Tour De France: Unchained aka that netflix thingy

[dazaau]

I've mostly been really enjoying it.

I enjoy the fast paced nature of it, and don't really get why people complain it is too dumbed down. I saw the tour in slow motion as it happened, I don't really need to see it again like that.

My minor complaint is sometimes the story telling is a bit strange, like QS "choosing" Fabio the over Julian, like that was ever a real decision that was made - but for some weird reason not focusing on record equalling cav not going and taking fabio, now that is a story.

But my main point of pain and complaint is the fact they made it in French, which seems a very odd choice to expand cycling to the masses. What undoes it though is the very bad English voice overs, I swear some of them are AI

 

[dazaau]

Netflix is ***. Keep netflix out of sport!!

I keep reading this catch cry, anyone care to explain why exactly we should keep Netflix out of sport?

Drive to survive, the last dance, a heap of climbing docos, good stuff

 

[Sandisfan]

In retrospect they could have had an free intro, maybe even on YouTube as well as on their own platform, a preview noted as an introduction to cycling for new comers to explain some of the cycling protocol, so that they could do less of that during the rest of the series. While using it as a preview of the series. Not as long as a full episode but helping start the series.

 

[Tonton]

But my main point of pain and c omplaint is the fact they made it in French, which seems a very odd choice to expand cycling to the masses.

Odd choice? It would be odder if the Tour de FRANCE documentary had little or no French in it...Madiot speaking Chinese Mandarin, "The New Sun Tzu" sharing his wisdom with us maggots. Meh...

Of course I watched it all, love the Pinot parts, it's a good attempt at drawing fans to the sport. The "Avec Thibaut" documentary was a huge hit, why not try it again?

Regardless of language barriers, the format is good to show what cycling is, give exposure to incredible athletes. I give it an 8.

 

[Avoriaz]

well, I really enjoyed it. Didn’t necessarily learn anything new, and the Jacobsen story was done better in the Wolfpack series on Amazon. They did choose some good stories to focus on, but because of relatively short episodes it was still fairly superficial. I loved the episodes with Madiot- especially the faces of Gaudu and Pinot when he announces Gaudu as leader. Jasper the disaster grew on me too. But I think it focussed too much on winners; an episode following a domestique would have appealed to me - keeping a camera on them once they have exploded with 75km to go or something.

on the language front, I always watch in the original language because, well, that’s how it should be

 

[dazaau]

Odd choice? It would be odder if the Tour de FRANCE documentary had little or no French in it...Madiot speaking Chinese Mandarin, "The New Sun Tzu" sharing his wisdom with us maggots. Meh...

Of course I watched it all, love the Pinot parts, it's a good attempt at drawing fans to the sport. The "Avec Thibaut" documentary was a huge hit, why not try it again?

Regardless of language barriers, the format is good to show what cycling is, give exposure to incredible athletes. I give it an 8.

Just because a race is held in France does not mean it's narration, commentary and journalist interviews for a docuseries need be in French. I'm pretty sure the French are well versed in the tour and I understand one of the reasons the ASO and teams are so willing to participate is that they have a desire to make cycling more global outside it's typical audience (and make them some more money).

It is already a challenge with the many different languages represented in cycling. But there are lots of French speakers outside France as well, so I know it's not just France or the French who get a smoother viewing experience. Maybe they could improve how they present to multiple regions as it grows.

Anyway, I still think it's great, and would be even better if I knew French. Some people find the experience better by making the audio French (the original recording) and then turning on subtitles, I just don't enjoy reading that much, and the delay between the text and speech is annoying.

 

[theyoungest]

Anyway, I still think it's great, and would be even better if I knew French. Some people find the experience better by making the audio French (the original recording) and then turning on subtitles, I just don't enjoy reading that much, and the delay between the text and speech is annoying.

Funny, you never hear Swedish people complain "I wonder why they didn't make this series in Swedish". Or Danish people. Or Dutch people. Or literally any country where they don't do overdubs.

 

[dazaau]

Funny, you never hear Swedish people complain "I wonder why they didn't make this series in Swedish". Or Danish people. Or Dutch people. Or literally any country where they don't do overdubs.

English speaking bastards and their Hollywood expectations

 

[CyclistAbi]

I didn't watch Netflix series in regards to F1 and to cycling. One thing i often read is saying look what Netflix has done for F1. So surely it can do the same for cycling.

In my opinion no.

First of all F1 never needed Netflix. Historically speaking. It's only after they turned it into an abomination. It now needs Netflix fiction. To gain some traction. But that is still not F1.

Second, cycling is still a sport, traditionally speaking. Training and performance on races is what turns you into a champion or it doesn't. Another thing is cycling is not something you can follow for a month and understand it. So for wider audience in my opinion more education is needed and not more dumbing it down and fiction. Or more specifically in regards to USA. New Armstrong would sky rocket the ratings. Not Netflix.

 

[Volderke]

I watched snippets of most episodes, as I am planning to watch the full show with my wife, as she likes cycling too (but a bit less loco than me, maybe).

From what I saw, I like it. I didn't particularly like the Movistar documentary (too slow), and this one is 'faster' paced with beautiful footage.
You cannot avoid the platitudes, the cliche phrases,... and some episodes have a (very) selective theme. That ofcourse is also due to the fact not all teams allowed filming, which is a bit of a shame for the series, but they had the incredible luck that JV won it, and that there was, within the JV team, some mishaps (Roglic crashing, the Roubaix stage) and the diverging aims of WvA (green, stages) and Vingegaard (yellow) that they ofcourse tried to exploit more than it really was.

It's everything I expected to be. Is it great? Not really. But it's entertaining, and they were lucky to film it during one of the most entertaining Tours of the last 10 years. It's always nice to relive such an event with new footage of such a beautiful country (in this case I'm referring to France, not Denmark )

 

[T-Nielsen]

Ok series, but they try to hard to create drama.

There is plenty on the road if can capture it.

And then everything has to be philosophically.

 

[bNator]

Funny, you never hear Swedish people complain "I wonder why they didn't make this series in Swedish". Or Danish people. Or Dutch people. Or literally any country where they don't do overdubs.

It's also funny that on this forum, we're not talking Swedish, Danish or Dutch.

The point is valid. The decision to have narration in French is a strange one from marketing/reach perspective. Or not. Maybe that was the point... It does add to the authenticity, I think.

 

[BR2]

Maybe I should watch it after all. I thought they would only show what teams and riders wanted to be seen, but apparently some people aren't depicted in the best way, so maybe it's more authentic than I thought.

Edit: I mean I realize they would still twist the stories to tell something, but I prefer it to be twisted by someone who wants to tell drama instead of PR agents, like with the ManCity or Jumbo documentaries.

 

[Red Rick]

I watched some of it, but I thought it was pretty meh. There were a lot of different stories but they all had to be compressed in so little time you don't feel you see all that much. I also don't really know what Van Aert was complaining about, that framing was a nothingburger.

 

[bNator]

I didn't watch Netflix series in regards to F1 and to cycling. One thing i often read is saying look what Netflix has done for F1. So surely it can do the same for cycling.

In my opinion no.

First of all F1 never needed Netflix. Historically speaking. It's only after they turned it into an abomination. It now needs Netflix fiction. To gain some traction. But that is still not F1.

Second, cycling is still a sport, traditionally speaking. Training and performance on races is what turns you into a champion or it doesn't. Another thing is cycling is not something you can follow for a month and understand it. So for wider audience in my opinion more education is needed and not more dumbing it down and fiction. Or more specifically in regards to USA. New Armstrong would sky rocket the ratings. Not Netflix.

You have quite a firm opinion considering that you haven't watched it. It's really not bad. The series of course tries to address the viewers with little to no knowledge about cycling. Whether you call that dumbing it down or an introduction into the world of cycling - we could debate that... I think if you start at the basics, it's not really dumbing it down - it's something you need to do for a wider audence to understand it. And next year, should the project be extended, we may get a much more nuanced view of what happened.

Regarding drama: The fact is that in the series, Jonas himself does express his concern after stage 4 about Wouts priorities and Niermann does go to talk to Wout (after he won the stage) to very carefully point out that they are basically here to win the TDF not individual stages. I think this is some genuine drama (there must have been a couple of pages written on that topic on this forum) that I was not aware of until I watched the episode. It was not even blown out of proportion. It could be presented way worse, given the actual footage they got from the participants.

And if Netflix made a Vuelta documentary, they would probably take quite some time on the Roglic-Wright incident. And we would discard it as being overly dramatic. The same people who wrote 40 pages worth of material on this topic. Who's being overly dramatic?

 

[awavey]

It's also funny that on this forum, we're not talking Swedish, Danish or Dutch.

The point is valid. The decision to have narration in French is a strange one from marketing/reach perspective. Or not. Maybe that was the point... It does add to the authenticity, I think.

it adds to the authenticity as part of the backdrop to the environment the race is run in, and thats fine, you expect there to be some French speaking, and not all of it has to be translated, it just seems confusing they bring in like the French male Orla equivalent, to explain stuff to us viewers about the race and racers, who I suspect can happily converse in English, but speaks exclusively in French, so then has to be dubbed, badly, into English as a result to make the programme marketing/reach better for the international market, just do a French version for the French speaking audiences, and then get him say the same stuff in English for the international audiences, problem solved.

as stuff like that doesnt seem to add to the authenticity at all, that just seems well...odd. As is showing the captions up in French, and then trying to show the English version next to it, if its the "English version" Im watching just show the captions in one language or the other, theyre on screen graphics you have the ability to change them very easily.

 

[RedheadDane]

Regarding drama: The fact is that in the series, Jonas himself does express his concern after stage 4 about Wouts priorities and Niermann does go to talk to Wout (after he won the stage) to very carefully point out that they are basically here to win the TDF not individual stages. I think this is some genuine drama (there must have been a couple of pages written on that topic on this forum) that I was not aware of until I watched the episode. It was not even blown out of proportion. It could be presented way worse, given the actual footage they got from the participants.

But how much of the good relationship between Vingegaard and Van Aert was shown? Van Aert going to to the finish line when Vingegaard finished the final ITT seems like a moment that definitely should be included. Same with Vingegaard's decision to give Van Aert the stage.

 

[RobertCrawley]

I absolutely loved it, mostly because it offered a human side (both good and bad) to some riders and DS's. Yes, it's highly limited because there are so many stories to any TdF. The biggest gap was the perspective of Tadej, but I understand Netflix did not have access to UAE, unfortunately. But I appreciated everything it managed to show, and I wish they did one every single year.

 

[bNator]

But how much of the good relationship between Vingegaard and Van Aert was shown? Van Aert going to to the finish line when Vingegaard finished the final ITT seems like a moment that definitely should be included. Same with Vingegaard's decision to give Van Aert the stage.

Well they were shown having a dinner together and Jonas gave some compliments to Wout. If I remember correctly, he said: “he saved my ass”.

 

[HelloDolly]

This series is not directed at die hard cycling fans

But it can attract new fans and I think its at that level and is done well on the whole. Didnt like some of the voice overs and it could have gone more behind the scenes...but do point non cyclists in its direction you may be surprised how some become fans

Lets all hope it attracts people to the sport ..it needs them

Some women I suggested watch it like the look of some of the cyclists

 

[SafeBet]

This series is not directed at die hard cycling fans

But it can attract new fans and I think its at that level and is done well on the whole. Didnt like some of the voice overs and it could have gone more behind the scenes...but do point non cyclists in its direction you may be surprised how some become fans

Lets all hope it attracts people to the sport ..it needs them

Some women I suggested watch it like the look of some of the cyclists

This is exactly the point.
We are not the target of this product. We don't need a Netflix series to become cycling fans.

 

[Eddy Evenepoel]

But how much of the good relationship between Vingegaard and Van Aert was shown? Van Aert going to to the finish line when Vingegaard finished the final ITT seems like a moment that definitely should be included. Same with Vingegaard's decision to give Van Aert the stage.

Both these things were shown.

 

[Red Rick]

This is exactly the point.
We are not the target of this product. We don't need a Netflix series to become cycling fans.

After this last Giro we do

 

[BR2]

After this last Giro we do

But I wonder what these new fans will think if they then see an actual cycling race...

 

[Faserr]

I liked it.

I didn't think at all that there is something to complain for Van Aert. It was shown how much he helped Vingegaard .