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Legion season 1 (new X-Men related tv show)

Oh. When I hear "a reference to X," I assume it means an allusion or homage to something in it -- like how David playing the banjo and singing "The Rainbow Connection" is a reference to The Muppet Movie (although he totally mangled the timing and didn't get the melody quite right either).
It's still a reference. Whether it's a deliberate one to Kubrick or not is up to debate. :p
 
I found this interesting on Wiki:


So, in the 90s it was deemed uncomfortable or impossible or whatever to use Legion in a series and now, 20+ years later the exact opposite has happened - Legion is the lead in a regular series on TV which (as a medium) has a much broader audience than the original comics.

Peter David wasn't saying he didn't think Legion should be used in a series at all -- he was saying it didn't make sense to include Legion in a team series like X-Factor. Peter did say in the passage you quoted that "I don't mind building a story around him." He just thought that any story about Legion would have to center on Legion; it didn't make sense to reduce Legion to a supporting player in a team. After all, he'd be more powerful than the rest of the team put together, and was too erratic a character to be a reliable team member.
 
Building a story.

Well, the TV series is doing the opposite. It's building a series around him and it's including a team. He's the center of attention, that's for sure.
 
Building a story.

Well, the TV series is doing the opposite. It's building a series around him and it's including a team. He's the center of attention, that's for sure.

Once more: X-Factor was an ensemble series, a spinoff of X-Men. It was meant to take a bunch of "leftover" mutants who weren't already regulars in other series and assemble them into a team that worked for the US government. It would have a large cast whose members would be featured equally. Peter and his editor both recognized that the original suggestion to include Legion as a supporting member of that ensemble was untenable. He'd have to have his powers ridiculously toned down, in order for the other characters to have anything to do. His complex personality and inner struggle would've probably had to be minimized too, or else he would've taken over the book. And the idea that this unstable, godlike person could be a team player following the government's marching orders was ridiculous. It would've required changing the character too much. It would've been like, say, making Q a regular on Voyager and expecting him to follow Janeway's orders like any crewmember. Or having the Doctor be a regular on Torchwood taking orders from Captain Jack. He's too powerful and distracting a character for that -- he'd naturally dominate every story he was in. So you can't make him a constant, weekly presence and let him fade into the background while you do stories about other team members. Characters like that just don't work in ensembles.

Legion is something different. Yes, technically there's a team, but it's just there to support a story about David Haller. His character and his storyline shapes everything. It's not an ensemble series, it's a single-lead series with a supporting ensemble.
 
Regardless, the quote from Peter David said:

Believing that a group of people will come together to form a team is enough of a suspension of disbelief... 'Oh, by the way, one of them is so nuts he shouldn't be setting foot off Muir Island'... that's asking the reader to bend so far he will break."[1]

Yet, the TV series creators do not feel that they are pushing the watches so far that he will break (his suspension of disbelief) despite the fact that Legion is so nuts he shouldn't be setting foot off "Muir Island" or whatever institution he should be in.

Wait, from that last episode we saw he might still be in that institution. Or we've gone even further down the rabbit hole and he (or Mojo) has dragged everyone else down there, too,

I just think it's interesting how these creators saw Legion differently that Peter David did. Or, 20 years later and the rise of the anti-hero is in such full swing that audiences will now accept what they could not accept 20 years ago.
 
Wait, from that last episode we saw he might still be in that institution. Or we've gone even further down the rabbit hole and he (or Mojo) has dragged everyone else down there, too.
I think the notion that David is still at Clockworks is the idea the show wants the viewers to think but I still believe David has drawn everyone inside as a form of protection from the Devil with the Yellow Eyes.
 
Regardless, the quote from Peter David said:

You're taking that part out of context, and that's why you're misunderstanding it. It's the previous sentences that are important. Here it is from another site:

http://www.cbr.com/comic-legends-was-legion-going-to-be-a-member-of-x-factor/
However, ORIGINALLY, Legion was going to be part of the new X-Factor team. You see, when the X-Men and X-Factor teams got together, that left the “X-Factor” title without a team, so Marvel came up with the idea of putting together the leftover mutant characters like Havok, Polaris, Madrox, Guido and Wolfsbane form a new government-sponsored mutant team.

Originally, Legion was going to be on the team, but incoming writer Peter David really did not like that idea.

He explained it to Pat O’Neill in “Comics Interview” #105:

Originally, Legion was going to be in the group, and we had a slight problem. I was extremely uncomfortable with the thought of Legion in the group simply because Legion is a story in and of himself…and comfortably working him into a group in some way that wasn’t utterly contrived was something I had a great deal of difficulty with. I don’t mind building a story around him, but working him into a group – you’re really asking for a bit much from the reader. Believing that a group of people will come together to form a team is enough of a suspension of belief….”Oh, by the way, one of them is so nuts he shouldn’t be setting foot off Muir Island”…that’s asking the reader to bend so far he will break.

Then Bob Harras called him one night to ask if David really needed to keep Legion on the team, as he didn’t like the idea of Legion on the team for the same reason. David, of course, jumped at the opportunity, since he thought it was Harras who was insisting that he be on the team in the FIRST place and thus Legion was off the team and the classic original Peter David/Larry Stroman X-Factor team was born!


Peter was not talking about Legion in general, but specifically about the idea of including him in X-Factor. Read the whole passage and it's clear he's saying that Legion works better as a central character than a supporting character within a larger group. As he says, "because Legion is a story in and of himself" rather than just a member of an X-Men team. Because any story about Legion would naturally have to center on Legion. That's what Peter meant.

And that's what the show is. It's called Legion. David Haller is the story in and of himself. That's what Peter said he would have to be, and that's exactly what he is.

I just think it's interesting how these creators saw Legion differently that Peter David did.

No, they see him exactly the same way Peter did: As someone who needs to be the star of his own story rather than an interchangeable member of an X-Men team.
 
Someone mentioned that the gold eyed blob needed to grow legs and that was why he was immobile in episode 1. Am I understanding that correctly?

As we saw from this week's episode, All the various visions were the same parasite - Benny/Lenny, the dog, the weird storybook character with the big head and the humongous blob with glowing eyes. He seems to have had legs for years.

Or I'm missing something.
 
As we saw from this week's episode, All the various visions were the same parasite - Benny/Lenny, the dog, the weird storybook character with the big head and the humongous blob with glowing eyes. He seems to have had legs for years.

Well, Benny was a real person. Lenny, whatever she is, substituted herself for Benny in David's memory -- which is why she talked and acted like a misogynistic man. (I guess what Aubrey Plaza said in that interview about being cast in a role originally intended to be male and asking the producers not to adjust the dialogue for a woman was misdirection.)
 
Well, Benny was a real person. Lenny, whatever she is, substituted herself for Benny in David's memory -- which is why she talked and acted like a misogynistic man. (I guess what Aubrey Plaza said in that interview about being cast in a role originally intended to be male and asking the producers not to adjust the dialogue for a woman was misdirection.)
Or maybe it wasn't and the producers just used her insistence as a story element.
 
Someone mentioned that the gold eyed blob needed to grow legs and that was why he was immobile in episode 1. Am I understanding that correctly?

If he was sitting in a mobile platform his whole life (like one of the Spineless One - a member of Mojo's race), he would have never used his legs before he became a mental visage in David's mind. But once he was there, he no longer had the limitation of being stuck in that chair. Those arms and hands don't look human in several scenes. And Sydney wouldn't have freaked out if it was just an obese man. She said she was a 300 pound woman at one point.
 
When did she say that? Not I don't believe you, I just don't remember it.

I kinda remember that. It was when Syd and David were on the dock, talking about their experiences of being in each other's bodies. David apologized for touching her breasts while he was in her body, and she shrugged it off, saying that she'd been in so many other bodies that she felt detached from her own.
 
Guys.. need help.

I am watching episode 2 and am bored to death with the show. I get what they're trying to do.. show a mentally screwed guy whose powers seem to be driving him mad and the pilot episode was weird enough but the second episode is just as weird.

I was not expecting an MCU/X-Men special effects action show but this is boring and confusing as hell.. is this show getting better soon because i am very close to quitting it but review scores i saw put it very high and i just don't see it (yet).
 
I was not expecting an MCU/X-Men special effects action show but this is boring and confusing as hell.. is this show getting better soon because i am very close to quitting it but review scores i saw put it very high and i just don't see it (yet).

Define better..?
 
Guys.. need help.

I am watching episode 2 and am bored to death with the show. I get what they're trying to do.. show a mentally screwed guy whose powers seem to be driving him mad and the pilot episode was weird enough but the second episode is just as weird.

I was not expecting an MCU/X-Men special effects action show but this is boring and confusing as hell.. is this show getting better soon because i am very close to quitting it but review scores i saw put it very high and i just don't see it (yet).

Format and style pretty much stay the same but I'd say the pace does pick up. Personally I love it.
 
Guys.. need help.

I am watching episode 2 and am bored to death with the show. I get what they're trying to do.. show a mentally screwed guy whose powers seem to be driving him mad and the pilot episode was weird enough but the second episode is just as weird.

I was not expecting an MCU/X-Men special effects action show but this is boring and confusing as hell.. is this show getting better soon because i am very close to quitting it but review scores i saw put it very high and i just don't see it (yet).

I think, if you find it boring, get out now. The first episode is very much setting the tone for the rest of the series. It keeps that style. It will reveal more of it's answers as it moves along, increasingly so, it seems. But it doesn't seem to be overly concerned with plot. Just character. Hell, the bulk of the plot is just unraveling David's character.
 
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