Titans: The Rise of Hollywood

This series fulfilled it's purpose -an overall view into the studio heads who created Hollywood. And it did that by putting the true life events front and center, not the serie's sets, the wardrobe, and characters' acting skills.

My husband, who is not a film buff, was totally intrigued, especially by the genius and skills of Mary Pickford. Besides mastering acting, writing and producing, Mary managed United Artists studios, too. Fascinating woman.

As others have commented, the history itself is the star of this show. The presentation is subpar - especially when considering the subject. I tried to research if it was AI generated and could not get a definitive yes or no. I'm leaning toward a yes. There's something OFF about it, but the history presented is edifying.

Despite the other reviews on this project, as an actor, writer, and Hollywood historian, this series is immensely entertaining and the casting is superb! The actors are not A-list names, but they are performers who understand not only their characters and their place in history, but understand the genre of these types of shows (very difficult because it is not typical storytelling) and the nuance their characters earn.

We thought we knew a lot about the origins of movies, having watched the 13-episode series "Hollywood" narrated by James Mason. But each episode of "Titans", especially those covering the 1890s to mid-1910s, had us saying "I never knew that." By focusing on the business perspective--innovators who had a feeling that motion pictures could be big, but struggled to figure out how--the series explains how and why the innovations happened.

The docudrama is narrated as oral history by an older Adolf Zukor. The dynamics between the competitors/collaborators are often fascinating. The final episode or two, covering the end of the silent era, get bogged down by details about corporate wheeling and dealing, which can be hard to follow. Nevertheless, the earlier portions more than make up for it.

I was really worried when I started this that it would be cheesy and shallow. Now as many others said. The recreations were horrible and wooden. But especially the early episodes are very very interesting about the exchanges and how Edison had somehow created a monopoly. Edison was well known for suing the hell out of anyone that he thought was not paying him for his inventions. But luckily he over reached with the movies and ended up losing. The music was so bad through out especially the music for the introduction for each episode. But this is a definite watch for anyone that likes movies.