TV: Game of Thrones prequel pilot ordered

[ecemleafs]

cant say im a huge fan of the character casting. wish these shows would just cast ppl that look like they do in the books. casting a black man for corlys velaryon is ridiculous as velaryons pretty much look like targaryans. one of the biggest issues with rhaenyras kids are they have brown hair and dont look valyrian like their mother and father should (laenor velaryon). its easy enough to pass off kids with brown hair as her kids because they are white and rhaenyra has arryn ancestory (who could have brown hair). if corlys is black then laenor should be dark skinned. if rhaenyras kids then dont have dark skin then no one would believe they are the legitimate children of laenor velaryon and thus bastards. hopefully they make the rest of the targs look targaryan with gold/silver/platinum hair and purple eyes.

 

[Moncherry]

I'm far past caring about Game of Thrones, but reading through the last few pages the idea that HBO willingly accepted the premature ending of their biggest cash cow, that they would be fine with wrapping up a show that had plenty of story left to tell and kept getting bigger with each passing season, if they could have kept it going is a bit hard to believe. Either the ball was in D&D's court and their hands were tied, or they were grossly incompetent and were fine with ending the show the way they did, which is possible but less likely. I'm betting on the former.

 

[Osprey]

“This is the hard part of what we do,” sighs HBO programming president Michael Lombardo. “We started this journey with David and Dan. It’s their vision. Would I love the show to go 10 years as both a fan and a network executive? Absolutely."

So if the producers prefer seven seasons and HBO prefers more, what happens? A conversation. Perhaps more than one. Like amicable spouses who avoid a sensitive area of disagreement, this issue is something HBO and the showrunners haven’t discussed thus far (“So about season seven–” / “Hey look, a dragon!”). “We’ll have an honest conversation that explores all possible avenues,” Lombardo says. “If they weren’t comfortable going beyond seven seasons, I trust them implicitly and trust that’s the right decision—as horrifying as that is to me. What I’m not going to do is have a show continue past where the creators believe where they feel they’ve finished with the story.”

Game of Thrones: HBO wants more than 7 seasons

In other words, HBO had the final decision and ended up deciding to trust D&D and not continue without them or insist that they drag things out longer than they were comfortable with. There might've been a compromise, though. It seems like D&D initially wanted to end the series with Season 7, presumably with the usual 10 episodes, and HBO convinced them to stretch it slightly to 13 episodes spread over two seasons (7 & 8). That explains why the last two seasons were short and announced only a few months apart.

 

[Siamese Dream]

cant say im a huge fan of the character casting. wish these shows would just cast ppl that look like they do in the books. casting a black man for corlys velaryon is ridiculous as velaryons pretty much look like targaryans. one of the biggest issues with rhaenyras kids are they have brown hair and dont look valyrian like their mother and father should (laenor velaryon). its easy enough to pass off kids with brown hair as her kids because they are white and rhaenyra has arryn ancestory (who could have brown hair). if corlys is black then laenor should be dark skinned. if rhaenyras kids then dont have dark skin then no one would believe they are the legitimate children of laenor velaryon and thus bastards. hopefully they make the rest of the targs look targaryan with gold/silver/platinum hair and purple eyes.

I hate it too but it's the least of my worries, I had pretty much already checked out when I saw who they'd cast for Rhaenyra and Daemon, who are characters that are meant to be hot AF lol. Matt Smith especially I can't imagine ever being able to take seriously as Daemon "The Rogue Prince"

 

[x Tame Impala]

No one wanted the show to be 9+ seasons long. We just wanted seasons 7 & 8 to be the same length of the previous 6 so the pacing wouldn't go to shit. S7 & S8 are a combined 13 episodes, which isn't even a season and a half of regular scheduling. This was for their last season...where all the important plotlines are supposed to come together. Instead things were rushed, sloppy, and forgotten.

D & D rushed it. They were tired and wanted out so they could go make some stupid counter-history Civil War drama or some Star Wars nonsense. The ending of this series was so bad i haven't once even been tempted to rewatch the show. Maybe down the line I'll go back and watch S1 through S4, because it really was nearly-perfect television.

Everything went to shit as soon as Tywin died.

 

[RandV]

Game of Thrones: HBO wants more than 7 seasons

In other words, HBO had the final decision and ended up deciding to trust D&D and not continue without them or insist that they drag things out longer than they were comfortable with. There might've been a compromise, though. It seems like D&D initially wanted to end the series with Season 7, presumably with the usual 10 episodes, and HBO convinced them to stretch it slightly to 13 episodes spread over two seasons (7 & 8). That explains why the last two seasons were short and announced only a few months apart.

Just speculating but there may have been diminishing returns that made it easier to wrap up, with production costs going up and the longer you run the harder and more expensive it is to retain your top actors. I have no idea how that math would work out, just thinking maybe that made it an easier decision.

One thing I believe is accurate is that one of the reason you had fewer episodes is D&D compromised to have the budget for the big epic battle scenes. So while the show was HBO's cash cow they weren't operating with a blank cheque, there were limitations.

 

[glovesave_35]

Just speculating but there may have been diminishing returns that made it easier to wrap up, with production costs going up and the longer you run the harder and more expensive it is to retain your top actors. I have no idea how that math would work out, just thinking maybe that made it an easier decision.

One thing I believe is accurate is that one of the reason you had fewer episodes is D&D compromised to have the budget for the big epic battle scenes. So while the show was HBO's cash cow they weren't operating with a blank cheque, there were limitations.

It is hard for me to reconcile that an international cultural phenomenon like Game of Thrones was rushed to end due to budget concerns. I understand that in the end everything comes down to money, but the amount of good will and belief in future HBO products would have had to have been worth it to do it properly in the money category. I don't believe that was the ultimate reason the last two seasons were rushed and shortened.

Whatever the reason, I hope lessons were learned. Not just by HBO but by all content providers. You can't grab people by the balls for years on end and just sputter and limp to the finish line like that. I have such personal mixed feelings about this show. Seasons 1-6 (I really don't want to argue with someone about any of these seasons) are some of the best television or film ever made. A kid born today can watch this show in 15-20 years and, without any knowledge of the back story of the production process, be able to tell that something was amiss during the last two seasons of the show. What a huge missed opportunity.

 

[Eisen]

The scale of the production definitely hurt the quality.

It's harder to write witty dialogue scenes when you're trying to film epic dragon battles.

Early seasons got creative and had key battles occur off screen (like Tyrion getting knocked out at the beginning of a season 1 battle and only waking up when it was over).

I know many people tuned in to see those sequences, but I would have been happy to sacrifice a few of those each season to allow more time to fine tune the scripts.

I sign that. The battles really added little to the story. A lot of time was sacrificed to show what could be shown in 5 minutes and told after. Most people like them, though. Frequently Jon's encounter with the Night King gets mentioned as one of the best episodes.

 

[Eisen]

Personally, the biggest disappointment to me was the Walkers. They were so mysterious and such a big threat for the entire show, heck look what the first scene of the show was.

Instead of doing anything cool with it, they ended it pretty lame. I hope the books expand on it a little. They have a lot of potential there, especially with the ties to the Children of the Forrest.

I doubt he ever finishes. Does he have children? Perhaps he goes the Frank Herbert route.

 

[Cole Caulifield]

No one wanted the show to be 9+ seasons long. We just wanted seasons 7 & 8 to be the same length of the previous 6 so the pacing wouldn't go to shit. S7 & S8 are a combined 13 episodes, which isn't even a season and a half of regular scheduling. This was for their last season...where all the important plotlines are supposed to come together. Instead things were rushed, sloppy, and forgotten.

D & D rushed it. They were tired and wanted out so they could go make some stupid counter-history Civil War drama or some Star Wars nonsense. The ending of this series was so bad i haven't once even been tempted to rewatch the show. Maybe down the line I'll go back and watch S1 through S4, because it really was nearly-perfect television.

Everything went to shit as soon as Tywin died.

You could feel the quality go down as the source material dried up. That being said, I was still on the bandwagon all the way until episode 3 of the last season. For me, it was a big disappointment because it was actually unwatchable (too dark) on my screen. That's the only thing I've not been able to watch on my TV so while I'm sure some people with better TVs and perfect settings could see properly, there was definitely something wrong with it. I wasn't the only one who had this issue either. At any rate, to have such an important episode be unwatchable for a lot of people was .... a disaster.

Plot wise, the way the night king died was a bit anticlimatic but I could still get behind it.

So while the quality of the show had been going down steadily, it was still great TV and must watch for me. But the part where it hit rock bottom for me was the last 3 episodes where the show jumped the shark completely. Those last 3 episodes killed the replayability forever for me.

 

[Cas]

You could feel the quality go down as the source material dried up. That being said, I was still on the bandwagon all the way until episode 3 of the last season. For me, it was a big disappointment because it was actually unwatchable (too dark) on my screen. That's the only thing I've not been able to watch on my TV so while I'm sure some people with better TVs and perfect settings could see properly, there was definitely something wrong with it. I wasn't the only one who had this issue either. At any rate, to have such an important episode be unwatchable for a lot of people was .... a disaster.

Plot wise, the way the night king died was a bit anticlimatic but I could still get behind it.

So while the quality of the show had been going down steadily, it was still great TV and must watch for me. But the part where it hit rock bottom for me was the last 3 episodes where the show jumped the shark completely. Those last 3 episodes killed the replayability forever for me.

"The Long Night" wasn't unwatchable for me for any technical reason - I could see everything just fine. I just wish I hadn't - in my opinion, it was just torture porn.

"Battle of the Bastards" had plenty of light, but exactly the same problems - it was just boring torture porn for an hour. I didn't even remember that there were two plots in that episode.

 

[Siamese Dream]

Even if you ignore the lighting problems, they probably spend a shit ton of money on the dragon fight where you couldn't tell which one was which and was like something out of Michael Bay's Transformers movies in that regard

Hopefully this will be better in the prequel, where there's going to be lots of dragon battles

 

[The Crypto Guy]

Even if you ignore the lighting problems, they probably spend a shit ton of money on the dragon fight where you couldn't tell which one was which and was like something out of Michael Bay's Transformers movies in that regard

Hopefully this will be better in the prequel, where there's going to be lots of dragon battles

I could tell them apart very easily...

 

[glovesave_35]

I sign that. The battles really added little to the story. A lot of time was sacrificed to show what could be shown in 5 minutes and told after. Most people like them, though. Frequently Jon's encounter with the Night King gets mentioned as one of the best episodes.

Battle of the Bastards, Hardhome, and Battle of Castle Black were all well done and served a narrative purpose to me.

People have different motivations for watching shows and movies, but I feel like Battle of the Bastards was one of the best "medieval battle" scenes ever made. It almost feels like arguing that it wasn't worth being included in the series is being contrarian for the sake of it.

Mud. Blood, mud, and utter chaos. That episode showed it all. And in the end Winterfell was re-taken.

What would the re-taking of Winterfell have looked like to you guys, had that battle not been shown? Show the armies lining up for battle, cut to King's Landing for a bit, and then return to Winterfell after generic "big battle" with the baddie's head on a pike?

 

[glovesave_35]

"The Long Night" wasn't unwatchable for me for any technical reason - I could see everything just fine. I just wish I hadn't - in my opinion, it was just torture porn.

"Battle of the Bastards" had plenty of light, but exactly the same problems - it was just boring torture porn for an hour. I didn't even remember that there were two plots in that episode.

The "Saw" film series is torture porn. There are lots of examples of actual torture porn. Showing a modern interpretation of what medieval battles were like doesn't count for me.

Was the Normandy scene from Saving Private Ryan torture porn as well?

 

[StrangeVision]

The "Saw" film series is torture porn. There are lots of examples of actual torture porn. Showing a modern interpretation of what medieval battles were like doesn't count for me.

Was the Normandy scene from Saving Private Ryan torture porn as well?

Battle of the Bastards was bad because it made no sense. It looked cool, but that was the moment for me when I realized there was no turning back, looking cool was more important than cohesive storytelling. How do you not give a giant a tree to swing around? He wins the battle right there, it makes any strategy from Ramsay damn near moot, but that would not have looked good on the screen apparently and they needed to have a big confusing battle because entertainment. Let's not even discuss the inconsistencies within the episode. It just made no sense and destroyed any sort of immersion I could have for the show.

Storming the beach in Saving Private Ryan is a depiction of an actual event, I don't see how it could be comparable.

 

[RandV]

Yeah I was majorly disappointed with Battle of the Bastards, though it didn't turn me off the show as it was more or less what I expected. One of my big criticisms of the series overall with Dan & David is beyond what the budget allowed they just weren't good at warfare and strategy. I consider myself to be an amateur history buff and war gamer so that kind of stands out, I guess maybe something like a UFC enthusiast trying to watch pro wrestling. And reading ASoIF you could tell GRRM was big into this stuff too, as his military and tactics stuff were always extremely well done. So while it's easy to overlook for the layperson if you have some interest in this stuff the issues are obvious and can detract from it.

With D&D though they started deviating in season 1, and again beyond simple budgetary issues it quickly became apparent they just didn't have it. Basically two guys with seemingly little to no pre-existing knowledge or enthusiasm in the topic who when they needed some inspiration just skimmed some wikipedia articles and haphazardly throw stuff together. I mean you can almost literally see this in the Battle of the Bastard's with the 'wall of corpses' bit. I forget which one but there was a record of this from some ancient Roman battle I think. Thing is though those battles could feature numbers in the 6 figures, BotB probably had less than 10,000. But they wanted a body press money shot reminiecent of the famous Battle of Cannae so they need a 'wall' to press Jon Snow against.

I may not remember everything correctly but to quickly summarize some issues with BotB:

1. In the tents before the battle Jon Snow makes some pretext of using 'strategy' to win, but he will end up running straight at em. Can understand the emotional aspect, but this is horrible generalship.
2. Suddenly the North has heavy phalanx infantry? Where were these guys before?
3. They have heavy phalanx infantry and they open by throwing away their horses with a frontal calvary charge?
4. Give the giant a freaking tree already
5. When Sansa and the Knights of Vale swoop in to save the day they just sort of... start at side and mow em down like they're mowing grass without any slowdown in momentum.

If I'm on Ramsay Bolton's side I can probably win this battle with losing like 10 guys. You have heavy phalanx infantry and calvary vs an unruly barbarian mob, the type of battles the Roman's excelled in. The standard classical era battle setup was infantry in the middle, cavalry (albeit very primitive) on the wings, and whichever sides cavalry wins the engagement gets to turn around and attack the infantry from the side or the rear. This is a medieval era battle but same principle applies. You have better armed & disciplined infantry and they have no cavalry. Lead with your foot soldiers to engage the mob as the anvil then have your cavalry swing around and be the hammer hitting them from the rear. They'll be routed in a few minutes.

 

[Make]

Saturday 17th was the 10 year anniversary of GoT's first episode. Hard to believe it's been that long already. I feel old.

It did end with a whimper but the ride was easily the most influental piece of pop entertainment in my adult life. It introduced me to the ASOIAF books and the fantasy genre in general. I'll always be thankful for that.

 

[Siamese Dream]

If you've got a spare 2 hours



Hard to disagree with the fundamentals of this list really, the only controversy probably being how low he ranked Hardhome

 

[Pierce Hawthorne]

Ya I still haven't been able to go back and do a rewatch yet.

I tried once last year, got into the 2nd season and couldn't do it. Knowing where it was all ultimately heading.


I was honestly pretty satisfied with the show right up until The Longest Night episode in season 8. Ya the writing quality had declined a little in season 7, and the pacing issues were there... But I still enjoyed that season a lot.


But the way The Night King was killed in one episode, one battle, and killed so easily by one person... That did not sit well with me at all and the rest of the season just completely fell off a cliff after that.


It sucks because I really think you can see where a potentially great ending was headed.

If they had done it the right way, season 7 deals entirely with Danerys first attacks on Cersei and her Army, and those events and fights get spread out over an entire 10 episode season 7.


Season 8 deals with Danerys and The Night King, the Night King getting his Ice Dragon, and then Danerys going to Kings Landing for a truce to fight The Night King. Again over a full 10 episode season that helps deal with the pacing issues and leaves more room for quality character development and writing

Then Season 9 is an all out war across 10 episodes between The Night King and the Living. You can spend ~3 episodes building up The Night Kings march further South towards Winterfell, and then a ~3-4 episode long war between the Living and the Dead. It doesn't have to be a fight solely at Winterfell. At one point in the battle the Living could lose Winterfell and have to retreat south, before ultimately winning the battle. Then the final episode or two of the 9th season focuses on the aftermath and loss of Battle.


Finally, season 10 deals with the fight for Kings Landing, Danerys going mad, etc. Etc.


It was set up perfect IMO to be a 100 episode, 10 season long work of art, hands down the greatest show of all time, talked about for years and years later....


Instead, it just completely fell apart in 6 rushed episodes.

 

[tarheelhockey]

But the way The Night King was killed in one episode, one battle, and killed so easily by one person... That did not sit well with me at all and the rest of the season just completely fell off a cliff after that.

I could have lived with that death scene, if it had been preceded by some sort of attempt at actually resolving the story arcs around the Night King. That episode took 8 years of complexity and reduced it to a simple "good guy kills bad guy, yay!" type of finish, while leaving an absolute shit-ton of questions unanswered.

 

[Pierce Hawthorne]

I could have lived with that death scene, if it had been preceded by some sort of attempt at actually resolving the story arcs around the Night King. That episode took 8 years of complexity and reduced it to a simple "good guy kills bad guy, yay!" type of finish, while leaving an absolute shit-ton of questions unanswered.

Yeah, completely agree. There was still so much unknown and mystery around The Night King. And they left so many unanswered questions.


Extremely frustrating to say the least. The end of that story arc and complete botch of it is 90% of where my deep disappointment with GoT comes from.


I really, really wish they had chosen they GoT Prequel that was focused around The Night King and The Children of the Forest. That story just has so much more to tell and unfortunately we probably never get the closure to it at this point.

 

[Mr Fahrenheit]

There was still so much unknown and mystery around The Night King.

There was?

 

[tarheelhockey]

There was?

Definitely. What were the spiral symbols about? What was NK actually trying to accomplish? They said he wanted to erase all memory of the world, but... why? What does that actually do for him? What's the purpose of going after Bran specifically? Aren't all the other sorcerers and for that matter, normal humans just as big of a threat to him as Bran? What was the point of spending so much time on the Prince That Was Promised story arc if the only candidates for that role had nothing to do with the ultimate defeat of the Winter?

Most of these questions now have to be resolved with "the Night King was a mindless death zombie who arbitrarily wanted to kill everyone starting with Bran, but there was no actual logic behind him, and all the legends attempting to explain him were just pointless rumors". That's just a wildly shitty way to end a series... even the Lost finale didn't just abandon everything without an attempt to wrap them into a coherent resolution.

 

[RandV]

Definitely. What were the spiral symbols about? What was NK actually trying to accomplish? They said he wanted to erase all memory of the world, but... why? What does that actually do for him? What's the purpose of going after Bran specifically? Aren't all the other sorcerers and for that matter, normal humans just as big of a threat to him as Bran? What was the point of spending so much time on the Prince That Was Promised story arc if the only candidates for that role had nothing to do with the ultimate defeat of the Winter?

Most of these questions now have to be resolved with "the Night King was a mindless death zombie who arbitrarily wanted to kill everyone starting with Bran, but there was no actual logic behind him, and all the legends attempting to explain him were just pointless rumors". That's just a wildly shitty way to end a series... even the Lost finale didn't just abandon everything without an attempt to wrap them into a coherent resolution.

While the plotline was thoroughly underdeveloped and rushed I thought the general origin was clear enough, at it's origin this was a Native American vs European settlers type thing. The Children of the Forest were the original inhabitants of Westeros, then humans started crossing over from the ocean. There was probably a period of co-existence, as the 'Old Gods' still worshipped in the North seem to be an adoption of the Children's faith, but then a new purely human religion arrived in the seven. So the root of the Night King was the children were on the losing end of a genocidal war and in their desperation & as a last resort created a weapon of mass destruction and unleashed it on the world.