159 replies to this topic

[Xanderpanda]

Showtimes 'The Tudors' had some pretty decent battles throughout its 4 season run particularly in the final season and I believe it was on a lower budget to what Game of Thrones has from HBO. So it is possible to see some decent stuff in a TV series.

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=GEh0pj3Umqs


Edit:
From what I can see from searching online for reported budgets it cost $3.5 mil per ep for The Tudors as opposed to $5 mil for Game of Thrones so they should be able to match the same effect if not out do it.

Edit 2:
Also while they tried to avoid showing major battles in Rome they did have this one at least which was done fairly well.
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=0wQ_6cVXTQk

Edited by Xanderpanda, 09 June 2011 - 05:54 AM.

[Steel_Wind]

The Borgias battle scenes in Episode 8 and 9 of the season were "impressive enough". Certainly, a cut above what HBO did in Season 1 of Rome.  (Hell, every aspect of the production values on The Borgias is damned impressive, tbh.)

We've seen some CGI with the tents in the Lannister camp (and some more, though to a lesser degree, in seeing the Stark host). I expect more of this for the Battle of the Green Fork. For all that, the tale in the book is told from Tyrion's POV and it is deliberately a worm's eye view from Tyrion's perspective. We aren't intended to take in the full sweep of the battle as a reader. I am not sure that as a viewer that should change much.

As noted elsewhere, the darkness and trees in the Whispering Wood lend themselves well to depicting this on screen without breaking the bank.

Breaking the Lannister host besieging Riverrun? Different story. I expect D&D to downplay that or discuss it as a report in Robb's tent. That's ok by me as there is no need for massive CGI at this stage. I'd rather they spent that money next season on the Battle of the Blackwater -- when it matters.

[Xanderpanda]

On top of the two clips I posted above I just found this as well from a BBC dramatic doco showing the rise and fall of Hannibal.
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=2NpKkiqLJoM

So yeah I think we have more then enough examples to prove its not impossible to portray some fairly decent battles particularly with HBOs skill and budget. Obviously we wont get anything on the scope of Lord of the Rings, Braveheart, Troy etc but they can surely manage to convey that large scale battles are taking place. The real worry will be end of season 2 as Blackwater will be hard due to logistics.

[gogorath]

I expect very little in terms of epic battles and sweeping, wide shots.  More close-ups of Tyrion and hopefully Jaime's actual capture (though the chances of seeing Grey Wind scything through Lannisters is probably non-existent).

[Xanderpanda]

I just recently caught up on the last few episodes of 'The Borgias' having stopped mid season and Showtime managed to show some rather large scale epic and well done battles on a similar budget. It would seem showtime has no qualms in putting in the effort as I already pointed out with 'The Tudors'. Also as someone else pointed out 'The Pillars of Earth' on Starz had some pretty large scale on screen battles. It is obviously very possible on the budget to achieve so I doubt that while everything else has been kept as close as possible to the books that they would skimp out on such things. I'm not saying that they need to show constant epic battles but they at least need to a few shots to detail how large scale this war truly is and I think they will.

[Jaime Lannister]

How will the battles look? Non-existent, apparently.

[Ran]

Borgias didn't show any battles at all. They showed cannon blasting some random dudes.

Animating large-scale melee combat is much, much more expensive.

[Nihilist]

They didn't just not show the battles, they butchered them. How are new viewers supposed to know that Tyrion actually fought in the battle(if he even did in this version?). He gets knocked out and then appears in a cart...The fact that they didn't show The Whispering Woods which would have been EASIER to show than just about any other battle in the books makes me feel REAL bad about what we are going to see in the future.

[Shepherd6]

Nihilist, on 12 June 2011 - 09:39 PM, said:

They didn't just not show the battles, they butchered them. How are new viewers supposed to know that Tyrion actually fought in the battle(if he even did in this version?). He gets knocked out and then appears in a cart...The fact that they didn't show The Whispering Woods which would have been EASIER to show than just about any other battle in the books makes me feel REAL bad about what we are going to see in the future.

I totally agree with this. I am disappointed that Tyrion didn't seem to fight at all. It wouldn't have been necessary to have him be amazing, just decent, sort of blundering through in fear and with luck. I thought it was important to illusrate that he is brave enough to fight.The Whispering Wood could have been done very dark, showing only the scene around Robb and Jaime. But I suppose nothing is better than badly done, and if the Blackwater is epic it will make up for many sins.

Edited by Shepherd6, 12 June 2011 - 09:46 PM.

[Asarlai]

Well, now we know how epic they were...

[Grumkin]

Well, I hope the $$$ they saved on battles means we get to see some cool-looking cgi dragons.

[Shepherd6]

Grumkin, on 12 June 2011 - 09:51 PM, said:

Well, I hope the $$$ they saved on battles means we get to see some cool-looking cgi dragons.

Thankyou. That thought hadn't occured to me and cheers me up.

[Clumber]

Fuck dragons. I would rather the dragons be merely mentioned if it meant we could have had something of the Whispering Woods, which was perfectly set up in the books to be a battle that required only a dozen people on screen at once. Because seriously?

[Lokhtar]

Seems I was right .

It's going to be Rome-esque.

[Lokhtar]

There's a reason two hour fantasy epics cost 150 million dollars guys....

[Asarlai]

Clumber, on 13 June 2011 - 12:27 AM, said:

Fuck dragons. I would rather the dragons be merely mentioned if it meant we could have had something of the Whispering Woods, which was perfectly set up in the books to be a battle that required only a dozen people on screen at once. Because seriously?

I'll glue the paper-mache wings on the komodo dragons myself.

[Ran]

Nihilist,

I believe it's supposed to be understood that Tyrion did not in fact fight. He was found unconscious near the camp or whatever, and it was assumed it was the result of fighting, but ... he never fought.

Re: Whispering Wood,

I always wanted it to be as in the books -- you see nothing. Maybe you hear something of it, but you never see it. So ... pretty glad of that. They have clearly changed the scope, anyways -- a much bigger battle where Robb apparently deliver a crushing defeat to the whole of Jaime's force.

[Corvinus]

Well I am very disappointed that we had two battles, yet none were shown. I understand that a lot happened in this episode, and the episode was quite good, but still.

[Xanderpanda]

Well that sucks if The Borgias can show two massive armies about to face off couldn't HBO at the very least have done the same. I mean I get the expensiveness of showing a full on battle I had no illusions about that but they need to at the very least show off the huge scope of this war. As I've pointed out multiple times in this thread there are many cable show examples of large scale armies on screen on a TV budget why the hell is HBO always so stingey. Rome suffered the same problem I thought they would have learnt but clearly they havn't. /rage

[Anomandaris86]

Shepherd6, on 12 June 2011 - 09:45 PM, said:

But I suppose nothing is better than badly done, and if the Blackwater is epic it will make up for many sins.

I think the chances of that are pretty much nil now.