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[Book Spoilers] Battle of the Fist of the First Men


Dank Jedi

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@Tadco26:

You know that they can't save money from a last season? you have a budget per season. If you don't use it all. You're not going to get what's left for next season. And yes they could handle it better. Maybe it was better to have cut when Sam saw the wights. And wait when Jon visited the fist next episode. We think they're all dead. Than we see that sam lives. But they need to write something.

Not in the truthful and believable narration departament. :P I think they just enjoyed themselves with a big scene in the end of last season, but had no smarts how to follow up. :P

Personally I liked the way that they didn't show the battle. That way it remains a mystery how they fight, and it will be more epic once the real battle with the white walkers occure. And for not showing that there was a battle. People have blood over their face, and I liked it that you don't see the body's before Jon's chapter. If they had shown the battle, people would be moaning about that scene, because "we already know, there was a battle, people died."

It ain't that clear. Was there a battle? Did Mormont et al just sortie out to get Sam out? Did the zombies pass by? Did they attack?

Of course I know what was supposed to happen, I did read the book, but the scene was pretty unclear.

Did you watch the same episode, because as far as I heard, Mormont stated there was a big battle, and that most had died. As far as I know he isn't a liar. I think it's a beautiful thing we didn't had the battle. Now the Mystery remains. and showing the battle, would also made some thing worse, like when we have the big battle at the end of the series, we would have had, already saw that on screen boring.

But why not be happy, that they saved money for more important things? like the RW that doesn't have a second run in the show. A battle with the others we have.

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I really need to fact check, the wights seem to have left Sam alone as he had no weapon drew. Again I'm spitballing mostly can any body recall a wight attacking unarmed Crows or Wildlings? Maybe this means nothing or I'm mistaken - just the sort of thing that would not be shocking with GRRM's penchant for they grey areas.

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Regarding budget, let's keep in mind what they already have:

The 3d model for the wights and white walkers

A bear, to be used with Brienne, either real or cgi, only that's not in Iceland

The NW actors

The location

A full blown battle would be expensive. Five to ten flashes of close ups of the battle in the dark it's not.

They'll need one more day of shooting. Costly, but well, they are already shooting.

The lightning will be tricky, but I guess they are paying top notch DPs.

Several extras, but not many, because it will be close ups.

The actors are already there, and so is the crew, props, etc. It's one more day of salary.

A bunch of wights and a white walker. The models are already done and paid for. They have to animate them and render them. Costly, but they only need 2-4 seconds of them and, since it's in the dark and probably during a blizzard, they don't really need a top notch job. 'Just works' would be unnoticeable in such a short, dark, shot.

Maybe a flaming arrow or two against the sky, in the dark. They don't even need to do that in Iceland and they have done similar shots during the season. Heck, if money is tight, reuse some of the shots made during Blackwater Bay.

The bear, if real, in Ireland. If CGI, already paid for - animate and render a second of it. If real, a couple hours to make it 'act' shortly in front of a chroma screen (in Ireland), or just shoot dark in the open. Again, it's a second at so nobody will get to have a good look at it.

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How is everyone so sure we won't see the battle in flashbacks? It seemed to me that Sam was in shock. Maybe they'll do flashbacks when he relays what happened to Gilly & is forced to deal with it himself for the first time. Did anyone from the show officially say they didn't film anything here? The build up at season 2 end...they'd have to know this would cause everyone to cry foul!

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:agree:

I'm not upset in the least.

The audience has had ten months to imagine in their head what that battle would be like, book and non-book readers alike. Not even a James Cameron/Peter Jackson coproduction budget could match what's in your head, so why waste time and money on it when there are far more important battles, dragons, more story, and more characters to spend that time and money on?

Opening with a black screen (so you can imagine 10 months of thinking up all that magical stuff in your head which is always better and more scary anyway), was perfect.

You want dragons, more story, more characters, more fx? Or do you want the battle at the Fist that you'll hate and complain about anyway beause "it's not like the book" or "it's not what I imagined"? Make a choice, because it's TELEVISION, yes, I know it's HBO, but it's still television, and you can't have both.

How many battles that involve The Watch do you think they need anyway? If they show all of them, it will get very repetitive. It will also spoil

whatever George has in mind for the Walkers later in the story.

Whatever it is, it will be big, and shouldn't lose it's impact.

Maybe Sam will tell Gilly about it, and we'll get the story that way. If we have both, it will be repetitive, but telling Gilly gives them a scene they need.

We don't need to see it, because what you can imagine in your head is always better anyway. We're going to get battles. Lots of them. You're not going to get every single action and character in the books. If that's what you're expecting, stop watching unless you like being continually let down.

Try letting go of your expectations and just enjoy the best show on television. Shows this good, (with this budget and source material) are rare. But hell, maybe HBO will decide it's not worth it after all and pull the plug. Then you won't have it to let you down anymore.

Nope. I agree with King Cheops.

Ghost will find Jon. He's Ghost. He's not some stupid puppy who hangs out with people who have food. There will be ravens. So many people are acting like every detail needed to be in the first hour of ten. There are nine more episodes to tell this part of the story.

That's crap.

The Walking Dead have zombie fights every episode. It would not cost nor would it take money away from the Red Wedding or Castle Black, which will be next season anyway.

One scene, probably a minute at best. Edd makes it back to warn Mormont. Wights attack (it can be dark only need to see a few), they fail to kill a few, some of the Watch are killed, Mormont orders a barrier of fire and then they retreat. Don't see how it would be anymore expensive than the ridiculous shot of hundreds of them last season. They clearly didn't think that through.

The scene they had made no sense. Especially after last season. How they hell did Sam escape? How the hell did Mormont expect him to send the ravens when he wasn't even at the Fist? Hundreds of wights disappeared?

Yeah we had time to imagine what it was like, no way they could live up to it apparently so let's just not show anything at all! Brilliant logic. Opening with a black screen so we can just imagine it was perfect....lol. How about the whole show can just be black screen so we can imagine it instead of it not living up to our standards?

The battle at the fist is more important than showing Drogon flying around for a few seconds. Do people watch this show just for a few glimpses of dragons? How could someone say 'I don't care that they didn't show the battle because we got to see dragons!'

How about they save some money by not paying random girls to appear as nude whores on screen all the time? The point of Bronn almost taking off a girl's underwear with his teeth? Oh that's right, none. How about taking out some useless scenes like Ros and Shae talking. That might be an idea.

How many battles have there been involving the watch? None! Jon fought a wight and then fought Qhorin, that's about it unless you want to remind me of some more.

We aren't going to get battles. We have had one so far and the rest have been black screen. How do we know there will be more non-black screen battles? We don't.

The Ghost thing is important. The whole Ghost story has him not being loyal to Jon at all. He left him and wandered all the way back to Sam? WTF?

You can't just defend everything about the show. It has a lot of flaws.

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And if they can't even show a little skirmish like that how are they possibly going to show the big battles in books 6 and 7? How will they have the budget to have fully grown Dragons attacking during battle?

Blackwater will be nothing compared to that and they had to cut that battle down remarkably.

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No battle was expected by me, but to say that there is no way they could have handled it any better is certainly misleading. Part of the problem is how poorly they ended last season with Sam surrounded and inexplicably surviving.

Like I said earlier, personally I would have preferred they do the end of last season completely different. Have it be night time, back at the fist of first men with Sam and the others doing whatever there. Horn blows 3 times, Sam tells them that means the White Walkers, and either fade to black or have a bunch of blue eyed dark silloutes approaching the fist in the night.

Next season starts:

Frantic movement and panic around the camp. Mormont tells Sam to send the ravens, and he runs to go do that, but when he opens the cage they escape and fly off before he has a chance to attach the messages. Use the money saved from not showing the CGI undead "army" at the end of last season to show some of them advancing on the Fist even if it is just black shapes with blue eyes in the night. Fade to black as some one yells that they are being over run, and you hear Mormont yell to retreat, with screams and cries. Cut to Sam running thru the snow, and continue on similar to how the show actually did. It's hard to imagine a variation of that scene being THAT cost prohibitive since you wouldn't actually see a battle or even need detailed CGI for the White Walkers, just glowing blue eyed figures advancing in the dark.

Worst case scenario they could have just had Mormont fill in some of the blanks after killing the wight that was attacking Sam. Something like Mormont:"Sam your alive! We thought we had lost you when the walkers over ran us. Did you send the ravens out?"

Sam: "NNNooo.. I was with Gren and Dolorous Ed and then the wights surrounded me. I hid and luckily they passed me by. I have been running ever since."

Mormont: "We lost most of our force when the White Walkers attacked, and they are still pursuing us. Since you weren't able to send out any ravens, we need to get back to the wall as soon as possible or everyone we know will die."

They don't actually have to show any of the battle to do a much better job of implying what happened.

I'm not sure if they can logistically film in Iceland at night due to the cold and darkness. Safety might be a concern.

I agree with you that the massive wight horde at the end of last season could have been done in other ways, and the budget would have been better used elsewhere (from a reader perspective at least, most show-only watchers would probably disagree), but they couldn't have 'saved' that money for this season. HBO gives them the money for each season individually, if there is a single cent that they don't spend then HBO doesn't give them that money in the first place.

The scene certainly could have been better given the massive build up last season, but I don't think they could have gone too crazy (certainly there could in no way have been the undead bear). I would bet money that that scene was more elaborate in earlier drafts, and it was just one of the things that was cut down when the producers asked the writers to minimise budget and shorten the page length. Showing the battle doesn't really have a lot of ebaring on this season, it was more wrapping up the (unkeepable) promise of last season. I'm sad to see it go, but if that meant we get an epic Dracarys or Wall climbing scene then I'll live with it. There are probably some very good reasons as to why the scene ended up as it did. As much as we talk about the show on these forums, D&D live with it even more. They spend almost every waking minute all year round working on the show, so I have no doubt that they have thoguht long and hard about stuff like this and made tough decisions. Whether or not they are the right decisions I have no idea though.

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The battle of the fist isn't as simple as hiring a bunch of extras, and doing a one-day shoot. It's humans fighting rotting CGI dead guys who aren't there. That's a lot of FX $$. You want this minor battle that's only told in flashbacks in the books, or do you want Dracarys? You can't have both.

But since you guy are all such international telelvision budget experts, perhaps you should launch a Kickstarter and forward the money to HBO along with spec scripts so you can have everything shot exactly as it is in all your heads, since you all seem to think with a hivemind and agree on how it should be perfectly shot. ;)

  • D&D have said it's cheaper to take a unit to Iceland than to build a set like they need. Iceland saves money.
  • There are only about six hours of daylight to shoot in Iceland. That is nothing considering most of it is spent setting up shots.

How many battles do you think this show needs? All of them? Or just the ones that actually appear in the books? *This one doesn't, it's told in flashbacks.

I suggest you watch both versions of Kingdom of Heaven, both the theatrical and the Director's Cut which has 45min of additional footage. One is a bunch of battles and makes no sense whatsoever, making the viewer think they've been abducted by aliens because of the lack of narrative. Whereas the director's cut actually tells an awesome story, and has more characters in it, that are actually important to the plot and main characters.

  • I think we're going to find out what happened at the fist. Otherwise what would Sam and Gilly talk about?
  • The lower they take Sam, the better his heroic moment will be.

You guys should watch the emmycast and listen to the commentary on the DVDs. It would answer a lot of your production and budget questions, and help alleviate your disappointment. It would also help make sense why this show on Premium cable and something like Walking Dead on commercial basic cable, should never ever be compared in any prodution universe, for they are as different as things on broadcast networks versus theatrical films.

it's a miracle we have this show. It shouldn't exist. It's Fantasy, it's unfilmable, and no network can afford it, not even a major commercial network.

Yet people are complaining about a battle that is really going to be a repeat of something bigger coming later in the story (we all suspect), that hasn't been written yet. Personally, I'd rather save that giant reveal for then, instead of having the baby version now. But that's just me.

As for the WW/wights leaving Sam alone, so? They left the ranger that deserts and Ned executes alone too. And they looked right at him also. So? It's established, that they do that. I don't see why people are acting like it's out of character somehow.

That's crap.

You can't just defend everything about the show. It has a lot of flaws.

Yes I can. It might have flaws for you, but it doesn't for me. I'm not you. I probably don't like the music you like either. So? Not everyone is just like you.

You do not speak for me. You do not shape my opinion. I don't want to be part of your hive.

I'm not sure if they can logistically film in Iceland at night due to the cold and darkness. Safety might be a concern.

They can't, mostly for temperature reasons ("we have to stop filiming and get inside NOW, or you won't be coming in at all"), and they don't seem to haul lighting units out into the tundra. They explain a lot of that in the DVD commentary, and in the emmycast.

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One need not be an international movie budget expert to recognize a gigantic plothole and flimsy scene that opens a season.

The budget doesnt matter, the cliffhanger ending of last season wasn't done justice by the first scene of the freakin season this year. There was nothing scary, suspenseful, exciting, shocking, or logical about this first scene. A corpse holding its head for some reason almost got me excited and my wife could barely hold interest.

I mean, the way it comes off is that they should have just lit a few torches and they would have made easy work of those wights.

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I knew we were not going to get a full on battle in ep1, but I would have liked a little more smoke and mirrors.

I was picturing a heavily misted scene with shadows fighting, screams and a close up of a severed arm or two. Horror movie style

Can’t just say it was not in the budget, with all the dragon porn we got this week, :cool4:

the only reason I can think of as to why they had so much trouble is Iceland being icy. should have done most of this shot inside.

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Regarding "not showing battle itself (due to budget), I think the battle of Green Fork is a good example: We get battle preparations, chaos, then "charge", then Tyrion is brained and wakes up among bodies etc. We don't see battle itself, but we see battle hapened... Same with Robb's battles. The Fist fails to show this, there's one guy without head, one zombie and a group of watchmen who look rather like after a pub fight.

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I haven't see anyone suggest that we needed a Blackwater In The Snow to open the season, but it would have been possible to construct a scene that either showed a part of the battle or a more effective aftermath of the conflict. Something dramatic, tense, scary, and highlighted that the White Walkers are a real threat to the realm.

What we got was so not that. We got a CGI blizzard, a single zombie, and then a dozen extra's and Mormont standing around shooting the breeze. It was one of the least creative ways to present the aftermath. No chaos, no fear, just some guys standing in a fake snowfall. There a dozen cost effective ways this could have been written and shot so it that delivered a dramatic payoff from the last season cliffhanger.

You guys should watch the emmycast and listen to the commentary on the DVDs. It would answer a lot of your production and budget questions, and help alleviate your disappointment. It would also help make sense why this show on Premium cable and something like Walking Dead on commercial basic cable, should never ever be compared in any prodution universe, for they are as different as things on broadcast networks versus theatrical films.

What does this even mean? GOT has the largest budget of any show on TV. Yes, by its nature, it's very expensive (Costumes, Sets, Special Effects, Locations, Large Cast, etc...), but that doesn't preclude some criticism of where they are choosing to spend the money. There is nothing unreasonable about suggesting that dropping a couple of effects shots and a scene or two, would have been better than scrimping on the opening scene of the third season.

The bottom line for me, is the scene as filmed just didn't work. It didn't deliver a payoff for the cliffhanger, it wasn't memorable really in any way, and it didn't hint at the threat the White Walkers really are to the realm and how unprepared everyone is to deal with them <<< which really is the key objective of the scene.

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The battle of the fist isn't as simple as hiring a bunch of extras, and doing a one-day shoot. It's humans fighting rotting CGI dead guys who aren't there. That's a lot of FX $$. You want this minor battle that's only told in flashbacks in the books, or do you want Dracarys? You can't have both.

But since you guy are all such international telelvision budget experts, perhaps you should launch a Kickstarter and forward the money to HBO along with spec scripts so you can have everything shot exactly as it is in all your heads, since you all seem to think with a hivemind and agree on how it should be perfectly shot. ;)

  • D&D have said it's cheaper to take a unit to Iceland than to build a set like they need. Iceland saves money.
  • There are only about six hours of daylight to shoot in Iceland. That is nothing considering most of it is spent setting up shots.

How many battles do you think this show needs? All of them? Or just the ones that actually appear in the books? *This one doesn't, it's told in flashbacks.

I suggest you watch both versions of Kingdom of Heaven, both the theatrical and the Director's Cut which has 45min of additional footage. One is a bunch of battles and makes no sense whatsoever, making the viewer think they've been abducted by aliens because of the lack of narrative. Whereas the director's cut actually tells an awesome story, and has more characters in it, that are actually important to the plot and main characters.

  • I think we're going to find out what happened at the fist. Otherwise what would Sam and Gilly talk about?
  • The lower they take Sam, the better his heroic moment will be.

You guys should watch the emmycast and listen to the commentary on the DVDs. It would answer a lot of your production and budget questions, and help alleviate your disappointment. It would also help make sense why this show on Premium cable and something like Walking Dead on commercial basic cable, should never ever be compared in any prodution universe, for they are as different as things on broadcast networks versus theatrical films.

it's a miracle we have this show. It shouldn't exist. It's Fantasy, it's unfilmable, and no network can afford it, not even a major commercial network.

Yet people are complaining about a battle that is really going to be a repeat of something bigger coming later in the story (we all suspect), that hasn't been written yet. Personally, I'd rather save that giant reveal for then, instead of having the baby version now. But that's just me.

As for the WW/wights leaving Sam alone, so? They left the ranger that deserts and Ned executes alone too. And they looked right at him also. So? It's established, that they do that. I don't see why people are acting like it's out of character somehow.

Yes I can. It might have flaws for you, but it doesn't for me. I'm not you. I probably don't like the music you like either. So? Not everyone is just like you.

You do not speak for me. You do not shape my opinion. I don't want to be part of your hive.

They can't, mostly for temperature reasons ("we have to stop filiming and get inside NOW, or you won't be coming in at all"), and they don't seem to haul lighting units out into the tundra. They explain a lot of that in the DVD commentary, and in the emmycast.

Save you're breathe, I think you and I must learn that some people think they know everything about making TV without even a little bit of research.

the battle that we saw now already cost are more than 1 milion with a max of 50 million a season. Island is a very difficult country too shoot. and about WW aren't a treat. Wait for episode 2. :)

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The battle of the fist isn't as simple as hiring a bunch of extras, and doing a one-day shoot. It's humans fighting rotting CGI dead guys who aren't there. That's a lot of FX $$. You want this minor battle that's only told in flashbacks in the books, or do you want Dracarys? You can't have both.

But since you guy are all such international telelvision budget experts, perhaps you should launch a Kickstarter and forward the money to HBO along with spec scripts so you can have everything shot exactly as it is in all your heads, since you all seem to think with a hivemind and agree on how it should be perfectly shot. ;)

  • D&D have said it's cheaper to take a unit to Iceland than to build a set like they need. Iceland saves money.
  • There are only about six hours of daylight to shoot in Iceland. That is nothing considering most of it is spent setting up shots.

How many battles do you think this show needs? All of them? Or just the ones that actually appear in the books? *This one doesn't, it's told in flashbacks.

I suggest you watch both versions of Kingdom of Heaven, both the theatrical and the Director's Cut which has 45min of additional footage. One is a bunch of battles and makes no sense whatsoever, making the viewer think they've been abducted by aliens because of the lack of narrative. Whereas the director's cut actually tells an awesome story, and has more characters in it, that are actually important to the plot and main characters.

  • I think we're going to find out what happened at the fist. Otherwise what would Sam and Gilly talk about?
  • The lower they take Sam, the better his heroic moment will be.

You guys should watch the emmycast and listen to the commentary on the DVDs. It would answer a lot of your production and budget questions, and help alleviate your disappointment. It would also help make sense why this show on Premium cable and something like Walking Dead on commercial basic cable, should never ever be compared in any prodution universe, for they are as different as things on broadcast networks versus theatrical films.

it's a miracle we have this show. It shouldn't exist. It's Fantasy, it's unfilmable, and no network can afford it, not even a major commercial network.

Yet people are complaining about a battle that is really going to be a repeat of something bigger coming later in the story (we all suspect), that hasn't been written yet. Personally, I'd rather save that giant reveal for then, instead of having the baby version now. But that's just me.

As for the WW/wights leaving Sam alone, so? They left the ranger that deserts and Ned executes alone too. And they looked right at him also. So? It's established, that they do that. I don't see why people are acting like it's out of character somehow.

Yes I can. It might have flaws for you, but it doesn't for me. I'm not you. I probably don't like the music you like either. So? Not everyone is just like you.

You do not speak for me. You do not shape my opinion. I don't want to be part of your hive.

They can't, mostly for temperature reasons ("we have to stop filiming and get inside NOW, or you won't be coming in at all"), and they don't seem to haul lighting units out into the tundra. They explain a lot of that in the DVD commentary, and in the emmycast.

You think the show is 100% perfect? That's irrational. No show is.

The Walking Dead has tons of little zombie fights that honestly don't look too hard to film. Nobody has said the Battle has to be CGI. You can create wights with make-up. I doubt the season 1 wights were CGI. How hard is it to have wights appear on the Fist, a couple of them stabbed, a couple of rushed battle shots, some Night's Watch dying, a fire and a retreat? Probably cost less than the CGI blizzard cost.

I would rather have a one minute skirmish (all it needs to be) than a scene of Drogon flying above the water and frying a fish that shows nothing at all. I'd also rather have it than numerous random naked whores guaranteed to be scattered around the season.

How battles has the show had? 1. It needs battles more than it needs Ros and Shae. A little skirmish isn't going to ruin anything and will be entertaining. No one is saying it should be Kingdom of Heaven battle like. A one minute battle in a 55 minute episode in a 550 minute season is nothing. How is that 'all battles'?

and would you honestly complain in six seasons when the big Others battle does come about a little skirmish six seasons ago? That's like saying the Pelennor was ruined because of the battle in Balin's Tomb.

The scene as it is doesn't make sense. How hard is it to show wights killing a couple guys then a retreat?

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They can't, mostly for temperature reasons ("we have to stop filiming and get inside NOW, or you won't be coming in at all"), and they don't seem to haul lighting units out into the tundra. They explain a lot of that in the DVD commentary, and in the emmycast.

Yeah this was my thinking. Not to mention teh absolute nightmare of trying to mantain lighting continuity. Replicating the moon with artificial lights would be seriously hard with all that snow.

The scene as it is doesn't make sense. How hard is it to show wights killing a couple guys then a retreat?

To put it simply: much, much harder that you may think. That's what Moet and I have been trying to explain. This stuff is hard.

I'm glad you compared it to The Walking Dead, as that's a show that actually does spend too much of its time and money on flashy effects (having so many fights with zombies). They tend to shoot scenes to save time, rather than to look as professional as possible. They use a lot of handheld/shoulder mount shots in their composition, with very long durations. The result of this is a product that does not look as cinematic as something like Game of Thrones. That's not to say The Walking Dead is doing it wrong or anything, they're aiming for a more realist style and as a result the show takes on a docudrama kind of feel, whereas Game of Thrones feels much more cinematic (to its benefit as I'm sure you would agree). The fact that The Walking Dead uses this cost-effective shooting style means that they have more money to spend on their awesome prosthetics and not so awesome CGI (IMO).

I have no problem with people talking about what they wish the show did, and how it could have been done better, but when they start insulting the people who have worked really, really hard on the show, then it becomes too much. Some people think the crew just shit this content out, but it takes a hell of a lot of effort to make what you see, and a lot of hard decisions have to be made. As someone who has experience this kind of stress before it just makes be annoyed when people insult the creator's work for stuff that was out of their control.

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