How much of the success of the show do you contribute to Benioff and Weiss

[JonSnow4President]

9 hours ago, MoreOrLess said:

Honestly I think your talking nonsense, Martins readers make up a very small percentage of viewers. All that's really on display is how defencive a lot of readers are about the material.

Actually, I'm saying there's a fundamental difference in what the show seems to shoot for between earlier seasons.  Recently, it seems like they're going for the big fight and pouring all their resources into that.  Because of budget constraints, they had to have a different focus early on, and did have much more consistent characters and political intrigue that is simply nonexistent in later seasons.  The show changed from itself.  It's working for them financially, but artistically I think it has been an absolute and unmitigated failure. 

That's without touching their failure as adapters.  

[robasp2]

On 7/12/2016 at 0:29 PM, Godbreaker said:

Do you think they played a huge role in making the show amazing....or do you think it was more of Martin's work being so good

 

could anyone of made Game of Thrones, using Martin's material...or do you think there is no way this show would of been half as good without Benioff and Weiss

They have done a good jobin adapting the books well.

They have failed miserably in making their owns story with a few key plot points.

GoT is still a success due to the production and the actors. With a laughable script nowadays I'm surprised ratings didnt fall.

[Cron]

On 7/12/2016 at 2:59 AM, Godbreaker said:

Do you think they played a huge role in making the show amazing....or do you think it was more of Martin's work being so good

 

could anyone of made Game of Thrones, using Martin's material...or do you think there is no way this show would of been half as good without Benioff and Weiss

I truly believe GRRM is literally a creative genius.

No, not just "anyone" could have made "Game of Thrones," so D and D get at least some credit, but I believe there are many, many people who could have been the show runners and done just as well if not better, and I probably give GRRM 95 percent of the credit for the success of the show.

Having said that, there ARE a few things in the show that are actually better than the books.  I really like Bronn's expanded, continuing role in the show, for example, and I thought the scene where Brienne and Pod met Sandor and Arya (leading to Brienne and Sandor's fight) was great.

But still, I think there are LOTS of people that could have done as well or better just making a VERY faithful adaptation of GRRM's books, and the show would have been a hit (indeed, note that the most faithful season was Season One, in my strong opinion, and that's what launched the success of the show)

 

[Dragon in the North]

55 minutes ago, Cron said:

I truly believe GRRM is literally a creative genius.

No, not just "anyone" could have made "Game of Thrones," so D and D get at least some credit, but I believe there are many, many people who could have been the show runners and done just as well if not better, and I probably give GRRM 95 percent of the credit for the success of the show.

I believe Martin and the showrunners deserve equal credit for the success of the show. Martin himself has described the books as unadaptable, so the fact that the two showrunners managed to turn the show into a worldwide phenomena is no small feat. It's not something many people could have pulled off.

 

On August 6, 2016 at 3:13 PM, mafro987daboss said:

Things about the show that have been done right (locations, casting, set building, cinematography) can't really be directly attributed to them, while the awful plot/characterisation decisions can be.

D&D are actually heavily involved in all those areas and have the final say in all decisions, so they deserve much of the credit for all of those things.

[mafro987daboss]

21 hours ago, Dragon in the North said:

I believe Martin and the showrunners deserve equal credit for the success of the show. Martin himself has described the books as unadaptable, so the fact that the two showrunners managed to turn the show into a worldwide phenomena is no small feat. It's not something many people could have pulled off.

 

D&D are actually heavily involved in all those areas and have the final say in all decisions, so they deserve much of the credit for all of those things.

So you're saying that the people giving the 'green light' deserve as much credit as the people with the creative ideas themselves?

[Dragon in the North]

6 hours ago, mafro987daboss said:

So you're saying that the people giving the 'green light' deserve as much credit as the people with the creative ideas themselves?

They deserve much of the credit, yes. They are in charge of the entire production. They should receive credit for everything that goes wrong, and they should receive credit for everything that goes right.

[Meera of Tarth]

On ‎11‎/‎08‎/‎2016 at 7:09 PM, JonSnow4President said:

Actually, I'm saying there's a fundamental difference in what the show seems to shoot for between earlier seasons.  Recently, it seems like they're going for the big fight and pouring all their resources into that.  Because of budget constraints, they had to have a different focus early on, and did have much more consistent characters and political intrigue that is simply nonexistent in later seasons.  The show changed from itself.  It's working for them financially, but artistically I think it has been an absolute and unmitigated failure. 

That's without touching their failure as adapters.  

I second that.

[Rawrmawr]

Ramin Djawadi and the casting crew.

[thi4f]

Many viewers are still watching because boobs & gore. Some of those scenes are purely D&D creation. So yes, they are partially responsible for commercial success.

[Damitol]

I think they deserve a huge amount of credit.  They took thousands of pages of incredibly deep and nuanced source material and in only +/- 75 hours - just over three seasons for a "normal" show - created a compelling, internationally loved television program.  They ultimately decided which parts of the books to use and what had to be left out due to time and budget constraints - and how to tie the bits they kept together so it still made sense and followed the original narrative. They had final approval on cast, sets, costumes and locations, and even their biggest detractors can't fault them on those items.  They found and hired amazingly talented people to help them create their vision both in front of and behind the camera.

Sure - we can all pick apart little things we don't like, or whine about the way something was handled or got left out (LSH anyone?), but the fact we are even on this forum months after the season ended proves they got it right overall.  I'm not taking anything away from George and his books of the cast and how they nail it in virtually every scene, but every second of those 75 hours is/will be there because of D&D's work, direction, decision making and/or sign off.  No, Game of Thrones is not perfect - nothing is - but I can't imagine anyone doing a better job adapting the George's books for TV or film given the same amount of time and money.

 

[Duranaparthur]

In my opinion, D&D deserve credit for the workmanship of the show; helming such a massive endeavor requires excellent administrative and economical business abilities. The budget, sets, casting and all the little production elements that make the quality of the show good TV are theirs.

Creatively, it gets a lot trickier. They signed on expecting to have a good deal more material published by Martin that they could work on, and you can tell that they do their best jobs within the framework of Martin's writing, and suffer from occasional bouts of shortcuts and broad storytelling where before they promised constant high level interpretations of Martin's work. These last few seasons highlight twin issues that have lead to such inconsistent quality along certain plotlines: the need to condense some events down to fit a shorter timeline, and the need to create avenues to Martin's endgame out of whole clothe.

That's why their earlier editions of changes tended to be better written: Arya serving Tywin as cupbearer was genius, and even the LCD-motivated campaign by Jon to kill the deserters had strong internal logic. It's their later slips on the Dorne subplot or the occasional white-washing and tar-smearing of characters like Varys and Stannis that shows how their creative impulses sometimes create less engaging material derived from either needing to cut down on plots or having fandom objectives over which characters need fan support. the overall effect is one of less quality control across plotlines, where excellent moments are off-set by less than stellar writing in other episodes, like Arya having wolverine's healing factor or the questionable logic of Sansa not telling Jon about her letter to the Vale being followed by both his mismanagement of a battle and yet still being acclaimed king.

[Meera of Tarth]

On ‎16‎/‎08‎/‎2016 at 7:28 PM, thi4f said:

Many viewers are still watching because boobs & gore. Some of those scenes are purely D&D creation. So yes, they are partially responsible for commercial success.

yes. I wouldn't mind it if they still wanted to make an effort like in the First seasons (although then they had published material) but it's not the case.

I sometimes rant about the big failures of the show but still enjoy it and when there is something I like I post about it. But the fact is that, in general terms, the story and the development of it have become very simplistic and cliche except for some exceptions. and despite of the fact I understand that inventing an story without source material is not easy I can't understand why they haven't hired more writers like in the previous ones. That would have probably avoided out of nowhere scripts like Tyrion's 2 episodes in Meereen or inconsistencies (huge ones) in characterisation or placement of characters because of rushing to write them.

so responding the OP they are responsible for the success but the great amount of people who works there are more important too Imo and those scripts would not make people watch if if it was not for the music, locations, cast, special effects and last but not least, the investment viewers have on characters.

if the showrunners still had the same energy as in the First seasons (and there they did an AMAZING job imhb) they would have even more success.

that is what made GOT a great show and people became interested in it and the characters.

[MoreOrLess]

On ‎11‎/‎08‎/‎2016 at 6:09 PM, JonSnow4President said:

Actually, I'm saying there's a fundamental difference in what the show seems to shoot for between earlier seasons.  Recently, it seems like they're going for the big fight and pouring all their resources into that.  Because of budget constraints, they had to have a different focus early on, and did have much more consistent characters and political intrigue that is simply nonexistent in later seasons.  The show changed from itself.  It's working for them financially, but artistically I think it has been an absolute and unmitigated failure. 

That's without touching their failure as adapters.  

Personally I do feel season 3-4 was the best the shows been but I really don't see a fundamental shift within it. What do I think has changed though is that the show has started to both diverge more from the books AND has moved ahead of them. I think this has given rise to a negative reaction from those attached  to Martins story as it is(especially as the latter books have come in for more criticism) plus its potentially shot down a lot of readers pet theories that have had years to develop in the space between the latter books

Exactly the same was true with Jacksons Lord of the Rings, a lot of fans of the books were incredible negative of the changes we saw to the story in the 2nd and 3rd films due to there attachment to the original story and were unable to judge them on their own merits as a result.

[Meera of Tarth]

On 19/8/2016 at 5:24 PM, MoreOrLess said:

Personally I do feel season 3-4 was the best the shows been but I really don't see a fundamental shift within it. What do I think has changed though is that the show has started to both diverge more from the books AND has moved ahead of them. I think this has given rise to a negative reaction from those attached  to Martins story as it is(especially as the latter books have come in for more criticism) plus its potentially shot down a lot of readers pet theories that have had years to develop in the space between the latter books

Exactly the same was true with Jacksons Lord of the Rings, a lot of fans of the books were incredible negative of the changes we saw to the story in the 2nd and 3rd films due to there attachment to the original story and were unable to judge them on their own merits as a result.

The divergence, true.

Some people might, but I know people who, as only show viewers, have had the same experience.

And me too, after reading the books (after watching 4 seasons) I realised that they could have done things better in the first ones. But I like them as much as I did the first time I  watched them. After s5 (that I didn't like at all and I suppose books had some effect on it although not all) I tried to watch s6 without thinking in the books and I still enjoyed it 50/50; but I see some things and can't help  but to ask me "hat the hell is happening herew with the script?"

[Anton Martell]

On 8 août 2016 at 6:13 PM, lancerman said:

There's thousands of book to screen adaptations. There have been few as successful. Despite what some would have you believe, there are few that would be as faithful given the amount of material.

Every person who read the books had their own take and idea in their minds eye of the material. D&D brought their version to life and it became a massive hit. They weren't always right. But they nailed the casting for the most part. They had the pacing and storypoints down. They knew what made the show popular and stuck with it even if it meant not being entirely accurate to the source.

George wrote a  great series. But when it comes to the screen, it was essentially a really elaborate screenplay of story points. You have to figure out how to break it up by episode, write an episode, get the production logistics in place, hire the right actors and crew, get the setting and effects right. There's so much that goes into it and you have to give them credit for having the all the right people.

I know there is temptation to say "well George wrote the story". George wrote a lot of television episodes over his career. The best executed were always the ones headed by David and Dan.

 

 

 

 

Sorry, but you cannot say they are being faithful. They changed HUGE amounts of story. Wether that's good or not is another story. But you can't say they have been faithful to the books. They left out a lot of things (Lady Stoneheart, Aegon, Arianne Martell...), they changed the characterisation of a lot of characters (Jaime, Sansa, Ellaria Sand...). 

 

And your last sentence made me laugh: the best episodes were the one headed by D&D? You cannot be serious. It is universally accepted that episodes written by GRRM are the most acclaimed.

On 18 août 2016 at 0:59 PM, Damitol said:

I think they deserve a huge amount of credit.  They took thousands of pages of incredibly deep and nuanced source material and in only +/- 75 hours - just over three seasons for a "normal" show - created a compelling, internationally loved television program.  They ultimately decided which parts of the books to use and what had to be left out due to time and budget constraints - and how to tie the bits they kept together so it still made sense and followed the original narrative. They had final approval on cast, sets, costumes and locations, and even their biggest detractors can't fault them on those items.  They found and hired amazingly talented people to help them create their vision both in front of and behind the camera.

Sure - we can all pick apart little things we don't like, or whine about the way something was handled or got left out (LSH anyone?), but the fact we are even on this forum months after the season ended proves they got it right overall.  I'm not taking anything away from George and his books of the cast and how they nail it in virtually every scene, but every second of those 75 hours is/will be there because of D&D's work, direction, decision making and/or sign off.  No, Game of Thrones is not perfect - nothing is - but I can't imagine anyone doing a better job adapting the George's books for TV or film given the same amount of time and money.

 

It's not "little things". They changed a LOT. They made a lot of nonsensical changes. Some of their decisions don't make sense if you think about it, even if you remove the books. And I do think that many other people could have made a better show. But we will never see it of course. 

On 19 août 2016 at 10:24 AM, MoreOrLess said:

Personally I do feel season 3-4 was the best the shows been but I really don't see a fundamental shift within it. What do I think has changed though is that the show has started to both diverge more from the books AND has moved ahead of them. I think this has given rise to a negative reaction from those attached  to Martins story as it is(especially as the latter books have come in for more criticism) plus its potentially shot down a lot of readers pet theories that have had years to develop in the space between the latter books

Exactly the same was true with Jacksons Lord of the Rings, a lot of fans of the books were incredible negative of the changes we saw to the story in the 2nd and 3rd films due to there attachment to the original story and were unable to judge them on their own merits as a result.

You are right that book readers might be a little harsher than others. But we're not picking at the show because we are petty. We are criticizing the show because it became crap. I try to judge the show on its own merit, and damn it's still crappy. I don't care about some choices, and I understand some others. But when you analyze the show in itself without the books, it's still doesn't make sense, and it's still badly written.

[Rex999]

 

They Deserve all of the credit because there would be no show had they not convinced Martin to do it. 

There would also be know Battle of Blackwater had they not begged HBO for extra money during the making of season 2 and had they never did Blackwater I doubt they would have done watchers on the wall or Battle of the bastards 

Another showerunner could  have easily went along with HBO's plan and cut the Battle of Blackwater from season 2

that one decision alone would have made GOT into a radically different show

The hard truth is some fans just don't know how good they have it

Just take a look at all of the other fantasy adaptions that have come before

1. Earthsea = a adaptation so bad that the author himself hated it

2. legend of the Seeker = a  awful adaptation  that barley resembled the book at all 

3. The Wheel of Time = a terrible pilot episode for this was released in 2015. thankfully the pilot failed and the books will be getting another adaption in a few years ( hopefully it will be done right next time)

4. The Shannara Chronicles = not as terrible as they others but it still takes the books and turns it into a show for teen girls.

fans of these great books got crappy low budget cash grabs while fans of "A song of Ice in fire" got a super popular award winning hit TV show. My sister was huge fan of the Earthsea books and she rolls her eyes every time she see's "A Song of Ice and Fire" fan complaining about how awful an a adaptation game of thrones is lol

D&D are not perfect but it is obvious that they have worked extremely hard to make the show the huge success it is today and for all of my complaints about the show I do not for one second doubt that D&D loves the source martial . They may not always succeed but at least they have tried to make it close to the books

The show runners of legend of the Seeker did not care that their show barley resembled the books at all nor did they even try to accurately adapt the books

. 

[Dragon in the North]

6 hours ago, Anton Martell said:

Sorry, but you cannot say they are being faithful. They changed HUGE amounts of story. Wether that's good or not is another story. But you can't say they have been faithful to the books. They left out a lot of things (Lady Stoneheart, Aegon, Arianne Martell...),

Those three haven't really done anything in the books, so I wouldn't consider those big changes.

 

6 hours ago, Anton Martell said:

And your last sentence made me laugh: the best episodes were the one headed by D&D? You cannot be serious. It is universally accepted that episodes written by GRRM are the most acclaimed.

I don't think that's true. It's my understanding that the general consensus is that The Winds of Winter, The Battle of the Bastards, and Hardhome are the three best GOT episodes, all headed by D&D.

[Rex999]

7 hours ago, Anton Martell said:

And your last sentence made me laugh: the best episodes were the one headed by D&D? You cannot be serious. It is universally accepted that episodes written by GRRM are the most acclaimed.

This isn't even close to being true 

I thought Hillary and Trump were good at telling blatant lies but Anton Martell managed to top even them lol

The most acclaimed episodes were not written by GRRM

Here are the top episodes ranked on imdb       

 1. The Winds of Winter  

2.  Battle of the Bastards  

3, The Rains of Castamere  

4.  Hardhome    

5. The Door    

6.  The Lion and the Rose

7. The Laws of Gods and Men    

8. The Mountain and the Viper  

9.  Blackwater

Most of these episodes are written by D&D and Laws of Gods and Men was written by Bryan Cogman

P.S. if its so universally accepted that episodes written by GRRM are the most acclaimed.

Than why is The Bear and the Maiden Fair one of the worst rated episodes in the shows history. even "No one" did better with critics than Martin's Bear and the Maiden Fair episode did lol

[Rhodan]

6 hours ago, Rex999 said:

This isn't even close to being true 

I thought Hillary and Trump were good at telling blatant lies but Anton Martell managed to top even them lol

The most acclaimed episodes were not written by GRRM

Here are the top episodes ranked on imdb       

 1. The Winds of Winter  

2.  Battle of the Bastards  

3, The Rains of Castamere  

4.  Hardhome    

5. The Door    

6.  The Lion and the Rose

7. The Laws of Gods and Men    

8. The Mountain and the Viper  

9.  Blackwater

Most of these episodes are written by D&D and Laws of Gods and Men was written by Bryan Cogman

P.S. if its so universally accepted that episodes written by GRRM are the most acclaimed.

Than why is The Bear and the Maiden Fair one of the worst rated episodes in the shows history. even "No one" did better with critics than Martin's Bear and the Maiden Fair episode did lol

I agree claiming Martin´s episodes are the best received ones is silly. But bringing the IMDB votes is showing the cardinal difference between the priorities of majority of show watchers and segment of those familiar with the books. I certainly enjoyed the last two episodes for their events and presentation/execution.Yet.. Events should not equal "quality" exactly and I just think that is how many viewers are seeing it. It´s their choice obviously, but my ears are still sometimes bleeding from the dialogue or the story. I still like the first four seasons, the 6 on the other hand, was the one I was bored most of the time and believe, yes, that a lot of producers could give us something better. 

[Meera of Tarth]

9 hours ago, Rex999 said:

This isn't even close to being true 

I thought Hillary and Trump were good at telling blatant lies but Anton Martell managed to top even them lol

The most acclaimed episodes were not written by GRRM

Here are the top episodes ranked on imdb       

 1. The Winds of Winter  

2.  Battle of the Bastards  

3, The Rains of Castamere  

4.  Hardhome    

5. The Door    

6.  The Lion and the Rose

7. The Laws of Gods and Men    

8. The Mountain and the Viper  

9.  Blackwater

Most of these episodes are written by D&D and Laws of Gods and Men was written by Bryan Cogman

Well, before putting the example of "Laws of Good and Men" you should take into account that "The Lion and The Rose" was written by Martin, just for the record.

Quote

P.S. if its so universally accepted that episodes written by GRRM are the most acclaimed.

Than why is The Bear and the Maiden Fair one of the worst rated episodes in the shows history. even "No one" did better with critics than Martin's Bear and the Maiden Fair episode did lol

This episode is rated 8.6/10 in your IMDB source. After iut, there are 12 episodes with lower ratings, and guess what? showrunners wrote 8, Cogman 3 of them. The other one left is from another writer. So, with the same analysis on mind, they also wrote the worst ones of IMDB. And in terms of ratings, No-one is rated lower than The Bear.

 

3.7 The Bear and the Maiden Fair8.610,570

 9/10 

1.3 Lord Snow8.612,897

  8.6/10 

5.5 Kill the Boy8.611,300

  8.6/10 

6.7 The Broken Man8.615,540

 7/10 

3.2 Dark Wings, Dark Words8.610,936

  8.6/10 

5.3 High Sparrow8.510,483

  8.5/10 

5.2 The House of Black and White8.511,121

  8.5/10 

2.2 The Night Lands8.511,119

  8.5/10 

5.1 The Wars to Come8.414,127

  8.4/10 

6.1 The Red Woman8.422,054

 3/10 

6.6 Blood of My Blood8.316,090

 6/10 

6.8 No One8.218,156

 8/10 

5.6 Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken7.913,100

  7.9/10 

 

There is also another interesting source for TVShows:

http://graphtv.kevinformatics.com/tt0944947

( based on IMDB).

it was not until season 5 (when the divergence occurred) that some episodes were rated lower than 8.5.

 

.............................

 

I don't want to go off-topic, but it's a bit silly providing sources for saying which are the best episodes. IMDB has a lot of votes, but even this is not accurate, the best episodes (Winds and Battle) have 80000+ votes (more 100000 the latest) while the average is arund 10000-15000 (I haven't calculated it, but you can see that here):

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0944947/eprate?ref_=tt_eps_rhs_sm

That means that the finales and episodes 9 (battles) are the ones with more viewers, probably with more occasional ones. SO, if people want to watch a single episode of a battle theme, of course they will rate it high later!

In my humble opinion until we have a  poll with viewers who watch the whole show!! we will never know the truth, except for the fact that the episodes with more budget and that look like more cinematographic (and probably with more viewers because the finales are the ones more people watch even if they din't follow the show) are the ones who are rated the highest.

Another thing to take into consideration is that if the showrunners wrote the majority of episodes, (and finales) it's logical they will have the best (and worst???? ones).

But did anyone notice that 2 out of 4 Martin's episodes are in the top ten? And The Pointy End is still rated as a 9 (27th position, the upper half). SO Martin's are not in the worst side. Only in the best side and the other half in the middle. Interesting.