OT: Blues Forum Lounge (Home of All Things OT) - Part 2019

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Em etah Eh

Maroon PP
Jul 17, 2007
3,079
1,488
i use directv now and havent had a issue since the first 3-6 months of their launch.

but they are constantly raising prices. started at 35 and next month it will be at 50 for the same plan. im grandfathered in but still annoying to see.

Same here, very annoying. I'm grandfathered in as well. What I want to know is since they no longer offer the "Go Big" package, what is to stop them from saying the price of the package is now $100 so with your $25 discount, it's now $75? There is no base price for it now since they don't offer it to anybody else...

Also, do you ever use the Fox Sports Go app? I don't use it very often but went in last night, and I no longer get any programming when logged in with DTVNOW. You tried it out lately?

I pay $55 since I've got HBO for the extra $5, but pretty soon here I'm going to have to check out other options, once I'm done with HBO...
 

bleedblue1223

Registered User
Jan 21, 2011
51,762
14,675
that episode of thrones was so poorly written

visually amazing with some great scenes but such a ****ing mess
Yeah, GoT was so good because it wasn't just another Fantasy show/film that did the same things that everyone else does. That episode did what you'd expect from a typical fantasy show/film. Too much plot armor for certain characters, so the only way they have to surprise you, is ultimately lame and lets you down. Last Jedi had this issue as well.

Maybe Benioff and Weiss aren't that great now that they don't have book material to work from.
 
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bleedblue1223

Registered User
Jan 21, 2011
51,762
14,675
Same here, very annoying. I'm grandfathered in as well. What I want to know is since they no longer offer the "Go Big" package, what is to stop them from saying the price of the package is now $100 so with your $25 discount, it's now $75? There is no base price for it now since they don't offer it to anybody else...

Also, do you ever use the Fox Sports Go app? I don't use it very often but went in last night, and I no longer get any programming when logged in with DTVNOW. You tried it out lately?

I pay $55 since I've got HBO for the extra $5, but pretty soon here I'm going to have to check out other options, once I'm done with HBO...
Yeah, my DirectTV Now is now at $65. I'm getting close to switching to Sling or Playstation Vue.
 

Oberyn

Prince of Dorne
Mar 27, 2011
14,420
3,979
GoT storyline has definitely suffered since the show passed the books. The plot armor for certain characters is also lame. If you don't want to kill people off, that's fine, but don't put them in ridiculous scenarios where death looks inevitable and then somehow have them survive.
 
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TheDizee

Trade Jordan Kyrou ASAP | ALWAYS RIGHT
Apr 5, 2014
19,834
12,658
Same here, very annoying. I'm grandfathered in as well. What I want to know is since they no longer offer the "Go Big" package, what is to stop them from saying the price of the package is now $100 so with your $25 discount, it's now $75? There is no base price for it now since they don't offer it to anybody else...

Also, do you ever use the Fox Sports Go app? I don't use it very often but went in last night, and I no longer get any programming when logged in with DTVNOW. You tried it out lately?

I pay $55 since I've got HBO for the extra $5, but pretty soon here I'm going to have to check out other options, once I'm done with HBO...
Never had issues with fox sports go not working. had issues with discovery go not working but I believe they fixed it.

the service isnt good enough to justify $50 long term. the DVR is garbage and the quality should be better. the only reason i like them is because every channel is 60 FPS.
 

PiggySmalls

Oink Oink MF
Mar 7, 2015
6,107
3,516
GoT storyline has definitely suffered since the show passed the books. The plot armor for certain characters is also lame. If you don't want to kill people off, that's fine, but don't put them in ridiculous scenarios where death looks inevitable and then somehow have them survive.

Yeah I would agree that it has gone down hill. I felt like I was the only one on Monday that did not like the past episode. After the first few minutes of the battle it just became boring to me. I had to have every light off and had to adjust the colors on the TV just to be able to see what was going on. I don’t get why the whole battle had to be at night.
 

izzy

go
Apr 29, 2012
86,760
18,732
Nova Scotia
aryas plot armour is nuts

the stabbed in the gut, dropped in a river, walk around, then fight again and survive is just wild. wild.

i get some characters are important to keep alive or they want to keep them alive, but if thats the case dont put them in situations theyd never realistically survive. stop having sam survive such ridiculous shit, the guy cant even hold a sword
 
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EastonBlues22

Registered User
Nov 25, 2003
14,807
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RIP Fugu ϶(°o°)ϵ
Regarding the GoT S8:EP3

I was highly disappointed with the episode, honestly. I thought the battle visuals (outside of the wide shots) were underwhelming, and the lighting/obscured visuals/quick cuts made the action almost impossible to follow. The reanimated dead changing from a literal wave of unstoppable destruction when there were scads of extra red shirts to decimate into plodding ineffective huggers anytime a main cast member needed to survive was just too jarring a change for me. Toss in some ridiculous tactics and blatant stupidity due to plot demands, and it was for my money the worst major battle scene they've put together by a large margin.

It might have helped some if they had twisted the knife a bit in true GoT fashion and made us part with someone we thought was untouchable or that we weren't ready to part with yet, and/or had one or more heroes die in a less than heroic fashion, but we didn't really get any of that either. Lyanna Mormont standing her ground and getting crushed by the giant without killing it would have been much more heroic than the feel-good and credibility straining fan-service end they manufactured for her. Jorah riding off into the dark to certain death would have made us (and Daenerys) ask some hard questions about whether he deserved better (and about what it means as a leader to order those you care about to certain death) while still handing him the heroic death he wanted...to die serving his queen. Killing off someone (almost anyone) with some legitimate plot armor would have been a great twist, and would have given us a chance to confront some deeper philosophical hard truths (sometimes people we care about die meaningless deaths, sometimes life doesn't hand us the resolutions to situations we crave, or even the opportunity to have those resolutions, etc.).

Killing off Daenerys would have been spectacular. Killing off Jon, or Sansa/Arya/Bran, or even Tyrion/Jaime would have left us with some real issues to confront. Tormund, Brienne, Grey Worm, Pod, Davos, and Sam all probably should have died and the survival of all of them feels cheap. The first four don't really have much plot armor beyond relatively superficial things and their position on the battlefield was basically a death sentence (given that virtually all the Wildlings and Unsullied are now dead and the leaders where in the thick of it on the front lines). The latter two have virtually no fighting ability of their own and yet they somehow survived extended melee combat against foes that overwhelmed far more capable fighters fairly easily.

In a series that has had made its mark by subverting expectations and not being afraid to kill off major characters, the over-the-top fan service in this episode was the icing on the disappointing technical cake for me. What a missed opportunity and misread on what would make for a great episode.
 

Oberyn

Prince of Dorne
Mar 27, 2011
14,420
3,979
Didn't think to put a spoiler on my previous post, but I've put one here regarding some further thoughts on episode 3.
The fan service is a good point and something I noticed as well. It seems like the writers have veered towards appeasing the crowds with these jaw-dropping moments rather than weaving an intricate storyline that was once the show's calling card. I guess that was to be expected once the show passed the books, and the writers no longer had GRRM's books to lean on for story building.

I also disliked how little we actually learn about the Night King and the White Walkers. The buildup over 8 seasons about how the true enemy was beyond the wall, and they're completed wiped within one episode.

Just a terrible episode on many fronts. I will say that I really liked the music score by Ramin Djawadi, he always manages to knock it out of the park.
 

Davimir Tarablad

Registered User
Sep 16, 2015
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12,353
My thoughts on season 8 in general
To me, the biggest problem of season 8 is that not only did they go with a 6 episode season, but the writers also spent 1/3 of the season building up the hype of the longest battle scene ever filmed. I was hoping for places like the Last Hearth and the Karhold to have Hardhome-esque scenes. Those would've built up the inevitability of the white walkers as well as broke up the monotony of spending now 3 straight episodes in Winterfell.

I also hated the intense focus on the main cast while the entirety of the unnamed characters were simply fodder. Had it been less focused on the cast, the battle could have been much more tactical. The way the Dothraki and Unsullied were slaughtered (especially considering how well regarded both forces were considered throughout the world) made the outcome of the battle seem impossible. Had Dany's forces actually been more than fodder, it would've made the outcome seem much more realistic as at least they may have had a chance at the start of the battle, rather than the cast seemingly kill more wights than the entirety of the rest of the army.
 

BadgersandBlues

Registered User
Jun 6, 2011
1,753
1,111
Hey all, I don't know how to do the spoilers thingy, if a mod wants to add it in, please go ahead. That said Spoilers ahead!!!

The tactics of the episode got me right away. I'm by no means a warfare expert, but I've played enough strategy games to know some simple, basic ideas. Light cavalry charging straight into an unknown enemy? Siege weapons at the front of your formation that you only shoot once? Building a trench with a collapsible bridge behind your primary infantry? No archers behind your infantry wall? No dragons providing close air support? No light at the front of your forces so you can...you know, see the bad guys? No burning pitch/traps for the inevitable besieging of the castle? About the shallowest moat you can imagine? No Phalanx? I could go on and on, but, this episode went out of it's way to show moronic tactics just to get the outcomes it wanted. Why not show humanity doing everything right, only to be overwhelmed by pure attrition? Between the poor tactics, the awful lighting, the terrible "quick cut" editing, this episode was by far the worst battle sequence they have ever portrayed. Which is so weird, b/c the battles that I found to be the best so far in the series (Hardhome/Battle of the Bastards) were directed by the same guy.

The word I've been using since about the middle of season 7 is lazy. This show has just gotten so lazy with it's writing, execution, etc. It's become all fan service with relationships and "haha jk" moments. Nothing pissed me off more then the fact that the Night King has been marching towards the Wall for 6+ seasons, only to basically luck into getting a dragon. Yet that's what he uses to knock down the Wall? What was his plan if there was no dragon? He couldn't have known when he started marching 5-6 years ago that all of a sudden the one thing he would need would magically show up and he'd be able to use it on the Wall right? So again, what was his plan for getting past the Wall pre-zombie dragon? The Deus Ex Machina has become so bad on this show now. And this last episode leaves even more questions. Why did the Night King start marching towards the Wall when he did? What prompted him gathering literally his entire crew to go beyond the Wall? Why did he need Crastor's babies? Why did he turn them into White Walkers, and not just wights? Why did he want to kill Bran/3ER so bad? What was Bran doing the whole time the fight scene was going on? How did a wooden box hold a Wight all the way from the Wall to King's Landing but then at Winterfell they could punch through solid stone crypts? :)

For eight years they hyped this as the endgame. It ended in one night. To total Deus Ex Machina, with the bad guy pulling a Bond Villain-esque ending and barely anything of consequence happening from a character perspective. No sick fight between Jon and the Night King. No badass moment with Brienne taking on all the White Walkers. No Dany having to seriously face her "child" Viseron in a way that has resonance. Not a single important person dying, and many unimportant people living for seemingly no reason. Oh and Melisandre showing up out of nowhere, then getting to seppuku in the snow? So. f***ing. Lazy.

I think they made a massive mistake by not figuring out who "beats Cersei" first, then using the Night King and the Army of the dead to reset the "game" for one last push. After this episode, it's hard for me to give two shits about who runs the kingdom. Which btw, for everyone who's been paying attention, has been Cersei since literally Season 1 Episode 1. First it was Robert Baratheon (husband), then it was Joffery/Tommen (sons) and now it's her. If I was a peasant, I'd be wondering why anyone even thought they had a right to "take the throne" when she's literally or figuratively been Queen since Baratheon was crowned 20ish now years ago.

I have zero faith in Benioff and Weiss pulling off a GoT prequel after the disaster the last two seasons have been. It's pretty clear that the real talent has always been GRRM, those two hacks are just standard Hollywood.
 
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Alklha

Registered User
Sep 7, 2011
16,875
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The issues with the show since moving away from the book material have been evident for a while.

The reduction in the number of characters does become a problem in episodes like this. I understand the importance of keeping a tighter cast; too many characters reduces screentime and hurts their personal development arcs. So we were left with less meaningful characters they could kill in situations like this.

The biggest issue is the decision to treat the viewers like idiots. Jon has seen the Night King raise the dead and they put them down in the crypts without ever discussing that. Maybe they thought it was safe since they can carry a white to King's Landing in a simple wooden crate, but now they are apparently able to punch through stone crypts. Or the basic fact that if you want Sam to survive then you put him somewhere safe; the choice is he dies or is somewhere safe. Or the important characters ability to just escape impossible situations that they chose to put them in; Jorah (& ghost) leading the charge but return, Grey Worm at the front to protect the retreat and just reappears safe at the back, etc. That's before we talk about stuff like Daenerys being able to hold a sword effectively or that we completely ignore Jaime being a subpar swordsman now.

There were other ways to have the battle and have survivors without making it appear that only a dozen people in the battle survived and they are all known characters. You know... like not having Jon on a dragon for no real reason, having him sitting about on it doing nothing while they're desperately trying to light the trench.

I don't know if where the next few epsiodes are going is actually very obvious or if I'm just seeing things because of the spoliers that I've been told, but either way it has been disappointing.
 
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tfriede2

Registered User
Aug 8, 2010
4,514
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View media item 5099Got an authentic 75/25 year anniversary Joseph Blues Jersey (away, blue). These are my favorite of all blues jerseys - love the hint of red in these (unlike the clown jerseys that had way too much red).
 

carter333167

Registered User
Apr 24, 2013
6,958
3,120
The issues with the show since moving away from the book material have been evident for a while.

The reduction in the number of characters does become a problem in episodes like this. I understand the importance of keeping a tighter cast; too many characters reduces screentime and hurts their personal development arcs. So we were left with less meaningful characters they could kill in situations like this.

The biggest issue is the decision to treat the viewers like idiots. Jon has seen the Night King raise the dead and they put them down in the crypts without ever discussing that. Maybe they thought it was safe since they can carry a white to King's Landing in a simple wooden crate, but now they are apparently able to punch through stone crypts. Or the basic fact that if you want Sam to survive then you put him somewhere safe; the choice is he dies or is somewhere safe. Or the important characters ability to just escape impossible situations that they chose to put them in; Jorah (& ghost) leading the charge but return, Grey Worm at the front to protect the retreat and just reappears safe at the back, etc. That's before we talk about stuff like Daenerys being able to hold a sword effectively or that we completely ignore Jaime being a subpar swordsman now.

There were other ways to have the battle and have survivors without making it appear that only a dozen people in the battle survived and they are all known characters. You know... like not having Jon on a dragon for no real reason, having him sitting about on it doing nothing while they're desperately trying to light the trench.

I don't know if where the next few epsiodes are going is actually very obvious or if I'm just seeing things because of the spoliers that I've been told, but either way it has been disappointing.

The screenplays since running out of original material have been painfully bad....horrible dialogue....horrible plot. They should have diverted some of the special effects budget for some decent writers.
 

PiggySmalls

Oink Oink MF
Mar 7, 2015
6,107
3,516
Well that GoT episode was something, and by something I mean it sucked. The writing hasn't just gone downhill, it fell off a steep cliff.

Yeap. I only watch to see who gets killed. They keep this up for the final 2 episodes, I won’t miss it.
 

Oberyn

Prince of Dorne
Mar 27, 2011
14,420
3,979
Just saw this on Reddit :laugh:. Nice to see Starbucks survived the battle.
7zjt5hmutiw21.jpg
 
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bleedblue1223

Registered User
Jan 21, 2011
51,762
14,675
Well that GoT episode was something, and by something I mean it sucked. The writing hasn't just gone downhill, it fell off a steep cliff.
Yeah, I'm worried about the Benioff and Weiss Star Wars trilogy now, especially if that's the saga that Rian Johnson is working on as well.
 

bluesXwinXtheXcup

Registered User
Apr 14, 2018
1,581
1,089
Does any other man here cry easily?

I wear my emotions on my sleeve and honestly don't care what others think.

I cry watching YouTube and have never made it through an episode of Extreme Home Make Over (since cancelled) without crying.

I'm not a wimp or wuss. I like fighting to a fault.

Maybe it's because my dad never cried? ...don't buy that.

I think it's because I was raised with enough confidence to be true to/with myself.

Deep thoughts by Jack Handy (?)
 

542365

2018-19 Cup Champs!
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Mar 22, 2012
22,262
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Does any other man here cry easily?

I wear my emotions on my sleeve and honestly don't care what others think.

I cry watching YouTube and have never made it through an episode of Extreme Home Make Over (since cancelled) without crying.

I'm not a wimp or wuss. I like fighting to a fault.

Maybe it's because my dad never cried? ...don't buy that.

I think it's because I was raised with enough confidence to be true to/with myself.

Deep thoughts by Jack Handy (?)
I don't personally cry very easily, but I don't think less of those who do. It's just an emotional response just like anything else. It's far healthier than some "manly" shit like punching holes in walls or TVs like we see so often with people watching their favorite sports team lose a big game.
 

bluesXwinXtheXcup

Registered User
Apr 14, 2018
1,581
1,089
I've known two men that have died and come back to life.

One was electrocuted while swimming in a pool, the other had a head on collision (other car 2 people died).

Both men have a do not resuscitate order.

Why?

They won't tell me or explain.

It honestly bugs me.

Neither man is religious.

My buddy's dad was trying to cure diabetes back in the 90s at WashU. He basically was laminating cells in the pancreas so it would produce insulin. It worked....for a few years. He did surgery on many people that were revived. The stories they/he have are remarkable.

My belief is that we are like a computer. Turn off the switch and it's over, no power.

But, you never know...
 

Amberelise

Registered User
May 8, 2010
322
248
Chi-town
Really dumb question - but I obviously have no idea where to look. Did Stanley Cup Finals tickets already go on sale? If so, when? If not, when? I was able to buy tickets face-value from Ticketmaster in rounds 1 & 2 because I knew the date/time they went on sale. I never saw anything for Western Conference Finals nor SCFs.
 
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