1st HBO Preview, 12 Sept 2010

[Venardhi]

I've been notably critical of a lot of the creative decisions that have gone into this so far, from the script to casting to art direction and many other aspects, but other than Robert looking very unimpressive and the costume department in general, I got over it all very quickly once it was on screen. Here is hoping that the Kingsguard armor has a more formal version for when they get back to Kings Landing. Specific shades of hair and eye color were never much a concern for me, but I do find it odd how 'golden' Tyrion's was in comparison to Cersei's ashen blond. I was much more outspoken when I thought my criticism might make a difference but at this point I'm just going to have to ride it out so it doesn't really feel worth the effort.

[invertebrae]

I take back some of my comments about pilot footage vs. full series order footage. However, I do not take back the eyebrow comment. How do you have two natural brunettes in Lloyd and Clarke playing two platinum haired heirs to the throne, and not consider the eyebrows. It just ends up looking like a bad dye job.

With Tyrion, since he's a dirty blonde, his naturally dark eyebrows aren't as bad. But I think they wussed out on Emilia and Harry. And whoever said darker eyebrows emote more, that's kind of ridiculous, no? Even if it's true, a good actor is a good actor. This isn't a Charlie Chaplin film.

In spite of Eyebrowgate, and Costumegate, I think the series is in good/safe hands. I don't think it will get the Rome treatment, based on the method in which they are building the sets and shooting locations in Ireland. We'll be fine.

Think John Adams meets Lord of the Rings, not Rome.

...ryan

[JungianQueen]

Truer to the story isn't very specific. In fact that would have been a perfect example of an "inane comment" because it doesn't specify how I feel Tyrion could be truer to the story. Tyrion is described as ugly in the books, hence I said I thought he should look uglier (although the point was raised that this may just be due to people's perception of him being a dwarf and that he might not actually be as ugly as described -- something to pay attention to on a reread). So retarded, fag and gay are now synonymous with ugly, which is a pre-pubescent adjective to use? Uh huh...

ETA: And I didn't say anything along the lines of "x looked fuggin stupid." In fact I clearly said the opposite, I said I didn't think Tyrion was ugly enough. Plus I initially started that post as its own thread and it was condensed in here with all the other threads about the pilot. And even if it hadn't been, it's still on topic and perfectly relevant to the thread. You're grasping at straws here.

Never said you said the "fuggin stupid" comment. That was someone else. So, not sure where the "grasping at straws" thing is uh... coming from. I commented about someone else who posted. You commented back (maybe thinking I was talking about you?) I responded. I mean, if this is fun for you to go back to something pages and pages ago on some random message board thread, have at it. I'd prefer to move on. (shrug)

[JungianQueen]

I take back some of my comments about pilot footage vs. full series order footage. However, I do not take back the eyebrow comment. How do you have two natural brunettes in Lloyd and Clarke playing two platinum haired heirs to the throne, and not consider the eyebrows. It just ends up looking like a bad dye job.

With Tyrion, since he's a dirty blonde, his naturally dark eyebrows aren't as bad. But I think they wussed out on Emilia and Harry. And whoever said darker eyebrows emote more, that's kind of ridiculous, no? Even if it's true, a good actor is a good actor. This isn't a Charlie Chaplin film.

In spite of Eyebrowgate, and Costumegate, I think the series is in good/safe hands. I don't think it will get the Rome treatment, based on the method in which they are building the sets and shooting locations in Ireland. We'll be fine.

Think John Adams meets Lord of the Rings, not Rome.

...ryan

Hahaha, eyebrowgate. (cues ominous music)

And as I said before, her eyebrows do look dyed in the HBO still (on the main page). It could just be the bad resolution that's making them appear darker in the behind-the-scenes. Who knows.

I think they dyed Tom Cruise's eyebrows for his role as Lestat, but it looked a bit weird on him (as did the brassy/not-so-platinum blonde color of his hair).

Lena Headey has seriously dark eyebrows in the shots (and blonde hair) and she looks pretty darn good too.

[JungianQueen]

Gee, so many nitpicks and I don't think we can tell many of the critiques made from these little clips. I'm with Trebla, this is a new thing. Based on one of our favorite things. But it cannot be the book. And if things change a bit? I'll enjoy it anyway. Actually, the condensation of the book without changes could be dreadful and boring.

Someone said they were more concerned about the actors and scripts and directing. I'm with them.

So Tyrion is handsome in our standards. I don't think that would always be considered so. I'm looking for Dinklage's wit, sense of humor, irony, and sarcasm. That's what really makes Tyrion in GRRM's books. Dinklage knows what being a dwarf is all about. I'm sorry Peter if you think of yourself in the politically correct term of little person.

Wigs and costumes can be distracting. But I think that HBO is going for dark ages and not renaissance. I'm kind of with them.

So, characters are "aged up". I think that a real misnomer. Characters are aged as they should be for this HBO production.

A friend thinks that the beheading shot should be reshot because Bean had his own hair and not the wig he's wearing for production. I think this is even small stuff since the wind was blowing and even the closeup was relatively far.

I'm not sweating it. I've not seen a bad HBO series.

signs name to this. I come here to get excited about this show, to join in fans in my excitement, and I always feel like people go out of their way to trash it, stomp it, kick it, spit on it (and worse). It's not that I expect everyone to agree with me. But, I was warned by a few people not to post here, not to come to this board because it was one of "the worst (most rude) fantasy/sci-fi forums out there." I certainly wouldn't call it that, but there is a hostility at times that baffles me.

It's nice to see this kind of enthusiasm, though (as I see in this particular post). It reminds me that for every turd there are 10 (or more) good gems.

I am definitely excited (though a bit anxious) to see how the acting goes over and (more important) how the actors/actresses connect with one another. I'm hoping for good things from the kids. I think "The Phantom Menace" scared the s-word out of me for all time. Nothing can be that bad, right?

I have worries, sure. But, I dunno. I don't think it's entertaining to go to a message board just to look for nitpicky flaws in this. I'd rather get caught up in the excitement right now and maybe that's not the right side of the fence to be on. I guess it doesn't matter. :)

[Lord O' Bones]

I was warned by a few people not to post here, not to come to this board because it was one of "the worst (most rude) fantasy/sci-fi forums out there." I certainly wouldn't call it that, but there is a hostility at times that baffles me.

The board is mostly all good. Certainly the best I've encountered. But these threads... Yeah, I can see why you may want to skip them.

A bunch of peeps who aren't Erik of Hazelfire talking about how attractive people aren't attractive enough, historians upset about the anachronism of a piece of chain mail, eyebrows. FFS eyebrows!

Not enough YAY! and too much nitpicking. But here you are surrounded by fantasy nerds with too much time until 2011. So there you go.

[jurble]

historians upset about the anachronism of a piece of chain mail

I'm fine with the actors, but criticizing the armor is legit imo. George gave us High Middle Ages Europe, the Kingsguard wore white cloaks, damn it. There is no samurai armor. And Ser Loras' helm is hilarious.

I mean really, can you imagine the Kingsguard, wearing the armor from the screen cap, standing in front of the Tower of Joy? Moreover, Ser Oswell Whent has a god damn black bat across his helm. How can he have a black bat across that weird-ass helm the Kingsguard in the screen-cap is wearing? That black bat is the most badass thing in the entire books.

Maybe Dawn will turn into a samurai sword too...

[Matrim Fox Cauthon]

But, I was warned by a few people not to post here, not to come to this board because it was one of "the worst (most rude) fantasy/sci-fi forums out there." I certainly wouldn't call it that, but there is a hostility at times that baffles me.

Really? I find that puzzling as my favorable impression of this forum has only increased with time. I thought that this forum was far less hostile and volatile than most other discussion forums on the internet. From the beginning of my time here, there has been many smart posters from a broad range of backgrounds who are able to intelligently hold their own in presenting arguments in discussions.

[Lord O' Bones]

I'm fine with the actors, but criticizing the armor is legit imo. George gave us High Middle Ages Europe, the Kingsguard wore white cloaks, damn it. There is no samurai armor. And Ser Loras' helm is hilarious.

I mean really, can you imagine the Kingsguard, wearing the armor from the screen cap, standing in front of the Tower of Joy? Moreover, Ser Oswell Whent has a god damn black bat across his helm. How can he have a black bat across that weird-ass helm the Kingsguard in the screen-cap is wearing? That black bat is the most badass thing in the entire books.

Maybe Dawn will turn into a samurai sword too...

Embrace your inner YAY!

This isn't Cleopatra 2525 after all.

[Parris]

eyebrows? People are bitching about eyebrows in a few shots from a short teaser and a couple of stills?

sweet suffering' Seven people, we've got a mega-corporation (Time-Warner) spending millions of dollars per episode to bring this to the screen, and you're bitchin' about Dany's eyebrows?

as a very natural redhead, from a long line of Celtic ancestors with red hair of every shade and eyes of blue or green that are like a color wheel of forests and seas, let me explain something:

people with light colored hair, such as your true blonde, your strawberry blonde, a redhead of the golden red to copper-penny red, often have eyebrows that are almost invisible in sunlight. Or in a photograph. Belive me, I've been looking at pictures of myself, my brother, my father, all redheads of varying shades, for more than 50 years. In many of those photos there's no real definition to the area of our faces above our eyes because our eyebrows were/are so pale. My Dad's hair and eyebrows faded as he grew older, as mine are doing now, and rather than the hairs turning 'silver' or 'white', it's more like all color is being bleached away by time, individual hairs look more like translucent glass than grey or white.

The only person I've ever seen up close and personal with what one could call 'silver/platnium' eyebrows was Johnny Winter.

And he's an albino.

The Targaryens are not albinos.

Perhaps there were test shots done with full makeup and hair, and they decided without some darkening of the eyebrows the actor/actress would look just plain bad on screen. Perhaps the actor/actress didn't want to have dangerous toxic chemicals used right next to their eyes for the next nth years. Perhaps these extrememly minor details will be worked out in post production, but bitching about the shade of eyebrows is just plain freakin' stupid, a waste of time and bytes.

Now, the Kingsguard not having white cloaks, that I can see bitchin' about, but freakin' eyebrows, you're just wasting time and brain cells.

frakin' eyebrows.....

(goes off muttering to a place of peace, like a long thread on some news site about Obama being a 'secret Muslin'.....)

[Ran]

I think a lot of people who are nitpicking are really just doing it to swap thoughts on how they're changing things and so on. For example, I'm not keen on the changes to the Kingsguard, but it's nothing I'm taking me shoe to pound the lectern over as I shout, "BENIOFF AND WEISS, I WILL BURY YOU!" It's ... just a detail I like discussing.

I am mostly done getting the behind-the-scenes into our gallery. The reason it's taking so long is that I'm writing an extended commentary there for each image, when it warrants it; a lot of comments on armor detailings.

I do think the range of armors is okay. George sort of imagines a wide range of armor, from stuff you'd imagine from the Viking age on to the High Middle Ages. It's a bit incongruous that men who can afford plate aren't wearing it -- Sandor and Gregor -- but it they want to change up the looks some, by all means.

I really wonder about the Hound's helmet and how that'll look.

[Bubs]

^ Half of my brows are blond. Sometimes it looks as if I have no brows. That's why I started dying them. I can understand wanting brows to show up on camera.

What's so bad about Loras' helm? I'm in dire need of a re-read, but if I remember correctly, GRRM always described very unique helms (i.e. Gendry's bull, Hound's dog)

[Kat]

frakin' eyebrows.....

(goes off muttering to a place of peace, like a long thread on some news site about Obama being a 'secret Muslin'.....)

:lol:

Preach it, Parris. I agree with you and Bones. Some of the people on here (and Winter is Coming) are scary with the degree of nitpicking over minor visual details.

(I'm actually glad Dany has visible eyebrows. I look at pictures of myself as a child, when I had light blonde hair, and my eyebrows are not visible. It's weird kind of look that doesn't work on screen except for a small number of people, imho.)

Right now my biggest worry is not having cable or HBO come March, not some of these other details.

[Horza]

Heh, funny thing about reading this thread is my interest in the series is finally growing (I still maintain Christopher Walken would have made an excellent Cersei, D&D really dropped the ball there) while people are getting worried about eyebrows and armour.

I think it's great that people have such strong visions of the series but the realisation is always going to diverge, so console yourselves that it won't be the Legend of the Seeker-esque nightmare adaptation that I've been lovingly crafting in my head.

[mormont]

I'm fine with the actors, but criticizing the armor is legit imo. George gave us High Middle Ages Europe

Armour- and weapon-wise, not really. GRRM gives us something mostly inspired by High Middle Ages Europe in Westeros, but with touches of its own: and even the 'inspirations' are drawn not just from the High Middle Ages, but from a range covering many different cultures over huge geographical distances and periods hundreds of years apart. GRRM mixes them all together for effect, despite what to a historian would be glaring anachronisms. HBO appear to be doing something similar. If the range of influences is perhaps wider, well, so what?

The thing is, this is a fantasy series. It is not a historical drama. Really, it's not. If you go in expecting it to be treated like one, I suspect you're going to be disappointed.

[redxavier]

Nitpicking over minor details is just a demonstration that a poster has a concern over how a beloved work is being treated overall. For me, it's very much a "if they can't get X right, and X is really minor, then that what does that mean for the more complex Y and Z"?

When we have the creators saying that they've put all this fabulous detail into recreating a book that you barely see on the screen, but miss a detail like the white cloaks which you do see a lot throughout the series, I just wonder what's going on. Am I merely being placated as they set themselves up to dismantle A Game of Thrones into something unrecognisable?

My greatest worry about this adaptation has been the armour and costume design, so I'll be looking at pictures of the armour and finding things to complain about or sing the praises of - as that's kind of my passion.

I hate for instance how one picture shows a bunch of Baratheon guards, half of whom aren't even wearing their helmets properly. But bad extras are the kind of thing that the series may never show or we can cut around. Showing Westerners running around in obviously Samurai-influenced armour in a high medieval Europe setting that has all their equally white neighbours wearing normal plate is a bad design choice that cannot ever be avoided. Why isn't Cersei wearing a Japanese kimono?

[patrynspencer]

Showing Westerners running around in obviously Samurai-influenced armour in a high medieval Europe setting that has all their equally white neighbours wearing normal plate is a bad design choice that cannot ever be avoided. Why isn't Cersei wearing a Japanese kimono?

Well if you look at it closely only the helmet is samourai influenced which is also I think a mistake but well can't have it all, otherwhise I'm fine with the armor and I also think that GRRM gave us 7 kingdoms with each a very different influence, fighting style, armors,... We all agreed that the stark were more dark ages than high medieval. On the other hand Tyrell's would probably the most gothic/high medieval influence hence I think Loras' helmet is just perfect, They didn't go over the top by making real flowers pop out they carved it on an armor that is "realistic".

Also people complaining about training ground I think (would need to reread) that the training ground was built from the ground up (not permanent at least those things are not supposed to be) which is probably the result you would have got back then (medieval times). I also like the way Robert's "loge" is more elaborate yet not looking rich or comfy. It's just a training ground, it's not renaissance, it's medieval and they got it right. Same for the costumes (Robert's is a bit underwhelming with the golden shoulder pads they could have drown on other influence with bigger doublets but well) but overall I like the baratheon look where most basic soldiers are dressed with the colors and a stitched imagery of their lord in front. Apart from the golden cloaks I suspect each lord has to sustain for his own men's equipment and that it must stay basic. So all in all apart from a few "fantasy" influences that could have been avoided I think we really have something believable here and that's the most important

[Yoadm]

Gee, so many nitpicks and I don't think we can tell many of the critiques made from these little clips. I'm with Trebla, this is a new thing. Based on one of our favorite things. But it cannot be the book. And if things change a bit? I'll enjoy it anyway. Actually, the condensation of the book without changes could be dreadful and boring.

I get what you mean, but personally, some of the things I've been worried about when seeing the clips was not about some subtle changes (tyrion being handsome, etc..), but rather stuff that screamed 'cheap hallmark'. I might be a tad hyperbolic, but that's what it felt at first glance.

[Yoadm]

:lol:

Preach it, Parris. I agree with you and Bones. Some of the people on here (and Winter is Coming) are scary with the degree of nitpicking over minor visual details.

(I'm actually glad Dany has visible eyebrows. I look at pictures of myself as a child, when I had light blonde hair, and my eyebrows are not visible. It's weird kind of look that doesn't work on screen except for a small number of people, imho.)

Right now my biggest worry is not having cable or HBO come March, not some of these other details.

Hi Kat, I agree with you that you can't simply dye eyebrows to the color of one's hair (especially not if the hair is platinum blond or white), because that would look absurd. The issue is that the eyebrows were... black, and when you are talking about a character with whiter than platinum blond hair, it looks just as absurd. Risking sounding nitpicky, they could have done a better job at it. It looks a bit cheap in that still. It might be changed, so I can't comment on the end result (naturally).

[Ran]

I would by no means call her eyebrows black. They look brown to me, IMO.