Game of Thrones [SPOILERS]

[Draegan]

The Nerd Rage is strong in this one.

[Lucas]

Guess you can't please everyone. 

[Johny Cee]

The Nerd Rage is strong in this one.

That isn't Nerd Rage.  Nerd Rage is freakouts about minor or background details that don't matter unless you live and breathe the subject matter:

"OMG, light cycles can't turn in curves!!! It's well established in lore!!"
"OMG, they cut Bombadill?  LOTR sucks!"
"<snort> Everyone knows that you can't have purple lightsabers!"

The complaining about whether Ned's sword is a long sword or a 2 hander is borderline.


lamoras has an especially valid point about HBO/Premium channel productions on the sex, violence, and titillation point.  Those channels shoe-horn in a bunch of awful and juvenile T&A shots or slasher film violence just because they can, often to the detriment of the story.  

Season one of Rome nearly drove me away in the first few episodes because they kept shoving in bad sex scenes with Atia (and corresponding B-plots) that hurt the pacing of the rest of the show.

[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!

[naum]

All the sex presented in the first episode is handled differently in the books (or not in the books). Hell, half of everything is handled differently.

I found the sex and nudity in the pilot to be not at all in keeping with the books in the way it was presented and jarring and juvenile in a way that even GRRM never reached. Only the Tyrion bit was half right, up until Jamie fucked it up...

This.

The sex scenes in the HBO show seem to tilt much more in the vein of porn than integral parts of a story plot line.

Yes, I realize for many, that's a plus and not a minus…

[FatuousTwat]

Glad to see A Game of Thrones is still moving forward:

I'm not. It's gonna be fucking terrible.

And I'm not just trying to shit on every ones parade, I want a TV series to do epic fantasy well, but it's just not gonna happen.

[Lucas]

Two clips from ep.2, "The Kingsroad".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPrW3Swrp4E (1m42s, Jon Snow and Jaime Lannister)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFcwyNDVy4k (1m09s, Daenerys with her handmaidens...An infamous "line" from the books is repeated, here :D)

[lac]

Nobody gives a flying shit if the occasional tit is in accordance to the books. People watch this show because it's adult fantasy. There is a market for that now. We should all be very grateful.
The fact they chose this rather dark story and took it to prime time is in itself extraordinary. We've become an audience that's being catered to through big TV productions, imagine that.

[Merusk]

It just took media expanding so much that any segment of the population can be catered to in the hopes of gathering eyeballs from it and a wider audience because there's so damn many choices that you have to do SOMETHING to differentiate yourself.  Nichecasting vs broadcasting.

[lamaros]

Nobody gives a flying shit if the occasional tit is in accordance to the books. People watch this show because it's adult fantasy. There is a market for that now. We should all be very grateful.
The fact they chose this rather dark story and took it to prime time is in itself extraordinary. We've become an audience that's being catered to through big TV productions, imagine that.

The only thing being catered to from the pilot is a bunch of idiots. The books are nerd porn, but nerd porn mostly consistent in characterization and with some subtlety. Nothing in the pilot was. Everything was overstated, underacted, and with added tits that were there purely for the camera to focus on them and not for the scene or story.

Seriously, Jamie giving Tyrion a bunch of whores? Completely unnecessary, both for the point of the story, the characterisation of Jamie and Tyrion (pretty well established that Tyrion likes his one at a time) and inconsistent with the brothers' relationship (spoiler alert - Jamie and Tyrion have a geyser of undercurrent tension in their relationship on the subject of whores).

The fact that whole scene felt like "here's some tits! Yay!" is pretty clear. You don't need to waste 4 mins on establishing that Tyrion likes whores at this point of the show when it is going to easily come out in time, and when every other part of the episode is a confusing mess that needs to be twice and long and better paced. How about introducing Rickon? Giving someone half a line about 'the wall' that makes sense?

You give Dany's story arc about 7 mins to unfold when it needs a whole episode of it's own, and then you spend 3 mins of that doing a slow motion shot of her walking nude in to a bath? Get fucked if you think that is consistent with the books. Sex happens, but it just happens, it is not awkwardly focused on in the same way.

Will they show Lysa fucking? Will they show anything from the books that doesn't correspond to 'attractive tits go on screen here'? Because if they don't there is nothing 'adult' or ASoIaF-ish about this? It's just nerd source material shoe-horned in to the HBO mold, and poorly at that.

As far as Nerd rage goes, that would be more in the: fuck Robert is poorly characterized and cast; dude is meant to be a hedonistic old stud gone to seed, not a pathetic lifetime fat dude who makes out with fat serving women in the middle of room.

[Lucas]

I get this vague feeling that you didnt like the first episode, Lamaros.

But maybe it's just me.

[angry.bob]

Well, it does have really good opening credits.

That being said, Camelot facerapes it so bad in every way, on every level, that it travels the length of GoT's body and explodes out the back. The tits are even way better and considerably more appropriate. Especially if you like Ava Green.

[Lucas]

"In the Game of Food, you win, or you wash the dishes..." (recipes from Westeros and Essos)

http://innatthecrossroads.wordpress.com/

[Abagadro]

Ok, the second episode set the hook in me pretty good.  I'm definitely going to watch this thing through.

[Khaldun]

My wife quit when she realized they were going to kill the wolf.

[Bunk]

Thought the pacing for episode two was much better. I get some of the complaints about the gratuitous tits and sex in the pilot - its rather obvious it was a cheap ploy to attract a certain demographic. I thought they tuned that down a little in ep.2 (to basically just the Dany tent scene), which seemed a better balance.

[Threash]

I think i prefer the shows version of the Dany/Drogo relationship than the books.  In the book it didn't really make much sense that Drogo would be gentle and tender on their first night then pound the shit out of her every night after that.

[Threash]

My wife quit when she realized they were going to kill the wolf.

Show her this

[Paelos]

Awwwwwww. 

[Draegan]

I read that link as "Show her tits" at first.

[Rasix]

My wife quit when she realized they were going to kill the wolf.

Mine had to leave the room as well during this part.  She also just quit watching Equilibrium altogether after the dog killing scene.

This was a better episode.  This show will get better the more they can slow things down.

[Arthur_Parker]

I liked the 2nd one, the reduced need to have everyone verbalise their relationship to each other in each scene really helped a lot.

[WayAbvPar]

I read that link as "Show her tits" at first.

Hey, it's worth a shot!

I liked this a lot better than the pilot too.  Minor quibble with  not being canon, but I understand why it was done, and am ok with it. Nice job editing/shooting the direwolf attack scenes- they were cool and exciting, which is tough to do when the dog is actually playing with someone or whatever they have them do. I am sure it felt a bit direwolf ex machina to the non-book readers, but I dug it. Was disappointed they didn't get into , but I did like the way they juxtaposed his awakening with Lady's death.

[Threash]

About Cersei,.

[Teleku]

About Cersei,.

[WayAbvPar]

Somehow I never put it into that perspective- I was just assuming

[Paelos]

Somehow I never put it into that perspective- I was just assuming

I don't think Martin would have gone that route because that makes her completely unbelievable and not human. I mean it's crossing the line of power hungry bitch and complete psychopath.

[Khaldun]

Yeah, she seemed much more well-rounded as fuckhungry for her brother, coddler of her incest-born monster child, murderer of her husband and husband's best friend(s), killer of cute dogs, contemptuous of her own people, sacrilegious, hateful to her dwarf brother, cheerful commissioner of assassins, and so on. Making her poison her own child? What a monster!

[Paelos]

Yeah, she seemed much more well-rounded as fuckhungry for her brother, coddler of her incest-born monster child, murderer of her husband and husband's best friend(s), killer of cute dogs, contemptuous of her own people, sacrilegious, hateful to her dwarf brother, cheerful commissioner of assassins, and so on. Making her poison her own child? What a monster!

When simply taking care of it in the womb serves the same purpose as carrying it to term and then murdering it from what? Spite?

Really? It's infinitely more psychotic and needlessly complicated from a character that's all about the manipulative method of cold vengeance.

[Teleku]

I don't think Martin would have gone that route because that makes her completely unbelievable and not human. I mean it's crossing the line of power hungry bitch and complete psychopath.

[Paelos]

I think you are letting the incest thing get in the way of what would be considered abnormal but not monstrous behavior in the period in question where the source material was derived. She may be awful, but she is not crazy. I hate the character, but I don't believe her actions do not stem from very human hate and emotions. That act would be completely out of character because there's a better solution.

[Ingmar]

[Teleku]

[Paelos]

[Ingmar]