Author Topic: Game of Spoilers  (Read 5604 times)

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Offline Aesaar

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HBO didn't insist on it.  HBO offered them more episodes and the showrunners refused, insisting that 7 and 6 episodes would be enough.


TBH, I don't understand why people are surprised at how bad S8 is, when it's just more of what S7 was: fanservice, ****ty dialogue, and no pacing.

It's been bad fanfiction of itself since S6 ended.

It's just the same thing that happend with Wheel of Time, Robert Jordan had the last chapters of the last book already written by the time he published the third book but getting there naturally proved to be more complex than he thought and ended up writing 10+ books before dying and even Brandon Sanderson had to split the last book in three because there was just no chance everything necessary would have fit in it. Martin himself has been forced to split and add books before, the same thing is happening again and I wonder why people are surprised.
  The difference is that Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson actually managed to pull it off successfully.
« Last Edit: May 15, 2019, 03:29:33 pm by Aesaar »

 

Offline General Battuta

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I don't understand why HBO insisted on just 6 episodes for season 8. This show makes them all the money... They could have spread it out more if they wanted. That might have helped some... maybe not if the writing was going to be awful either way.

HBO wanted 10 full 10-episode seasons but a) the creators were clearly too burned out to sustain that and b) the younger cast members would've aged hilariously.

 

Offline Det. Bullock

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HBO didn't insist on it.  HBO offered them more episodes and the showrunners refused, insisting that 7 and 6 episodes would be enough.


TBH, I don't understand why people are surprised at how bad S8 is, when it's just more of what S7 was: fanservice, ****ty dialogue, and no pacing.

It's been bad fanfiction of itself since S6 ended.

It's just the same thing that happend with Wheel of Time, Robert Jordan had the last chapters of the last book already written by the time he published the third book but getting there naturally proved to be more complex than he thought and ended up writing 10+ books before dying and even Brandon Sanderson had to split the last book in three because there was just no chance everything necessary would have fit in it. Martin himself has been forced to split and add books before, the same thing is happening again and I wonder why people are surprised.
  The difference is that Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson actually managed to pull it off successfully.
Sanderson didn't insist in finishing the saga in a single book like he was originally set to, even Jordan joked about "special bindings" being necessary for the last book back when he was still alive and in the end Sanderson had to write three books and a short story to wrap it all up.

I don't understand why HBO insisted on just 6 episodes for season 8. This show makes them all the money... They could have spread it out more if they wanted. That might have helped some... maybe not if the writing was going to be awful either way.

HBO wanted 10 full 10-episode seasons but a) the creators were clearly too burned out to sustain that and b) the younger cast members would've aged hilariously.

How many child actors are still there that are still children or teenagers? IIRC a lot of  them were in their twenties already and it's not Harry Potter where they are supposed to be still in school.
« Last Edit: May 15, 2019, 06:10:37 pm by Det. Bullock »
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Offline mjn.mixael

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Ep5 haha ok.

Spoiler:
Well it's just spectacle now. While I did enjoy the spectacle of it.. the character turns were jarring. Could have worked if they took their time a little more.

I did enjoy Cersei having a mental break down at the end. She was a ***** for 8 seasons and deserved every second of what happened to her. The only thing more satisfying would have been if someone literally carved that damn smirk off her face first. (though it did melt pretty quickly when she saw what was happening. God I hated her. That actress deserves some real awards for her work.
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Offline MP-Ryan

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The difference is that Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson actually managed to pull it off successfully.

Fixed that for you.  I hate to say it, but Jordan's failure to finish WoT himself was probably the best thing that happened to that series.  Books 4 through 8 were an immense slog of expansive "WHY?"  Things started getting better by Crossroads of Twilight and A Knife of Dreams, but even by the end of Knife it was very much in doubt that Jordan would be able to satisfyingly conclude the series in any reasonable amount of time.  Sanderson did a masterful job, likely better than Jordan would have pulled off himself.  As an aside, it was the conclusion of WoT that got me hooked on Sanderson's work, and he's now one of my favourite authors.
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Offline Mongoose

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I haven't consumed either form of the series other than reading review pieces over what is coming across as an increasing trainwreck of a final season, but the best observation by far I've seen is that mainstream audiences are finally discovering what anime/manga fans have been dealing with for decades: what happens when the adaptation catches up with the original work  and has to come up with some sort of original ending, often to disastrous effect.  It's a fascinating thing to watch from the outside.  Bullock's point about Martin taking years to get to the ending he already has planned rings pretty true for for One Piece fans too, as the series is now at least four times longer than Eiichiro Oda probably originally expected, and we're "very close" to an endgame that is still years off.  Fandom suffering is truly universal.

Fixed that for you.  I hate to say it, but Jordan's failure to finish WoT himself was probably the best thing that happened to that series.  Books 4 through 8 were an immense slog of expansive "WHY?"  Things started getting better by Crossroads of Twilight and A Knife of Dreams, but even by the end of Knife it was very much in doubt that Jordan would be able to satisfyingly conclude the series in any reasonable amount of time.  Sanderson did a masterful job, likely better than Jordan would have pulled off himself.  As an aside, it was the conclusion of WoT that got me hooked on Sanderson's work, and he's now one of my favourite authors.

I've gotten a few books into WoT on multiple occasions, but the problem has been that I've taken so long between each reading that I always had to reread the previous books before moving on.  It was enjoyable, but even early on it seemed like it was doing a lot of meandering for meandering's sake, like when the original novel split the party up for about a third of the story I guess because That's What Tolkien Did Too.  (There was even a Paths of the Dead!) I really should read more of Sanderson; I greatly enjoyed his debut Elantris.

 
Listening to the audiobook for book 1 now, and the amount of dialogue and scene placement that is word-for-word the first season of the HBO series is extremely revealing. It demonstrates why the show has been so engrossing and highly regarded, and it shows why, not long after the show outpaced the books, the quality declined. The first season is barely an adaptation, it's more like transcription. It's clear that the show runners were entirely dependent on the books, not just for character and plot, but for every bit of metaphor, dialogue, pacing, and dramatic thrust. Like leaving training wheels on too long, by the time the show needed to be written around plot outlines instead of scene-for-scene, the writers weren't up to it.

I don't know for how many books this remains true. I know there is show material that is different, or more visual, than the books, and that editing decisions were made re: characters and plot, but it's clear that most of the magic of the show is from Martin. The show's final seasons deserved better than to be slapped together with explosions and callbacks.

It's not a disaster; I don't think it diminishes the impressive accomplishment of the show up through season 4 (or maybe 5?), nor should we discount the amazing casting, set design, costume, etc - all the elements of a quality *production* are there... It's just a shame to get a cliffs notes version for the end of these story threads. Absent Martin's writing, the show just has no verve.
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All I have to say:


  
Just finished episode 6.

Spoiler:
What a disappointment. Like, the acting, the costume design, the CGI (with a few exceptions), and the set design were all excellent. To see all of this work just not really matter because the writing is so bad is just  :banghead:

So there it is. Jon kills Dany. Bran's the king. End of story. Except not because I'm sure there's a slew of sequels lined up, one for each plot line left dangling in the wind following that conclusion.

Also, what was that whole deal with Jon being a prisoner of the unsullied? They just agreed to let him serve his punishment on the night's watch, then the unsullied all just leave king's landing? What's to stop Jon from just going back to Winterfell? Did I miss something here? And what does the night's watch even do now?


 

Offline mjn.mixael

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Just finished episode 6.

Spoiler:
Yeah.. the path of the last few episodes to get to the end were meh. I'm OK with the details of what happened, though. What plot lines are left dangling? Maybe I never got deep enough into the lore, but there isn't anything else related to A Song of Ice and Fire that I'm left wondering about. I've no idea what the Night's Watch does now.. but whatever. Jon gets to go be with the freefolk, arguably is favorite thing. Sansa gets to be stoic queen. Arya gets to go be a badass. (I'd watch that show, actually; following Arya's adventures west.)

I assume if Jon were released from his "punishment", word would get to the unsullied and it'd start a war... or at least that I what seemed to be implied.

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Offline Rhymes

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I thought the finale was reasonably solid on its own, but so much of the setup was so badly mishandled earlier in the season that it really didn't resonate much with me at all. Decent way to end the show, and the performances were as good as they've ever been, so if I had to use a metaphor, I'd say the show, with both engines on fire, managed a belly-landing that kept most of the passengers alive, but still put a whole lot of them in the hospital for a while.

Various assorted thoughts:
Spoiler:
Tyrion got to actually be intelligent and thoughtful for the first time in forever, which was very gratifying to see.

Sure, Jon could potentially have come back to Winterfell after the Unsullied left, maybe, but there's some subtext that the real reason is that he just doesn't want to: Jon found more happiness and fulfillment in the NW and the True North than he ever did south of the Wall.

Arya's plot and ending were weak, and her wanting to go west of Westeros was not set up at all, basically.

Drogon melting the iron throne, carrying Dany off, and then just disappearing was pretty nonsensical, and created more questions than it answered.

I saw the leaks that said Bran was going to be king, and I thought it was a stupid idea. I still don't think it's a good idea, but there was enough in the performances (and in the dialogue, for once!) that I could accept it.

EDIT: The North remaining independent is something that could have worked in the context of the books, but Sansa being the only one really championing it in the show made that plot point kind of weak as well, although I'm open to arguments otherwise.
« Last Edit: May 19, 2019, 11:58:20 pm by Rhymes »
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Offline Colonol Dekker

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I just finished episode 1.









Of season 8.   :nervous:


Edit-

Watching episode 2, and-
Spoiler:
Did living with Sam Tully make his girlfriend porky too?
« Last Edit: May 20, 2019, 01:13:23 pm by Colonol Dekker »
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Offline Galemp

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Samwell Tarly, not Tully. Tarly is a minor house sworn to Highgarden in the Reach. Tully is a major house that rules the Riverlands from Riverrun.

This is the kind of detail that used to matter, but it doesn't any more. For example, they talk about Sam's OLDER brother, but the entire reason Sam took the black in the first place was because HE was the older brother and Lord Tarly didn't want Sam as head of the house. I won't bother griping about my other problems with Episodes 3-6, there's too many to count. I'll just say that in earlier seasons, you were rewarded for paying attention; and in this season, you were punished for paying attention.

I agree that where the show ended up is acceptable, but how it got there was unnecessarily rushed.  HBO was willing to throw loads of time and money at the show to keep it running but the writers decided they had had enough and wrapped up what should have been another 40 episodes in only 15. When they didn't feel up to the task, they ought to have passed it on to another crew who was. I'll quote Shigeru Miyamoto: "A delayed game is eventually good, but a rushed game is forever bad."
« Last Edit: May 21, 2019, 10:12:08 am by Galemp »
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Offline karajorma

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The problem with saying it was rushed are twofold.

1) People were already complaining that episodes 1 & 2 were dull because they had no action. If you add more episodes which are just talking, you're going to get many more complaints that the show has gone off the boil.
2) If you add action, you're either going to have to kill characters you wanted to survive the last episode or you're just going to have action with no consequences.

I won't disagree that things did feel rushed, but what the hell were you going to put into those extra 25 episodes?
« Last Edit: May 21, 2019, 09:10:13 pm by karajorma »
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Offline mjn.mixael

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Episodes 1 and 2 were dull, not because they had no action (most of thrones has no action), but because nothing happened. They were used as a "where are they now" kind of catch up instead of pushing the plot forward.
« Last Edit: May 21, 2019, 09:49:25 pm by mjn.mixael »
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Offline karajorma

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I'm not going to say you're wrong, but there are a lot of people who get upset at the show if there aren't titties and death in it. But for the rest of us, it's the two problems taken together that is the issue. What plot can be pushed forwards for 25 episodes and still get us to the same place?
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Offline Colonol Dekker

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I've only got episode 6 to go (will watch it after work) and u think it's gone all bleeeeeeeeeh.   It peaked just before Arya did her
Spoiler:
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Offline Det. Bullock

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I'm not going to say you're wrong, but there are a lot of people who get upset at the show if there aren't titties and death in it. But for the rest of us, it's the two problems taken together that is the issue. What plot can be pushed forwards for 25 episodes and still get us to the same place?
The first season was mostly people talking since the book was like that too, but I guess when you don't have a book from which to copy/adapt most dialogues from it becomes much more difficult to make compelling dialogues for a lot of writers.

Yes, i've just found out that one of the D&D duo has also Troy and X-men Origins: Wolverine among his writing credits.
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Offline karajorma

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It's not that I'm saying you can't have more episodes that are mostly talking. But what the **** are they going to talk about! People are acting like there was another season that could have been squeezed out of that plot, there really wasn't. The dialogue in S1 pushed the plot forward. But what was it going to do here beyond pad out the length of each episode? Mjn literally pointed out that dialogue that didn't drive the plot forward was the problem with eps 1 & 2. And I don't disagree with him even though I actually liked those episodes.
« Last Edit: May 22, 2019, 11:08:21 am by karajorma »
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Offline Det. Bullock

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It's not that I'm saying you can't have more episodes that are mostly talking. But what the **** are they going to talk about! People are acting like there was another season that could have been squeezed out of that plot, there really wasn't.
The plot we got on screen perhaps, I wouldn't be suprised if they just had a vague checklist of fixed plot points (read: stuff that had to happen) and instead of connecting them with more plot they just put them one after the other to get it done as quickly as possible.
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