About Afterthoughts

Post 597:

I got the chance to watch the Deadwood movie. It’s one of the greatest series of all time, but I wasn’t sure they could recapture the magic and tempo in an hour and a half. Still, I had hopes that they could pull off the magic act. It was weird. I had high expectations and zero belief at the same time.

So.

If you like nostalgia and don’t require the stakes or the drama they captured back in the day, it’s not the worst way to spend some time. I’ve thought about how it could’ve been improved, and I would’ve preferred to keep it more focused. They tried to do too much in the way of tying up storylines. Not enough time. Give me more emphasis on the Hearst conflict and stay away from the tangential plots. I get that they wanted to give every character their due, but again, not enough time.

The style and amazing dialogue was there. Loved hearing the Shakespearean swearing that only Milch can write. That said, it was more of an echo than something of substance. A nice afterthought. Or maybe just wholly unnecessary. I know that the original series more or less just stopped, but I didn’t mind. Open-ended felt more real than this supposed wrap up.

Does it ruin or cheapen the legacy? Nah. You can’t do that in a single feature. Somebody had an idea and went with it. Worse things have happened.

Cheers and see you after.