Support NeoGAF

[Cornballer]

- EW review

Shows that provoke you to question their reality can discourage investment, and even the best ones have a half-life to them. It’s entirely possible that Legion will grow frustrating over time. For now, I’m all in. I’m captivated by the psychological mystery, I’m touched by David and Syd’s poignant intimacies. Stevens grounds the live-wire weirdness and warms the chilly geekery with a emotionally open and funny performance that blends boyishness and irreverence. He roams the extremes of David without overplaying any of them, by slightly underplaying them, actually, a choice that works. His chemistry with Plaza and Keller is winning. And the madcap and idiosyncratic storytelling from scene to scene makes each moment thrilling. Every image, every sound works together to plug us into David’s subjective experience of everything — bold colors, retro-mod fashions, throwback musical choices, vertiginous camera moves, wild and tender feels, flashbacks within flashbacks of confabulated memories. Grade: A-

- Wired review

Legion feels like something fresh and different in the X-Men universe—a personal drama that’s as much about making sense of your life as discovering your mutant powers. A self-consciously experimental series that’s full of visual nods to trippy 1960s movies, it drags the downtrodden mutants into a place they’ve never been before: the world of prestige TV.

 

[killertofu]

Is this premiering tomorrow? The commercials are interesting

 

[shingi70]

Is this connected to the films

 

[Cornballer]

Is this premiering tomorrow? The commercials are interesting

Yes, it premieres tomorrow.

Is this connected to the films

See TheOddOne's previous response to this.

 

[VLEXP]

I've been waiting so long for this, It's finally time tomorrow.

 

[Cornballer]

- NPR review

Wow, what a fun ride. What an audacious, impressive, unpredictable trip. And for Hawley, it's yet another amazingly original, and exciting, TV adaptation from a different medium.

 

[Cornballer]

- NY Times review

“Legion,” which begins on Wednesday on FX, presents a superhero drama as psychic journey, distinguishing itself in an overcrowded genre by setting its most compelling drama in its protagonist’s mind. It’s no ordinary comic-book show: it’s a head trip, and it’s spectacular.

 

[Glass Rebel]

I needed those previews after that awful Iron Fist trailer.

 

[Drahcir]

I was already on board with the show last year as soon as I found out Dan Stevens was playing David. But having seen the previews now, I can't get over how much I love the look of the show. The colors, the clothing, the sets. Like the reviews have said, there's this alluring retro-futuristic 60's British mod look. Can't wait for the premiere!

 

[TheOddOne]

- Atlantic: Legion Is Visually Dazzling, but Little Else.

Still, Stevens (probably best known as the handsome heir of Downton Abbey) is doing fine work at the center of all this, holding the camera’s focus even when Hawley’s dialogue feels like it’s going nowhere. There’s something so fascinating about Legion’s core purpose—taking a troublesome comic-book character and trying to flesh him out in a more artful way—that I will likely stay on board for this eight-episode season, to see if the world around him builds into something more concrete. Legion’s opening episodes, however, might not convince other viewers to do the same, as it tries so hard to dazzle that it forgets to tell a meaningful story.

- Washington Post: FX’s ‘Legion’ is intriguing, but do we need more characters who are always seeing things?

As creator, writer and director, Hawley does everything he can to suppress the yawns that will surely come from the superhero-disinclined, setting the tone for a show that favors personality over powers, with dialogue that thankfully lacks the sonorous ballast of most superhero movies.

- Time: Review: Legion Is a Dazzling Misfire.

This is the flip side of the growing willingness among cable and streaming outlets to allow for more and more innovation along lines dictated by creators. While I'm hardly stuck in the past, it's hard not to feel as though a Legion a little less addicted to showy cross-cutting and visual splendor for its sake might have invested a bit more energy in figuring out who David Haller is. Until it does that elementary work, Legion is worth saving on your DVR but not, quite, worth taking the leap of investing real time. A show this ambitious shouldn't take the easy way out when it comes to building a character worthy of being called a "hero."

- Polygon: Legion review: a terrifying funhouse that redefines what a Marvel show can be.

Legion could have been another superhero series, like the dozens available to watch right now, but Hawley’s decision to focus on the ordinary human instead of the extraordinary mutant is where the show finds its heart. It’s a drama that manages to start a conversation about the harsh realities of mental illness without changing the natural story to force the narrative. Legion is proof that mature comic book stories can be told without exaggerating the grittiness of its source material or treating its audience like children.

 

[Puck Beaverton]

trippy 1960s movies?

say no more

 

[Grizzlyjin]

I needed those previews after that awful Iron Fist trailer.

Same. The cure for the common superhero show.

 

[Secret Character]

So a little background on the look and feel of what they're going for here in this show:

David Haller was introduced in New Mutants 25, which was drawn by Bill Sienkiewicz. His art at the time was really something that hadn't been done before in comics and really put a lot of people off of the story that brought this character to life. Everything is abstract and even basic paneling is not taken into account when he first introduces the character:

We're given this character who is immensely powerful but tragically flawed. His powers manifest in such a way that not even the most power psychics of the MU could get inside his head to figure out what was going on. Xavier couldn't even get in to talk to his own son.

The rest of his story is pretty complicated and has a lot of really bizarre things that revolve around his personalities and the powers he gives them. He's gone toe to toe with Proteus, created the Age of Apocalypse, can warp reality, and time travel at will. If there is a super power that you can think of, David can have it.

I hope they stick to their guns on the visual look of this and they don't go overboard with the crazy powers out of the gate.

 

[The Horror the horror]

Got a soft spot for Legion.

His actions triggered the single greatest crossover in X-Men comic history.

 

[shingi70]

Yes, it premieres tomorrow.

See TheOddOne's previous response to this.

Man they couldn't just give a simple yes or no.

Can't wait to watch this Thursday morning

 

[Rad-]

Damn the reviews are really good.

 

[Puck Beaverton]

Personally hoping for zero crossover with the movies.

 

[Cornballer]

- IndieWire review

Like he did when adapting the “Fargo” film to his Emmy-winning anthology series, the writer has taken key elements of his source material and applied them to a canvas of his own design. What’s here may feel familiar in singular moments, but it’s a breathtakingly original work when looked upon as a whole. Marvel’s moviemakers should be jealous: Just when they thought they were making something TV couldn’t top, “Legion” comes along and sets the bar even higher.

Grade: A

 

[Glass Rebel]

Personally hoping for zero crossover with the movies.

It literally doesn't matter because they don't care about continuity whatsoever. Even if this was technically connected to the X-Men universe, it's only going to be connected to some movie that only exists in someone's head.

 

[Cornballer]

- Matt Zoller Seitz for NY Mag

Legion is a trip: brainy, tight, yet so decadently inventive that I found myself laughing out loud at the sheer audacity of the damned thing. The first three episodes of this X-Men-styled mutant melodrama are superb, and the pilot in particular is an all-timer, but the whole thing is so aesthetically fresh that I could see myself continuing to watch it even if it suddenly became dumb as hell, just to see what new storytelling trick showrunner Noah Hawley and his collaborators have up their puffy magicians’ sleeves.

 

[distantmantra]

Man they couldn't just give a simple yes or no.

Where's the fun in that?

 

[Qvoth]

is this airing tomorrow?

 

[caliph95]

is this airing tomorrow?

Yeah

 

[LiQuid!]

I've become so jaded towards superheroes in almost every form of media, but especially TV over the last few years. That said, this is one of my most anticipated shows basically of all time. Legion is such a rad character and the absolute best person that could have possibly got his hands on him is Noah Hawley. Can not wait for tomorrow night.

 

[TheOddOne]

Series premiere today:

Season 1: episode 1 "Chapter 1" (Written & Directed by Noah Hawley)

Spoiler

David considers whether the voices he hears might be real.

 

[Zelenogorsk]

I'm not an X-men fan but after Fargo I'll follow Noah Hawley to the ends of the earth.

 

[Cornballer]

Yay! Excited to get started on this.

Please note that the premiere tonight is scheduled for a 1hr 31min time slot on FX.

 

[Grizzlyjin]

Yay! Excited to get started on this.

Please note that the premiere tonight is scheduled for a 1hr 31min time slot on FX.

Oh double sized episode. Nice. The hype is starting to get to me.

 

[Puck Beaverton]

It literally doesn't matter because they don't care about continuity whatsoever. Even if this was technically connected to the X-Men universe, it's only going to be connected to some movie that only exists in someone's head.

True. Plus the timeline for those movies are so fucked I'm sure it's technically canon or something.

Also MZS calling the pilot an all-timer is getting me unreasonably hyped. Need to tone it down a bit. Wait, also shares some Wes Anderson and Bob Fosse vibes. Positively erect right now.

 

[spyroflame0487]

Personally hoping for zero crossover with the movies.

My pure baseless speculation; Marvel is working with Fox to bring a new Mutant MCU to the screen. This is the first time they're co-working on a show together. Recently, the X Men have been showing up more and more in the comics and in toys (which they haven't been as much in an effort to sort of snuff them out because they wouldn't play nice with the MCU)

It'd be really nice to see them integrated into the greater MCU and would allow them to tell humanistic stories while also doing cosmic stuff post-Thanos and the Infinity Wars.

 

[Pai Pai Master]

I'm not an X-men fan but after Fargo I'll follow Noah Hawley to the ends of the earth.

Yep

 

[SuperStiltzkin]

Now this looks like a superhero show I would watch.

 

[Cornballer]

- YahooTV review

If Legion can maintain the balance of thriller-tautness and hallucinatory chaos that is done so well in the show’s opening hours, this will truly be a unique and superb superhero series.

 

[RatskyWatsky]

Sounds like this has all the makings of being the first legitimately good superhero series.

 

[Lumpy Onion]

I don't care much at all about superhero stuff but this sounds really interesting. I'm in.

 

[ElBoxyBrown]

I'll wait until season 1 comes out on blu-ray. This sounds like a sleeper hit.

 

[Discotheque]

Sounds like this has all the makings of being the first legitimately good superhero series.

Yeah when I saw the teaser I had a feeling this was finally gonna raise the bar for superhero shows and make a legitimately solid tv series.

At best they have been sporadically fun pulp or campy stuff.

 

[TenCentCoast]

Is there any way of knowing if this will be on, say, Hulu? I imagined it would what with the rest of FX's catalog being there.

 

[MadLaughter]

How long does it usually take FX to put their shows online after the east coast airing?

 

[TRUE ORDER]

Good reviews, I hope it keeps those impressions throughout the season.

 

[Sub_Level]

20 minutes lads

 

[Baroquemantic]

When in the Foxverse does this take place?

 

[Dalek]

When in the Foxverse does this take place?

Yes.

 

[Sub_Level]

The directing is very good.

 

[Smokey_Run]

What decades does this take place?

 

[Baroquemantic]

This is weird. Good weird.

 

[Slayven]

What decades does this take place?

I think in David's mind it is the 60s, but in reality it is the near future

 

[Sub_Level]

What decades does this take place?

This decade earliest. The dude was using a tablet.

 

[Prompto]

What decades does this take place?

Present times but it intentionally has some 60's visuals to be anachronistic.

 

[TheGreatDirector]

This is really good. Feels like one long psychadelic trip.