Game of Thrones [SPOILERS]

[eldaec]

Seen this now, liked almost everything.

I get why the jamie/tyrion thing went how it did, but tyrion murdering everyone felt a bit odd without either that, or Varys manipulating him. I don't understand why book readers felt Varys getting in the boat is a big deal though. I read that as a simple way to signal him realising this is the moment to leave KL, exactly like the book plot.

Seemed like they flipped Shae closer to book Shae, I'm not sure that was especially well handled.

The crossbow scene I loved. Tywin's desperation and bullshit was perfect.

[Cyrrex]

The thing I preferred about book Shae was that, despite the fact that she royally betrayed him, there was actually some doubt as to whether or not she had feelings for him.  My interpretation was that she actually did care for him, but was very scorned at being sent off like she was and turned away in favor of Sansa, and then sorta reverted back to her old whore-like self.  The TV version seemed to make it more clear that she did not have those feelings and was always nothing more than a whore.  Why else go for the knife so quickly?  Unless I mistook something in that scene, which is possible.  Anyway, it may well be that GRRM meant it to be like this, but I prefer the ambiguity.  In fact, I prefer virtually everything about the book version of Shae.  Either way, poor fucking Tyrion. 

Also, both the book version and TV version handling of Arya's departure from the Hound - I am still not sure what Arya's thought process there really is.  Did she hate him so much that she let him suffer?  That doesn't feel right.  Did she come to forgive him enough that, despite the fact he was suffering, he was no longer on her "list" and therefore she couldn't bring herself to kill him?  On the surface, she appears to take his coin purse (which was symbolically awesome) and just traipse off, but I don't fully buy it.  She sits there staring at him, conflicted.  Is she just so totally cold now that there was nothing at all to it, just take the money and go?  The whole scene was great, and, I thought, sad.  I also sorta prefer the way the Hound got ended, rather than the book version of that infection getting the best of him.  I actually thought they were deliberately foreshadowing this in the TV show ("you shoulda let me burn it"), and then pulled a major switcheroo.  I did not expect that fight to happen.

[apocrypha]

Regarding Shae, having not read the books, the impression that I got from the TV was that, as you say Cyrrex, her love for Tyrion was clouded with bitterness having been turned away by him, but I also thought that she may have been further manipulated off-screen before the trial.

I thought she was a character that deserved a lot more screen time and development tbh.

[eldaec]

Book Shae seemed uncertain and largely inscrutable as
seen from Tyrion's pov.

TV Shae seemed to be making a definitive statement when turning down Varys' offer, but then didn't get enough screen time to convincingly change view.

[Cyrrex]

All that said, I am actually fine they didn't give her more screen time.  She is probably the one actor from the series that I didn't feel was pulling her weight.  More to the point, she bugged the shit out of me.

[angry.bob]

The show creators have specifically said in an interview they were meant to be an homage to Harryhausen.

No they didn't. Unless you've got a different interview to provide a link too they said it was a "footnote" and another said it was a "touchstone". Those are both miles away from "homage". Considering that the minute hipster sperglords saw a skeleton come out of the ground they would deride it as a rip-off, they had to mention Harryhausen just to get them to shut up about it. Unless you're going to post a link to something that says what you said it says, it's safe to assume you're just making shit up to suit your needs like you did in The Thread That Must Not Be Named.

They're fucking skeletons, there's not a lot of personal flair you can add to them without entering the ridiculous. I'm not really sure what you mean by "more like The Mummy's" skeletons. The GoT skeletons already had way more in common with them than they did the Harryhausen skeletons. Unless you're talking about what they're wearing, which would be pretty silly.

Edit: You know what, he's too ignorant to bother with. Bob, you're an idiot.

Read as "I can't deny anything he said so I'll just be a little namecaller". Don't be so hostile towards me, I'm probably your real father.

[jgsugden]

As we never were able to get into book Dhae's head, we never knew whether she was acting or truly cared for Tyrion. The show Shae was not ambiguous. That changed everything. Show Shae was a ping pong ball and Tyrion murdering her washim killing both his love and his betrayer. Book Shae was proven yo be the opportunist betrayer at the end, making it seem like her feelings for him were never totally true. That changes Tyrion's acts dramatically.

[Phildo]

Would you be less upset if the phrasing were "heavily influenced by Harryhausen" instead of "homage"?

[Khaldun]

Really looking forward to a Politics-forum level debate about stop-motion animation and the history of special effects in movies and TV shows.

[schild]

The show creators have specifically said in an interview they were meant to be an homage to Harryhausen.

Its pretty damn obvious without them saying it. There's no other reason for those skeletons to have such janky movement.

Bob is just incapable of reversing a already stated opinion so he's in too deep.

[schild]

The show creators have specifically said in an interview they were meant to be an homage to Harryhausen.

No they didn't. Unless you've got a different interview to provide a link too they said it was a "footnote" and another said it was a "touchstone". Those are both miles away from "homage". Considering that the minute hipster sperglords saw a skeleton come out of the ground they would deride it as a rip-off, they had to mention Harryhausen just to get them to shut up about it. Unless you're going to post a link to something that says what you said it says, it's safe to assume you're just making shit up to suit your needs like you did in The Thread That Must Not Be Named.

They're fucking skeletons, there's not a lot of personal flair you can add to them without entering the ridiculous. I'm not really sure what you mean by "more like The Mummy's" skeletons. The GoT skeletons already had way more in common with them than they did the Harryhausen skeletons. Unless you're talking about what they're wearing, which would be pretty silly.

Edit: You know what, he's too ignorant to bother with. Bob, you're an idiot.

Read as "I can't deny anything he said so I'll just be a little namecaller". Don't be so hostile towards me, I'm probably your real father.

This took zero effort, you lazy incendiary inbred douchebag: http://www.vanityfair.com/vf-hollywood/game-of-thrones-fighting-skeletons

Regardless, they shouldnt have to come out and say it because IT'S FUCKING OBVIOUS.

[Rasix]

Also, both the book version and TV version handling of Arya's departure from the Hound - I am still not sure what Arya's thought process there really is.  Did she hate him so much that she let him suffer?  That doesn't feel right. 

Doesn't feel right, but I don't see how you interpret it any other way.  He was a dead man who was unworthy of mercy in her eyes.  She felt that she owed him nothing.

skeleton bullshit

[Khaldun]

Barrie Gower, prosthetics director for Game of Thrones, on the skeleton scene in "The Children": "It’s got such a lovely fancy element, it almost goes back to the Sinbad movies and Ray Harryhausen—they were definitely footnotes. The creators were quite interested in having these skeletal figures that—using the effects tools and modern-day techniques—could be an advanced version of the stop-motion procedure that Ray Harryhausen used to do years ago."

Joe Bauer, visual effects supervisor for Game of Thrones, on the skeleton scene in "The Children": "Ray Harryhausen’s skeleton fight was definitely a touchstone for the sequence—skeletons crawling out of the ground and fighting could be nothing else. Their movements, however, were choreographed by our stunt team much like any other fight on Game of Thrones—which was our goal to keep things familiar and production-friendly. Even the wights that were eventually entirely CG were rotomated off of the stunt performer’s movements and interaction with our heroes."


Bob is welcome to continue his argument with the people who actually made the show. I think the rest of us can just sit back and  

[schild]

That implies he actually had an argument to begin with, which he didn't. I'm pretty sure he was just taking out his fat, personal home problem aggression out on uh, a pretty obvious segment of GoT? Who the fuck knows. It was certainly more sperglord than anything he was trying to insult though.

[angry.bob]

This took zero effort, you lazy incendiary inbred douchebag: http://www.vanityfair.com/vf-hollywood/game-of-thrones-fighting-skeletons

Regardless, they shouldnt have to come out and say it because IT'S FUCKING OBVIOUS.

It took zero effort and it's the same page I quoted. Nothing about saying it was a homage. Still waiting for the fucking liar to provide his link to a statement that doesn't exist. What's so FUCKING OBVIOUS about it, that they were ANIMATED SKELETONS concealed IN THE TERRAIN. Holy fuck, that literally makes every animated skeleton, anyplace, ever, a homage to Harryhausen.

Would you be less upset if the phrasing were "heavily influenced by Harryhausen" instead of "homage"?

Yes. Because animated skeletons are always considered a derivative of Harryhausen because people are fucking stupid. Seriously, what fresh take on an animated skeleton would hipster mediatards not consider derivative of Harryhausen? Before this retarded argument you people were turning up your noses at the scene and saying shit like the stop motion they were channeling was horrific, Army of Darkness, etc. Then you have Ingmar just flat out fucking lying again.

Seriously, film experts - you're in charge of doing this scene. You have to make this scene happen where animated skeletons come out of concealment and attack the party. Describe how you do that has nothing in common with the scene from Jason.

[Ingmar]

 

[angry.bob]

Barrie Gower, prosthetics director for Game of Thrones, on the skeleton scene in "The Children": "It’s got such a lovely fancy element, it almost goes back to the Sinbad movies and Ray Harryhausen—they were definitely footnotes. The creators were quite interested in having these skeletal figures that—using the effects tools and modern-day techniques—could be an advanced version of the stop-motion procedure that Ray Harryhausen used to do years ago."

Joe Bauer, visual effects supervisor for Game of Thrones, on the skeleton scene in "The Children": "Ray Harryhausen’s skeleton fight was definitely a touchstone for the sequence—skeletons crawling out of the ground and fighting could be nothing else. Their movements, however, were choreographed by our stunt team much like any other fight on Game of Thrones—which was our goal to keep things familiar and production-friendly. Even the wights that were eventually entirely CG were rotomated off of the stunt performer’s movements and interaction with our heroes."


Bob is welcome to continue his argument with the people who actually made the show. I think the rest of us can just sit back and  

Yeah, that's all from the same fucking page I already quoted. I already know they said all that. I realize yu guys all skimmed that and want to declare checkmate and dogpile on me, but none of that means it's a homage. Using your logic every car made using an assembly line is an homage to the Model T. The first executed example of a simple concept doesn't make all subsequent examples an homage. It might be influential, but that's a different thing.

Please though. Tell me what about the GoT scene makes it an homage? Skeletons? Skeletons coming out of hiding? Skeletons coming out of hiding fighting people? Or was it the part where a White Walker cast a spell and the skeletons came up in a motionless formation until he commanded them to kill, then they bumrushed Bran en masse.

Yeah, that's what I though, you fucking piece of lying garbage. Facepalm all you want, it doesn't change the fact you just constantly make shit up. Post a link if I'm wrong, otherwise improve the quality of discussion and shut your lying fucking mouth.

[Numtini]

I just watched Jason last week. Definitely an homage. You can particularly see it in how they rise from the early relatively slowly, then kind of sprint. There's just a quality of motion about them.

[apocrypha]

You people saying that the skeletons bore any resemblance to Ray Harryhausen stop motion stuff are fucking insane. I grew up with that crap being state of the art until Star Wars came along. Those skeletons in GoT were light years beyond anything that he did, on every level. He was the best with the technology of his time, but if you believe there was any resemblance between the two other than "skeletons" you literally have no fucking idea what you are talking about. None, at all. If you think you do please go watch the skeleton scene in Jason and then the skeletons in GoT, and then swallow your tongue in shame.

Some people on the internet think, and say, that the scene was reminiscent of Ray Harryhausen's work and an homage to him. You disagree and leap in with some choice words, bolded above. And then accuse others of being hostile.

Someone said you're on medication for your anger issues. Tell us, when did being a fucking douchebag become a medical condition?

[schild]

lol

You're mental. And mildly illiterate. Gonna go ahead and quote the same thing again.

"It’s got such a lovely fancy element, it almost goes back to the Sinbad movies and Ray Harryhausen—they were definitely footnotes. The creators were quite interested in having these skeletal figures that—using the effects tools and modern-day techniques—could be an advanced version of the stop-motion procedure that Ray Harryhausen used to do years ago."

"Ray Harryhausen’s skeleton fight was definitely a touchstone for the sequence—skeletons crawling out of the ground and fighting could be nothing else. Their movements, however, were choreographed by our stunt team much like any other fight on Game of Thrones—which was our goal to keep things familiar and production-friendly. Even the wights that were eventually entirely CG were rotomated off of the stunt performer’s movements and interaction with our heroes."

There is literally no other way to say "this was an homage" without saying "this was an homage." For starters, they could've dumped the frame-skipping bit and just made it a smooth animation. Making it look like, I don't know, The Mummy Returns. Or Pirates of the Caribbean. But they didn't, they left in the stop-motion effect just enough to make it very obviously a throwback to Harryhausen shit.

Look, I think Harryhausen shit is awful crap. It's nigh unwatchable from start to finish. But fucking special effects teams and filmmakers have a hard-on for his bullshit. It's damn near inescapable. There's literally no reason to animate ANYTHING like Harryhausen ever unless you're directly paying homage to him. This is one of those cases.

I'm going to go ahead and assume you either have 240hz Smoothsoapoperamotion enabled on your TV, or you're retarded. Those are the only two options. You're either retarded or saw a different scene than everyone else. Note: It's not the crawling out of the ground or having skeletons or any of that shit that made it a throwback to Harryhausen. It was 100% the animation style. And frankly, what else could they have done? Anything. But they didn't, because it was a fucking homage, you moron.

Edit: Obviously this post is directed at ragelord dipshit.

[schild]

Also, your dad needs to start hitting you again because clearly you haven't learned your lesson.

[Cyrrex]

What I want to know is, what was up with those janky skeletons?  

[schild]

What I want to know is, what was up with those janky skeletons? 

According to anyone that didn't have a childhood lobotomy, it was an homage to Harryhausen's awful overrated trash.

According to Bob, it was, I don't know, where he was touched as an infant.

[MrHat]

I thought the Children of the Forest were more alien in the books.  Not a straight up child actor w/ fire grenades and sparkly makeup.

[Cyrrex]

What I want to know is, what was up with those janky skeletons? 

According to anyone that didn't have a childhood lobotomy, it was an homage to Harryhausen's awful overrated trash.

According to Bob, it was, I don't know, where he was touched as an infant.

Joking aside, I have know idea who this Harryhausen (nerds!) is, but I remembered seeing the skeletons, and then lowering my eyebrows and wondering why they appeared so janky at first.  My very next thought was they did this on purpose, just like way back when with some movie or something I couldn't remember.

[WayAbvPar]

Harryhausen rules. Now shut up about the skeletons, and let's talk about how fucking awful Sibel Kekilli was as Shae. I actually liked Shae in the books, and was devastated when she betrayed Tyrion. On the show, I have been eagerly anticipating her strangling death since her first scene. SO TERRIBLE. She was far more believable taking it in the ass in her porn days. Unless that was all CGI'ed. I bet Harryhausen didn't have a technique for THAT.

[Threash]

Book Shae was just a ditzy young whore who knew the right things to say and had a quick enough wit to appeal to Tyrion.

[jgsugden]

You're all wrong.  It is clearly an homage to Army of Darkness, the only film in the genre that matters.

Regarding TV Shae, I wonder if they could have pulled off the ambiguity that is present in the books.  It is hard to do that type of thing over a prolonged period because any scene where nobody is looking at her for a moment would be a scene where her true colors should be revealed...

[Typhon]

Harryhausen rules.

Completely agree.

She was far more believable taking it in the ass in her porn days. Unless that was all CGI'ed. I bet Harryhausen didn't have a technique for THAT.

Still laughing!

[Merusk]

I don't understand why book readers felt Varys getting in the boat is a big deal though. I read that as a simple way to signal him realising this is the moment to leave KL, exactly like the book plot.

Because he has parts to play at the end of season 5 or 6 (depending on how they break things up) that require him to be in King's Landing. Not that he couldn't abandon Tyrion in Braavos, but that's why.

Also, both the book version and TV version handling of Arya's departure from the Hound - I am still not sure what Arya's thought process there really is.  Did she hate him so much that she let him suffer?  That doesn't feel right.  

It would have been much more understandable if she'd given the departing line from the book instead of just walking off.  "You should have saved my mother."  Yes, she really hated him that much. He denied her the thing she wanted, so she denies him the thing he wants.

[Speedy Cerviche]

I don't remember the book version being that much different but I think the TV did a good job. She was supposed to be a shallow (& annoying) woman whore, but also with enough superficial charm/wit to captivate Tyrion, showing us how vulnerable Tyrion is to any woman with these abilities who affectionately showed attention to him, blinding him to the fact that she was annoying, and a huge liability. She started with Tyrion for the money, and seemed to developed some feelings to him, at least threw herself wholeheartedly into the relationship such as it was, for the sake of a meal ticket. She was too dumb to understand his seriousness about his responsibilities and why he would not run off with her, the problems their respective their places in society caused, and why he had to distance himself from her to avoid the problems that ultimately happened when she got caught by Cersei, as he feared.


Once Tywin got ahold of her it wasn't difficult to convince her to join his team I guess. Convince her what a loser Tyrion was and how he was gonna win. Her being shallow, down to the depth of her affections for Tyrion, her petty feelings of rejection stemming from that lack of understanding of events, and her ultimately being a whore, gave her plenty of monetary & emotional revenge reasons to go along with Tywin and sell out Tyrion.

[Merusk]

Book version was very different, at least in Martin's eyes.  I also saw her the same way Martin explains in this interview, because she was only ever trying to get closer and more things from Tyrion.

It’s also worth mentioning Shae is one of the characters that really has changed significantly from the books to the TV show. I think that [showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss] wrote Shae very differently, and a symbol to Sibel Kekilli — the incredible girl playing her. Shae is much more sincere in her affections for Tyrion. This is almost contradictory, but with the Shae in the TV series, you can tell she actually has real feelings for Tyrion — she challenges him, she defies him. The Shae in the books is a manipulative camp-follower prostitute who doesn’t give a s–t about Tyrion any more than she would any other john, but she’s very compliant, like a little teenage sex kitten, feeding all his fantasies; she’s really just in it for the money and the status. She’s everything lord Tywin thought Tyrion’s first wife was that she actually wasn’t. So there are all layers of complexity going on here. They’re the same character, but they’re also very different characters, and I think that’s going to lead to very different resonances playing out in the TV show than in the books.

http://insidetv.ew.com/2014/06/16/game-of-thrones-finale-martin/

[Threash]

Book Shae cared about her jewelry and fancy dresses and wanted to stay with Tyrion because she truly did not understand how much danger she was in, it was a very very different character.

[Pagz]

Really looking forward to a Politics-forum level debate about stop-motion animation and the history of special effects in movies and TV shows.

[Phildo]

Clearly, the scene with the Wights was actually an homage to The Neverhood.

God damn, I need to find my old copy of that game.