Has anyone else on my flist been watching The Umbrella Academy?

[frelling_tralk]

I really enjoyed it! I loved the soundtrack <3 The cinematography was pretty great also, I liked how the world had a very retro feel to it, and you see characters using typewriters rather than laptops and mobile phones

For me Klaus was the sibling who totally stole the show, I’ve been a fan of that actor ever since he played Nathan in Misfits, and he was incredibly charismatic and engaging whenever he was on screen. I loved that final moment of him learning to control his powers alongside Ben. I was really expecting to get more of a backstory on Ben actually, it seemed strange to not even mention how he died, although I assume that will come up in the second season?

Five was another favourite of mine, that young actor was so good at playing a 58 year old man trapped in a child’s body, he really impressed me at how he managed to pull off scenes such as playing drunk (which he wouldn’t have any real life experience of obviously), or the scene with Dolores where he actually manages to make you feel sad at him saying goodbye to a mannequin

Hazel and Cha Cha were favourites of mine as well, I loved how the show had them with their somewhat mundane and typical work complaints about the bosses, only with the heightened reality of Hazel pointing out that wouldn’t it be nice to just do your own thing and kill the people that you want to kill XD I wasn’t sure what to make of Hazel’s romance with the old lady from the donut shop at first tbh, but I thought the show did a good job of selling it in the end and they were very sweet together

This will probably be unpopular, but I was surprised though to find myself struggling to relate to Vanya, even though she seems to be pitched as the main character/obvious audience touchstone? At first I understood her monotone line readings to be an acting choice related to the pills that she was taking dulling her emotions, but then she didn’t really seem all that different after she stopped taking them, she still had quite a sour and lifeless energy about her then, and so I could never quite connect with her

That unfortunately meant that I never really felt the heartbreaking origin of a villain that I assume that the show wanted the audience to feel, the flashbacks of Vanya as a little girl taking out all of her nannies just for trying to make her eat her oatmeal made her seem like a budding sociopath to me from the beginning, yikes at her watching dispassionately as she tosses them across the room and smashes their heads. And clearly she suffered from little remorse as she kept doing it over and over again until the android mother had to be created, so I wasn’t sure what to make of Klaus then claiming in the same episode that she was someone who as a child even cried over them stepping on ants? And then when she slit her sisters throat, okay she had lost control of her powers and was being manipulated at the time, but she still let herself get dragged away and left Allison there :( It was sheer good luck that the rest of the family tracked them down and were able to save Allison, but Vanya didn’t know that when she just left her sister on the floor to bleed out. And then the way she killed poor Pogo :(

Oh and one other thing is that I wasn’t really sure what to make of Luther and Allison’s romance, it seemed like we were supposed to root for them, but hmm weren’t they all raised to view one another as siblings? I thought it was a bit strange to just brush that aside and have the other characters seeming to be on board with their brother and sister as a couple. Although, to be fair, I suppose they were such a dysfunctional family that none of them felt all that close as far as siblings go...I remember being surprised early on at how quickly everyone blew past Five’s return, even after he was missing for as long as he was.

I enjoyed the very occasional sibling moments that we did get, I thought that Diego and Klaus had the best sibling chemistry in that respect, there were some sweet moments there when it seemed like Diego really did care about his brother. It was kind of sad before then how Klaus was right that none of the family would even notice that he was missing :(

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_profiterole_/]

I liked it, but wasn't super into it. It was a bit slow to start, then got better.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I did find the pacing a bit slow in the beginning admittedly, it didn’t help that I was struggling to follow who all of the different siblings were and what their powers were, they could probably have done a better job with introducing them. Once I did have them all straight though, I felt like the show got really strong from around episode 4/5 time

[malicat.livejournal.com]

I liked it too :) The soundtrack probably the most. Such a creative use of songs and not just random choices!

Klaus is obviously the best sibling :D

that young actor was so good at playing a 58 year old man trapped in a child’s body

He was hella impressive. Not an easy role to play for sure but he really nailed it <3

Also agree on Vanya. I have sympathies for her of course. What was done to her was so very much not ok. People have been gaslighting her all her life but she was also super irritating re: Leonard. How could she believe him,a dude she just met,over her own siblings and be so fucking stubborn???

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I really found myself disliking Vanya from the moment when Allison said that in hindsight she remembers their father telling her at four years old to tell Vanya that she’s ordinary, and Vanya then goes right into accusing Allison of being the one to do this to her and refuses to listen to reason, even though it was perfectly clear that their father was the only one responsible, that Allison didn’t even realise what she was doing at that age. I mean really same with Pogo, my understanding was that he had no choice but to go along with their father?

Obviously being off the pills for the first time was meant to be a factor in Vanya not being able to control her emotions, but for some reason I just could not connect with the actresses performance and find the character likeable. It didn’t help when we saw that the other siblings had also suffered just as much in their own way, particularly Klaus being locked in a tomb for days as a terrified 13 year old boy, or Luther being send to live alone on the moon for four years and never really experiencing life outside of their fathers house, so that kind of made it hard to buy into Vanya as being so much more hard done by that it justified her turning on everyone in the way that she did. We’re shown that she was excluded a lot when she was younger yes, but at the same time none of the other siblings seemed very close to one another either, so it wasn’t like she was being left out of a super close knit family circle, it seemed like The Umbrella Academy was more about being on show to the outside world. Klaus certainly wasn’t missed by the family when he was first kidnapped

And Allison did make a lot of attempts to reach out to Vanya, so if anything she seemed closer with Vanya then to any of the others other than maybe her relationship with Luther, Vanya was just shutting her down every time and not wanting to hear anything said against the man who ~told her that she was special~

[shivver13.livejournal.com]

I loved The Umbrella Academy. I think I agree with you on all your points - namely, that Klaus was the best, Five's actor was fantastic, Vanya was uninteresting, and Luther/Allison pairing was weird mostly because no one else seemed to think it was.

I liked Hazel and Cha Cha, though I have to admit I vastly preferred Hazel, probably because he actually grew and developed over the series. The romance between him and the doughnut lady was wonderful. I don't really understand why those two, of all the other characters in the show, were saved at the end, but I'm happy to look forward to following them in the next season.

I too could not find much sympathy or empathy for Vanya. I think I would have preferred if she had become an active supervillain, choosing to kill and destroy because she wants to destroy the world that hurt her, rather than passively doing so because she's upset at the moment. She would have finally grown up and taken control of herself and her own life after finding she'd been held back for so long. (Character growth, albeit an evil one.)

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I’m glad I’m not alone in this anyway! I think I would have preferred her to make a choice to be consciously evil as well, instead she seemed like kind of a sad sack both before and after. As I said above, I think that also it was harder for me to buy into her poor me attitude when we see all of the siblings had terrible upbringings and many issues to struggle with. Obviously it hurt her badly to be told that she wasn’t special and couldn’t go on ops with her siblings, but otherwise they never quite got across for me that she was so much more excluded than everyone else, Klaus and Five seemed every bit as shut off from the rest of the family as she was for starters. And technically Leonard and Vanya both had very similar motivations even when it came to lashing out after being told that they weren’t special/powerful, and yet I assume that only one of them was meant to come across as sympathetic to the audience?

[icecoldrain.livejournal.com]

I LOVED IT AND THE SOUNDTRACK WAS AMAZING. THE SHOW IS EVERYTHING.

It cracks me up that Nathan left Misfits all those years ago and now he's on TUA as sort of an older, slightly different version of the character he was on Misfits lmao. That said, he was great and I love Klaus. On Ben, we saw how he died in one of the flashbacks. He was shot in the war!

Vanya was the weakest, and only weak, link of the show tbh. I don't think it was the character but the actress. I like Ellen but she's a terrible actress. It worked early on when she was supposed to be the most basic of the basic people in the world but even that was clearly stretching on her own acting ability. Once we got to a point where she really needed to start pulling out all the stops, she was just completely out of her element and it was just glaringly obvious that it was the worst casting choice possible.

[chono88.livejournal.com]

yes yes yes on my phone at work so a more detailed comment has to wait until tomorrow but I LOVE IT

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

:D He really did feel like an older version of Nathan, it got me seeking out old Misfits clips in YouTube actually lol and considering a rewatch of that show!

Wasn’t it Dave that died in the war, Klaus’s love interest?

And honestly I didn’t really know what to make of Ellen Page as I haven’t seen her in much else, but I know that her acting has generally been fairly critically acclaimed, so I was assuming at first that it was a deliberate choice to have all her line readings be so flat, but then I was expecting a more radical shift in body language and such after Vanya stopped taking the emotion suppressing pills that she had been on all her life, and instead all that really changed was that Vanya’s violin playing seemed to become slightly more animated. The character still had that same dreary and mopey feel about her though, and maybe that was a deliberate acting choice idk, but it did make it hard for me to really connect with her character

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I look forward to hearing what you have to say tomorrow :D

[tabaqui]

Oooh, Umbrella Academy! Yes, Klaus is the best. His time-travel to Vietnam and his falling in love...the dancing in the club...COMBAT, holy fuck. The just cemented it for me. That is my *jam*; mentally fucked up, totally different, so fucking happy in love and so damn strong, in the end, when it counted....

Five (and the actor) were awesome and fun as hell.

Diego kind of got on my nerves will all this he-man tough-guy 'I am the night' stuff, but his soft spot for the Mother was sweet.

Allison - weird and interesting power, but holy gods, woman, really? You zapped your kid and maybe your husband and got your career and your fame that way.... Yick. I liked her, i liked that she tried to fix things and that she was willing to admit fault. The 'romance' was strange, yes - have to see what Gerard Way was thinking, there, heh.

Luther - SO so so boring. Annoying, patriarchal, not thinking for himself *at all*, refusing to see the relative insanity of doing what he was doing, and holy gods, dude, your sister comes to you for comfort and help and you choke her out? NO.

Vanya - yes. Annoying as fuck, so droopy and sad. I liked her when she detoxed, basically, and started to actually be able to emote and feel and such, and was so upset that the 'boyfriend' was a horrible creeper.

I wasn't *enamored* of her, and wasn't thrilled with her ultimate rampage of destruction. BUT.

They were all so screwed up. She killed people and obviously there were *no* consequences as a child for that (and how did the others *never* see her doing a power thing?). And then when it was made clear she had *amazing* powers, she was drugged, gaslighted, and horribly abused. Tortured, actually, by being locked alone in a sound-null chamber for days, or weeks - months?

And then to have her sister basically brainwash her, and to have her father (and siblings) reinforce it for the next decade or more.....

Yeah, I don't blame her (or any of them, 100 percent) - I blame their horrible, fucked up 'father' figure who did something so evil and abusive to her, and to all of them.

I love that, in the end, Klaus and Ben (who was awesome, yes! but we need more of him!) and Five and Allison were totally on board to go back, to help, to save Vanya and to change the horrible parts of their lives. That was excellent.
I look forward to more!

(Luther and Vanya are fandom unfavorites, Klaus and Five and Diego about evenly favorite, and Allison a fifty-fifty kind of character)

Hazel and Cha-Cha were okay, but i liked Hazel much, much better when he fell in love with Doughnut Lady, and got very tired of Cha-Cha.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I agree on Diego, he wasn’t my favourite of the siblings either. Maybe in some of those cases we needed time to get to know them better, it felt like the most time was spend on Vanya, Five, Klaus, and Luther, whereas Diego and Allison were a bit neglected in comparison. I suppose that it is hard to fully get to explore so many different characters in the space of just ten episodes. Honestly I liked Diego the most when he was looking out for Klaus after his trip back through time, but on his own his storylines didn’t really interest me that much. Even the scene with him turning his mother off, it happened so early on that it didn’t really affect me as much as I think the writers were going for.

His power was kind of boring too in comparison to the torturous moments that his siblings were suffering from with their powers. Klaus and Ben’s powers seemed like pretty horrific ones for children to have to cope with, Five ended up trapped in an apocalyptic future for years by his powers, Allison ended up swearing off using her power again because of how it had taken over her life and tainted everything in it, and Luther ended up being turned into a half ape by his father pushing him too far and putting his life in danger. In comparison to all that, all Diego’s powers seemed to involve was the power to throw knives, and that wasn’t quite as thrilling really *g*

I did find Allison and Luther sympathetic, it seemed realistic that you would end up misusing it if you had a power like Allison’s where you could get people to do whatever you wanted all your life, and so she ended up deciding not to use her power at all in the end. It is a pretty tragic power to deal with really, more of a curse when it comes to how easy and tempting it is to use as a shortcut. It was a bit of a yikes moment that she resorted to using her powers on her kid over something as simple as her not wanting to go to sleep mind you, but that at least did explain why she wouldn’t use her power at all after that

And I agree on Luther not thinking for himself enough, but I did feel really bad for him early on with how brainwashed he had been by his father to always follow orders, it seemed like he was just as messed-up as Klaus, just in a different way. I had a feeling that he would be unpopular with viewers for how he handled everything with Vanya though, and I did feel like he got written as extra dumb and bossy towards the end, maybe that was meant to reflect just how freaked out he was at Allison getting her throat cut? But to refuse to let any of his siblings go near Vanya and try and communicate with her in the isolation chamber seemed so obviously unhelpful that I was surprised that they didn’t present a more united front in pushing him aside!

And I don’t disagree that Vanya was treated horribly by their father, I suppose that I just felt a slight disconnect with what we were told about her being the only one excluded by the family, and yet time and time again Allison did try and reach out to to her in the present and show concern for her, so I just never got the sense that she was so much more alone than the rest of them that it explained her siding with Leonard and turning on her siblings in the way that she did. It seemed like most of her resentment was just about not being a part of The Umbrella Academy, and not getting to feel as special as the others when she was young, even though she could surely see that most of them only struggled and suffered more because of their powers. Allison certainly tells her this outright shortly after they all reunite when she explains about not wanting to use her mind control any more because then nothing in her life feels real

And I really enjoyed Hazel and Cha Cha as a team in the beginning, I thought they had a fun dynamic, loved the scene of them getting high on Klaus’s chocolate lol. She did become a bit of a one dimensional bad guy towards the end though after realising that he was in love with the doughnut lady

And I agree about the final scene being a good one, it was nice to see them all working together finally, hopefully season 2 will build on their family closeness more as that was something the sentimentalist in me would have liked to have seen more of

[tabaqui]

I just can't get over the fact that Vanya would never had had that last, horrible breakdown if not for Luther, and I was *so angry* none of the others stepped up, even behind his back, to go talk to her. GRRR!

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

YES to Klaus, Five and Hazel. They were all my favorites too.

And actually, YES to that problem with Vanya! I had the same problem with her in the book too, and when they did the reveal I didn't really care enough to be shocked. I actually think the show did it better than the book.

THE SOUNDTRACK! I downloaded the playlist on Spotify. They had me from that first episode when they were dancing in their rooms. :)

I'm excited about Season 2.

[icecoldrain.livejournal.com]

Oh snap you're right. In my mind I mixed up the names lmfaooooooo. We never did find out how exactly actual Ben died! Also, Ben is a series regular next season so maybe we will!

I've seen Ellen in several things and she's exactly the same in everything: barely one note acting if you can even call that acting. I'm not sure why people rave about her. Her acting skills have somehow decreased over the years and she could barely act in the first place. I like her as a person but not as an actress. Not even the CGI and music could help her when she made the finally transformation from Vanya into the White Violin at the end of the season. It was def difficult to like her character due to the casting being all wrong lmao.

[ragnarok-08.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I liked it but I'm not super into it, and I definitely agree with you about Vanya.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I kept expecting a flashback episode with Ben, so I was surprised when that never came up, but yeah hopefully that’s something they’re saving for season 2!

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I’m pleasantly surprised that I’m not alone in this anyway! I was assuming that Vanya would be most people’s favourite character as we spend so much time with her, and there was so much emphasis on how hard it was to grow up ordinary, it seemed like we were encouraged to relate to her the most out of all of them

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Same! That was one of my favourite scenes when they’re all dancing separately at the beginning, and in fact I’ve watched it a lot on YouTube since. It works even better when you’re more familiar with all of their characters

And I appreciate that Vanya was only four at the time and didn’t fully understand death, but yeah I thought it was kind of a weird tone shift to see her killing all of the nannies so brutally as a child, and with zero justification when it was just about encouraging her to eat her breakfast. And she must have somewhat got the damage that she was doing to them as we see her surprise when the android is able to get back up at the end and straighten her head.

Her father obviously handled it in a very cruel and abusive way, but I do wonder if he was right to take her powers away? He was trying to get her to work on controlling them at first, he actually wanted little superpowered children, so it was less in his interests to take away her powers than it would be for most parents. But all of that training was simply resulting in a lot of death, and it clearly wasn’t going to be safe for Vanya to grow up that powerful.

There was no need to spend so many years after that stressing that she was ordinary and unimportant though, perhaps he could have explained why she couldn’t use her powers like the others because hers were so much greater, and then they could have tried reintroducing them when she was older?

[orangerful.livejournal.com]

Exactly, showing a small child trying to hurt people over and over - and KILLING them - does not make us feel sorry for her. And I know she was supposed to be 4 but that actress wasn't 4 so it as hard to separate the clearly older child from the age the story wanted her to be. At least for me.

Agreed, it was all handled poorly on the father's part. I really hope we get more of his story next season because whaaaaa?

Part of me wonders if it was a metaphor for how people who were medicated as children, without a choice since they were kids, feel when they get older and get off of the medicine for various reasons. Maybe not a particularly well done one, or maybe it was just the inspiration?

[snogged.livejournal.com]

I freaking loved it!

[chono88.livejournal.com]

Sooo. Sorry Long nightshift, long week, long day

Soo. I absolutely ADORED The Umbrella Academy

I, too, have to say Klaus just captures my heart. That actor is WILDLY talented. I think I didn't watch misfits, but a similar series so I thought for a while I did see it.

Anyhow. All of the characters had their flaws, while Nr. 5 - agreed, that actor has some serious comedic timing big kudos to him is not my favorite character I can see where you come from. Adding to that the he is part of some of Klaus' most hilarious and also some of his best scenes I am inclined to agree with you. He's just not completely my case he got a bit annoying.

Without a doubt right after Klaus comes Ben and their scenes together were scenic gold and I too regret we didn't get more backstory for Ben, though I would guess that might be bc of the lack thereof in the source material- the comic- which I didn't read tho, so who knows.

I also loved Diego and Allison. Wish Allison's character would have gotten more depth. I had a feeling she was only scratching the surface, maybe that was the intention.

With sympathizing with Vanya so much in the beginning to like honey baby train wreck NOOOO XD

Just your normal dysfunctional family. I loved the reappearance of Tom Hopper, as I LOVED LOVED LOOOOVED him as Percival in Merlin and needed some more material from him! though I have to admit Luther is not my fave...

Without further ado. Brilliant cast and I can't wait what they will do with a season 2, since we probably get a lot more of the kids versions and I would think and hope we will still get adult cast too probably to the likes of the flashback scenes now in S1 for their kid versions. I would seriously miss these brilliant actors otherwise.

Yeah that's my quick take on Umbrella Academy. I binge watched it in one go, you definitely are not alone in this fandom!

[hamarakissa.livejournal.com]

Absolutely loved this series and I'm looking forward to S2!

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

:)

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Same, hopefully it won’t be too long a wait! :)

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

I also loved Diego and Allison. Wish Allison's character would have gotten more depth. I had a feeling she was only scratching the surface, maybe that was the intention.

It did feel like Allison and Diego were the least developed of the main cast, it seemed like Vanya, Five, and Klaus were the characters that the writers were most interested in exploring, I got the impression that they were the writers favourites

With sympathizing with Vanya so much in the beginning to like honey baby train wreck NOOOO XD

It was a nice twist that she ended up being the main villain, maybe I’m naive/not well versed enough in comic book setups, but I really wasn’t expecting that. I was actually expecting a redemption arc after she was crying to Luther about how sorry she was, so I was genuinely surprised when the show had her bringing the house down after that and going completely crazy, although goes without saying that that was no thanks to Luther!

And yeah it will be interesting to see what they do with season 2, the setup does seem to be there for the teenage versions to take over for a bit. Still I’m guessing that that won’t last for the entire season, maybe just a couple of episodes, as presumedly the writers would rather stick with the current cast?