Watch the Pilot For J.J. Abrams' Revolution Now (VIDEO)
You anticipated it, and now you can watch it! NBC's upcoming sci-fi drama Revolution has been crowned the victor in our New Show Anticipation Index, defeating The CW's Arrow (you have funny taste in shows, guys!) in bracket-style competition. I don't know if it's connected to NBC's recent decision to post the pilot of Revolution online, but we like to pretend we have some pull and will take all the credit.
You could go to Hulu.com or NBC.com to watch it, but why do that when you can screen it right here RIGHT NOW!?
Revolution is one of the most high-profile new shows of the season, but it's also one of the more divisive ones. The pilot was screened at Comic-Con and critics have had copies for months, and it seems that the hardcore sci-fi fans like it a lot more than the critics do. I wrote about the version I saw a while back, and while I think it has more problems than it should, I'm also really looking forward to what's coming next.
Watch the pilot and tell us what you think in the comments below, please!
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That said, I'm amazed at all the cosmetics and high-end shampoo that seem to have survived 15 years of chaos.
why the hell are they burning like... 300 candles??
i would assume that candles are a precious commodity in that sort of post apocalyptic world. i've ranted about how much the science is just utterly nonsensical, but... that' just plan old wasteful.
i've worked as a tour guide in my city's historical village, and while i'm not going to claim that makes me an expert on all this stuff, i did know that just about every household knew how to make candles out of beeswax or tallow but STILL didn't burn that many in one stupid night.
The only legitimately interesting character is the uncle. Maybe Giancarlo Esposito.
However, I do want to defend it as not being a "Hunger Games rip off". Women wielding bows have been a fixture of mythology and lore since the Amazons. It is a weapon that can be used with nearly equal level of proficiency by men and women. Men are naturally taller and stronger than women, with a longer reach, so a sword is much more deadly in the hands of a male swordsman than a woman because it can be swung faster and further. This is not some recent phenomenon started by the Hunger Games.
but i was wundering how the cars could just die like that, electricity i can understand, but at least older cars should not just die like that imo. I am hoping this is not just another show that will never provide us with any answers.
PLEASE don't be a Terra Nova / Falling Skies. PLEASE PLEASE please please PLEASE!
will give the show a 'couple of episodes' long chance for the sake of liking kripke's other work..
But seeing as it is on NBC there's a good chance it'll be gone soon anyway.
The only link I can think of is that there are people with bows and melee weapons in both. Tenuous link.
2) Jon Favreau was a director before Iron Man.
3) I didn't take notice of the wardrobe. I'd have to re-watch it to comment, but I don't want to do that.
4) TV content restrictions. Making the show available to all ages will obviously alienate the older viewers, but it widens overall viewership. I certainly don't subscribe to the idea, but there it is.
5) A. Cast does suck. B. Marketing. If you have characters that fit a common archetype, the audience is more likely to draw on something you enjoyed previously. For example, the Lost tool two comments above compares the fat geek to Hurley (not the most complex archetype to begin with.) While he considers it a negative, many others might think the opposite. It's immediately understood and comfortable to the audience. It's also terrible writing with zero risk.
I just realized, I put a little more thought into this than I had expected. Damn you, TV.com!
And after 8-9 episodes cancelled!!!
Hey, if you really want to see it, I got two words for you: Hotspot Shield.
Everybody else on that show... bof.
By the way.... here's a question: isn't it weird that, in this futuristic world without electricity, nobody is using bicyclea? Did they all disappear too during the blackout? Or did people forgot how to ride bikes when the power went off? How about rollerblades and/or skateboards? Can you only walk or ride a horse in this particular reality?
Weird...
SMALL SPOILER: honestly, it would be hard to not find any guy interesting after watching him kill off SEVENTEEN MEN with a couple of swords and one harpoon in under 4 minutes. If "Revolution" delivers this level of bloodshed in every episode, interesting character development and logic be damn, I'm still gonna watch!
I didn't like the sword fight. These are a few problems I had with it:
1. 17 opponents...that's just too many. (I didn't count, but the number sounds about right).
2. If the character is *that* good a fighter, I want to see someone like Bruce Lee or Steven Segal in their prime in that role. Not some guy who obviously isn't particularly skilled.
3. No blood, no pain. That just makes it cartoonish and silly. If you get stabbed in the gut, it probably takes hours to die, maybe days.
4. After he has taken out the first 16 people, the 17th guy attacks him alone. How stupid would that guy have to be?
5. No matter how good he is, it would have made more sense to leave before those guys showed up, unless he really *wanted* to mass murder a bunch of poorly trained soldiers who probably don't even know what they're fighting for. I don't think the character is supposed to be a psychopath who really enjoys mass murder.
Now what's the point of watching that total piece of crap? Ah well, more time to spend on better shows - silver lining, I guess...
I like the google guy and the young man with the bow who plays the role of the elf basically.
Maybe I'm getting more cynical the older I get and the more TV shows I've watched. But I just expect more from a show like this one. It's too polished for my taste and not dark enough. It's not a good sign when I find the bad guys more likeable and interesting than the good guys. There are a few things that bother me about the show:
- The premise of all electrical appliances turning off. I completely understand that we have to suspend our disbelief when watching a show like this, or in fact any show. It's fiction, after all. That's what makes it so exciting, it gives us an escape from reality. Great shows like Fringe and Lost, even Breaking Bad and Mad Men, are not realistic, but they do have something that pulls you in. The "science" behind Fringe is bat shit crazy, but they have managed to muddle it enough for me to accept it as entertainment, and it's complicated enough that I can't always figure out what makes it impossible. The problem with Revolution is that it deals with something that is very familiar to us in our everyday lives: electricity. The idea that electrical appliances suddenly turn off is just so far removed from reality, and everyone can see why. It's simple physics. The premise just bothers me too much for me to continue watching it. Now, the mystery might not have to do with "electricity not working", but with conductivity or maybe a world wide electronic virus. But it does not explain why the problem still remains years later. Electricity is a fundamental property which cannot be erased or be turned off. It exists all around.
- The stupidity of the characters. It was annoying in Terra Nova, and it's annoying now. I wish Danny would have been shot in the beginning so we wouldn't have to deal with another bone-headed teenage boy fucking up all the time. It's infuriating to watch people whose survival instincts are virtually zero in tough situations.
- If Ben Matheson knew what caused the blackout, why didn't her tell anyone? I bet they are going to explain it with the classic "he thought it was too dangerous to tell others". It's this kind of silence about important things that gets people killed. Why would Ben have stayed silent for 15 years about something that could have solved the problem? And now they use his silence to bring mystery to the show.
It's definitely got me intrigued even if it is a little tame in other ways.
How do you know what issues will be dealt with in Revolution?
And as far as the walking dead is concerned (one of my favorite shows as I'm zombie obsessed) That is survivalist on the extreme level. This is a society that lost electricity and we're 15 years on with communities rebuilt in a make-do kinda way. The larger issues they face are very different - militia rule vs who's gonna turn on me next and bite my face off. They invoke very different behavioural reactions in people I'd expect.
At the end of the day its tamed down family sci-fi so I guess you either like that or you don't.
Also in the beginning of the episode you could see airplanes just dropping out of the sky spinning horizontally. I don't know much about the workings of airplanes, but they shouldn't just fall down. The forward motion and the aerodynamics the airplanes still had should have left them able to make emergency landings.
I will continue to watch revolution, because i think it could be quite good. But i would like to see more questions answered more quickly (even if those should bring up more questions).
Thing that got me was that there seemed to be lights on the planes as they were coming down.
I'm 50/50 on it all. It's not gritty or emotional enough for me but at the same time it does intruige me and it's something I can watch with my kids.
Here's what was solid:
- The acting. It seems like the acting is getting a really strong hit, but honestly, it was pretty good for the pacing of the pilot. I have a lot of faith in Billy Burke and newcomer Tracy Spiridakos definitely brought it in this episode.
- The settings and the scenery. This is what Revolution is going to excel in: showing us what the world would look like if this really happened. The overgrown cities and the natural landscapes were breathtaking and I'm looking forward to more.
- The twists. People need to get the stick out of their asses long enough to recognize that not every twist needs to be a game changer like in LOST. The twists in this episode may not have been revolutionary (heh) but they were pretty fresh. Turning a relatively minor character into the big bad of the series was new. And sure, the convenience of Danny finding the woman with a computer might be far-fetched, but the reveal that there were more than one of those devices is intriguing.
- The sword fights. Need I say more?
And what could have been better:
- Danny. Right now, he's a pretty weak character. His asthma is really the only thing we know about him besides the fact that he's kind of a hotheaded idiot.
- Elizabeth Mitchell being in less than 10 minutes of the episode in total. But I have a feeling that she's going to be back a lot, whether solely in flashbacks or in the present, still alive.
- Nate's motivation. It's clear he likes Charlie, but his motives are really unclear and if he's going to keep flip-flopping, it's going to get really confusing and old really fast.
Will I watch it? Absolutely. I'm going to give it a few more episodes and I'm expecting great things. This is a fresh premise helmed by some great names. Hopefully Revolution doesn't get its lights shut down prematurely. (First pun not intended, second one very much so.)
Trailer looks asinine, the pilot just confirmed it.
And why anyone would complain about regional blocking is beyond me when we got torrents,proxies ,vpn! hell even I know about these :)
I hope next episodes will improve the show but I got bad feeling about this Revolution. it might get canceled after 1 season.
This was slightly disappointing. If you have all that money- hire a really good fight choreographer- If Keanu and Uma can be trained to do sweet moves then I'm sure Billy Burke can.
I'd like to see more fight scenes but polished better. Even watch a few Bourne movies and copy some of that!
There's some gore here, right, but that's about as grown-up as this pilot episode gets.
Firstly, what about this google guy? Why did he have to come along? I already hate him and I know that he is a character that will not be killed off. Though he should be. It's a wonder how he did survive the last 15 years. And at what age did he become a google millionaire? 12?
Then those stupid weapons. The Monroe Republic must be larger than your average fishing village, still it can't arm it's soldiers probably? Electricity may have gone but craftsmanship should have survived. Making bullets is pretty much the easiest thing a blacksmith can do, and cheap. The hard part would be the shell casings, but they can be re-used dozens of times, and after civil wars there should be millions of them lying about.
So no need for machetes with knuckle-handles or revolutionary war muskets.
And what about asthma-kid? He has his fathers death on his conscience, still we should see the militia as the bad guys? Come on! If a cop say, put your weapon down, you put it the hell down!
Bonkers!
- The show has a very different look compared to other post-apocalyptic shows like The Walking Dead or Falling Skies. That's a good thing.
- I wish they had killed asthma kid and left the scientist live. He seemed like a much more interesting character.
- I've been in love with Tracy Spiridakos since the trailer of this show.
- I loved the expression Bugs Bunny made on TV when the power went out forever.
- Elizabeth Mitchell onscreen for just two minutes, then jump to 15 years later and she's dead? why replace Andrea Roth then?
- Miles has friends in high places. He knows General Monroe personally, and they used to be friends. The characters should be celebrating, not fighting.
- The Monroe Republic must have a hard time placing undercover spies among its enemies if all its soldiers are branded... Why didn't Charlie and Miles check Nate's wrist before?
- Nate, will you please make up your mind? Do you wanna help or kill the girl?
- Since computer lady has a live chat with somebody else via her computer telling them about the militia men, that means there's somebody else on the other end of the line connected all the time. An email-style message to be read later would've made more sense. but then they could've schedules this chat beforehand, so they both knew to log on at the same time.
- The guy asks her "Now what?" and she just stares at the screen and smirks. It's like the writers didn't know how to end the chat dialogue.
All in all, a promising show I'll watch.
I didn't get the computer chat.
What do we do now?
About what? The Monroe's men came and went. there's not a problem is there?
They must have a plan- I mean the scientist nerd terrorists that caused the electrical apocalypse. It was key that he downloaded something onto that USB so the device would work so they must have had a long term plan to use those in the future. Be interesting to see how that pans out.
There's probably some guy in a bunker somewhere with Blenders, microwave, stereo, Flat screen and xbox having the time of his life.
Or maybe he's called Desmond and has to type in 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42 everytime the timer runs down!
You know the answer. She's not actually dead, and we'll see her again soon. It's also possible that she will only appear in flashbacks, and that there will be a lot of those. But I would be pretty surprised if she's not alive.
"Miles has friends in high places. He knows General Monroe personally, and they used to be friends. The characters should be celebrating, not fighting."
A guy who thinks of a technological apocalypse as an opportunity to make himself a dictator over a significant part of the country is not someone a decent person would consider a friend.
As for the Monroe comment, I was being sarcastic, though I wouldn't blame people if they chose the easier way in a situation in which survival is at stake.
xo
However, the writing is terrible. Oh my goodness, those hokey emotional scenes. Everything is just formulaic storytelling....no surprises. I already hate the teenage boy. Poor Giancarlo Esposito....how did he get dragged into this??
All I could think of while watching this was how they didn't learn anything from the mistakes of Flashforward and Terra Nova.....this show doesn't just repeat their failures but actually makes things worse.
I'll watch another episode or 2 but they probably lost me at Hello.......the show will likely be canceled within 2-3 months.
So far I like this a lot less than Flash Forward and The Event.