Reduction to 10 episodes

[devotee]

Wow. I opened up some fine wine to celebrate the greenlight. However, since the order now says 10 episodes, how does that relate to the episode breakdowns people have tried to do here before? What will get the squeeze with the loss of two hours?

[Humble Asskicker]

Not much, actually. I think ten episodes probably only means there will be fewer invented scenes that weren't in the book. Dialog may be more condensed. I suppose you should refer to the pilot script, which I think is adequate example of what you'll see.

Of course, that may be totally off. Depends on where the writers plan on taking the story.

If the writers continue writing as close to the book as they did with the pilot, this is actually a good thing. It will be a tightly plotted season, with filler being practically non-existent. Pretty much every episode will contribute in a significant way.

[spikebrennan]

Wow. I opened up some fine wine to celebrate the greenlight. However, since the order now says 10 episodes, how does that relate to the episode breakdowns people have tried to do here before? What will get the squeeze with the loss of two hours?

Green Fork (cutting or massively shortening this could also save money). Some of the repetitive Dany stuff (we get it, Viserys is a jerk). Maybe even some of the "emo Jon Snow at the wall" segments.

Not that I'd _advocate_ these cuts. But something's gotta go.

[Werthead]

Nothing has to go from the book (although likely some stuff will be changed, but for reasons of dramatic pacing on TV, not for timing reasons). I did actually have a concern that 12 episodes might be a little too much (as the pilot covers about 1/8 of the whole book by itself) and they'd have to invent an uncomfortable amount of filler to make it work. As it stands, 10 episodes could make the series move faster and give it better pacing whilst still having more than enough room to fit all the material in.

[Horza]

I think overall you can get a lotin if you cut every third word of dialogue and possibly have some scenes in fast-mo. Also I think rockin' montages are an underused feature of HBO dramas and I'd like to see as many as seven. In the first episode.

[Lord Varys]

They should consider making 12 episodes out of ACoK, though, and even more out of ASoS.

[FilliamHMuffman]

I would be okay with the Green Fork being cut due to budget/time constraints. I had a hard enough time suspending my disbelief when Tyrion cut down scores of professional soldiers reading it in the books. I think it will come off even sillier onscreen. And the Green Fork is not essential to the plot. The timeline could be tweaked a little bit and the siege of Riverrun broken before Tyrion returns from the Vale and meets Tywin in the inn.

[Red Hermit]

The pilot covers 10 out of the 73 chapters in AGoT and is quite faithful to the book. The other 9 episodes would only need to cover 7 chapters a piece(of course not all chapters are equal).

[nightwisp1956]

IMO, I think the book can be covered in its details in 9 more episodes, if you estimate doing about 90 book pages per episode. Yes, it can be done.

[About Yea High]

Even talking about this is making me grin.

Guys, let it sink in: Lord of the Rings--a three book series--was made into three movies, and by most accounts acquitted itself well and faithfully. The Fellowship of the Rings, arguably the best fantasy movie of all time, ran three hours.

A Game of Thrones gets over three times that amount of screen time.

I'm still ridin' high.

[Mongrel]

But if we compare AGoT-ACoK-ASoS with LOTR, there are more characters, locations, lines of dialogue and overall events happening in ASoIaF.

On the other hand, ASoIaF is written in an episodic fashion, so its easier to adapt.

[Sekhmet]

Soooo many pessimists here!

[Whiteshadow]

I think 10 hours are enough to capture the first book.

ASOS will need a lot more time.

[red snow]

HBO has a track record of lengthening/shortening each season as it happens. Look at Oz and Sopranos. I'm sure if Season 1 is a massive hit and the showrunners insist that ACOK needs more than ten they will oblige.

I'm sure ten hours will be enough as things like the tourney's can probably fit more info in visually than the books, unless they milk the action. They can probably skim a lot of Bran's being in bed too :)

[Loras]

I agree that 10 episodes is more than enough to show AGOT in its full depth!

I think that the 10 hours will allow the action to be more concise. Although there is the issue of expanding the characters of Cersei and Jaime - which will need to be done - but other than that I think its a great idea :D

[Smoldering Hound]

Speaking as someone who has broken down the book into scenes (look up some of my year old posts...), this actually solves the timing issue that 12 episodes would have brought about. When the first episode clocked in at 95/807 book pages, It's not "what will be cut", it's "phew, that's a whole lot less filler we'll have to write". Figure that the extra scenes in the pilot ran a little over two pages of script, I'll call it 100 book pages per episode., so now they only have to come up with only two hours of filler instead of four.

Figure 9 episode's worth of 3 to 4 minute "previously on" = half an hour of the two filler hours, which leaves 10 minutes per episode of extra time to "do what's necessary" to convert the written word into the visual medium. That's plenty of time for action sequences, establishing shots, etc. Even in our wildest speculation we didn't figure they'd get as much as they did crammed into the pilot. Now we can have an entire scene to establish the Freys, the tournament of the hand can get shot in detail, Arya's dance instruction and getting lost in the Red Keep Tunnels can get fleshed out, as can Cat and Tyrion's Harrowing ride through the Mountains of the Moon. We may even get to see more of Benjen's trek. I'd expect to see more of Robb as well.

10 works good for Dany as well as we'll only miss her for one episode if she grabs a chapter each. I'd expect to see full flashbacks as well, perhaps even a tiny bit of tower of joy edited into the pilot!

[Padraig]

Someone pointed out before that HBO doesn't do the "previously on" thing. I never thought of it before but when mentioned, I couldn't think of a HBO show which did it.

I suppose the other big thing they will add is scenes with Jaime and Cersei. In the books they drift in and out. In fact, Jaime is barely in the second half of the book.

[Rockroi]

Deadwood did it.

Regardless, I think this whole broo-ha-ha over ten episodes is all much to do about nothing. But its cool because my first thought was "Oh, that's a bad sign." But then I remembered that this was 100% good news- our favorite fantasy series was just turned into a HBO series. If my biggest gripe is "Well... only TEN episodes..." We really are playing with house money, folks.

I think 10 is a great number; I think they can do much with that spacing. Plus... idle hands ... if there is too much time to fill, that's when people get kind of crazy and detour things to fill that space.

(Think Deadwood and the Opera Troop)

[Anya, Vengeance Demon]

Someone pointed out before that HBO doesn't do the "previously on" thing. I never thought of it before but when mentioned, I couldn't think of a HBO show which did it.

In Treatment and Big Love both do the previously on thing, as I recall.

[Loras]

Also if anyone watched the last season (3) of the Tudors - it was only 8 episodes long but it was excellent!