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How Would You Rate Episode 109?


Ran
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420 members have voted

  1. 1. What's your rating from 1-10, with 10 being the highest/best

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I'm reading here from time to time for years. Today I felt I wanted to share my thoughts.

What I found to be awful:

- Tyrion portrayed as an incapable buffoon, being knocked out (admittedly I laughed when I watched it, but what damage it has done to his character's portrayal cannot possibly be worth it)

- Shae behaving like a princess even before she could possibly know enough of Tyrion's character to be so bold just doesn't seem to fit

- Rob's battle looking like a tiny ambush affair; they should have *shown* that is was big scale - no matter how. Just a standing (mostly CGI) army before the battle would have done it

- Lame explanations of the battles; it's significance - besides capturing Jaime - hasn't sufficiently been put across to the audience imo

- Rob's direwolf should have been shown, or his role mentioned after the battle at least

personal:

- would have liked to see Jaime fighting; as is, you never get the impression that he's a better than average swordsman

- the Tyrion/Bronn/Shae scene was mostly fun but way too long - annoyingly long compared to how they had compressed more impactful scenes

- despite of that, Tyrion should have told his whole marriage story

- Shae's actress doesn't do it for me

- I don't like Jon showing his emotions so freely, openly and heavily; I never pictured him that way

Overall it's a great pity that throughout episodes 1 to 9 I repeatedly got the impression of a low budget series, which it really isn't. This episode was no exception. Please note I do *not* think of/I do *not* refer to missing battle scenes when I say this.

Ok, this may seem to some to be a pretty big list of things that I see in a negative light about this episode, but please believe me: it's a tiny thing compared to the list of things I really like and like very much. That one is so long that my computer would run out of memory dared I try putting it down.

Outstanding besides the execution scene in this episode were e.g. the pairings Bronn/Tyrion, Catelyn/Rob, and - for the first time - Theon/Rob. Perfect chemistry there.

Compared to the other episodes so far this was definitely in the upper third for me. I rate it 8/10. (I guess non-readers would aim a little lower though.)

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I simply like how she acts to Tyrion in the books, she complements him well when they are in a scene togheter, she's always playing her cards to get the most advantages out of him and she plays them well. I don't like her being aggressive and generally putting herself above Tyrion in the tv series, she even gives him orders, even if in a playful way, and threatens him.

Of course this is just a first impression based around what we've seen in the last episode, maybe it will change, maybe they will find a new chemistry between this version of Shae and Tyrion.

I agree. They've completely changed the personality of Shae. In the book she is fairly two-dimensional, yes, but the lack of her character depth works considering the relatively minor part she plays in the plot. Book-Shae is a greedy attractive whore who knows exactly which buttons of Tyrion's to push to get what she wants (gold and jewels). Tyrion is smart enough to realize this, but he still can't resist her; he knows she doesn't truly love him and would betray him in a second, but he can't help himself.

Tv-Shae seems to be some crafty intelligent courtesan who doesn't really enjoy playing the part of the whore. She is proud and aggressive, and doesn't play to Tyrion's weakness of falling for doe-eyed young women.

I don't understand why the producers decided this change of Shae's character was necessary or positive. The older actress they've casted also doesn't have any of the cute-factor I imagined Shae to have.

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Overall it's a great pity that throughout episodes 1 to 9 I repeatedly got the impression of a low budget series, which it really isn't.

This attitude right there is what I really find inexplicable, and to be honest, a little saddening. Jesus man, we've been watching the same series, right? All those enormous sets, costumes, a staggering cast of characters... The scale of this project is huge, and it shows. Anyone who stops for a second and really thinks about it can see it.

Sorry, perhaps this sounded a bit too confrontational; that wasn't my intention. The thing is, I am a bit let down by book fans that just seem to be unable to put things into perspective and are asking the impossible from TV production.

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No offense taken (and hopefully not sounding offensive myself, English isn't my first or second language), and certainly not asking the impossible. Sets and costumes are most often lovingly done and in rich detail, I don't complain on those, the opposite is the case. But take for example the so very obvious bluescreen recordings from Bran on winterfells roofs, that looks like in a movie from the early Seventies. Could have been done better for a 5 Dollar post-treatment - I'm not talking about budget boundaries here. It are tiny things like this that bother me once or twice per episode. Sorry anyway for the off-topic excursion.

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Well, English isn't my first language either, so it's a tie :grouphug:

My previous post wasn't really directed at anyone in particular, it's just that I am having a much better time reading the responses, and generally participating in discussions with viewers that haven't read the books.

Their comments are... how to phrase it... more honest in a way? They watch the series and judge it on its own merits. They like what they like and don't like what they don't like (well, this sounds dumb :blushing: ).

The whole "book this, book that" mentality is ultimately self-defeating and just plain boring.

Edited by Mr Fixit
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No offense taken (and hopefully not sounding offensive myself, English isn't my first or second language), and certainly not asking the impossible. Sets and costumes are most often lovingly done and in rich detail, I don't complain on those, the opposite is the case. But take for example the so very obvious bluescreen recordings from Bran on winterfells roofs, that looks like in a movie from the early Seventies. Could have been done better for a 5 Dollar post-treatment - I'm not talking about budget boundaries here. It are tiny things like this that bother me once or twice per episode. Sorry anyway for the off-topic excursion.

Something I would be interested to hear is which similar shows you've found to have appeared to have a high budget. That you think this show has come off as low budget is of course your opinion and we all have our opinions but there must be some context in order to think that, otherwise the reaction would simply be that this is what you get with a budget like this.

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No offense taken (and hopefully not sounding offensive myself, English isn't my first or second language), and certainly not asking the impossible. Sets and costumes are most often lovingly done and in rich detail, I don't complain on those, the opposite is the case. But take for example the so very obvious bluescreen recordings from Bran on winterfells roofs, that looks like in a movie from the early Seventies. Could have been done better for a 5 Dollar post-treatment - I'm not talking about budget boundaries here. It are tiny things like this that bother me once or twice per episode. Sorry anyway for the off-topic excursion.

Not to mention the fact that any scene that would require a large number of extras is either cut or very abbreviated. The tourney, the battles (or lack thereof), the dothraki wedding and dothraki horde numbering in the dozens, etc. Also see the random housedogs masquerading as direwolves, and the sets of Winterfell and King's Landing being approximately the size of my living room.

It has been painfully obvious to me that they were working with an extremely limited budget given the scope of the project. I have to agree that they should have scaled back the marketing a bit, since it's clear they dumped a lot of cash into it (free iron throne rickshaws? really?)

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Well, English isn't my first language either, so it's a tie :grouphug:

My previous post wasn't really directed at anyone in particular, it's just that I am having a much better time reading the responses, and generally participating in discussions with viewers that haven't read the books.

Their comments are... how to phrase it... more honest in a way? They watch the series and judge it on its own merits. They like what they like and don't like what they don't like (well, this sounds dumb :blushing: ).

The whole "book this, book that" mentality is ultimately self-defeating and just plain boring.

I guess I'm in an unusual position. 10 weeks ago I had never even heard of GRRM, let alone read any thing he'd ever written. The first two episodes convinced me to buy and read the book. I have now read all the books up to date. All I can say, is that in my opinion, the tv programme is a very poor shadow of the books. Not that the programme is bad, just that the book is so much better.

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Overall it's a great pity that throughout episodes 1 to 9 I repeatedly got the impression of a low budget series, which it really isn't. This episode was no exception. Please note I do *not* think of/I do *not* refer to missing battle scenes when I say this.

I, too, got the impression of low budget, and some of the people I know in real life have also told me this as one of their first reactions to the series.

I'm definitely not complaining here - I enjoyed the show, despite its flaws - and I certainly wasn't expecting something like LOTR, but it's just that nagging feeling that they have been avoiding everything in the books that exceeded a certain size: lack of battles, more inside scenes than outside, limited number of actors and extras on screen, limited CGI... I mean, take for instance The Wall. How many times do we have a slow, wide panoramic view of what can be seen from its top? A few times only, and even then, it's corners of the image, Tyrion pissing on half the screen, wood and torches and whathaveyou obscuring the other side, and so on. The battles are probably the most obvious part of it all. Robb had 18.000 men fighting? Where? At times, the show was more telling than showing.

That being said, some of the scenes were very, very well done. Credit goes to the actors, mostly. Best part of the series for me.

Edited by Songlian
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Something I would be interested to hear is which similar shows you've found to have appeared to have a high budget. That you think this show has come off as low budget is of course your opinion and we all have our opinions but there must be some context in order to think that, otherwise the reaction would simply be that this is what you get with a budget like this.

Yeah, that's what I would like as well. Would someone please point me in the direction of a TV show with such scope (number of locations, enormous cast...) that doesn't, in your opinion, look cheap? Not a challenge on my part, I'm simply asking.

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Something I would be interested to hear is which similar shows you've found to have appeared to have a high budget. That you think this show has come off as low budget is of course your opinion and we all have our opinions but there must be some context in order to think that, otherwise the reaction would simply be that this is what you get with a budget like this.

Why does there need to be some sort of context to have the opinion that the show appears to come off as low budget?

Most stories of this scope and size (LOTR of course comes to mind), is either adapted to the big screen in a movie or it is animated. Just because a story of this scope hasn't been attempted on the small screen before doesn't mean it can't appear low budget independent of any comparison. If context is considered, it should be the context of the story it is an adaptation of. Hence the criticism of the lack of battles and extras and so forth.

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Why does there need to be some sort of context to have the opinion that the show appears to come off as low budget?

Most stories of this scope and size (LOTR of course comes to mind), is either adapted to the big screen in a movie or it is animated. Just because a story of this scope hasn't been attempted on the small screen before doesn't mean it can't appear low budget independent of any comparison. If context is considered, it should be the context of the story it is an adaptation of. Hence the criticism of the lack of battles and extras and so forth.

To say something is low budget has to be in context, otherwise it doesn't mean anything to the one listening (and it's always up to the speaker to make himself understood). You can call a film like The Blair Witch Project low budget and I've even heard people say that the LotR trilogy had too low a budget. Obviously the contexts for those two statements are extremely different.

And people keep saying that they didn't expect LotR, which means that they are comparing the look to something else. I'm just interested to see what the comparison is, I'm not out to say that anyone's wrong. Still the only sensible thing to compare it to is to other TV shows because if you compare it to high budget movies you deserve to be disappointed for obvious reasons. The same goes for people that say that the story is of a scope that can't be done well with a TV budget because they should definitely have known beforehand that they would be disappointed.

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Why does there need to be some sort of context to have the opinion that the show appears to come off as low budget?

Most stories of this scope and size (LOTR of course comes to mind), is either adapted to the big screen in a movie or it is animated. Just because a story of this scope hasn't been attempted on the small screen before doesn't mean it can't appear low budget independent of any comparison. If context is considered, it should be the context of the story it is an adaptation of. Hence the criticism of the lack of battles and extras and so forth.

Well, of course context matters. It is unreasonable to expect LOTR style 300 million dollar budgets in a TV production. One has to understand this is the small screen, and adjust the expectations accordingly.

And I have to repeat that GoT is most certainly not low budget. It may not have a huge big screen money thrown its way, but let's be honest and compare it to most other things on TV - it *is* huge, it *does* have a large number of beautiful sets and a mind-bogglingly large cast of top quality actors. It is filmed in N Ireland and Malta. The costs of this production are very very high.

So let's be grateful for a change. Let's appreciate the fact that we're getting a rich, good-loking fantasy TV show on a scale far bigger than anything TV has ever seen, OK?

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It has been painfully obvious to me that they were working with an extremely limited budget given the scope of the project. I have to agree that they should have scaled back the marketing a bit, since it's clear they dumped a lot of cash into it (free iron throne rickshaws? really?)

That's an interesting point. Does anyone know how much of the 50M budget has been spent on marketing and advertising?

And yes, parts of the show do look a little bit low-budget. (I think it's a combinations of low-budget and just bad design in some places). But if the first season's budget really is 50M then maybe people shouldn't be surprised it has a low-budget look in places. That seems to be a pretty low number for a story of this magnitude. HBO probably should've put a little more money into it. Hopefully next season.

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To say something is low budget has to be in context, otherwise it doesn't mean anything to the one listening (and it's always up to the speaker to make himself understood). You can call a film like The Blair Witch Project low budget and I've even heard people say that the LotR trilogy had too low a budget. Obviously the contexts for those two statements are extremely different.

And people keep saying that they didn't expect LotR, which means that they are comparing the look to something else. I'm just interested to see what the comparison is, I'm not out to say that anyone's wrong. Still the only sensible thing to compare it to is to other TV shows because if you compare it to high budget movies you deserve to be disappointed for obvious reasons. The same goes for people that say that the story is of a scope that can't be done well with a TV budget because they should definitely have known beforehand that they would be disappointed.

The context is the story itself. The show isn't changing the basic story... it's not eliminating the battles or tourney from the plot, it's just altering how they are shown to fit the budget.

If someone made a tv adaptation of a scifi novel like Pandora's Star or some other book with lots of space battles, but rather than showing any scenes in space merely had long dialogues between people talking about the battles, people would quite rightfully point out that there must have been severe budget constraints. The same holds true here. There is an expensive tourney with all the greatest knights in the land in attendance, and there are only a few dozen onlookers. There is an army of 18,000 that you never actually see nor get a hint of. There are grand populous cities that seem to fit within a couple sound stages.

I'm not saying the series is utter rubbish because of it, but only that it is abundantly clear that certain elements are left out because there is a lack of money to create them. You don't need a comparison to other television shows to see it. Is this a limitation of tv in general? Perhaps. Maybe this is the best that could ever be done on television. That's fine, but still doesn't change the fact that given the source material, the budget forced the producers to cut certain corners.

Edited by ser_nerdick
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I'm not saying the series is utter rubbish because of it, but only that it is abundantly clear that certain elements are left out because there is a lack of money to create them. You don't need a comparison to other television shows to see it. Is this a limitation of tv in general? Perhaps. Maybe this is the best that could ever be done on television. That's fine, but still doesn't change the fact that given the source material, the budget forced the producers to cut certain corners.

Oh, I agree completely. It *is* obvious that something of this scale could use a bigger budget. Would I like to see a huge tourney with dozens of knights and hundreds of onlookers? Well, of course! Would I be ecstatic to see a large well choreographed battle? You betcha! I would love a 300 mil budget that would allow an unprecedented extravaganza to grace our screens :fencing:

But, sad truth is, that's not realistic nor feasible. So we have two options really. Enjoy the series for what it is, judge it on its on merits, on the strengths (and weaknesses, of course) of its dialogues, direction, editing, actors' performances and overall faithfulness (or lack thereof) to the spirit of the books, or we can be disappointed because it doesn't match the grandeur and sprawling epicness of the written word.

I don't presume to make that choice for anyone but myself. I am not interested in showing the error of anyone's ways. All I *am* saying is that you are potentially robbing yourselves of a chance to appreciate the show on its own terms, for what *it* is. No more, no less. :grouphug:

Let's be friends now, shall we? :)

Edited by Mr Fixit
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Oh, I agree completely. It *is* obvious that something of this scale could use a bigger budget. Would I like to see a huge tourney with dozens of knights and hundreds of onlookers? Well, of course! Would I be ecstatic to see a large well choreographed battle? You betcha! I would love a 300 mil budget that would allow an unprecedented extravaganza to grace our screens :fencing:

But, sad truth is, that's not realistic and feasible. So we have two options really. Enjoy the series for what it is, judge it on its on merits, on the strengths (and weaknesses, of course) of its dialogues, direction, editing, actors' performances and overall faithfulness (or lack thereof) to the spirit of the books, or we can be disappointed because it doesn't match the grandeur and sprawling epicness of the written word.

I don't presume to make that choice for anyone but myself. I am not interested in showing the error of anyone's ways. All I *am* saying is that you are potentially robbing yourselves of a chance to appreciate the show on its own terms, for what *it* is. No more, no less. :grouphug:

I wouldn't assume that anyone remarking on the budget constraints of the show isn't appreciating its other elements. I certainly am. I note that the dothraki heart-eating ceremony has less people sitting around than at my last trip to the DMV, and move on.

I don't think it's reasonable to completely ignore it. Just like dialogue, direction, editing, and acting, it is a factor in what you may or may not enjoy about the show. Budget constraints could be applied to not just battle scenes, but also the other factors like the writing and acting. You may criticize a certain actor, but maybe part of the reason he is in the part is that they couldn't afford to hire who they really wanted. It's all part of the mix.

Saying you have to appreciate the show for "what *it* is" makes it sound like you have to only praise the show. Example: "Geez, I think all the added Roz scenes are horrible." --> "You have to appreciate the show for what it is, and that includes Rozfest! Would it be better without Roz, well yes, but this is what we have, so we should accept it."

Let's be friends now, shall we? :)

I don't get very riled up over tv show discussions. :grouphug:

Edited by ser_nerdick
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Saying you have to appreciate the show for "what *it* is" makes it sound like you have to only praise the show. Example: "Geez, I think all the added Roz scenes are horrible." --> "You have to appreciate the show for what it is, and that includes Rozfest! Would it be better without Roz, well yes, but this is what we have, so we should accept it."

Oh c'mon, that's not fair :frown5: I didn't say that. If you find Rozfest to be annoying, OK. It's part of that "scripting, directing, acting" thing. You don't like it because (I presume) you think those are just badly executed scenes that serve no purpose but to pander to a certain demographic. It's a perfectly fine sentiment.

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What have I started, with a marginal note? As much as some of you seem to want it, I can't give you any comparison TV show that's better made on a similar budget. Might be because I never ever watched a TV show since Friends - was it some 7 or 8 years ago? I'm the reading type. It's just the independent feeling that some moments/scenes/choosings of restricted locations come off as deliberately cheaply executed (maybe backed up by the experience I gathered as a photographer or studying CG at university and thus being able to estimate what can be done with what kind of effort), or done to save effort and thus money.

Like I said before there are details that could have been done better without much cost, like better adjustment of color moods in some "images", so I do not consider the budget of the series as a limitation to these things. Same thing but unconnected to all above, with the wolves, I understand you can't have them misbehaving around your expensive actors in many shots, but to have them real wolves run or even just sit before a blue screen and put them in later in one scene or the other wouldn't take millions of $$.

Regarding this episode, a CG-enriched picture of Jaime's 30.000 strong army's camp sometime before the WW battle or something of the sort would have done so much. Also seeing Jaime trying to cut his way free to Rob, defeating some men in a misty wood, between lots of tree trunks and shadows would have gone such a long way too imo. You see I'm not talking of expensive additions or LOTR style epicness.

I really didn't want to answer on this topic again, since the whole point of the discussion wasn't important to me, a mere side note. I'd rather discuss the episode's selection of scenes, the storytelling and acting than speculating on what can or cannot be done with what kind of money. But seeing what I helped get rolling I felt I had to explain. Just this: A neon rose Ferrari can look cheap whereas a much less expensive metallic dark blue Mercedes can look just great, it's not always a matter of budget.

Now for the offended fanboys I want to stress that by no means I intended to put the series into a bad light. It's a glorious and wonderful series and I'm very happy and grateful it has been done so I can watch it, and I certainly do support it as lies in my power because I want many more seasons to follow. It doesn't matter that I like the books more, I still love the TV show.

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Oh c'mon, that's not fair :frown5: I didn't say that. If you find Rozfest to be annoying, OK. It's part of that "scripting, directing, acting" thing. You don't like it because (I presume) you think those are just badly executed scenes that serve no purpose but to pander to a certain demographic. It's a perfectly fine sentiment.

I was just using it as an example. It's similar...

Criticism: I didn't like the tourney scene because it seemed small and they only showed one joust

Answer: it probably would have been better with more extras but that's the way they filmed it so best to ignore it and move on

Criticism: I don't like the Roz scenes

Answer: it probably would have been better without those Roz scenes, but that is what the writers chose to do and they filmed it so best to ignore it and move on

I understand that there is an inherent limit to what a production can do on television. But if done correctly, people shouldn't notice the budget constraints. When I watched Spartacus or the Wire or even Rome I didn't give much consideration to the budget because it wasn't drawn to my attention. Here it is. That is the problem.

Maybe A Song of Ice and Fire simply can't fit within a television budget, but that doesn't mean everyone should ignore it. If the actors were only pretending to ride imaginary horses ala Monty Python and Holy Grail, people should (correctly) criticize it. You can't just ignore any budget or lack of scale criticisms or consider them invalid just because this is on television.

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