We just finished episode 3 of Nautilus, and I think that is enough to have a good idea of what the series as a whole will be...
I have my doubts as to how closely this will be following the original 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
...which is nothing at all like the source material. Within the first 10 minutes of the first episode I was rolling my eyes at both the plot and setting, so much so that I was pulling up a synopsis of 20,000 Leagues, but I gave it a chance. In fact, three chances this week, because after the first two episodes back to back, Nautilus received 4 enthusiastic thumbs-ups from the smaller members of the family and the kids picked both those episodes again when it was their turn to pick a summer movie.
With those repeated views, I gained a lot of perspective and recommend everyone try the show.
This story is more or less insane, but on reflection, no less so than the Verne's novel, it is just a different variety of preposterous events. In fact, the biggest change so far from the novel is the conflation of other historical events brought back by decades that without giving anything away, changes the entire story structure, in my opinion for the better. The physics are about as accurate as the submarine scenes in their namesake documentary Finding Nemo, but those thermodynamic laws are broken so the laws of Hollywood character development can be upheld. And speaking of characters, none of the writing is great, but they have motivations on multiple levels that are clearly expressed, and most of the comic relief is actually funny.
I am now finding it difficult to bring up anything else without spoiling anything, and I think that this show is worthy of not being spoiled, and there is one C-plot that I cannot wait to see how it unfolds next Sunday. All in all, Nautilus should be watched; it is not great cinema, but it is also 100% not Avatar 2, and how many tangentially naval projects have come out recently?
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