beeryusa
Joined Nov 2002
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Reviews36
beeryusa's rating
Spoiler-free review.
I watched the miniseries immediately after having read Catch-22 for the first time.
The miniseries is fairly good as a war movie, but the comedy aspects are completely lacking, and in trying to fix the (intended) incoherence of the novel it is based upon, it completely misses the points the book makes about the insanity of bureaucracy, the destructive nature of hierarchies, and the horrors of capitalism. The biggest failure, to my mind, is that in the book, Milo Minderbinder is a complete psychopath, purely focused on profit and with no real empathy for the people he gets killed. However, in the miniseries he appears to be simply a nice guy trying to make a profit, and whose actions apparently hurt no-one.
Also, the desperation of Yossarian is poorly portrayed in the miniseries, and his schemes to get out of flying do not represent those of the book. Apparently the writers thought they had better ideas than Joseph Heller, but unfortunately they did not. As a result, Yossarian's efforts in the book to avoid flying are replaced with a nonsensical scheme that doesn't avoid flying at all.
Added to this, many of the secondary characters are either completely missing or glossed over, so we never get to fully appreciate one of the oddest characters of the book, Orr, or his brilliant scheme, or the results of it. The fact that the writers never even bothered with this massive subplot, which was possibly the biggest running joke in the book, is simply shameful.
Clara's story (in the book she is unnamed) is similarly completely missing, so we miss out on her entire revenge subplot, and Yossarian's attempts to keep her under control, another sorely missed running joke.
Then there's the fact that Snowden is completely absent from the show, which makes no sense of the very first scene in the miniseries. And Yossarian's nude sequence, which happens in response to what happens to Snowden, is entirely missing.
Technically, the show is pretty good, with realistic props and costumes, but the music becomes too overblown and intrusive during the most tragic scenes, to the point that I felt the show runners used it to cover for a lack of real drama, manipulating the audience into feeling something when the show had failed to give us an actual reason to feel something.
As a serious war movie, the show is adequate, and if it had not been sold as an adaptation of a classic SATIRICAL book, I would have given it maybe 6 out of 10, with its only failings being that it seemed unfocused and lacking true emotional heft, but the failure of the writers to understand the source material is, to me, a fatal flaw.
If you want to see a show with a few well constructed CGI scenes of B-25s in WW2, just skip to the flight scenes and you won't miss much. If you want to experience a hilarious satire on war, military hierarchies and capitalism, you'll need to skip the miniseries and read the book.
I watched the miniseries immediately after having read Catch-22 for the first time.
The miniseries is fairly good as a war movie, but the comedy aspects are completely lacking, and in trying to fix the (intended) incoherence of the novel it is based upon, it completely misses the points the book makes about the insanity of bureaucracy, the destructive nature of hierarchies, and the horrors of capitalism. The biggest failure, to my mind, is that in the book, Milo Minderbinder is a complete psychopath, purely focused on profit and with no real empathy for the people he gets killed. However, in the miniseries he appears to be simply a nice guy trying to make a profit, and whose actions apparently hurt no-one.
Also, the desperation of Yossarian is poorly portrayed in the miniseries, and his schemes to get out of flying do not represent those of the book. Apparently the writers thought they had better ideas than Joseph Heller, but unfortunately they did not. As a result, Yossarian's efforts in the book to avoid flying are replaced with a nonsensical scheme that doesn't avoid flying at all.
Added to this, many of the secondary characters are either completely missing or glossed over, so we never get to fully appreciate one of the oddest characters of the book, Orr, or his brilliant scheme, or the results of it. The fact that the writers never even bothered with this massive subplot, which was possibly the biggest running joke in the book, is simply shameful.
Clara's story (in the book she is unnamed) is similarly completely missing, so we miss out on her entire revenge subplot, and Yossarian's attempts to keep her under control, another sorely missed running joke.
Then there's the fact that Snowden is completely absent from the show, which makes no sense of the very first scene in the miniseries. And Yossarian's nude sequence, which happens in response to what happens to Snowden, is entirely missing.
Technically, the show is pretty good, with realistic props and costumes, but the music becomes too overblown and intrusive during the most tragic scenes, to the point that I felt the show runners used it to cover for a lack of real drama, manipulating the audience into feeling something when the show had failed to give us an actual reason to feel something.
As a serious war movie, the show is adequate, and if it had not been sold as an adaptation of a classic SATIRICAL book, I would have given it maybe 6 out of 10, with its only failings being that it seemed unfocused and lacking true emotional heft, but the failure of the writers to understand the source material is, to me, a fatal flaw.
If you want to see a show with a few well constructed CGI scenes of B-25s in WW2, just skip to the flight scenes and you won't miss much. If you want to experience a hilarious satire on war, military hierarchies and capitalism, you'll need to skip the miniseries and read the book.
When movie producers can't even get the historical uniforms right, it's a sign they don't care about the film and just want to make a fast buck. And it's a shame because there some beautiful cinematography going on here, so someone involved in the production cared.
Just for future reference, West Point cadets didn't wear kepis in 1830. The kepi didn't show up in the US military for another 35 years. At this point, the cadets should be wearing the 1825 forage cap, which looked nothing like a kepi. The least the costume department could have done was get the hats right. Seems the producers had a bunch of civil war costumes laying around, and just decided to use them, instead of doing the bare minimum to get it right.
Just for future reference, West Point cadets didn't wear kepis in 1830. The kepi didn't show up in the US military for another 35 years. At this point, the cadets should be wearing the 1825 forage cap, which looked nothing like a kepi. The least the costume department could have done was get the hats right. Seems the producers had a bunch of civil war costumes laying around, and just decided to use them, instead of doing the bare minimum to get it right.
