That would have covered a multitude of writing sins. Wine tasting is also subjective. Some people genuinely prefer two buck chuck. It is still no better than alcoholic juice.
“I wanted to kill everyone,” he said. “I wanted to kill Jorah in the horse charge at the beginning.
“I wanted it to be ruthless so that in the first 10 minutes you say all bets are off, anyone can die. David and Dan didn’t want to. They were saving it for [penultimate episode] ‘The Bells’, kind of.”
That would have covered a multitude of writing sins.
“I feel like not everybody is going to love everything,” he said. “There’s no way to make everybody happy. It’s a shame when people say something is good or bad with complete resolve anyway – it’s subjective. Storytelling is subjective. It’s fine if people don’t like it, some other people did.”
Wine tasting is also subjective. Some people genuinely prefer two buck chuck. It is still no better than alcoholic juice.
I am so angry at what D&D did with the show and the more i read about what was going on in production the angrier i get. I know it wont effect them financially because Benioff at least is part of...
I am so angry at what D&D did with the show and the more i read about what was going on in production the angrier i get. I know it wont effect them financially because Benioff at least is part of the New York elite but i hope to hell it follows them the rest of their careers and people jeer them in public for what they did to the last few seasons of GoT. It's not that they couldn't because of budgeting/time reasons or because they ran out of ideas and simply had a horrendous case of writers block, they're forgivable. They simply didn't give a fuck anymore and so put in as little effort as legally possible to get it over with.
I'm not a fan of star wars so i wont be able to judge how good it is but they are both good writers so i suspect it will be decent as long as they care. If it's not, Benioff is so incredibly well...
I'm not a fan of star wars so i wont be able to judge how good it is but they are both good writers so i suspect it will be decent as long as they care.
If it's not, Benioff is so incredibly well connected i think he could screw up every production he is involved in for the next 30 years and still get high profile work.
Fair enough. I personally didn't find the movie memorable. The spear fighting portion of that was pretty cool for sure though :) EDIT: My all-time favorite duel:...
Fair enough. I personally didn't find the movie memorable. The spear fighting portion of that was pretty cool for sure though :)
<3 Princess Bride. I have probably watched it more times than any other movie. Here's my all-time favorite duel, from The Mark of Zorro (1940). There are a few great ones in various Errol Flynn...
<3 Princess Bride. I have probably watched it more times than any other movie.
Here's my all-time favorite duel, from The Mark of Zorro (1940). There are a few great ones in various Errol Flynn movies too. And the original Zatoichi (the blind swordsman) movies all have amazing duels and melees in them as well (e.g.)
Thank you for the videos! I'll share them with my son who is studying fencing. I was reading up on the Princess Bride duel and apparently the person who trained the actors was the same who trained...
Thank you for the videos! I'll share them with my son who is studying fencing.
I was reading up on the Princess Bride duel and apparently the person who trained the actors was the same who trained Flynn.
NP, glad you enjoyed them. Let me know if you want more. I have a ton of others I can recommend as well. E.g Rob Roy is another of my absolute favorites. :) And Feel free to let me know what your...
NP, glad you enjoyed them. Let me know if you want more. I have a ton of others I can recommend as well. E.g Rob Roy is another of my absolute favorites. :) And Feel free to let me know what your son thinks of those scenes... I'm curious to hear an actual fencer's take on them. :P
And yeah, I knew about the Errol Fynn -> Princess Bride connection but I can't remember where from. Still, thanks for the article though. I didn't realize Elwes wrote a behind-the-scenes book, so I'm definitely going to have to check that out now!
He liked them all. Thank you so much! I've definitely seen Rob Roy - good flick that I think was a bit lost in the popularity of Braveheart when it was released. Tim Roth was fantastic as the...
He liked them all. Thank you so much! I've definitely seen Rob Roy - good flick that I think was a bit lost in the popularity of Braveheart when it was released. Tim Roth was fantastic as the villain. I'll have to share that clip with him. Thank you again!
This entire situation has made it very clear to me that in order to get away with leaving open plot lines, you have to be a firmly established name. Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk got away with it...
This entire situation has made it very clear to me that in order to get away with leaving open plot lines, you have to be a firmly established name. Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk got away with it aggregiously on every single season of American Horror Story but, because they had established themselves long ago, hardly anyone gave a shit.
It's hard to face finality of something you hold near and dear to your heart and I think that's playing a larger part in fan outrage re: GoT than fans are willing to admit yet.
I really don't buy the excuse that people are so upset simply because the show is over. The only way that comes into play is that when the show had serious problems in previous seasons there was...
Exemplary
I really don't buy the excuse that people are so upset simply because the show is over. The only way that comes into play is that when the show had serious problems in previous seasons there was always the possibility that it would turn things around. People in online forums were saying, "yeah, it had problems, but that's just because they were trying to set up X or finish off Y, and now that we're past that the show can really shine."
It also ignores that most fans really were behind the show and defending it until the last two or three episodes. The writing problems were apparent before then in the battle episode talked about in the OP article (in short: one of the main story lines and the thematic heart of the show were tossed aside as unimportant and inconsequential) but only a minority of weirdos who were heavily invested in the quality of the writing were upset; the majority of the fandom online was still excited and loving what was happening. Significant cracks in the majority opinion really only formed in the next episode (exceptionally poor writing + popular characters dying in silly ways) and it all went to hell in the episode after that (the penultimate one of the series) when an incredibly loved and popular character turned evil without enough lead-up or justification.
The excuse is also a bit nonsensical. Game of Thrones isn't the first incredibly popular cultural phenomenon to end and there's no general rule that fans turn against a loved story simply because it's over. Compare Lost and Harry Potter, both extremely popular and both ending their run around the same time and during the age of social media. Lost was lambasted for its unsatisfying ending and inability to tie up plot threads, whereas the Harry Potter movies and books had a more "I'm sad it's over but wow that was great" reaction and are still beloved almost a decade later. More recently, this iteration of the Marvel movies ended (I think? I don't really follow them) but they're more popular than ever. Sure, they're continuing in some sense, but Game of Thrones also has copious spin-offs lined up.
Mostly I don't like that excuse though because it's practically saying that people can't have sincere and thought out opinions about media. Something is poorly written and people don't like it? That must not be true—instead they must be petulant children who are upset their TV show is finished. Or (in the case of some franchises) the fans who dislike it are dismissed as bigots who can't accept any characters except straight white men. It's like some kind of capitalist immune system where the poor quality of valuable properties is defended by attacking as illegitimate any criticism that might hurt the product. It's a battle of "hey this sucks" vs "don't listen to the critics, they suck". This idea wouldn't matter so much if it was just a few people putting it forward in debates online but this and other excuses are being pushed hard in official interviews and articles. Hopefully behind the scenes producers and studios are looking at the backlash against Game of Thrones and realizing it really was about writing and that it's still important to get that aspect of a story right instead of being content to rest of the laurels of a popular franchise.
I think perhaps people just didn't care for those shows as much as they do GoT. In addition, the writing in the seasons I watched was consistent (if mediocre) whereas GoT has a very noticeable dip...
I think perhaps people just didn't care for those shows as much as they do GoT. In addition, the writing in the seasons I watched was consistent (if mediocre) whereas GoT has a very noticeable dip once D&D no longer have the source material to rely on.
Haven't watched it yet, I'm only on season 5. I gave GoT a try many times during its tenure but never got past the 2nd season. This time my wife and I are watching it together and, for whatever...
Haven't watched it yet, I'm only on season 5. I gave GoT a try many times during its tenure but never got past the 2nd season. This time my wife and I are watching it together and, for whatever reason, it stuck. It's good so far, a little heavy-handed with the cinematography sometimes but the pacing is solid after the somewhat-slog of season one.
That being said, because I don't particularly mind spoilers for GoT, I've read up on the major concerns with the last season and some of them are warranted (for example the darkly lit episode whose name I can't recall) but a lot of it reeks of simple fan outrage.
That was exactly my reaction when I saw Jorah in that charge that instantly disappeared. I was like… "Oh shit, they killed Jorah. Like, immediately. Not even on-screen. All bets are fucking off."...
“I wanted to kill everyone,” he said. “I wanted to kill Jorah in the horse charge at the beginning.
“I wanted it to be ruthless so that in the first 10 minutes you say all bets are off, anyone can die.
That was exactly my reaction when I saw Jorah in that charge that instantly disappeared. I was like… "Oh shit, they killed Jorah. Like, immediately. Not even on-screen. All bets are fucking off."
Then Jorah came back and I was like "Wait, he's a zombie now? Is this going to get weird?"
… And then he's just… alive. And I was very confused. I genuinely thought Jorah was dead most of the beginning of the episode, and that was actually great. Urgh, to hell with D&D.
I dunno why, but sometimes for me big CGI spectacle fights are pretty boring to watch even though they have lots going on. E.g. Aquaman, Pacific Rim and most of the Transformers movies....
Goddamn, how on earth could watching 50 direwolves take on an undead dragon be boring?
I dunno why, but sometimes for me big CGI spectacle fights are pretty boring to watch even though they have lots going on. E.g. Aquaman, Pacific Rim and most of the Transformers movies.
This also may explain what the hell Bran was supposed to be doing during the Long Night battle. Maybe in the original draft he was summoning these direwolves for an epic battle?
<BOOKS+SHOW SPOILER WARNING> In the books it's actually Nymeria, Arya's shunned away direwolf, that is leading the massive army of wolves against the Stark family enemies, seemingly on her own and not with anyone Warging into her. I suppose it's possible Bran was behind that but I'm pretty sure the pack was formed well before Bran became the Three Eyed Raven. Though IIRC in the books it was hinted at that Lady Stoneheart (aka undead Catelyn Stark) had some connection with the giant wolf pack... but that would have been difficult to use in the show, because that character was completely cut. However the pack was briefly hinted at in season 7 of the show, when Arya encountered Nymeria in the wild after finally returning home to the North.
<more book spoilers> In the books Arya is having “wolf dreams,” implying that she’s unconsciously been warging into Nymeria all along. During her training in the House of Black and White she...
<more book spoilers>
In the books Arya is having “wolf dreams,” implying that she’s unconsciously been warging into Nymeria all along. During her training in the House of Black and White she starts warging into alley cats to make up for her loss of sight.
The show basically removed warging as a thing for anyone but Bran. None of the other Stark kids are shown doing it.
Ah, right I forgot about Arya doing that. IIRC, when Jon was with the Wildlings a few of them warged into various animals, but yeah, the show really minimized the significance and prevalence of...
Ah, right I forgot about Arya doing that.
The show basically removed warging as a thing for anyone but Bran.
IIRC, when Jon was with the Wildlings a few of them warged into various animals, but yeah, the show really minimized the significance and prevalence of that power.
That would have covered a multitude of writing sins.
Wine tasting is also subjective. Some people genuinely prefer two buck chuck. It is still no better than alcoholic juice.
I am so angry at what D&D did with the show and the more i read about what was going on in production the angrier i get. I know it wont effect them financially because Benioff at least is part of the New York elite but i hope to hell it follows them the rest of their careers and people jeer them in public for what they did to the last few seasons of GoT. It's not that they couldn't because of budgeting/time reasons or because they ran out of ideas and simply had a horrendous case of writers block, they're forgivable. They simply didn't give a fuck anymore and so put in as little effort as legally possible to get it over with.
They probably have like one more chance with Star Wars to make it work, if not I don't expect them to get any more high profile projects
I'm not a fan of star wars so i wont be able to judge how good it is but they are both good writers so i suspect it will be decent as long as they care.
If it's not, Benioff is so incredibly well connected i think he could screw up every production he is involved in for the next 30 years and still get high profile work.
Why do you say they're good writers?
Kite Runner and Troy were both great. 25th hour was widely lauded too but i haven't seen it. Benioff can adapt/write when he puts his mind to it.
My apologies. I thought you were referencing D&D.
He is talking about David Benioff, one half of D&D.
Then I take my apologies back and spit on the trash movie that was Troy!
You hear that @JoylessAubergine! SPIT ON TROY! SPIT ON D&D!
j/k ;-P
I liked Troy. It has one of the most entertaining duels ever put on film, IMO: Hector vs Achilles
Fair enough. I personally didn't find the movie memorable. The spear fighting portion of that was pretty cool for sure though :)
EDIT: My all-time favorite duel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDlZ_SXx5gA
<3 Princess Bride. I have probably watched it more times than any other movie.
Here's my all-time favorite duel, from The Mark of Zorro (1940). There are a few great ones in various Errol Flynn movies too. And the original Zatoichi (the blind swordsman) movies all have amazing duels and melees in them as well (e.g.)
Thank you for the videos! I'll share them with my son who is studying fencing.
I was reading up on the Princess Bride duel and apparently the person who trained the actors was the same who trained Flynn.
Here's the article if you want to read more:
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/10/princess-bride-30th-anniversary-sword-fight-inigo-montoya-man-in-black-rob-reiner-mandy-patinkin-cary-elwes
NP, glad you enjoyed them. Let me know if you want more. I have a ton of others I can recommend as well. E.g Rob Roy is another of my absolute favorites. :) And Feel free to let me know what your son thinks of those scenes... I'm curious to hear an actual fencer's take on them. :P
And yeah, I knew about the Errol Fynn -> Princess Bride connection but I can't remember where from. Still, thanks for the article though. I didn't realize Elwes wrote a behind-the-scenes book, so I'm definitely going to have to check that out now!
He liked them all. Thank you so much! I've definitely seen Rob Roy - good flick that I think was a bit lost in the popularity of Braveheart when it was released. Tim Roth was fantastic as the villain. I'll have to share that clip with him. Thank you again!
Awesome, glad to hear and no prob! Glad to see you back on the site, too. ;)
Thanks! Needed to step away from a bit to focus on RL things. I'll be doing that again soon but I haven't forgotten about Tildes.
This entire situation has made it very clear to me that in order to get away with leaving open plot lines, you have to be a firmly established name. Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk got away with it aggregiously on every single season of American Horror Story but, because they had established themselves long ago, hardly anyone gave a shit.
It's hard to face finality of something you hold near and dear to your heart and I think that's playing a larger part in fan outrage re: GoT than fans are willing to admit yet.
I really don't buy the excuse that people are so upset simply because the show is over. The only way that comes into play is that when the show had serious problems in previous seasons there was always the possibility that it would turn things around. People in online forums were saying, "yeah, it had problems, but that's just because they were trying to set up X or finish off Y, and now that we're past that the show can really shine."
It also ignores that most fans really were behind the show and defending it until the last two or three episodes. The writing problems were apparent before then in the battle episode talked about in the OP article (in short: one of the main story lines and the thematic heart of the show were tossed aside as unimportant and inconsequential) but only a minority of weirdos who were heavily invested in the quality of the writing were upset; the majority of the fandom online was still excited and loving what was happening. Significant cracks in the majority opinion really only formed in the next episode (exceptionally poor writing + popular characters dying in silly ways) and it all went to hell in the episode after that (the penultimate one of the series) when an incredibly loved and popular character turned evil without enough lead-up or justification.
The excuse is also a bit nonsensical. Game of Thrones isn't the first incredibly popular cultural phenomenon to end and there's no general rule that fans turn against a loved story simply because it's over. Compare Lost and Harry Potter, both extremely popular and both ending their run around the same time and during the age of social media. Lost was lambasted for its unsatisfying ending and inability to tie up plot threads, whereas the Harry Potter movies and books had a more "I'm sad it's over but wow that was great" reaction and are still beloved almost a decade later. More recently, this iteration of the Marvel movies ended (I think? I don't really follow them) but they're more popular than ever. Sure, they're continuing in some sense, but Game of Thrones also has copious spin-offs lined up.
Mostly I don't like that excuse though because it's practically saying that people can't have sincere and thought out opinions about media. Something is poorly written and people don't like it? That must not be true—instead they must be petulant children who are upset their TV show is finished. Or (in the case of some franchises) the fans who dislike it are dismissed as bigots who can't accept any characters except straight white men. It's like some kind of capitalist immune system where the poor quality of valuable properties is defended by attacking as illegitimate any criticism that might hurt the product. It's a battle of "hey this sucks" vs "don't listen to the critics, they suck". This idea wouldn't matter so much if it was just a few people putting it forward in debates online but this and other excuses are being pushed hard in official interviews and articles. Hopefully behind the scenes producers and studios are looking at the backlash against Game of Thrones and realizing it really was about writing and that it's still important to get that aspect of a story right instead of being content to rest of the laurels of a popular franchise.
Agree to disagree, then. Thanks for the explanation!
Yeah, thank you too. It's nice to have a place to have discussions like this without things being so heated.
I think perhaps people just didn't care for those shows as much as they do GoT. In addition, the writing in the seasons I watched was consistent (if mediocre) whereas GoT has a very noticeable dip once D&D no longer have the source material to rely on.
Did you personally like the ending?
Haven't watched it yet, I'm only on season 5. I gave GoT a try many times during its tenure but never got past the 2nd season. This time my wife and I are watching it together and, for whatever reason, it stuck. It's good so far, a little heavy-handed with the cinematography sometimes but the pacing is solid after the somewhat-slog of season one.
That being said, because I don't particularly mind spoilers for GoT, I've read up on the major concerns with the last season and some of them are warranted (for example the darkly lit episode whose name I can't recall) but a lot of it reeks of simple fan outrage.
That was exactly my reaction when I saw Jorah in that charge that instantly disappeared. I was like… "Oh shit, they killed Jorah. Like, immediately. Not even on-screen. All bets are fucking off."
Then Jorah came back and I was like "Wait, he's a zombie now? Is this going to get weird?"
… And then he's just… alive. And I was very confused. I genuinely thought Jorah was dead most of the beginning of the episode, and that was actually great. Urgh, to hell with D&D.
I dunno why, but sometimes for me big CGI spectacle fights are pretty boring to watch even though they have lots going on. E.g. Aquaman, Pacific Rim and most of the Transformers movies.
<BOOKS+SHOW SPOILER WARNING> In the books it's actually Nymeria, Arya's shunned away direwolf, that is leading the massive army of wolves against the Stark family enemies, seemingly on her own and not with anyone Warging into her. I suppose it's possible Bran was behind that but I'm pretty sure the pack was formed well before Bran became the Three Eyed Raven. Though IIRC in the books it was hinted at that Lady Stoneheart (aka undead Catelyn Stark) had some connection with the giant wolf pack... but that would have been difficult to use in the show, because that character was completely cut. However the pack was briefly hinted at in season 7 of the show, when Arya encountered Nymeria in the wild after finally returning home to the North.
In the books Arya is having “wolf dreams,” implying that she’s unconsciously been warging into Nymeria all along. During her training in the House of Black and White she starts warging into alley cats to make up for her loss of sight.
The show basically removed warging as a thing for anyone but Bran. None of the other Stark kids are shown doing it.
Ah, right I forgot about Arya doing that.
IIRC, when Jon was with the Wildlings a few of them warged into various animals, but yeah, the show really minimized the significance and prevalence of that power.