I don’t think it really adds much. Honestly, I think the story could easily do without it. It doesn’t really add anything to the story that makes it feel more compelling to me. And it feels a bit gratuitous. But it’s certainly not a deal breaker for me either. At the end of the day it’s fine to have it in there. Whatever.

The graphic violence… sadly, I suppose… is also something I’m more or less indifferent towards. Movies and TV have desensitized us to imagery that would actually be truly horrific and traumatizing in real life. Viewers are engaging in the fantasy of violence. I guess given that the series did stimulate me to reflect about that there’s something positive to it.

I like that in some sense it flips the roles of Thor and Loki that we have come to appreciate from the Marvel universe. That’s fun. And perhaps truer to the source material.

The series is definitely holding my interest. I don’t regard it as any sort of anime masterpiece. But it’s genuinely interesting to me. B+

Alatar said:

created by Zack Snyder

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Well that's an easy pass.

chrisstbh said:

Well that's an easy pass.

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It’s at 64% on RT which is about the same score as Watchmen and 300. If that helps as a yardstick.

Just FYI for those concerned that this is entirely Zack Snyder’s creation, it’s written by multiple writers and there are multiple directors.

I watched the final two episodes last night and it was a decent ending. The story and the mythos are pretty good. And I liked the characters well enough but honestly I wasn’t much moved by them. They were okay but I didn’t love them either. My reaction to them isn’t like the reaction to hero characters most people tend to have to, say, Luke Skywalker, Indiana Jones, Captain America, Samwise Gamgee, or what have you. Or the kids in Stranger Things, etc. It’s pretty much the same issue that Rebel Moon suffers from in that aspect. The story and the setting aren’t the problem imho. And the characters are okay. But they’re just okay. They don’t really jump off. I mean, granted, not every work of fiction is going to give us a Gandalf or Darth Vader. Those are few and far between. But it’s hard to get invested in a movie or series if the protagonists aren’t connecting well enough.

Like for me none of the characters in Twilight of the Gods feels as compelling as, say,

Leonidas, Xerxes in 300
Rorschach, Comedian, Doctor Manhattan in Watchmen
Clark/Superman, Jor El, Zod in Man of Steel
Bruce/Batman, Alfred, Diana/Wonder Woman in BvS

I saw some clips on tik tok. Looks pretty damn cool! I may give it a shot. Thor was kicking ass

I read that as Twilight of the Superheroes and got excited for a moment. . .

Extended BvS still rules.