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Thread: The Underground Railroad

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    Chris's Avatar Senior Member
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    The Underground Railroad

    Looks interesting if you've got Amazon Prime.

    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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    Finally got around to watching the first episode. The story is good in its depiction of a slave's life. It was all believable until the final scenes of an actual underground railroad and train--symbolic, I suppose. The cinematography is overdone in its use of light and dark themes at time. More distracting is the audio variation, from lows you have to turn the sound up to hear, to sudden blasts.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    Finally got around to watching the first episode. The story is good in its depiction of a slave's life. It was all believable until the final scenes of an actual underground railroad and train--symbolic, I suppose. The cinematography is overdone in its use of light and dark themes at time. More distracting is the audio variation, from lows you have to turn the sound up to hear, to sudden blasts.
    I binge watched all 10 episodes. It is very much an alternate version of reality, not only because of the existence of an actual train but because it introduces a great deal of non-historical events or situations. It's rather like a version of slavery that occurred in a different Earth dimension. The storyline borrows some from historical events that occurred in other times and places in the world and weaves the essence of those events, into the storyline with America or certain states substituting for the original locations. It is well acted, but I think that 10 episodes was longer than it should have been. There is a lot of empty time, where you're just looking at woods or fields, like rather long pregnant pauses in the video. It also jumps back and forth in time, a common film device that I have never especially enjoyed.

    I agree with your comment regarding the uneven audio and some of the night scenes are so under lit that the TV screen is almost totally black with ghostly indistinct images, tempting you to adjust the brightness on your set.
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    There was a series just called 'Underground' back in 2016-17 that was pretty well done - except for the soundtrack, which featured a lot of modern rap music. This new series looks interesting, and hopefully they won't do similarly.
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    Episode two took a turn for the even stranger. The liter underground railroad to them to a South Carolina town with a skyscraper where too good to be true progressive whites are conducting a scientific experiment to improve the $#@! race through drugs and sterilization. Eventually the slave hunter shows up and Cora escapes again on the literal underground railroad.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    Episode two took a turn for the even stranger. The liter underground railroad to them to a South Carolina town with a skyscraper where too good to be true progressive whites are conducting a scientific experiment to improve the $#@! race through drugs and sterilization. Eventually the slave hunter shows up and Cora escapes again on the literal underground railroad.
    Actually, they were giving the black males syphilis (disguised as vitamins) to see if they could survive it, since they believed blacks possess a greater biological capacity to survive physical hardships like disease and starvation than white people. Presumably the survivors would then be used as breeding stock. They were sterilizing the black women to ensure that there were no black children born.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dr. Who View Post
    Actually, they were giving the black males syphilis (disguised as vitamins) to see if they could survive it, since they believed blacks possess a greater biological capacity to survive physical hardships like disease and starvation than white people. Presumably the survivors would then be used as breeding stock. They were sterilizing the black women to ensure that there were no black children born.
    I guess I'd just prefer and expected a little more historical accuracy.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    I guess I'd just prefer and expected a little more historical accuracy.
    Like I mentioned before, this is an alternate reality story. The only thing that comports with history is that Cora, as an escaped slave, lives in danger of being recaptured while trying to find somewhere safe to live. It's truly a work of fiction but some of the twists and turns in the story actually illustrate the different forms that racism takes in ways that wouldn't be possible if the story was confined to the historically accurate underground railroad.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dr. Who View Post
    Like I mentioned before, this is an alternate reality story. The only thing that comports with history is that Cora, as an escaped slave, lives in danger of being recaptured while trying to find somewhere safe to live. It's truly a work of fiction but some of the twists and turns in the story actually illustrate the different forms that racism takes in ways that wouldn't be possible if the story was confined to the historically accurate underground railroad.

    I read slightly less than halfway through the book. It's not written well, and the grammatical mistakes are distracting--small things, lots of dangling participles. I didn't mind the fantasy part because that's artistic license, but I do expect clean writing from a book that wins a Pulitzer.
    ""A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul" ~George Bernard Shaw

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    Quote Originally Posted by FindersKeepers View Post
    I read slightly less than halfway through the book. It's not written well, and the grammatical mistakes are distracting--small things, lots of dangling participles. I didn't mind the fantasy part because that's artistic license, but I do expect clean writing from a book that wins a Pulitzer.
    I'd probably also become distracted by the grammatical errors and then by the automatic mental recomposing of the line. It would make it difficult to concentrate on the story. In that case, it's just preferable to watch the series.
    Last edited by Dr. Who; 05-22-2021 at 04:42 AM.
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