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All-purpose TV nitpick extravaganza thread.


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In some shorts Richard Madden looks his age (23) but in others they seem to have succeeded in making him look a lot younger. I suspect that, like LotR, they are experimenting more with things at the start and settle down on certain looks as the series continues (for example, Viserys's wig looks much better in the 'latest' scenes we've seen, from just before the crown of gold incident, than from the first episode). It's minorly distracting (check out Gimli's hairstyle completely changing in the trilogy) but then you overlook it.

As for the Cersei/Eddard scene, considering how late in the day that comes (and I'm sure they're still editing and working on post on the last couple of episodes right now) I think it's possible that the scene is at night, they just haven't colour-graded it yet (it also sounds like they haven't done ADR for the last couple of episodes yet, or at least not bothered to use the ADR lines on the trailers). Otherwise I'm not sure it's absolutely critical it happens at night.

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The "airlessness" reaction concerned me for a while; but having seen a good deal of the videos on Comcast, I feel very reassured on that score. There are any number of clips involving Arya and Sansa, Ned and Robert, Jaime and Tyrion, Jon and Robb, Jon and Sam, Cersei and Joffrey, etc., where the acting and the dialog is relaxed and casual and totally lived-in, as much as you could ask for.

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Whether or not it's a big deal, though, is another question, I'm just saying that that might be why people perceive HBO's take as surprising.

Its really a question about ones views on the ageing up of all the characters. Ned, Catelyn etc. Once they cast Sean Bean, I am glad they kept things agewise consistent with Catelyn and Robert. :)

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Yeah, I'm not really concerned about the age itself, but I personally don't think she comes across as strong as she ought to. When I look at the various boards I see people weaving up narratives of Catelyn's difficult, embattled life to explain HBO's take, which must mean that people find it necessary to explain that way. I don't really agree with that impression, it's not Catelyn to me. My impression of the character was that she has had a few bumps in life but all in all she's had more victories than losses, and life certainly didn't beat her. She has a certain defiance and strength that's more durable than it is brittle, in her ladylike way she's very tenacious, until the point where her heart gets broken by the losses of her loved ones. That was my take on her, and I don't quite think it's HBO's take.

Of course a few more years of life will show on a person, but I think there's a trade-off here to consider with conveying the personality of the character too. The way that people instantly see Tywin or Jaime when looking at HBO's presentations so far, I just don't see that with their Catelyn. The script would really need to compensate for it but if I were to guess based on what we've seen so far, I don't think it is. But we'll just wait and see.

ETA: I suppose it really depends on how you see the character. Personally I never saw her as ordinary, quiet, weathered, humble, bitter, embattled, the "little woman", salt of the earth, so on (I'm not saying this is HBO's stance, just how I've seen the character processed in reaction to what we've seen). I saw her as consummately aristocratic, controlled, fairly resilient, slightly haughty, gutsy, someone who presents impeccably, opinionated and innately bossy. Yes she's practical and sensible, but she also has a certain feminine eminence. So that's where I'm coming from.

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Kit Harrington at least looks younger - but IMHO they should have tried to enhance the impression by having him clean-shaven in the Winterfell scenes.

How old is he? I know Richard Malden (?) (wrong spelling ;D) is 24, but i don't know how old kit harrington is...

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anybody who has criticised the casting of sean bean needs to rethink it, if we consider it as a hook. every single person i've heard talking about GOT has refered to it as 'that new sean bean thing'. he more than anyone else seems to be the person that will bring in the casual fans (who hopefully become obsessives) that will result in the program being a success.

also the Lannister featurette with Charles Dance as Tywin is confirmation about how much the producers have put into getting the casting perfect.

I think I would agree, I think there was an effort (for a multitude of reasons) not to load the cast with big name stars, but to draw people in who *might* not normally tune in, having just a few, and Sean Bean being one of the biggest (THE biggest?) I think certainly helps that.

I also believe that this series will propel quite a few new and lesser known actors to much greater fame. Maybe lesser known in the US is more accurate, but the point remains the same.

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When I look at the various boards I see people weaving up narratives of Catelyn's difficult, embattled life to explain HBO's take, which must mean that people find it necessary to explain that way.

That's an important distinction. Catelyn doesn't look like she is in her early to mid-30s because she has had a difficult, embattled life. Catelyn doesn't look like she is in her mid-30s because she is actually around 40ish.

So while she wasn't pampered, it was far from terrible. And I don't think HBO is portrayingt like she has had a hard life. Her marriage with Ned is shown to be very strong.

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I don't understand why people feel they need to explain it, really. They aged up the characters, and they cast actors who are a bit older than the characters are (even after aging up). I don't see anyone having to explain why Sean Bean looks like Sean Bean, there really shouldn't be any reason to explain why Michelle Fairley looks like Michella Fairley.

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I like that they have forgone Hollywood casting practices for adult female roles - they tend to annoy me immensely and result in much worse acting of the female parts on the whole IMHO, as well as break any sense of immersion.

With Robb looking so old, it was vital for him to have a mother that helped to make him look younger. And I know nothing about Fairley, but it looks to me that she and Bean are of a similar age - as their characters are supposed to be.

If Cat looks a bit too much of a "little woman", that's probably the direction they decided to take with her, rather than the fault of the actress's exterior.

Generally, I have to say that although none of the characters look how I have envisioned them and in fact differ significantly from their descriptions, all of them apart from Robb look good enough to me.

And with him it is just that he is not boyish enough while his being an inexperienced, vulnerable boy provides the crux of his story. I really hope that they drop Robb and Joff sparring scene in WF, because Joff's actor seems to be a genuine teenage boy and the contrast will be pretty... stark ;). When Robb and Jon are together it is already very obvious. I don't know if Harrington is really younger than Madden, but at least he looks it.

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Yeah, but Jon, Robb, etc. have that stubble in Winterfell. ;) But then again, all the Northern men are fairly hirsute, so I suppose with that conception it's not weird that these young men would be affecting that.

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Yeah, like I said, I don't really care about the age, I actually think it's kind of neat to have Catelyn older than Ned, but I also don't think that Michelle Fairley naturally brings the qualities I would personally have prioritized (and can think of women her age or even older who would, for me). I don't think she's incapable of it either, I don't think she's the diametric opposite, but I think the script/directing/aesthetics would have to push her along into it. The most Catelyn she's really seemed to me was in the Iron Throne preview, which I quite liked. There's time for different facets of the character to come out, but, they seem to be marketing the character as more a devoted mother and wife, rather than a strong-willed mother than wife, so I do think at this point in time that it seems like that's a change of direction. And I don't think it'd be unheard of if their casting choice was a part of that, but like I said I don't think Fairley is incapable of playing this and that either.

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Yeah, but Jon, Robb, etc. have that stubble in Winterfell. ;) But then again, all the Northern men are fairly hirsute, so I suppose with that conception it's not weird that these young men would be affecting that.

Actually if you watch carefully, his facial hair looks longer in his Wall scenes, which imo is a nice touch.

If we want to be realistic, virtually no man in that time period (I know its fantasy but still) should be totally clean-shaven in the modern sense of the word.

And no way does Fairley look older than Bean. That man is pretty damn grizzled these days. Smoking for you.

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No no no, I'm not saying they are, I'm saying that it doesn't bother me either way. My point is that age itself isn't an issue with me. If they were to have cast an actress older than Sean Bean I wouldn't have a problem as long as the character was conveyed.

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If we want to be realistic, virtually no man in that time period (I know its fantasy but still) should be totally clean-shaven in the modern sense of the word.

Well, you have to remember that with less vitamins, etc. both voice-breaking and beard-growth were seriously delayed and of course some people (mostly blonds, but also some others) are genetically slow in this respect. O'Henry wrote about a 20-year man "whose face has never known a humiliation of a razor" and who nevertheless didn't have any facial hair to speak of as something relatively typical and admirably masculine, for instance ;).

I'd have liked it if both Robb and Jon had been clean-shaven in the beginning and grew their face-hair more gradually, "aging", as it were. But maybe it underscored Madden looking much older than Harrington? I dunno. It seemed to me that Madden looked younger in the one picture where he was clean-shaven, but there was no Harrington there to compare.

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