House of the Dragon Premieres August 21, 2022

[The Bard of Banefort]

23 minutes ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

I was just about to post this myself! 

Yeah, he is saying that if HotD fails, it could damage GRRM's whole brand. I'm not particularly interested in HotD, but I don't want that to happen.

Yeah, I don’t want him to get depressed and never finish another book again.

[EggBlue]

33 minutes ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

I was just about to post this myself! 

Yeah, he is saying that if HotD fails, it could damage GRRM's whole brand. I'm not particularly interested in HotD, but I don't want that to happen.

the show plot and characters are interesting on their own which makes one have some faith in future of the show (I think , at least season 1 will be big). and I don't doubt that it'll be well executed in a technical level .so, as it's been said before , all that's left to make the show great is the script.

however , with a pessimistic view , the situation isn't promising either way for us desperate book fans.. if the show fails , on top of damage to his brand ,George might get depressed and won't finish the books . if the show succeeds , he might see it as result of his own involvement and focuses on the show rather than the books.. 

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

16 minutes ago, EggBlue said:

If the show fails , on top of damage to his brand ,George might get depressed and won't finish the books. If the show succeeds , he might see it as result of his own involvement and focuses on the show rather than the books.

That is pessimistic indeed. 

[The Bard of Banefort]

2 hours ago, EggBlue said:

the show plot and characters are interesting on their own which makes one have some faith in future of the show (I think , at least season 1 will be big). and I don't doubt that it'll be well executed in a technical level .so, as it's been said before , all that's left to make the show great is the script.

however , with a pessimistic view , the situation isn't promising either way for us desperate book fans.. if the show fails , on top of damage to his brand ,George might get depressed and won't finish the books . if the show succeeds , he might see it as result of his own involvement and focuses on the show rather than the books.. 

I think George would love having TWOW finished and released, but I don’t think he enjoys writing it, and will look for any reason not to write it, just like how I come on here to psychoanalyze George instead of working on my essay. 

Although the little trickster in me (or as Sansa would say, “demon of mischief”) would be fascinated by watching the shows flop, I don’t know if GRRM will ever write another ASOIAF book if they do. (That said, I would not object at all to either Nymeria or the Sea Snake getting canned in early production. They both sound boring to me).

[The Young Maester]

9 hours ago, EggBlue said:

if the show fails , on top of damage to his brand ,George might get depressed and won't finish the books . if the show succeeds , he might see it as result of his own involvement and focuses on the show rather than the books.. 

Either way we lose.

I have a feeling grrm is putting allot more work into this show. He is aware that dumb n dumber really hurt his brand and nearly killed off the pop culture vibe of GOT. So he will make sure that this new series will succeed (at the cost of winds sadly).

Its his legacy. If I was him id want my name to be remembered in the history books.

[Ran]

18 hours ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

Which strategy worked better?

Actually, just to follow-up, Google Trends has this interesting result for Global search traffic connected to the two shows. Lets just say a lot of people got the LotR video thrust at them on social media, watched it, and then... didn't try and find out anything more about it. Unlike HotD. I'm actually surprised by how dwarfed the LotR is by HotD on the trends chart. 

Early days yet to see what sort of traffic the date announcement and dragon egg poster generated, but right now it looks like Google saw another spike that might match or surpass the LotR teaser spike.

[The Bard of Banefort]

1 hour ago, Ran said:

Actually, just to follow-up, Google Trends has this interesting result for Global search traffic connected to the two shows. Lets just say a lot of people got the LotR video thrust at them on social media, watched it, and then... didn't try and find out anything more about it. Unlike HotD. I'm actually surprised by how dwarfed the LotR is by HotD on the trends chart. 

Early days yet to see what sort of traffic the date announcement and dragon egg poster generated, but right now it looks like Google saw another spike that might match or surpass the LotR teaser spike.

I tried opening the link and got a 404 saying it was “malformed” lol.

George needs to crank out FnB2 so that HBO has an excuse to make Westerosi Tudors with Aegon IV 

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

4 hours ago, Ran said:

Early days yet to see what sort of traffic the date announcement and dragon egg poster generated, but right now it looks like Google saw another spike that might match or surpass the LotR teaser spike.

I think one of the reasons is that the marketing for Rings of Power has been rather vague, and doesn't convey what the show is about. People are expected to get on board just because it's LOTR. 

[Ran]

4 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

I tried opening the link and got a 404 saying it was “malformed” lol.

I’ve fixed the link — try here.

@Takiedevushkikakzvezdy is no doubt on to something with Amazon’s idea being “Hey, it’s LotR” is enough.

[The Bard of Banefort]

1 hour ago, Takiedevushkikakzvezdy said:

I think one of the reasons is that the marketing for Rings of Power has been rather vague, and doesn't convey what the show is about. People are expected to get on board just because it's LOTR. 

This is a good point. As someone who loves the movies but was never able to get into the books, I really liked the trailer and thought it captured that whimsical feeling that the lighter part of the LOTR/Hobbit did. Because I’m not too familiar with the source material, I’m only vaguely aware of the fan backlash against TROP, but from the outside looking in, it seems fairly overblown. I’m having a hard time understanding why people are as angry as they are, although I suppose that’s the unfortunate nature of online fandoms these days.

12 minutes ago, Ran said:

I’ve fixed the link — try here.

@Takiedevushkikakzvezdy is no doubt on to something with Amazon’s idea being “Hey, it’s LotR” is enough.

Thanks! I took a look at the Google trends for Game of Thrones, and it’s still googled quite frequently, which brings me back to my theory that it’s become a show that people still watch but are embarrassed to admit that they watch. One of the beauties of streaming is that people can start watching full series even years after they ended. That said, I have noticed that disappointment with season 8 is still common among newer fans, if online discourse is anything to go by. They just aren’t as emotional about it because they didn’t have the decade-long investment in the series.

There’s also the possibility that people don’t really talk positively about GOT online much because pretty much every space dedicated to the show has been overrun with naysayers (another parallel to The Last Jedi).

HOTD’s success may well come down to how capable it is at recapturing the vibe of the earlier seasons of GOT. 

[Takiedevushkikakzvezdy]

17 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

Although the little trickster in me (or as Sansa would say, “demon of mischief”) would be fascinated by watching the shows flop, I don’t know if GRRM will ever write another ASOIAF book if they do.

On the other hand, then we'll have lots and lots of new Wild Cards material to look forward too.  

[The Bard of Banefort]

Will George be part of the promo tour for HOTD? Are they going to ban questions about TWOW?

[GuestRights]

14 hours ago, The Bard of Banefort said:

Will George be part of the promo tour for HOTD? Are they going to ban questions about TWOW?

Probably just the premiere. Maybe Comic Con.

[The Bard of Banefort]

The HBO accounts on social media have been posting a lot about GOT the past few days, which makes me wonder if a HOTD trailer is imminent. With all the money they’re pouring into it, they probably want to start promoting the show early. It sucks for whoever has to run the accounts though, because all the comments are either bots or people hating on season 8 lol.

[The Dragon Demands]

We have to figure out how the heck people even get "HBO social media staffer" jobs. We had a full decade to figure out how to apply for that kind of thing so WE could be the ones at the keyboard for those things. It seems like they just pass it off on disinterested interns who never even liked Game of Thrones at any point.

[The Bard of Banefort]

1 hour ago, The Dragon Demands said:

We have to figure out how the heck people even get "HBO social media staffer" jobs. We had a full decade to figure out how to apply for that kind of thing so WE could be the ones at the keyboard for those things. It seems like they just pass it off on disinterested interns who never even liked Game of Thrones at any point.

I run the social media accounts at my job (nothing near as big as HBO). I was hired for a communications position. So the social media coordinator(s) were probably hired for something else originally.

[The Dragon Demands]

A big thing long on my mind and I want everyone's input on this:

I don't think we're getting "new" TV content in 2023. 

The production cycle for House of the Dragon Season 1 was simply too long. Which is good, Game of Thrones fell apart when it tried to crank out one season per year at those production values, that's absurd - and by the end even they couldn't keep that pace up. 

We haven't heard any casting news for Season 2, that's what comes first before filming dates. We're looking at a season one airing from late August through October. I seriously doubt they're going to have a 9 month filming cycle (probably more) plus 4 month post-production between now and late 2023: we'd have heard Season 2 casting rumors starting NOW. 

Meanwhile, it seems HBO is waiting on the success of House of the Dragon Season 1 to greenlight other prequel pilots in the pipeline: The Sea Snake, Ten Thousand Ships, Dunk & Egg.  We're not even sure if they're just working on "pilot" scripts or scripting out an entire first season for some of these, until they get the greenlight. House of the Dragon was greenlit in late October 2019, with only a pilot script finished. They said COVID didn't really slow them down too much because it hit during the writing phase. They started filming late April 2021, so that's a year and a half of prep. Let's generously say at least one year to write it out and Pre-Production construction. 9 months filming, 4 months post. 

Actually it all comes around in a circle: suddenly greenlit House of the Dragon to full series in October 2019 based on a strong pilot script, now we're waiting until October 2021 to greenlight a new wave of pilots.

....but I simply don't see them having enough "turnaround time" to launch into filming other prequels and get them on screen within calendar year 2023. Probably early 2024, just not 2023. Anyone disagree?

...I actually don't mind, because we're still buried in work. The hype media sites who didn't feel like reporting on behind the scenes problems with Game of Thrones just...acted like pouting children and abandoned the franchise after that, rather than doing their jobs and "reporting" on what the heck we've been yelling about the whole time. So they haven't been "reporting" on House of the Dragon all that much.

My point is that....2023 is going to be "catchup". Necessary catchup. It will be like summer 2011 all over again when news site reporters and general audiences scramble to read the source material for a successful show that, to them, came out of nowhere. A time for proselytizing - if only we had like, a simplified tie-in version of Fire & Blood for the common man? With pictures to make everything direct and obvious?

Very few people actually read Fire & Blood, we need to explain to them who the "Velaryons" and "Hightowers" are, "Great Council of 101 AC at Harrenhal", etc. 

We will have "news" - there will be active filming, possibly on multiple projects. But we won't be..."overwhelmed" by so much content we can't keep up with it.

 

[The Bard of Banefort]

I think it’s possible that we’ll see one of the animated shows by the end of next year. Despite how much work goes into animation, I’ve noticed that studios are usually able to quietly get started on them long before anyone notices (Lucasfilm does this a lot), so it wouldn’t surprise me if one of the shows is actually quite far along. Other than that, I agree that we won’t see HOTD season two until 2024, for no reason other than the absurd amount of CGI that it will require. And it wouldn’t surprise me if the other prequels get squashed in preproduction.

[The Dragon Demands]

Sorry for long post before that was stream of consciousness

But yeah...SO FEW people are prepping for this show, don't even know who "Rhaenyra" and "Alicent" are....that we really NEED 2023 to be a "catchup year" where we spread it to the general audience. Too busy making introductory materials and stuff - and catching up on Season 1 production details no one reported on - to handle a lot of new content. 

But we won't lack for "news", there will be a lot of post-season interviews combined with filming news come spring 2023.

[The Bard of Banefort]

2 hours ago, The Dragon Demands said:

Sorry for long post before that was stream of consciousness

But yeah...SO FEW people are prepping for this show, don't even know who "Rhaenyra" and "Alicent" are....that we really NEED 2023 to be a "catchup year" where we spread it to the general audience. Too busy making introductory materials and stuff - and catching up on Season 1 production details no one reported on - to handle a lot of new content. 

But we won't lack for "news", there will be a lot of post-season interviews combined with filming news come spring 2023.

This kind of brings us back to an earlier conversation. . . are they unprepared or just uninterested?