Of course, this is HN, where there's always SOMEONE who needs to be contrarian, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
Movies are less susceptible to being described as formulaic, but an iconic movie, The Big Lebowski, could reasonably be summarized this way (albeit the series is serialized into one piece). Coffee and Cigarettes doesn’t satisfy the “nobodies” in the literal sense, but it’s almost entirely this formula.
I’m just citing examples I can think of, I haven’t watched most of what people have watched. And I don’t mean in any way to dismiss the actual work, or the concept, or your finding novelty in it. It’s a really cool device for storytelling, but it’s definitely not a unique device.
None of which is to say that this is unique. It just isn't what I would call formulaic.
It's well very well-traveled ground. This formula isn't popular. The Walking Dead-themed shows are known for it.
The setting is less creative/weird than the comic (a night club in the original), a demon character is gone (probably to simplify the story), and the battle is shortened from the comic books while, simultaneously, stretched with a pep talk from Morpheus' raven that's only there to add drama.
I accept that maybe the episode is better due to these changes - as I said, haven't seen it yet and I could very well be wrong. But when I saw the trailer I got the exact same impression than the OP: formulaic, conventional, and dumbed down.
I feel that Sandman makes such good use of the medium that it may very well be impossible to faithfully adapt to live action. And maybe this is the best version anyone could realistically make. I just wish someone would once in a while say "let's keep this exactly as weird and nonsensical as it was in the original".
Later
Also, can we as adults with the books in far in the rear-view mirror (I mean, for those of us who'd say that) all not agree that the demon "contest" in the original books is cringey and deus ex machina? What the fuck is an "anti-life"?
But it wasn't, it was about the anti-life equation, a reference to DC's Darkseid.
I was actually surprised they didn’t changed it even further considering how it conflicts with Fox/Netflix’s Lucifer which according to the blogosphere departs quite a bit from the source material but it was quite a fun show, and despite things getting a bit old at some point especially when it moved away from its monster of the week format it’s clear that the entire production and cast loved working on it which is why it constantly got extended.
That's the understatement of the century :) "Lucifer" was a fun show to watch but it has NOTHING to do with the comic books except that it reuses few main character names, and the fact that Lucifer runs a bar/club in LA. It was created by Tom Kapinos, the same guy who made "Californication", and is one part that, one part "Analyze This", and one part "Miami Vice".
I don't believe the battle is much shorter (having recently re-read the comics), but I agree the pep talk from Matthew was unnecessary.
still watchable, weirdly enough, but just not good.
The guy playing John Dee is David Thewlis, one of the best cinema actors of all time.
Matthew the Raven is not well handled (he's not well-handled in the book either!), and his dialog is unearned and superficial. "Dreams don't die" is the Goonies wishing well speech repurposed. I groaned audibly.
Episodes 2-4 were interesting as a fan of the books (though not of Preludes & Nocturnes, the weak first book), but if I weren't one of those, I'd have been happier skipping them. Episode 5 is good; episode 6 is unimpeachable.
He's Lupin in Harry Potters, for a quick reference (for others). I take it you've seen The Landscapers? Exceptional performances from both Thewlis and Olivia Colman. I came to Sandman as an adult, and I was not a comic reader as a child. Maybe that's why I love it, not having the fluency to recognize the uneven writing and things you listed as weakness? I remember being absolutely floored when I read the first few, and also being convinced it could never be successfully adapted. I thought there were so many nuances, so many allusions to myths and folklore woven into Gaiman's writing that a film adaptation would absolutely butcher the original material by its inability to render all the shades; (e.g. the Cain and Abel sub-story is played for laughs and misses the sinister undercurrent - it is after all a story about a man murdering his kin and lying about it to God).
So far I'm pleasantly surprised by the series. I thought the casting and costuming of Morpheus dead-on. In the book he's drawn as a tall and pale Gothic priest. I appreciate that the production design tried to keep close to the visual framing in the book, I look at each frame and I could see the original in the derivative.
I'm worried that the complexities of the books and its branching anthologies, after the world-building phase is done, will be reduced to stupid modern clichés, e.g. "when dream dies humanity would die" and similar treacle. For example how are you going to make sense of the story where Dream meets his friends every 100 years for a drink at an eternal tavern, I forget who was there, Newton and Pascal? That's not an episode to view but a novella or in its best form, a 20-page comic.
^ No offense to the great Patton Oswald, but the audio is boosted to make the choice seem even worse. He's supposed to be a voice for the Sandman, but instead he's a bullhorn.
It was going well, until Mathew opened his mouth and spoke - and all I could think of was... "Happy!"... Another graphic novel adaptation where Patton Oswald did voice acting... But that character worked with his voice, this... does not.
I could read the book at my own pace but I have to wait for the pace of the show when watching the TV adaptation. Like trying to swim upstream through mud. I understand that they needed to start with this, but "scrawny naked male protagonist being sullenly mute while locked in a bottle and narrating" is... not great.
There is none of that in this adaptation. It plays it safe on every possible level. One can easily imagine the corporate bean counters slapping Gaiman on the back, a firm nod of approval.
“Formulaic” feel like it lives in a similar bucket. They’re kissing cousins, at least.
The work was progressive for its time; today its ideals have been captured by managerialism.
> "Our predecessors were so wrong! Of course your otherness is worth celebrating! It's so much easier to extract value from your labor that way!"
In my experience of the dozens of books I’ve read which have had movies made of them there are only two in which the book is good and the movie is better or even as good as the book - “The Shining” and “The Godfather”. I find it’s a very rare and hard thing to do.
Adaptations aren't necessarily worse though. The Martian is better than the book. The yesteryear Dune is better than the book (I don't really like the book tho). Altered Carbon is a draw on the first season, but quickly outshines the book sequels later.
And in the case of The Hunt for Red October I like the movie better than the book.
I can totally see that they would have stood out more as something new in the 80's. Going back and reading some of my favourite comics from the 80's is bittersweet - seminal stories like the X-Men Dark Phoenix saga or Days of Future Past are marred by extremely annoying and intrusive exposition (I like exposition in books, and when well done it's great in comics too, but 1980's Marvel and DC exposition was so in your face most of the time), and Sandman work much better today than they do (other examples that stands out in retrospect in that way is Watchmen and Alan Moore's Swamp Thing run).
But unlike, e.g. Alan Moore's Swamp Thing run which still stands out to me as outstanding by modern standards too, while I can see many things that'd make it stand out in the 1980's, and while it's still quirky, it didn't quite reach that level to me (admittedly, it's an extremely high bar, so to reiterate: I did like Sandman).
I can absolutely see myself having a very different view of it if I read it back then, though. Put another way: If I came to X-Men's Dark Phoenix or Days of Future Past story lines today because someone raved about it, and I wasn't used to the comics of the era, I'd have a very hard time seeing past the veneer of heavy-handed story-telling, but I remember them, and so I find it a lot easier to see through how dated they are, even though their execution is worse by modern standards.
all that said I like to imagine Neil Gaiman asked why he finally adapted The Sandman would snort like Frito in Idiocracy and reply I like money.
Except he didn’t, he sold the rights to a lot of his stuff, saying it was “money for old rope”.
That's funny since I found it formulaic to the extreme, which is a shame. Being a fan of the comics, I was saddened by the potential that was squandered in this adaptation. Regardless of what Gaiman says, I can't see this series as anything else than yet another cookie-cutter commoditized dumbed-down corporate-approved offering designed for mass-consumption.
It's more of the same mind-numbingly "safe" and soulless material that Netflix is so good at.
At least Alan Moore had the courage to tell Hollywood where to go.