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


Katerine459

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2 hours ago, Zapho said:

I'm wondering how much of the stupid stuff in the last seasons is due to the show runners having to include plot points they are not comfortable with. I mean, they are not completely free to end the series in the way they want. They have to include the things GRRM told them were important. That could be worse than having no source material at all.

If the rumours are true that GRRM is not happy with what D&D have done lately, the bitter feelings could well be mutual. Nobody will say anything in public until GoT is TV history, though. There's too much money at stake.

I think there is probably bad blood both ways, that's natural and makes sense.  GRRM probably does not agree with some of the adaptation choices D & D have made, which again is only natural.  Like I remember him speaking out publicly about being disappointed they didn't include Stoneheart, etc.  D &D for their part are probably pissed about signing on to adapt novels which they were under the impression would be completed, and now because those novels aren't completed, are stuck writing the ending to a story they never intended to tell.  

And yes, I definitely think they were given some kind of plot point/outline of ending stories they needed to tell, and now are stuck improvising from Point A to Point Z to get there.

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16 minutes ago, Tagganaro said:

I think there is probably bad blood both ways, that's natural and makes sense.  GRRM probably does not agree with some of the adaptation choices D & D have made, which again is only natural.  Like I remember him speaking out publicly about being disappointed they didn't include Stoneheart, etc.  D &D for their part are probably pissed about signing on to adapt novels which they were under the impression would be completed, and now because those novels aren't completed, are stuck writing the ending to a story they never intended to tell.  

And yes, I definitely think they were given some kind of plot point/outline of ending stories they needed to tell, and now are stuck improvising from Point A to Point Z to get there.

I am more cynical. My view is they look at their bank account, their emmy's and the fame and prestige they have found and all think life is f*ing good. 

also, Ellio wrote on Reddit that he saw DW talking to GRRM at a conference of some sort within the last year and there was no evidence of bad blood. they were having a nice friendly chat. 

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On 11/28/2017 at 9:53 AM, Zapho said:

I'm wondering how much of the stupid stuff in the last seasons is due to the show runners having to include plot points they are not comfortable with. I mean, they are not completely free to end the series in the way they want.

Why can't they? Sure GRRM told them the ending but they could do whatever they want, right? I was just wondering if there was a public contract that shows they have to stay true to what GRRM wants, or they can take certain liberties?

 

22 hours ago, jcmontea said:

I am more cynical. My view is they look at their bank account, their emmy's and the fame and prestige they have found and all think life is f*ing good. 

I, too, am cynical. Also I don't know if that cynical-ness has clouded my vision a bit, but last season's "Behind the scenes" was just D&D spewing BS and smugness. I really couldn't stand them. But I personally think, they think they can do no wrong and are probably convinced that last season was the best yet, because it was all their direction (or mostly their direction). While GRRM is kinda being forgotten about to them. It has more or less become D&D's thing, obviously book lovers will disagree. That's just all my opinion though.

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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.

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On 11/28/2017 at 9:51 AM, jcmontea said:

The original outline suggests as well their is something more because they had written something to the effect of the NK seemed to smile at them indiciating he was always one step ahead or something along those lines

And the NK uses the captured dragon to breach the wall. Im not sure if that was a coincidence. The NK must've had some plan to get his army south, so it seems unlikely that he just happened to stumble across Jon and the rest of the ranging party.

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On 11/29/2017 at 6:23 PM, 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.

I think we are sometimes too harsh on the show runners. Even with the source material, the books are not easy to adapt to screen. And not having source material makes their job so much harder. The show is currently trying to tie a lot of loose ends in a limited amount of time and in such circumstances, some plot lines have to be truncated or dropped.

As for the RW, viewers have come to expect explosive plot twists after the RW. A lot of non book readers have said to me that they expected to be disappointed after something like the RW as the show would not be able to maintain that high. So its not surprising that the show runners chose to include dramatic events and visuals. 

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4 hours ago, Lightning Tiger said:

The showrunners think they can do better than Martin's outline and are messing up instead. All their decisions are made to show off the actors. Some of the events that have happened these last 3 seasons probably won't even happen in the books.....

long video explaining why

 

those guys videos are so bad. an hour and half video to talk about the wight hunt when he has no real info? 

that whole video could be 5 minutes. 

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On 12/5/2017 at 9:19 PM, jcmontea said:

those guys videos are so bad. an hour and half video to talk about the wight hunt when he has no real info? 

that whole video could be 5 minutes. 

Yeah I always see people referencing this channel, but I can't understand the appeal. His theory for explaining the show's bad writing decisions seems very baseless and unconvincing. I also see he has two ~1:30:00 videos talking about the wight hunt episode.

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I'm currently watching through S7 for the first time and just got done watching ep5 and honestly, I think it's worse than S5. I know S5 is pretty widely regarded to be the worst season, but I found it to be less painful to watch than S7. If Dorne was ejected from S5, it would've not been so bad IMO. But S7? What a trainrwreck - the pacing, the plotting, the dialogue, the character interactions have all taken a meteoric crash. S6 I thought was pretty decent considering the fact it had to lead off from S5's fuckups, but with S7 it's quite obvious the showrunners have lost their grip and are clearly struggling.

My expectations for S8 are almost rock bottom at this point.

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7 hours ago, Ser Maverick said:

Yeah I always see people referencing this channel, but I can't understand the appeal. His theory for explaining the show's bad writing decisions seems very baseless and unconvincing.

I find them very convincing and certainly not "baseless". Now I concur these videos are way too long, he repeats the same arguments several times, his tone is annoying, etc.

The way he demonstrated how they changed the end of the BoB because they ran out of time was very interesting…

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45 minutes ago, Nowy Tends said:

I find them very convincing and certainly not "baseless". Now I concur these videos are way too long, he repeats the same arguments several times, his tone is annoying, etc.

The way he demonstrated how they changed the end of the BoB because they ran out of time was very interesting…

I think he makes several assumptions at key points which he treats as fact, over analyzes certain things and his whole tone of being super accusatory is borderline creepy and weird. The storyline was not what you wanted it to be. Its not a crime its just a damm tv show. Instead the whole actors emoting thing is treated like super smoking gun.... the whole thing seems just borderline ridiculous/ fanatical. Honestly, if news ever broke that something happened to D&D/ Cogman my first thought would be oh it was that guy. Thats the vibe i get, 

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I agree with pretty much everything the OP stated, but it is in fact possible to pinpoint the exact moment the show started to go wrong.

Ep 310, when Jaime opens the door to Cersei's room, and they exchange gazes.

D&D are scene writers. They emphasize discreet visual moments. They aren't storytellers; they don't give a mummer's fart about plot.

If Jaime is in KL and functioning as LCKG during Joff and Marge's wedding, then he is personally responsible for Joff's death. Using the precedent that Cersei established with Ser Barristan, Tywin could fire Jaime, and force him back to Casterly Rock, which Tywin has always wanted to do. Instead, Jaime tries to cut a deal with Tywin to save Tyrion.

It makes no sense, but D&D don't care about plot, motivations, character, or sense. It was all downhill from there.

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6 minutes ago, Ibbison from Ibben said:

I agree with pretty much everything the OP stated, but it is in fact possible to pinpoint the exact moment the show started to go wrong.

Ep 310, when Jaime opens the door to Cersei's room, and they exchange gazes.

D&D are scene writers. They emphasize discreet visual moments. They aren't storytellers; they don't give a mummer's fart about plot.

If Jaime is in KL and functioning as LCKG during Joff and Marge's wedding, then he is personally responsible for Joff's death. Using the precedent that Cersei established with Ser Barristan, Tywin could fire Jaime, and force him back to Casterly Rock, which Tywin has always wanted to do. Instead, Jaime tries to cut a deal with Tywin to save Tyrion.

It makes no sense, but D&D don't care about plot, motivations, character, or sense. It was all downhill from there.

I don’t agree with most of this but you do raise a good question. Why didn’t Tywin just kick Jaime out of the Kingsguard in boh show and books? He didn’t need any pretense to do anything he is Tywin so whether he was there or not for Joff’s death was irrelevant. 

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Another place the show went wrong: having everyone who preaches a faith a fundamentalist. And having Sansa and Davos, both fairly religious characters, into atheists from Season 5 onward. It seemed like D&D have severely polarized the issue of faith; either you're fervently religious, or you're not religious at all.

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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.

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11 minutes 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.

For them to bring in talent means they would have to think there is a problem and as long as the money and awards keep piling up there is no reason for them to think there is a problem. 

5 1:40 minute videos from the dragon demands are probably not going to do to the trick. 

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12 hours ago, Nowy Tends said:

I find them very convincing and certainly not "baseless".

He seems very confirmation biased to be. Show writers will talk about writing scenes with acting talent in mind, something I would assume is common in television writing, and he makes a long-winded over-analysis of it. Never seen any real evidence for his theory that they write the entire plot to advertise the actors.

12 hours ago, Nowy Tends said:

The way he demonstrated how they changed the end of the BoB because they ran out of time was very interesting…

Maybe I should check this one out before passing judgement. I couldn't bring myself to watch anything over the 20:00 mark; really wish he'd write a script. 

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26 minutes ago, Ser Maverick said:

He seems very confirmation biased to be. Show writers will talk about writing scenes with acting talent in mind, something I would assume is common in television writing, and he makes a long-winded over-analysis of it. Never seen any real evidence for his theory that they write the entire plot to advertise the actors.

Well said

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