2016 RTE Drama: Rebellion - no spoilers please (mod warning in post #1)

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

P. Breathnach wrote: »

It also irked me that everything and everybody seemed too clean.

I could probably argue a little against most points that people have found fault with in Rebellion but this is 100% the thing that annoyed me most. Even leaving the fact they were all involved in an armed battle with fires blazing around the city and then thrown in stinking cells.... they hadn't been home to have a wash for about 2 weeks. Even just walking around town minding your own business for 2 weeks without having a wash you're going to be filthy.

jmcc

Strazdas wrote: »

Don't forget the political correctness and anachronistic dialogue accusation has frequently been levelled at the juggernaut that is Downton Abbey.

You seem to be as confused as to why I was referring to Rebellion as Down Town Abbey.

Regards...jmcc

jmcc

josephryan1989 wrote: »

The 1916 Rising was a blood sacrifice and a protest in arms which succeeded in awakening the nation.

It may have been a tactical defeat but it was a strategic victory far beyond what the leaders of 1916 could have hoped.

Regards...jmcc

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Strazdas wrote: »

It seems the only way Rebellion could have escaped this type of flak is if they'd gone the 1966 route and keep things very black and white and definitely kept any shades of revisionism out of things.

And then they would have found something else to complain about. Pearse didn't walk like that. Connolly's mustache was never that long. There's too many people from South County Dublin involved in the production. That guy's uncle works in the RTÉ canteen. They should have included this. They should have included that. They should have shown every single execution in great detail. The should have given the entire RTÉ schedule for 2016 over to a minute by minute recreation of 1916. The British soldiers should have had devil horns on their hats to make it 100% clear that they were the bad guys. Collins should have been riding a white horse and been centre of attention despite having relatively little involvement in events.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

jmcc wrote: »

It may have been a tactical defeat but it was a strategic victory far beyond what the leaders of 1916 could have hoped.

Regards...jmcc

Or it was a purely accidental result that made them look like a smarter bunch of men than they were.

jmcc

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

And then they would have found something else to complain about. Pearse didn't walk like that. Connolly's mustache was never that long. There's too many people from South County Dublin involved in the production. That guy's uncle works in the RTÉ canteen. They should have included this. They should have included that. They should have shown every single execution in great detail. The should have given the entire RTÉ schedule for 2016 over to a minute by minute recreation of 1916. The British soldiers should have had devil horns on their hats to make it 100% clear that they were the bad guys. Collins should have been riding a white horse and been centre of attention despite having relatively little involvement in events.

With your ability to create so many strawman arguments so rapidly, did you ever consider a career as a writer of fiction?

Regards...jmcc

Shurimgreat

jmcc wrote: »

You can tell them just that if it pleases you. That's exactly what is driving a lot of the criticism of the series. That and the really crass Political Correctness and anachronistic Dortspeak dialogue. To paraphrase one cardboard character, it was a crime scene in a war zone.

Regards...jmcc

Generalised criticism without specific examples. I'm sure you can do better.

Shurimgreat

jmcc wrote: »

With your ability to create so many strawman arguments so rapidly, did you ever consider a career as a writer of fiction?

Regards...jmcc

Was wondering how long it would take before you started to roll out the "strawman" line of attack!

To be honest jmcc, all people on here are sensing from you is a general antagonism towards all things RTE, regardless of what they broadcast.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

jmcc wrote: »

With your ability to create so many strawman arguments so rapidly, did you ever consider a career as a writer of fiction?

Regards...jmcc

That's not a strawman argument. It's a fact. People like to complain. They'll always find something to complain about. It's relevant to the post I was replying to and all of the things I listed are pretty much the things people complained about when discussing Rebellion.

jmcc

Shurimgreat wrote: »

Was wondering how long it would take before you started to roll out the "strawman" line of attack!

You seem to like to use military terms like you know what they mean. You don't. The Rising may have been a tactical defeat but in what it achieved, it was a strategic victory.

To be honest jmcc, all people on here are sensing from you is a general antagonism towards all things RTE, regardless of what they broadcast.

Is that the vote of the jury in the RTE canteen?

Regards...jmcc

jmcc

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

Or it was a purely accidental result that made them look like a smarter bunch of men than they were.

Sometimes victory depends on making fewer mistakes than one's enemies.

Regards...jmcc

Strazdas

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

And then they would have found something else to complain about. Pearse didn't walk like that. Connolly's mustache was never that long. There's too many people from South County Dublin involved in the production. That guy's uncle works in the RTÉ canteen. They should have included this. They should have included that. They should have shown every single execution in great detail. The should have given the entire RTÉ schedule for 2016 over to a minute by minute recreation of 1916. The British soldiers should have had devil horns on their hats to make it 100% clear that they were the bad guys. Collins should have been riding a white horse and been centre of attention despite having relatively little involvement in events.

I notice too that people who are bashing Rebellion to pieces on places like thejournal.ie are bigging up TG4's Easter Rising docudramas instead, while neglecting to mention these were watched by about 40k people an episode.

Shurimgreat

jmcc wrote: »

You seem to like to use military terms like you know what they mean.

It could be said even more so about you. In terms of history, military matters and the ability to critique a drama in detail as opposed to tired generalisations, you are pretty clueless to be fair.

Regards.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Strazdas wrote: »

I notice too that people who are bashing Rebellion to pieces on places like thejournal.ie are bigging up TG4's Easter Rising docudramas instead, while neglecting to mention these were watched by about 40k people an episode.

The TG4 series have been mentioned in here a few times and they're excellent productions that deserve to be seen by way more people than actually saw them. That said they're a completely different genre of program and as companion pieces to a fictional drama they're fine but using them as a like for like comparison is pointless.

jmcc

Shurimgreat wrote: »

Er no it wasn't.

If it wasn't, then Ireland would still be part of the UK. You lose.

Regards...jmcc

Strazdas

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

The TG4 series have been mentioned in here a few times and they're excellent productions that deserve to be seen by way more people than actually saw them. That said they're a completely different genre of program and as companion pieces to a fictional drama they're fine but using them as a like for like comparison is pointless.

They're absolutely fine and well produced but are still niche programmes on a minority channel and made on a fairly low budget too. The real reason they are being held up as superior to Rebellion though is because they didn't go down the old revisionist route.

jmcc

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

The TG4 series have been mentioned in here a few times and they're excellent productions that deserve to be seen by way more people than actually saw them. That said they're a completely different genre of program and as companion pieces to a fictional drama they're fine but using them as a like for like comparison is pointless.

They are quite powerful and would run very much against the grain of some in RTE. TG4 produces some very good programming.

Regards...jmcc

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Strazdas wrote: »

They're absolutely fine and well produced but are still niche programmes on a minority channel and made on a fairly low budget too. The real reason they are being held up as superior to Rebellion though is because they didn't go down the old revisionism route.

I actually learned a lot from watching them that I didn't know before, the fact that the whole thing was a massive clusterf**k and failure, for example. I thought they did a pretty decent job of presenting the facts without trying to put people on pedestals.

But anyway, my point was, as yours seems to be, they're two completely different things. You might as well hold an episode of Neven Maguire Home Chef up in comparison.

jmcc

Strazdas wrote: »

They're absolutely fine and well produced but are still niche programmes on a minority channel and made on a fairly low budget too. The real reason they are being held up as superior to Rebellion though is because they didn't go down the old revisionist route.

They showed the signatories as human beings rather than cardboard cutouts and used dramatic reconstructions quite well to tell each story.

Regards...jmcc

amdublin

Mod

Big load of posts deleted as per MrE's warning.

Don't waste your time writing these posts, they will be deleted. Take it to the history & heritage forum where they are better suited.

Please take note - jmcc, josephryan1989, shurimgreat (and others I'm sure)

maudgonner

Strazdas wrote: »

They're absolutely fine and well produced but are still niche programmes on a minority channel and made on a fairly low budget too. The real reason they are being held up as superior to Rebellion though is because they didn't go down the old revisionist route.

Ah I dunno Strazdas, there's definitely an element of that. But there's also the fact that I felt more in the execution scenes of Seachtar than I did at any point during Rebellion. (I'm no history buff or glorifier of the leaders of the Rising btw, and Seachtar definitely had its own faults).

Rebellion failed at producing characters I cared about, situations that had me on the edge of my seat. It's a sad indictment when a documentary series is more successful at sparking emotion than a drama is.

Shurimgreat

The opponents of Rebellion have been vocal, its fans less so. I thought it was decent and passable, moreso as light entertainment than anything else. There seemed to be a lot of unresolved plotlines there at the end. I would say there might be interest from some people in a second series.

jmcc

maudgonner wrote: »

Rebellion failed at producing characters I cared about, situations that had me on the edge of my seat. It's a sad indictment when a documentary series is more successful at sparking emotion than a drama is.

Bad writing is like that. There's no emotional buy-in on the part of the audience. The audience doesn't care what happens, even if it is a "historical" drama. Compare the response of the audiences of Deutschland 83 or The Americans to the programmes, characters, plots and storylines and they are almost completely different to that of the audience of this progamme. No amount of fluffing by friends and family of RTE, entertainment churnalists dependent on RTE press releases, and, of course, the completely unconnected fans of the series on web fora, can compensate for the poor writing and poor character development on the series.

Regards...jmcc

Shurimgreat

maudgonner wrote: »

Ah I dunno Strazdas, there's definitely an element of that. But there's also the fact that I felt more in the execution scenes of Seachtar than I did at any point during Rebellion. (I'm no history buff or glorifier of the leaders of the Rising btw, and Seachtar definitely had its own faults).

Rebellion failed at producing characters I cared about, situations that had me on the edge of my seat. It's a sad indictment when a documentary series is more successful at sparking emotion than a drama is.

But the main characters of Rebellion were not executed. This is like comparing apples and oranges to be honest. You are not comparing like with like. You'd really need to compare it to something of a similar genre.

If you or jmcc can come up with a similar program, fair enough. As for Deutschland 83, haven't watched it and probably won't. I find it very hard to identify with any of the characters because its a different country, different language and so on. There is no buy in from me and a lot of others, none. Some might say the same about Rebellion, they are entitled to say that.

Shurimgreat

jmcc wrote: »

Bad writing is like that. There's no emotional buy-in on the part of the audience. The audience doesn't care what happens, even if it is a "historical" drama. Compare the response of the audiences of Deutschland 83 or The Americans to the programmes, characters, plots and storylines and they are almost completely different to that of the audience of this progamme. No amount of fluffing by friends and family of RTE, entertainment churnalists dependent on RTE press releases, and, of course, the completely unconnected fans of the series on web fora, can compensate for the poor writing and poor character development on the series.

Regards...jmcc

Its very hard to do character development in a couple of episodes, with a bare minimum of budget and with people like you screaming for the Rising leaders to be front and centre all the time. You are beginning to contradict yourself at this stage. Who do you want to be the stars? The "cardboard cutout" leaders or the fictional characters? (And again keep in mind the tight budget and number of episodes).

Its clear you have no experience of writing for drama as you display no understanding of the need to write to fit a budget and number of episodes. We await your big writing debut with interest.

maudgonner

Shurimgreat wrote: »

But the main characters of Rebellion were not executed. This is like comparing apples and oranges to be honest. You are not comparing like with like. You'd really need to compare it to something of a similar genre.

If you or jmcc can come up with a similar program, fair enough. As for Deutschland 83, haven't watched it and probably won't. I find it very hard to identify with any of the characters because its a different country, different language and so on. There is no buy in from me and a lot of others, none. Some might say the same about Rebellion, they are entitled to say that.

Hang on, where was I directly comparing the two? In fact I did exactly the opposite - said that Seachtar, as a very different type of series, succeeded better in the areas where a drama should easily exceed a documentary.

And I've already given the closest comparison I can come up with - Strumpet City.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Shurimgreat wrote: »

If you or jmcc can come up with a similar program, fair enough. As for Deutschland 83, haven't watched it and probably won't. I find it very hard to identify with any of the characters because its a different country, different language and so on. There is no buy in from me and a lot of others, none.

I think if the writing is strong enough it won't matter if it's another language or country or era or whatever.
Generation War is the perfect example of this. Three of the 5 main characters are involved in the war on the German side and another one is banging a Nazi commander to further her singing career (and other reasons). And yet most people would have found themselves ridiculously invested in the fate of all 5 main characters. 1864 is another example. I had no idea of the history behind that one and yet was very emotionally invested.

While I don't think everything about Rebellion's writing was a disaster I will admit that Arthur aside I wasn't that emotionally invested in what happened to anyone. It was more I wonder what happens to them rather than OH GOD! PLEASE DON'T LET X, Y OR Z DIE!

jmcc

Shurimgreat wrote: »

Its clear you have no experience of writing for drama as you display no understanding of the need to write to fit a budget and number of episodes. We await your big writing debut with interest.

So you resort to personal attacks when you can't attack the main argument?

Regards...jmcc

Shurimgreat

maudgonner wrote: »

Hang on, where was I directly comparing the two? In fact I did exactly the opposite - said that Seachtar, as a very different type of series, succeeded better in the areas where a drama should easily exceed a documentary.

And I've already given the closest comparison I can come up with - Strumpet City.

Again, not exactly a great comparison. Strumpet City focused almost entirely on fictional characters, had 7 episodes and didn't have to bother with dealing with characters like Pearse, Connolly, Devalera and so on in any detail.

The writer of Rebellion had a difficult issue, how to balance the leaders of the Rising with fictional characters and he was never going to please everyone.

Something like Downfall might be a better comparison - a film I know, but a mixture of characters - it balanced a plotline about Hitler with other plotlines of other characters. The BBC series War and Peace, on now, might also be a good comparison.

Shurimgreat

jmcc wrote: »

So you resort to personal attacks when you can't attack the main argument?

Regards...jmcc

I'll take that as a compliment...coming from you.