[SPOILERS thru S7] Where did the show go wrong?

[divica]

On ‎30‎/‎11‎/‎2017 at 0:23 AM, Ser Maverick said:

I think once George left the series HBO stepped in to fill the void and have really strong-armed D&D's creative control. This is why the overall effort into the show has seemed to go way down and D&D have no interest in returning for any of the spin-offs. GoT is likely by-far HBO's biggest cash cow and they're going to milk it dry.

The biggest problem is that they have no idea what made the show click for audiences in the first place. They saw all the buzz the show got after the Red Wedding and thought that it was character deaths and shock value, so in the following two seasons we were bombarded with it. Now we're left with all the characters they didn't have the balls to kill off and the story has become so barebones that it barely resembles the earlier seasons.

Character development, interesting storylines, schemes, consequences for actions, character driven plot, all the things that made the show what it was for me has been almost nowhere to be found since season 4, and what there has been has fallen flat. Everything that raised the show above typical fantasy stories is gone and it's basically just picked up the worst elements of generic fantasy in its place.

 

3 hours ago, Skyrazer said:

My question is: did GRRM divulge the rest of the plot's details to just D&D? Because it sounds like D&D are the only ones who've been handed the blueprints from GRRM and they are keeping it tightly amongst themselves (which I can understand), but which means they're trying to go at it on their own and they're in way over their heads.

If this is the case, they really should have brought in some writing talent to share the blueprints with because the writing is what's sorely lacking.

I think people dislike s5 because it is when the show started diverging from the books and when they decided to change the story to make it shorter and add more shocking moments to the show and mediatism. 

And while I think that in s5 they actually tried to adapt the story so that it would be shorter and have less povs, s6 is basically garbage. Seriouslly, if a person uses the brain while watchig s6 it is really bad! Starting with the women empowerment crap, the way jon was ressurected, how they gave more protagonism to sansa because she become famous (got older and prettier), the way danny gets the dothriaki, the BoB (worst direction ever of a battle! NOTHING IN THIS BATTLE MAKES SENSE!!! SERIOUSLY, ANALYSE THE BATTLE!!), to the masters attacking mereen without a weapon to deal with dragons (why vollunter for mass slaughter??), the sand snakes become the dornish leader (have we ever seen the dornish army do anything in any season?), cersei becoming queen after fucking exploding the septon, super aria that can go do rappel and fight after a gut wound... I can never understand how people say s5 was the worst when s6 should is pure garbage that doesn t make sense!

[WildlingWitch]

For me the show stopped making sense during season 6. I hated season 6 'Battle of the Bastards' made no sense and nothing else happened all season. The only thing that I liked about season 6 was that it forced me to read the books in order to find out what was going on.

I had absolutely no idea how much the story had changed until I read the books. I knew that it had changed because book to tv/movie adaptions are never exactly the same but I didn't realize how much it had drifted from the books. 

[Ser Maverick]

3 hours ago, divica said:

I think people dislike s5 because it is when the show started diverging from the books and when they decided to change the story to make it shorter and add more shocking moments to the show and mediatism. 

And while I think that in s5 they actually tried to adapt the story so that it would be shorter and have less povs, s6 is basically garbage. Seriouslly, if a person uses the brain while watchig s6 it is really bad! Starting with the women empowerment crap, the way jon was ressurected, how they gave more protagonism to sansa because she become famous (got older and prettier), the way danny gets the dothriaki, the BoB (worst direction ever of a battle! NOTHING IN THIS BATTLE MAKES SENSE!!! SERIOUSLY, ANALYSE THE BATTLE!!), to the masters attacking mereen without a weapon to deal with dragons (why vollunter for mass slaughter??), the sand snakes become the dornish leader (have we ever seen the dornish army do anything in any season?), cersei becoming queen after fucking exploding the septon, super aria that can go do rappel and fight after a gut wound... I can never understand how people say s5 was the worst when s6 should is pure garbage that doesn t make sense!

There's really something unique to hate about all the past three seasons. I personally disliked s5 the most because there was nothing even remotely interesting about the Sparrows, Harpies, Sand Snakes, or Olly. I'm somewhat surprised they didn't lose viewers after that because even casual viewers I talked to thought those storylines slowed the series way down.

[Nowy Tends]

7 hours ago, Ser Maverick said:

Show writers will talk about writing scenes with acting talent in mind, something I would assume is common in television writing,

GoT became famous precisely because it wasn't "common television", it had the power to immerse the viewer in a credible universe; 

Do you think GRRM wrote several episodes "with acting talent in mind", at the expense of the plot?

Compare the Battle of the Blackwater and the BoB: they don't belong to the same show…

[jcmontea]

4 hours ago, Nowy Tends said:

GoT became famous precisely because it wasn't "common television", it had the power to immerse the viewer in a credible universe; 

Do you think GRRM wrote several episodes "with acting talent in mind", at the expense of the plot?

Compare the Battle of the Blackwater and the BoB: they don't belong to the same show…

I would think every single tv writer needs to write with their acting talent in mind. You have to have an eye on what your actors can or cannot pull off, which emptions they can do best, etc. to make sure the finished product comes out good. Seems like just a basic part of writing for tv.

 

[Ser Maverick]

9 hours ago, Nowy Tends said:

Do you think GRRM wrote several episodes "with acting talent in mind", at the expense of the plot?

Good job strawmanning my argument into what I’m literally arguing against. Writing scenes with acting talent in mind, such as not writing a long, emotional monologue for Shae, doesn’t compromise the story and seems pretty common sense. George did, however, give a long, emotional monologue to Lena Heady in Blackwater that was unlike anything in any of the books.

[Angel Eyes]

15 hours ago, WildlingWitch said:

For me the show stopped making sense during season 6. I hated season 6 'Battle of the Bastards' made no sense and nothing else happened all season. The only thing that I liked about season 6 was that it forced me to read the books in order to find out what was going on.

I had absolutely no idea how much the story had changed until I read the books. I knew that it had changed because book to tv/movie adaptions are never exactly the same but I didn't realize how much it had drifted from the books. 

I had fun with watching Jon go all Leeroy Jenkins.

[Krishtotter]

I personally feel Season 5 gets unfairly maligned, primarily owing to the (literally unbearable-to-watch) Dorne scenes and the jarring changes to Sansa's storyline (in choosing to conflate her with Jeyne Poole from the books and marrying Ramsay Bolton). 

Otherwise, the dialogue was still on point (snappy, witty); the show remained character-driven; the political machinations were intriguing (I actually liked the High Sparrow and depictions of religious fundamentalism, which fit the medieval setting like a glove) etc. 

I started to have some more serious misgivings in Season 6 (the way in which Jon's resurrection was handled, for instance) but overall still enjoyed the show immensely, particularly BoB and Winds of Winter (a corker of a finale in my honest assessment).

Season 7...now that was the definition of trainwreck. Characterisation and consistency went out the window. The plot (or, rather, the husk of a plot) made little-to-no-sense. The dialogue reached unbelievably terrible lows - all those silly, juvenile references to "cocks, dicks and penises" in an attempt to elicit cheap humor to compensate for poorly wrought character interactions. I could wax lyrical about its pitfalls relative to what came before but will spare you all the boredom. Needless to say, S7 didn't really feel quite like GoT/ASOIAF in the same way as seasons 1-4 or even 5-6, in a lot of places. There was this overall amateurishness and stilted quality to the writing which did not impress me in the least. 

What redeemed S7 (just) were roughly three episodes (four of them were dreadful. Just dreadful, especially Eastwatch & that heinous monstrosity 'Beyond the Wall' with the Wight hunt nonsense): the third, 'The Queen's Justice' while a bit flat in places had scenes in it that I found well-acted and competently written (i.e. Cersei tormenting the Sand Snakes and Olena Tyrell, the Queen of Thorns' "tart-tongued" exit from the show). 'The Spoils of War' was just so visually stunning, left me on the edge of my seat and had me very excited. The finale had a really good scene between Tyrion and Cersei, as well as between Cersei and Jaime. It also tied up loose plot ends (i.e. regarding Jon's paternity and right to the throne) and ended on another visually stunning note with the Wall collapsing courtesy of the Night King riding an undead Viserion spewing out blue fire. A bit crazy and very blockbusterish compared to the intricate fantasy political drama of earlier seasons but I can't deny, I did very much enjoy those three episodes. The show always 'looks spectacullar', in terms of the production values, which is a boon and considerable advantage in its own right- but unfortunately that, in itself, doesn't adequately cover up for clunky dialogue and plotting. 

IMHO Season 5 and 6 were nowhere near the abysmal travesties that so many frequent commentators on this forum depict them as being. But Season 7, no disagreement there. Just terribly, lazily written in many respects (with little finesse or attention to detail, timing issues, pacing all over the place etc.), the episodes (or rather parts of episodes) I've alluded to excepting of course. 

The ending to the series in S8 will essentially be based directly on the GRRM outline D&D are privy to. I have a certain faith it will be "good" for this reason but I'm not terribly optimistic about how well it can be executed. Should the worst mistakes of S7 get regurgitated all over again, the Season will be blah, apart from the special effects and visual display (which is always top-notch, better than anything else on TV). If they strive for a similar quality to S6, however, then it could end "ok" - not like seasons 1-4 in quality but not shambolic either, perhaps even passably 'worthy' as a conclusion to what came before in earlier seasons. 

I live in hope. 

[Rhodan]

2 hours ago, Krishtotter said:

I personally feel Season 5 gets unfairly maligned, primarily owing to the (literally unbearable-to-watch) Dorne scenes and the jarring changes to Sansa's storyline (in choosing to conflate her with Jeyne Poole from the books and marrying Ramsay Bolton). 

Otherwise, the dialogue was still on point (snappy, witty); the show remained character-driven; the political machinations were intriguing (I actually liked the High Sparrow and depictions of religious fundamentalism, which fit the medieval setting like a glove) etc. 

I started to have some more serious misgivings in Season 6 (the way in which Jon's resurrection was handled, for instance) but overall still enjoyed the show immensely, particularly BoB and Winds of Winter (a corker of a finale in my honest assessment).

Season 7...now that was the definition of trainwreck. Characterisation and consistency went out the window. The plot (or, rather, the husk of a plot) made little-to-no-sense. The dialogue reached unbelievably terrible lows - all those silly, juvenile references to "cocks, dicks and penises" in an attempt to elicit cheap humor to compensate for poorly wrought character interactions. I could wax lyrical about its pitfalls relative to what came before but will spare you all the boredom. Needless to say, S7 didn't really feel quite like GoT/ASOIAF in the same way as seasons 1-4 or even 5-6, in a lot of places. There was this overall amateurishness and stilted quality to the writing which did not impress me in the least. 

What redeemed S7 (just) were roughly three episodes (four of them were dreadful. Just dreadful, especially Eastwatch & that heinous monstrosity 'Beyond the Wall' with the Wight hunt nonsense): the third, 'The Queen's Justice' while a bit flat in places had scenes in it that I found well-acted and competently written (i.e. Cersei tormenting the Sand Snakes and Olena Tyrell, the Queen of Thorns' "tart-tongued" exit from the show). 'The Spoils of War' was just so visually stunning, left me on the edge of my seat and had me very excited. The finale had a really good scene between Tyrion and Cersei, as well as between Cersei and Jaime. It also tied up loose plot ends (i.e. regarding Jon's paternity and right to the throne) and ended on another visually stunning note with the Wall collapsing courtesy of the Night King riding an undead Viserion spewing out blue fire. A bit crazy and very blockbusterish compared to the intricate fantasy political drama of earlier seasons but I can't deny, I did very much enjoy those three episodes. The show always 'looks spectacullar', in terms of the production values, which is a boon and considerable advantage in its own right- but unfortunately that, in itself, doesn't adequately cover up for clunky dialogue and plotting. 

IMHO Season 5 and 6 were nowhere near the abysmal travesties that so many frequent commentators on this forum depict them as being. But Season 7, no disagreement there. Just terribly, lazily written in many respects (with little finesse or attention to detail, timing issues, pacing all over the place etc.), the episodes (or rather parts of episodes) I've alluded to excepting of course. 

The ending to the series in S8 will essentially be based directly on the GRRM outline D&D are privy to. I have a certain faith it will be "good" for this reason but I'm not terribly optimistic about how well it can be executed. Should the worst mistakes of S7 get regurgitated all over again, the Season will be blah, apart from the special effects and visual display (which is always top-notch, better than anything else on TV). If they strive for a similar quality to S6, however, then it could end "ok" - not like seasons 1-4 in quality but not shambolic either, perhaps even passably 'worthy' as a conclusion to what came before in earlier seasons. 

I live in hope. 

Well, of course more power to you and your sentiment, but I think that while seasons 5 a and 6 weren´t so drastically terrible as 7, they were pretty obviously so. Maybe with the slight exception of season 5 Tyrion (and even that is reaching) I can´t think about any plotline in them that wouldn´t contain something that didn´t make sense, dialogue was pain-inducing as ever and I personally see BOTB and especially TWOW as hollow spectacles that also (surprise, surprise) didn´t make much sense. My, God, there was so much nonsense about the trial and sept explosion.     

[jcmontea]

47 minutes ago, Rhodan said:

Well, of course more power to you and your sentiment, but I think that while seasons 5 a and 6 weren´t so drastically terrible as 7, they were pretty obviously so. Maybe with the slight exception of season 5 Tyrion (and even that is reaching) I can´t think about any plotline in them that wouldn´t contain something that didn´t make sense, dialogue was pain-inducing as ever and I personally see BOTB and especially TWOW as hollow spectacles that also (surprise, surprise) didn´t make much sense. My, God, there was so much nonsense about the trial and sept explosion.     

For >95% of viewers, BOTB and TWOW work based if nothing else on the rule of cool 

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfCool

[Rhodan]

8 minutes ago, jcmontea said:

For >95% of viewers, BOTB and TWOW work based if nothing else on the rule of cool 

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfCool

Again, more power to them. It´s their right and it summs up the success of show well. As for myself I just feel a little sorry that my proccess from reading Hedge Knight has come to this.

[jcmontea]

23 minutes ago, Rhodan said:

Again, more power to them. It´s their right and it summs up the success of show well. As for myself I just feel a little sorry that my proccess from reading Hedge Knight has come to this.

The rule of cool def sums up part of the succes of the show. Although does not work always. Beyond the wall had more mixed reception. 

 

[Angel Eyes]

56 minutes ago, jcmontea said:

The rule of cool def sums up part of the succes of the show. Although does not work always. Beyond the wall had more mixed reception. 

 

Same for Rule of Drama. Examples: Sansa’s plot line in Season 5 and the complete decapitation of Stannis’ storyline.

[jcmontea]

30 minutes ago, Angel Eyes said:

Same for Rule of Drama. Examples: Sansa’s plot line in Season 5 and the complete decapitation of Stannis’ storyline.

But what is your point. An excessive reliance on the rule of drama lead the show astray and the examples are sansa’s plot line and stannis decapitation? 

Sansa’s season 5 plot is def a by product of the rule of drama. Not sure the same for Stannis though. They could have easily played that straight stannis vs boltons and had plenty of drama.

But the rule of drama is actually incredible now that i think of it. Basically for every question we have been asking for the last three months, the right answer is always the one that leads to more conflict and drama. 

[Angel Eyes]

14 minutes ago, jcmontea said:

But what is your point. An excessive reliance on the rule of drama lead the show astray and the examples are sansa’s plot line and stannis decapitation? 

Sansa’s season 5 plot is def a by product of the rule of drama. Not sure the same for Stannis though. They could have easily played that straight stannis vs boltons and had plenty of drama.

But the rule of drama is actually incredible now that i think of it. Basically for every question we have been asking for the last three months, the right answer is always the one that leads to more conflict and drama. 

Well, yes. That is my point. But I also apply it to Stannis’ plot line as well, when it comes to burning Shireen alive.

[divica]

3 hours ago, jcmontea said:

The rule of cool def sums up part of the succes of the show. Although does not work always. Beyond the wall had more mixed reception. 

 

Beyond the Wall wasn t even really cool... With the excepetion of the last 10 mins it was mostly a bland ep with random dialogues between the characters that don t really fit in the moment of the story.

2 hours ago, Angel Eyes said:

Same for Rule of Drama. Examples: Sansa’s plot line in Season 5 and the complete decapitation of Stannis’ storyline.

Most people say this but I kind of completly disagree. I think Sansa's plotline was to eliminate uninteresting plotlines from the books and make jon have a motive to attack winterfell. Basically they could ignore the vale plot and jeyne poole that would be confusing or stupid for the viewers. And it could have worked perfectly if LF motivations would make sense...

In regards to stannis I am guilty of liking how his arc developed in the show. It makes sense with some of stannis behaviours in the books...

[Pink Fat Rast]

On 18.10.2017 at 2:08 PM, YoungGriff89 said:

Maybe this is just me, but I noticed this trend:  in seasons five and six, up until episodes 9 and 10 everybody’s storyline can be summed up in one sentence.  Season five the exceptions were Tyrion and Jon Snow, and kind of Cersei while in season six the exceptions were Dany and Jon.  Think about it, you can skip episodes 1-8 of season five, and all you need to know about every character besides Tyrion, Jon, and Cersei moving into the penultimate and finale, is one sentence.

Jaime and Bronn went to Dorne to rescue Marcella from Oberyn’s daughters and got captured.

Arya arrived in Braavos and is training to be faceless man with Jaqen H’gar.

Sansa returns to Winterfell and is brutalized by Ramsay after marrying him.  

Theon watches Ramsay torture Sansa.

Davos accompanies Stannis away from the wall to march for Winterfell.

Bran is non-existent.

Brienne and Podrick unsuccessfully try to rescue Sansa.

Meereen is turning on Daenerys and a shadow organization killed Ser Barristan.

Season five is where the writing really started to go downhill, but season four is where the limitations of the budget and the difficulty of putting this show out on time became apparent. 

Same thing can be said for a lot of the plotlines in S1-4, things were often quite slow-moving.

And their "limited budget" became apparent in S2 when they had to make battles take place off-screen - budget increased with each season and S4 was the first one with some proper big cinema spectacle,

Don't get your comment.
 

 

 

On 17.10.2017 at 7:25 AM, MrJay said:

On my cell so this won't be as detailed as I like. Just gonna give the overview of my opinion. 

D&D are just not as good. 

I'm not insulting them to insult either. I've had enough if that. What I mean is they are not "authors", for lack of better words. 

They write, sure, but anyone can do that. Anyone can make a string if scenes with explosions and characters being all super awesome. Kids do that. However, an author does that and has it naked sense within the universe they created. 

This is the curious thing with your comment, and DragonDemands videos, for some reason for you it's only either near airtight in-universe logic (or some other high standard like "dramatic structure", presence of themes etc.), or if it falls short of that it can only be toddlers banging plates together.

Don't you realize there's literally a WHOLE CONTINUOUS SPECTRUM from the utmost developed heights of storytelling to the absolute lows??


No, late GoT isn't "bunch of scenes with splosions and characters being awesome".
 

Quote

I have listened to their interviews and it's clear they care not for the actual characters or story. What they care about is showing off their favorite actor and doing "fan service". I do not use this word lightly, but this is legitimate fan fiction.

Well and from the interviews that I've seen, their thought process is quite unevently distributed, so sometimes they'll say something really thoughtful and then some other subject comes up and they say a bunch of hapless nonsense.

They've made lots of comments about characters and story, even DragonDemands cites them (he just concludes that those comments were a disingenuous or self-deluded cover for their *real* motivation which was showing off the actors etc.).

But I don'tfind those conclusions very compelling.

 

Quote

What we are seeing now are people thinking, "wouldn't it be cool if..." and then making it so. Its essentially what happens if you have someone watch the show for 4 seasons then tell them to make up what they want to see and then do it. 

Everything in between is just fluff designed to get to the next cool scene. Not even good fluff.

What would be your examples of such fluff?

 

 

Quote

When I watched season 7 (and some parts of the previous) I truly felt like the writers have been looking at our memes and discussions and picking things that people talked about. 

Davos and "fewer" 

Gendry and his rowing 

Jon and Dany hooking up. 

Aegon and Lyanna secret wedding. 

LF "trial" 

Feild of fire 2.0

Commando misson to the north 

The hound and "you know what's coming" (airhorns) 

Arya and Brienne fight 

 

The list goes on. It's all just spectacle and no substance.

 

Sandor being after Gregor has been an official in-universe plot point since S1 - Sandor coming up to him, both in their new changed state (and after Sandor has already done some revenge killing) makes sense.

"Still rowing", I agree, was indeed a little 4th-wall-groping moment.

The non-bold ones I've got no idea what happened on these forums or thereabouts - did you literally predict a "squad to the North"? I remember when the S7 leaks broke gere, everyone went on about how "retarded" this "wight hunt" was, and no mention of how it was a scenario that had already been talked about here.

[Pink Fat Rast]

On 30.11.2017 at 1:23 AM, Ser Maverick said:

I think once George left the series HBO stepped in to fill the void and have really strong-armed D&D's creative control. This is why the overall effort into the show has seemed to go way down and D&D have no interest in returning for any of the spin-offs. GoT is likely by-far HBO's biggest cash cow and they're going to milk it dry.

The biggest problem is that they have no idea what made the show click for audiences in the first place. They saw all the buzz the show got after the Red Wedding and thought that it was character deaths and shock value, so in the following two seasons we were bombarded with it. Now we're left with all the characters they didn't have the balls to kill off and the story has become so barebones that it barely resembles the earlier seasons.

Character development, interesting storylines, schemes, consequences for actions, character driven plot, all the things that made the show what it was for me has been almost nowhere to be found since season 4,

You sure about that? I'm pretty sure I've read numerous promo interviews with them for S1, and then before S3, and then afterwards up to the Oxford interview and newer ones, where they have mentioned all those things you listed as features of the show and what made them interested in it.

They're dumb lumbering meatheads who've literally no idea what they're doing and then saw the buzz after RW (not any of the acclaim the show had received until then, nor their own fascination with the RW and leading up to it before it aired and before they were filming S3) and decided it was all just deaths and shock and gore eh?

Yeah - take this cartoon nonsense to R&R please, this thread seems to be aiming for a more reasonable standard.

 

Quote

and what there has been has fallen flat. Everything that raised the show above typical fantasy stories is gone and it's basically just picked up the worst elements of generic fantasy in its place.

The worst elements you say? So you're saying the show's bad, no, *worst* as generic fantasy eh?

[Pink Fat Rast]

On 11.12.2017 at 3:40 PM, Krishtotter said:

I personally feel Season 5 gets unfairly maligned, primarily owing to the (literally unbearable-to-watch) Dorne scenes and the jarring changes to Sansa's storyline (in choosing to conflate her with Jeyne Poole from the books and marrying Ramsay Bolton). 

I don't think Dorne was "unbearable to watch"; outside of the stupid fight, and I guess the slapping game and some of Tyene lines it was pretty decent; Bronn/Jaime, Doran and Myrcella/Trystane scenes were up to standard anyway.

Sansa marriage was "jarring" but really well executed.

On 11.12.2017 at 3:40 PM, Krishtotter said:

Otherwise, the dialogue was still on point (snappy, witty); the show remained character-driven; the political machinations were intriguing (I actually liked the High Sparrow and depictions of religious fundamentalism, which fit the medieval setting like a glove) etc. 

I started to have some more serious misgivings in Season 6 (the way in which Jon's resurrection was handled, for instance) but overall still enjoyed the show immensely, particularly BoB and Winds of Winter (a corker of a finale in my honest assessment).

Season 7...now that was the definition of trainwreck. Characterisation and consistency went out the window.

It already flew out of window in S5 - of course not equally for every plotline, one has to admit.

On 11.12.2017 at 3:40 PM, Krishtotter said:

The plot (or, rather, the husk of a plot) made little-to-no-sense. The dialogue reached unbelievably terrible lows - all those silly, juvenile references to "cocks, dicks and penises" in an attempt to elicit cheap humor to compensate for poorly wrought character interactions.

Huh? That Tormund/Hound scene was awesome and hilarious, and hence = the opposite of poorly "wrought".

If you get uptight over people saying cock or twat, I don't know what you're doing with ASOIAF in the first place - go read Harry Potter instead, there's one instance where a ballsack is about to be mentioned and it's promptly interrupted.

Hey there's only one such instance in GoT (Ellaria and Hotah) too come think of it.

 

On 11.12.2017 at 3:40 PM, Krishtotter said:

I could wax lyrical about its pitfalls relative to what came before but will spare you all the boredom. Needless to say, S7 didn't really feel quite like GoT/ASOIAF in the same way as seasons 1-4 or even 5-6, in a lot of places. There was this overall amateurishness and stilted quality to the writing which did not impress me in the least. 

What is the first thing you think about when the word "stilted" is dropped - men talking about cocks, or forum posters getting uppity about men discussing cocks?

Anyway, not to dwell on this too much

On 11.12.2017 at 3:40 PM, Krishtotter said:

What redeemed S7 (just) were roughly three episodes (four of them were dreadful. Just dreadful, especially Eastwatch & that heinous monstrosity 'Beyond the Wall' with the Wight hunt nonsense):

As we all know, when something in a movie "doesn't make sense", it's dreadful filmmaking.

On 11.12.2017 at 3:40 PM, Krishtotter said:

the third, 'The Queen's Justice' while a bit flat in places had scenes in it that I found well-acted and competently written (i.e. Cersei tormenting the Sand Snakes and Olena Tyrell, the Queen of Thorns' "tart-tongued" exit from the show). 'The Spoils of War' was just so visually stunning, left me on the edge of my seat and had me very excited. The finale had a really good scene between Tyrion and Cersei, as well as between Cersei and Jaime. It also tied up loose plot ends (i.e. regarding Jon's paternity and right to the throne) and ended on another visually stunning note with the Wall collapsing courtesy of the Night King riding an undead Viserion spewing out blue fire. A bit crazy and very blockbusterish compared to the intricate fantasy political drama of earlier seasons but I can't deny, I did very much enjoy those three episodes. The show always 'looks spectacullar', in terms of the production values, which is a boon and considerable advantage in its own right- but unfortunately that, in itself, doesn't adequately cover up for clunky dialogue and plotting. 

IMHO Season 5 and 6 were nowhere near the abysmal travesties that so many frequent commentators on this forum depict them as being. But Season 7, no disagreement there. Just terribly, lazily written in many respects (with little finesse or attention to detail, timing issues, pacing all over the place etc.), the episodes (or rather parts of episodes) I've alluded to excepting of course. 

I've just read through these paragraphs 3 times and I still can't wrap my mind around what your general standards are, or even really opinions on S7.

Are you saying the final scene was "stunning", but wouldn't have been stunning if there was a plot hole somewhere?

The Ellaria death scene, Cersei quips about how we shouldn't have favorite children, but earlier it said only Tyene was her daughter? How can you enjoy this scene when there's a plot hole in it, I thought it made everything DREADFUL?

 

But anyway

 

 

On 11.12.2017 at 6:07 PM, Rhodan said:

Well, of course more power to you and your sentiment, but I think that while seasons 5 a and 6 weren´t so drastically terrible as 7, they were pretty obviously so. Maybe with the slight exception of season 5 Tyrion (and even that is reaching) I can´t think about any plotline in them that wouldn´t contain something that didn´t make sense, dialogue was pain-inducing as ever and I personally see BOTB and especially TWOW as hollow spectacles that also (surprise, surprise) didn´t make much sense. My, God, there was so much nonsense about the trial and sept explosion.     

Once again, here we have the reasonable view that when there's something in a plotline that doesn't make sense, it's drastically terrible cinema.

That's why TDK is a horrible movie, according to CinemaSins.



 

 

On 11.12.2017 at 9:08 PM, Angel Eyes said:

Well, yes. That is my point. But I also apply it to Stannis’ plot line as well, when it comes to burning Shireen alive.

There's that really great "exploitation movie" from a while back, called Mark of the Devil - disturbing, romantic, powerful dialogue themes and performances etc. and I'm not sure if I counted any plot holes in it in general - however, the "ironic catastrophy" ending literally makes no sense at all.

Why doesn't he just tell the angry mob that this guy they're rallying behind was an even worse, and corrupt torturer than him? And the main bad guy just escapes in plain sight.

But this absurd "rule of drama" still doesn't detract from the memorability and emotional power of those ending scenes - they're unjustified logically, but still great cinema.


I'm seeing way too many "if there's a plothole this episode is dreadful trash" comments on here, it's weird.

____________________

 

On 11.12.2017 at 10:57 PM, divica said:

Beyond the Wall wasn t even really cool... With the excepetion of the last 10 mins it was mostly a bland ep with random dialogues between the characters that don t really fit in the moment of the story.

They weren't bland, and how didn't they make sense "in the moment of the story" again?

They were going to the mountain that Sandor saw in his vision, many of these characters just met for the 1st time, or the the 1st time in several seasons - some of those exchanges would've been nigh identical in any other "moment of the story" and it would've made just as much sense.

Characters having interactions that didn't directly have to do with the ongoing plot - i.e. "taking a break from the plot", just like real humans do IRL, has always been a feature of this show, what went on here wasn't really any different.

[Kandrax]

Massacre of Freys. Arya said that their biggest mistake is not killing all Starks, yet she only killed adult men. What a massive hypocrite.