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Game of Thrones (HBO) TV Show • Page 635

Discussion in 'Entertainment Forum' started by airik625, Mar 9, 2016.

  1. Brother Beck

    Trusted Supporter

    The first several seasons had a lot of of problematic issues that have been discussed to death, but they also had a lot of strengths that clearly resonated with all sorts of fans. The mainstream / crossover appeal of a fantasy show like that felt absolutely unprecedented to me.

    The last season particularly just felt like the show-runners had a handful of major plot points that they felt they had to hit and they wanted to just do so as quickly as possible. So you lose a lot of what was so good about the show to begin with, while at the same time, all of the problematic issues that existed all along are still there and seem even worse because they've kinda been pushed to the fore in the mad rush to hit plot points.

    The closest feeling I can think of is the 3rd Peter Jackson Hobbit movie where he all of a sudden decides he wants to just end the story as quickly as humanly possible after inexplicably taking 37 hours to get through like 50 pages of story from the book.

    I have no idea if this is the case or not, but it just felt like they wanted to be done with the show as quickly as possible. It doesn't really make sense, because I'm sure HBO would have loved to keep milking that cash cow for a few more seasons. It makes me wish they had handed over showrunning responsibilities to other writer(s) who actually wanted to try to wrap the story up in a satisfactory way.
     
    Penlab likes this.
  2. .K.

    Trusted Prestigious

    It was hard to wrap up the White Wakers just like it’s hard to wrap up Zombies. There’s just not a lot of depth there unless they push into their origin or how to defeat them and they touched in both.

    I agree. Wrapping up all those storylines must have been a challenge.
     
  3. Penlab

    Prestigious Supporter

    Imagine creating a popular, coherent, well-regarded show and burning yourself out making it until the last season, only to yell "Scorched earth, fucker!" in the home stretch. Just ride off into the sunset, middle fingers up.
     
    CarpetElf likes this.
  4. OotyPa

    fall away Supporter

    They barely touched on the origin. I feel like there really could’ve been something nuanced about the nature of time and death renewing life or something and they just kinda let them be zombies. Would’ve also been cool to have an actual thematic purpose to the faceless men. That just sorta fizzled out after acting as a plot distraction for two whole seasons
     
  5. Brother Beck

    Trusted Supporter

    My personal opinion is that the show-runners spun their wheels a little bit creatively for a while when they ran out of books to adapt, kinda hoping that GRRM would get the book out there so they could keep going forward, and he obviously never did. But when you slow things down and really spend a lot of time setting up storylines and weaving all sorts of plot webs, arguably for seasons at a time, it just makes it all the more jarring and frustrating when you get to the end and decide to just cut out and wrap things up quick and dirty.

    It's not that the quick pacing and breakneck storytelling of the final season is inherently bad, but it is very unsatisfying coming after the type of setup that it did.
     
    DyingGaslight likes this.
  6. theagentcoma

    yeah good okay Prestigious

    I feel it was mentioned that the writers had signed on to do another big project and basically were rushing to get through the show. But then the project they were moving towards got scrapped? Am I imagining this or what
     
    CarpetElf and Brother Beck like this.
  7. Brother Beck

    Trusted Supporter

    I'm not sure. I do think they had an alternative historical fiction show they were setting up, and I think there were rumours swirling around of a Star Wars movie or trilogy of movies from them. Also, I think Netflix was dangling like a billion dollars in front of them to go make a bunch of stuff for them. Which is all well and good, but I think if that's the case, you should pass your current project to someone who wants to do it properly, in my humble opinion.
     
  8. .K.

    Trusted Prestigious

    I think those are two storylines they kind of fell short on. There could have been more to those stories, but when you take into account that main characters stories on moved once every two weeks because there were so many stories they kind of just let those two slid. Maybe given more time or maybe they hoped whatever spin-offs they had played would cover it. But yeah, those two stories let me wondering bit.

    I didn’t mind a lot of the main character arcs though because you still needed some shock value, things to not work out, and show the cost of power seeking.

    I will say, the fact that the principle cast stuck with the show even as they became famous is something that deserves a nod of appreciation.
     
    MrAirplane likes this.
  9. David87

    Prestigious Prestigious

    Again, didn't mind the main character arcs....Bran becoming king makes sense if you're reading between the lines of George's books. Dany becoming the Mad Queen--referenced in the show AND the books a lot. Sansa Queen in the North, great! Arya badass assassin and becoming Elissa Farman, great. Sam as Grand Maester, Tyrion as Hand, Brienne on the Kingsguard, etc etc etc. Jon's ending is a bit disappointing I suppose.

    What annoyed me is how fast we got there the last two seasons. The Dany switch seemed to happen almost instantaneously. I think the proper way to tell the story would ahve been 9 full seasons, not 6 full and then two shortened ones. Maybe if you tell the Dorne storyline correctly, you can get 10 full seasons out of it.
     
  10. dorfmac

    Trusted

    wasnt it some fucked up slavery show that got cancelled because it was so obviously problematic?

    Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederate_(TV_series)?wprov=sfti1
     
  11. theagentcoma

    yeah good okay Prestigious

  12. Lepi182

    Trusted Supporter

    I actually don't remember there being a ton of backlash when it was announced that this was happening. People were more like "uh...okay? The Game of Thrones guys are doing it, so I guess we'll give it a shot." Then as the later seasons of Thrones started releasing people were like "This is a pretty fucked up idea for a show and it's going to be handled extremely poorly because it's the Thrones guys."

    I believe the project they were rushing for was their Star Wars movie that got cancelled almost immediately after the final season aired.
     
    OotyPa likes this.
  13. That's interesting because I remember it very differently. It pretty much got strong backlash from the initial announcement, even on here.
     
    dorfmac and Matt Metzler like this.
  14. Matt Who

    Trusted Prestigious

    Yeah I don’t remember anyone saying “I guess we’ll give it a shot” lol
     
    coleslawed and dorfmac like this.
  15. Driving2theBusStation

    Regular

  16. David87

    Prestigious Prestigious

    George always knew. Sigh. What could have been.

    Imagine getting a fully fleshed out Dorne story with Arianne and the Young Griff story and a potentially more satisfying Stannis story and even maybe Lady Stoneheart. ugh.
     
    DyingGaslight and CarpetElf like this.
  17. theagentcoma

    yeah good okay Prestigious

    I have no sympathy for him
     
  18. David87

    Prestigious Prestigious

    Like, this is incredibly frustrating. Bryan Cogman and Miguel Sapochnik were right there. You can't tell me Cogman didn't ahve the same nerdy love for the world that Dave and Dan did and couldn't have taken the reigns after season 4 as showrunner.
     
    coleslawed likes this.
  19. OotyPa

    fall away Supporter

    Lmao dude could've maybe written the source material and that would've been more convincing than just telling them to come up with it themselves.
     
  20. Penlab

    Prestigious Supporter

    It kind of sounds like this wouldn't have mattered. Apparently Martin had a plan that they chose not to follow, so maybe Martin writing more material wouldn't have changed a thing.
     
    coleslawed and CarpetElf like this.
  21. .K.

    Trusted Prestigious

    Better that a show run it’s course than drag on and recycle stories and scenarios. Could it have ended better, very possibly. You’re never gonna make everyone happy though. Jon Snow coming back to life may have been the most predictable thing in the shows history to me, so it’d be hard for me to complain to much about the final
    Season.
     
  22. Penlab

    Prestigious Supporter

    GOT didn't run its course so much as set it for the heart of the sun.
     
    Victor Eremita likes this.
  23. Halitosis Jones

    Merry Sithmas Ya'll! Supporter

    Been rewatching this. I honestly would have been satisfied if they just did Bran's storyline justice. In hindsight I think it felt flawed going back to probably season 5. They never followed up on the significance of Bran's ability to alter the timeline so the whole Hodor thing feels wasted, they teased multiple times that Bran was going to Worg into a Dragon and that never happened, the involvement of the Reed siblings seem pointless in the longterm, we don't really get a fleshed out idea of what being the Three Eyed Raven even means so Bran's ultimate ending just feels kind of unearned and confusing.
     
  24. Halitosis Jones Nov 30, 2021
    (Last edited: Nov 30, 2021)
    Halitosis Jones

    Merry Sithmas Ya'll! Supporter

    Also just started reading Fire and Blood. I'll say I am pretty optimistic about House of the Dragon. I don't think the same mistakes can be made on a story whose entire outline is already layed out, and is comparatively limited in length (for the Dance of Dragons bit that is).
     
    David87 likes this.
  25. Mrk_Brdshw

    Dusted Groove

    Agree with most of that. The end just feels strange because we really have no idea what the implications are for the 3ER being on the throne (or why he even suddenly WANTED the throne despite never mentioning it even once). What does he plan to do differently for the world? His actual motivations are like nonexistent. Beyond that, we don’t know if the Stark siblings, much less everyone else in Westeros, even understands or knows who or what Bran is… Yet they seem to be fine with picking him to be King (even though he otherwise seems to be pretty unqualified for the job).

    There’s also the notion that if he really did orchestrate all of these events to get himself on the throne, that means that he either orchestrated the genocide of Kings Landing (at worst) or didn’t help to prevent it (at best) despite being able to see some of the future. So I’m not sure how happy of am ending that actually was.

    It really just felt like they left out a ton of important clarifications about what the characters knew or how they felt. It left it feeling more like they just drew a name out of a hat to decide the winner and had no bigger meaning at all.