CapitalsCupReality
It’s Go Time!!
- Feb 27, 2002
- 66,414
- 21,417
I read the books first….loved them of course, but no way would I suggest skipping the TV show.
OT: Capitals Cinema Club: TV and Movies
- Thread starter hockeykicker
- Start date
- Jun 25, 2018
- 1,078
- 2,058
Just skip the last two seasons. It was a good show when they had the books to work from, but whenever a storyline passed the books it face-planted.
CapitalsCupReality
It’s Go Time!!
- Feb 27, 2002
- 66,414
- 21,417
Qarth got a lot of screen time in the books but even reading it the first time yeah wanted the story line to hurry up and converge in Westeros. So many ridiculous tiny forshadowings that are even a turn of a phrase in a conversation in the books made re-reading them over the years still fun. He's slow but GRRM has some great prose.
Jags
Mildly Disturbed
For people that never read the books it's mostly fine. You definitely feel the acceleration at the end in a big way, but most of it is in-character and true to the nature of the story.
Kind of how you'd expect a nuanced book series to be completed by a Hollywood writers room with so little time to wrap up a show that was so self-destructive in its meticulous pacing. Those old-school 7- and 8-year TV contracts were expiring for the actors, they'd mostly all become big stars, and probably didn't want to keep working in the frozen tundra without huge raises and trailers that have hot tubs and butlers.
Prestige TV has taught all (smart) TV writers a lesson: Always know where you're going. Keeping a big hit going "as long as it can possibly go" -- instead of plotting out your endgame in advance and pacing the show accordingly -- always becomes prohibitively expensive and ends badly. A bad combo, that.
Given the situation they ended up in, they did maybe the best they could in the time they had left.
- Jun 25, 2018
- 1,078
- 2,058
My understanding was that HBO was perfectly willing to let them go as long as it they wanted wrapping it up properly, I think even another season, considering it was their cash cow and the biggest TV in the world for most of its run. It was the showrunners who said wanted to wrap it all up in 6 episodes. They'd been signed by Disney to do a Star Wars trilogy and it seems like they wanted to get GOT done quickly to go do that (before ultimately walking away from that deal for a new one with Netflix). I tried googling it to see if I'm remembering that correctly but all I get is articles about them leaving Star Wars.
S7 and 8 get so much hate, but I still blame GRRM for sitting on his fat gray ass and not finishing the books, vs the show runners (D and D) who did a terrific job converting his great material to the TV screen. That people expected the show runners to write equally to GRRM was absurd, so all the hatred directed at them for "rushing" was so misplaced, IMHO. Why would they want to stick around and prolong something they weren't great at - writing? They were world class fantastic at adapting good material, but without any more good material, what the heck did people expect of them.
I thought S7 and 8 were not the best, but still extremely enjoyable and (no spoilers), I liked how it all ended.
The basic complaint about S7 and S8 was "It sucked, and we wished there was more of it".... its like a Woody Allen joke.
I thought S7 and 8 were not the best, but still extremely enjoyable and (no spoilers), I liked how it all ended.
The basic complaint about S7 and S8 was "It sucked, and we wished there was more of it".... its like a Woody Allen joke.
ChaosLord
Registered User
- Jan 16, 2010
- 5,209
- 1,204
Honestly, what happened to the guy. Maybe seeing Emilia Clarke in the flesh sent him spiraling into a mid-life crisis. He wrote the first five books over a span of 15 years (1996-2011), and then he just...stopped. Nothing since then, except for lame excuses on his website.
By the time he gets done with Book 6 no one is going to care anymore.
S7 and S8 were horrible, you’re kidding yourself if you thought it was even plausible. The show abandoned so many plot lines, it was the most boring and uneventful ending ever for probably the most hyped show of all time. I’m actually still pissed about it, luckily HOTD has taken some sting away.
Jags
Mildly Disturbed
I think there's likely some truth in all of that. But the fact that they didn't know where they were going when they started led them to a pace that would have taken at least 3 full seasons to wrap up completely. And I don't think how it ended was entirely on the showrunners. 8 years is a long time for an actor to stay on a show, and they had long production runs, too, making it more difficult for them to squeeze in another decent project in between seasons.
HBO being so willing might not entirely track, either. If they were willing to pony up no matter what, they could have rejected the "We can wrap it all up in 13 episodes" plan, paid a king's ransom to keep the essential cast, replaced the showrunners, and made sure they had writers with the chops to pull off a respectful Martin impersonation.
Network, Showrunners, Cast. I think all 3 had issues that contributed to the final decisions.
In my opinion, he'd have been nuts to keep writing once the show launched. Enjoy the ride. If they screw it up, you get to see what the fans hated and be the savior in a re-write. If they nail it, then you adapt the best parts and add what's left of your original plan.
Given the pace of the book releases, there was ZERO chance he'd finish it while the show was airing. The best they could hope for was that he had a thorough plan and was willing to share, which clearly wasn't the case.
They should have hired a staff they believed in that could do both the adaptation and craft a fitting end, then plotted their ending early on from where the books left off, then paced the show accordingly. If Martin writes in the meantime, great. Alter course if you must. But you'll have your story regardless.
Instead they went with a meticulous pace (so great but entirely unsustainable) with no idea where they'd go when they ran out of runway.
Totally disagree. They were definitely the worst seasons, but they followed the natural path of most of their key stories and characters. Things were left undone, sure. But the world keeps spinning at the end, so loose ends don't always need tying up.
If you zoom out, the game in Game of Thrones was the point. The key players in the game were the puppeteers (Littlefinger, Varys, Olenna, Melisandre, etc.). They pulled the tiny strings that moved mountains and formed and directed armies. The key players in the narrative (Ned, Danaerys, Jon, Cersei) were all either noble idiots or total psychos, from beginning to end. They were the pawns.
When the string-pullers started to come off the board, the idiots and psychos were left to their own devices and quickly consumed themselves. And in the end, all that was left were the characters that learned how to play as their (mostly tragic and/or hard fought) stories progressed. The Stark kids all saw what did their father in, and each learned to play the game in their own way. Tyrion pivoted throughout, always eventually landing on his feet, and so on.
And at the very end you had a ruler who had no interest in power, a small council dominated by people that 100% understood the facade of power, and the noblest survivors all content to go their own ways and finally live their own lives, free of the game entirely.
It was a natural and fitting end with a truly terrible pace that made all those separate endings feel rushed, like so little of it paid off like it deserved.
When the string-pullers started to come off the board, the idiots and psychos were left to their own devices and quickly consumed themselves. And in the end, all that was left were the characters that learned how to play as their (mostly tragic and/or hard fought) stories progressed. The Stark kids all saw what did their father in, and each learned to play the game in their own way. Tyrion pivoted throughout, always eventually landing on his feet, and so on.
And at the very end you had a ruler who had no interest in power, a small council dominated by people that 100% understood the facade of power, and the noblest survivors all content to go their own ways and finally live their own lives, free of the game entirely.
It was a natural and fitting end with a truly terrible pace that made all those separate endings feel rushed, like so little of it paid off like it deserved.
TLDR: Like I said, they did the best they could with the space they had left, and that situation was certainly their own fault.
Part of what took me so long to get into it was how controversial the ending was. I was hesitant about investing a ton of time in something that ended up pissing a lot of people off at the end.
One thing I have learned: I cannot watch this show stoned. Too much going on. I’ve tried watching it stoned a few times and then I’ll go to watch the next episode the next day and have absolutely no idea what is happening or what happened in the previous episode so I end up rewatching what I already watched.
I have an A+ movie/TV lineup when stoned and I erred in trying to bring GoT into the fold. I deeply regret my actions and ask for forgiveness.
One thing I have learned: I cannot watch this show stoned. Too much going on. I’ve tried watching it stoned a few times and then I’ll go to watch the next episode the next day and have absolutely no idea what is happening or what happened in the previous episode so I end up rewatching what I already watched.
I have an A+ movie/TV lineup when stoned and I erred in trying to bring GoT into the fold. I deeply regret my actions and ask for forgiveness.
HTFN
Registered User
- Feb 8, 2009
- 12,556
- 11,476
@Jags
Nah, man
Nah, man
When you've got a war council forgetting about an entire navy characters aren't making informed decisions anymore. The broad strokes are mostly there but between pace and the actual staging? It's not good. Like, if you chart the Danaerys story it's pretty clearly going to end with her close to where she does in the show, but the pivot from rigid to burning everybody is really poorly done.
Jaime... everything about it was a betrayal of 8 seasons of character arc. Jon becomes an even blander nothing holding a sword and contributing little else, Littlefinger becomes a stupid goober, Tyrion becomes almost completely worthless unless you just loooove dick jokes....
And then to go from a show where the theme is "surely they won't kill that guy because of the plot armor" and then they behead him and kill his whole family to one where characters are being swarmed by insatiable undead only to cut away and return to them with plenty of space again without explaining why or how? Arya shrugging off abdominal damage (and probably pretty fatal wounds) like a Terminator, the limited-yet-infinite supply of Dothraki, the "let's fly to the wall from King's Landing" plan, Night King unflinchingly soloing dragons and losing to a knife trick... I don't know, man. Remember how that one episode ended with Arya riding a beautiful white horse and then the next one starts with her just walking around the city and we never see or hear about that horse again?
Those seasons are a fine enough show on their own, but in an entirely different world than the one the stories have been staged. It's easier to tolerate when you can binge it but it's not really good, it's just easier to go "oh that was... hmmm" and keep going instead of sitting with it for a week between episodes.
Jaime... everything about it was a betrayal of 8 seasons of character arc. Jon becomes an even blander nothing holding a sword and contributing little else, Littlefinger becomes a stupid goober, Tyrion becomes almost completely worthless unless you just loooove dick jokes....
And then to go from a show where the theme is "surely they won't kill that guy because of the plot armor" and then they behead him and kill his whole family to one where characters are being swarmed by insatiable undead only to cut away and return to them with plenty of space again without explaining why or how? Arya shrugging off abdominal damage (and probably pretty fatal wounds) like a Terminator, the limited-yet-infinite supply of Dothraki, the "let's fly to the wall from King's Landing" plan, Night King unflinchingly soloing dragons and losing to a knife trick... I don't know, man. Remember how that one episode ended with Arya riding a beautiful white horse and then the next one starts with her just walking around the city and we never see or hear about that horse again?
Those seasons are a fine enough show on their own, but in an entirely different world than the one the stories have been staged. It's easier to tolerate when you can binge it but it's not really good, it's just easier to go "oh that was... hmmm" and keep going instead of sitting with it for a week between episodes.
Last edited:
HTFN
Registered User
- Feb 8, 2009
- 12,556
- 11,476
This statement was nestled in my spoiler tag but while the quality will almost definitely decrease near the end, watching it in your own time on demand is going to soften the blow a little.
It won't erase the mistakes altogether but it's like when you watch action movies or movies with a 'twist' that are trying to pull it by lying to you instead of being intricately well written. You get more "huh? That line/scene... didn't fully make sense" moments but then they whisk you off to the next scene and you can go right to the next episode so you kind of just let it wash over you.
In the release, with all the hype leading up to the seasons and then a week between episodes to sit with and unpack those moments made a big snowball in those last seasons. In an alternate world where they were just dropped on HBO Max all at once they'd still be a bit of a wet fart but I don't think it would have been the same kind of outrage
- Jun 25, 2018
- 1,078
- 2,058
George deserves his share of the blame to be sure. I’ve long since given up hope of getting another book from him. Where D&D deserve blame is that if they knew they were shit writers or they’d just lost interest in the project and wanted to wrap it up, why not hand it over to someone who can write or is passionate about the show and let them finish it?
The basic complaint about the show is that George clearly gave D&D the bullet points for the major events he wanted to happen, and they came up with the shortest path possible to go from point to point to point in order to get out of there as fast as they could. The last two seasons were bad specifically because they were so condensed that the things that made the show special (intelligent, well-written characters interacting in a detailed, living world where actions have realistic consequences) got thrown out the window in favor of… “subverting expectations” *shudder*.
Jags
Mildly Disturbed
I agree with a whole bunch of that.
You said "broad strokes," I said "when you zoom out." So like we both said, the overall story came to its natural conclusion with a terrible, unnatural pace that condensed into 13 episodes what should have taken at least 20, maybe 30 episodes to properly pay off in accordance with the intricacy of the first 6 seasons.
We can go into all the details of what got lost and screwed up in that compression, but they did the best they could with the time they had left, and the time they had left was their own damn fault.
We can go into all the details of what got lost and screwed up in that compression, but they did the best they could with the time they had left, and the time they had left was their own damn fault.
100% agree. Whether people have seen it or not, anyone who watches it now will have that option, and it does/would make that pill go down a bit easier.
My point is that there was a way to tell this story perfectly in 73 episodes. But the careless way they did it was like a movie with a pretty brilliant first two acts that somehow left no time for the third. Like if Return of the King was a half hour.
Lost is a pretty good example of what I mean. You're seasons in before you realize that the writers have no idea where they're going. They're just tossing out all these fun, engrossing, bonkers ideas. Then they literally went out and recruited a bunch of new writers who had to make sense of that tangled mess and find a way to pay it off somehow.
You should know what the end is before you write the first word. Idealistic for sure, but true nonetheless.
- Jun 25, 2018
- 1,078
- 2,058
Hear hear. This is kinda the problem with discussing the last couple seasons though, there’s so much wrong and all the issues are part of a pattern of incompetence so you end up writing an essay every time it comes up! I’ve written basically this comment multiple times on various sites because I’m still so pissed about the ending that I can’t let it go. I’m the same way with the Mass Effect 3 ending.
HTFN
Registered User
- Feb 8, 2009
- 12,556
- 11,476
There may have been, I think the phrase that got me was that they told the story as well as they could and honored their character arcs. Even in the shortened seasons there are so many scenes that go nowhere and do nothing, way too much Tyrion/Varys "comedy" and just a lot of wasted time.
Everything else I think we see fully eye to eye
Jags
Mildly Disturbed
Too lazy to go back and read what I wrote, but I meant that the overall story and character arcs mostly came to their natural conclusions. Most of the characters ended up about where I figured they would, in other words. Even Jaime. They hit all the beats I figured they'd hit, just WAY faster than they should have. So much so that maybe they should have reconsidered.
Kalopsia is probably right. Maybe they had a roadmap, whether it was theirs or Martin's, and just jumped from point to point so quickly that it would have been better to rethink it all.
To put it another way, I think they had 13 episodes that they could have done way more with if they'd focused on story over spectacle. Some of those big setpieces were fun to watch, but I'd have traded a bunch of it for more of the conniving and avenging that drove the story and the characters deserved. And that would have been cheaper. So if the issue was more budget than time and they'd left some of the big CGI moments out, maybe those 13 episodes could have been 16-18...
HTFN
Registered User
- Feb 8, 2009
- 12,556
- 11,476
ooh, you lost me at Jaime.
Seven seasons of redemption doesn't reasonably end with completing that arc by doing the Brienne thing and volunteering to fight the horde, then going " nah I was kidding I hate common folk and wouldn't sacrifice shit for shit" and going back to kiss his sister and die for nothing. It was so.... not really the arc.
The prevailing thing is that they had the bullet points, but in those two seasons they both didn't have any of the filler and wanted to parlay the hype into other projects but probably couldn't tell the story without at least another season, or a packed 7+8 and not the wildly shortened seasons. Whether it really is that they didn't want to do it or not, who's to say, but the end result is basically whizzing through those bullet points even though it makes multiple characters take drastic turns that should have been developed first.
Even just a few more episodes to put Danaerys' back in the corner would help sell her eventual mayhem. The only analogy I can come up with is putting ice cold water in your coffee pot and shattering it. There's a way to do it right, you can taper down from hot to cold, but when you do it too fast you f*** the whole thing up
Hivemind
We're Touched
The only thing more exhausting than debating GoT Season 8 on the internet, is debating Disney Star Wars on the internet.
My $0.02 (without putting enough effort into arguing over this for the 1000th time) is that S7 & 8 get more hate than they deserve, especially season 7. 8 is definitely a step down, but a lot of the complaints regarding it are silly.
My $0.02 (without putting enough effort into arguing over this for the 1000th time) is that S7 & 8 get more hate than they deserve, especially season 7. 8 is definitely a step down, but a lot of the complaints regarding it are silly.
HTFN
Registered User
- Feb 8, 2009
- 12,556
- 11,476
Maybe it's because I'm one of the paragraph people but most of the flaws are pretty egregious.
What's silly about it is calling it the worst TV ever. It's a precipitous fall but even the worst seasons are still well produced, visually nice television.
In the confines it set for itself, however, those failures are pretty fairly documented.
Big picture I just take the stuff in the show that came after the book content with a grain of salt and really didn't get bent out of shape if was meh. D&D definitely should have just handed over the reigns like has happened with other long running shows.
The fact that GRRM couldn't even finish this next book with two years of covid shut down I pretty much just don't expect it to be released while he's alive. Brandon Sanderson is ready. GRRM's prose is pretty unique (it is great) and I can't really of any current fantasy author that might emulate it. Maybe Mark Lawrence.
John Price
Gang Gang
- Sep 19, 2008
- 385,300
- 30,661
I heard so many bad things about 7 and 8 but I'm told everything up to 5 is fine
One day I'll stop being lazy and actually complete 2. Still have miles to go until the red wedding.
And I liked HOTD too I binged all of that every Sunday. Just busy
One day I'll stop being lazy and actually complete 2. Still have miles to go until the red wedding.
And I liked HOTD too I binged all of that every Sunday. Just busy
HTFN
Registered User
- Feb 8, 2009
- 12,556
- 11,476
There's a .gif that suits this so well but it's technically in your future so....
shame.
