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!

[miyuki]

On 9/23/2019 at 6:12 PM, kissdbyfire said:

But definitely worth a read:

Quote

Here’s a fun fact: The first ever Emmy that Game of Thrones won was for its title sequence. (The irony being that fans quickly came to dread sitting through the monotonous, lengthy opening for two minutes before every episode started.)

Okay, the first sentence of the article is already wrong - the opening sequence of GoT is by far the best opening of anything ever and fans to not "dread"it.

[Corvinus85]

14 hours ago, miyuki said:

Okay, the first sentence of the article is already wrong - the opening sequence of GoT is by far the best opening of anything ever and fans to not "dread"it.

I think a lot of fans to tend to skip it. You see this in online posts and commentaries. I know my brother often skipped it, until I pointed out to him it shows different locations.

[Le Cygne]

Well, this is probably an obvious position to take, and one I’ve taken before, but Game of Thrones didn’t deserve to win Best Drama.

Yes, it’s an absolute juggernaut that changed our expectations for how big a TV show can be around the world. Yes, it wove a rich, imaginative world of characters that had us gasping at its shocks and turns.

But it’s also true that the best seasons of Game of Thrones are years behind us...

As if to prove itself wrong, the Emmys didn’t even give Game of Thrones any other significant awards on the night — Succession took the Writing award and Ozark won Directing, both precursor awards for the final gong.

TV is a writers’ medium, to win Best Drama without the Drama Writing award is a disconnect.

But is it the overall best drama? No, it’s not. While it had some amazing moments this season, namely the two episodes when people did a lot of talking, its final instalments mostly ranged from uneven to wildly baffling.

The rushed story arc for Daenerys is one of the most divisive storytelling turns of the year, and one that was not well executed. For that alone, Game of Thrones should have been disqualified.

https://www.news.com.au/entertainment/awards/emmys/what-the-emmys-got-right-and-what-it-got-wrong/news-story/a4786cbbd23753f8e35a7ef4e90a8bf9

Most of the articles were like this, saying Emmys are not really about what's best, also there is little interest anymore (Emmys are not in sync with television today).

[The Dragon Demands]

yeah

[The Dragon Demands]

I made this:

the post-Emmys Q&A: when asked direct questions, Benioff and Weiss keep turning around and waiting for the cast to answer them.  It’s very uncomfortable to watch:

 

[Le Cygne]

I always thought the show was bad. Just thought of something, how they never really showed the most simple things human beings do together. All of the things other shows and films use to great effect.

All the things that happened off screen, like hey, this happened, and I feel like this about it, and how do you feel about it? We wanted to see these conversations, because that's what people do.

The costumes were dreary Romulan military garb, and the jewelry chains or a dog collar with a bizarre "I wanna be Arya except my blade is way smaller" at the end. Nothing pretty, nothing light.

There was nothing sweet, it was just an endless slogfest of horrible. The books had these things, it wasn't just life sucks and then you die (or get to be prom queen at the extras ball after they screwed you over).

All of the little things that would have made them seem human.

The writing was just plain bad, all along, it was pedestrian hackery, like it was written by aliens who don't know what it's like to be human, and never bothered to find out.

No comparison to something good.

The only thing that was ever good about the show was what accidentally made it to the show from the books that they didn't manage to destroy. And even that just made you want to see it done right.

That's what happened. A book series with good writing seeped through the hackery from time to time, then they couldn't even learn from the work they were supposed to adapt, and improvise something passable.

[Le Cygne]

I guess when they said Needle was revenge, that summed it all up.

[The Dragon Demands]

yeah

[SeanF]

12 hours ago, The Dragon Demands said:

Why aren’t people publicly disagreeing with them more?  It took until season 8 got so bad to break the hype?

As Le Cygne put it, it was the sunk cost fallacy.  I wanted to believe the show would come good, even when I ought to have realised that it would not.  

There was just about enough good material, after Season 4, to keep me engaged, even though I knew that the characters were pastiches of their book counterparts.

After Season 1, most of Dany's warmth, humour, and humanity was removed.  She became an icon to be torn down at the end.  After his resurrection, Jon seemed to be lobotomised.  He took stupid decision upon stupid decision.  Tyrion became simply an avatar for D & D.  Bran was a nonentity.  Varys became a pacifist.  Arya was a xenophobic psychopath.  Cersei's last good scene was her confrontation with Ellaria.  Jamie's redemption arc went nowhere.

[Mystical]

15 hours ago, The Dragon Demands said:

Why aren’t people publicly disagreeing with them more?  It took until season 8 got so bad to break the hype?

Because there was no money to be made in criticizing the show. Whether it was professional reviewers on big sites, or even small ones. Fan sites (like watchersonthewall) got extra and exclusive stuff and access. The early Seasons were small enough in viewership so it wasn't a problem then. But once the show blew up, everyone lost their balls, so to speak. There was no money or special treatment to be had when you gave an honest opinion about the show. When S8 came around, everything about it was just so bad that it simply couldn't be ignored anymore unless you wanted to lose every shred of credibility left. And it was the last Season so little harm done.

[The Fattest Leech]

https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/film-tv/a29338462/george-rr-martin-game-of-thrones-season-8-not-faithful/

* as a happy reminder *

From the link:

In a new interview with FastCompany, Martin says of the adaptation process, “It can be… traumatic. Because sometimes their creative vision and your creative vision don’t match, and you get the famous creative differences thing--that leads to a lot of conflict.”

Martin also spoke about the at-times corrosive influence of behind-the-scenes bureaucracy, saying, “You get totally extraneous things like the studio or the network weighing in, and they have some particular thing that has nothing to do with the story, but relates to, ‘Well, this character has a very high Q rating, so let’s give him a lot more stuff to do.”

The Q rating is a measurement of an entertainment property’s familiarity or appeal to audiences. In the familiarity department, Game of Thrones has saturated the culture as much as seems humanly possible, yet season eight tanked in the appeal department. In fact, fans were so incensed that 1.7 million of them signed a petition calling for the season to be remade with “competent” writers.

Martin may count himself among those 1.7 million aggrieved fans, considering his read on season eight: “The final series has been… not completely faithful.”

[SeanF]

9 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/film-tv/a29338462/george-rr-martin-game-of-thrones-season-8-not-faithful/

From the link:

In a new interview with FastCompany, Martin says of the adaptation process, “It can be… traumatic. Because sometimes their creative vision and your creative vision don’t match, and you get the famous creative differences thing--that leads to a lot of conflict.”

Martin also spoke about the at-times corrosive influence of behind-the-scenes bureaucracy, saying, “You get totally extraneous things like the studio or the network weighing in, and they have some particular thing that has nothing to do with the story, but relates to, ‘Well, this character has a very high Q rating, so let’s give him a lot more stuff to do.”

The Q rating is a measurement of an entertainment property’s familiarity or appeal to audiences. In the familiarity department, Game of Thrones has saturated the culture as much as seems humanly possible, yet season eight tanked in the appeal department. In fact, fans were so incensed that 1.7 million of them signed a petition calling for the season to be remade with “competent” writers.

Martin may count himself among those 1.7 million aggrieved fans, considering his read on season eight: “The final series has been… not completely faithful.”

It's the comments from people close to Martin  that I've always found telling.

I think it is pretty much a certainty that Season 8 "was not completely faithful."  

[Le Cygne]

1 hour ago, The Fattest Leech said:

https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/film-tv/a29338462/george-rr-martin-game-of-thrones-season-8-not-faithful/

From the link:

In a new interview with FastCompany, Martin says of the adaptation process, “It can be… traumatic. Because sometimes their creative vision and your creative vision don’t match, and you get the famous creative differences thing--that leads to a lot of conflict.”

Martin also spoke about the at-times corrosive influence of behind-the-scenes bureaucracy, saying, “You get totally extraneous things like the studio or the network weighing in, and they have some particular thing that has nothing to do with the story, but relates to, ‘Well, this character has a very high Q rating, so let’s give him a lot more stuff to do.”

The Q rating is a measurement of an entertainment property’s familiarity or appeal to audiences. In the familiarity department, Game of Thrones has saturated the culture as much as seems humanly possible, yet season eight tanked in the appeal department. In fact, fans were so incensed that 1.7 million of them signed a petition calling for the season to be remade with “competent” writers.

Martin may count himself among those 1.7 million aggrieved fans, considering his read on season eight: “The final series has been… not completely faithful.”

Not completely faithful. Visions that don't match. Conflict.

He's said similar things before, and they have, too. It's just obviously different, and has been for a long time. Butterflies turned to dragons, he said.

It's often the opposite on the show, and characters do bizarre things they'd never do, then more things branch from that. We saw this all along.

[Prince of the North]

3 hours ago, Mystical said:

Because there was no money to be made in criticizing the show. Whether it was professional reviewers on big sites, or even small ones. Fan sites (like watchersonthewall) got extra and exclusive stuff and access. The early Seasons were small enough in viewership so it wasn't a problem then. But once the show blew up, everyone lost their balls, so to speak. There was no money or special treatment to be had when you gave an honest opinion about the show. When S8 came around, everything about it was just so bad that it simply couldn't be ignored anymore unless you wanted to lose every shred of credibility left. And it was the last Season so little harm done.

Yep.  Exactly this.  In the end, it's all about access.  Those who were critical of the show would have their access to the show/actors/producers decreased or cut off completely.  And that simply does not generate clicks, sell magazines, attract eyeballs, etc. and that, in turn, does not sell advertising.  People in the media were free to be critical in S8 because it was going to end anyway so decreased or denied access was not such a worry anymore.   

[Le Cygne]

1 hour ago, Prince of the North said:

Yep.  Exactly this.  In the end, it's all about access.  Those who were critical of the show would have their access to the show/actors/producers decreased or cut off completely.  And that simply does not generate clicks, sell magazines, attract eyeballs, etc. and that, in turn, does not sell advertising.  People in the media were free to be critical in S8 because it was going to end anyway so decreased or denied access was not such a worry anymore.   

They were riding the gravy train. Some called it out all along, but for the most part, it was about what angle made them the most money, and writing fluff about the water cooler show did that.

[Corvinus85]

22 hours ago, Le Cygne said:

I always thought the show was bad. Just thought of something, how they never really showed the most simple things human beings do together. All of the things other shows and films use to great effect.

All the things that happened off screen, like hey, this happened, and I feel like this about it, and how do you feel about it? We wanted to see these conversations, because that's what people do.

The costumes were dreary Romulan military garb, and the jewelry chains or a dog collar with a bizarre "I wanna be Arya except my blade is way smaller" at the end. Nothing pretty, nothing light.

There was nothing sweet, it was just an endless slogfest of horrible. The books had these things, it wasn't just life sucks and then you die (or get to be prom queen at the extras ball after they screwed you over).

All of the little things that would have made them seem human.

The writing was just plain bad, all along, it was pedestrian hackery, like it was written by aliens who don't know what it's like to be human, and never bothered to find out.

No comparison to something good.

The only thing that was ever good about the show was what accidentally made it to the show from the books that they didn't manage to destroy. And even that just made you want to see it done right.

That's what happened. A book series with good writing seeped through the hackery from time to time, then they couldn't even learn from the work they were supposed to adapt, and improvise something passable.

I almost started a rant thread right after the show ended to touch on the whole show and mainly touch on how everything looked, not the writing. But decided not to stir up another nest of... something. 

From the start I've had small issues that were not total deal-breakers but in hindsight, it makes you wonder how much people really cared about the world they were creating (in particular D&D and the directors). 90% of the whole thing did look dreary, without much life in it. 

Two of my main pet peeves are the design of the Lannister armor. Those helmets are sooo stupid - look people, these are our Stormtroopers!!! And the second is the Dothraki arakh - not a great cavalry sword.

[The Dragon Demands]

yeah

[Crona]

8 minutes ago, The Dragon Demands said:

Well...we’ll just have to smash it all down and rebuild it again in our own image, won’t we?

Quislings.  they doubled down on the Long Night prequel just as they doubled down on season 8.  They built a house on sand.

its why I champion the other prequel.

Now, as the old saying goes, it’s time to pay the price.

The other issue is we had a bunch of people make excuses for them. The primary being: the budget, they ran out of book material (false), and the viewers would not understand the story. (Wrong again, never underestimate your audience). 

[The Dragon Demands]

yeah

[The Dragon Demands]

(Double post)