Utopia 2020
Hopefully it will be half as decent as the 2013 UK version which was an excellent series.
I'm sorry...
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MovieChat Forums > Utopia (2020) Discussion > Utopia 2020
Getting review bombed on IMDb.
Metascore 56: https://www.metacritic.com/tv/utopia-2020/critic-reviews
I think people are downvoting (or whatever the correct word is) it just because it's a remake.
I'll reserve my judgment until I actually watch the series, especially since there were actually some American remakes that I liked better than the originals.
Not all remakes are bad. Some manage to pull it off and become successful in their own right.
This new Utopia version just lacks a lot of things that made the original great. It hasn't made use of the colour schemes or the music which were both stunning and all the families are the now-standard pc mixed-race ones. Ironically, they changed a black character and made him white in this version.
4 episodes in so far and I'm disappointed.
Watching the original right now, and I don't understand how they're supposed to be comic book geeks. I mean, maybe they're not, but I find the actors cast for the remake better fit the image of geeks.
UK shows obviously have a "feel" "vibe" (whatever) that is more to UK taste -- which is fine. As an American, I find it "soul-less" or something. No, not soul-less as in "plastic and fake and superficial" (as Europeans tend to see Americans... as if they were walking McDonalds restaurants colored yellow and red... and as if Americans weren't like the Sopranos characters).
No, I mean like just TOO dark. Again they'll say "Yeah, we're dark, we're REAL! Look at our authenticity!" But see, Tony Soprano was dark. But he was also funny, had an innocence at the same time, etc.
The UK vibe is like these people whose world is all empty, God-less (and I say that as an atheist)... just drink and f*ck like it's nothing. There's no meaning in life so just f*ck it. I dunno.
Americans, by contrast, feel like they believe something, like a little kid believes in Santa Claus. Oh but it's dumb to believe in Sant, right? Americans are "dumb." But when I see a kid that believes in Santa, my feeling towards him/her isn't that he/she is dumb. It's a warm feeling, makes me smile, gives me enthusiasm, gives me hope.
British? Nah. It's like some hipsters who already saw the future of how the world ends and they're bored of it. Makes them feel cold, boring, limp, tired.
I know I know... that's "real." That feels smart to the British themselves. But most of the rest of the world, to be honest, is attracted to the American feeling.
Give a Chinese person a choice and they'll move to USA over UK, no matter what crap things in the uSA the Guardian highlights to show the US decline. Crappy healthcare! People with guns! An orange president! Don't know how to use fork and knife! Not knowing where Bosnia is! So what. They just feel more "at home" in America. Soul is there.
If you honestly think the USA has more soul than other countries, there's no hope for you. There is no more artificial culture on earth. Santa Claus (an American commercial reinvention and amalgamation of multiple European traditions) is strictly for children. Yes, it's charming when children believe in nonsense, but I would expect an adult to live in reality. The UK may indeed be a depressing shithole (and I write this as a British person), but at least it's less fake than the US. What really pisses me off about America is that the rest of the world has to pay the cost for your supposedly wonderful standard of living.
shareSo you're pissed off about America.
Whereas I am speaking to personality.
I distinguished between what you might first guess I mean by emptiness -- "fake-ness" -- and what I actually mean: lack of warmth, spirituality, innocence, optimism... lack of feeling of meaning, of caring one lives rather than dies. All relatively speaking. A Briton doesn't care whether one f*cks on the first date. They ask, "Why does it matter? So what, it's just sex." An American is more concerned about it, and in that sense they resemble people in India, Colombia, Nigeria, and China. It's why Kipling pined for the East. To look at an American might be like staring at a trash bin, but to look at a Briton is like staring into the abyss.
Lacking magic is a good thing for living but not for storytelling/TV.