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Rant & Rave Season 8 [Spoilers]: When you are cool like a cucumber, as evil as the mother of madness, but never as perfect as the pet!


The Fattest Leech

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2 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

Vince Gilligan talking about how to write a good show (this part excerpt starts around 25:00). Benioff and Weiss did the opposite with Game of Thrones.

It's very tricky it's very you know it's why it's why it's such a group effort, it's why we have you know it's why I never wrote Breaking Bad all by myself and and why Peter doesn't write Better Call Saul all by himself...

It really takes it takes a village and it takes time... you need a lot of really smart people and then you need to sit around a table for weeks and months on end and figure out this chess game...

That's what we have to do for all these characters and we have to do it because it's Storytelling 101 rules but the one I'm talking about now is you don't want to write stupid characters unless you're doing Dumb and Dumber the movie...

 

That almost sounds like a swipe at the two D's.

But yes, if the synopsis for Seasons 7 and 8 had been put to Vince Gilligan, before filming began, I'm sure he'd have been saying WTF?

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4 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

Vince Gilligan talking about how to write a good show (this part excerpt starts around 25:00). Benioff and Weiss did the opposite with Game of Thrones.

It's very tricky it's very you know it's why it's why it's such a group effort, it's why we have you know it's why I never wrote Breaking Bad all by myself and and why Peter doesn't write Better Call Saul all by himself...

It really takes it takes a village and it takes time... you need a lot of really smart people and then you need to sit around a table for weeks and months on end and figure out this chess game...

That's what we have to do for all these characters and we have to do it because it's Storytelling 101 rules but the one I'm talking about now is you don't want to write stupid characters unless you're doing Dumb and Dumber the movie...

 

Great Vince Gilligan!

I remember watching an old video with a interview with Vince Gilligan where he describe all the creative process behind Breaking Bad. To be short, he and his writing team spent two months plotting the story alone and he describes it as a really really important step, because there is when they put everything together and figure out every plot point and the character actions and motivations. Them he and his team begin to write the scripts. And other thing, the work of writing is well divided in between the team, with each writer getting one or two chapters at best, Vince himself only wrote the first and the last episode of each season. 

https://breakingbad.fandom.com/wiki/Season_4_(Breaking_Bad)#Episodes

Now look how D&D did, they spent two months to plot and write everything and they only had one or two other writers that got only one or two chapters while they wrote almost everything else, or six to seven chapters by season.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Game_of_Thrones_episodes

Mind you, in the screenwriting convention, a minute of screentime equals one page of script; D&D choose to write and rewrite three hundred to three hundred and fifty pages of script all by themselves! It may had been adequate when they were adapting direct from the books, with them picking dialogue as it was wrote in the books. But, when they run out of material and had only an outline to base themselves on, the quality went way down.

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After the show ended, I think a lot of people, including people who never read the books, comforted themselves saying that soon the next book would come out, and then we’d get the REAL ending. But it’s been three years now, so a new wave of anger seems to be settling in over the (ex)fanbase again.

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  • 2 weeks later...

A couple nights ago, I was watching the 2016 remake of The Magnificent Seven and was thinking about the final battle and comparing it to Game of Thrones. Chisolm (Denzel Washington), the leader of the Seven, knows how Bogue, the main villain, works thanks to prior experience (his mother and sisters were murdered in a similar raid on their settlement), so he banks that Bogue's men, who are relying on intimidation, won't do anything other than a mad charge into the town and won't bother to check for any countermeasures set up to impede them. In contrast, the defenders pull out all the stops:

  • The first line of defense is a series of explosives (denoted by red pinwheels)
  • The miners (who have turned on Bogue) ambush the flunkies who go through their camp
  • At least a couple squads in trenches led by Horne and Billy Rocks
  • Multiple parties of shooters in elevated positions,
  • A multitude of traps (often with explosives, but some are just pushing a wagon into an alleyway to trap a lone flunky or two or a wagon strewn with straw so they can be lit on fire and frighten the horses)
  • Generally using the terrain to their advantage (Chisolm and Goodnight are shown surveying the area around the town with Horne timing how long a horseman would take to cross the plain in front of the town).
  • The only thing they didn't plan for was the Gatling gun, and that was because they only heard about it when Goodnight returned; when the Gatling gun was unveiled, the Seven get everyone out who can't fight and make their stand, with three of them dying in the attempt to take it out.
  • Finally, their last resort is to blow the mine so Bogue can't use it (and the reason why he's there in the first place).

You get none of that with the Long Night battle; the Dothraki go in with a mad charge into an enemy that won't buckle for morale (because they're dead) and intended to do that with weapons that wouldn't harm the wights anyways, there was only one volley of artillery fire, the army was lined up in front of the trench which was only lit halfway through the battle, those who were on the ramparts did nothing until the retreat was called. As far as their civilians were concerned, they put the civilians in the crypt where the Night King would be able to raise the bodies of the dead, which Jon should have known about given what happened to Karsi, with nobody to defend them. Granted the Seven did that but again they couldn't have known about the Gatling gun.

In general, you get the feeling more in the Magnificent Seven that the defenders of Rose Creek put their all into defending their town; the living in Game of Thrones felt like they barely put up a fight until Arya stabbed the Night King.

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3 hours ago, Angel Eyes said:

A couple nights ago, I was watching the 2016 remake of The Magnificent Seven and was thinking about the final battle and comparing it to Game of Thrones. Chisolm (Denzel Washington), the leader of the Seven, knows how Bogue, the main villain, works thanks to prior experience (his mother and sisters were murdered in a similar raid on their settlement), so he banks that Bogue's men won't do anything other than a mad charge into the town and won't bother to check for any defenses set up to impede them. In contrast, the defenders pull out all the stops: the first line of defense is a series of explosives (denoted by red pinwheels), the miners (who have turned on Bogue) ambush the flunkies who go through their camp, at least a couple trenches, shooters in elevated positions, a multitude of traps (often with explosives) generally using the terrain to their advantage (Chisolm and Goodnight are shown surveying the area around the town with Horne timing how long a horseman would take to cross the plain in front of the town). The only thing they didn't plan for was the Gatling gun, and that was because they only heard about it when Goodnight returned; when the Gatling gun was unveiled, the Seven get everyone out who can't fight and make their stand, with three of them dying in the attempt to take it out. Finally, their last resort is to blow the mine so Bogue can't use it (and the reason why he's there in the first place).

You get none of that with the Long Night battle; the Dothraki go in with a mad charge into an enemy that won't buckle for morale (because they're dead) and intended to do that with weapons that wouldn't harm the wights anyways, there was only one volley of artillery fire, the army was lined up in front of the trench which was only lit halfway through the battle, those who were on the ramparts did nothing until the retreat was called. As far as their civilians were concerned, they put the civilians in the crypt where the Night King would be able to raise the bodies of the dead, which Jon should have known about given what happened to Karsi, with nobody to defend them. Granted the Seven did that but again they couldn't have known about the Gatling gun.

In general, you get the feeling more in the Magnificent Seven that the defenders of Rose Creek put their all into defending their town; the living in Game of Thrones felt like they barely put up a fight until Arya stabbed the Night King.

Among many failings, the two D’s can’t do battle scenes.  They ought to have hired Bernard Cornwell to write the Long Knight.

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On 4/2/2022 at 12:12 PM, EggBlue said:

they might have just gotten carried away from season 4 . to be fair , in the example pf Red Wedding , starting off with Robb's wife's death did have the impact intended for something like Red Wedding: to be utterly gut wrenching . although , some of their decisions in the earlier seasons , like Jofferey's treatment of whores in his bedroom , Qarth's unnecessary sack and starting off Danny's romance with Drogo with rape , were questionable and maybe should have warned us about the path they were taking with the rest of the series. 

Going the other way, I think Robb was an idiot for bringing Talisa with him.

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On 4/20/2022 at 1:51 AM, SeanF said:

Among many failings, the two D’s can’t do battle scenes.  They ought to have hired Bernard Cornwell to write the Long Knight.

Now that would have been epic, mainly speaking of his work for Sharpe's Company.

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2 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

All the marketing for GOT (i.e. HBO subscription ads) are tailored around Dany, which seems like an odd choice, considering how angry everyone gets when they’re reminded how her story ended. Oh, to be a fly at the wall at the HBO marketing meetings. . . 

She is far and away the most popular character among show viewers.  I’ll bet HBO marketers are turning the air blue when they talk about the ending.

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2 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I found this video very interesting, and am curious what your thoughts are. Has the era of epic fantasy on TV failed? More shows have premiered since this video was made last year (namely WOT), but fans don’t seem to be satisfied with any of them.

 

I haven't watched that yet, but I think the problem is that show runners think that if it's fantasy, you don't have to worry about logic. You can have war strategies and battle plans that make no sense, teleporting armies that live on air, retcons of facts that were previously established etc.

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On 4/28/2022 at 12:41 AM, The Bard of Banefort said:

All the marketing for GOT (i.e. HBO subscription ads) are tailored around Dany, which seems like an odd choice, considering how angry everyone gets when they’re reminded how her story ended. Oh, to be a fly at the wall at the HBO marketing meetings. . . 

Man I remember the commercial with a lost baby Drogon in the middle of a city…

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3 hours ago, SeanF said:

Having watched the video, the author certainly speaks for me.  I can't really get excited for House of the Dragon, or any of the spin offs.

He made a good point that there aren’t actually that many beloved fantasy series being adapted right now. Urban fantasy has always had a better time of it—AMC is rebooting Interview with the Vampire (starring Grey Worm), Disney is rebooting Percy Jackson, and HBO may be rebooting True Blood too. The Witcher seems to have gotten greenlit because of an extremely passionate showrunner and Netflix’s desire for their own GOT (plus Henry Cavill doesn’t hurt). Wheel of Time was renewed for a second season, but I haven’t heard anything good about it (my parents watched it and thought it was boring). 

I will say, as someone who hasn’t read a lot of Tolkien, I liked the Rings of Power trailer. Most people haven’t read Tolkien, so despite how upset Tolkien fans are, I think it will probably be a hit among normies like me. If it captures that same whimsical feeling as the movies did, that is. The “feel” of LOTR is a big part of what made people fall in love with it. If the tone doesn’t match, it won’t have the same effect.

But then again, LOTR stuck the landing in a way that GOT didn’t. And I think that’s a good insight from this video: that HOTD is a spin-off for a show with a really unpopular ending. I’ve seen some speculation that GOT fans might watch HOTD for the closure the didn’t get from season 8, but if that’s the case, then they’re in for some sore disappointment, given how Rhaenyra’s story ends. 

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10 minutes ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

He made a good point that there aren’t actually that many beloved fantasy series being adapted right now. Urban fantasy has always had a better time of it—AMC is rebooting Interview with the Vampire (starring Grey Worm), Disney is rebooting Percy Jackson, and HBO may be rebooting True Blood too. The Witcher seems to have gotten greenlit because of an extremely passionate showrunner and Netflix’s desire for their own GOT (plus Henry Cavill doesn’t hurt). Wheel of Time was renewed for a second season, but I haven’t heard anything good about it (my parents watched it and thought it was boring). 

I will say, as someone who hasn’t read a lot of Tolkien, I liked the Rings of Power trailer. Most people haven’t read Tolkien, so despite how upset Tolkien fans are, I think it will probably be a hit among normies like me. If it captures that same whimsical feeling as the movies did, that is. The “feel” of LOTR is a big part of what made people fall in love with it. If the tone doesn’t match, it won’t have the same effect.

But then again, LOTR stuck the landing in a way that GOT didn’t. And I think that’s a good insight from this video: that HOTD is a spin-off for a show with a really unpopular ending. I’ve seen some speculation that GOT fans might watch HOTD for the closure the didn’t get from season 8, but if that’s the case, then they’re in for some sore disappointment, given how Rhaenyra’s story ends. 

Personally, I’d treat the Rings of Power purely as fanfiction (Tolkien left huge gaps in his history of the Second Age).  It may be good or bad fanfiction, but one shouldn’t get too worked up about it adhering to the books. I don’t think it will feel similar to the films as there are no hobbits.

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56 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Personally, I’d treat the Rings of Power purely as fanfiction (Tolkien left huge gaps in his history of the Second Age).  It may be good or bad fanfiction, but one shouldn’t get too worked up about it adhering to the books. I don’t think it will feel similar to the films as there are no hobbits.

This is probably the healthiest approach to TROP. Since it’s not a direct adaptation, it doesn’t really hurt the canon if it’s bad.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 4/30/2022 at 1:31 PM, The Bard of Banefort said:

But then again, LOTR stuck the landing in a way that GOT didn’t. And I think that’s a good insight from this video: that HOTD is a spin-off for a show with a really unpopular ending. I’ve seen some speculation that GOT fans might watch HOTD for the closure the didn’t get from season 8, but if that’s the case, then they’re in for some sore disappointment, given how Rhaenyra’s story ends. 

I'm still convinced that D&D co-opted the ending of the Dance for the 8th season.

Daenerys went down way too similarly to Rhaenyra

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On 5/13/2022 at 10:40 PM, BlackLightning said:

I'm still convinced that D&D co-opted the ending of the Dance for the 8th season.

Daenerys went down way too similarly to Rhaenyra

Both Dany and Jon had been built up as the main heroes of the tale, and both of their characters were trashed in different ways, at the end.  Fans of Dany tend to be fans of Jon and vice versa, so a vast proportion of the fan base was alienated.

It’s not the fact that they lost that fans resent.  It’s the fact that they were turned into wretched pastiches of what they had been.   Dany became Her Satanic Majesty.  Jon became a spineless, treacherous, worm.

Had the pair died in battle, it would have been sad, but still true to their characters, and most people (who were not expecting a fairytale ending) would have accepted it.

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