Twilight of the Gods marks Zack Snyder’s return to the animation medium after 2010’s Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole, another project that I wouldn’t think was Snyder’s if I hadn’t known beforehand. The project is also Snyder’s first venture into television. Taking Snyder out of his element has created something wholly removed from his signature style and body of work, for better or for worse (mostly for the worse).
Twilight of the Gods is set in the sprawling world of Norse mythology and follows the fairly simple premise of a giantess, Sigrid (Sylvia Hoeks), seeking revenge against Thor (Pilou Asbæk), the god of thunder, for interrupting her wedding and killing her family. She is joined on this quest by an ensemble, including her fiancé Leif (Stuart Martin), and some faces that come and go episodically. Sigrid and her ragtag crew are assisted by the god of mischief Loki Laufeyson (Paterson Joseph) but he has his own devious agenda. The show’s narrative drew me in in the first episode, however the following few episodes were not as promising.
Barring a couple highlights, most episodes were incredibly dull and boring and by the third, I really wanted the show to be over and done with. The series only has 8 episodes, with most being about 25 minutes long, it really should not be this much of a drag. I like to criticize Justice League’s and Rebel Moon’s directors’ cuts a lot, but even they were not paced this poorly for being so long. The entire series is only about 4 hours long but it feels so much longer. I can’t help but think this might’ve worked better as a movie. The amount of plot progression in each episode does not justify 8 of them.
Because the project is in a brand new medium, it doesn’t have very many Snyderisms, especially visually, no gray color grading and not a whole lot of slow-motion. The other creators’, Eric Carrasco and Jay Oliva, influence on Twilight of the Gods is felt a lot more throughout the show than Snyder’s himself. The series employs a minimalistic 2D animation style that I wasn’t too keen on at first, but it gives the show a unique tone and look that I ended up really liking. Because it is a Snyder project however, the show descends into some pitfalls that hindered my enjoyment.
Snyder loves gratuitous sex and violence and profanity in a way that feels very juvenile. It’s not realistic, it just feels like something a 13 year old finds funny, which is fine, but Snyder clearly wants to be seen as a prestigious director. Ironically, even though I’m not a huge fan of Snyder’s DC projects, Watchmen, Batman v. Superman, and Zack Snyder’s Justice League are probably the best projects to show off how good Snyder’s tendencies can be when confined in a vehicle with studio oversight. When he gets full rein, like in his Netflix projects, he goes extremely overboard with his tendencies. On one hand, good for Snyder for employing his vision how he sees fit, but on the other, these newer projects certainly aren’t for me.
For its marketing, Twilight of the Gods boasted its use of gore in the show, but it’s really nothing special. Death in combat entails a splurt of a comical amount of blood and pink bits of entrails or sometimes brains. I don’t necessarily dislike the use of blood and gore in the show and it actually does fit in with the show’s visual style, but it’s just a really silly angle to market when the show’s employment of that element is so elementary. Even the Rebel Moon directors’ cuts, for all their faults, had considerable amounts of extreme gore but in that, it was actually done quite well and much more enjoyable.
Another staple of Snyder’s body of work is ensemble casts. He loves teams working and traveling together on some seemingly insurmountable quest. Rebel Moon was basically Seven Samurai in space and Twilight of the Gods also does the building a team against a major enemy trope, but not even as well as Rebel Moon. These characters are so underexplored, I couldn’t care for almost any of them. The only characters I actually liked and wanted to see more of were Loki and the Seid-Kona (Jamie Clayton), side characters that had huge roles but not enough screen time to justify the influence they had on the story. Loki at least got an episode dedicated to him, but the Seid-Kona is easily one of the most interesting characters and does not get the time and attention her character needs. Our leads, Sigrid and Leif, also have an interesting dynamic but it changes so quickly several times throughout the show in a way that feels somewhat unnatural.
Although the ensemble left a lot to be desired, their voice acting is quite good. The series stars several acclaimed actors, experienced in voice work, so unsurprisingly the VA is one of the best elements of Twilight of the Gods. Rahul Kohli, who is one of my favorite working actors, as Egill and Jamie Clayton as the Seid-Kona were my personal favorite voice actors, but the entire cast is really great.
I am not quite sure why I do this to myself. I really don’t like Snyder creatively, so why do I feel the need to watch all of his new projects? I forced myself to sit through both parts of Rebel Moon and then did that again a few months later with the directors’ cuts, watching a total of 10+ hours of Rebel Moon, and now I have done that again with Twilight of the Gods. And forcing myself through it is exactly how I’d describe my watching experience of this slog of a show. After Twilight of the Gods, I think I’ve reconsidered my stance on watching all of Snyder’s new releases. His fans may eat up whatever he puts it regardless of quality, but I, personally, am done.
I don’t know who Twilight of the Gods is for. It’s not good enough to make any splash in the animation community. It’s so different from Snyder’s other works that his fans probably wouldn’t like it. Those with interest in Norse mythology may give it a try but there are much better Norse stories out there, namely God of War’s Norse saga, which Twilight of the Gods feels like it tries to imitate. It’s not a show I would recommend to anyone and just feels like a forgettable entry in Snyder’s body of work.
Twilight of the Gods, created by Zack Snyder, Eric Carrasco, and Jay Oliva, streams on Netflix on September 19th.
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