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Joke Ryan
I loved “Hunt for Red October,” the first Jack Ryan movie. Alec Baldwin is a fine actor who filled the role nicely, and it had Sean Connery as the best Scottish-accented Soviet sub commander, and also Fred Thompson who smoked cigarettes and said things with flat dismay. A great movie. The subsequent movies had Indiana Jones as Jack Ryan, right? Were there others? Doesn’t quite matter – the character isn’t rooted in a particular actor, and doesn’t have many attributes aside from “CIA data dude who can also shoot people in the head if need be.” Amazon made a Jack Ryan series a few years ago, starring Jim from “The Office” and Bunk from “The Wire,” and it was pretty good: the Islamist terrorist was the bad guy, not a front for a shadowy group of businessmen fronted by Jon Voight, as happened all the time in “24.”
This new season is taking some flak for its rearrangement of reality: it’s set in Venezuela, which is run by a sleek, manicured dude named Nicholas who is . . . a nationalist! Heavy right-wing vibes. His domestic political opponent is . . . a Social Justice candidate! The young kids who are opposed to the government are described by one exasperated character as “leftists.” In other words: Bizarro World.
It has an unintended message: nationalist right-wing Venezuela seems much more prosperous than the socialist real-world version; the lights are on at night, no one looks hungry, the bars are full. Oh, there are lines, but no one’s turning over dumpsters for dinner. And the “social justice” candidate and her handlers believe they can win the upcoming election, as opposed to the actual Venezuelan election situation. So it’s not a police state with roving armed bands imposing the state’s authority.
In other words, the writers looked at actual Venezuela, and said “boring. Needs to be recast along the lines of a Mission: Impossible episode.”
Had a conversation with a liberal friend about the matter, and he wondered if it was ignorance of reality, or intentional. I suggested it was intentional. Now I wonder if it’s both, because in the 3rd episode, Jack Ryan is dismissing the possibility that the local socialist terrorist group could have mounted an operation against a US Senator. And I quote:
“The FLA is a tiny leftist militia. Anti-Americanism isn’t in their DNA.”
It’s impossible to write that line without assuming utter ignorance on the part of the audience. Utter, total, complete, historical ignorance.
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Disagree. I loved it. Fantastic. Tommy and his family are changing, and the times are changing too. And Tommy is becoming more and more conflicted.
Wrong. Just wrong. Sad really, how wrong you are. Mrs. Maisel is great.
I got the impression from Annika’s reports from Venezuela that the poverty and lack of security is limited to pockets. Whether dumpster-diving is the norm or taco stands are, I don’t know. But there are apparently some places where food stands and such can carry on business unmolested.
James, thanks for sparing me the enrolling pain of finding this out myself. I will take a pass on season 2.
Agreed. Though I felt the season was incomplete in that many too threads were left hanging. Usually the writers bring a few of the story arc to a conclusion while leaving other open. But this thread is about Jack Halpert, so I’ll leave it there.
I liked season 1. You had an antagonist who was interesting, and a protagonist stepping up to the plate. I remember a couple of times when my expectations of TV storytelling were subverted (I can’t remember exactly what they were, but it’s been a long time since I saw it).
Season 2 is dreary, and I think I’m tapping out after four episodes. Besides the set pieces five minutes before the ending of each episode, I really couldn’t care less about mining in South America in this faux version of a real-life horror show.
Plus, what happened to the future Ms. Ryan from Season 1? Did she die, or did they break up, and I was mind-wiped? I was more outraged about Jack’s sleep-around with the German agent over that than leaving coded-secret docs laying around.
Bummer! I liked the first Jack Ryan series, and have been eagerly anticipating the new season. I thought last season did a reasonably authentic job with the Muslim characters. The antagonist (forget his name) was a multi-dimensional character with some redeeming qualities. The writers left no doubt, however, as to the depth of his radicalization and the evil that it unleashed within him.
I love the Bosch & Peaky Blinders on Netflix. But far to many shows skew toward politically correct nonsense that I can’t watch. Women being the intellectual and physical betters than educated physically fit men gets overdone. And of course Hollywood just can’t show socialism as evil so they turn Venezuela into a right wing political fight and make the leftist benign guys hero’s. Sad because too many younger viewers probably don’t know enough about the world to realize they are being fed propaganda.
Parks and Rec had an episode in which a group of what turned out to be thuggish henchmen from Venezuela came to visit their “sister city” of Pawnee, Indiana. The liberal, government-loving Lesley Knope has to stick up for democracy and, indeed, Deplorables in the face of pressure to laud Chavez.
Oh, but that was then and this is now.
By the way, Jim Halpert is never going to be anyone but Jim Halpert. It weirds me out to see him smooch some fetching dame or other…wait! What about Pam!?
The latest season was good but not great. I fear for the next season.
Tony Shaloub is fantastic.
The Harrison Ford version of Jack Ryan in Clear and Present Danger cemented him in my mind as the John Wayne of my generation. A man who could pull off Indiana Jones, Han Solo, and Jack Ryan had earned his chops. That said, I agree that Alec Baldwin was still the best version of the character — if only because I never got a Harrison Ford version of President Jack Ryan in Rainbow Six — and I shunned the Amazon series simply because I knew it didn’t follow any of the character’s book story lines.
Regarding Tom Clancy books, I’m still waiting for an ambitious studio to make a big budget, period piece movie version of Red Storm Rising. Surely there are enough producers in Hollywood who despise Russia enough to back it.
Maybe someone could ask a TV showrunner why the politics have to be distorted this way. Was it to get Mr. Krasinski to come on board? Do commies still run the writer’s guild? If Tom Clancy were alive today he’d be spinning in his grave.
James, I have a story you may be interested in. Tom Clancy, and his attempt to publish The Hunt for Red October, are featured.
I’ll agree with that. The most recent season isn’t as good…
Watch Regarding Henry, if you haven’t already.
Update! Episode Four, our hero, who has amassed a wealth of information, is tossed off the case because “he’s too close” to the investigation. Also, the POTUS is unhappy the agents are harassing the Venezeulan government, because they might cut off diplomatic contacts!
Totally nailed our domestic situation: a Senator is assassinated, and the President is worried about our intelligence services alienating the government of Venezuela.
Yes, some of his best acting was in that film for sure.
Stop wasting your time.
Witnessed fiction is more realistic than unknown reality.
Ewwww…
Amazon Prime just sent me a link for the Jack Ryan Novels with new guy on all the covers. It was him in Hunt for Red October and Clear and Present danger.
Yuck!
Mrs. Maisel has its moments, but it’s pretty uneven. Some episodes drag really long.
I think my biggest problems with it is that there’s too many little side stories, and the long-term story arc tends to get muddled. Maybe there should be fewer episodes per season?
Like, there seems to be very little progress to Mrs. Maisel’s character arc or to her comedy career. Is she going to start getting better gigs? Is she going to start bumping up against the cut-throat business side of showbiz? Where is this story going? Etc. Etc. Etc.
In other words, it seems a little too soap-opera-ish to me. i.e. A bunch of amusing episodes strung together but with little-to-no actual long-term story progression.
Also, considering the historical setting, she doesn’t actually seem to struggle very much in her life. Everything seems to come too easy. She always has someone to look after her kids. She never has to really worry about money. Etc. Etc. For a single working mother in the 1950s, she doesn’t really seem to have to do much “adulting” for herself. There’s little sense that she has to work very hard at what she does.
I have not watched Bosch, so I cannot comment on its quality, but I’m a pretty big fan of The Man In The High Castle, Mozart In The Jungle, The Tick, Sneaky Pete, and Red Oaks. I also really enjoyed Z: The Beginning Of Everything (their show about Zelda Fitzgerald), but sadly it didn’t get renewed after the first season.
In other words, Amazon Prime has quite a few series that I rather enjoy. In fact, when it comes to original series, I tend to think that Amazon Prime has surpassed Netflix.
Same here. Republic of Doyle was a fun show.
I’ve watched (or tried to watch) most of the series you listed. I only stuck with TMITHC. But different strokes, etc.
Another point for Amazon Prime Video: they actually produce most of their “originals.” Netflix mainly takes foreign series and brands them “Netflix Originals” in the States (e.g., Peaky Blinders, Bad Blood, Frontier). Though they do have some they produce on their own.
That’s the phrase that describes it. “Willful ignorance.” That don’t know about actual Venezuela and they don’t want to know about actual Venezuela.
No, they lightened it up to lie. They wanted to make a show about the evil right and the enlightened left. They are people of the lie, don’t make excuses for them.
Gotta admit it was funny when James Greer said he was from Canada and his name was Timothy Horton.
Traitor is really good, in some ways the best I’ve seen of the genre. I thought Cheadle threaded the needle very well. Syriana (sp?) isn’t awful. The Kingdom is much fun but shallow on plot details. (“An Arab did this. I’ll take Abu Hamsa for $1000, Alex!”)
Jack Ryan Season 2 is awful, however.
James you took what I was going to write and said it far better than I could ever hope to..
Sadly all Racists and White Nationalists is pretty darn faithful to the original series…