[TV SPOILERS] Game of Thrones World Premiere

[Stego]

Well, I would have posted this in the TV show forums, but I am unable to post anything there for some reason. Mods, help me out!

Regina and Fenryng met up with my wife and I and we were among the few to see the world premiere of Game of Thrones tonight in Boston.

I have not been very excited about this TV show. To be perfectly honest, I've been annoyed by all of the attention it has received. The more it was hyped, the more certain it was to be a let down, in my opinion. I had visions of John From Cincinnati, and in typical Stego fashion, I was not secretive about it. I said those very words to George over the phone. (He laughed -- he's a great sport.) I guess the point I'm trying to get across is that I did not expect the world from this adaption. (And the sneak preview of the first 14 minutes did little to allay my fears.)

Th pilot blew my fucking pants off. I laughed aloud and I cringed. I was genuinely scared. I grieved. It was stellar. The acting was sublime from every main player. The coming of the Hound... wow. I sat up in my seat and all but cried aloud with glee at the coolness factor.

Dany is achingly beautiful. Tyrion was Tyrion. Robert stole the show, and the Lannister twins are perfect.

The only bad part about the pilot was that it had to end.

If the rest of the season is of this quality, then HBO has another mega hit on their hands.

[Kat]

Th pilot blew my fucking pants off. I laughed aloud and I cringed. I was genuinely scared. I grieved. It was stellar. The acting was sublime from every main player. The coming of the Hound... wow. I sat up in my seat and all but cried aloud with glee at the coolness factor.

Dany is achingly beautiful. Tyrion was Tyrion. Robert stole the show, and the Lannister twins are perfect.

The only bad part about the pilot was that it had to end.

If the rest of the season is of this quality, then HBO has another mega hit on their hands.

Congrats on seeing the pilot. I also went to a screening of the pilot today-- I don't know if it was earlier or later than Stego's, so his might still qualify as a world premiere ;) but I was also very, very impressed-- beyond what I thought of the first 15 minutes, because it only gets better from there once the actors have a chance to do more.

Mark Addy, for me, was one of the highlights. He pretty much nailed what I thought of Robert from the moment I first read him in the books- this guy would be a kick to be around as a friend and very obviously not a great and noble king. But you can see why people wanted to fight with him.

Emilia Clarke and Harry Lloyd put away any fears I had about how the Targaryens would be handled. They are perfect. She's perfectly Dany and he's perfectly desperate, crazy Viserys. You both fear and pity him when he says you don't want to wake the dragon.

The Stark children are adorable.

I want to see more. Now.

[Isis]

Good news. I'm excited. :)

I haven't bothered to 'cheat' and watch the 15 minute preview as it's not like it's that much longer to wait anyway. Maybe if the preview was available six months before the full pilot aired I might have been tempted, but a couple of weeks? Even I'm not that impatient.

[Werthead]

Excellent. Good reviews from hardcore fans is always good :) Actually, so far I thought I was detecting more positive reviews from non-book fans than those who'd read them.

[Xray the Enforcer]

Glad to hear that the first episode was so awesome coming from a longtime fan. :)

[adamsputnik]

How did you buggers manage that? Were you on some sort of top secret invitation list? I am a bit jealous to say the least.

Seems like almost everyone who has seen the pilot or the first few episodes has been blown away. Bring it on.

[Tywin's bastard]

Always nice to hear about skeptical viewers being won over by the quality of the show. Not that I'm particularly skeptical myself but it's more of a challenge for a show to please that kind of people. Since even several reviewers that normally aren't too fond of fantasy have praised the show it seems like the only things stopping this from being a hit are things not in the hands of the producers.

[End of Disc One]

Always nice to hear about skeptical viewers being won over by the quality of the show. Not that I'm particularly skeptical myself but it's more of a challenge for a show to please that kind of people. Since even several reviewers that normally aren't too fond of fantasy have praised the show it seems like the only things stopping this from being a hit are things not in the hands of the producers.

Word. I've always seen Stego as a pretty cynical person (no offense) so this is good news.

[TheEvilKing]

The coming of the Hound... wow. I sat up in my seat and all but cried aloud with glee at the coolness factor.

Sounds awesome. There's been precious little of the Hound in the previews thus far, even though he's a major secondary character in the books.

[Regina]

First off, I’d like to thank Stego for making it possible for us to attend.

I didn’t go into this jaded as he did, but I admit I went as much to see our friends as I did to watch the pilot. After all, between the 15 minute preview and all the teasers, we had already watched roughly a third of the material. I was excited, but the excitement was tempered by fears of disappointment.

And then it proceeded to blow me away. I don’t even know where to start.

I’d seen Ran’s raves about the title credits, and not understood how anyone could get that excited about title credits. And then I saw what all the fuss was about. This will sound like hyperbole, but I felt like a kid watching Empire Strikes Back in theaters for the first time, all excited to hear the music kick in and see the 2Oth Century Fox logo come on screen.

Visually, it looked beyond amazing on the big screen. The Godswood at Winterfell is as beautiful as anything from LOTR.

The acting ranges form solid to downright excellent. The Stark kids are so perfect as to make your heart ache.

The writing isn’t always perfect. They can’t fit in every catchphrase we know and love. There are two or three changes I would make if I could. But somehow they managed to fit in an extraordinary amount of material, including all those introductions, and they made it work. The pace is breathtaking at times, but it DOES work.

The audience, myself included, audibly gasped more than once. I couldn’t keep track of how many times people laughed out loud. And when the screen went black at the end, there was a stunned silence, followed by applause.

[Stego]

I need to second Regina about the Godswood. Breathtaking.

[Padraig]

Nice to see the reviews. Great that you all loved it. :)

[Asha—Not Yara!]

I love these early fan reviews. Thanks for sharing. :)

[Ran]

Several critics have agreed with my suspicion the title sequence will get an Emmy nomination next year. And well-deserved, if so. I won't bank on a win (heard Borgias has a pretty good one), but it's quite wonderful.

[Kat]

Several critics have agreed with my suspicion the title sequence will get an Emmy nomination next year. And well-deserved, if so. I won't bank on a win (heard Borgias has a pretty good one), but it's quite wonderful.

I loved the title credits, and the music. I think I've pretty much sold my parents on giving the show a try, and I have a feeling my mom will be sucked in just from watching the titles. :lol: They're the kind of thing she'd watch on full volume. I know that she always turns up the Pirates of the Caribbean theme if it's on the radio, so having the same composer gives that a pretty good chance!

I didn't even know there was an Emmy for titles. You learn something new every day!

ETA: Just going to C&P what I wrote in the BWB Norcal thread on the event and reactions there:

There were about 60 people there, most of them students in broadcasting, film, or related fields. I only met one other person who came out specifically because he was a fan of the books. (He had taken a writing class from George before AGOT even came out.) From what I overheard from people before the screening, many people were looking forward to the show coming out simply because of the buzz or because they like HBO's productions.

Reactions from people overall: Tyrion got laughs several times, people enjoyed the nudity and sex (of course), lots of surprise at the end and a little bit of confusion. ("I thought that was the queen's brother, why were they.....?") I heard a lot of, "He just told him he was only 10. Oh man, that's COLD!" over the last scene. Everyone I talked to afterward said they liked it and wished they could see more.

My own reaction: omgomgomgomgeeeeeeee. Naturally. (More general reactions later, elsewhere.)

Y'all missed a good time. I'll spoil the ending for you at BL's party, watch out!

[Abaddon]

Several critics have agreed with my suspicion the title sequence will get an Emmy nomination next year. And well-deserved, if so. I won't bank on a win (heard Borgias has a pretty good one), but it's quite wonderful.

Borgias' was very talked up, so I had high expectations. The title sequence was pretty, but it felt lacking in punch to me somehow, and left me a bit cold. Of course, watching it on a crappy Internet stream might have diminished it's impact, and I haven't seen the Thrones intro to compare yet. I would call it "pretty good" but not "great", and I am hoping Thrones' is great.

[Commodore]

Word. I've always seen Stego as a pretty cynical person (no offense) so this is good news.

I don't know if cynical and jaded are the right words, but Stego is not the fanboyish/bandwagon type.

That gives his high praise here more credibility.

Can't wait.

[jurble]

I don't know if cynical and jaded are the right words, but Stego is not the fanboyish/bandwagon type.

Totally is.

I'm still cynical about this moving picture concept.

[Brude]

I love how I keep hearing how great Addy is in review after review. When he was first cast he was one of the actors that received the most screaming from people who thought he was completely wrong for the role. Most of them had only ever seen his comedy work, I'd seen some of his more serious work and I've had a feeling all along he was really going to surprise a lot of these people. I'm glad that little hope/prediction seems to be coming true.

[Kat]

I love how I keep hearing how great Addy is in review after review. When he was first cast he was one of the actors that received the most screaming from people who thought he was completely wrong for the role. Most of them had only ever seen his comedy work, I'd seen some of his more serious work and I've had a feeling all along he was really going to surprise a lot of these people. I'm glad that little hope/prediction seems to be coming true.

I didn't really go in thinking anything at all about how he would handle the role, good or bad, because he had never been on my radar as an actor before. I just hadn't seen him in much. Mainly, I thought that he brought a lot of energy to his role as Robert, so that (book spoilers ahead)

You get the idea that he's going to be a major character in the series, the way that, arguably, you should be thinking at this point in the story. After all, he is king. Without knowing any of the story, I remember thinking when I first picked up the book that this really was going to be a story mostly about Ned helping Robert try to keep the throne against all odds. I certainly didn't expect them to drop off the game board so quickly, so to speak, because up until they died, they had been pretty major characters.

In any case, he comes across in the pilot mostly as that likeable yet pathetic uncle who everyone knows is a drunk and a womanizer who never matured past his frat-boy days, but yet he always has the best games and funny stories at family events so you can't really understand why some of the adults are giving him sideways glances. And yet as the episode increases, you realize he's got self-awareness as well, and also a darker side, which he's willing to show to close friends. Addy handles both sides of Robert well.