Eldron on 27/6/2011 at 12:15

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Clearly it's for the ladies!


also:

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxLOXUGmRKI)

Scots Taffer on 28/6/2011 at 02:50

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Let's begin with the good:


* Production values: generally great, they obviously had to cut one or two things to meet budgetary constraints (CG landscapes, massive amounts of extras, an entire battle or two) but the overall value prevailed. Given how popular the show has become it's unlikely that we'll have budgetary issues facing Clash of Kings.
* Dany's storyline: what often fell flat for me on page really took on a life of its own in the show, particularly the second half of her arc after Viserys is dispatched. I always found the Dany chapters somewhat boring so it was nice to see them pop a little onscreen.
* The Wall: it looks amazing and I think despite Jon's character growth being stunted (blame the source material there), the way all of that plays out is pretty much how I envisaged it.
* The acting was generally excellent, I have very little problem with the actors. In fact all of them with the exception of Viserys do pretty excellent work. I have more opinions on how they've chosen to interpret the characters in the writing as opposed to their acting.
* From episode 3-5 I think they developed Ned and Robert's relationship well to set things up for the quick slide into chaos on the later half of the season - I think they could have focussed this sooner though and achieved more from the characters.
* Characters:

* Robb: I feel much more for his arc in this incarnation than I did in the books this early and it *major spoiler* sort of broke my heart seeing he and Cat resolve to kill the Lannisters and really wanting them to succeed yet knowing where it all goes.
* Ned: Hamstrung early on by not having enough screentime to flesh him out beyond a foolishly noble man, he really earned our investment towards the end. Sadly, the show is more definitive in Ned's demise than I felt Martin ever was - intended or not - and I fear I may have to put my longtime hope of Ned surviving to rest. :'(
* Tyrion: dodgy accent aside, he and Bronn's adventures have been a bright spot of the show thus far. He pretty much nails it and I can't wait to see what he gets to play with in the next season when he goes to court.
* SYRIO FUCKING FOREL: There was one character who you just KNOW from the way they filmed it he's coming back.



The bads are also numerous:


* The opening slew of episodes move far too quickly and really make it obvious that this should have been a 12 episode season and not 10 episodes. There's simply too much to cover and as a result characters get short shrift, which lessens the impacts of certain events, or they just hamfistedly jam in motivation/exposition/foreshadowing where it's not appropriate because they just *have* to lay groundwork somewhere and their time is running short on where to do it.
* Characters:

* The biggest offence for me is Littlefinger - between the horrifically on-the-nose laying bare of his motivations and drives, he was far too moustache-twirling for my liking. You, as a reader, only came to understand just how much influence Littlefinger had later on than what they've set up here.
* Secondary to this is Varys, it's like they've done a switcheroo on Varys and Littlefinger - again, both of their motivations and modes of behaviour are reflective of where you feel they end up closer to the end of book 3/4, but less reflective of who you saw them as at the start. For example: I didn't think you could trust Varys at all in book 1, whereas the TV has him as an honourable character constrained by his environment, with Littlefinger pulling all the strings. I could be wrong but I felt this was not how they portrayed them in the first book.
* Jaime, the work they did early in the piece to soften the "Kingslayer" was one of the timing missteps I spoke of above and is another missed opportunity for later character development.
* Shae, bit of a head scratcher to be honest - they've completed changed her, at least at this very early stage. She had some level of control over Tyrion but it was through appealing to the massive gaping wound in his psyche from the Tysha incident, not through appealing to him on an intellectual capacity.

* HBO's mandatory Tits to Plot ratio had some poor choices in it - the biggest offender being the opening episode's treatment of Dany from being a series of fairly traumatic events relegated to close-up breast-squeezing and softly-shot doggy-style tittilation. The fingerbanging prosititutes was probably the most ridiculous use of gratuitous nudity I think HBO have ever done, however it's not as bad as what those scenes often lead to...
* Sexposition info-dumps: you can just see the HBO execs sitting around a table worrying "Hmmm, too much talking, not enough beheadings (subtitute beheadings for "whackings' for Sopranos) let's shove some tits in their face to keep them awake". This give birth to Ros, the actively listening hooker who is present for not one, not even two, but THREE sexposition exposes. Christ almighty, I don't know what's worse - the whole concept or the terrible dialogue that litters these scenes. So on-the-nose about character motivations and backstory that you just cringe.


Now, let's get onto the fun part and start speculating about season 2:

* Will it be called Clash of Kings?
* Who will play Quorin Halfhand, Stannis Baratheon and Melisandre? Juicy roles for sure.
* What elements of later books do you think they will drag into season 2 - mark these with spoilers for the non-book-readers amongst us. eg. I reckon Jaime's incarceration and loss of hand will play in season 2
* What scene are you looking forward to/dreading the most in the next season? BATTLE OF BLACKWATER FUCKKKK YEAHHHHHH and Snow killing Quorin :(

jimjack on 28/6/2011 at 17:34

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In time...in time.
http://cdn.wg.uproxx.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/joffrey-clap.gif

And then it just fades out for the season with Dany and her Dragons and Joffrey kicking off what promises to be a cruel reign. It's like HBO should not force people to wait almost an entire year, on a series that people can say "fuck it" and pick up the books and be through the entire series half way before the next season comes out.



Oh, the blue balls of it all.

demagogue on 13/5/2019 at 06:19

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I haven't seen the latest episode yet. Shall do so tonight. But I've been thinking about how to capture the direction it's taken, and I think I've tracked down the issue. It started loosing its power when the show detached from the books, and I don't think that's an accident. It's not that things were simplified. The show was already simplifying the books, and it was doing a fine job at boiling down complicated things into coherent scenes. And I trust that D&D are keeping the general gist where the books are going.

But where I think the book-show connection was most important was that the books were giving guidance to how the plot should be packaged in the mid-level ... not the top-level (overall plot) nor the ground-level of individual conversations. But the middle-level of connecting plot points and the logic of relationships and events, I think Martin did a masterful job and thought through all of that in writing the books, and the show just took a lot of that as it was. It was pre-thought-out for them, and they got the direct benefit of it. But once it detached, the show lost that, and they didn't have the time or talent to fill in all that content at that level of thoughtfulness, even if they knew the overarching plot arc and could still write interesting individual scenes. Losing that mid-level connecting plot tissue is what's plagued the show since the books ended. That's my hypothesis. I'd have to go back and watch it and pay attention to see if that's really the issue, but that's my intuition.

I feel like before we were watching the actual events as they were occurring, and I feel like now we're watching a dramatization of events by authors that weren't really there and trying to make the best of the scraps of the legends they had at hand.

That way of thinking is informing how I'm watching these episodes... like someone that's invested in the "actual events" watching the dramatization to get an idea of the actual events, and how the story actually pulls itself together towards the climax. So I'm still invested in it, but not like if it'd maintained that thoughtful plotting it had earlier on, where I think the real heart of the show is.

Sulphur on 13/5/2019 at 06:40

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@dema: while I've not read the books apart from half of the first one (GRRM's prose style is... tiring), I'd say your assessment jives with something I've been feeling for the past bunch of seasons, which was the nagging sensation that characters I used to enjoy seeing on the screen were gradually devolving into ciphers and plot points. The authorial confidence you could normally take for granted (and where that feeling of satisfaction is derived in that you know someone's got an intricate, well thought-out plan for the future) was slowly lost. If nothing else, it means I'll probably have to eventually wade through Martin's writing to get that feeling back.