The film adaptation of Frank Schätzing’s bestseller The Swarm was in development for almost five years. The advance praise was great: The international mega-project was announced as a series at Marvel level, with Frank Doelger a Game of Thrones producer pulling the strings.
And now this: first Schätzing himself criticized the adaptation as “nonsense without relevance”. As of this week, the first three episodes are also available in the ZDF media library, which led the production. The first reviews have been published and some of them are okay too hard on the sci-fi series. Did the crush really deserve all this?
ZDF series The swarm in the crossfire of reviews
The Swarm – S01 Trailer (English) HD
What is the series about? The swarm tells of mysterious events that shake civilization. It starts in the depths of the oceans and spreads across the world. Hostile whales, dangerous crabs and a previously unknown ice worm are up to mischief. Apparently nature takes revenge to the people for their reckless behavior. A group out international scientists investigates the question of what lies behind the mysterious swarm intelligence. (Here you come to the complete cast of The Swarm)
What is actually criticized about the series?
The TAZ accuses the swarm of deficient effects:
In addition to quite impressive landscape shots and image compositions, computer animations and studio shots that are not very successful are crowded together. These are so strange that they tear you out of history, like the whale attack on the tour boat.
The dialogues also come off badly in the article. Conclusion: “The high expectations could not be met.”
The Swarm wants to be a blockbuster series, but according to RP, the production fails precisely because of this claim:
[…] That looks good, and the problem of the series lies elsewhere: it’s conservative. One thinks: if it’s Armageddon, then please with drums and trumpets.
In the end it stayed “[…] the disappointment shared with Frank Schätzing about all the missed opportunities that this novel, which seems increasingly urgent, would have offered.”
The SWR provides the most valid point for a series of this kind:
The series relies far too much on its images, the dialogue and character development, on the other hand, seems loveless, somehow fragmentarily committed to the book, without developing its own narrative power.
This is just a selection of different reviews. In addition to harder slating like the SZ (“Television for Doofe”), there are many mixed reviews. Almost never but consistently positive.
How bad or how good is The Swarm really?
The Swarm – Teaser Trailer (German subtitles) HD
Let’s summarize first: The Swarm has lousy effects, dialogue, a weak narrative and sloppily handles the great potential of the template. We’ve seen the first three episodes and all of those points are more or less true.
Above all, the series struggles with this, and that’s surprising in a novel adaptation, a powerful, tell a coherent story. The third episode is still busy presenting the concept. This is tiring, especially since the characters aren’t really designed to be captivating. And in some action scenes you can clearly see that the pot with the effects budget had already been fished dry.
Now we come to the many buts: At first glance, a budget of 40 million euros seems like a huge amount. Blockbuster series like Stranger Things and House of the Dragon, however, handle much bigger moneybags. For comparison: Each episode of Season 4 Stranger Things is said to have cost $ 30 million. The swarm is not internationally in the first league.
The criticisms also show: A lot was expected of the (alleged) blockbuster series. In order not to fail because of this and the hopes of the book fans, The Swarm would have had to jump very high. But if you accept this Schätzing adaptation as a B-movie (or a B-series), you can have a lot of fun with it. The concept, in which sea creatures take revenge on the exploitative people, is extremely interesting and sometimes makes for bizarre scenes. In addition, the many changes of location and the great landscape shots make you want to vacation in Canada, Norway or on the rough Scottish islands.
If you can fault The Swarm, it’s that the show takes itself far too seriously. Unfortunately, there is far too little to laugh about.
The first three episodes of The Swarm are now available in the ZDF media library. The linear TV broadcast will follow on March 6th on ZDF.
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