Hacker Cinema
The Queen's Gambit
2020 · TV series · 1 season
Created by Scott Frank, Allan Scott
In a 1950s orphanage, a young girl reveals an astonishing talent for chess and begins an unlikely journey to stardom while grappling with addiction.
20 positive1 mixed5 neutralfrom 26 commenters
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27 comments on Hacker News
Seriously?
The Crown, Stranger Things, Unbelievable, Russian Doll (wow, just wow), Orange Is The New Black, Narcos, Narcos: Mexico, GLOW, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Ozark, Nobody Wants This, Altered Carbon, Dirk Gently, Mindhunters, The Queen's Gambit, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
And that's just what I can remember off the top of my head. And that's my taste, there's more not to my taste like Squid Game, Wednesday, Bridgerton, etc. And not including the films, documentaries, shorts, etc. they done like Love, Death and Robots.
This is not a great question. If you asked me if I would watch a full season of a show set in the 1950's/60's about a woman who plays chess I would have responded with a resounding no. But in reality I went out of my way not to miss an episode of The Queen's Gambit.
I'm basically the same way these days, but Queen's Gambit is a miniseries and really really good. Good value for the time.
Apparently great care was taken in The Queen's Gambit to ensure all the chess board positions and game play as correct and realistic. The had national master Bruce Pandolfini and grandmaster Garry Kasparov acting as consultants.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10048342/trivia/
For me, it's Chess scenes in movies. There seems to be a 50% chance that the board will be in the correct orientation. Thankfully, the Queen's Gambit has professional help on set.
Is that related to The Queen's Gambit tv show ? During the running and a bit after there was an uptick in players in public spaces.
>Most players are never going to become even close to that, and they know it. The fact that AI has beaten the best of human players should be, theoretically, irrelevant to their interest in chess, other than having a novel teacher to learn from.
That is exactly what's happening, players learn from engines and try to understand why they play this move and not that move, and as a result, there are a lot of competing players in top level chess, except that players started memorizing lines and the opening phase of the game became a bit dull and boring, however, this was only another obstacle for players, they simply needed to adapt and they did. Magnus Carlsen is well known for winning endgames that seem to be a dead draw, he keeps pushing and pressing until his opponents make a mistake and this is why he has been the world champion since 2013 (e.g. game 6 from the 2021 World Championship [0]).
>So I’m genuinely curious, does the chess community see a large number of discouraged average players?
No, the Queen's Gambit [1] made chess very popular, online chess is at its peak, it's pretty interesting to have world champions streaming and seeing them play variations that they wouldn't play in real life since they involve too much risk, or simply lead to losing positions, but they also make for exciting and amusing games.
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmQs1KhB948
[1]: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10048342
> the quality of films/TV produced in the west has been in steady decline for quite some time
I could agree the average quality has dropped. But surely you agree that the sheer volume of high-quality content has ballooned. How many high-quality TV shows can you name from the 90s?
Compare that to the last 10 years of shows like: Succession, Ted Lasso, The Queen's Gambit, The Handmaids Tale, Better Call Saul, Ozark, House of Cards, Stranger Things, Silicon Valley, The Crown, Fargo, Mr. Robot, True Detective, Veep, and even (controversially) Game of Thrones.
This is disney+hulu+espn combined!
When hotstar was bundled with Hulu - hulu suddenly got huge infusion of Indian movies and shows. Nothing Netflix has even comes close.
I wonder also, if they are counting hotstar, which is pretty big in India.
Having said that - I personally find content on disney+ boring and stale. Some Marvel and Star War spin offs are okay, but most are meh. I don't know how to put it, but disney+ is trying too hard to en-cash popularity of existing franchise and I believe lacks depth.
Netflix while has uneven programming has/had shows which are pretty good and break new ground(IMO). Queen's Gambit, Dragon Prince, Arcana etc are pretty good. They have also wasted money on the whole witcher show and their "original" movies are by and large meh.
Netflix suggestions are not good. It takes a long time to find something decent to watch.
I have enjoyed Narcos, Tiger King, Stranger Things, Queen's Gambit and others.
But there are so many bad shows, that are formulaic, unoriginal and overall, lame.
Then, I have nothing against noble causes such as social justice and such. But compare a good movie, such as Men of honor, or the Green Book, with the unoriginal content on Netflix. It is just not watchable.
> have critics ever been in sync with audiences?
I think there was a smaller gap in a few respects.
Firstly I think the film industry as a whole has polarized into "art" and "entertainment" films with too little crossover. Films can and should be artful and entertaining.
Secondly I think critics have become too polarized to criticize films as being "low-effort" or "low-value" entertainment films. There's a reason why people go see blockbusters, they enjoy them!
Finally, I think unfortunately some audiences too quickly dismiss some films as "too artsy" or "too intelligent" or "not wanting to think." There's a lot of fun movies out there which don't fit into normal boxes!
Sadly I don't really see that gap closing. I agree with someone in another thread which said that there's much better and more varied content on "TV" (streaming/etc) in medium-form series. Give me a great limited-run series like the queen's gambit any day! it's the perfect intersection of artsy and fun and high brow and low brow!
House of Cards was certainly a big thing at the time--for the first few seasons anyway. Queen's Gambit. GLOW and Russian Doll were quite good. I'm not a huge fan of The Crown but it's well done.
Honestly, Game of Thrones notwithstanding, I'm not sure that there's a lot on HBO I consider must see level content either although some is quite good.
I'd probably consider them about a wash for content.
> If the show is not called foundation, he will probably enjoy it
I don't think so. If it wasn't called Foundation, or if I, Robot wasn't referencing Asimov's stories, or if Brave New World was called something different, they would all be lost in the quagmire of new 'blockbuster' TV shows that all the streaming networks are pushing hard. Because they're all very formulaic, optimized things where they took inspiration from endless A/B testing online, doing everything by the book, as in, there's probably a book / guide out there on how to make a TV show.
Without the name, they are bland and anonymous shows.
Meanwhile there are plenty of shows that stand on their own - this year there was Queen's Gambit, the book on which it was based on never showed up on my radar so (anecdotally) it's not carried by having a Name / Reputation. That one has been nearly 20 years in the making, too.
I liked every limited run TV show you mentioned that I've seen (Russian Doll, The Queen's Gambit, Watchmen), so I think maybe I should watch the rest.
I've moved from watching movies and TV shows without end to watching limited series/anthology shows. The format hits the sweet spot between watching a self contained story and the anticipation of a TV show. I don't think the format gets the love it deserves, but networks like Disney+ (most of Marvel's recent outings), Netflix (Godless, Russian Doll, Alias Grace, The Queen's Gambit, The Haunting of Hill House), and HBO (The Night Of, Watchmen, The Outsider) certainly understand the benefits and have been amassing a quiet army of content.
Sometimes, an audience can feel accuracy even when they don't know it.
A film that has a deep, complex internal consistency can engage audiences and them feel like they want to know more. They don't have to understand the details, but they like to feel that you do.
Reality is a rich source of such consistent details. In historical films, for example, few audience members will really appreciate that you got all of the costumes correct down to the specific year, but the film can feel better than one that mixes Georgian with Victorian with French Court styles.
Getting the physics right won't automatically make a story better. It can constrain the story too much. But if you choose to go down that route, and can still tell a good story, the audience will benefit even when they don't know what they're looking at.
It's why actors like to go into "back story" for a character even when the audience doesn't know what that back story is, and why they work on physicality (walking like the character, holding a fork like the character, etc.) even when nobody will notice. One beautiful example of that: look at the way people moved chess pieces in Queen's Gambit. Even if you don't play, you knew that the actors knew it (and indeed, it came as no surprise to me that they were trained by Gary Kasparov). It's a little thing, but it was just one of a million things that helped that project go right.
Video games are just a younger medium than books and movies. Even TV needed more time to be seen at a similar level to movies in terms of art.
We're getting there though. The past 15 years have given us many masterpieces of gaming that can absolutely be considered art, and they're becoming more and more common. As this happens more and more, the medium is taken more and more seriously.
Many games still suffer from feature-creep by way of trying to please users demanding "content". This incidentally make them feel like the primary goal is to waste time rather than to experience a high quality story. In other words, there are still too many "Big Bang Theory" and not enough "Breaking Bad" so that is why it still feels less valuable.
Because I told you I just binged The Queen's Gambit, you wouldn't look at me like I wasted my time, you'd ask me about the story. If I told you I just binged TBBT, you'd just think I'm nuts. (No offense if you like TBBT, it was a decent sitcom for a couple seasons, but … hey, you do you).
For example, I just finished Control. A wonderful, high quality game. Great storytelling, great mechanics, and … a crapton of completely useless busywork that is just there because it's expected to be there. A talent tree, repeat random side-missions, a crafting system, etc. None of this is useful to the core game. It's a shame because I believe if it had done less in terms of busywork mechanics and maybe focused a tiny bit more on puzzles, that game could have been a masterpiece of the same caliber as Portal and Portal 2. (Can you imagine if Portal 2 had a talent tree and a crafting system?)
Instead, it's a Season 7 of Game of Thrones. Great production value, but so hit and miss in terms of final quality because of avoidable mistakes. Could have been so good, you know?
you think that's high? I usually binge at least 2-3 seasons of a new-to-me show a month on netflix, prime, hulu, if I'm really busy -- my wife makes up for the time I miss watching new-to-her shows, or the kids watch new-to-them shows or disney launches a new movie... I mean.. Wandavision, Falcon+Winter Soldier, Mandalorian, New Mighty Ducks are top notch and that's just disney...
Netflix has the Witcher which I still need to watch, just finished two different ones on figure skating Zero Chill (Hockey+Figure skating) and Spinning out. Both really good shows that weren't on my radar. Recently finished Queen's gambit too--also great and not on radar...
Lots of back-burner shows too (waiting for the next season).
7-11pm is usually dinner, tv with family put kids to bed, watch 1-2 shows with wife, then go to bed. Sometimes I watch old movies that are new to me just cause I heard they're good but haven't seen them yet. Grew up in 80's and just recently finished Fast Times at Ridgemont High for example.
120 hours of screen time's easy... weekends are probably a lot more.. maybe 8 hour sessions, definitely enough to watch 1 whole new-to-us series... esp. with lockdowns and covid.
I was thinking in the context of Greyhound, one of the nice things about streaming is that you don't need to worry nearly so much if people will think they got their money's worth. People go to a theatre, see a 90 minute film, and some will leave thinking "Jeez, $10 for an hour-and-a-half film. Yeah it was good but..." On streaming, it really doesn't matter. See also The Queen's Gambit miniseries (although there are of course largely historical examples of TV in this format).
They mention the huge bump in traffic from Netflix's "The Queen's Gambit". However, it is worth seeing the Google Trend for searches for both the show and chess since they wrote the blog post. Initially there was correlation between interest in the show and the game, however, as interest in the show wained, interest in the game remains steadily high.
I had another theory, budgets for streaming shows are falling. Adding a song as filler is probably one of the cheapest ways to add 3-4 mins to your 60 min contractually obligated episode length? Or maybe not. I have no idea if it's cheaper.
The Queen's Gambit had one in the 2nd to the last episode. It was clearly filler and has been called out by many critics. I still loved the series over all but after few moments of that filler I skipped forward to the end of the song.
What you're talking about is already happening, but we still call them "tv shows." A great recent example is The Queen's Gambit. It's adapted from a novel, which "normally" would become a movie. But instead it became a 7 episode miniseries, which allowed for much more character development than a 2-hour movie. Game of Thrones is the obvious example of something that also could have instead been several movies.
I think what we're discovering is that movies, as a medium, are for narratives that can be told in under 3 hours. If your narrative requires longer, or you just want to be able to have more time to develop characters or worlds, it's better to create a show.
You will likely never get a parent saying they wish they didn't have kids, for the reasons you stated, regardless of how the "what if"-scenario would look like.
I've always known I wanted kids, but knew I wasn't ready through my entire 20s. I have older siblings with kids of their own, and I'm on the younger side of the extended family, so I was around a lot of kids regardless, watching the different dynamics.
I was conceptually well aware of the hard work it involved, the priorities needed etc, and to the best of my abilities set my own bar for that.
We had our first kid a few years into our 30s, very much by choice. I think it's very difficult to conceptualize it through others kids. I was never really good with kids in general, but I believe (and have no reason not to) that I'm very good with my kids (in general, there will always be bad days behind the photo ops).
I can't shut myself in my office for 8 hours doing a project, gaming, watching movies or just nap.
I obviously miss that on some level, but the reason I can't do that (at least until they're old enough not to want to hang out with me) is of such value that I don't mind really. And that part is something at least I had no way of conceptualizing before having kids.
Absolutely don't have kids if you don't want to. I like to imagine I have a finely tuned radar to spot those families instantly, and it's not about a love thing, because I think most parents do regardless, but about patience/acceptance that this was your choice, and all of the great parts make up for it thousandfold.
I'm not a different person now, I'm just a person with baggier eyes, who frets a little less about things that don't really matter. That can be done with or without kids, I think it's merely that the latter forces the issue.
But I still binged Queen's Gambit with our youngest using me as a glorified crib.
Not sure this rant had a point, but try to shut out friends, society, biology and just ask yourself whether you want kids. If you do it'll be great, and if not that'll be great too.
I thoroughly enjoy Stjepan Tomic's channel "Hanging pawns" (on YouTube) for more detailed analyses than Agadmator. Videos are long but excellent and (i find it an advantage that) he doesn't go with the latest hypes around chess only (i.c. Queen's Gambit tv show)
I find this is the case with most sports (soccer, dancing, iceskating, etc) movies. They are mostly about character building and overcoming challenges -- the actual sport is barebones and could be mostly swapped for any other.
I still enjoyed Queen's Gambit a lot. It did foreshadow but then subvert some common tropes.
Just watched it over the past week. I enjoyed it immensely. I don't care whether its depiction of chess is realistic. The lead actress is superb in her role. Its depiction of addiction and depression was spot-on with my experience; many of the scenes gave me chills, particularly when the adoptive mother is involved (whether directly or indirectly).
Highly recommended: "The Queen's Gambit", 7-episode miniseries on Netflix.
A few? Off the top of my head:
- The Queen's Gambit
- Narcos
- House of Cards
- Russian Doll
- Ozark
- Stranger Things
- Tiger King
- Dear White People
- The Witcher
- The Umbrella Academy
- The Crown
- Space Force
And that's just TV shows. There are a lot of films they've put out that are very good as well.