New trailer

[Kat]

Am i the only one who didn't see it? At what minute it is?

It's the very first shot of the trailer.

[Steve the Pirate]

Am i the only one who didn't see it? At what minute it is?

Pretty much 0 minutes. The wall is shown at the very beginning.

[Lady Blackfish]

Hrm is that really how it comes off? That line pulled at my heartstrings because of Cat being so goddamn right, exposing something that many people might not even consider. So I loved it.

The scene seems mostly great to me, I especially like that they have her talking about Ned having a choice. The line in the book goes something like "he said he had no choice, and then he left, choosing" (emphasis mine). It's a very interesting line that's ripe for exploration. Also later Catelyn has some line like "A man must make his own choices." This idea of choice and how her take on it (which I find pretty wise) contrasts with Ned's fatalism is really cool and I'm glad that they're playing that up. And actually showing this scene play out is going to draw much more attention to the fact that Catelyn ultimately asked Ned not to go than the one little line in the book did.

The only thing I don't like is how it makes it seem like honor and duty mean so little to her, as if those things have always been robbing her of peace and comfort and she has all this pent up bitterness about it. That aspect doesn't seem necessary to me to make the scene work or to make the character inherently sympathetic. The way I read the situation in the book, Catelyn doesn't think honor and duty are always negative things, it's more that priorities shift according to the specific contingency. They could have emphasized "Everything is different now, can't you see?" instead. We know from report that HBO is having Cat oppose Robert's offer even before Bran's fall, and while a less ambitious Cat isn't unsympathetic (i's probably more traditionally sympathetic than anything else), I find the choice to play her this way unimaginative (plus I think her pleading and crying with a slightly different spiel would have been sympathetic enough). But then I always liked that Catelyn had something of a hard edge, it made her interesting to me.

But anyway, this is old news, we've known for a while now that this is how these early scenes with Cat are going. The trailer itself was significantly awesome (if I'm not mistaken it's the longest one yet, right?).

[Asha—Not Yara!]

Here's a screen capture someone posted of the Other from the comments section of Winter is Coming.

http://a.yfrog.com/img619/508/1j37.jpg

[Bronn Stone]

If that is an Other (and if Ran says it's an Other, it's an Other) they didn't do a very good job of it.

But I never expected them to. I fully expected to be disappointed by them and I am.

No adaptation is going to get everything right and the Others are one of the more challenging items on the checklist.

[Padraig]

Here's a screen capture someone posted of the Other from the comments section of Winter is Coming.

http://a.yfrog.com/img619/508/1j37.jpg

Huh. Interesting. Definitely not a wight. :)

Not a lot of white shown either but then, we only really see the face. I'm not sure what the Others are supposed to look like to be honest.

[aimlessgun]

Here's a screen capture someone posted of the Other from the comments section of Winter is Coming.

http://a.yfrog.com/img619/508/1j37.jpg

Am I the only one who sees nothing in that screenshot but blurry blackness?

The only thing I don't like is how it makes it seem like honor and duty mean so little to her, as if those things have always been robbing her of peace and comfort and she has all this pent up bitterness about it. That aspect doesn't seem necessary to me to make the scene work or to make the character inherently sympathetic. The way I read the situation in the book, Catelyn doesn't think honor and duty are always negative things, it's more that priorities shift according to the specific contingency. They could have emphasized "Everything is different now, can't you see?" instead. We know from report that HBO is having Cat oppose Robert's offer even before Bran's fall, and while a less ambitious Cat isn't unsympathetic, I find the choice to play her this way unimaginative (plus I think her pleading and crying with a slightly different spiel would have been sympathetic enough). But then I always liked that Catelyn had something of a hard edge, it made her interesting to me.

Ah, makes sense. And I guess Cat isn't foreseeing Eddard getting executed or her son being killed at his wedding, so that is the way it should read. But yeah, the emphasis on having a choice is definitely the biggest thing I liked.

[aimlessgun]

It's definitely an Other. There's a Hero White Walker in the cast, and I saw some concept art. But this is a super-fast, low-resolution clip, so I would not judge too far. It looks sort of wraith-like and creepy (also, it reminds me a bit of the Morlocks from Pal's Time Machine)

Mmmm...Morlocks sounds like an unfortunate comparison from my perspective. The book describes the Others as tall, gaunt, hard as old bones with flesh as white as milk. Also their movement is silent, graceful, and they are capable of deep stillness. The impression from the SS doesn't match that at all, even superfast at low rez.

[Sheep the Evicted]

Mmmm...Morlocks sounds like an unfortunate comparison from my perspective. The book describes the Others as tall, gaunt, hard as old bones with flesh as white as milk. Also their movement is silent, graceful, and they are capable of deep stillness. The impression from the SS doesn't match that at all, even superfast at low rez.

I imagine the extreme white of the Others will be hard to capture on camera for perhaps the same reasons as the extreme black of Dragon skull. Just seems strange to me that they would call them the White Walkers and when we see their faces seem black.

And yeah they really are pushing the archetypes with Ned and Cat. Badass noble fantasy hero and his pure and noble fantasy wife, a match made in cliche heaven. Here's hoping the studio is right and it brings the viewers rolling in.

[Commodore]

Thanks for the confirmation, I wasn't sure. That's fine then :thumbsup:

Is Caetlyn opposed to Ned leaving after Bran's fall? I don't recall that from the books.

It's a complete 180 and it's hard to justify such a change to her character.

[ZombieWife]

I thought Cat looked awesome in these clips. Her eyes are just amazing. She really is a striking woman.

I'm pleased as punch, giddy and flapping around like a fangirl.

It's March, too! That means that time is moving on, albeit slowly, toward the debut. I'm so excited.

[julandro]

"The music is by Ramin Djawadi? I do not like anything! :thumbsdown:

[Steve the Pirate]

They confirmed too that this isn't the music for the series but standard preview-placeholder music. Nothing to worry about on that account.

[AquariumDrinker]

the Other looks like Eddie from the Iron Maiden album covers!

[Eponine]

I guess I'm going to have to get into the show before I can have an opinion, because I AM excited and optimistic, but the trailers haven't struck me so far as something I would feel I had to see if I didn't love the books. I'm sure that I'll feel differently once I'm reengaged in the plot.

The scene settings look great to me so far, but I'm 50/50 with the characters. The Other looks all wrong to me - it looks like an ape suit. Hopefully there'll be some CG changes before the show with that. I just don't get it - it's like the opposite of gaunt, hard and white. I do have a definite conceptual idea of how that should be.

I wish that there were more marked resemblance in appearance between Ned and Jon.

And I know that there's a whole thread about Dany's appearance that I don't want to get into, but I am disappointed with that. She looks too old and not ethereal enough - although I realize that she had to be aged up, but it still makes things feel different. I imagined her and Sansa's appearance being switched, minus the hair color - because Dany is supposed to be waifish at the beginning, and Sansa is supposed to be physically developing very quickly - I pictured Sansa as being much curvier, a little chubby even, and Dany being wispy. Some of my disappointment with Dany is the lighting though, I think. It makes her hair look kind of cartoonish when the rest of the scenes are more muted. I hope that the lighting is evened out in the show.

But I am happy with the scene settings and the Wall.

[Padraig]

Is Caetlyn opposed to Ned leaving after Bran's fall? I don't recall that from the books.

Yes, she was. Lady Blackfish quotes a line from aGoT verifying that in an earlier post.

And yeah they really are pushing the archetypes with Ned and Cat. Badass noble fantasy hero and his pure and noble fantasy wife, a match made in cliche heaven.

Well, they were an archtype to a degree. Its only when you get to know them more that you begin to understand their more complicated sides.

Some of my disappointment with Dany is the lighting though, I think. It makes her hair look kind of cartoonish when the rest of the scenes are more muted. I hope that the lighting is evened out in the show.

I think I read somewhere that they are going to keep the lighting different depending on the location. An easy way to differentiate between the Wall, Winterfell, KL and the East.

[nihil]

Hm, going with the Northern Westeros = Northern Europe metaphor, it would make sense that the people who inhabited the area before the first humans showed up (Children of the Forest and Others, the relation between which has never been clear to me) might look kind of neanderthal-like. I certainly always had a more fantasy-inspired picture of them in my head, but I can't really quarrel with the design logic. I like the idea of breaking away from the drow-or-what-have-you mold and going with something more primal (magical neanderthals just sounds weird and great), although I'm not sure if I'm sold on the visual imagery. Really though, I'd have to wait on a clearer picture to pass judgment, or even to be sure that that's what they're doing. I think most people watching the trailer, if they catch the Other at all (I missed it on first watch), just get the impression of scary blue eyes which is all you need at this point.

edit: On second glance, the thing looks less like a reconstruction of a neanderthal (or any sort of ape) and more like a skully corpsy monster, which is less intriguing.

[Sekhmet]

"The music is by Ramin Djawadi? I do not like anything! :thumbsdown:

Why doesn't that surprise me at all from our resident troll? Hopefully you'll never get to see it in South America!

[Nails77]

Am I the only one who sees nothing in that screenshot but blurry blackness?

Same for me - is there a screen capture of this elsewhere?

I hadn't even noticed the very first shot of the wall. I'm glad that was mentioned here so I had an excuse to watch the trailer a few more times. That shot does look pretty cool.

[aimlessgun]

Hm, going with the Northern Westeros = Northern Europe metaphor, it would make sense that the people who inhabited the area before the first humans showed up (Children of the Forest and Others, the relation between which has never been clear to me) might look kind of neanderthal-like. I certainly always had a more fantasy-inspired picture of them in my head, but I can't really quarrel with the design logic. I like the idea of breaking away from the drow-or-what-have-you mold and going with something more primal (magical neanderthals just sounds weird and great)

Hrm interesting. Drow eh? I guess it isn't surprising everyone has a different image since we saw so little in the books :)

I didn't think of them as being flesh and blood creatures at all. Almost like avatars of snow and ice.