The Umbrella Academy, Season 1 (2019)

22 April 2019

Closing out The Umbrella Academy, my review of it hasn't changed. Although I did read the book again (and book 2, "Dallas") and determined that it made some decent changes in favor of comprehension and practicality... although they also borrowed a lot from book two, marginalizing Hazel and Cha-Cha (in my opinion) and pacifying Vanya's character to idleness). Ultimately I still much recommend the books over the Netflix series, Although both could've been a little more organized. The books have the advantage of at least also being weird.

Book 2 actually has the best story of all these products. Ratings: Netflix 4/10; books 1 and 2 are 3/5 each. 4/10

21 April 2019

I read the graphic novel The Umbrella Academy years ago (in 2015), and thought it was alright (3/5). I was a little surprised when it made it to a Netflix original series (2019) - and a 10-episode one at that. What I remembered of the series was that it was kinda mediocre, and though some of the characters were interesting, it was kinda predictable.

This is a midpoint review, having seen S1E1-E5. It's definitely slower than the book, adding songs for filler (I also found this irritating when I watched Innocents on Netflix), and having slow and/or boring character moments. Over top of that the visuals were boring and kinda dark, underused compared to the comics. I think I'd actually prefer the Zack Snyder directing approach and vomiting the special effects on the screen with this one, otherwise it almost never popped visually.

Ultimately I'm unimpressed with The Umbrella Academy so far: though it's true to the series it's an even slower ride to watch, and it doesn't add anything to see it versus read it. I'd recommend a hard pass on the series and just pick up the graphic novel, as it's faster, had the same content, and it a lot nicer to look at. Maybe the show will speed up, but right now 4/10. 4/10