Plenty of us are excited about it, many others say they dread it, but one thing is certain — curiosity is high for the Netflix movie, EUROVISION SONG CONTEST: The Story of Fire Saga. And now we have a trailer ahead of the movie’s June 26th streaming releasee. It looks fabulous!
EUROVISION SONG CONTEST: The Story of Fire Saga
For months producers have teased us with this deliberately generic synopsis, which suggests a story about chasing one’s dream and overcoming obstacles.
“When aspiring musicians Lars (Will Ferrell) and Sigrit (Rachel McAdams) are given the opportunity of a lifetime to represent their country at the world’s biggest song competition, they finally have a chance to prove that any dream worth having is a dream worth fighting for.”
While the description of the movie sounds rather straightforward, the trailer absolutely isn’t. From onstage malfunctions to father-son drama to backstage catfights, the movie feels like a goofy roller coaster packed with thrills, spills and a whole lot of crazy. The trailer even briefly features the flag of the defunct South American nation of Netherlands Antilles, which we saw in a different setting two weeks ago. Is this a hidden joke or a mere screw-up?
A promo picture for the film is also circulating online, with the caption “nobody wins solo”. That’s an interesting choice considering that every winner from Eurovision 2012 onwards has done exactly that.
And speaking of doing it solo: many fans have noted that Demi Lovato does not appear in the trailer. This could imply that she has a brief cameo in the film. Or perhaps producers are saving their best material — and performances — for later!
Watching the trailer, it’s clear that this is an underdog story. The Fire Saga duo don’t have much support at home — “all of Iceland thinks we’re a joke,” Lars says. When a group of what appears to be producers and officials at the Icelandic broadcaster learn that Fire Saga will go to Eurovision, they do not look enthused.
This distaste for the duo extends to Lars’ own family. It’s clear that his journey to Eurovision is a chance for him to prove to his father that he isn’t a failure. He also wants to impress the masses with his, um, mass. At one point we see him stuffing his trousers backstage. “I just want my ding dong to look bigger than what is really there,” he tells his singing partner.
Graham Norton makes an extended appearance, delivering lines from a surprisingly large booth (curiously, he’s wearing both a headset and speaking into a microphone at the same time). There’s also a lot of Dan Stevens — who portrays a Russian singer called Alexander Lemtov. He repeatedly mocks Iceland’s efforts and gives off an air of extreme arrogance.
As teased on the Graham Norton Show last month, Lars is lowered from the ceiling in a Maria Yaremchuk-inspired hamster wheel. The stage pictured at the top of this post strongly resembles the Dare To Dream stage from Tel Aviv.
Reaction to the Netflix Eurovision trailer
the netflix eurovision movie is literally the biggest amount of clownery ive ever seen be put into 3 minutes
— Luuk (@escluuk) June 11, 2020
In recent months, fans have been very vocal about their worries the film will mock Eurovision and present it in a negative light. Now that Netflix has released the trailer, it does seem to have elements of a parody — albeit one with a kind heart.
The response from Eurofans still seems lukewarm. Twitter user @escluuk called it “the biggest amount of clownery put into three minutes”, which is significant considering we’ve all seen Georgia’s ESC 2012 entry. But plenty of others have said the film is starting to grow on them.
What do you think of the trailer? Will you be streaming it as soon ass you can on June 26? Tell us what you think in the comments!
I’ll watch it but I am prepared to be disappointed
At first glance this seems to be a funny parody through american eyes. They fail to understand how the fans and general viewers feel for the show and maybe we would all be surprised
When terry wogan was mocking the show every year. this movie feels like those bad times
Better than expected but i feel that they didn’t capture the spirit of ESC and they would show it as another Ámerican idol casting show. Question: they showed Edinburgh, SSE Hydro arena (Glasgow) and the Tel Aviv staging. I am confused, where does the Eurovision in the movie take place? In general, the movie looks like an underdog story of a villager from Iceland who is grown up but has the brain of a 5 year old (typical Will Farrel movie). The contest does not look to be the focus or maybe it’s just the trailer. I hope… Read more »
Are there any other movies where the contest features?
The only one I can think of is a French one from a few years ago. Isabelle Huppert plays a character who represented France in 1974, finishing second behind Abba. She’s now fallen on hard times and works in a paté factory. One of her young colleagues recognizes her and convinces her to aim for the French national song contest once again, with him as her manager. Souvenir, it was called – I enjoyed it, but it didn’t get great reviews.
I saw Verka in “Spy”, not sure if that counts 😀 😀 😀
The great irony is that 1974 was one of the only contests where France DIDN’T compete. They had a song that was in contention to win (because it was 1974, and French ballads had won the last three years and would get another three wins down the line), but then the president of France died and they had to withdraw right before the contest. The singer still attended as a special guest, but Anne-Marie David didn’t appear to pass the trophy to ABBA because she went to the funeral. I can’t think of a ton of movies with Eurovision… Read more »
I need to actually watch that Father Ted – I do know that the director of that episode was also the director of the actual 1988 Eurovision.
No coincidence that it was the best-shot Eurovision Ireland ever did (versus 1993, which still kinda shocks me with how badly it was shot. I won’t hear any complainants about 2019 because the cinematography was goddamn immaculate compared to, say, cutting to the audience right at the moment Norway started its first chorus)
Yeah, 1993 was kinda bad – so static in many places. Still, the one thing I will say in its favour – at least they gave the director job to a woman that year. How many times has that happened?
There are just a bunch of songs where they cut away from the artists at the weirdest times (Austria and Norway in particular suffer from some really shoddy camerawork, which makes it stink even more that those were two of the best songs. At least the former showed a little love to composer and maestro Christian Kolonovits. Heck, the one thing I liked was how many shots there were of the orchestra when the next few editions RTE hosted seemed to do everything in their power to hide them away). And you’re right, and it sucks.
1997 movie “Up On The Roof” features the stories of 5 friends. Spoiler next:
* One of them ends up representing the UK in the movie epilogue.
Didn’t Israel do a movie about a gay French ISIS member who decided to represent France in Tel Aviv with plans to bomb the stadium or something? I remember reading about that. Surprisingly that idea somehow got less criticism than this film is getting. Especially since Bilal represented France that year.
It came out without much fanfare. If you don’t mind some characteristically dark Israeli comedy, it seems alright.
Was looking forward to seeing Demi Lovato in the trailer. They should’ve shown her. It looks like this movie will draw parallels to The Blades of Glory.
Isn’t that her voice in the ending song? I guess she wins the “contest” with that song…
Sorry its bad….no thanks
Oh man, I CAN’T WAIT to finally see this. And I’ll be honest, seeing people take this too seriously and getting all fussy and upset over this is half the reason I’m enjoying this. Seeing people get so angry is just so funny to me. Sorry to burst everyone’s bubble but, absolutely nothing is immune to being parodied. Not even “Europe’s favorite TV show”. I’m a fan too but honestly I can’t wait to see this. Honestly I don’t see this as all that different than the parody/crack ESC fan videos people make on youtube. The downfall… Read more »
Also as a side note, that “they’re old, disgusting people” line is pretty on the nose if we’re talking about how a lot of fans react to contestants that look even a day over 30. They did their research whether you like it or not.
This is true. Except for Serhat, of course.
Serhat is our uncle. An outlier who should not be counted.
Yeah, sure, no one was thirsting over Sergey, Tom Hugo or Fabrizio Moro. Eurofans don’t really care about age as long as the contestant is conventionally attractive. The more muscles, the better 😛
I don’t know what it says about me that the cutest guys for me last year were the more lanky nebbish-y types (Duncan, Albert, Kobi, Fred from Keiino) and beefcakes like Chingiz didn’t do anything for me.
This looks like it treats the contest with at least some level of respect, and isn’t just going to be a blatant mockery. However this looks terribly unfunny and not like something that I would want to watch.
I will watch the crap outta that, for sure.
just don’t look at the youtube comments, they’re so damn toxic.
Just good advice in general, not just for this video.
(ESPECIALLY Eurovision videos, I should say.)
Actually they are not as toxic as i expected (see the comments on facebook posts where articles were posted about the cancellation of the show).
Many people have expressed their love for ESC under the official netflix trailer video.
Alright that’s not so bad.
This is exactly as expected by the look of it. It seems to be a Will Ferrell film with a bit of Eurovision attached. If you enjoy him, you will probably find something to like about this.
Will Ferrell movies are as tiring as Hollywood movies of Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson who are constantly typecasted to do action roles. Or even Adam Sandler doing the same unfunny comedy roles.
disgusting
Well, it looks like a Will Ferrell flick – a film you watch, find mildly amusing and then forget about it in a week. Whether it’s good or bad news depends on how you feel about Will Ferrell’s humour. For me, most of the jokes in the trailer fell flat, but there were a few moments that caught me off guard in a positive way, so maybe I’ll check it out once it’s out (it’s not like there’s a lot to choose from these days).
Considering that Will Farrel is in it, this is definitely be a mockery.
OFFTOPIC: Wiwibloggs could you react to the fact that Daneliya Tuleshova, she represented Kazakhstan in JESC 2018 for the first time is now on America’s Got Talent and got so much attention and support by the Americans. She got 4x YES and is now in the next round. That video is trending in the USA.
Yeah she was amazing, love her!
Didn’t she already compete on The World’s Best? Wow she’s still a fighter
I will watch it but the version in German is not really good so I will turn on the original english version.
Do we think this movie will impact Iceland’s chances next year, positively or negatively?
I don’t recall if the news about Will Ferrell doing a Eurovision movie was a big deal before “Hatrid mun sigra,” but the combination of that, this, and “Think About Things” going viral would indicate that Iceland’s definitely going to at least be on more people’s radars next year, regardless of what they send. Considering how dire things were for them Eurovision-wise before last year, this is the biggest freebie any country’s gotten in the midst of a dark age. If only I could turn my San Marino play into a movie. Then maybe they’d have the same kind of… Read more »
It would be a shame if Iceland win next year and people start saying “oh, it’s only because of that Netflix movie” or something like that – non-obsessive casual viewers, I mean…
People will always invalidate a win by saying it’s circumstantial. People saying “[Country] only won because [politics/activism/diversity/Netflix]” is nothing new.
Wait, you really wrote a play on San Marino’s Eurovision vicissitudes? I need to see the screenplay.
Well…kinda, sorta. San Marino is basically the Holy Grail in it. And it does end with a sing-along of a certain entry that finished 19th…
Looks like it’s gonna be a cheesy film, that could actually be a lot of fun. My big problem is that it looks like Volcano Man is actually going to be their song for the contest and that is just a big oof. However, as an American I’m used to humor like this. This looks like every other comedy movie that’s been released in the past 5 years, so it’s not that big of a shock.
They shot it in Iceland and used a lot of Icelandic actors. I think you might be taking it a tad too seriously.
Are they calling all Icelandic people vapid morons? No. Are they making Iceland look like a dump? No. Are the accents bad? Definitely, but that’s not really important. The joke is about these two, specifically. The humor (and this connects to all the stuff I was talking about before) comes from them as characters, not from generalizations about Iceland as a whole. And if Icelanders have minded the free publicity Will Ferrell’s been drumming up the last few months, they haven’t shown it. And maybe this is massively hypocritical of me to say given how much research I’ve done… Read more »
Fair enough. You’re entitled to your opinion. Can’t argue that the accent’s bad, at least.
Well I’ll watch, BUT I just know it’s going to be very unrealistic and a total making fun of ESC, but whatever.
So cool to see my city Edinburgh in the trailer looking so pretty, considering Edinburgh hasn’t hosted the contest since 1972 and Scotland has had no real cultural presence in the contest since. Looking forward to the concept.
Awful as expected…Brosnan is Islandic yeah yeah lol not
My initial reaction is that this looks funny. But given what is happening here in the UK at the moment with so many comedies being pulled, I’m just not sure how comfortable I should be with all the false accents and stereotyped nationalities.
I’m getting old, so please help me by explaining whether I should like this or not. I really don’t want to get it wrong.
Let’s be clear here: call it a double standard if you like, but Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams playing Icelandic singers with goofy accents isn’t as offensive as David Walliams wearing blackface on Little Britain. In general, stereotyping white people of various nationalities isn’t as offensive as stereotyping people of color. A guy imitating a Russian by wearing a furry hat and talking about vodka or a someone imitating a Brit by wearing a monocle and sipping tea is never as offensive as blackface, yellowface, or brownface. It’s annoying and inaccurate, sure, and probably very tiresome and overdone, but it’s… Read more »
we’re back to this issue. My opinion is that nothing should be offensive – if it isn’t meant to be offensive. That’s kind of my rule. Nobody but literally nobody found Little Britain problematic back than, but now everybody do – and that’s a problem – instead of not focusing on colour and making exceptions – we are making them and that imo is causing way more racism than putting a blackface for comedy purposes – Little Britain was an amazing comedy, they don’t make these anymore, because even comedies have to be politically correct… What a world we live… Read more »
I could name you twenty or more great comic TV shows, movies, stand-up specials etc that can be funny without using insulting stereotypes.
Well I find stereotypes funny and so do many people, I find even stereotypes about people like me funny… Everyone can find something offensive – that shouldn’t limit things like comedy. 🙂
Heck, I can name plenty of shows and films making fun of making fun of people based on race (Father Ted, Blazing Saddles, The Simpsons). I think it comes down to being clever more than anything. Most blackface gags aren’t funny because beyond being offensive, there’s no truth or accuracy to them. Comedy without any truth to it in some way, shape, or form isn’t funny, and just having the stereotype be the joke isn’t clever or good comedy. Look, I think Apu from The Simpsons is a great character. He’s well-rounded and developed, has a full backstory, and has… Read more »
My counter example would be a stereotype that’s so over the top it becomes a parody of stereotypes, like the Swedish Chef or Terrance and Philip from South Park. It’s not just that they have no grounding in reality, it’s that they’re making stuff up that’s so bizarre and far from the truth that they’re impossible to take seriously and you just have to laugh.
It’s also the scale of what position they have in society as a whole. Let’s face facts here: white people, either European or of European descent, have had it generally easier than people of color. It’s the difference between punching up vs. punching down. Look, you’re Slovenian, right? If you come to America, people might make assumptions about you (look at our First Lady), but I guarantee you won’t have to deal with nearly as much crap as a person of color. If someone does an impression of a Slovenian while knowing next to nothing about Slovenia and assuming, as… Read more »
Kind of agree with u – u have some points like Slovenians not being repressed in USA, but we have been repressed as well and we certainly didn’t have it easy through out history, we had to fought for our country and many Slovenians died over the years, we have been killed because wanting out country during wars, during Austro-Hungarian empire, during Carantaniaand so on, so just because black people were enslaved – awful thing, doesn’t mean other people haven’t been repressed and killed because who they were, it’s just that we aren’t mad at Germans because of it and… Read more »
See, I didn’t know any of that! And I’m Jewish, and lord knows we’ve had it rough over the years. I also find Hitler jokes funny, and for a specific reason: he’s Hitler. When you’re mocking Hitler, you’re mocking the idea that he still has power over anyone. You’re ridiculing him for being a psychopath and a dictator and taking him down a peg. You’re not making fun of concentration camps. That’s the difference between punching up vs. punching down: when I see a Jewish man like Mel Brooks or a Maori-Jewish man like Taika Waititi imitating Hitler and mocking… Read more »
The same people who whine about people being “politically correct” are typically the ones who don’t have better material not related to outdated topics. Some people might take things too seriously, but in general, we’ve broadly changed our views as a society of what’s funny/based in truth and what isn’t. People like Billy Crystal or Jerry Seinfeld can’t deal with the fact that jokes about women and minorities aren’t really considered funny anymore.
I genuinely struggle with this topic as I would like to see more consistency. Take Leigh Francis for example, he comes out and apologizes for playing black characters in Bo Selecta in the early 2000s but he continues to play Keith Lemon, a stereotypical foul-mouthed drunk Northerner. People in the south of the UK still look down on Northerners as rough, intellectually-challenged people, so it plays into a negative stereotype which does real harm to people’s life chances. But no apology so far… I think we have to get this right. Art either has to be free to express itself… Read more »
Again, punching up vs. punching down. If lots of Northerners take offense to that portrayal and it’s continuing to have a negative effect on society, by all means, he shouldn’t do it. However, compare it to how things are here in the States. Every part of the country, every state, every city has its own stereotypes about it. The closest parallel to what you’re talking about would be how white people from the South are portrayed. At best, they’re shown as either very chipper and proper (read: super-duper religious) or genteel badasses who love their Second Amendment rights. At worst,… Read more »
I can only speak to my experience in the UK and as much as I’m sure I’ll get slated for it, here in the UK we don’t have the same history as the US, so the situation is different. I can’t comment on the situation in the US, but I don’t believe what I am reading in the US applies to the UK. Don’t get me wrong, we are not perfect, but we don’t have the same context that the US has. So what we are seeing in the UK at the moment feels forced and a little contrived. Personally,… Read more »
Well imo it should be fully free. Art itself doesn’t hurt anyone tbh, I think people who get offended by this stuff are just like too sensitive and get offended by anything… Art should be free of any political and social things – it shouldn’t depended by them… Again that is my opinion feel free to disagree.
I do not know, but I haven’t heard of any complaints back than, if that film were to release today – it would cause a huge uproar. IMO. It’s just how I feel, I remember 2000′ being way less stressful and tbh race, sex and other labels oriented, people didn’t really care about that, or is it just nostalgia? haha that’s how I personally feel
It’s not a film, it’s a TV show.
Yeah true sorry I watched it as a film – parts of the show were bind together..
I don’t think it is your job is get possibly offended on somebody else’s behalf. If you find it funny, be comfortable and enjoy it. If something turns out to offend somebody else, listen to them and find out why. Life’s too short to stress out over how to perceive a Will Ferrell film. ?
Anybody know why I’m getting this many downvotes?
Not gonna lie, I think it looks really promising! Funny, wacky, jokes that aren’t specifically about Eurovision. What’s not to like? The jokes are definitely very Will Ferrell, but since I like his brand of comedy (when it’s good – there are times when it can be very bad indeed), it works for me. The “My father is ashamed of me” bit definitely makes me think about the more deconstructive moments from Anchorman, and I always find Will Ferrell funniest when he’s deconstructing a cliche in the most over-the-top way possible.
I also couldn’t help but notice that none of the jokes were about them being Icelandic (or Russian). Will and Rachel’s haplessness and Dan Stevens’ hamminess are all just informed character traits. The accents are exaggerated, sure, but their being wacky is seen as odd even by the Icelanders, so it’s not as though they’re characterizing every Icelander that way.