A Series Of Unfortunate Events - Netflix adaptation of novel series

Yeah, it makes more sense for the television format to be a little clearer compared to the novels. They're two pretty different storytelling mediums.

One of the smoothest, most perfect television adaptations of a novel ever. They really nailed this one.

I will say that the choice to condense The End into a single episode was a mistake. It felt really rushed to me.

That's my only complaint though.

Edited by Anomalocaris20 on Nov 15th 2019 at 5:41:45 AM

I was surprised to hear the sugar bowl reveal was super-divisive. IIRC the show's answer had been the most popular fan theory the entire time, or at least for a while.

Edited by HamburgerTime on Nov 15th 2019 at 5:45:42 AM

I do kind of get why they condensed the End, but they condensed it too much. Instead of being slightly longer than some of the other episodes (by like five minutes) they maybe should have made it an hour and 10 minutes or something like that.

The book actually doesn't really have a good place to stop, they just trimmed it too close.

So... why exactly does Olaf claim to be a count, anyway? He's the son of a fire chief living in what seems to be the US in some weird time period that's a cross between the Roaring 20s and the modern day. Is it just because he's an egomaniac, or is there more to it than that?

There's a Duchess of Winnipeg, and it's clearly not set in the US. It's not really set anywhere. I mean, the Hinterlands, Lake Lachrymose, the Village of Fowl Devotees, the hospital randomly being built in the middle of absolutely nowhere, it's barely recognizable as Earth.

Anyway, Olaf could be lying, but everyone refers to him as a count all the time, so maybe he got the title before the schism.

Edited by Zendervai on Nov 15th 2019 at 12:13:49 PM

IDK if it's brought up in the TV series but Esme mentions the King of Arizona in the books

As someone who lives in Arizona, I can confirm.

I was amused, though, by that interview on the last page citing the infamous Focus Group Ending of Little Shop of Horrors as one of their inspirations for giving ASOUE a more decisive conclusion; this one really worked for me, but that one very much didn't. Unsure of why exactly, though the Baudelaires being much more sympathetic characters than Seymour probably has a lot to do with it.

Has anyone here heard of the "Violet Snicket" theory? In brief, a WMG that Violet is actually Lemony's biologically, and Beatrice was already pregnant with her when Lemony had to go on the run and she got with Bertrand. Poking around online looking for stuff about the series this theory seems to have a lot of supporters. I get the appeal but I feel like the timeline's off - since you can only leave The Island once a year, doesn't that sort of imply Vi was conceived there?

So apologies for the triple post but I wanted to discuss something. Namely, the strong theme the series has about how when the chips are down you can't rely on the system or your elders... like, isn't that just, The Mood of the late '10s? Obviously this theme was present in the book as well, but I sort of wonder if that played a role in why the series was made now.

I mean, think about it. Every single time the Baudelaires try to get help from someone older than them or from the system, it fails due to, depending on the situation, stupidity, malice, the adults thinking they know the kids better than they know themselves (when they ask to say goodbye to Uncle Monty's reptiles, Mr. Poe tells them "I bet you wish you'll never see another reptile in your life!" - he's literally telling them how to think), or bureaucratic gobbledegook that would make the officers from Catch-22 proud. This all leads up to the second-to-last book/episode, where the kids see their last, best attempt at real justice snatched away from them in the most horrifying way possible with the reveal that the bad guys owned the law the entire time, meaning it's not just that justice wasn't done, it could never have been done.

Okay I have a question. I have been thinking about watching this series as I was a big fan of the books and have a soft spot for the movie. Would it be worth checking out?

Well, yes. It's good. Worth watching even for folks unfamiliar with the original material.

It is a very good adaptation and it adds a lot of really interesting subplots about what VFD is doing behind the scenes that were only briefly alluded to in the books as Noodle Incidents. It's not perfect, but it is a worthy adaptation of the source material.

Honestly I'd consider it the closest thing to a perfect adaptation I've ever seen. It makes a few changes to better fit a television format, including answering a lot of the questions the books deliberately left vague, but it's honestly not a bad thing. Like I said, it fits the format better.

Only thing I really was disappointed with was The End being condensed to a single episode for some reason. I still don't understand their reasoning behind it, it makes the whole thing feel really rushed as a consequence.

Edited by Anomalocaris20 on Feb 3rd 2020 at 11:03:48 AM

Probably the biggest difference from the books IMO is that we spend a lot more time with the good side of VFD, and see that they're still active and trying to help the Baudelaires... and usually failing.

We also spend a lot of time with Count Olaf and his henchpeople.

We're not limited to purely the Baudelaire's perspective like we are in the book.

So from what I've been seeing on tumblr and such, the most contentious "change" in the series seems to be making Olaf's dad's death an accident and the Schism the result of a series of tragic misunderstandings egged on from the shadows by No Hair and No Beard. At least on that site people really seem to like the idea of the good side of VFD being... not all that good.

"Change" is in quotes because, of course, nothing about these incidents is explicit in the books as per usual, but the show's answer seemingly was not what the majority of the fandom pictured.

I'll admit that I had envisioned the whole affair as being a great deal more sinister, yes. Still, everything about VFD in the books was deliberately murky and left open to interpretation, so I suppose I can't complain.

Of course, the show is different enough (while still being fairly faithful, I feel) that it can perhaps count as a continuity in its own right, so we might be able to say that in the books, things were more on the sinister side of things.

Edited by KarkatTheDalek on Feb 5th 2020 at 7:13:51 AM

I wonder sometimes... did the Denouement fire really finish off the Dark Side of VFD? Olaf's schemes seemed pretty disconnected from No Hair and No Beard, which makes me think it's unlikely he was their only operative...

I have issues with many of the morals in this series and am planning to write a whole essay on every Broken Aesop I found. I'm astonished how nobody else has called out this series and are instead praising its agitating teachings.

Please elaborate on what exactly you mean.

Yeah, this series isn't exactly one to be searching for moral lessons in. It's a deliberately bleak and simultaneously surrealist work. Very Millennial, actually.

The only lesson to be learned is “life is a conundrum of esoterica”. And even then, that probably wasn’t meant to be a lesson.