Game of Thrones [SPOILERS]

[JWIV]

Oh hello there new teaser.   


http://www.hbo.com/video/video.html?view=grid&vid=1162375&autoplay=true

[Arthur_Parker]

Nice, I don't see how this can fail to be honest, it's not like it's going to pull a battlestar galactica or a Lost on us.  I guess the kid actors being terrible would hurt a lot given how important they are, but the twists of the story line should see it through.

[WayAbvPar]

Until the biggest twist of all, when the story just fucking stops. It will be just like Deadwood!

 

[Chimpy]

Until the biggest twist of all, when the story just fucking stops. It will be just like Deadwood!

 

That is like, 10 television seasons away with this though.

And we might get lucky and ole' fatso might actually get the bug to write the damn books again.

[Tarami]

Well, it looks expensive at least!

I doubt we'll get to see this run its course. My best case scenario, we get two or maybe three seasons and a decent but half-hearted ending á la Rome (edit: with some heavy rewriting in its final season, obviously...)

I just don't think there's a lot of room for TV-series this expensive and heavy on narrative. Procedural shows though? Can run for-fucking-ever.

Would love to be proven wrong, however.

[Johny Cee]

Nice, I don't see how this can fail to be honest, it's not like it's going to pull a battlestar galactica or a Lost on us.  I guess the kid actors being terrible would hurt a lot given how important they are, but the twists of the story line should see it through.

It's very, very easy for Game of Thrones to get cancelled...  the same way Rome, Deadwood, and Carnivale did.  On location period pieces (essentially in GoTs case, since it is a loose adaption of War of Roses England) with loads of characters played by Name actors are EXPENSIVE.  Even if they are on their face profitable, large and expensive productions like this need multiple partners to underwrite it.  If one partner hits financing snags, it could sink the whole project.

That's essentially what happened to Rome, which was moderately popular but far too expensive for HBO to run by itself when one of it's major foreign partners (either the BBC or the Italians) pulled out.  Deadwood had a huge budget that had HBO antsy, and once the showrunner started to burn out caused the whole thing to get canned. 


The Spartacus series, on the other hand, has all the cost conscious fingerprints of Raimi and Tapert.  Though the effects are a bit cheesy at times (I'm only up to episode 3 or 4), they did whatever they could to keep the budget down such that it would be a money-maker even with a moderate number of viewers.

[Johny Cee]

Graph of budgets for comparable series: (This graph is budget per episode, so GoT has a pretty similar production cost to Deadwood.  Rome was FUCKING EXPENSIVE.)




Article about the budget and economic effect, though from westeros.org so grain o' salt:

http://www.westeros.org/GoT/Features/Entry/A_Budget_to_be_Reckoned_With/

Realistically, the biggest winner no matter what in this is GRR Martin.  There has been a decided uptick in internet chatter, and even if the series gets cancelled after one season it's going to mean a big uptick in sales.  Jim Butcher, author of the "Dresden" books, has gone on record as saying that even the slightly shitty SyFy series of his books that lasted half a season led to a HUGE uptick in the sales of his series.

[EWSpider]

A Dance With Dragons gets a shelf date!

http://www.georgerrmartin.com/if-update.html

/squee!

The first comment on this article is classic:

http://shelf-life.ew.com/2011/03/03/dance-with-dragons-date/

[Bunk]

As I scramble to notify people around me that the end of the world is upon us and hell has frozen over...

[tgr]

[Lucas]

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEE

First full-lenght trailer revealed on Entertainment Weekly!!!!!!!!

http://insidetv.ew.com/2011/03/03/game-of-thrones-new-trailer/


Don't want to spoil what you're going to see, so enjoy (we'll get a hi-res version, eventually).
-----

Also, a new website related to the series has been launched, "The Maester Path". When you'll resolve the riddle (by looking around another couple fansites to find the hints) you'll unlock a fan-favorite scene from the books, which will probably be portrayed in the Pilot:

http://www.themaesterspath.com/

Too lazy to unlock it? I guessed that :P. So here's the scene on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDtsYjNV0eI

So cute :)
---


Oh, and by the way, another quite unimportant piece of news just hot out the oven: the fifth installment of the book series, "A Dance with Dragons", will be out on July 12th:

http://grrm.livejournal.com/

[Stormwaltz]

First full-lenght trailer revealed on Entertainment Weekly!!!!!!!!

http://insidetv.ew.com/2011/03/03/game-of-thrones-new-trailer/

is this the same one? I couldn't get the EW one to play.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWIyCUHrESk&hd=1

[EWSpider]

First full-lenght trailer revealed on Entertainment Weekly!!!!!!!!

http://insidetv.ew.com/2011/03/03/game-of-thrones-new-trailer/

is this the same one? I couldn't get the EW one to play.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWIyCUHrESk&hd=1

No, a lot of shared footage between them, but a bit different.

[lamaros]

Underwhelmed by that trailer.

[Yoru]

Well, damn it. Now I need new shorts.

[Draegan]

I'm going to have to re-read the books.  I never read the last one because I hate reading series when the author is not in site of finishing them. 

Just like WoT, I haven't read one in about 6 years or so.  Soon!

[WayAbvPar]

You might want to wait another decade then. Once the TV and ADWD checks start rolling in, that lazy bastard will be in no hurry to write. AGAIN.

[Draegan]

Meh, watching the tv show and vaguely remembering things is going to piss me off.

[proudft]

Second puzzle clip, for people who suck at puzzles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzQshrvRIZg

Tyrion being Tyrion.

[lamaros]

Ugh. I am still massively under whelmed. A lot of elements, casting, acting, costumes, etc are a bit off for me.

[Ghambit]

Ugh. I am still massively under whelmed. A lot of elements, casting, acting, costumes, etc are a bit off for me.

That's because it's looking more "networky" and less "fantasy" every time we see glimpses.  Everything just seems very toned down and monotone to me.  Even as light as Martin's world is, there are still many many otherworldly elements that just dont seem to be there yet or are just underwhelmingly represented as you say.

[Paelos]

Somehow I would be floored if a fantasy novel being turned into a TV show got rave reviews here.

We nerds are a harsh and unforgiving lot down the last unimportant lorelastic detail.

Where's WUA!

[lamaros]

Got nothing to do with lore, just a whole lot to do with looking boring and lifeless and paint by numbers.

[Arthur_Parker]

Somehow I would be floored if a fantasy novel being turned into a TV show got rave reviews here.

We nerds are a harsh and unforgiving lot down the last unimportant lorelastic detail.

Where's WUA!

[tgr]

I dunno, I'm not as underwhelmed, in fact I'm slightly intrigued. I'm usually more turned off by bad actors than bad sets (hell, I just rewatched all the star trek episodes ever made, and there are some pretty shit-tastic sets there, along with effects...).

I'll wait a bit before passing judgement, and certainly not on such short snippets.

[Ghambit]

I'm just spoiled by watching Spartacus, which took something (yawn) historically-based and pretty much made it rip-roaringly fantastical to the degree it's by far the best show on TV.
GoT needs to be over-the-top or the show won't do the genre or the book any justice.  I mean, the amount of "wtf" moments in reading the series would translate into $$$ if they just took it and ran with it effectively, instead of making it so 'accessible.' 

So yah, I'm underwhelmed and pessimistic about it because if HBO had produced the show much like how most people want it we damned well would've seen glimpses of it by now... because it'd be a helluva good marketing tool.  What we're getting now is utter shite, especially if you havent read the books.  Jeez, I feel for those who havent read the books and have seen the trailers.  What exactly is there to draw them to the series???

[Chimpy]

Not everyone needs ridiculous amounts of sensationalism to make them happy. Nor does every show need it to make it a success.

And no one has seen the real footage to know how much silly blood spatter effects or how many scenes show naked women to compare it to anything else. Trailers WON'T show that as a rule.

Besides, how can we expect them to be true to source material in your eyes? You are the person who spent an entire page trying to say that one of the characters was not ugly enough because the books described her as comely. How many more words used in the books do you equate to their antonyms?   

[WayAbvPar]

It almost always takes a production a few episodes to really hit its stride. Actors get to know their characters better, and the writers get to know the actors better and tweak the scripts to take advantage of their strengths. Look at Boardwalk Empire- the first few episodes were decent, but it really hit it stride just past midseason. GoT is hamstrung a bit since it is tied to the source material, but there is still wiggle room in there for the writers and actors to make it better as it goes.

[Ingmar]

I'm just spoiled by watching Spartacus, which took something (yawn) historically-based and pretty much made it rip-roaringly fantastical to the degree it's by far the best show on TV.
GoT needs to be over-the-top or the show won't do the genre or the book any justice. 

Have you read the book? It is as far as you can get from over-the-top fantasy and still lay a claim to being in the genre. The fantasy stuff is really around the fringes, especially in the first book. If they turn it rip-roaringly-fantastical it would be a horrible mistake. That stuff would just distract from what makes the book actually good.

[Tarami]

I'm hoping for a Deadwood in Westeros of sorts. Well. I always hope for Deadwood.

Because while Spartacus was entertaining in its own way, its fights, for all the dismemberment and blood, had shit on this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Blki-DISUis&NR=1

[Ghambit]

I'm just spoiled by watching Spartacus, which took something (yawn) historically-based and pretty much made it rip-roaringly fantastical to the degree it's by far the best show on TV.
GoT needs to be over-the-top or the show won't do the genre or the book any justice. 

Have you read the book? It is as far as you can get from over-the-top fantasy and still lay a claim to being in the genre. The fantasy stuff is really around the fringes, especially in the first book. If they turn it rip-roaringly-fantastical it would be a horrible mistake. That stuff would just distract from what makes the book actually good.

Yes I have.  What I mean by over-the-top is just how "raw" and uninhibited the stories were.  I'm not talking about dancing faeries in pink spiky shoulderarmor who never speak a bad word.
Martin's books are bloody, dangerous, sex-filled, evil stories that dont hold a punch, even though they're considered "light" fantasy.  That being said, there's obvious magic, heroism, and grandiosity to the world.  I got NO sense of any of that watching the trailer.  It feels like I'm watching the boring parts of PotE, only more badly lit, more depressing, and equally located in only one place.

Just pretend you've never read the books nor even heard of GoT and tell me if the trailers and sneak peeks would interest you.

[lamaros]

Have you read the book? It is as far as you can get from over-the-top fantasy and still lay a claim to being in the genre. The fantasy stuff is really around the fringes, especially in the first book. If they turn it rip-roaringly-fantastical it would be a horrible mistake. That stuff would just distract from what makes the book actually good.

I agree that it's not high fantasy, but it is absolutely pulp soap opera historical fiction. It's not about descriptions of landscape and character subtleties, but about over the top machinations and shit from a bunch of mostly nasty people that doesn't stop to breathe ever. With

[Ghambit]

Have you read the book? It is as far as you can get from over-the-top fantasy and still lay a claim to being in the genre. The fantasy stuff is really around the fringes, especially in the first book. If they turn it rip-roaringly-fantastical it would be a horrible mistake. That stuff would just distract from what makes the book actually good.

I agree that it's not high fantasy, but it is absolutely pulp soap opera historical fiction. It's not about descriptions of landscape and character subtleties, but about over the top machinations and shit from a bunch of mostly nasty people that doesn't stop to breathe ever. With battles and backstabbing and incest and child serial killers and fucking and the dead coming to life and so forth.

Dany is a child queen who gets sold in to slavery and then forms an attachment to a warrior king who fucks her senseless - which she grows to love - and then dies (literally that is the relationship), leaving her abandoned to journey through the desert to abandoned cities and magic civilizations. Magic houses of sorcery, dragons, fat bodyguard and hidden knights, etc.

It's well and truly over the top. If you try and play it more like a period piece you are really missing the "holy shit they slaughtered Robb and his whole team at a fucking wedding" side of things and losing a vast tract of the books' appeal.

This.   Thank you for saying much more eloquently what I was trying to say.
Anyways, I get no sense so far that this show will be anything like that.  

[Arthur_Parker]

Guys, you might want to spoiler seriously unexpected shit from season 2 or 3 considering the pilot hasn't aired yet.  Just saying, it's the tv forum not the book thread.

[Ingmar]

Watch the spoilers IMO.


You can have plenty of violence without making it Spartacus. I think in fact the emotional impact will be greater if they play it for realism rather than getting stupid and over the top.

It really isn't pulp, IMO, any more than say I, Claudius or the actual War of the Roses was.