Game of Thrones [2]

It's popular culture impact can't be denied. Neither that it's mostly very well made, however good it's currently conceived. The acting certainly was a bit on and off in season 5 (Sand Snakes, anyone?), but I put that to a large degree down to the direction, which has been questionable at times. As have the writing, when they haven't been leaning heavily on GRRM and the original work, it's been poor.. from the get go really. (Tulisa, anyone?) It'll be really interesting to see it's impact in he future. Will there be any more fantasy based tv-shows that capture the imagination like GoTs did? It depends on the writing, either of the person behind it or the work it is based on. Game of Thrones always had the potential to be the phenomenon it is today. I'll commend D&D on seeing that, at least. It's hard to see any other ready made stories like that out there. And GoTs might torpedo the whole genre before it get's going if the writing stays at season 5 levels. Either way it'll be interesting to follow. (Odd.. that being a quality the show no longer shares for me. )

Eldorion wrote:(For my part, I loved seasons 1-3 and much of 4, thought 5 was mediocre to bad for the most part.)

You're a bit kinder on both season 4 and 5 than I would be, but we're pretty much in agreement on that.

season 4 had some fantastic moments. The Beetle monologue being just one of them.

Season 4 had some really really stirring moments. I wouldn't count the beetle monologue among then, but, hey, that's taste. It also had some properly terrible one's though. And on the whole was easily the weakest season so far.

Season 5 was weaker, for my money.

My sister just got season 4 on disc, and so I shall be watching the commentaries soon, and probably just rewatching it as well. I am quite looking forward to the Brienne-Hound fight! Even if I hate its outcome.

Forest Shepherd wrote:Season 5 was weaker, for my money.

Yeah, I meant up to that point. Sorry.

Not even season 4 got close to being as bad as season 5.

Forest Shepherd wrote:Season 5 was weaker, for my money.

My sister just got season 4 on disc, and so I shall be watching the commentaries soon, and probably just rewatching it as well. I am quite looking forward to the Brienne-Hound fight! Even if I hate its outcome.

I hate its very existence as well as the show's version of Brienne. Ugh.

Season 4 had some forward progress at least. Season 5 was just a gaping maw of suck.

Bluebottle wrote:It's hard to see any other ready made stories like that out there. And GoTs might torpedo the whole genre before it get's going if the writing stays at season 5 levels. Either way it'll be interesting to follow. (Odd.. that being a quality the show no longer shares for me. )

We've already seen a couple GOT imitators (Vikings and the Netflix Marco Polo show arguably owe a lot to it), but in terms of the fantasy genre, I think MTV's Shannara will be the first significant one.  And honestly even despite last season I'm still expecting GOT S6 to be better than that.  I suppose it'll make an interesting comparison come next year.

Mrs Figg wrote:season 4 had some fantastic moments. The Beetle monologue being just one of them.

Yeah, I loved the beetle monologue too, which is weird considering it's pretty similar to "chaos is a ladder", which has never done anything for me.

Radaghast wrote:Season 4 had some forward progress at least. Season 5 was just a gaping maw of suck.

I wouldn't go quite that far but you do raise an important point. I had been hoping for some significantly sped up pacing (compared to AFFC/ADWD) in season five, and was expecting it as well given the amount of stuff we knew had been cut. But bizarrely we ended up with an adaptation that cut out huge chunks of the book only to replace it with water-treading filler. I guess it was D&D's version of the Meereenese Knot? Either way, the prospect of more happening is one of the few things I feel optimistic about moving forward, but there are enough other issues that I'm still not expecting much.

I watched all of first Three Series --- with a growing sense of - why am I am watching this stuff?

If not engaged with the characters is would seem pretty senseless I suppose. I thought they had excellent casting so got pulled in, but it's all a matter of taste.

yep the casting is stellar. I think what I like the most is the atmosphere it conjures up, the music and the locations all add up to a sense of a real mysterious dangerous world. I like that the Northerners are similar to Northern people in the real world, the accents and the gruff bluff humour. I love the way that contrasts to the exotic south with the pavilions and the gardens. it really does fascinate me.

I think the acting is generally really good and helps elevate the material in many instances, though there are some where not even the best actors in the cast can do much.

On the other hand, my dad (who has read all the books so far) barely made it through season one before dropping it due to the violence, so clearly it's not for everyone.

I never thought anyone could one up Shyamalan.

http://gotgifsandmusings.tumblr.com/post/129843059707/benioff-and-weiss-adapt-avatar-the-last-airbender

Major S6 spoilers:

Spoiler:

nice!

...............Q/                    <---#           @       @
              /()        <---#                     (>|   (>  |
               /\                                        /\       /\
\o/  <o/  <o>   \o>  \o/               |||||||||||||||||||||
{}    {}    {}     {}   {}       ||||||||||       |||||||||||
::::;;;;::;:;;;;:;;:;;;:;;;;:;;;||||||||||||||||||||||||


Can you guess what this is?

is it Stannis?

Pretty good archers. Battle of the Wall?

Eldorion wrote:

Radaghast wrote:Season 4 had some forward progress at least. Season 5 was just a gaping maw of suck.

I wouldn't go quite that far but you do raise an important point.  I had been hoping for some significantly sped up pacing (compared to AFFC/ADWD) in season five, and was expecting it as well given the amount of stuff we knew had been cut.  But bizarrely we ended up with an adaptation that cut out huge chunks of the book only to replace it with water-treading filler.  I guess it was D&D's version of the Meereenese Knot?  Either way, the prospect of more happening is one of the few things I feel optimistic about moving forward, but there are enough other issues that I'm still not expecting much.

Well, I'm not expecting anything at all, since I don't intend to watch (not having HBO makes that easier). To me, any potential the show had is just completely gone. The path the show is on does not look promising at all. It's not just the changes but, as you mentioned, it's the time wasted. Even in Season 4 (maybe even 3) there are signs of water being treaded, scenes that advance the plot not a whit. There was no reason, for example, for Bran to have a near run-in with Jon at Craster's Keep. Unless I'm missing something, this had no impact on the story at all (unless we count Locke but who cares about him?). But Season 5 is filled with moments like this.

I'm just not interested in a badly written alternate version of ASoI&F. It's not really any different from PJ's Hobbit fanfic trilogy at this point.

The weirdest part is that they're apparently going back and covering previously-skipped plots from AFFC/ADWD in S6, namely:

Spoiler:

nevermind how much fuckery that introduces into the timeline in the latter case. Even though they maxed out the book plots for a bunch of characters, they're now hitting rewind on some of the plots. Couple that with how they said last year that they didn't even plan to show Dorne until they saw how popular Oberyn was and it really drives home the effects poor planning have had on the show.

I'm not entirely sure why I'm still unwilling to write the show off entirely. S5 really wore down my enthusiasm but during the offseason so far it's recovered a bit. I still have very low expectations but I'll likely keep watching out of a mix of misplaced obligation, morbid curiosity, and to be able to participate in the conversations. Sorta like TH, actually.

Forest Shepherd wrote:...............Q/                    <---#           @       @
              /()        <---#                     (>|   (>  |
               /\                                        /\       /\
\o/  <o/  <o>   \o>  \o/               |||||||||||||||||||||
{}    {}    {}     {}   {}       ||||||||||       |||||||||||
::::;;;;::;:;;;;:;;:;;;:;;;;:;;;||||||||||||||||||||||||


Can you guess what this is?

Battle of the Blackwater, maybe? I was thinking that the semicolons might be water but I'm not sure.

I intentionally put up something not-GoT-related. It's Legolas jumping along the dwarves heads (notice their little barrels) as orcs loose arrows at him.

Ah ... very clever. I guess that's the steep bank; the gap in the middle row of "|"s looked like a window to me.