Neil Gaiman's American Gods

And that kickass OP...

Some fucking powerful iconic imagery right there. Very literally.

Well it's by Elastic, they've set a new standard in opening titles over the past couple of years - all the Marvel Netflix shows, Game of Thrones, Westworld, True Detective, now American Gods.

What I want to know is who they got to do the AAAOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHMMMMMMMM at the end. Must have been fun to record

edited 14th Jul '17 2:47:18 AM by Ulysses21

I assumed it was Ian McShane sighing, slowed down.

edited 16th Jul '17 3:27:59 PM by AndrewGPaul

I always thought Laura was trash after reading the books. I'm glad the show reaffirms it.

She has just enough misguided compassion and obvious heartache to be sympathetic.

That was your takeaway from the books? Harsh. Yeah, that.

I thought the series makes her out to be a more interesting, but more manipulative and unpleasant character than in the book.

I wouldn't call her manipulative so much as compulsively dishonest. Even when she knows full well that she's a shit, and feels rightly guilty about it, she feels compelled to present herself as self confident and self righteous.

That's pretty fair. Then again, everyone gets a fair heaping of personality added in the series. Shadow is barely a character in the book.

Even here, he's almost a Pinball Protagonist. The only choice I remember him making is challenging Chernaborg.

Laura's a far worse person in the show. The impression I got from the the books was that she was nice on the surface, but selfish deep down. Which is most people, really, it's an impulse we all have to fight at some point. She just had no filter after her death.

Laura on the show, on the other hand, is selfish and brutal with far fewer redeeming qualities...apart from loving Shadow, which she didn't, really, in life. Rather than the shell of a decent person being chipped away, decomposing, this Laura was already dead long before she was killed, and this is her metaphorical (but also not) journey out of a deep depression and back to life. The metaphor is actually pretty apt.

I agree. While it might be that the show's version of Laura is less likable, she's far more compelling as a character than the book version. Book!Laura was similarly supernaturally drawn to Shadow, but apart from that, her only defining characteristic personality-wise was that death made her 'more distant to mortal matters', which essentially meant she had no social filter, as mentioned above.

Starz wants to keep the show going for as long as they can.

That's the worst fucking news I've ever heard.

I agree! Damn!

Like, any series, especially an adaptation, should have a start and endpoint. For an adaptation, the endpoint is the end of the book. If you needlessly stretch out and pad and bullshit your way to put off that endpoint as long as possible, you kill any interest in the story.

Well, another four or five seasons to finish the book, then another season to do Monarch of the Glen, then Anansi Boys as a spinoff (albeit one with only one recurring character, and even he's not in it that much), and then there's a couple of other short stories, IIRC, and then they can start flinging bags of dollar bills at Neil Gaiman to see if he'll write some more. :)

Uh oh.

Michael Green and Bryan Fuller have both left the show.

This does not bode well...

I wouldn't suprise if a God of the Firefly Effect emerged from all the prayers.

Sounds like the studio didn't want to give them a budget increase. Idiots. That's a surefire way to kill this show.

Noooooo :c

It should be noted that the budget per episode was 10 million which is like 3 million less than a typical GOT episode; problem is that American Gods does not do nearly the ratings GOT does.

It hasn't had the time to build an audience and get word of mouth!

...Wow, I mean, it's a really great show, but I didn't know it was that expensive.