GDT: GOT Episode 3 The Battle of Winterfell

Status
Not open for further replies.

HanSolo

DJ Crazy Times
Apr 7, 2008
96,449
30,713
Las Vegas
I mean... we only found that out this episode. IIRC their plan going in as explained by the writers post-episode was for the dragons to actually be able to "do dick" to the NK. According to them the only reason the dragons were on the field was because Dany got emotional watching the Dothraki die at the start.

That being said, perhaps the original plan would have involved having dragons near Bran, had Dany not ran off.
Well, again, fire plus trees with a guy in a wheelchair around is a pretty bad idea.
 

HanSolo

DJ Crazy Times
Apr 7, 2008
96,449
30,713
Las Vegas
Okay, I found that unclear. But you're saying that the plan WAS for Theon's small group to take out the Night King once lured out, then, right?
No. They said it in episode 2 that Jon would stay nearby but not too close because the Night King would sense it was a trap. That plan went ass backwards when he ran into a zombie dragon that wouldn't let him get by.
 

Finlandia WOAT

js7.4x8fnmcf5070124
May 23, 2010
24,135
23,681
Was the plan really to send Faramir to Osgliath with only like 50 men? Bad tactics, bad Denethor, bad movie.

That it was a dumb idea was the point? The dude was crazy over the death of his first born and sent his other son to certain death in madness.
 

Vex

Registered User
Apr 23, 2019
604
559
Las Vegas, NV
No. They said it in episode 2 that Jon would stay nearby but not too close because the Night King would sense it was a trap. That plan went ass backwards when he ran into a zombie dragon that wouldn't let him get by.

Also I think crashing and losing his dragon for the remainder of the battle wasn't planned.
 

syz

[1, 5, 6, 14]
Jul 13, 2007
28,864
12,263
Well, again, fire plus trees with a guy in a wheelchair around is a pretty bad idea.

Sure, but that bad idea was apparently the actual idea according to the writers. So the only reason that bad idea was a non-factor was because of the other bad idea of sending in the Dothraki to die, which (again, according to the writers) made Dany hop on a dragon and go burn some zombies, which changed the plan (though Jon still tried to dragon his way over to Bran.)

Fortunately/conveniently all of those dominoes apparently ended up falling according to prophecy?
 

HanSolo

DJ Crazy Times
Apr 7, 2008
96,449
30,713
Las Vegas
“It’s an achievement for filmmaking” is overreaching. This series has the budget of a major motion picture. The visuals and overall production should no longer come as any surprise. This looked no more or less impressive than Return of the King looked 16 years ago.

The implications for the rest of the story really can’t be overstated here. Sauron is dead. Now we have to sit through 3 episodes of the Scouring of the Shire.

I may feel differently about this episode if Cersei had already been dealt with. But again, it completely undermines the entire narrative thrust of the story. What kind of conclusion with the Iron Throne can possibly top literally saving humanity? It’s a huge misstep in rising action, climax, and falling action.

Too many characters made strange decisions or made no decisions at all to give this episode a pass on “visual spectacle” alone. It was far too predictable, far too trope ridden, far too reliant on characters not communicating effectively or outright making poor decisions for the sake of tension. How many of us predicted the Stark Crypt Zombies? I even went as far to predict that WOULDN’T happen because it was so hilariously obvious. When left to their own, the Ds have always struggled with plot contrivances. This episode is no different.

Just a major disappointment for me. The first half was great, though. Miguel remains a fantastic director.
I'm getting a bit exhausted of circular argumentation. I'll concede to you that the crypt zombies were predictable but I'd blame episode 2 writing for overselling the "safety" of the crypts to near meme levels. But as to my comment on the "achievement" I did say television filmmaking. Name me one other episode in TV history with this level of production, action, and spectacle. That's all I was complimenting it on. A stance I figured we could all get behind at the very least.
 

HanSolo

DJ Crazy Times
Apr 7, 2008
96,449
30,713
Las Vegas
I want to launch Cinemasins into the sun, well more the people who take it seriously. I think the guy who makes it does it as a joke mostly.
He's even admitted that most of the time he's nitpicking for the sake of filling up the video, that he only has a true problem with the ones that he takes 5 seconds or more to explain his problem with them.
 

SettlementRichie10

Registered User
May 6, 2012
9,917
7,528
Well like I said, the march of the Dothraki was a tactical mistake but beyond that, they were in full panic/retreat mode. And keep in mind that most of the defense/planning happened in the two or so days before the Night King's army arrived. Much of this was last minute and thrown together.

As for baiting the Night King that was very obvious with the "kill the head vampire, all the vampires die/become human again" effect. I didn't have a problem with that. It's as viable a strategy as trying to bottleneck a relentless horde.

It’s also an overused trope that goes back literally hundreds of years to Stoker. But even then, I wouldn’t mind it if they had some kind of twist on the trope. “Let’s hope he takes the bait” is devoid of tension when we only vaguely know why Bran is bait to begin with, and only learned so one episode ago.

Again, this comes down to fleshed out, interesting character motivation. We will never know anything interesting about the NK nor his motivations at this point, because it turns out he really was just a Generic Dark Lord. And Generic Dark Lords want to wipe out humanity just because. They’ll even risk exposure to destroy a human library because they don’t want anyone to remember anything humanity did, or something. And I guess they can’t accomplish that by just continuing to march south and destroy everything in their path. But nope. Gotta go out of your way to go after Bran because Generic Dark Lords are predictably filled with hubris.

It’s fine that you liked it. I thought it was juvenile high fantasy nonsense at its most derivative and uninteresting. Let’s just leave it at that.
 

HanSolo

DJ Crazy Times
Apr 7, 2008
96,449
30,713
Las Vegas
It’s also an overused trope that goes back literally hundreds of years to Stoker. But even then, I wouldn’t mind it if they had some kind of twist on the trope. “Let’s hope he takes the bait” is devoid of tension when we only vaguely know why Bran is bait to begin with, and only learned so one episode ago.

Again, this comes down to fleshed out, interesting character motivation. We will never know anything interesting about the NK nor his motivations at this point, because it turns out he really was just a Generic Dark Lord. And Generic Dark Lords want to wipe out humanity just because. They’ll even risk exposure to destroy a human library because they don’t want anyone to remember anything humanity did, or something. And I guess they can’t accomplish that by just continuing to march south and destroy everything in their path. But nope. Gotta go out of your way to go after Bran because Generic Dark Lords are predictably filled with hubris.

It’s fine that you liked it. I thought it was juvenile high fantasy nonsense at its most derivative and uninteresting. Let’s just leave it at that.
Fair enough. To each his own in the end.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SettlementRichie10

Shareefruck

Registered User
Apr 2, 2005
28,875
3,570
Vancouver, BC
No, the plan was for Jon to watch and wait for the Night King to arrive at the Godswood so they could blitz him. That was the original plan. Jon didn't want to jump into battle "the Night King is coming" and he left Dany's side to go after Bran but just failed to get there cause there was a dragon blocking his path. It wasn't a contingency he was expecting.
That would make more sense, but man, what a colossal failure of execution on their part, if that were the case. Your entire plan hinges on Jon (and I guess Dany as well?) staying back, you knew the Wights going up against your army was going to be rough, but that alone enough of a reason to pull you away from your one job that the entire plan rests on?

It's also kind of strange for the plan to revolve around the two dragons being the ones responsible for stopping the Night King, considering that they know that fire doesn't work on them (but is the most effective against the wights), that Dragon Glass/Valerian steel instantly works on them, and that the Night King was the only one who was a threat to the dragons. You would think that they at least should have had an understanding that the two dragons would split duties.
 

bambamcam4ever

107 and counting
Feb 16, 2012
14,303
6,344
“It’s an achievement for filmmaking” is overreaching. This series has the budget of a major motion picture. The visuals and overall production should no longer come as any surprise. This looked no more or less impressive than Return of the King looked 16 years ago.

The implications for the rest of the story really can’t be overstated here. Sauron is dead. Now we have to sit through 3 episodes of the Scouring of the Shire.

I may feel differently about this episode if Cersei had already been dealt with. But again, it completely undermines the entire narrative thrust of the story. What kind of conclusion with the Iron Throne can possibly top literally saving humanity? It’s a huge misstep in rising action, climax, and falling action.

Too many characters made strange decisions or made no decisions at all to give this episode a pass on “visual spectacle” alone. It was far too predictable, far too trope ridden, far too reliant on characters not communicating effectively or outright making poor decisions for the sake of tension. How many of us predicted the Stark Crypt Zombies? I even went as far to predict that WOULDN’T happen because it was so hilariously obvious. When left to their own, the Ds have always struggled with plot contrivances. This episode is no different.

Just a major disappointment for me. The first half was great, though. Miguel remains a fantastic director.
It looked much, much less impressive than ROTK.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SettlementRichie10

Finlandia WOAT

js7.4x8fnmcf5070124
May 23, 2010
24,135
23,681
What's wrong with: they decided trying to outrun the White Walkers was pointless, so we'll make our final stand at Winterfel, and the writers didn't care about a strict adherence to real world tactics because no one cares about that, they care about getting character moments and boy howdee did they get some exciting character moments out of that.

I mean every scene from episode 2 comes off like it's a bunch of people who know they're f***ed and they're trying to cope with it, not that there's a master plan. Maybe Jon mentioned it at one point. But I don't remember it. :dunno:

It was a joke.

Yeah, but at least @Emperoreddy 's joke was referencing a well known deficiency of the story.
 

Emperoreddy

Show Me What You Got!
Apr 13, 2010
129,839
75,230
New Jersey, Exit 16E
They pretty much set up that one stabby stab with the right material would get it done when Sam killed a White Walker.

It was never established the NK was more durable then the rest.
 

Vex

Registered User
Apr 23, 2019
604
559
Las Vegas, NV
That would make more sense, but man, what a colossal failure of execution on their part, if that were the case. Your entire plan hinges on Jon (and I guess Dany as well?) staying back, you knew the Wights going up against your army was going to be rough, but that alone enough of a reason to pull you away from your one job that the entire plan rests on?

It's also kind of strange for the plan to revolve around the two dragons being the ones responsible for stopping the Night King, considering that they know that fire doesn't work on them, that Dragon Glass/Valerian steel instantly works on them, and that the Night King was the only one who was a threat to the dragons. You would think that they at least should have had an understanding that the two dragons would split duties.

Since I'm done arguing about this, I will conclude it with characters make mistakes.
 

Emperoreddy

Show Me What You Got!
Apr 13, 2010
129,839
75,230
New Jersey, Exit 16E
It was a long shot gambit to bait the NK and stab him and hope that drops the army.

They knew they were all going to die if that didn’t work. They made mistakes in the heat of battle, but the gambit paid off in the end.

It’s an old trope, but it’s effective. Not everything has to be 4D chess (though maybe it was since Bran was the one who gave the dagger to Arya)
 

Osprey

Registered User
Feb 18, 2005
27,093
9,355
That was one intense hour and a half of television. I was glued to my spot and never paused it for any reason. I loved the visuals and didn't mind the darkness. If the scenes had been well lit, it would've looked fake, IMO.

I was not a fan of the writing. The Dothraki charge was strategically dumb. Edd dying because he was distracted by helping a needy Sam was way too familiar from so many other shows and movies. Dragons are never used to incinerate the enemy until the battle has already started and the good guys are in a pickle. The Hound losing hope and needing to see a little girl fighting was a bit eye rolling. Some of the characters (especially Jaime, Brienne and Tormund) just fought all episode and were given hardly any moments for characterization. Theon's death would've had more purpose if he'd died at Bran's side, protecting him. Arya killing the Night King out of nowhere was silly and anticlimactic. In fact, the "plan" to make Bran bait to lure the Night King wasn't actually for the main characters, who all seemed to forget about it once the battle started, but simply for the writers to justify Arya knowing where to find him.

Basically, it was an expertly staged and directed piece of questionable writing, IMO. It was very satisfying on one level and a little disappointing on another. That said, though it was anticlimactic how the whole NK/WW saga ended, I'm relieved that it is over, since it was never a strength of the show, anyways. I'm glad that it's done, we've gotten a major battle out of the way and the show can get back to what it's always been best at, which is the politics and scheming.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Ad

Upcoming events

Ad

Ad

-->