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2016 RTE Drama: Rebellion - no spoilers please (mod warning in post #1)
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I thought the episode was absolutely fine and for the first time we went heavy on characterisation. I'm convinced the only way the series would have been warmly received is if it had gone in favour of a nationalist / republican narrative. Once people realised this was not the case (episode 2 onwards) the negativity seemed to start : "awful", "abysmal", "boring", "revisionist" etc. I'd actually be interested to hear what an international audience would make of it.
We should perhaps have guessed that Frances was a lesbian or had lesbian tendencies and Harry Butler surprisingly turned out to be one of the highlights of the series : lol @ him trying to bribe the detective into freeing Elizabeth
No major complaints about the last episode , myself. There was a fair bit a meat on it and even a decent story. I didn't mind Harry at all. He was able to shine in the last episode . "Up me" was a good one
Was that really a lesbian kiss or an act of compassion? lol. Probably the former. Not sure about her, she had the hots for Pearse until he spurned her a few times
Wrong on your idea of what would be warmly received. That is also unfair and down right insulting. Intelligent people, even with Republican sympathies know well what 1916 was and was not and have spent time studying beyond a secondary school text book
. How could they not? Attitudes have changed since 1966. State records have been released , people in their last years came out and gave their stories Check youtube with interviews from veterans whose story is far from romantic. David Nelligan came out and said knowing what he had known by then, he would never have done what he did during the Tan War and that Anti Treaty lads were you know what. Others admitted that they killed civilians in a matter of fact manner . None of them glorified killing British soldiers. Many of them said the Professional Tommie were grand and not like the Tans or Auxiliaries . That 1916 men were not popular when they surrendered by such unpopularity was not completely widespread
Many of the books written in the romantic Ireland way were often written by people who were not involved - see the problems raised by the author who wrote Liam Deasy's book. Earnie O'Malley was far from ignoring the problems or painting the movement in a way that it was not. Tom Barry too, for most part. Richard Mulchay is famous for pointing out that many IRA units struggled to take a decent sized RIC barracks never mind running the Brits into the sea.
There has been an absolute nonsense assumption, by people who are defensive of the show, when belittling the historical issues raised by many people over the various social media sources - "amateur historian", "eating school text books", the latter being a hilarious one. All often stated by people who don't know their arse from their elbow when it comes to Irish history. Brilliantly such defenses are often not followed up with an actual counter argument containing any facts, hence, the major problem with revisionists - the failure to that into context the standard of the day or replacing facts and evidence with their own theory or speculation - the big one for me is what would happen with Home Rule (people should bloody read the text of the bills first)
The criticism started the first night! Like films inspired by historical events, glaring inaccuracies get called out immediately . It got worse when actually the so called drama and acting border lined Fair City Standards
As a whole, it was NOT critical of the men of 1916. It was neutral, tell it as it is story. Nothing wrong with that. The perception however is another thing, but one must expect that people are intelligent
Most of the complaints has been on the over use of the women's story (what story?) that had little purpose at all (could have been dealt with much better) and expectation that Pearse and Co would get more analysis and an expectation of covering some actually fighting. The other complaints were the script/dialog and pace . Had people known what this would have turned out to be , it may never have got the big ratings on the first night in the first place. Not everyone wanted to watch another costume drama that was going no where in particular
Who cares what the International world thinks, it is not their history. Nothing worse than a pack of lies being allowed to be portrayed .In fairness, there were NO lies about the Republicans in this - just portrayed badly and completely failed to show context and the true British reaction Without showing the context of what happened, it looked like the IRB had no good reason to rebel , or even any reason and they were just a bunch of nut jobs0 -
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TCDStudent1 wrote: »Things I liked about Rebellion:
- The best thing about it was that it got me thinking about parts of the rising I never came close to thinking about before (the involvement of the church, British army soldiers on leave fighting the rebels etc.)
- The Art & family storyline was done very well. In one of the first scenes, we see Art & Jimmy talk. It looked like they had no big politic differences, yet they end up fighting each other. Art’s dilemma at fighting his own people was well written.
- The scenes between the priest & the bishop were also very good.
- The actor who played James Connolly was very convincing as Connolly
Things I didn’t like about Rebellion:
- The affair storyline and the scenes between Mrs. Hammond & May. They really didn’t work at all and were completely unrealistic in their execution.
- The wedding storyline. Seemed completely unnecessary to me & the scene with them all outside the chapel in Trinity was the worst scene in the whole series for me.
- The Ingrid storyline. Not sure if some of her scenes were cut out or if she was just there so that we could see Connolly’s execution from her viewpoint. But that storyline didn’t really go anywhere.
- There were not enough scenes of what Dublin looked like in 1916. Early on, we get a great scene of Nelsons Pillar and the viewer probably thought – great, we’ll get to see more of that kind of stuff but it never really happened.
Things I would have liked to have seen / changed:
- A scene of the Helga gunboat on the Liffey would have been great. I know nothing about budgets though so I no idea how feasible that would have been
- More in the lead up to the rising in 1914 / 1915. Show the characters interact in normal Dublin life. Show a backdrop to the rising. I was never really convinced about the Jimmy / Elizabeth love story because the only time we properly see them interact was during Easter week. Would have been nice to see them interact at citizen army meetings or something like that. Would have been nice to see a bit more interaction between the 3 female characters too. What did women in their 20’s do in their spare time in 1914 – 1916? I have no idea and it could have been good to see them hang out as friends and discuss various things like how they were getting involved in different movements. Have them talk about why they were involved in the Citizen army instead of the volunteers etc. I’d have much preferred the time spent on Mrs. Hammond & May to have been spent on those type of scenes.
- A little more comedy. Somebody mentioned earlier that the show really missed “Dublin wit” and I have to agree with that. This is somewhere that Strumpet City really trumps Rebellion. There was a scene in Strumpet City where Pat described to Tierney how his dog might have been re-incarnated. Nothing to do with the lockout but it gave a bit of humour and made you care more about the characters. I cant think of any comparable scene in Rebellion. I think Harry may have been intended as a somewhat comical character but if so, failed miserably.
If I was the writer, there is no doubt that I would have approached it differently. However, I would certainly not have gone down the route of introducing more historical characters than we already saw in it. Hobson, the O’Rahilly, Redmond, Dillion, MacNeill, Casement were all important players in how the events of the Rising unfolded but introducing them would just confuse the average viewer.
I can understand why people have some issues with it but I would certainly watch a second season if it was made.
Many good points here, I would agree with a lot of them.
James Connolly was a standout alright, very convincing and I actually thought the Pearse character was excellent.....his natural charisma came across well along with a slight hint of madness.
I agree too that they forgot to include any comedy or light hearted moments and perhaps missed a trick there. I'm sure there must have been many moments of black comedy or Dublin wit throughout the Rising
Harry actually grew on me in the end. He did the decent thing in the end and got Minnie off the hook with the police and it looks like he was about to confess stealing the money to his father. I'd like to see a lot more of him in Series 2.0 -
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Many good points here, I would agree with a lot of them.
James Connolly was a standout alright, very convincing and I actually thought the Pearse character was excellent.....his natural charisma came across well along with a slight hint of madness.
I agree too that they forgot to include any comedy or light hearted moments and perhaps missed a trick there. I'm sure there must have been many moments of black comedy or Dublin wit throughout the Rising
Harry actually grew on me in the end. He did the decent thing in the end and got Minnie off the hook with the police and it looks like he was about to confess stealing the money to his father. I'd like to see a lot more of him in Series 2.
I'm not sure it was his intention to get her off the hook. He implicated himself whilst doing that and I doubt that he intended that.0 -
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I thought that last episode was excellent. Bar the brother doing his stupid laugh at the end and the slow-mo reunion (kind of) of Liz and Jimmy there was not a single thing I'd have changed about it.
There was far more character development/exposition in that episode than in the rest of the series. Slight problem that it came at the end rather than at the start or evenly doled out throughout the episodes. That's the problem with having a massive historical event at the centre though.
Frances' character made perfect sense once we had a clearer view of her upbringing, her motivations and actions throughout Easter week and in the lead up made sense too. The conversation between Mr and Mrs Butler shone a bit of light on Elizabeth and even the scene between mother and son gave a clearer view as to how Elizabeth, and even Harry, ended up where they did. God help me but I even found Harry incredibly entertaining throughout that episode. The thought of him being head of the family and maybe even a bank is too much to think about.
May's affair with Hammond even turned out to have some plot relevance. She could have stolen the file based on her job alone so the affair being her way out of trouble was an interesting way to go.
An excellent choice choosing Connolly's execution as the only one to (kind of) show. A dying man tied to a chair so he could be shot... well, it sums up the reaction of the British perfectly.
I thought the stuff with Dev was very well done too. They've set it up nicely for future conflict, if there's a second series. Jimmy's reaction to Dev showing how some involved in the fighting weren't fans. The other soldier telling him that there was a feeling they should all rally behind Dev now and warning him that some men were already fully behind him to the point of threatening to kill anyone who spoke against him sets up the future divide perfectly.
May's story could carry on too. Her way out of trouble will fall flat on it's arse when she comes back to a country where British rule is on it's death bed. She's given away her child for the promise of a better life which may not materialise.
I know there was a lot of criticism for the woman playing Arthur's wife but I thought her scene with the priest was excellent. He's preaching one thing at her and then practicing another. The scene with the Bishop too was good. They've done a great job of showing the control the church had over the people and how the higher ups were more concerned with keeping that control than anything else.
Also a brilliant touch to have the locals cheering the Rebels onto the boats when last week they were jeering them into the jails. Shows how fickle public opinion was at the time and how easily, and quickly, public opinion was swayed as a result of the British reaction. Harry laughing at them having to sneak Asquith up to Belfast after the public turned on him was a nice touch too.
Felt bad for George too, the divide between future Rep. of Ireland and future Northern Ireland already starting to show a bit.
All in all, while it was far from perfect, viewing it as a whole now it's finished I think it was a pretty decent mini series. The things they got right outweighed the negatives, I thought, and if there's a second series which wouldn't be weighed down with 1)public expectation and 2)a week long armed rebellion at the centre of it, with a few little tweeks here and there, there is potential for a really strong character driven look at another, arguably more important, period of Irish history.0 -
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TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »I thought that last episode was excellent. Bar the brother doing his stupid laugh at the end and the slow-mo reunion (kind of) of Liz and Jimmy there was not a single thing I'd have changed about it.
There was far more character development/exposition in that episode than in the rest of the series. Slight problem that it came at the end rather than at the start or evenly doled out throughout the episodes. That's the problem with having a massive historical event at the centre though.
Frances' character made perfect sense once we had a clearer view of her upbringing, her motivations and actions throughout Easter week and in the lead up made sense too. The conversation between Mr and Mrs Butler shone a bit of light on Elizabeth and even the scene between mother and son gave a clearer view as to how Elizabeth, and even Harry, ended up where they did. God help me but I even found Harry incredibly entertaining throughout that episode. The thought of him being head of the family and maybe even a bank is too much to think about.
May's affair with Hammond even turned out to have some plot relevance. She could have stolen the file based on her job alone so the affair being her way out of trouble was an interesting way to go.
An excellent choice choosing Connolly's execution as the only one to (kind of) show. A dying man tied to a chair so he could be shot... well, it sums up the reaction of the British perfectly.
I thought the stuff with Dev was very well done too. They've set it up nicely for future conflict, if there's a second series. Jimmy's reaction to Dev showing how some involved in the fighting weren't fans. The other soldier telling him that there was a feeling they should all rally behind Dev now and warning him that some men were already fully behind him to the point of threatening to kill anyone who spoke against him sets up the future divide perfectly.
May's story could carry on too. Her way out of trouble will fall flat on it's arse when she comes back to a country where British rule is on it's death bed. She's given away her child for the promise of a better life which may not materialise.
I know there was a lot of criticism for the woman playing Arthur's wife but I thought her scene with the priest was excellent. He's preaching one thing at her and then practicing another. The scene with the Bishop too was good. They've done a great job of showing the control the church had over the people and how the higher ups were more concerned with keeping that control than anything else.
Also a brilliant touch to have the locals cheering the Rebels onto the boats when last week they were jeering them into the jails. Shows how fickle public opinion was at the time and how easily, and quickly, public opinion was swayed as a result of the British reaction. Harry laughing at them having to sneak Asquith up to Belfast after the public turned on him was a nice touch too.
Felt bad for George too, the divide between future Rep. of Ireland and future Northern Ireland already starting to show a bit.
All in all while it was far from perfect viewing it as a whole now it's finished I think it was a pretty decent mini series. The things they got right outweighed the negatives, I thought, and if there's a second series which wouldn't be weighed down with 1)public expectation and 2)a week long armed rebellion at the centre of it, with a few little tweeks here and there, there is potential for a really strong character driven look at another, arguably more important, period of Irish history.
I thought it was a fine episode too. It was one that went strongest on characterisation (and was denounced for this on social media by the usual keyboard warriors saying it was "Fair City meets Downton Abbey").
It's easy to see where Elizabeth gets her beliefs from. Her mother realises that the British response is crazy and over the top even though she is an Anglo Irish Protestant herself.
May's decision to go to accept Mr Hammond's terms and go to England seems sensible at least. The alternative of handing herself over to the police would have resulted in complete ruination for her, certainly in the short term anyway.
They quite cleverly managed to get both Dev and Collins into the same episode. Dev throwing up was even plausible : he was very cerebral and was no bloodthirsty soldier.
I found myself warming to Harry last night. We got the first signs that he wasn't all bad......he's selfish and self obsessed certainly but there's a touch of a likeable rogue about him.0 -
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