If you haven’t checked out Dark on Netflix, get on that
I’ve only watched the first 4 episodes so far, but this show is unbelievable. The internet is fixated on calling it the German Stranger Things, which is a pretty huge oversimplification. The obvious parallels are there in the beginning, but by episode 3 you realize that this is a wholly different beast.
It’s dubbed pretty well in English if you can stand that sort of thing, but I had to turn it off and go with subtitles about 15 minutes into Episode 1. I can’t immerse myself in this story and have a bunch of American-ass sounding people running around in Germany.
It’s dubbed pretty well in English if you can stand that sort of thing, but I had to turn it off and go with subtitles about 15 minutes into Episode 1. I can’t immerse myself in this story and have a bunch of American-ass sounding people running around in Germany.
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I'm only 1 episode in, but it has a great Dark (ha) mystery vibe so far. Will come back to this thread once I'm more episodes in with a better sense of how I feel about it.
I am about half the way through, and unless the ending is terrible, this is probably the best show, that plot hinges on time travel, that I have ever seen. Better than most movies truthfully. Watch it in German, I appreciate the English subtitles but this ain't a background watch kinda show anyway. And you need to hear that Germain language to get into the mood
It's gorgeous and you get many brownie points in my book when everything from set decoration, framing of a shot, and throw-away lines and characters all come back to mean something and help tell the over-arching story.
In a way that is totally different then the Leftovers, I will say this is the show Lost wanted to be.
I too too had a tough time remembering everyone’s name. For a long time I kept referring Jonas as “the kid in yellow jacket”.
And freaking no one's name is remembered. XD It's all...Scar Face, Kid with Beiber Hair, Dolf Lungren, Crazy man, Possible Pedophile Man.....oh and then all their parents and children and distrant relatives!!! ahhh i dont know how im keeping it all straight!!!
This almost feels like Broadchurch meets Donnie Darko...meets Black Mirror...meets some super depressing German film.
@picorock80
There are so many questions left open, but the two I am most curious about are (not really spoilery):
1. What's the deal with Aleksander? His original name is Boris Niewald - if that's not a mashup of Nielsen+Kahnwald I'll eat my hat. Perhaps an illegitimate/secret child of Jonas and Martha from the future? Or could Hannah be pregnant from Ulrich? Aleksander resembles Ulrich imo and also seems to be kinda on the 'bad guy path'.
2. I find it nearly impossible to believe Helge with his mental state had a child, especially as there was never a wife or romantic interest introduced... Did he take mercy on a time travel child and raised him secretly?
On your recommendation, I will have to check this out. German is a language I don't mind having subtitled either. Have you ever seen The White Ribbon? Fantastic German film. Not a lot of dialogue, but one I didn't mind having subtitled. I usually run from subtitles.
I haven't read through the entire thread, so i'm sure others have made this suggestion: the best way to watch is to put it in it's original German with english subtitles. The english dub is just distracting.
That is, unless you are background watching. Which I wouldn't suggest for this series anyhow.
http://www.thisisinsider.com/dark-season-finale-analysis-2017-12
The tone of this show reminded me of Les Revenants, a French show that the US unsuccessfully attempted to remake. That one had supernatural elements and was about how people grapple with loss and the unknown.
A lot of people tried The Leftovers on recommendations that it was like LOST and hated it. I would say those people would love this show. I adored The Leftovers, couldn't get past 6 episodes of LOST, and couldn't get through the pilot of this one (though I've since thoroughly spoiled myself). It's interesting to think of these shows as a Venn diagram, with LOST having the most overlap. But I'd need to see more of the others to speculate on the Venn diagram further than that. You should make one!
I have seen like.. 4 eps I think. Had to take a break cause my head was spinning a bit. I don't usually feel like I have a hard time following the twists and turns in a show, but as several people have pointed out, this show does seem to be a bit of gymnastics for the brain..
In some small ways, it reminds me of Stranger things, but probably just cause it's about kids and set in the 80's (some of the time). It seems way more "serious" than Stranger things, and has a really eerie atmosphere. In the beginning I even felt it was a bit scary sometimes! Not that anything truly scary happened, but just the over-all mood was so tense. I'm intrigued by this show though and will stick with it. But I can also see how this show isn't for everyone. I do think after a few episodes, it drew me in more and more though, with all the mystery.
I do hope that the creators of the show hopefully will make things a bit clearer at the end of the show...
All good stories have to have some element of suspense. The suspense can be something as basic as "what's going to happen to X character?" Mad Men is a good example of that. So are most Jane Austen novels, although the romance genre tips into how - "how is the story/romance going to happen to X character?" And it can be something as complex as "what is this story?" A different way to put that is "what is happening in this story?" or "what is the genre of this story?" Like, sometimes you're watching something and you don't know if the events are magical or not. Collateral Beauty (Will Smith) played with that. I haven't seen it... I heard it kind of played with it badly, lol. And as I'm about to say, it's not really my thing anyway.
LOST is a story where you're trying to figure out what is happening to the characters. It doesn't start that way, but it gets there by episode 6. So is Dark, from the beginning. A man kills himself and leaves an odd suicide note = "what is the story?" not "what's going to happen to him?" The Leftovers, however, is a story where you're told right at the beginning of the story what happened to the characters, ergo the suspense is in how they move on from there. The story involves a lot of psychology and navel-gazing on the nature of life. Even the showrunners, wanting to distinguish it from LOST, said The Leftovers would never pursue how the rapture event happened... they weren't interested in the "what is this story?" story.
I live for stories that are like The Leftovers and Mad Men. I can't stand a story where I'm held back from understanding the characters due to information withheld from me. Due to the characters knowing more than I do. And I can pick up on that really fast. A man kills himself and leaves an odd suicide note, for instance. And several scenes later, we're still not back to him, and other questions are being asked.
Genre is a word used to group stories based on the elements contained within them. But we don't really have a word for what I'm trying to explain; it's different than genre; it can happen in any genre. But the kernel of whatever this should be called is... well, it's in where the suspense lies.
Sorry if I overexplained or underexplained anything, and sorry if that was all terribly boring.
Just finished the show - basically me...
Well done Dark, bravo!!! I really commend a show for not falling prey to the "exposition dump" like in SOOOO many other movies and tv shows that grapple with these themes do. But simply using good storytelling to slowly and steadily reveal what the plot. I also really appreciate that, although a sci-fi show, it has roots in fairy tale and myth. The children walking through the forest, getting stolen by a "monster", the myth of the Labyrinth and the Minotaur ...it just gave it a unique horror flavor I really liked. I think I've come to realize the thing it reminds me the most of, is The Prestige. If Black Mirror and The Prestige had a German baby. There are still quite a few plot points that my exhausted brain just couldn't keep straight...my god, this show asks a lot of you!