Re: Merlin S1E02 Snakes on a Shield


"solar penguin" <solar.penguin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:gbogvi$tm8$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Agamemnon <agamemnon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Snakes on a Shield was the title and snakes on a shield is what The
Mill who did the special effects gave us.

No. That wasn't the title, but don't let facts get in the way of your rant.

Why did the painted images
of the snakes still remain attached to the shield when the 3D snakes
came alive and slid off to attack Arthur,

I only saw a bit of the episode, so I could be wrong, but I assumed it was supposed to symbolise the living snakes being three evil demon spirits copying the forms of the snakes on the shield as they used it as a gate to pass from the demoic realm into the real world.

So did I originally until Merlin made the stone dog come alive and the original stone disappeared.


After all, if the actual painted snakes were literally coming to life, one of them would've been mysteriously missing from the shield after Merlin killed it, which would've made it too easy to convince Uther that there's something strange going with the shield.

but when Merlin made the
stone dog come alive, the original stone carving disappeared. In fact
they didn't even show the caving coming to life at all but did a
cheep cut from to a scene showing only Merlin to one with the live
dog in place.

Good point. That didn't make sense. And the living dog looked nothing like the statue, either.

Why didn't The Mill paint out the snakes from the
shield or use a blank shield and paint the snakes on it before they
came off. Too difficult? Is this a screw up by the production team
which didn't film the required shots with a blank shield or down to
low budget.

No, I'm pretty certain that it was deliberate. See above.


Then how do you explain the statue?

The dialogue and story writhing is bad enough as it is,
and the series doesn't look like its going to follow the traditional
story of Merlin either which is far better than what they've given us
so far or are likely to give us.

Was there any sign of a story arc exploring the characters' backstory? Or was I totally wrong and they're doing that after all?

No back-story at all. It's a really bad copy of Harry Potter, but without any education being given, with Merlin and Arthur written as if they were from Buffy LA, badly performed and badly written and completely un-British, and Richard Wilson looking like he shouldn't even be there, John Hurt a waste of time and Anthony Head playing the dad from The Idiotic Lantern and Gwenivir now the daughter of a blacksmith as well as being black and a house maid. It's completely out of period and even the statue of the horse at the front of the caste is from the renaissance not the middle ages, and certainly not late antiquity not long after Rome fell when Arthur lived.




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  • Re: Merlin S1E02 Snakes on a Shield
    ... Why did the painted images of the snakes ... still remain attached to the shield when the 3D snakes came alive and slid ... off to attack Arthur, but when Merlin made the stone dog come alive, the ... Why didn't The Mill paint out the ...
    (rec.arts.drwho)
  • Re: Merlin S1E02 Snakes on a Shield
    ... Why did the painted images of the snakes ... still remain attached to the shield when the 3D snakes came alive and slid ... off to attack Arthur, but when Merlin made the stone dog come alive, the ... Why didn't The Mill paint out the ...
    (rec.arts.drwho)
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  • Re: Merlin S1E02 Snakes on a Shield
    ... of the snakes still remain attached to the shield when the 3D snakes ... Then how do you explain the statue? ... with Merlin and Arthur written as ...
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