Y: The Last Man is an upcoming American drama television series starring Diane Lane, Ben Schnetzer, Olivia Thirlby and Ashley Romans that is set to premiere on September 13, 2021 on FX on Hulu. It is based on the comic book series Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra.
That is intriguing. I remember reading a book where a majority of men - but not all - perished, e.g. France retained its male president. In the early noughties, there were articles that genetic engineering could make it possible to procreate Humans with women only, because you only need the right gametes to get inside the egg, and it doesn't have to be sperm. I wonder whether this show deals with, or entirely ignores, Intersex people, who's chromosome arrangement means Humans have multiple sexes anyway. (TED-talk for more info: )
In the comics the plague wiped out every living mammal with a Y chromosome, even fetuses. I don't remember if they explicitly talked about intersex, but if you have a Y chromosome, BANG, you're dead.
My favourite comic series of all time, I'm excited for this and the trailer didn't disappoint. Spoiler Seeing 355 in the flesh, though, almost made me sad. If they follow the books, I'm going to be a wreck even before that episode hits.
I read the whole thing for the first time a few years ago and loved every bit of it. I'm thrilled this show is finally coming out after the many roadblocks it experienced along the way.
I only read the first couple ollections of the comics, but I really enjoyed them, and have been really looking to the show. The trailer did not disappoint and I'm releaved to see thst Ampersand appeared to be CGI. Now I need to get back to comics.
It's been ages since I read the comics, but most of what I remember is positive and it's practically tailor made for a TV adaptation. Great cast of characters, unique hook, several twists. wonderful opportunity for representation, and unlike some other adaptations I could name, it already has a definitive beginning, middle and end. IIRC I don't think the exact cause of the Y-chromopocalypse was ever revealed, though I think I remember reading that the author said that despite there being several red herrings, there IS a definitive answer and the clues are there for people to find on their own. Personally I thought the premise was interesting enough that it didn't matter to me what actually caused it. I'd later be reminded of this when reading 'Seveneves' (which coincidentally shares a few superficial things in common with YtlM that I won't spoil) and the opening line of the book is essentially "one day the moon blew up. nobody knows why, but here's what happened next..." Sometimes shit happens and you never get a definitive answer. History is full of events that have been debated and argued over for centuries without a definitive answer, so it's nice to see it pop up in fiction from time to time. The only thing I'm worried about is that the trans representation (however well intentioned) may be a bit archaic by today's standards. The only trans man in the story that I recall was an incidental character Yorick just meets in passing, who is essentially working as a prostitute for heterosexual women, offering the "genuine experience". They of course presume Yorick is like them and even critiques his appearance so that he can present more masculine. While this is well intentioned and did feel like an honest thing in that setting (to my cis gendered hetero male perspective I should stress), I hope that it's not the *only* such representation.
Thank you so much, @Skipper for posting that! We've only seen the teaser that shows nothing. Hubby and I *loved* the comic and are looking forward to this! Now to cross my fingers that it's *GOOD*.
I read this series when it was first released back when I returned to comics following a 15 year break and was blown away by it.I remember thinking that Y and DMZ would both make excellent, highly film-able television series. I am looking forward to this.
However this turns out, let's just be grateful that the movie version with Shia Labeouf never got off the ground. *shudders*
I agree, but not just about that. I think that streaming service series or limited series are the way to go for comic book adaptations. Movies only work for when a comic series does not have an ongoing story line. The Walking Dead, Invincible, this series, the Sandman, and others like it all lend themselves more naturally to series.
Yeah, when it comes to most of the non-superhero comics and graphic novels, long form is the way to go. But then I tend to think the same way about a lot of literary novel adaptations. Historically the rub has always been that it takes a movie budget to be able to do these stories justice without looking cheap, though often at the expense of a lot of the depth and nuance that made the story worth adapting in the first place. Thankfully that gap has been getting narrower and narrower over the last decade. Now we're finally at the point where small-screen shows can be done at movie scale, filling the niche once held by the now practically extinct mid-budget high concept movies.
Very much agree. TV has become my prefered home for direct adatations of longer comic series and books, movies just don't give you the time to really dig deep into the source material. Are they still working on the DMZ TV series? I remember one being announced, but I don't think we've heard anything about it in a while.
Almost didn't recognize Paul Gross (Due South, The Red Green Show) as the US President! I highly doubt that. Not even the most radical feminist would want this to happen.
This may seem like a random example, but what made it really stand out for me was the movie version of 'The Time Traveller's Wife'. I surprisingly really enjoyed the book, despite supernatural romances not usually being to my taste (yes it's time travel, but there's no science fiction to be found here outside of the broad concept of causality, so it's very much a supernatural thing.) Maybe it's just well written because I breezed through it in a weekend, so when the movie was announced I was actually looking forward to it...and it was *fine*, I suppose. OK performances. The basic plot was there...but there was clearly something missing. Don't get me wrong, this wasn't the first lacklustre adaptation I'd run across, but it was the first one where I thought there was no good reason why it couldn't have been better other than the demands of the runtime. Big concept sci-fi & fantasy novels like Dune, LotR, or literally anything by Phillip K. Dick need a lot of adaptation (and money) to translate them to the big screen. But this was a fairly grounded contemporary story. No more challenging than the average family drama, and yet the movie couldn't do it justice in a 2hs movie (and it's a fairly slim novel too!) If it had been a mini-series, or even a full season, I suspect it could have been a lot closer to the source material and all the better for it.
I don't recall what made me first realize it @Reverend but I totally agree. There have only been 2 movies I can think of that were both completely true to the book *and* great (IMO) movies - The Maltese Falcon and The Color Purple. Generally, movie adaptations seem to be better when they use shorter original stories. To really adapt a novel, you need to have that s p a c e for character development, world-building, etc.
Ava de Mornay was attached to it at one point but I have not heard anything in years. I mentioned it because, like Y, its themes and subtext are really multilayered and rich. So well done.
Really looking forward to this. I read the comics for quite a while but did stop at some point, just stopped reading comics in general as I found I didn't have the time to read them all. Kinda wish I'd persevered with this though. Couldn't tell you how far I got but definitely remember Spoiler the Russian(?) space craft crash landing. This may have been issue 2 for all I know!