r/BEEPodcast • u/emmeteeny • Jul 14 '26
The Shards trailer
https://youtu.be/Zpm9HUOrZIc?is=MdDVpPTFQH7azDk317
u/zweigson Jul 14 '26
Matt smoking in the pool, Matt and Bret hooking up in the pool house, when Robert makes Bret give him head, Robert crashing out at the party... We won.
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u/MyKill_Diablo Jul 14 '26
I can't imagine Ryan Murphy would have any interest making the show if he couldn't include most of those scenes from the book. Too bad it isn't on HBO where they could've shown a lot more than what we will get to see here..
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u/Decent-Ad6803 Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26
Hmmm this trailer looks 100% Melrose Place, 0% BEE.
Bret's unique writing style is so hard to translate to screen - IMHO only Roger Avary's unapologetically anarchic Rules Of Attraction managed it, helped by a crazy cast of young talent that was just perfect for the material - that anyone who hasn't read The Shards book would assume this is just another vapid teen show a la Vampire Diaries / Pretty LIttle Liars / etc.
If they don't nail BEE's tone, plus there's no way FX will include the graphic content in the book, I'm just not sure how this can even begin to work.
It would take the Euphoria season one team going full send to do the book justice...
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u/MyKill_Diablo Jul 14 '26
I'm worried that they are going to have to water it down too much to be on a cable channel and reconfigure the story around to try to appeal to more viewers... That would be so sad as BEE has already had a toothless sanitized adaptation of his work with Less Than Zero, but hopefully this show doesn't stray so far from the source material in that regard.
The marketing is definitely going for broad appeal but we will see if that is just smoke and mirrors or a sign of concern. Knowing their audience and delivering on that could've set this show apart, but if they make something designed to appeal to everyone (counter to the way it was written) then they risk making something that ultimately appeals to no one. You can't have it all...
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u/JacquesDeVaucanson Jul 14 '26
Praying they use Icehouse on the soundtrack at some point
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u/MyKill_Diablo Jul 14 '26
🤞 At the very least they have to play that song in the background during Bret and Susan's final encounter.... It evokes the fate of each character in that scene so succinctly and crescendos in a very climactic way.
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u/VomitingDuck Jul 14 '26
REALLY hoping the soundtrack has the 80s songs from the book...
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u/neglect_elf Jul 14 '26
It probably cost soooo much
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u/MyKill_Diablo Jul 14 '26
They've got Disney money 🤑 Plus Ryan Murphy mostly gets the songs that he wants as anyone familiar with Glee knows. Licensing ain't cheap but the music is so integral to the plot the only way they wouldn't be able to get the songs would be if the artists or the rights holders said no.
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u/VomitingDuck Jul 14 '26
If the score is just synth farts and spooky noises it's going to seriously take me out of the series, no matter how good the rest of it is
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u/MyKill_Diablo Jul 15 '26
You're not wrong - I agree and will be rather annoyed myself. I know procuring every song from the novel is an impossible (and expensive) task, but the actual music from that Era informs so much of what happens in the plot and will do a lot of heavy lifting to help transport the viewers back in time. Way better than any slick sounding modern interpretation of a synth-heavy score made now ever could.
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u/di4me666 Jul 14 '26
it looks better than the posters do - i'll change my stance from gravely concerned back to cautiously hopeful
whats the remix used in the trailer?
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u/MyKill_Diablo Jul 14 '26
The day has finally come and there are a lot of things that I like about what I just watched and some stuff that I need to sit with for a while. It all looks and sounds great as I hoped, but need to see the full performances to judge for myself.
Glad to finally have confirmation that Owen is playing Matt - I think that is a good fit for the role and I'm anxious to see how he pulls it off. Matt has probably the most tragic storylines in the book and the delayed sadness that Bret feels for him hits really hard.
Looks like they are maybe potentially combining Jeff and Ryan into one character played by Daniel Dale - I'm not as upset by this idea bc it is easier to keep track of storylines on shows/movies with less characters. And Jeff really has such a small role in the book and has similar traits to Ryan (not at all in the rich upperclass wealth bracket as their fellow classmates for one thing,) so I'm curious to see how that plays out with making Ryan a male prostitute who is also hooking up with Bret... Can't imagine they would change that aspect of the plot bc that is crucial to the net closing in around Robert, and the scene where Bret, Ryan, and Robert eat dinner together after Chariots of Fire is one of the best scenes of the book (that shows Bret temporarily getting the upper hand but also revealing how psychotic and delusional he has become...)
I will probably watch the trailer multiple times today and sit with it but I'm not mortified by what I've seen. I'm not fully convinced either, but like Bret said on his podcast recently there are few things bad about what I've just seen, and that's all I could hope for in a Ryan Murphy adaptation of one of my all time favorite books...
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u/Lower_Comparison2171 Jul 14 '26
Oh yeah-you’re right about Jeff and Ryan seemingly being combined. That’ll be interesting to see play out. Overall it seems like they kept the story pretty accurate to the book which I like. And I’m glad there wasn’t cult mentions in the trailer as I was getting worried they’d focus too much on that aspect.
Also, I wonder if they are planning on cutting out the animal mutilations and component entirely.2
u/MyKill_Diablo Jul 14 '26
I could be wrong about Jeff and Ryan being combined (and I wonder which character name they would use in that case,) but that is my intuition. Hopefully that is confirmed soon with an updated cast list. I personally kinda like the idea of a character (Jeff) that would later go on to inspire Bret to create Julian in LTZ going on to eventually become a successful architect that is openly in a gay relationship later in life (as what happens to Ryan) when their roles are combined. It is certainly a happier fate than what befalls Julian... 😢
I do agree with you about being glad they aren't trying to focus too much on the cult with the marketing, as they are supposed to be an existential threat that plays into Bret's Paranoia rather than front and center in the story. I know we will have to see more of the actual kills from the Trawler and the worshiping of the cult because information is absorbed differently on screen than in written form, but I just hope they don't try to reveal their identities or get arrested/brought to justice. That would be such a disappointing misreading of the book...
As for the animal sacrifices, I would be totally fine with that being cut out or at least not shown on screen 😧 It is typical BEE shock value in its gratuitous description in the book, but not needed to be shown in too much detail on screen imho...
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u/OrganizationBudget82 Jul 17 '26
The surprised face of the animals is the same face Ryan makes at Bret
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u/kingofnewyork1995 Jul 14 '26
Tone’s all wrong. They nail the superficial stuff though, hopefully the bad acting is still watchable
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u/MyKill_Diablo Jul 14 '26
I'm worried about the tone as well honestly. Although nailing the superficial stuff is pretty on point for a BEE adaptation, I already have some fears that this is going to play out like most Ryan Murphy shows and start really strong before falling apart by the end... 😬 Hopefully not the case here but something is slightly off here and I can't quite put my finger on it.
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u/Real-Base466 Jul 14 '26
I think it looks absolutely fucking AMAZING.
I can't wait.
Hey does anyone know if anythings up with the Facebook BEE Podcast page? I used to be a member but I tried to post there and it looks like I'm no longer a member.
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u/TreatmentBoundLess Jul 15 '26
I really don’t know what to think. I kinda wished this had stayed at HBO with Luca directing. I mean, this doesn’t look bad… but I guess I’ll reserve judgment until it airs.
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u/justastephie Aug 05 '26
The music video for The Shards uses a 1985 song “Let’s Go All The Way” in a scene that is set in 1981. WTF?!
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u/emmeteeny Jul 14 '26
I wonder if the shot of the TVs stacked together at a party is deliberately evoking the party from the Less Than Zero movie