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Was season 7 the off-season?


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2 hours ago, Khorkalba said:

GoT was at its most exciting when there were lots of players but no clear winners, and when the White Walkers were still largely a mystery and a somewhat mythical threat. What was once a complex political game full of moral ambiguity has now turned into a rather simplistic battle of good vs evil, with a generic Chosen Hero vs an equally generic Dark Lord.

The Good side will win in fairly predictable fashion... and while some established characters may die in the process, it will ultimately be of very little consequence at this late stage in the story.

The White Walkers had to cease to be a mystery eventually, however I have to say they have indeed become too much of a focal point. If the White Walkers are given a compelling motive or humanized in some way it may yet save the series.

 

15 hours ago, Yukle said:

I think season 5 was the low point, as it was when the show began to remove all of its narrative elements except for plot twists. From thereon in, it has felt as though the writers believe that a plot twist is the only effective way to explain anything in a story.

It was also the moment when villains began to become cartoon one-dimensional pure evil characters of doom. Ramsay and Cersei no longer have any redeeming qualities as people, which is a problem, because it's as though they tried to make all villains like Joffrey. Really, they were all meant to be like Baelish and Tywin Lannister - with redeeming points and a believable level of support for their actions and causes.

When did Ramsay have any redeeming qualities??? In season 2 he tricked the ironborn in Winterfell to surrender and flayed them, doing the same to the ironborn in Moat Cailin in season 4. At the start of season 4 he hunts a servant girl through the woods. That's on top of all the sadistic games he played his Theon, which didn't serve any useful purpose. None of these actions were helping him "prove" himself to his father or anything. 

Ramsay was always a just smarter Joffrey, and nothing they could have done in season 5 would have redeemed him.

  

 

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It will be considered the most off season because the 8th will the the last and has all that cgi and battles and story endings. Maybe it even has a they lived happily for ever (what most viewers expect and want).

Historically the second half of the show ill be considered a decline and the cgi will not hold up over time. I think they know they cannot rely on just cgi and fan service for long, hence the closure of the show. 

 

 

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48 minutes ago, Dragonslack said:

It will be considered the most off season because the 8th will the the last and has all that cgi and battles and story endings. Maybe it even has a they lived happily for ever (what most viewers expect and want).

Historically the second half of the show ill be considered a decline and the cgi will not hold up over time. I think they know they cannot rely on just cgi and fan service for long, hence the closure of the show. 

 

 

How many producers get a gift from heaven like whole books already put together for them by an amazing author with a really great story?

The fact that they shut it all down when they no longer had someone's material their back pocket to draw from is filthy.

If they couldn't build on the existing story Martin gave them, they don't deserve to be in that business.  I don't know about anyone else reading this, but I am tired of the same shows with different titles.  Storylines captured from previous shows and show premise taken directly from prior shows.  It would almost be better to call some things "reboots". 

I don't like it.  The lack of imagination in entertainment is a problem.  Most TV show pilots now won't even make it to TV unless they are based on BOOKS!  That is easier for writers to take a story someone else already wrote and develop it for TV.  And the GOT producers couldn't even do that right once the books stopped coming. They needed a new book for every season!  When that stopped, they had nowhere to go.  Talentless people who cannot even take a 5-book series (they had 5 solid seasons in book form to draw from) and expand on that to future seasons with their own imagination.

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I feel like season 8 could go either way.  It could be an improvement over the last few years because it is presumably the end that GRRM gave them, so whatever that 'end' is...it will be based on reasonable character motivations and will connect to the earlier seasons.  I had at one point thought maybe since he's obviously not even getting Winds out until the show wraps, he might be more involved in the final season, so that the end of his series will have his input and guidance.  That is the best case.  I now don't think GRRM will be any more involved than he has been since season 4, he appears busy with many other shiny new objects.

Worst case is the showrunners have already checked out, and having skated on the quality of seasons 1-4, they will continue to attempt to skate for 6 more episodes, and so season 8 will be very similar to season 7.  A lot of people and armies appearing out of thin air for a nice looking battle.  People meeting and talking for the benefit of the audience, breaking the fourth wall.  And a handful of good scenes and good writing.

 

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3 hours ago, White Walker King said:

The White Walkers had to cease to be a mystery eventually, however I have to say they have indeed become too much of a focal point. If the White Walkers are given a compelling motive or humanized in some way it may yet save the series.

Agreed, I see this as key to giving the series a good send-off.

If they fail to tie this up in a compelling way it'll be very disappointing.

But here's hoping for the best!

2 hours ago, Iron Mother said:

How many producers get a gift from heaven like whole books already put together for them by an amazing author with a really great story?

They have the start of a story, and maybe they expected they would have the end when the television series reached that point. But that's obviously not how things panned out.

Maybe they should never have started filming a story that its author hadn't yet completed - or can't complete. I'm glad they gave it a shot regardless, but it wasn't necessarily the most prudent choice. Then again, it has already made HBO and all the people involved a boatload of money - and season 8 will undoubtedly also be a commercial success regardless of how satisfied viewers end up being.

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19 hours ago, SerJeremiahLouistark said:

Which is exactly what makes the books and what made this show in the beginning so awesome.  Blurring the lines between good and evil and having characters, even the bad ones have qualities about them that the audience can relate to.  

 

Absolutely right.  I'll give them a little credit for trying to show Daenerys as a little hot tempered and fire mad, but having Jon fall for her and everyone constantly talk about how great she is (even though she never has explained what breaking the wheel means besides her being the authoritarian dictator).  Having her Jon and Tyrion disagree on ruling principles/philosophies and not all sucking each other off would have been quite interesting.  The Arya/Sansa stuff was wayyy to weird and incoherent though.

8 hours ago, Regular John Umber said:

 I have a completely baseless theory that D&D were told the endgame by GRRM and they didn't like it. They've changed it to suit a vision they personally have of what the story is about, and how they'd like mysteries resolved. 

I so pray that you're right.  Too bad this is the only ending we will ever get.

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52 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

I feel like season 8 could go either way.  It could be an improvement over the last few years because it is presumably the end that GRRM gave them, so whatever that 'end' is...it will be based on reasonable character motivations and will connect to the earlier seasons.  I had at one point thought maybe since he's obviously not even getting Winds out until the show wraps, he might be more involved in the final season, so that the end of his series will have his input and guidance.  That is the best case.  I now don't think GRRM will be any more involved than he has been since season 4, he appears busy with many other shiny new objects.

Worst case is the showrunners have already checked out, and having skated on the quality of seasons 1-4, they will continue to attempt to skate for 6 more episodes, and so season 8 will be very similar to season 7.  A lot of people and armies appearing out of thin air for a nice looking battle.  People meeting and talking for the benefit of the audience, breaking the fourth wall.  And a handful of good scenes and good writing.

It will only be good in the ways we, the audience, will need the satisfaction for this all to end.  Our love of the characters will be the thing that will provide that.  The people who will love S8 will be those who want:

- love stories
- classic/tried and true "bittersweet" endings complete with tears and heart-strings
- to see their favorite characters live on or die in a satisfactory way
- to see their most hated  characters die/suffer (ex: Littlefinger throat slash by really shitty sister collaboration that made no sense)
- big CGI fight epics
- dragons
- easter eggs of things from the past like Rhaegar, The Trident and the prequel material to GOT
- funny quips from expected characters, people using the word "cunt" as a laughter response, strange looks on favorite faces
- the idea of babies spawned by their favorite ship dramas
- blood and guts on the battlefield
- castrated magic and prophecy with no mystery to accompany it
- endless legions of nameless/faceless Essosian Sellswords to get burned up by Drogon and company
- endless legions of nameless/faceless Wights to get slashed and burned by Drogon and company
- character redemption arcs
- hugs
- heart-warming Ramin Djwani mini-symphonies
- deaths of characters you love
- deaths of characters you hate

I could go on, but if you are expecting anything more than this in general, find a new show :(

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9 minutes ago, Lucius Lovejoy said:

Absolutely right.  I'll give them a little credit for trying to show Daenerys as a little hot tempered and fire mad, but having Jon fall for her and everyone constantly talk about how great she is (even though she never has explained what breaking the wheel means besides her being the authoritarian dictator).  Having her Jon and Tyrion disagree on ruling principles/philosophies and not all sucking each other off would have been quite interesting.  The Arya/Sansa stuff was wayyy to weird and incoherent though.

You won't be seeing any of that. 

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22 minutes ago, Anarres said:

Agreed, I see this as key to giving the series a good send-off.

If they fail to tie this up in a compelling way it'll be very disappointing.

But here's hoping for the best!

They have the start of a story, and maybe they expected they would have the end when the television series reached that point. But that's obviously not how things panned out.

Maybe they should never have started filming a story that its author hadn't yet completed - or can't complete. I'm glad they gave it a shot regardless, but it wasn't necessarily the most prudent choice. Then again, it has already made HBO and all the people involved a boatload of money - and season 8 will undoubtedly also be a commercial success regardless of how satisfied viewers end up being.

But don't you think there was more than enough material for talent in that industry to continue from that foundation to continue to make a wonderful thing just from what they already had?  God, with all the fan-fiction out there, you would thing writers could have been brought in to at least continue from where they work in a competent fashion.

If you can't CONTINUE a story that has given you enormous foundational elements complete with a world map and mythology as grand as WOIAF......... i mean, what does that say about the producers?  FANS could and have "written" offshoots to GOT based on Martin's vision that is better than what the show did. 

To me, you have something like Sansa in the books is still with LF at the Eeryie.... but instead of creating something with that, they took from Jeyne Poole and gave that story to Sansa.  And look where THAT led.  It led to one of the most awful horrid plots (Sansa and Ramsey) which led to the dreaded Sansa - Littlefinger - Arya triangle of doom that was so lame it almost hurt.

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