The Future of Game of Thrones

[colourfulsevens]

On 7/15/2016 at 6:19 PM, Ded As Ned said:

I thought I also read somewhere that they wanted less episodes but longer running times.  I'm fine with that if some of the big battles and climaxes run movie length, like 1.5 hours or so.

I'm glad I'm not the only person who's ended up thinking this. I'd personally prefer it if DB&DB gave themselves 20 episodes to wrap things up but it doesn't seem so bad with a bit of mathematics. If you take the average run time of a single Game of Thrones season, which is around 9 hours and 15 minutes based on each episode being 55 minutes, then you'll be looking at approx. 18/19 hours for two seasons. 

Average run time of each season up to now:

Season 1: 9 hours, 17 minutes (average episode run-time of 55.7 minutes)
Season 2: 9 hours, 9 minutes (average episode run-time of 54.9 minutes)
Season 3: 9 hours, 15 minutes (average episode run-time of 55.5 minutes)
Season 4: 9 hours, 3 minutes (average episode run-time of 54.3 minutes)
Season 5: 9 hours, 21 minutes (average episode run-time of 56.1 minutes)
Season 6: 9 hours, 23 minutes (average episode run-time of 56.3 minutes)

So, with that in mind, say season 7 has an average episode run-time of 56.5 minutes (continuing the upward trend of the two most recent seasons which come to 18 hours, 44 minutes in total), that's 6 hours, 36 minutes worth of screen time based on the 7 episodes calculation. If you include the next 6 episodes, still with the run-time of 56.5 minutes, that's another 5 hours, 40 minutes of action to finish off with. The total run-time of season 7/8 will be 12 hours and 16 minutes (the equivalent of about 13/14 episodes based on the average episode run-times of earlier seasons). It's also likely that the average run-time of the final 6 episodes will increase hugely as the stakes increase and the battles get bigger, so we could be in for almost 14 hours worth of content - hence the "73-75 hours" comment from DB&DB in recent weeks. There could be more than 13 episodes, there could be fewer. At the moment, 13 episodes is just a good guess. 

Just as an additional point, the way the media is currently marketing Game of Thrones' 7th season is a little misguided considering the way some big TV shows have ended recently. The way they're insisting on there being season 7 and then season 8 is like if they'd said Breaking Bad had had 6 seasons as opposed to 5, with the last season being split in two. Mad Men did the same, too, if I remember correctly.

Game of Thrones has a lot of links with the number 7 (Faith of the Seven, Seven Kingdoms, 7 books). It would be silly for them not to capitalise on serious meta-reference potential - as long as they balance it properly until the end, of course.

[boojam]

On 7/18/2016 at 5:54 AM, colourfulsevens said:

I'm glad I'm not the only person who's ended up thinking this. I'd personally prefer it if DB&DB gave themselves 20 episodes to wrap things up but it doesn't seem so bad with a bit of mathematics. If you take the average run time of a single Game of Thrones season, which is around 9 hours and 15 minutes based on each episode being 55 minutes, then you'll be looking at approx. 18/19 hours for two seasons. 

Average run time of each season up to now:

Season 1: 9 hours, 17 minutes (average episode run-time of 55.7 minutes)
Season 2: 9 hours, 9 minutes (average episode run-time of 54.9 minutes)
Season 3: 9 hours, 15 minutes (average episode run-time of 55.5 minutes)
Season 4: 9 hours, 3 minutes (average episode run-time of 54.3 minutes)
Season 5: 9 hours, 21 minutes (average episode run-time of 56.1 minutes)
Season 6: 9 hours, 23 minutes (average episode run-time of 56.3 minutes)

So, with that in mind, say season 7 has an average episode run-time of 56.5 minutes (continuing the upward trend of the two most recent seasons which come to 18 hours, 44 minutes in total), that's 6 hours, 36 minutes worth of screen time based on the 7 episodes calculation. If you include the next 6 episodes, still with the run-time of 56.5 minutes, that's another 5 hours, 40 minutes of action to finish off with. The total run-time of season 7/8 will be 12 hours and 16 minutes (the equivalent of about 13/14 episodes based on the average episode run-times of earlier seasons). It's also likely that the average run-time of the final 6 episodes will increase hugely as the stakes increase and the battles get bigger, so we could be in for almost 14 hours worth of content - hence the "73-75 hours" comment from DB&DB in recent weeks. There could be more than 13 episodes, there could be fewer. At the moment, 13 episodes is just a good guess. 

Just as an additional point, the way the media is currently marketing Game of Thrones' 7th season is a little misguided considering the way some big TV shows have ended recently. The way they're insisting on there being season 7 and then season 8 is like if they'd said Breaking Bad had had 6 seasons as opposed to 5, with the last season being split in two. Mad Men did the same, too, if I remember correctly.

Game of Thrones has a lot of links with the number 7 (Faith of the Seven, Seven Kingdoms, 7 books). It would be silly for them not to capitalise on serious meta-reference potential - as long as they balance it properly until the end, of course.

That is interesting , well they never hit 540 minutes. , tho they came close with season 4. On the other hand they never came close to 600 minutes, and I don't know why.