Marvel's LEGION TV show by FX

[Namor'sWrath]

If that thing was Mojo then Mojo is TERRIFYING.

[darewithpeace]

ive just watched legion and man IS AMAZING ! INCREIBLE! THE BEST !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!

[The Celtic Batman]

Holy flip! I read the Marvel Now series, & loved it, & remember thinking no way could they / would they be able to make a decent TV series / movie out of it. But wow! Episode 1 is fantastic. Great casting, acting, design, direction, storytelling, just everything. A breath of fresh air imho as other comic-based shows, particularly Agents of Shield, have really gone off the boil for me, and generally reaching saturation point on 'new' screen versions of comics.

Looking forward to episode 2

[JKtheMac]

Well they certainly went all out for alienation and disorientation. I don't think we have seen anything quite like this outside of cinema. Need to break the experience down in my head to process it so let's start with style.

This show looks beautiful. David looks like he just walked off stage in 1967. His unkempt hair, his clockwork orange stare, even the asylum clothes fit the early mod aesthetic. His sister lives a suburban life and acts more like a mother at times suggesting an even earlier period in David's life. The government facility breakout feels like the seventies. Black clothes and edgy espionage, David wears the kind of soft playsuit a mod might wear for a playboy interview once he was rich. This apparently current era is all modernist and brutalist, stylish and oppressive. 'Fahrenheit 451' with fascist police recast as domino themed SWAT teams. We are in a world of memory and style, but everything is so immediate. This isn't nostalgia, we are carried back into vivid visceral realities.

The direction is very conciously alienating. As viewers we are wandering around like we have replaced the characters of 'Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead', wondering what is real. The tracking shot that follows our stylish government interrogator, carries us though an impossible architecture, where doors lead to swimming pool floors and television viewing rooms are nested in theatre stages. A chaotic dreamscape with just one neat and tidy room with a futuristic tablet and a Formica table. The escape is a run to nature. A retreat from the modernist memories and the chaotic interrogation space to trees and cliffs and pebble beaches. We feel like we are safer the further they run. But we get mysterious women and levitation powered agents, and the kind of 'trust me' dialogue that we intrinsicly mistrust. We end up in an espionage show, feeling like we could step back through a door and be confronted by Number Two sitting smugly in his office as the superimposed bars slam down on us.

Plot wise we are set-adrift. This is deliberate style over substance. The direction and design provide the emotion. The cinematography and juxtaposed editing lead us through the mindscape. This is a potential problem because at some point we need to know what this show is trying to be. Is it all in David's head? Can we trust the scenes tagged as memories? Is anything real. Alienating the viewer can lead them to dismiss the whole experience as just a TV show, and that would be fatal. The Prisoner might have been successful in the seventies but attempts to revive the format have met with less success.

I can only hope something resembling reality begins to resolve. Living in David's head is powerful and scary, but I don't think the show can stay there for the duration. I would probably watch it. Indeed I would probably love it. But is there a mainstream audience for such a show today?

[Killercroc357]

If that thing was Mojo then Mojo is TERRIFYING.

Exactly! David will have a difficult time knowing what is reality and what is Mojo World/Mojoverse, toying with him while televising it all for his crazy entertainment.

Since he was introduced in the Longshot mini series, I wonder if over time they can work him into the show?

[Sammael]

I wonder why they went for the pretty boy look instead of his freakish comic incarnation with the big black hair.

BTW the movie Split with McCavoy feels like a Legion movie, doesn't it. (Prof. X' schizo son)

I'm glad they went with eye candy pretty boy, gives me something pleasant to look at to balance out that freakish clown that reminds me of john leguizamo from Spawn.


I saw this late but my god that was good. Completely interesting and compelling. Screw xmen movies, abandon ship and switch focus to television for that universe IMMEDIATELY !!!!!

[JKtheMac]

I'm glad they went with eye candy pretty boy, gives me something pleasant to look at to balance out that freakish clown that reminds me of john leguizamo from Spawn.

The look seems very deliberately aimed at the late sixties mods before they became homogeneous and all wore the same thing. I am pretty sure every important item of clothing has a reference to a movie or photoshoot from that era because I was constantly being reminded of images. Would love to hear an interview with the production design team.

Actually, I just found this quote from the writer searching for clues:

When I wrote the script I assumed it was set in present day and in our world, and I think the network assumed that too. Then when it came time to make it I thought about it more as a fable on some level and I realized I wanted to make something subjective. Which is to say this whole show is not the world, it’s David’s experience of the world. He’s piecing his world together from nostalgia and memory and the world becomes that. I found myself watching A Clockwork Orange and Quadrophenia and a lot of ’60s British films. Costume wise Clockwork had a specific look to it that I wanted to play with. I wanted to create a world that had its own rules, and that was about putting you into David’s head and seeing things that are there or aren’t there. You wonder: Who is this guy if everything he’s thought about himself is wrong?

It is possible you would need to be British to pick up a lot of this stuff.

[JKtheMac]

Does anyone else think it is ironic that a couple of years after Marvel spoilers:

effectively removed Legion from cannon via a Butterfly Effect style wiping out of his entire existence,

end of spoilers we now have a TV show about him?

Spoilers added for those just now reading Spurrier's excellent run.

If this show ends up succeeding how long before we see him back in the comics. (Apart from the odd reference where the writers clearly didn't get the memo.)

[Star_Jammer]

Not sure exactly how I feel about the first episode. I didn't outright hate it, but it feels as if the disorientation/paranoia quick-cut scenes are either going to get tiresome or hard to pull off and phased out (or very intermittent).

I mostly feel like EVERYTHING that happened was in Haller's head.

[Killercroc357]

Not sure exactly how I feel about the first episode. I didn't outright hate it, but it feels as if the disorientation/paranoia quick-cut scenes are either going to get tiresome or hard to pull off and phased out (or very intermittent).

I mostly feel like EVERYTHING that happened was in Haller's head.

"Keep an eye on this one."

[JKtheMac]

Not sure exactly how I feel about the first episode. I didn't outright hate it, but it feels as if the disorientation/paranoia quick-cut scenes are either going to get tiresome or hard to pull off and phased out (or very intermittent).

I mostly feel like EVERYTHING that happened was in Haller's head.

Well yes. That is pretty much the concept. Subjective reality. Just because it is all in his head doesn't mean it wont have meaningful stakes or interesting themes. But as I stated earlier, there is something about removing stories that one step further form reality that switches off most of the audience. There are not many people that love Jacob's Ladder or Pleasantville for example. (Or at least it sometimes feels like there are not many of us.)

[darewithpeace]

what a good soundtrack !

[JKtheMac]

what a good soundtrack !

Absolutely. Every song is perfect for the subjective era and the scene.

[Teste]

Finally got to see the pilot. OUTSTANDING!

And the fat, yellow-eyed man was quite the interesting tease. Which leads me to believe David may be in a world within a world so he can be studied further. And manipulated.

I doubt that's Mojo, actually.

The yellow eyed demon, thinking we're talking about the son of Xavier, has the potential to be a far more interesting story. Who's the most famous yellow eyed character in the X-Men cinematic universe? And what would that character do with the knowledge that Xavier has a son?

[Killercroc357]

It sure looks like Mojo. But that may be the show creators trying to throw us off the trail so soon.