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

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Shurimgreat wrote: »

Its all subjective Strazdas. Different people like different programs. I thought overall it was decent. I didn't know Steve Wall could act for example and yet he was pretty good, had the scheming detective look down to a tee.

I've seen him in a few things. He's in Moone Boy, I think, and was in Silent Witness last year or the year before.

Strazdas

Shurimgreat wrote: »

Its all subjective Strazdas. Different people like different programs. I thought overall it was decent. I didn't know Steve Wall could act for example and yet he was pretty good, had the scheming detective look down to a tee. Whatever people might say about the plot, the acting was good all around with one or two exceptions, mainly lesser characters. The English characters were convincing, and probably outshone the Irish actors. The big fault was the shortage of time in developing the fictional characters. If the writer had been given a number of series this would be achieved. But he was only given 5 episodes and one mini series which made it very difficult.

They would have been better going with six or seven episodes and perhaps could have started the Rising in Episode 3 when people had a good idea of who was who (it also would have contributed to the building up of tension).

But there were many good points. May and Frances were good as was Arthur, and Harry finally clicked into place by Episode 5. I really enjoyed the Pearse and Connolly characters too. I'd love to see a second series as it would give all involved a chance to redeem themselves after the flak they've taken.

Shurimgreat

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

I've seen him in a few things. He's in Moone Boy, I think, and was in Silent Witness last year or the year before.

Ok I didn't know that. I wonder did he ever do stage acting as well. I don't think anyone could argue with the acting on Rebellion as they are well respected actors in the main. The more you analyse Rebellion in detail the better it comes out. The problem is few people analyse it, they either like it or hate it right away and make quick judgements. People who analyse it as on this thread tend to like it.

jmcc

Shurimgreat wrote: »

So your insider knowledge of tv amounts to inventing something related to the little cards you plug into a subscription box?

That would be a simpleton view and it would be wrong.

For a while there I thought you'd trained as a screenwriter or something and had a few scripts rejected by rte.

A "media studies" graduate? No.

Writing something like Rebellion is quite tough I'd imagine.

You'd imagine? But weren't you explaining how those who were criticising it were not properly trained in how to "critique" work? What makes you authoritative on writing?

Getting the balance right is very difficult. Its possible the writer didnt get the balance between historical and fictional characters right but he seemed to be on a loser from the start. No matter what he did was going to be wrong in the eyes of many.

What was the story? Why should it interest the viewer? Why would the viewer care? Deceptively simple questions but they go to the heart of the problem with Rebellion.

Regards...jmcc

maudgonner

Shurimgreat wrote: »

Ok I didn't know that. I wonder did he ever do stage acting as well. I don't think anyone could argue with the acting on Rebellion as they are well respected actors in the main.

<Waves> I would! While some of the acting was good, and Arthur was a standout, much of it was pretty ropey, a bit amateurish I thought. And Many of the reviews singled out the acting for criticism.

The more you analyse Rebellion in detail the better it comes out. The problem is few people analyse it, they either like it or hate it right away and make quick judgements. People who analyse it as on this thread tend to like it.

Sorry, can't agree with you here either Nothing in the analysis has convinced me that the scripts weren't poor, the directing and acting faulty in places.

Rebellion wasn't terrible but it wasn't great either. There are a lot of people on this thread who seem intent on saying over and over again that it was great or it was terrible. I still think it fell somewhere in between.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

maudgonner wrote: »

Rebellion wasn't terrible but it wasn't great either. There are a lot of people on this thread who seem intent on saying over and over again that it was great or it was terrible. I still think it fell somewhere in between.

I think this is a fair assessment. I don't have a problem with people not liking it or finding fault because there were faults there. My issue is with the people, here and elsewhere, that seem intent on burying the show, determined to tear it to shreds and with a dance on it's grave kind of attitude. It just seems unnecessary and occasionally it seems like there's something else motivating it.

iguana

maudgonner wrote: »

<Waves> I would! While some of the acting was good, and Arthur was a standout, much of it was pretty ropey, a bit amateurish I thought. And Many of the reviews singled out the acting for criticism.

For the most part the acting could be classed as acceptable. I didn't watch anyone and think, 'wow that was great' but for the most part I wasn't too bothered by it. Except for the woman playing Peig, she was truly appalling. If she was on Fair City she would have stood out among that cast as terrible. Gleeson has gotten a lot of stick for his acting but tbh, I thought he was mostly fine, just that one awful scene over Peter's body. And that was as much the director's fault as Gleeson's. If the way he played the grief was Gleeson's choice it was the director's job to see that the constipation noises didn't work and ask him to try a different tack. Or for all we know the director pushed him into depicting it like that. I though Elizabeth was fine, I never watched Love Hate so wasn't comparing her to her character in that, so have no complaints with her performance.

An actor can really only do so much with what they have been given, it would have taken utterly exceptional actors to make those scripts work. Especially when it's obvious that the director just wasn't up to the job. To be fair to the production, with an average of €1.2m an episode, it looked fantastic for that money. Period television is extremely expensive, Downton Abbey costs about €1.6m an episode and so much of that is shot indoors and is much more limited in sets and scope. Rebellion was mainly let down by a poor script and a director who seemed more interested in attempting to achieve a particular 'style' for this show at the expense of the basics like paring down superfluous scenes and getting the best out of his actors.

The Rape of Lucretia

jmcc wrote: »

That would be a simpleton view and it would be wrong.

A "media studies" graduate? No.

Silvertongued moustachioed silver fox cultured radio wit, Puccini expert with RTE rejection issues, reluctant exile from the D4 mothership, with a banishment complex maybe ?

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

iguana wrote: »

Gleeson has gotten a lot of stick for his acting but tbh, I thought he was mostly fine, just that one awful scene over Peter's body. And that was as much the director's fault as Gleeson's. If the way he played the grief was Gleeson's choice it was the director's job to see that the constipation noises didn't work and ask him to try a different tack. Or for all we know the director pushed him into depicting it like that.

That scene, to me, seemed almost like the director had said lets do this a few ways and we'll see what comes out in the edit, so Gleeson did the scene then did it a little bit more and the director just used it all. It almost seemed like he'd finished crying and then we went back for more, a second go at it maybe but instead of using one they went for both.

Strazdas

maudgonner wrote: »

Sorry, can't agree with you here either Nothing in the analysis has convinced me that the scripts weren't poor, the directing and acting faulty in places.

Rebellion wasn't terrible but it wasn't great either. There are a lot of people on this thread who seem intent on saying over and over again that it was great or it was terrible. I still think it fell somewhere in between.

I think the ones who have defended it have admitted that it was flawed and that some things didn't work.

I like the fact that it went down the revisionism route though and decided to shake things up a bit. It would have been much easier for them to give us the traditional nationalist narrative of 1916 being rebels = good guys and Brits = bad guys.

iguana

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

That scene, to me, seemed almost like the director had said lets do this a few ways and we'll see what comes out in the edit, so Gleeson did the scene then did it a little bit more and the director just used it all. It almost seemed like he'd finished crying and then we went back for more, a second go at it maybe but instead of using one they went for both.

That was a directorial style that the director used several times. It was similar during Connolly's execution where Ingrid was standing outside the whole time but inbetween gunshots there was a long distance shot of her on her knees praying. The same thing happened with Elizabeth banging her pot during the earlier executions. It happened for so many of the big emotional scenes and I thought it looked like real first year film student stuff. An attempt to be all arty and deep when it just looked stupid and threw the audience out of the moment.

:eek: Maybe even the repeatedly set down bottle on Northbrook Rd wasn't an appalling continuity error but a deliberate choice from the director.:eek: A metaphor for fragmented memories and the slightly different descriptions of events as remembered by each witness. Thinking about it in context of all the other similar scenes, I actually do think it might have been a style statement. Because it was so obviously terrible and yet an unnecessary shot for the story that it's unlikely to have been a mistake.:(

I think why so many people are harsh on the show is that all the ingredients were there for an epic mini-series. The production did a great job on their budget and all the leads were good enough to give us a really good show. It had almost everything it needed to be great. A bad script was it's chief undoing and that could and should have been a cheap fix early on. And it also seems like there was a director trying to create a 'style' that just really didn't work.

iguana

Strazdas wrote: »

I like the fact that it went down the revisionism route though and decided to shake things up a bit. It would have been much easier for them to give us the traditional nationalist narrative of 1916 being rebels = good guys and Brits = bad guys.

But that's not revisionism as you mean it. It's what I was taught in primary and secondary school and is in the school books. It's the standard narrative and brought nothing new to the table. Now clearly there were a lot of people who didn't pay attention in school or had a very republican oriented history teacher but what was shown in this show was pretty much exactly what I learned in 4th class.

jmcc

The Rape of Lucretia wrote: »

Silvertongued moustachioed silver fox cultured radio wit, Puccini expert with RTE rejection issues, reluctant exile from the D4 mothership, with a banishment complex maybe ?

No. I actually like Classical music. I thought that you were Marty. Has LyricFM reviewed Rebellion yet?

Regards...jmcc

Strazdas

iguana wrote: »

But that's not revisionism as you mean it. It's what I was taught in primary and secondary school and is in the school books. It's the standard narrative and brought nothing new to the table. Now clearly there were a lot of people who didn't pay attention in school or had a very republican oriented history teacher but what was shown in this show was pretty much exactly what I learned in 4th class.

Well I think the rebels deliberately opening fire on Dublin civilians and killing them (which we now know actually happened and on more than occasion) is something that would be new to many Irish people. I imagine most people would have assumed that any civilian deaths caused by the rebels during the Rising must have been accidental. The fact that a not insignificant number of the British troops fighting the rebels were Irish is something that wouldn't have been well known either.

jmcc

iguana wrote: »

It happened for so many of the big emotional scenes and I thought it looked like real first year film student stuff. An attempt to be all arty and deep when it just looked stupid and threw the audience out of the moment.

The director was a bit of a gobsh!te but would RTE have consented to a competent director who could have put a bit more emotion into the series?

I think why so many people are harsh on the show is that all the ingredients were there for an epic mini-series.

It would have been a good writer's dream. There are just so many good stories where the truth doesn't have to be embelished or falsified. There are so many real people on which to base characters and so many documented events.

A bad script was it's chief undoing and that could and should have been a cheap fix early on.

The cheapest fix would have been to fire the muppets who wrote it. Fixing a bad script, even with the best of script doctors is not really possible. Good writers seem to have a well tuned ear for dialogue. These writers were completely tone deaf.

And it also seems like there was a director trying to create a 'style' that just really didn't work.

It ended up not so much Nordic Noir as Montrose Muddle.

Regards...jmcc

The Rape of Lucretia

jmcc wrote: »

It ended up not so much Nordic Noir as Montrose Muddle.
Regards...jmcc

And this is where the mask falls from any credibility of balanced criticism - the inability to avoid throwing in a prejudiced denigratory jibe at RTE, and the series is not really being considered on its own merits.

jmcc

The Rape of Lucretia wrote: »

And this is where the mask falls from any credibility of balanced criticism - the inability to avoid throwing in a prejudiced denigratory jibe at RTE, and the series is not really being considered on its own merits.

I thought it was rather apt. Going for one kind of vibe and ending up as something quite different. So what pithy phrase would Marty Whelan use to describe it?

Regards...jmcc

LordSutch

Who was the rather menacing & scary female character (on a bike) who shot the detective under the bridge, in the final moments of the drama?

iguana

LordSutch wrote: »

Who was the rather menacing & scary female character (on a bike) who shot the detective under the bridge, in the final moments of the drama?

Frances, the red headed Cumann Na mBan woman played by Ruth Bradley.

Strazdas

jmcc wrote: »

It ended up not so much Nordic Noir as Montrose Muddle.

Regards...jmcc

Speaking of which, the first series of The Bridge started out with a healthy enough rating in Sweden, Denmark and the UK and in all three cases the viewing figures began to fall away and by Episode 4 were much lower. This is the very thing that has been used as ammunition against Rebellion in Ireland and proof it is a "flop".

maudgonner

Strazdas wrote: »

Speaking of which, the first series of The Bridge started out with a healthy enough rating in Sweden, Denmark and the UK and in all three cases the viewing figures began to fall away and by Episode 4 were much lower. This is the very thing that has been used as ammunition against Rebellion in Ireland and proof it is a "flop".

Fair enough, but surely coming below Nationwide in the ratings is an embarrassment?

Strazdas

maudgonner wrote: »

Fair enough, but surely coming below Nationwide in the ratings is an embarrassment?

As far as I know, TV drama serials (not soaps) tend not to fare quite as well as other types of programmes. It's very rare that a drama series would be the most watched programme of the week in any country. The much vaunted Love Hate actually had a lower audience share than Rebellion for it's first series.

LordSutch

iguana wrote: »

Frances, the red headed Cumann Na mBan woman played by Ruth Bradley.

Frances who? presumably there is a bridge or a road name after her?

Strazdas

LordSutch wrote: »

Frances who? presumably there is a bridge or a road name after her?

No, she's entirely fictional and never existed (just like the other main characters).

Lt Dan

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

I was thinking the same thing, although I was never a fan of Lost. If they wanted to start the show in the middle of the action then they should have literally started it in the middle of it and then used flashback to show us how the characters ended up where they were. Either jump back and forth, a little risky and hard to get the right balance, or, bookend each episode with a bit of Rising action and the main part of the episodes been focused on one characters story. Five episodes, five main characters, it could have worked well.

I think, again, what it boils down to is 1) being overambitious in what they wanted to do, 2)being somewhat bound by very specific historic events at the centre of it and 3)trying to tick a few too many boxes. They had a story to tell but then had to include the leaders in some capacity, specific battles and flash points, nods to viewers who are well up on their history but still keeping it accessible enough for viewers who aren't.

Someone mentioned it earlier but a really good/harsh/historically impartial script editor could have made a huge difference. Someone not afraid to say this guy is irrelevant or this particular battle bogs the whole thing down etc. etc.

The Flash backs sound like a good idea. But, heaven forbid, if people were finding it hard to follow what was going on in the format they used, I would not hold out for them following the flash back format.

I too would not get too worked up over the ratings. The criticism should not been drawn on that. There were far more problems with this drama. If people had realised that it was not really going to show the Rising, there would probably have been a much bigger drop in viewership from day 1. I do not know what on earth the RTE director means by getting what they wanted from the show. Consider that RTE centered this drama as their center piece for the commemoration of 1916 , it is reasonable that the show would have kept to half a million viewers for each episode. It is not like it had any competition during that time slot

Lt Dan

josephryan1989 wrote: »

If there is to be a follow up series during the War of Independence they would have to introduce new characters since the majority of the fighting occurred in the countryside especially Co. Cork and Co. Tipperary.

For obvious reasons the central characters would have to be male as women were in an entirely secondary role during that conflict.

There were no female flying column commanders and fighters so the lesbian cross dresser Frances is going to have to be ditched.

Women were secondary roles. Not completely true. They were nurses and doctors. They were key intelligence sources and people who transported weapons and orders to various Units. They were also heavily involved in the Republican Courts.

Least not forget, they were the ones who offered shelter to men on the run


But yes, Francis won't be going around ambushing people.

Lt Dan

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

I did not know that.

Interesting though that most people don't know the history of women's involvement in these events though. Countess Markievicz is the only name most people would know, she's the only name I ever came across in school.

As I type this I am watching a documentary on TG4 about Cumann na mBan. Women were heavily involved in the War of Independence (and Civil War), despite JosephRyan1989's assertions earlier. They may not have been involved in the physical fighting but they were running guns and ammunition, gathering intelligence and running safe houses. Plenty of stuff to get stuck into if there was a second series set later on.

They'd have to include Dev banning the organisation too, just so people could complain about him being portrayed negatively

Eh no. People would have no justification of complaining about De Valera being protrayed negatively if they show him banning Cumman na nGaedheal

For a start it happened, unlike some of the speculation that was riddled in Rebellion and Michael Collins films

Secondly, he did not ban them during the War of Independence. Nice try

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Lt Dan wrote: »

Secondly, he did not ban them during the War of Independence. Nice try

Who said he did?

Lt Dan

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

The thing is they didn't have Dev throw up and then every one turn to point and laugh at him for it. It was an understandable reaction. People seem to have decided for themselves that it was a dig at him. Jimmy's only comments to him were about not sending backup and the other soldier made it clear there were plenty of men still firmly behind Dev. The reaction to it has been weird, they seems a sensitive bunch, Dev fans.



And who would the men have been killing if the women hadn't been gathering intelligence? And what would they have killed them with if the women hadn't been running guns and ammunition for them? And where would they have hidden themselves after they'd killed someone if the women hadn't been operating safe houses?

Some army that would have been.

Your issue with Frances is bizarre. Women were involved in the fighting during the Rising which is what we saw Frances doing. They haven't made a second series set during the War of Independence so you have no idea what they'd have her doing there and yet you're already up in arms about it.

1. De Valera did not vomit or make any sort of reaction . Never recorded in the British records. You can rest assure that the British would have used this against De Valera in later years and make him look like a coward

2. The scene unquestionably is a dig at De Valera. Only an idiot would not realise that, especially when seconds later the producers intentionally shows the mighty friendly Collins. No one else vomited.

3. There was nothing wrong with showing Jimmy talk to De Valera in the manner that he did. However, considering De Valera's rank, and despite not being in the same Army (ICA as oppose to the Volunteers) it was highly unlikely that someone like Jimmy would dare speak to De Valera like that, as his men would have made his stay in the cells rather uncomfortable.

4. Sensitive? Eh no, most people prefer that writers stick to the truth rather than besmirch a person's reputation

5. Women played a huge role. But do not be getting allusions that the Intelligence gather division was packed with women.

6. The dogs on the street knows that with a character like Francis, she would not be shown to be pencil pushing at the Republican Courts during the Tan War

Lt Dan

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

Who said he did?

You implied it. Any future show would be based on the War of Independence . So why utter their name?

"They'd have to include Dev banning the organisation too, just so people could complain about him being portrayed negatively"

For your information, Cumann na mBan were banned years later, but they continued to exist. Why? Their support for the IRA and later the Provisional IRA. Kinda easy to see why they would be banned