[Spoilers] Criticize without repercussion

[Le Cygne]

49 minutes ago, Ser Quork said:

Nice to meet another in the minority.    I completely agree on the over-egged trial speech.  Added to that, possibly one of the worst "English" accent approximations since Dick Van Dyke.   For me, he's better when he underplays, but he's had nothing worthwhile for the past two seasons anyway.

I can never get past that horrible accent. And it doesn't help that he's playing a saint.

[Dolorous Gabe]

Yeah I like Dinklage a lot although he makes some bad role choices (hard to say no to a huge stack of cash though). He was great in The Station Agent. I think in GoT the writing doesn't do him any favours, and specifically in that trial scene the editing decisions were highly problematic. He may have overacted a bit but it worked for the moment.

I think you can say much the same for the whole GoT ensemble. The show itself is bringing them down.

[SeanF]

4 minutes ago, Le Cygne said:

I can never get past that horrible accent. And it doesn't help that he's playing a saint.

By and large, I'm quite happy with the actors.  My criticisms (and there are still plenty of things I still like about the Show) centre on the writing.

[syrinx]

The backlash is coming. Too little, too late, but it's happening.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/jun/13/game-of-thrones-season-six-is-wasting-all-our-time

[Stark_Contrast]

13 minutes ago, syrinx said:

The backlash is coming. Too little, too late, but it's happening.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/jun/13/game-of-thrones-season-six-is-wasting-all-our-time

So ASOIF is a lump of granite and the show is a beautiful sculpture carved from that?? I'm sorry but I respectfully disagree.

[Illyrio Mo'Parties]

2 hours ago, Elisabetta Duò said:

...especially if GRRM pities D&D enough to help them with the script, after he releases TWOW...

I said this before, the last time you floated this idea, but it got deleted for some reason... but I think it's quite possible that George is disappointed with, and trying to distance himself from, the show... I mean, he basically said he was cancelling everything so he could get The Winds of Winter finished, but that was like two years ago and it's still not done, meanwhile he's still doing cons and Wild Cards and shit... just a thought.

As for the actors:

I agree that Dinklage is pretty good but not that great, and the accent bothers me, and the trial scene was far from his best work in the series... but what are you gonna do? Let's be real, the list of dwarf actors that are good enough to pull off that role is pretty short.

Pretty short! Get it?

So I'm willing to accept his mild limitations as an actor. Tyrion Lannister has to be one of the hardest parts to cast in all of drama. He's got to have presence and charisma, be likeable, display a range of emotion, communicate things subtly, and do it all with an English accent, and be a dwarf... it's a pretty tall order for an actor.

...lol, tall.

 

I also think Emilia Clarke has actually done pretty well, it's just that she hasn't been given anything interesting to do for a long time. Dany's Meereen arc is full of internal conflict that ought to enable some great acting, but the show left most of that out.

But yes, it is a shame that some of the most visible characters have suffered some of the most mediocre acting.

P.S. The show with the best ensemble on TV was undoubtedly The Wire, which frequently found ways for the actors to get across some quite subtle ideas or plot points without the audience becoming confused. Benefits of a good writing staff, perhaps...

P.P.S. You don't need to censor your swearwords by the way, we're all here to talk about the filthiest show in the television history!

[Tijgy]

3 hours ago, Ser Quork said:

Nice to meet another in the minority.    I completely agree on the over-egged trial speech.  Added to that, possibly one of the worst "English" accent approximations since Dick Van Dyke.   For me, he's better when he underplays, but he's had nothing worthwhile for the past two seasons anyway.

I must admit I never understood the whole Dinklage admiration even in the first seasons? I even did not really like him much then and certainly not in the same way a lot of other people did. 

3 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

Agree with all of that. I would add Rory, he doesn't let the weak actors (looking at you, Sophie) overplay in scenes with him, and he does humor well, too (makes it work with what they give him). Tobias brought his A game from Outlander, he really stood out, I forgot I was watching this dismal show during that scene with Jaime.

Tobias was really amazing last episode. Wow. Certainly best acting of the episode and one of the best of this season. And I am also pissed with what they did to Jaime, otherwise I probably would have enjoyed NCW too but now ... I cannot handle the whole Cersei love. 

[Ser Hyle]

15 hours ago, twilight said:

Why is my posting shown as a single quote?

Why can't I edit my posting in a reasonable way?

I would look for these answers within yourself.

[SerMixalot]

2 hours ago, Stark_Contrast said:

So ASOIF is a lump of granite and the show is a beautiful sculpture carved from that?? I'm sorry but I respectfully disagree.

AOOIAF are those cool goblin rock formations and D&D are those asshats who knocked them over.

[SerMixalot]

8 hours ago, Darkstream said:

So let me get this strait, GRRM, in the books, has Arya assume many different identities. Arry, Weasel, Nan, Squab, Salty, Cat, Beth, Mercy, and I'm sure there might be some minor ones that I'm missing. And somehow, after reading their crib sheets, d$d figured that a good way to adapt this amazing character from the written page to a visual medium was to give her the identities of Wolverine and Sarah fucking Connors. 

Like what???? Seriously d$d. these censored, censored, censored, censored, are not only showing no interest in even attempting to adapt the books anymore, but they are vindictively doing everything in their power to destroy and defecate all over this brilliant and beautiful story.

You know, after things like "play with her arse", "You want the bad pussy", warty fucking cocks, enough crude dick jokes to fill a "101 funniest lamest" book, along with the countless other atrocities that d$d have committed while adapting this story, I have had absolutely zero faith in them to make an even palatable adaption of ASOIAF. But even I, one of harshest cynics of d$d didn't think that they could stoop so low as to give us this horrible, and offensive of a show as they have this season.

I am so utterly embarrassed to think of all the people that I talked into watching this show after season 1.  

I think it is a typical D&D plotpoint hit.  Arya chooses to be a Stark and leaves behind all other identities.  Plot point checked, everything else nonsensically not leading to that plot point

[SerMixalot]

7 hours ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

Otherwise known as the Weasley Cop-out

------------------------------------------------------

After all my bitching, and everyone else's, about the terrible writing, I think what we're really seeing here, above all else, is that there simply isn't enough time. The writers are producing the show as well, and they're trying to get ten hours of TV done in a year, filming in 3 or 4 different countries, with a complicated story and a massive cast, etc, etc, and there simply aren't enough hours in the day.

This isn't meant to absolve them: rather, it's to say that they ought to delegate more, or hire more writers, or stretch out the production schedule, or whatever they have to do to compensate for the difficulties inherent in this production. If you bite off more than you can chew, then you'll have a hard time swallowing it. I'll go further: if you knowingly bite off more than you can chew, then you've only got yourself to blame when you choke.

Absolutely that has always been one of my pet theories is that for what ever reason D&D take on way too much responsibility.  They would be far better served to delegate tasks, especially the writing.  I wonder whether it is their wanting to control everything or an inability to play (work) well with others

[Cas Stark]

I agree and have been saying this for some time also....whether it's a nitpick or not, things like the necklace and everyone forgetting to put the Eyrie in the opening the year Lysa goes out the moon door are symptomatic of a chaotic, overwhelmed production team, who is barely keeping it together.  There are plenty of anecdotes from the showrunners themselves that support this, being over budget, missing deadlines, multiple rewrites during shooting, etc. as well as comments from some of the actors that support the idea that GOT is a clusterfuck of a production.

But, it's the 6th season.  Something like this, putting in more staff to deal with routine things, delegating, etc. that should have been done back in Season 3 or 4, not allowed to go on and on...while the errors pile up and the writing gets more and more superficial and nonsensical.

[SerMixalot]

2 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

I agree and have been saying this for some time also....whether it's a nitpick or not, things like the necklace and everyone forgetting to put the Eyrie in the opening the year Lysa goes out the moon door are symptomatic of a chaotic, overwhelmed production team, who is barely keeping it together.  There are plenty of anecdotes from the showrunners themselves that support this, being over budget, missing deadlines, multiple rewrites during shooting, etc. as well as comments from some of the actors that support the idea that GOT is a clusterfuck of a production.

But, it's the 6th season.  Something like this, putting in more staff to deal with routine things, delegating, etc. that should have been done back in Season 3 or 4, not allowed to go on and on...while the errors pile up and the writing gets more and more superficial and nonsensical.

True dat, it becomes evident in the small things, the inconsistencies, like the number of necklaces or the number of Cersei's children.  A good team would have a continuity editor or some such person to catch these thins.  Something like Cersei's children would require forethought, but assuming they put it in there, have some sort of retcon that Cersei was lying to Catelyn to provide sympathy to her at the time.  Something that makes the continuity somewhat less problematic. 

[Lady_of_the_black]

I really hated at the end when jaqen tell arya she is truly no one now.. where the hell did he get that idea from? Everything she has done was for her own reasons. She totally failed at being a faceless man. I wish he hadn't said that.. It would have been better if arya just said her little awesome line about being arya stark and going home. We didn't need jaqen to say that.. It made no sense to me.

Also.. her stab wounds. I think they could have cut her getting injured completely, they treated it like a scratch anyways. Maybe they will be significant in next week's episode.

[Defiance@duskendale]

This episode left me with a headache. I watched the first 5 seasons before reading the books, so I don't have an overriding preference for either one. That being said i've been feeling as though the show has 'jumped the proverbial shark' for some episodes now. It had been difficult to assess this though, because the show has always been flawed. Season 1 was arguably too heavy on the exposition (necessary to catch viewers up due to the huge scope of the story I know), season 2 had the nonsensical 'where are my dragons storyline' and not forgetting the Rob and Talisa romance on the battlefields, that would've felt more at home in a World War 1 film, and so on and so forth. However this season is in another league. Its not an issue of the show moving in its own direction, or choosing not to adhere to book structure. It's a failure to follow its own story narrative in a coherent way. Character motivations seem to change from episode to episode. This is most clearly shown in Jaime and I'm sorry but I refuse to take his illogical character development as him 'clearly battling with the two aspects of his personality.' Its messy because the show started by following the Jaime redemption arc from the books and then chose to abandon it. Thus leaving us with show Jaime who despite living through 5 books worth of events has gone back to being as one dimensional as he was in the pilot episode. This made his conversation with Brienne this week incredibly confusing. He sent her off to find and protect the Stark children back in season 4 (which she miraculously managed to do), and yet he makes it clear to Brienne that his sister is looking for Sansa and so this 'complicates matters', he then agrees to let her try and negotiate with the Blackfish to surrender the castle peacefully and take the Tully forces north to help the remaining Starks recapture Winterfell from the Boltons. Sorry but what? Wasn't the whole point of him taking back Riverrun to prove to Cersei (his entire reason for breathing as he reminds every time he speaks a sentence) how devoted he is to her and to the Lannister cause? The Boltons are supposed to be the second biggest allies in this war after the Tyrells, why is he so casual about this, and even arguably aiding and abetting the enemy side? And honestly his entire encounter with Brienne felt hollow and useless, it was obvious fan service and I'm assuming a ploy to keep her away from the upcoming Battle at Winterfell. Even Sansa's reasoning for sending her made no sense, she was supposedly scared a raven to her Uncle would get intercepted, and yet when Brienne gets there she sends a raven back to Sansa immediately to let her know she failed in recruiting the Blackfish? What happened to the dangers of such correspondence being intercepted? There could be some kind of twist to Sansa's motivations for sending her away but after the Arya in Bravos nightmare i've stopped believing this show is capable of such things. Seguing into Arya in Bravos, what a disappointment and waste of bloody time that turned out to be. I still remember how excited I felt watching her sail off at the end of season 4, full of hope at a new exciting direction for her character in a bright shiny new location. If i'd known this is where it was all heading i'd have preferred to see her meandering aimlessly around the Westerosi countryside for another two seasons. All her storyline has amounted to in the last two seasons is one big merry go round. Literally no one expected her to become a fully fledged faceless man, this I accept without issue. But what have we seen from her training exactly, apart from blind stick fighting? Hardly the making of a master assassin whose about to come home and take Westeros by storm. She's honestly achieved nothing in coming to Bravos, they would've done better giving her a season break Bran style. Who was the waif and what was her agenda? Who knows? No-one. Where was the narrative logic or purpose in this episode? Who knows? No one. 

[The Scabbard Of the Morning]

I think Dinklage was only popular in the earlier seasons because Tyrion had great written material, there is a reason Tyrion is one of the fan favrorites in the books, he got all the great lines.

He's not a bad actor, but he not great either. I think the problem for most of them is that they don't have great material to work with. It's hard to emote when you don't understand your character's motivations, I don't think the writers can tell them because they themselves don't know. And then they are told not to read the books. So what can the actors do?

 

[NutBurz]

4 hours ago, syrinx said:

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/jun/13/game-of-thrones-season-six-is-wasting-all-our-time

This article shows a lot of what I hate about book zealots.

"At least that final homecoming (or at least resolution to return home) was exciting. There was a grisly death, an excellent chase scene, horrible things happening to unsuspecting orange dealers on the streets of Braavos and finally a showdown in the dark that we didn’t get to witness. After all the times the nameless girl has kicked the tar out of Arya, we weren’t allowed to watch her final triumph? "

I don´t get it how was that scene exciting for someone who claims to be extremely critical. After it was estabilished that Arya would not die from being repeatedly stabbed in the belly and from swimming in questionable water with her belly open, there could be no doubt she would survive the whole thing.

And then they make her roll down 20m of stairs and defeat, in the dark, the woman that had been defeating her 9/10 times. It wouldn´t matter if Arya had trained 10 years in the dark and the Waif hadn´t - her arms were supposed to hurt at least as if they were almost broken, there could be no way of her besting a trained assassin in those conditions.

And how would the fight make this scene any better? Each second would be a further ridiculous suspension of disbelief. It would look like crap because of the forced effect of "filming in the dark", and it would literally add nothing to the plot.

 

" We also didn’t get to see Brynden the Blackfish Tully’s last stand at Riverrun "

 

"Parry, Parry, Slash, get stabbed, end of fight". Why should this be in? So that fans can complain that the Blackfish wasn´t half as legendary as they wanted him to be? Just look at the reactions from Barristan´s death, and he actually killed about 10 times his own numbers.

 

"  or just what Dany’s beast Drogon did to slaver’s ships outside Meereen before it dropped the Khaleesi off on top of a pyramid like it was no big deal."

Has this guy ever heard of "the next episode"?

 

" That frustration of missing all the good stuff is something I’ve been feeling for much of this season. Part of the reason is that each episode has a very predictable structure, beginning in one place, then flitting about the Seven Kingdoms checking in on a few storylines before ending where we started for a big plot advancement. But it’s also because the show doesn’t seem to know how much time to invest in each strand. Did we really need to wait all that time for Jon Snow’s inevitable resurrection? Likewise, did we need all that screen time before Daenerys torched the Dothraki and took their authority for her own? And who needs to watch Ramsay Bolton commit yet another atrocity? "

What exactly does the "predictable show structure" have to do with the directors choosing not to show irrelevant scenes? Because that´s what I read from his "all the good stuff" if he thinks that the battle between Arya and the Waif or the death of the Blackfish are "the good stuff".

And how exactly is the structure predictable? It has a structure, and it doens´t change structures every 5 episodes because that´s bad production. But does anyone really know before-hand what´s going to be exposed within this structure? Which exactly are the places that will be shown and the exact cronology? That would mean "being predictable"; keeping up your proposal doesn´t. 

I don´t quite understand what he means with the amount of time it takes for Jon to ressurrect and for Dany to burn the Dothraki. Is he actually saying he wanted things to be even faster than they were? Like, same episode, Dany arrives, talks to the dothraki leaders, burns them and wins the day. Is he really really saying that he wouldn´t be complaining about the story being rushed then?

People need to consider honestly their own reactions to the alternatives. And claiming the alternative is just "making it better made" is a hypocritical, unfounded claim. Either you provide an entire adequate solution charged with your own criticism as much as your complaint is, or you just try as hard as you can to understand the creator´s limitations, since you apparently share some of them.

 

" The biggest waste of time, however, was the siege at Riverrun. Not only was it full of tertiary characters who had barely appeared before, but it led nowhere. We spent two whole episodes there and it ended with an off-screen death, a nearly bloodless revolution, and Jaime Lannister and Brienne of Tarth once again going their separate ways. "

 

These are clearly the words of someone who just wants to see how the story ends. "Tertiary characters? Screw these unimportant people! Realm politics and character nuances? Screw that, who cares about Riverrun. Trying to keep the cronology somewhat digestible by displaying events in certain groups? Screw that, I want each plot point started and resolved in the same episode so that I can see the resolutions quicker".

 

" The Lannisters and Freys still guard the castle and nothing of note happened to tip the balance of power. What was the point? "

Still? Did he miss the part where Riverrun was held by the Blackfish and not by either Frey or Lannister? This is the kind of criticism "it doesn´t matter that this happened to me, because the end result was the same, even if it could have not been, even if it could have changed eveything; it didn´t, so it doesn´t matter"

 

" The real difference this season, of course, is that it is the first where David Benioff and DB Weiss didn’t have George RR Martin’s blueprint as they were writing; the show has certainly been the worse off for it.  "

Gotta love this parrot´s argument. GRRM has many strong points reagarding plot structure, book structure, realism in fantasy settings, creativity freedom regarding his characters. But he only rarely has moments of brilliant dialogue and argument, the things people complain about D&D the most.

It´s funny because it´s the same bias that Tolkien´s hardcore fans have. Tell them Tolkien was not technically a great writer, and you´ll get the same reaction as saying that D&D can create television shows better than GRRM.

 

" Now, the major events have stopped "

Oh really? REALLY? Jon snow coming back to life is not an event, at all? Just because people already expected it? How about faith driven Tommen and his "screw you, mom"? No? Not an event yet. Ok. Hodor gets his mind screwed up by time travelling (bad, terrible writing, I gotta admit), no event? Coldhands is Benjen Stark despite GRRM saying he´s not. No event?

 

I´m fairly sure people think that not liking something makes them somehow better, and that their not-liking is enough justification to call it badly done.

 

 

[Illyrio Mo'Parties]

2 hours ago, SerMixalot said:

Absolutely that has always been one of my pet theories is that for what ever reason D&D take on way too much responsibility.  They would be far better served to delegate tasks, especially the writing.  I wonder whether it is their wanting to control everything or an inability to play (work) well with others

1 hour ago, Cas Stark said:

I agree and have been saying this for some time also....whether it's a nitpick or not, things like the necklace and everyone forgetting to put the Eyrie in the opening the year Lysa goes out the moon door are symptomatic of a chaotic, overwhelmed production team, who is barely keeping it together.  There are plenty of anecdotes from the showrunners themselves that support this, being over budget, missing deadlines, multiple rewrites during shooting, etc. as well as comments from some of the actors that support the idea that GOT is a clusterfuck of a production.

But, it's the 6th season.  Something like this, putting in more staff to deal with routine things, delegating, etc. that should have been done back in Season 3 or 4, not allowed to go on and on...while the errors pile up and the writing gets more and more superficial and nonsensical.

Well, I'm glad people agree. If you'd like far too much detail on the idea that they need more writers, I started a topic on the subject.

Cas Stark, do you know where one might find those anecdotes? And while I agree that the best time to sort all this out was a few years ago, still, it's never too late to come to Jesus, so to speak. They could at least end on a high note. (And perhaps by cutting the amount of episodes, they'll be able to give things the proper attention.)

1 hour ago, Defiance@duskendale said:

...season 2 had the nonsensical 'where are my dragons storyline' and not forgetting the Rob and Talisa romance on the battlefields...

Well, I actually liked what they did with the Qarth story. Rob and Talisa, on the other hand... yes, I'd forgotten about that. That was the first time the show bored me.

47 minutes ago, The Scabbard Of the Morning said:

I think the problem for most of them [actors] is that they don't have great material to work with. It's hard to emote when you don't understand your character's motivations, I don't think the writers can tell them because they themselves don't know. And then they are told not to read the books. So what can the actors do?

Are they really told not to read the books? I just assumed they didn't read the books because they're super cool actors and reading is for nerds

[Cas Stark]

1 minute ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

Well, I'm glad people agree. If you'd like far too much detail on the idea that they need more writers, I started a topic on the subject.

Cas Stark, do you know where one might find those anecdotes? And while I agree that the best time to sort all this out was a few years ago, still, it's never too late to come to Jesus, so to speak. They could at least end on a high note. (And perhaps by cutting the amount of episodes, they'll be able to give things the proper attention.)

Well, I actually liked what they did with the Qarth story. Rob and Talisa, on the other hand... yes, I'd forgotten about that. That was the first time the show bored me.

Are they really told not to read the books? I just assumed they didn't read the books because they're super cool actors and reading is for nerds

The anecdotes are sort of sprinkled all over the place on the rant and rave threads, I'm not sure how you could wade through either this site to find them or through google with the gazillion stories on the show.  I know Dan and Dave have spoken directly of almost missing deadlines and needing more budget.  At least one of the actors has talked about the rewrites coming, and Stephen Dillane's comments about not knowing what his character was really doing and feeling like a cog in the machine.....

No one has explicitly said they're told not to read the books, but a couple of the actors have hinted at things by saying their [Dan and Dave] eyes glaze over when people talk about the books, and the Selmy actor, they outright mocked him in public for going to them and try and get his book story on the show.  Also, if you go back in the first seasons most of the actors talked a lot about the books...and pretty much everyone read the books one way or the other, just their own story or their own story season by season: Alfie, Emilia, Kit, Maise, Sophie, Michelle....they talked about the story and they talked TO GRRM and they mostly talked in terms of the "story" not the show v the books.  The last few seasons, no one mentions the books unless its say how cool it is the show is now beyond the books.

[Illyrio Mo'Parties]

5 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

<snip>

Thanks for that! It's something to google. That's interesting that the actors might be increasingly disinclined to reference the books or talk to GRRM... possibly gives further credence to the idea that he's distancing himself from the show. I wonder if we'll hear about some terrible backstage rift a few years from now.