Supergirl “leaked Pilot” – An almost completely spoiler-free review

This fall, CBS will begin airing a new superhero show Supergirl. This series has a lot in common with the highly popular CW shows Arrow and The Flash. The new show shares the same executive producers, Greg Berlanti and Andrew Kreisberg, and all three are based on popular characters from the DC Comics universe. The new show has a tone somewhat reminiscent of The Flash. It also has one more thing in common: reminiscent of last years unauthorized release of The Flash pilot episode, the premier episode of Supergirl has been leaked six months early.

Leaving aside the details of how and why this leak happened, since it did, we get an early look at the show in much more depth than the officially released trailer gave us. Without giving away too much, here are some first impressions of the show, and how well it stacks up to the growing competition in the comic-adaptation space.

General Impressions

First of all, just to be clear: this is being called the “pilot” episode, but it’s not really a traditional pilot. It’s is obviously a final product – S01E01 of the series, with all of the final cast in place and post-production work done. This is good news and bad news. Good news, because we get a faithful representation of what the show will be like for the rest of the season, but bad news because there probably won’t be much chance to fix things that might be broken. (I may be wrong here, we shall see.)

Generally speaking, I think the show is much better than the trailer led us to believe. I still have concerns over where the focus of the show will be, but the pilot seems to be moving in the right direction. The main complaint about the trailer has been how much time was spent on the mundane details of Kara Danver’s life. Was that an indication that the show was trying too hard to attract a broader audience, at the expense of the core superheroine story? I think the pilot gives us good reason to think that’s not the case. I thought the episode had a nice mix of straight up action, character development, and laying groundwork for the rest of the series. It has about the same mix of heroic plot vs. dramatic development that it’s sister shows on the CW did during their first episodes.

The Good Stuff

The first thing that struck me was how little time this show wasted getting the basic exposition out of the way. Within the first 5 minutes of the episode — basically, the opening stinger — most of the plot questions people had from the trailer are answered, right up front. They let us know quickly what’s happened already and where the world sits. It’s also clear that these writers have worked on DC shows before, and they know their stuff, which is a good sign.

Without giving too much away, the show follows the basics of Kara Zor-El’s modern origin story: sent to Earth as a young girl to protect infant Kal-El, an accident causes her to arrive much later. By the time Kara arrives on Earth, Kal-El is fully grown and has revealed his existence. Supergirl is set in a world where Superman is a household name, though the show goes to extreme measures to avoid using the S-word (there are lots of reference to “he”, “him”, and “my cousin”.) The reason for her delay is explained, but it’s a key element to what looks to be the first season’s story arc, so I won’t go into any more detail.

I really like that this show didn’t have your traditional superhero origin story structure, not even for the first episode. Kara was 12 years old when she left Krypton for Earth, and was made fully aware of the special powers she would have. As we see in the trailer, once she decides to embrace her super side, the show jumps right into the heroics: in the first episode, we see flying, super-strength, x-ray vision, invulnerability, and heat vision. Watching Clark Kent come into his powers, and struggle to master them, can be interesting (it was done very well on Smallville; maybe less well in Man of Steel), but it’s been done. We’ve spent three seasons watching Oliver Queen on Arrow become the Green Arrow, we don’t need to spend a whole season waiting for Kara to figure out she can see through walls.

I also like the fact that the show has a nice upbeat tone, much like The Flash, and in stark contrast to the current DC cinematic universe. The show is bright and colorful, and most of the people are generally happy, or at least content. Thus, when Kara has an emotional moment with her sister, it actually seems important — the character’s not just moping around because that’s how she is. There’s also a lot of friendly banter and humor thrown in. I’ve talked to a lot of casual fans who watch The Flash but not Arrow or Gotham for exactly this reason – it’s just more fun to watch. This show was fun to watch.

The Less-Good Stuff

Of course, there were some places where the show seemed to miss the mark. For one thing, much of the character development seems rushed, or even forced. In parts, watching the pilot was almost like watching a really long trailer — it felt like there was chopped up from a longer, more coherent scene. For example, the Supergirl costume montage from the trailer happens at just about that speed in the episode: we go from an obvious fan-service first try to final outfit, including a Kryptonian powers montage — just a few minutes. It seems like the scene was meant to set up the relationship between Kara and her sidekick/support-nerd, but everything happens so fast there’s no real impact.

Several other character development plot threads (e.g. Kara’s blind date) seem like they’re supposed to be giving us characterization, but they’re moved past and forgotten so quickly they don’t mean much. And much of the banter seems a bit forced, like it’s desperately trying to drive home just how comfortable these characters are together, even in a situation where they probably shouldn’t be!

They’re also falling into a pattern that drives me crazy on The Flash — Kara’s secret identity is almost an afterthought. When the show starts, only four people know she’s Kryptonian — her family. When the show ends, we’ve added at least three more! Please, please lets keep that number down for at least a half a season?

Hopefully we can chalk all of that up to this being the first episode, trying to get the characters and their relationships settled and in place, so we can get to the good stuff. The second episode will be crucial in determining if this will be an ongoing problem for the show.

Another miss, for me, was the Kat Grant character. Calitsa Flockhart is obviously channeling Meryl Streep from The Devil Wears Prada, but that’s a huge set of shoes to fill, and it comes across cliche. Even worse, she completely drops that act when it’s time for her to be serious and sensitive, then goes right back into it. She almost comes across as having a split personality.

And really, there’s just too much of her. Perry White or J. Jonah Jameson play mostly bit parts in their shows: they’re foils for the other, primary characters that work for them, and rarely the focus of any scene. Kat Grant, on the other hand, dominates all of her scenes with Kara, and not merely in a keeping-her-secret-identity way. She really does completely overpower Supergirl’s personality, but doesn’t really add much to the scenes. I was constantly wanting to fast forward past her scenes. In seems like they’re positioning her character as a kind of surrogate mother figure for Kara (though, as far as we know, her adopted parents are alive), but most of the time she just comes of needlessly harsh. Perhaps the writers plan to use this dynamic to show Kara’s personality changing as her confidence grows, but if so, I hope they get to it fast, because I was completely sick of Kat Grant by the end of this episode.

Lastly, and perhaps most annoyingly, is how much this show wanted to be about Superman without being allowed (I assume) to say Superman. It’s obvious that Kal-El is the far more famous of the two cousins, and by tying Kara’s story in with his, it lets us fast forward past a lot of otherwise tedious exposition. But the number of times Kara’s cousin comes up in conversation got old very quickly. The fact that they try so hard to avoid naming him makes it even worse. During the opening exposition scene, they identify him as Kal-El and Superman but after that, we only get one occurance of “Man of Steel”. Instead, Kara would frequently talk about “him” in a way that we’re supposed to know who she’s talking about. Obviously, since she’s related to Superman, it’s going to come up, but the point of this show is that Kara is a hero in her own right. She doesn’t need to have her now-older cousin’s specter towering over her all the time. Much like Gotham is not about Batman, Supergirl should not be about Superman. Hopefully this will dwindle away as the episodes continue — we’ve gotten the idea, lets move on.

Conclusion

I think this is going to be a good show. The major elements I think are there. While I have some issues with some of the dialogue, I think the actors themselves mostly have their characters nailed. Melissa Benoist, in particular, seemed to have no problem carrying the show when she needed to, although her Kara Zor-El was much more believable than her Kara Danvers. The central relationship with her sister seemed genuine (jury’s still out on the other two budding relationships). There’s a good hook that should provide good fodder for the early villain-of-the-week episodes, with hints of the broader story arc as well.

This isn’t going to be a show for the hard-core DC comic fans, though. It’s clearly meant for a broader audience, even more than any of the other DC shows on TV so far. Constantine this is not. But I’d make the same assessment about The Flash and that’s turned out to be one of my favorite DC shows to watch, so don’t let that discourage you from giving this one a try.

Overall, I would probably rate this show at about 7 out of 10. I’m not quite as enthusiastic about it as compared to Arrow, The Flash, or even Agents of SHIELD. I would probably rate it somewhere in my top 10 comics-based shows, around where iZombie and (likely) Legends of Tomorrow are sitting.

Definitely worth watching.

Highlights from 2015 – 1st Quarter

Top Stats

The question with the highest votes was Is there a Vulcan funeral blessing? asked by Iszi.

The two questions with the most views (by a narrow margin of 200 some odd views between them) were Why is ‘Belgium’ the rudest word in Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy? and Why do people risk death by joining Starfleet if not for money or preservation of their homes? asked by Dries and Emissarry respectably.

The top voted answer was user42365‘s answer to Is there a Vulcan funeral blessing?. Second place was phantom42‘s answer to Why did Peter Quill wait 26 years to open his mother’s gift?

Top User Picks

SSumner is like, totally, obsessed with Star Wars.

They liked the questions:

They liked the answers:

Richard liked the following questions:

And my answers to them weren’t half bad, either, if I can toot my own trumpet.

Darth Melkor liked the top voted question, Richard’s answer to the Neo question, additionally:

On the Neo question he said:

Richard got an awesome answer to this one precisely one minute before I did, and did a much better job of it than I did too, so it’s worth a shout-out

Author Picks

If I had to choose my favorite questions (which I don’t, but I will) they would be:

All asked by Tango and answered by Jack B Nimble.

After researching the Adventures of Superman series questions for several hours everyday for five days I finally stumbled upon a book called Flights of Fantasy: The Unauthorized but True Story of Radio & TV’s Adventures of Superman, which I decided to buy on the hope of finding the answers to the two questions. Fortunately, I did.

Jack’s Bad Movies – Yor, the Hunter from the Future

I watched this movie as a kid and thought it comically bad. So now I’ve re-watched it so I can share its awfulness.

IMDB’s description

A warrior seeks his true origins in a seemingly prehistoric wasteland.

Yor, the Hunter from the Future opens in a prehistoric setting where an old man and his adopted daughter are hunting a small creature. Suddenly they are attacked by a triceratops (or close enough). Who should come to their rescue, but Yor, the title character, a nomad warrior. Yor dispatches this massive dinosaur with a stone axe. After all the hard work is done then some other people arrive to help. For saving the old man and the woman (Ka-Laa) Yor is treated to a celebration dinner back at the village.

Yor, the Hunter from the Future.
Yor, the Hunter from the Future

Ka-Laa is clearly smitten by Yor, and proceeds to dance for him and bring him drink. Throughout this movie Ka-Laa is constantly asking her adopted father why Yor seems so different from other men. Which is pretty stupid of her, because the differences are obvious. Yor is the only man anyone has ever seen with blonde hair, he doesn’t wear a shirt, and he has a mysterious medallion hanging around his neck. The village wise-man asks about Yor’s medallion, to which Yor has no answer. He then informs Yor that there is story about an ‘angel’ in the desert who has a similar medallion.

The party is only just started when a rival clan of black fur wearing men attack the village. They kill most of the men and kidnap the women. After killing a half a dozen or so of the raiders, Yor manages to escape with Ka-Laa and her father. They decide it is important to rescue the captured women. While tracking the Black Fur Clan, Yor and company is captured. The leader of the clan takes Yor’s medallion, believing it to the be the source of his fighting prowess (I personally believe it is on account of his toned muscles and the blonde hair). Yor somehow escapes, uses a large bat as a hang-glider, rescues Ka-Laa and her father, and then promptly destroys this cave settlement with a massive flood. What about the captured women they came to save? We don’t know their fate, but I assume they drown.

Yor and company
Yor and company

Yor and company now head into the desert to find the ‘angel’ woman. Yor enters the village of the Sand-People, who would be better described as Mud-People, and is promptly captured. For all Yor’s fighting ability, he sure gets captured a lot. Yor is brought to Ayshe, which is a blonde woman who wears a medallion which matches Yor’s. Ayshe lives in a slowly melting ice cave, which has other people also wearing medallions frozen in ice. She is a prisoner, as the Sand-People worship her, but also won’t allow her to leave. Ayshe says that all strangers who come to the village are sacrificed, and Yor is no exception. This means there is no way the wise-man from the village could have heard about Ayshe and her medallion, but whatever. Yor manages to escape, grabs a large flaming sword, and reaps destruction on the village.

Yor and Ayshe meet up with Ka-Laa and the old man. Ka-Laa is extremely jealous of Ayshe, since Yor is obviously very taken with her. Her adopted father says “the men in our village have multiple wives, why can’t Yor have two?” Ka-Laa is far too feminist and progressive to have to share her man with someone else, and promptly goes off to have a fight to the death with Ayshe. As they are rolling around in the sand attempting to kill each other, the Black Fur Clan shows up. Somehow they survived the flood which ruined their settlement. Yor and the old man, who is an accomplished archer, end up killing them. But not before Ayshe falls and hits her head on a rock and dies. Prehistoric medicine is the worst, but at least this clears the way for Ka-Laa to possess Yor only for herself, just like the selfish woman that she is. Yor gives Ka-Laa Ayshe’s medallion, probably as a prize, for helping to get her killed.

Ayshe, the second wife Ka-Laa would never let Yor have
Ayshe, the second wife Ka-Laa would never let Yor have

Yor and company are then traveling and come upon a group of teenage girls being attacked by a Stegosaurus. Yor and the old man manage to kill it. Small wonder dinosaurs became extinct, given the ease in which they are killed. The girls are so grateful they take them to their seaside village. Upon arriving the chief tells Yor that his daughter (the oldest of the ones saved, but still probably only 15 or 16 years old) belongs to him now. Yor says he already has a woman, and won’t take her. This is probably because Yor now knows Ka-Laa would kill the girl otherwise.

What would have been Yor's third wife, if Ka-Laa hadn't been such a monogamous prude
What would have been Yor’s third wife, if Ka-Laa hadn’t been such a monogamous prude

The chief of village says a strange creature came and terrorized their village with heat and lightning, and with great difficulty they killed it. When Yor goes to examine the remains, he finds a large spotlight which has a radio broadcast. The chief tells Yor the strange creature originated from an island in the ocean which is surrounded by storms.

Later that evening the village is attacked by planes firing laserbeam weapons. It destroys the village and kills a bunch of people. Yor’s backup wife is spared, but her father, the chief dies. By now we are starting to see a pattern to Yor’s life and we now realize why he is a nomad. It is because every village he comes in contact with gets destroyed in some way or another (current tally, four).

Yor, Ka-Laa, and the old man (who might be named Tag, I didn’t bother to remember) then take what seems like the only remaining fishing boat from the surviving villagers and head out into the ocean. They are caught in a huge storm, and Yor is lost overboard, Ka-Laa and her father crash into rocks. Roll credits! Oh wait, they survived.

Yor awakens on a beach and begins wandering around. In a futuristic room, a man in a dark cloak watches via a crystal ball and orders Yor’s capture. Yor is promptly attacked and captured (like always). He did manage to decapitate one of the men first with a rock, only to discover it was a robot. Yes, Yor decapitated a robot with a rock. Yor awakens in a futuristic room with a woman monitoring his condition. She tells him is the son of a resistance leader who fought against the Overlord and was banished to the mainland. This woman (and seemingly everyone on the island except the Overlord) is also a member of the resistance. The Overlord apparently wants to get rid of the human condition known as “being alive and free of will” in his subjects and turn everyone into loyal robots.

Yor and the robots
Yor and the robots

Meanwhile Ka-Laa and Tag are on the beach and get rescued by a resistance fighter from the robots. They hatch a plan to detonate the nuclear reactor on the island and escape to the mainland via a shuttle they have prepared. Yor is allowed to wander around the facility looking for Ka-Laa, in the hopes that he’ll lead the robots to the resistance. After a bunch of aimless wandering, Yor finally meets up with Ka-Laa and the race is on to plant the bomb before the robots get them. Yor kills a robot with his bare hands, and then picks up its laser weapon and begins firing it with perfect precision. I guess he really is the Hunter from the Future, considering he grew up alone on the prehistoric mainland.

Yor stabs the Overload with large pole (instead of just shooting him). This is to create the illusion of suspense, as after Yor plants the bomb on the reactor, the Overlord has like five minutes or something to turn it off before the place goes up in smoke. The resistance manages to override his robots, so eventually the fighting stops and the few island survivors, Yor, Ka-Laa, and Tag head to the mainland to begin a new life. Yor’s curse of finding a new settlement and seeing it destroyed is once again realized as the island explodes.

See the trailer it all its glory (which I would embed if I could).
Yor, The Hunter from the Future

Review – Cinderella

If you are familiar with the 1950 animated production of Cinderella also produced by Disney, then the latest live-action version may not offer anything new to you. This new version is simply a retelling of that 1950s classic. Both versions are derived from Cendrillon, by Charles Perrault in 1697; Featuring a girl forced into servitude, a fairy godmother, the changing of pumpkins and animals into a coach with horses and footmen, and glass slippers.

Cinderella

The casting is spot on. Lily James as Ella plays the part of the humble country girl well. Cate Blanchett is the perfect evil step-mother, because this is how you believe she acts in real life. When asked by Cinderella why she is treated as she is Blanchett says “Because you are young, and beautiful, and good.” and then stops herself. The realization is that the step-mother is none of these things and resents Cinderella for it. The two step-sisters are sufficiently stuck up and insensitive, and the goose plays a convincing goose. Richard Madden plays the Prince, who is given something of a nickname of “Kit,” but does not go by the name of “Prince Charming.”

The primary complaint I heard about the film is that it offers nothing new to the Cinderella story. It is essentially a retelling of the animated version, despite what the previews claim. Because the last year’s Maleficent changed and added to the story of Sleeping Beauty, the expectation, for some, was that this new Cinderella would do the same. The example given was Ever After: A Cinderella Story which seemed to add a lot of new detail or circumstance to the Cinderella story. However, the differences can likely be explained that Ever After is closer to the Brothers Grimm version Aschenputtel than to the version Disney chose to base their films on.

There are no songs in this film, and the mice do not talk, although Cinderella clearly has some innate ability to communicate with animals. We are also given explanation of why she is named ‘Cinderella.’ I am sure many people have always assumed her name was simply ‘Cinderella’ without question. But the title character’s first name is actual Ella, and transforms into Cinderella.

Bottom-line, if you enjoy the classic Disney animated film and want to see a live-action version of that, then Cinderella will be right up your alley. If you are expecting Disney to evolve the character from their established story line, then you may be in for disappointment.

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