Game of Thrones [SPOILERS]

[Rasix]

At this point, since I read the first 2 books so long ago, it is hard for me to distinguish.  I remember that the dragons were never stolen, but the Ygritte subplot escapes me.

It was quite a bit different.  It is possible that it ends up similar.  

Depends if he ends up doing a certain deed (non bone related).

They're really diverging on some points.  If they go the way it looks like they're going with Robb, it'll change a certain HUGE EVENT in the future and make some of the political intrigue surrounding that event somewhat less shocking.

Edit: the actress playing Ygritte is doing awesome. 

[Tale]

[Rasix]

[Rendakor]

[Tale]

Episode 8 was the cunt episode. At least three conversations involving the word.

[Slayerik]

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Nothing happened. Besides Robb's hottie getting naked (Damn.)

[HaemishM]

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Nothing happened. Besides Robb's hottie getting naked (Damn.)

That was a pretty big happening for me. 

It was a setup episode. A well done setup episode, but yeah, the next two episodes will see some serious shit kick off.

[Tale]

[Tannhauser]

I enjoyed the episode. 
Like Mad Men, this show ramps up over the season and I'm really enjoying it.

[Tale]

Of all the changed storylines compared with the books, that's the only one padded out rather than condensed. Weird.

[Tale]

Didn't know this about the Battle of the Green Fork not being shown in the first season.

Benioff: This whole story of Blackwater goes back to the first season because we were supposed to have that battle with Tyrion and we ended up not able to shoot it. And so we had him go down to friendly fire early. We always promised ourselves, we’re gonna have our major battle.

source

[Teleku]

Next episode is titled "Blackwater".  Martin himself wrote it.  Gentlemen, prepare yourselves.  

I'm fine with the Rob Stark love changes.  If anything, because of the actress casting.  Dear god she's hot, and I'd risk the wrath of any Frey and his bridge for THAT.  Seriously.

I'm sad that weasel soup didn't happen, and I guess I lose on that prediction (as discussed earlier in this thread).  I can understand why they didn't do it the way it was setup in the books, considering the entire layout of how many northern prisoners where held at the castle and other factors weren't fleshed out in the series, but still kind of sad.  Wont make much of a difference story wise though, in the long run, so that's why I can understand.

Also not too happy with the change of direction in the Jon Snow Story line:

[Threash]

Also not too happy with the change of direction in the Jon Snow Story line:

The problem with doing it that way was that it would push all of the Igritte/Jon stuff to next season, you would have cast a main character and then given her five minutes of screen time for a whole season.

[Teleku]

Whole lot of spoilers, beware!

[Polysorbate80]

Whole lot of spoilers, beware!

[Riggswolfe]

Ok, I had a question about the Rob/nurse storyline

[Threash]

Ok, I had a question about the Rob/nurse storyline

[Bunk]

[Threash]

[Ingmar]

[Threash]

This is freaking awesome.  It's "the rains of Castamere", it says from the season 2 soundtrack so i guess we will get to hear it at some point this season.

[Teleku]

[Threash]

Ok that was fucking awesome.  I never thought i'd be calling Stannis a bad ass but he kicked mayor ass.

[Tannhauser]

Yeah, I gained a lot of respect for him.  Tyrion too.  This episode clearly separated the men from the shitheels.  Cersi's scenes were really great and Sansa impresses me again.  I didn't expect the battle to turn out the way it did and I'm glad I can't predict this story.  It was a good idea for the show to focus on Kings Landing, it was a welcome change of pace. 

[Tale]

I'm not sure how I felt about it. They hyped it up so much, and for anyone who's read the books, that was a tiny battle compared with what Martin wrote about.

There was no point to the flaming arrows, only one use of wildfire, some pretty terrible combat acting, but otherwise some great scenes. My reactions kept varying between "pffft" and "awesome". I'll have to watch it again.

[Ghambit]

Tbh, the battle wasnt that great.  I dont know what you guys are lookin' at but I thought it was pretty sophomoric, especially when compared with what was written in the book   Look, the producers haven't shied from the fact they really dumbed down the battle scenes to the point of uselessness; Blackwater Bay was no exception.  Extremely abbreviated with lackluster action performances.

I dont mind it really because I know they've got a looooong way to go and a lot of battles to simulate.  Cant do them all perfectly.

[Lucas]

Yeah well, the producers themselves said that, while on the planning stages for S2, they pondered the possibility of letting the battle go on off-stage, while guards and whatnot delivered news to Cersei in the "panic room".

When it comes to this kind of big scale battle scenes in a television show, budget has a huge influence: I just looked up on boxofficemojo.com how much a movie like "American Reunion" costed: reportedly, $50 million dollars.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=americanreunion.htm

From what I read on the net, the producers of GoT season 2 *only* had to work with a budget between 50 and 60 million dollars (for the WHOLE season), just to give you some scale. Then of course no amount of budget can justify lousy writing/coreography and direction in general.

Another example? The recent Tim Burton's "Dark Shadows" costed $150 million dollars (info got from boxofficemojo.com)

[Ghambit]

It really wasn't a battle that deserved that much attention tbh anyways.  So I was kinda glad they didnt blow their entire budget on it.

[Threash]

They did blow almost their entire budget on it, and went and asked for more but got turned down.

[HaemishM]

While I knew it was momentous in the books, about the only thing that was HUGE in scale "on-stage" in the books was the chain and river thing. That was one of the disappointing things for me in the book. The battle actually felt very small in scale despite it not really being that way. Given budgetary constraints, I thought they did a fantastic job with the battle in this episode. The use of wyldfire was explosive enough for me. The actors playing the Hound, Sansa, Cersei, Joffrey and Tyrion hit their parts out of the park.

[Xuri]

[Threash]

Yeah, i really wish we could be watching the show they would have made if they had the budget they wanted but that's simply not going to happen.  They had to film an entire season with about a third of the budget of a movie, if it means the show won't get canceled for being too expensive like Rome was i can deal with it.

[Bzalthek]

I thought the show was excellently done.  Sure there could have been all kinds of awesome with unlimited budget, but that's like bitching that the blowjob was only from a model and not a SUPERmodel.  FOr fucks sake. 

[Xuri]

As a payi... uhm... as a custom... err... as someone who hypothetically downloaded this off the Net I feel I have a right to complain when the show doesn't live up to the impossible standard I've set for it in my mind.

[Ghambit]

After a million seasons of shows like Star Trek, Seaquest, BSG, etc. I fail to see how budget is really a factor for GoT aside from perhaps having to pay whiny actors too much money.  Really, where is all this money going?  Seems to me it's more of an issue of getting stuck on a premium cable channel with no commercial revenues.  Had it been PG enough for basic or network cable I'm sure we wouldn't be having this money discussion no?  Also, do not forget that HBO posted around a 50% increase in revenue from 3yrs. prior, somewhat due to GoT.  Srysly, they shouldn't be complaining about budget.