madmurray
Member
I Am A Lizard King
Posts: 16,846
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Post by madmurray on May 13, 2019 16:21:06 GMT 1
Spectacular but poorly written?
Im on the spetacular side but read many a fans complaints on how things went.
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Post by o on May 13, 2019 20:57:44 GMT 1
The thing is with the "fans" is they all have a fave character and how they want it to end, so when it doesn't go that way, they spit the dummy and go all over social media, I loved it, and in answer to the moaners, what was the alternative storyline that would have come to a satisfactory conclusion?
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Post by greendemon on May 13, 2019 22:47:53 GMT 1
I'm... genuinely not sure what I thought about that episode. I need to process it, possibly even watch it again, before I'm sure. I bought Dany's reactions last week and thought it was all done very well. But she just seemed to snap really suddenly. It's like the bells drove her mad, Quasimodo-style! Longer post to follow once I work out what I just watched
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Post by greendemon on May 13, 2019 22:51:57 GMT 1
The thing is with the "fans" is they all have a fave character and how they want it to end I genuinely don't think I do, at least not any more. Haven't since season 6. My slight ambivalence about this week isn't because this isn't how I expected or wanted it to go - I didn't really have a dream scenario and ultimately I don't care which of the main characters lives or dies or sits on the Throne. I'm still not sure how I feel about the storytelling itself. But I'll get back to you...
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Post by Shireblogger on May 14, 2019 7:39:35 GMT 1
Game Of Thrones, welcome to Action Hollywood.
Action Hollywood 1: Exploding helicopter quotient set to maximum. I'm surprised I didn't read about the destruction of Dubrovnik in the newspapers.
Action Hollywood 2: Our stars survive whilst all the extras and minor characters around them perish. (i) Jaime seems to be mortally wounded, but then jumps straight up to carry the princess out of her castle in his arms. (ii) Cersei (now supposedly quite well into her pregnancy) escapes a collapsing keep without a scratch, whilst her guard, clad in heavy armour, gets crushed by falling masonry. (iii) Arya rides out of Hiroshima, whilst everything in her vicinity - people, buildings, objects - has been torched to a cinder. (iv) In what could have been one of GoT's great scenes, the Sandor vs Ser Gregor finale is filmed as a bloodthirsty gorefest, and lamely concluded by them falling together out of a high tower, and into the inferno, just like the baddies do in dozens of big budget movies. (v) Euron being the only person to manage to swim ashore after the rest of the fleet gets incinerated.
Action Hollywood 3: The key moment, filmed in lingering slow motion so that the stupid amongst us know that it is the key moment, when Rob realises he might have backed a wrong 'un. Insulting to our intelligence that this event was presented the way it was.
The scripting and direction just seemed totally out of keeping with everything that has gone before. The special effects were brilliant, and everything else would also have felt right at home in your average Bruce Willis blockbuster.
There were several moments that I really enjoyed. Arya saying "thank you" to Sandor was right, and touching. Varys telling Tyrion that "I hope I'm wrong" before facing the flamethrower was totally in character. Tyrion and Jaime's scene was classily written and acted. And the tension while we waited for the bells to be rung, and then waited a little longer to see whether this did mean honourable surrender, or merciless slaughter, was top quality drama.
I don't mind the plot development that confirmed Dany as a psychopath. We'd spent quite a while trying to decide, and, strangely, her turning out to be a goody-goody after all might easily have been a disappointing let down. It's just the way the episode unfolded from that point onwards, splurging millions and millions on effects, at the expense of proper drama, that left me feel hollow.
Shireblogger Episode Rating: 4/10
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Post by Jordan on May 14, 2019 8:04:18 GMT 1
The first time I watched it was on NOW TV which goes straight into the show - I felt Dany's 'snap' moment was bizzare and I just didn't relate to the character acting in that way.
The second time I watched it over a mates, and I saw it following the 'Previously on...' segment. They did something a little different with this. While showing Dany's face outside King's Landing from the last episode, they played a montage of different characters talking to Dany from Olenna telling her to 'be a dragon' and her brother warning her not to 'wake the dragon'. When you see the episode after being directly reminded of all the ways in which she's been indoctrinated into being a 'dragon' it makes perfect sense.
For the most part I loved the episode. The scene waiting for the bells was genius, genuine tension that you just don't see on television these days. The way they moved through the episode was exquisite as well. In the space of one episode they turned the fandom against Dany and closer to feeling pity for Cersei - mostly down to Lena Heady's acting though I imagine. I think we probably all expected her to get executed in some way, but this ending for Cersei/Jamie was far more poignant and moving in bizzare ways.
The only two sequences I hated were the duels - Jamie/Euron and the Hound/Mountain. With the cliche fall into the pits of hell, and the pure cheesefest that was Euron looking straight into the camera and delivering that horrific line that I refuse to repeat. It would have been far more fitting for Euron to just have ended by Drogon's flames on the ship. The character really didn't demand a more dramatic end than that.
I guess I was also slightly disappointed that Cersei didn't have one final trick up her sleeve. They've gone through series after series without showing the audience any of her plans and schemes, so that we as an audience are as surprised as her enemies in the show when they happen. The fact that it really was just the Iron Fleet in the bay, the Golden Company at the gates (remember them?) and a few Scorpions dotted around... meh.
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Post by greendemon on May 14, 2019 10:53:47 GMT 1
Alright. So I've sat on the fence and mulled it over for a bit. And I think I liked it. Mostly. Was it perfect? Far from it. I don't think you can argue that it was one of the best GoT episodes of all time unless you really are putting spectacle and bombast ahead of storytelling: which, if you are, fair enough. After all, I did put pretty much all the big battles at the top of my countdown last month. The thing is - it was a combination of the storytelling AND the spectacle that made those feel deserved, to me anyway. I agree with a lot of the points raised here already. Here are some of the main points for me, arranged in descending order from "chaos is a ladder" to "bad pussy": - Tyrion and Jaime's final scene together. Beautiful. Brilliantly shot and acted, and one of the only moments that brought tears to my eyes this season. I absolutely loved it. (Also very much enjoyed the return of Tyrion's terrible Valyrian that immediately led up to it!) - The cinematography was on point throughout - and I thought visually it was even more successful than the Battle of Winterfell. I particularly loved the Arya and the horrors of war sequences. For all that the series has focused on the high lords and ladies of Westeros, we see very little of the smallfolk. And for all the horrible, brutal battles we've seen, they pretty much all consist of soldiers killing other soldiers. In the penultimate episode, for almost the first time, we see those horrors visited upon ordinary men, women and children who just happened to be in the way. These sequences were utterly relentless. I loved the way Arya was placed in the middle of the carnage, how she tried to help them, and how futile it all was. The horse was a bit weird though. But overall, I thought this was a much better use of the character than having her go and try to kill Cersei. - Cersei and Jaime's final scene. I like that they died together, as she once predicted. I've seen and heard a lot of hate for how Jaime's arc ended and I agree that it feels frustrating, but my frustrations are with the character, not the writers. In the end, Jaime was unable to escape her hold on him and she was his ultimate downfall. It's tragic but I think when I come to watch the whole show again, it will feel accurate. He has had the most complex character arc and while it doesn't feel satisfying in the true sense, it does feel genuine, unfortunately. - Qyburn, the show's very own Doctor Frankenstein, was murdered by his own creation. I enjoyed that, and the summary dismissing of him as an irrelevance. - Varys' death went down pretty much exactly as I expected. I mourn the character, though, because I think they could have done so much more with him over the last few seasons, particularly with the Jon = Aegon scheming. I wish the truth about Jon had come out earlier. And (again) I wish there had been more episodes this season and last! - I am totally OK with Dany going "Mad Queen" and burning everything, but I don't know if I quite believed how she did it. The previous episode had painted a picture of her as grief-stricken, frustrated and increasingly isolated, and I thought this would drive her to do what she did. However, she finally snapped after the city had surrendered, for seemingly no reason other than BECAUSE MAD QUEEN. I struggled with that. It seemed to undermine the "good person driven to do terrible things by grief and anger" that they set up beautifully last week. Perhaps that's the point the show was trying to make about madness: it's not rational and it comes from nowhere. But I just didn't quite buy it. I was reminded of my school maths teacher telling me off for not "showing my working" and just writing the answer down: this feels a bit like that. - Didn't like that Cersei's baby was genuine. In the end the pregnancy ultimately nothing more than a cheap plot contrivance designed to elicit sympathy from Tyrion and make her agreeing to help in the fight against the Night King more believable. I would have loved it if she'd faked the whole thing knowing how her brothers and Euron would react. Seeing her crying over her child that would die before it even lived was a nice little humanising moment for her at the end, I guess. - The two big fights were incredibly lame. As Jordan says, Euron didn't deserve that kind of ending and should have just been roasted to a crisp by Drogon. Cleganebowl was a bit better but I hated the corniness of their Epic Fall Into The Flames at the end.
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Post by o on May 14, 2019 12:55:48 GMT 1
How else do you kill Frankenstein's monster, Clegane had pretty much stabbed him everywhere to now avail, I liked it, it had to be a burning pit, as people would say they aren't dead! Also loved the ending For Jaime and Cersei, and thought it mirrored him being with her in the tower in the 1st ep, to the next to last ep. they couldn't fight their love for each other? White horse I've seen being mentioned as Brann warging? Might be good if he was actually doing something? Same goes for Sansa, is she going to pop up in the finale? Surely Jon has to try and kill Dany, gets killed in the process and Arya steps in to finish it also dying the process? Who knows, but Dany certainly broke the wheel as she promised she would! Where is poor old Yara and Pod?
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Post by greendemon on May 14, 2019 13:26:18 GMT 1
I grant you it was obvious that the Mountain's death (and therefore implicitly the Hound's as well) would involve fire as we know this is how you kill wights, but I wish they had found a better way of doing it. Preferably not involving the Slow Fall into the Fires of Mount Doom. It was a bit much, really. Still, I'm not too bothered about Cleganebowl.
I didn't see the horse as symbolic of anything other than "I'm done with all this death and brutality". I don't expect Arya to be involved in Dany's death, and I hope she isn't. They can't keep giving her all the big takedowns.
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Post by Jordan on May 14, 2019 16:17:39 GMT 1
Also, the way episode 5 went down made me hate Bronn's sorry excuse for a character arc in this series. Honestly they may as well have just omitted him entirely Dario style. If the crossbow ploy had been all Qyburn's doing and not Cersei's, it wouldn't have undermined the touching scenes between Cersei and Jamie at the end.
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Post by greendemon on May 14, 2019 16:38:20 GMT 1
I'm amused by all the tinfoil theories about Bran at this point, trying to make him have a point other than to bait the Night King. I wouldn't totally rule out him playing a role in the final episode but I doubt they'll do anything too crazy. Perhaps he'll go full Three-Eyed Raven and merge with the weirwood so that there will always be a Stark in Winterfell.
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LT
Member
Posts: 15,782
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Post by LT on May 15, 2019 10:56:08 GMT 1
episode 5 didnt really do that much for me, in fact Im quite glad this is the last season as I do think the programme has run its course. Really hope the final episode is spectacular
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Post by greendemon on May 15, 2019 17:21:31 GMT 1
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LT
Member
Posts: 15,782
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Post by LT on May 16, 2019 12:47:49 GMT 1
is anyone else quite underwhelmed by this season so far?
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Post by o on May 16, 2019 13:06:26 GMT 1
No.
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Post by greendemon on May 16, 2019 13:59:34 GMT 1
is anyone else quite underwhelmed by this season so far? Yes and no. I was really underwhelmed by Episode 3 and the Battle of Winterfell/the demise of the Night King. After the extent to which the Long Night had been built up, I was really hoping for a more devastating battle with more losses of main characters, and I was also disappointed by how he was defeated - not so much that Arya was the one to do it but I thought it should have been harder to kill him. Episodes 4 and 5, though, have completely clawed it back for me. I was on the fence about Episode 5 after I watched it, but the more I've thought about it, the more I like it. Everything that happened, I can completely see how and why it happened, even if the storytelling seemed quite rushed. I love that the "evil queen" was humanised and given a tragic ending with her brother/lover, and I love that the characters we loved and wanted to believe in let us down. It just felt very authentic to the type of story GRRM and GoT has been trying to tell us all along.
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LT
Member
Posts: 15,782
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Post by LT on May 16, 2019 15:17:29 GMT 1
Totally with you on the killing of the night king, it was a blink and you'd miss it moment. considering the build up it was over far too easily. Episode 5 yeah I liked some of it and it was touching to see the end of her in that way but I just found the endless burning of everything by the remianing dragon to be OTT. does that thing never run out gas???
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Post by Jordan on May 17, 2019 7:45:48 GMT 1
The saving moment of this season for me was how intricately they switched the roles of Dany and Cersei around in episode 5. All of a sudden Dany became the 'mad queen' when we'd long ago given Cersei that label. And conversely Cersei became entirely human and demanded our pity.
I also totally get Dany's actions, she's pretty much burned something or someone in every season of the show, so this shouldn't have come as a total shock. But it could have played out so much more effectively had seasons 7 and 8 been 10 episodes a piece.
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Post by greendemon on May 17, 2019 8:41:19 GMT 1
A friend shared this article this morning. I think it does quite a good job of explaining why the most recent seasons haven't felt the same. The fact they reduced the number of episodes makes this process much more visible - their main priority is getting everything to land in place, not the journey itself. www.wired.com/story/game-of-thrones-plotters-vs-pantsers/?fbclid=IwAR2RmIc8GPMM6uEBzqmPhrNciiq_cE8ccYIkK7Us1x0XFQmx7kzRjIOzc60Really though, nothing this season writing-wise has been as bad as "We're Going On A Wight Hunt" last season. With all the rage and hate about season 8, if the same people were willing to forgive that...
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Post by popchartfreak on May 17, 2019 10:43:12 GMT 1
Love the series, love the intricate plotting, linked to come together under Destiny, love the complex characters mixing good and evil. For the series to be true to it's mythos regarding The Lord Of Light, Jon's resurrection and saviour of mankind, a man who isn't chasing any throne, he has it thrust on him by others all the way, does the right thing no matter what, any ending other than Jon Snow sorting out the mess caused by others lust for power would destroy the whole point of the series. Either the epic mythology is an epic mythology, or everything is an entire series of co-incidences and nothing matters it's all just random events, stuff that happens, someone wins, we've no idea how good or bad a ruler they will be, The End.
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