Game of Thrones [2]

Bluebottle wrote:Errr.. it looks like it's out of a 1920s movie, with the actress just transposed over a movie screen. The first gif is particularly clunky.

Have you ever seen a 1920's movie? Maybe you meant 1930's? Or even 1980's: I can see how it might remind you of HR Puffnstuff, but not too bad really.

I think the effects look better in compressed GIF format than they did on a large TV screen (or at least it's easier to ignore the flaws), but I don't think they were that bad to begin with.  And effects are ultimately not a make-or-break issue.

The only so called flaw with the Dany Drogon scenes wasn't the cgi, which was pretty impressive, but the lighting. she looked in a different lighting space whatevs. but it must be incredibly difficult to get perfect, so I take my hat off to them. Drogon is always very well done imo.

D&D guide to train wreck writing..

D&D’s guide to writing SHOCKING™ TV
Figure out what moments you want to be Shocking!™
Have character that takes part in this moment do or say something to suggest the opposite will happen
Randomly have character pull 180°
Rinse and repeat every other episode or so for AMAZING TV
Because seriously:

Stannis loves Shireen so much that he didn’t send her off to a (totally impractical) leper colony…oh wait there’s flurries let’s light her up
Dany loves due process…oh wait, here’s a public execution
Dany’s dragons aren’t trained…oh wait here she is barbecuing a slaver
Ellaria is really really sorry about Operation Kill (or kidnap?) Myrcella, cries for Doran, and makes nice to Jaime…oh wait Myrcella’s dead
Literally the entirety of the “Darth Sansa” costume and her assertion that she is “Sansa Stark of Winterfell” and can’t be scared…oh wait she’s raped, every time she tries to assert herself Ramsay puts her in her place, and she’s a total victim
Selyse’s over-the-top hatred of Shireen…oh wait she’s “finally” a mother again, breaks down, and kills herself
And now I’m being lazy because I’m sure there’s more, but thinking over this season should always be done in moderation.

For extra credit, flesh out a character you are planning on killing only one or two episodes before the death, just so we’re slightly sadder (Barristan).

http://gotgifsandmusings.tumblr.com/post/129356748322/dds-guide-to-writing-shocking-tv

I like all those things

I don't follow the Emmys all that closely but it looks like GOT just had their Return of the King moment tonight.  Including technical awards, they broke the record for most wins by a single show in a single year (like ROTK tied the record for most Oscars for a single film) and they became the first fantasy show to win Outstanding Drama Series (like ROTK was the first fantasy film to win Best Picture). EDIT: unless you count Lost as fantasy, but I think it's more commonly classified as sci-fi.

http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/game-of-thrones-emmy-wins-record-1201598356/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primetime_Emmy_Award_for_Outstanding_Drama_Series

For season 5?!

Oh, dear Emmy voter base. Do you know how much that says about you..

Oh boy, the Emmys are tonight. I guess we'll find out if "You want a good girl but you need a bad pussy" is Emmy-worthy writing and thus should be emulated by drama series in the years to come.

And.. it was..

Eldorion wrote:I don't follow the Emmys all that closely but it looks like GOT just had their Return of the King moment tonight.  Including technical awards, they broke the record for most wins by a single show in a single year (like ROTK tied the record for most Oscars for a single film) and they became the first fantasy show to win Outstanding Drama Series (like ROTK was the first fantasy film to win Best Picture).  EDIT: unless you count Lost as fantasy, but I think it's more commonly classified as sci-fi.

http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/game-of-thrones-emmy-wins-record-1201598356/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primetime_Emmy_Award_for_Outstanding_Drama_Series

 wowzer! that's great stuff. so glad Peter Dinklage got an award, he deserves it.

Nah.. He's won it before, and deservedly so. He would have been a more than fair winner last year, which was his best, even if the show itself nosedived in season 4. This year? Nah, to me he seemed disinterested, even bored in season 5. Nothing special at all. Which isn't strange considering the appalling material they gave him to work with.

I think appalling is a slight exaggeration. it was a bit lacklustre but certainly not terrible.

Perhaps walking slightly grumpily through the season wasn't, but the cock merchant thing definitely was. As was the refusing the sex slave offering you free sex because.. you're just so lovable.. storyline. His whole season was a mess as they needed to rush him to Meereen.. because..? They needed to set up the most underwhelming meeting in the series? I don't even know. There's probably more.. but I'm not sure I care to remember.

I remember looking forward with great anticipation to the eventual meeting of Danerys and Tyrion because I had seen it coming from the books (maybe, probably), but it was truly underwhelming in this season when they finally came together and waffled about their families with empty death-threats.

Creatively it made sense.. because they wanted it to happen.

Why did Game of Thrones finally get lavishly rewarded for a stumble-bum season that demanded a lead thumb on the fast forward? People watched the High Sparrow storyline and thought, “Now this, THIS is what GoT should have been doing all along”? I guess the Sand Snakes made voters say, “Bravo, Game of Thrones — this was thy finest hour! And that [Sansa] rape scene — pure magic! Television just plain didn’t get any better this year!”
— Rolling Stone

http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/news/emmys-2015-nothing-about-this-show-makes-any-damn-sense-20150921#ixzz3mOHoXhJy

Awesome

http://gotgifsandmusings.tumblr.com/post/129572148432/spin-to-avoid-criticism

Bluebottle wrote:

Why did Game of Thrones finally get lavishly rewarded for a stumble-bum season that demanded a lead thumb on the fast forward? People watched the High Sparrow storyline and thought, “Now this, THIS is what GoT should have been doing all along”? I guess the Sand Snakes made voters say, “Bravo, Game of Thrones — this was thy finest hour! And that [Sansa] rape scene — pure magic! Television just plain didn’t get any better this year!”
— Rolling Stone

http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/news/emmys-2015-nothing-about-this-show-makes-any-damn-sense-20150921#ixzz3mOHoXhJy

It's like ROTK's clean sweep at the Oscars. Makes absolutely no sense.

That's very true. Although Return of the King didn't get as ridiculous as this.

Consider, "You want a good girl, but you need the bad pussy." is now Emmy award winning writing.

I think the main reason GOT S5 won this year (other than perhaps the voting rules change, I don't know enough about the Emmys to make an informed comment on that) was a combination of weaker competition (no Breaking Bad, Mad Men seen as less relevant) and the common awards show phenomenon of delayed recognition.

As far as I'm concerned, the Emmys are just a step above the Grammys.

I wouldn't consider any awards show an unqualified indicator of artistic merit, but it is nice to see a genre show getting such recognition.  Even though I don't think this specific season was deserving.

well the people making the show deserve the awards. the costumes, music, cgi and all the production team, the people who make the sets and scout locations in EUROPE which gives hundreds of jobs to local people, not to mention tourism. and the brilliant cast. at the very least. whether you like the story arcs and dialogue or not. its a cultural phenomenon like LOTR. you cant negate its brilliance just because of one slightly dodgy season. 1-4 were fantastic, well made and above all this they have made tv medieval style fantasy RESPECTABLE. which is a great achievement in itself. its never been done before, its brought fantasy into the mainstream and probably made it easier for future productions. the public seems to have a good appetite for it and for that reason alone I salute them.

I agree that the technical awards are deserved and GOT has definitely raised the bar for large-scale TV productions.  We'e already started to see its influence on that front.

It's definitely had a major impact on the fantasy genre as well.  HP and LOTR legitimized epic fantasy film last decade but none of their imitators achieved significant mainstream success, with the partial exception of Narnia, which fell off after the first film because LWW is the only Narnia book most people care about.  I don't think it's a coincidence that the three most successful onscreen fantasies (by a huge margin) were adaptations of the three most popular fantasy book series (by a huge margin).  You had Lewis and Tolkien basically founding the epic fantasy tradition and the Rowling turning into a once-in-a-generation literary phenomenon.  Nothing else came close; even Wheel of Time, while selling millions of copies, is stuck in the fantasy niche.

ASOIAF was successful and of course highly acclaimed in fantasy fandom but it didn't have mainstream pull.  Then the show comes out and all of a sudden we have a new star in the SF/F pantheon; something that the average person on the street will recognize and know at least vaguely about.  Forget escaping from the fantasy ghetto; there are only a handful of TV shows at any given time with that kind of exposure.  That GOT is not only pulling in phenomenal ratings (and piracy numbers) but is also sweeping up awards like it's nothing puts it in that rare, LOTR-esque space of both audience- and critically-acclaimed stories.  It's undeniably an impressive achievement and is definitely going to influence the direction the epic fantasy genre goes in (both in print and onscreen) for years to come.

Obviously none of this means that anyone is wrong to dislike the show, taste being subjective.  (For my part, I loved seasons 1-3 and much of 4, thought 5 was mediocre to bad for the most part.)  But anyone who wants greater recognition for fantasy or genre fiction in general should take notice of GOT's accomplishments, which are all the more significant since they weren't just cashing in on an established literary phenomenon that everyone already knew and loved.