Season 4 Roundup

[WiDMNDBAMMD]

The eighth book could really really spell trouble for the show in more ways than one (think of extra seasons needed).

An eight book is not a problem for the show because there's absolutely no way that GRRM can get an 8th book out before the show concludes.

[Mr Fixit]

An eight book is not a problem for the show because there's absolutely no way that GRRM can get an 8th book out before the show concludes.

Exactly my point. They would have to write the final season(s) without anything resembling even a half-finished blueprint. Not to mention that the show would probably have to be rushed and/or stripped of much plottinf to avoid going into double digit season numbers.

[Annara Snow]

Here's an idea: couldn't they, instead of having a regular season, make one prequel miniseries (maybe as long as one season) about Robert's rebellion? They will have to somehow cover that part of the story in full, and so far the show hasn't had any flashbacks, only a little bit of exposition, with most of the story remaining untold; and doing it all via exposition tends to be clunky on screen, where the rule is 'show, don't tell'. If they do it before the conclusion of the show, it would also buy them some time to wait for GRRM to finish the conclusion to the series.

Of course it would require a new casting process, but it would be easier to film since it wouldn't require the scenes across the sea (no shooting in Morocco needed) or at the Wall (no need for Iceland) and no wights, giants, dragons etc.

[oierem]

Since the producers know how the story is going to end, they are able to make that work in the 8-season framework, regardless of the books Martin needs to reach that same point.

If Martin (very possibly) needs an 8th book (at least), it won't affect the series, because they will not be depending on the books, but on the story they already know. (for example, let's say that Martin intends Dany to reach westeros in book 6, but is unable to do so; the producers most probably have already decided when Dany is going to reach Westeros in the show -say, the end of season 6- and they won't change that).

A Robert's rebellion miniseries is the same as haulting the production of the (current) series: impossible, as they've already said it. They need to finish the story they began to tell, which is not about the Rebellion.

(and besides, a possible miniseries about the Rebellion would be 1) potentially uninteresting, since we know the fate of all the characters, and 2) clearly spoilery, since it would spoil whatever importance the events of the Rebellion have on ASOS).

[Annara Snow]

Since the producers know how the story is going to end, they are able to make that work in the 8-season framework, regardless of the books Martin needs to reach that same point.

If Martin (very possibly) needs an 8th book (at least), it won't affect the series, because they will not be depending on the books, but on the story they already know. (for example, let's say that Martin intends Dany to reach westeros in book 6, but is unable to do so; the producers most probably have already decided when Dany is going to reach Westeros in the show -say, the end of season 6- and they won't change that).

A Robert's rebellion miniseries is the same as haulting the production of the (current) series: impossible, as they've already said it. They need to finish the story they began to tell, which is not about the Rebellion.

(and besides, a possible miniseries about the Rebellion would be 1) potentially uninteresting, since we know the fate of all the characters, and 2) clearly spoilery, since it would spoil whatever importance the events of the Rebellion have on ASOS).

Most of the facts about the Rebellion have already been revealed in the books, and I don't see how it could spoil things for the events that happen 20 years later. Some of the things that are still to be explicitly revealed and that will actually affect the events, like Jon's parentage (lots of hints in the books, hardly any hints in the show) would probably play better if revealed on screen, either in flashbacks or some sort of a prequel story, rather than having a character talk about it. Doing flashbacks or a prequel before the conclusion of the story - say, after season 6 - could work well in setting the stage for the conclusion.

The argument that it would be uninteresting has been proven wrong lots of times when a prequel to a popular existing story has been made; people flocked to see the Star Wars prequels and had high expectations despite knowing the fate of the characters (the only problem was that the prequels sucked). Starz' Spartacus made a prequel season/miniseries "Gods of the Arena" to stall for time when their lead actor was diagnosed with cancer, and I believe that "Gods of the Arena" was quite popular. People like watching origin stories as well and seeing how Batman or James Bond or Professor X and Magneto came to be who they are, despite already knowing how those particular stories turn out.

[King Cheops]

Most of the facts about the Rebellion have already been revealed in the books, and I don't see how it could spoil things for the events that happen 20 years later. Some of the things that are still to be explicitly revealed and that will actually affect the events, like Jon's parentage (lots of hints in the books, hardly any hints in the show) would probably play better if revealed on screen, either in flashbacks or some sort of a prequel story, rather than having a character talk about it. Doing flashbacks or a prequel before the conclusion of the story - say, after season 6 - could work well in setting the stage for the conclusion.

The argument that it would be uninteresting has been proven wrong lots of times when a prequel to a popular existing story has been made; people flocked to see the Star Wars prequels and had high expectations despite knowing the fate of the characters (the only problem was that the prequels sucked). Starz' Spartacus made a prequel season/miniseries "Gods of the Arena" to stall for time when their lead actor was diagnosed with cancer, and I believe that "Gods of the Arena" was quite popular. People like watching origin stories as well and seeing how Batman or James Bond or Professor X and Magneto came to be who they are, despite already knowing how those particular stories turn out.

It would be uninteresting because we know that Rhaegar will die and that Ned and Robert and most of the current characters are safe. It means we don't have to worry about their fates. That is boring TV.

Besides they've already thoroughly covered everything about the Rebellion in better detail than it was provided in the books. If you haven't watched them already you really need to watch all the animated shorts on the boxed sets. Very well done, well written, and the voice work by the narrators is great. I especially love Dormer doing Margery talking about what the Tyrells were doing during the rebellion. She makes "Growing Strong" sound really bloody sinister.

[Le Cygne]

That is boring TV.

Seriously? Check out the R + L = J threads, there's a lot of interest in Rhaegar and Lyanna.

[King Cheops]

Seriously? Check out the R + L = J threads, there's a lot of interest in Rhaegar and Lyanna.

Seriously? How many people only recommend the series because "you never know who's going to be killed off next!"

Honestly I'd watch a prequel and would likely enjoy it as I think most people would since the shows are well written and well acted. However, the stuff I mentioned which you totally ignored is that the history of the Rebellion has been very well covered in the special features.

If they go the prequel route they are much better off doing the Dunk and Egg series or the Blackfyre Rebellion or the Dance of Dragons. Something further back in history.

[Le Cygne]

I read what you said. Animated shorts on a DVD set does not = on the show.

This is a show based on A Song of Ice and Fire and Rhaegar is the one who said that. GRRM said they will have to get into what happened on the show, if they want to make sense, and film is a visual medium, so don't talk about it, show it.

Rhaegar and Lyanna is ratings heaven (unless they turn it into Robb and Talisa in which case, forget about it D&D, please).

GRRM:

"They have been not doing a lot with the prehistory... There are some references to it but not a lot. Sooner or later, they are going to have to deal with Rhaegar and Lyanna and what happened between them, and the battle of the Trident, and all of these things, and the mad king... Certainly in the books, the past, the present, and the future all reflect upon each other and are a part of it..."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/04/game-of-thrones-season-3-characters_n_1854918.html

[oierem]

Most of the facts about the Rebellion have already been revealed in the books, and I don't see how it could spoil things for the events that happen 20 years later. Some of the things that are still to be explicitly revealed and that will actually affect the events, like Jon's parentage (lots of hints in the books, hardly any hints in the show) would probably play better if revealed on screen, either in flashbacks or some sort of a prequel story, rather than having a character talk about it. Doing flashbacks or a prequel before the conclusion of the story - say, after season 6 - could work well in setting the stage for the conclusion.

I think we all agree that there are some aspects of the backstory that will become important later in the game: Jon's parentage, mainly. Are you seriously proposing that they should reveal who Jon's mother is on a different miniseries?? (ruining the revelation both in the books and in the TV series). Honestly, if the answer is important to the plot (which should be, otherwise it's just random trivia) it has to be revealed within the series in a way that it has an inmediate effect.

[Annara Snow]

I think we all agree that there are some aspects of the backstory that will become important later in the game: Jon's parentage, mainly. Are you seriously proposing that they should reveal who Jon's mother is on a different miniseries?? (ruining the revelation both in the books and in the TV series). Honestly, if the answer is important to the plot (which should be, otherwise it's just random trivia) it has to be revealed within the series in a way that it has an inmediate effect.

The book readers already have very strongly held theories about Jon's parentage already from the 1,000 clues throughout the books - I doubt that the "revelation" in the books will come as a surprise to anyone.

On the show, it's the exact opposite - the viewers barely even know who all these characters from 2 decades ago were, there has been almost no setup, and unless they throw in flashbacks and a helluva lot of clunky exposition in the next few seasons, any revelation about Jon's parentage would come completely out of the blue and wouldn't have the desired effect.

As to the answer being important... well, I think the fact that "Who is the real mother of Jon Snow?" was the test question GRRM asked D&D during their first meeting (with D&D apparently giving the correct guess) speaks for itself.

[Khal-a-bunga]

The book readers already have very strongly held theories about Jon's parentage already from the 1,000 clues throughout the books - I doubt that the "revelation" in the books will come as a surprise to anyone.

On the show, it's the exact opposite - the viewers barely even know who all these characters from 2 decades ago were, there has been almost no setup, and unless they throw in flashbacks and a helluva lot of clunky exposition in the next few seasons, any revelation about Jon's parentage would come completely out of the blue and wouldn't have the desired effect.

As to the answer being important... well, I think the fact that "Who is the real mother of Jon Snow?" was the test question GRRM asked D&D during their first meeting (with D&D apparently giving the correct guess) speaks for itself.

Keep in mind that D&D have addressed the issue of the events that occurred in the past, and have said that these things (the points relative to the narrative, as oierem said) will appear in the series when they are most relevant. I think it's pretty clear that Bran will be the conduit through which the writers will explain these necessary bits of back-story, through a combination of his powers and through exposition from Jojen & Meera (hypothetically, of course). We should expect to hear a lot more about the Mad King and Rhaegar in the upcoming season, with the introduction of Oberyn. We've already heard a bit about this from Sandor in the episode Kissed By Fire, but as we've seen from shoot reports, The Mountain is going to be fleshed out prior to his duel with the Red Viper, and we should definitely expect Oberyn himself to get a lot more material than he had in A Storm of Swords. This would lead me to believe that the murder of Elia and her children, as well as the sack of King's Landing are going to get a decent amount of focus in season four, and would jive with D&D saying that they are going to reveal this information piece-meal when most appropriate.

[Victarion10]

It means we don't have to worry about their fates. That is boring TV.

Because the Titanic flopped didn't it?

[Colonel Green]

The argument that it would be uninteresting has been proven wrong lots of times when a prequel to a popular existing story has been made; people flocked to see the Star Wars prequels and had high expectations despite knowing the fate of the characters (the only problem was that the prequels sucked). Starz' Spartacus made a prequel season/miniseries "Gods of the Arena" to stall for time when their lead actor was diagnosed with cancer, and I believe that "Gods of the Arena" was quite popular. People like watching origin stories as well and seeing how Batman or James Bond or Professor X and Magneto came to be who they are, despite already knowing how those particular stories turn out.

The problem with a prequel is not that it wouldn't be interesting, it's that it wouldn't solve their in-front-of-the-camera production issues (and would probably also kill narrative momentum dead). The Spartacus prequel series was able to make use of most of the main series' cast, which was why it was feasible as a production stopgap. Filming Robert's Rebellion wouldn't do anything for the regular series cast of characters, most of whom either aren't in that story at all (the Stark kids, Dany and co., Brienne, the Night's Watch crew) or would have to be recast with younger actors. As such, it's meaningless in addressing the problems with halting production on the main show.

[Le Cygne]

Some more stuff, was listening to the 1x10 commentary and came across this (we were talking about Marillion earlier on the thread):

Weiss: This Marillion, this character is a character who in the books goes on to become a relatively important character in the third book. We had the opportunity to rip his tongue out instead of that and so we just thought that in service of the first season, it would be worth sacrificing his...

Benioff: He'd already been established...

Weiss: ... that this would be better that this happened to somebody that we had some investment in.

Benioff: That way if we didn't get a second season at least this way we'd have lopped someone's tongue out in season 1.

[Dragonstoned]

Mmmn a Robert's Rebellion prequel is excessive and unfeasible for the reasons mentioned.

And with the Marillion thing I think D&D/B&W might have been exercising their dry sense of humour (at least on the special features it is dry) although this sort of feeds into my guess that they were uncertain how much success Game of Thrones would have and therefore stuck to the books / kept things tight during s1 and then when they realised how popular it was decided to let their imaginations take rein / hubris set in from s2 onwards.

[Le Cygne]

I don't know, it says to me just what it says, they knew he was "relatively important" to Sansa's plot, but made a call that in retrospect, wasn't worth it. I don't think viewers had the slightest investment in Marillion at the time, with all the characters and plots going on. Will they replace him with someone else, who knows, but it's certainly been on GRRM's mind, he's brought it up repeatedly ever since.

[TheTowerOfJoy]

I think a Prequel season would certainly be worth a watch, but I don't think you could do it in the middle of regular seasons, so it doesn't really solve the problem.

Maybe after this show is done we could get Robert's Rebellion or Dunk and Egg seasons.

With that said, George used to write books quicker, and seemed to struggle with the last two because they were never planned to be made in the first place. Hopefully he's now back on his original track, he can finish quicker, and without adding so much unplanned material.

[oierem]

"used to" is the key phrase. There was a two year gap between AGOT and ACOK, and another two years between ACOK and ASOS.

Then it was a five year gap for AFFC. Then a six year gap.

Back on his original track? Unlikely. In any case, it's been over two years since the publication of ADWD and a 2014 publication seems unlikely, so we are talking of a four year gap AT LEAST.

[Mr Fixit]

"used to" is the key phrase. There was a two year gap between AGOT and ACOK, and another two years between ACOK and ASOS.

Then it was a five year gap for AFFC. Then a six year gap.

Back on his original track? Unlikely. In any case, it's been over two years since the publication of ADWD and a 2014 publication seems unlikely, so we are talking of a four year gap AT LEAST.

Look at it this way. Martin started writing the series in 1991, publishing ASoS in 2000. That would mean around 3 years on average for the first three books (keep in mind that he wrote a significant amount of post-AGoT material prior to 1996).

AFfC is a peculiar case. We know he changed his mind about the nature of that book in 2002 (I think; someone correct me if I'm wrong) and scrapped a lot of written material. So, in a way, once Martin decided on what he wanted the Feast to look like, it took him three years to finish the book. Therefore, the only true exception is Dance with its abnormally long 6-year gap.

So, who knows? Maybe Martin will be back to his usual three years for TWoW. Though his progress report from a few months back wasn't exactly encouraging.