Tried to watch the Sandman series and it just looks so bad. Why does the dream world look like bargain bin Narnia? Why is Morpheus always making a duck face?
So I agree that the fantasy settings were ill-served, but the comic is some of the most chuunibyou bullshit ever published outside of Japan/Bad Korea, so I think Sandman's actor did a perfect job of portraying the ethos of the story with his stupid held expressions. He never stops doing that, by the way. I guess maybe he does it a little less in the last couple episodes as he gets more emotive, but even when he's in Hell it's still very conspicuously present.
To give you an answer that you'd like more that I still think is true: You totally could make a Sandman adaptation that captures more of what is appealing about the comics, you could even do it live action. There are two problems: Netflix is notoriously bad at making adaptations in the first place and also doing more to capture the dreaminess of the comics would make it harder to follow and therefor less marketable, and this was clearly a product designed around mass-marketing interest that comic nerds would generate free press for.
Most polarizing show of the year I guess.
Different mediums allow for different art forms. Would've been cool for them to really push the boundaries of the film medium, but it's about what I expected from Netflix. Too safe, but otherwise I was okay with it.
I get the same feeling with Good Omens and American Gods too. Visually they all feel overwrought and cartoony.
