Game of Thrones

I'm not a fan of the genre, but the combination of HBO and the - on paper at least - terrific cast have piqued my interest in this.
As with everything, HBO has thrown a lot of money at this, so the production values will be top notch. I just hope the source material will be strong enough to turn this into a good show.
I'm not familiar with the novels myself.

I bought the books for my dad who eats this shit up. He rated them a lot higher than the other trash he reads but that still wasn't enough to get me to read them. The biggest thing I see going against the show is that the series isn't finished, it's taken something like 20 years for the author to get to book five of seven, and he's something like 60+.

That said, I didn't find the pilot particularly engaging and it didn't leave me exactly yearning for more. (Maybe because I was aware of the "twist" that the pilot hung around). Fantasy is something that is very, very rarely done well, though it works better on film than it does in print in my opinion. (I think Lord of the Rings is almost unreadable... shoot me.) I honestly can't see myself making it to the end of the first season, to be honest.

And yes, I'll probably still watch the trash that is Camelot . But a bad adaptation of the Arthur myth (has there ever been a good one?) will always draw me in provided it retains some core elements, the amassed mythology elevates it to a degree in my view.

There's not really a genre I will reject off-hand. Any movie or TV series that has enough "weight" can draw me in.

Salomé wrote:

There's not really a genre I will reject off-hand. Any movie or TV series that has enough "weight" can draw me in.

You might enjoy 'Britain's Fattest F ucks', currently to be found on the once proud Channel 4.

I see the swearbox is back.

Salomé wrote:

There's not really a genre I will reject off-hand. Any movie or TV series that has enough "weight" can draw me in.

Between this and the Abrams thread I'm sure I'm starting to sound like a genre snob. I really should be clearer bout this stuff

I generally agree with you, but fantasy writers I've found have a tendency to over-focus on the minutia of their creations. This didn't have that problem, though I hear the books do to a degree.

My biggest beef with this is there was no real audience surrogate, so to speak.

I realise such a character is a staple in fantasy, and this is a deconstruction of sorts, but in a visual adaptation it seems to me like it's throwing the baby out with the dishwater. I don't need to be hand-held, but there's nobody to ease you into this world, to make you feel familiar with it enough to get invested in the drama. There's no Melfi. There's no Peggy. There's no Luke Skywalker.

The closest thing was Sean Bean's kid who got pushed out the window (Bran?), who had maybe three scenes.

Watching this I felt disconnected from what was going on. I understand the books are written in first person perspective, with shifting viewpoints almost every chapter. Without having read them, I could see how, adapted to the omniscient third person view that tv requires, some of the empathy and investment could be lost in translation in the name of "faithfulness" to the work.

But I don't know, I have been accused of being an unfeeling sociopath more than once :).

ambler wrote:

I see the swearbox is back.

Every time I find myself wanting to swear it's on and every time I don't it's off.

It's like the bar tab at a uni function.

ambler wrote:

Salomé wrote:

There's not really a genre I will reject off-hand. Any movie or TV series that has enough "weight" can draw me in.

You might enjoy 'Britain's Fattest F ucks', currently to be found on the once proud Channel 4.

I see the swearbox is back.

I meant scripted TV series, not reality TV. :D

Well I get your point about the lack of an audience surrogate, but another show you do seem to like (Mad Men) also lacks such a character.

My main concern with the first episode is the amount of different factions they'll have to devote attention to. Seems like it'll evolve into five set locations with their own characters and intrigue. Juggling all of those and keeping the audience equally enthralled with all of them might prove difficult.

Salomé wrote:

Well I get your point about the lack of an audience surrogate, but another show you do seem to like (Mad Men) also lacks such a character.

I'd argue that in its early days it certainly did. Through Peggy the viewer is introduced to a) the 60s, the social mores of the time, sex, the role of women etc b) Don Draper's wider life, most of the major characters and c) the ad agency, how it's structured, who does what, and how it works.

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My main concern with the first episode is the amount of different factions they'll have to devote attention to. Seems like it'll evolve into five set locations with their own characters and intrigue. Juggling all of those and keeping the audience equally enthralled with all of them might prove difficult.

It was handled fairly, but they only had three sets of characters in the first episode that I noticed, and two had their storylines meet for about half the episode. If there's more to be introduced, I can see this getting extremely complicated

I do hear that the books these are based on are excellent. But I'm not really crazy about what I've seen of the show.

Vesper wrote:

It was handled fairly, but they only had three sets of characters in the first episode that I noticed, and two had their storylines meet for about half the episode. If there's more to be introduced, I can see this getting extremely complicated

Well based on just what we learn in the first episode, it'll likely split up into something like this:

1. Ned and the King in the capital entailed in intrigue and treachery with the Queen and her incestuous sibling
   
2. Ned's bastard son joins his uncle and the other Nightwatchmen at the Wall of Ice
   
3. Whatever they come up with for the faux Centaur king and his faux Elven bride in the Mediterranean looking kingdom
   
4. Ned's wife and his remaining sons - who remain the Northern country - coping with the departure of their patriarch
   
5. Possibly some more scenes involving the Others North of the Wall
   

Salomé wrote:

Vesper wrote:

It was handled fairly, but they only had three sets of characters in the first episode that I noticed, and two had their storylines meet for about half the episode. If there's more to be introduced, I can see this getting extremely complicated

Well based on just what we learn in the first episode, it'll likely split up into something like this:

1. Ned and the King in the capital entailed in intrigue and treachery with the Queen and her incestuous sibling
   
2. Ned's bastard son joins his uncle and the other Nightwatchmen at the Wall of Ice
   
3. Whatever they come up with for the faux Centaur king and his faux Elven bride in the Mediterranean looking kingdom
   
4. Ned's wife and his remaining sons - who remain the Northern country - coping with the departure of their patriarch
   
5. Possibly some more scenes involving the Others North of the Wall
   

I think the people at the wall tend to get forgotten in favour of court intrigue as the novels go on, or perhaps it was just the vague hints of supernatural going ons behind it. Granted, this series is just focused on the first one. So I doubt that's an immediate concern.

Supposedly there are even more factions that haven't come into play yet. Jesus christ

The music is typical Media Ventures crap, courtesy of Ramin Djawadi - the guy who gave the score for IRON MAN.

What did you think of episode two Oppers?

I thought it was alright, I liked it better than episode one.

I do still think the scenes with the Horse People and the pseudo-elf twins are the weakest part of the show. I'm just not interested in them (yet?).

The stuff with Ned and his daughters and the creepy - likely inbred - little prince was good though. And I find the dwarf Lannister brother the most intriguing character in the entire show so far.

One thing I thought was a bit silly in the second episode was how easily Daeneris went from being horrified at becoming Kahl Drogo's queen to being eager to please him. I'm sure this was handled with more care in the novels, since the mental change happened almost from one scene to the next in the series.

Salomé wrote:

I thought it was alright, I liked it better than episode one.

I do still think the scenes with the Horse People and the pseudo-elf twins are the weakest part of the show. I'm just not interested in them (yet?).

The stuff with Ned and his daughters and the creepy - likely inbred - little prince was good though. And I find the dwarf Lannister brother the most intriguing character in the entire show so far.

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One thing I thought was a bit silly in the second episode was how easily Daeneris went from being horrified at becoming Kahl Drogo's queen to being eager to please him. I'm sure this was handled with more care in the novels, since the mental change happened almost from one scene to the next in the series.

Yeah, I kind of zoned out a bit. It still hasn't drawn me in yet.

I thought the assasination plot was the weakest but generally agree with you. I saw a couple of shots last week that maybe were hinting at the idea Deanerys was getting a bit excited by the primal horse people sex thing that was going on, but it just came off as a sudden turn around. Agree that it was probably handled better in the novels, probably comes back to the whole first person v third person thing.

Pete Dinklage annoys me a bit. The stuff with the inbred kids was good though.

One part that lost me though, I assumed Ned and the King were on their way back to the capital (King's Landing?) but then they were back to arbitrate the fight between Ned's daughters and the inbred prince? Did I miss something.

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One part that lost me though, I assumed Ned and the King were on their way back to the capital (King's Landing?) but then they were back to arbitrate the fight between Ned's daughters and the inbred prince? Did I miss something.

The King's family and Ned's two daughters are part of the party that is on its way back to King's Landing.
Though it isn't entirely clear to me why the younger daughter is accompanying them. The oldest daughter is to wed the prince.

I'm trying to stick with it, but this is increasingly putting me to sleep. It's not that there was no action, there was nothing substantial at all. A few (minor) plot points were dropped and lots of meaningless chatter.

At their slowest of slow, Boardwalk and Mad Men usually have something self-contained - a character arc, a recurring theme, a slice of irony, a minor self-contained subplot - something happens and you watch it play out - here we had what? Ned giving his daughter a (painfully lame) fencing lesson? Whats-Her-Name finding out she was pregnant? The knife being Tyrion? Whats-Her-Name's brother being emasculated? The wall being undermanned by people who aren't as good as Jon?

On a better show these would be the start point, not random bits of information dropped amongst conversations that people who haven't read the books could never properly understand.

I'm not finding the writing and storytelling particularly judicious. The bulk of this episode could've been told in about ten minutes.

I sort of agree with you Vesper. There was very little that went on in episode three that really mattered, beyond the dagger being linked back to the Lannisters, but then the audience already knew they were guilty.

I thought the Nightwatch scenes were the best thing in what was a mediocre episode. I do think I will stick by the show for now, mostly because from what I read online, the first four episodes are the weakest ones, and it only really takes off in the latter half of the season.

I agree that the stuff at the Wall was the best part of the episode. The scene with Tyrion, the guy who was also heading to King's Landing and the lead ranger dragged though. Pete Dinklage is the only actor giving his character a personality, which certainly helps.

That's another thing, plenty of fine actors and actresses but no real commanding screen presences. It's a cast of supporting actors, IMO.

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I sort of agree with you Vesper. There was very little that went on in episode three that really mattered, beyond the dagger being linked back to the Lannisters, but then the audience already knew they were guilty.

I'm sure this is all in the name of faithfulness of the novel, but the writers seem to be forgetting it's a tv show. Despite the "televisual novel" concept used to describe Mad Men, Boardwalk, The Sopranos, The Wire, Friday Night Lights etc the medium is still fundamentally different.

The dialogue isn't exactly great stuff either. Very flat for the most part, it lacks a spark. Even Camelot, which is wildly inconsistant even within its own episodes, has more moments and lines that "pop".

I can't think of a line that's really stuck with me from any episode. Besides "Winter is coming" but that's not for a good reason, you could make a drinking game out of that.

The direction... there's nothing terribly exciting about it. The cinematography is pretty dull. The colour grading in the parts in The North bugs, and there's no sense of scale, wonder, or exoticism.

Well produced but flat, that pretty much sums up my thought. It feels lifeless.

Can't decide to see whether it picks up or not. Depends on where my bandwidth is at next week.

Seems as if it shares many of the same directors as Rome and Boardwalk Empire. There is something about the general style that bothers me though I cannot decide what exactly it is. Both Rome and Boardwalk seemed to have a directorial style that made sense, but I cannot say with certainty that is the case here.

There also seems to be a big difference in the quality of sets depending on the setting. I found the set they used for the top of the Wall to be quite cheap looking, whereas the whore-house Petyr Baelish used as a hiding place for Lady Stark could rival with some of the better "Rome" sets.

It's true that Dinklage has stolen the show so far. But I think they made some obvious casting mistakes, even as we are only three episodes in. I cannot take Marc Addy seriously as a king. And Lena Headey lacks a certain dark mystery that would make her character a lot more interesting. She made sense as the Queen to a brutish Spartan King in 300. She's not what I picture in an evil, manipulating Machiavellian Black Widow who has an incestuous relationship with her brother. Thirty years ago, Charlotte Rampling would have been cast in that role.

I have to assume it has something to do with the calibre of the actors and the kind of production/setting. There doesn't seem to be a visual style. This is a genre that would benefit greatly from something like the kind of stagey, pause and it's a portrait style of Mad Men. The cinematography is actually rather modern.

There's no scope to the locations, either. We saw nothing of King's Landing.

Yeah, I've been hesitant to criticise the set design but I'm not crazy about it. The Royal Palace in King's Landing looks cheap. Well that's not fair, but there's nothing interesting about it architecturally. That alone isn't so horrid, because - let's face it - there's only so many ways to do "throne room" - but look at Lord of the Rings, for an example. There's no detail to it. This is fantasy.

Hedy did vulnerable and emotionally conflicted well in the Merlin miniseries eons ago. So I don't doubt that she has range. But yeah, she's not right for Machievellian Black Widow. I get the impression a lot of the cast were picked for how they looked relative to the creator's vision than the characters.

Compare her to Eva Green in Camelot. She sucked playing vulnerable in Casino Royale, but she's playing what I imagine this role is supposed to be like quite compellingly.

This episode was better than last week and the ending was actually good. But I'm still feeling pretty indifferent. The characters actually felt like they had a bit of definition for once. Hedy and Bean weren't as boring.

But for a premium cable program this show sure is visually ugly.

Even though we had some things happening for a change, I thought this episode was a bit of a mess. Stark's oldest daughter is really starting to annoy me, if she acts more like a spoiled little bitch she almost deserves to be married off to that inbred sociopath of a little prince.

Really the only interesting character so far is the imp, and to a lesser extent Lady Stark's old friend Petyr Baelish. John Snow is the worst kind of goody-two-shoes with no depth of character.
I still care very little about the horse-people and their new queen. In short, we better get some real intrigue in the next few episodes or they will lose me.