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Post by Sifr on Jan 14, 2020 9:46:29 GMT
Thing is, they didn’t have to be boring. This was an otherworldly being that the showrunners could have done anything with. They just lacked the imagination to do anything interesting with him without material to repurpose. The problem is that D&D lacked imagination entirely.
That's why they opted to remove most, if not all, of the fantasy elements of the novels when making the show. Not because they were trying to make a more mainstream fantasy series or because some of GRRM's ideas couldn't be easily adapted, but simply because they didn't understand them and couldn't be bothered to try.
That's why the Others were presented as generic ice-zombies rather than a species with their own culture, motivations and morality, the Warlocks of Qarth and House of the Undying visions were completely watered down from how they were in the books, the Red Comet was quickly retconned into S2 as if it'd always been there because people complained it wasn't in S1, they completely removed Lady Stoneheart, Euron was transformed from a terrifying Lovecraftian figure who's heavily into sorcery into a lame, Hot-Topic wearing wannabe Jack Sparrow, Bran was completely absent for S5 (likely because they only figured out how to include it in S6) and his warging abilities do not amount to anything, Arya's faceless man skills do not amount to anything and the entire Azor Ahai subplot went completely nowhere.
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Post by KaiserShep on Jan 14, 2020 15:58:07 GMT
Thing is, they didn’t have to be boring. This was an otherworldly being that the showrunners could have done anything with. They just lacked the imagination to do anything interesting with him without material to repurpose. A. The Night King has thus far been an invention purely of the show so for an adaptation there is no wonder that they didn't know what to do with him. I mean adaptations can take creative liscence but his inclusion in hindsight was just...weird. B. Looking back on it they really 'lacked the imagination' to do anything with the Night King or the White Walkers period. The strength of the Game of Thrones was the Game of Thrones...I mean even the northern plot line up till season 7 basically focused on the interplay between the various human, down to earth, political threats...first the Wildlings and then the Boltons. The show was always at its worse when focusing on the supernatural (admittedly aside from Hardhome). And from the middle of season 7 to the middle of season 8 they focused almost exclusively on that conflict...and aside from a couple of amazing set pieces, namely Danny rescuing Jon on the ice, it was just unspecactular. Once the Night King died it is telling that, at least for me, the show improved overnight by about 5 fold. Honestly, I don't think the show really improved in any meaningful way after that, since it was hellbent on straight up assassinating every character in sight anyway. It was cavalcade of disasters that went beyond mere character flaws to straight up passing various people balls of either stupidity or evil to rush us to the resolution. I would at least have been happy if that gelding soldier dude got incinerated accidentally in the Danypocalypse.
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Post by KaiserShep on Jan 14, 2020 16:03:26 GMT
Thing is, they didn’t have to be boring. This was an otherworldly being that the showrunners could have done anything with. They just lacked the imagination to do anything interesting with him without material to repurpose. The problem is that D&D lacked imagination entirely.
That's why they opted to remove most, if not all, of the fantasy elements of the novels when making the show. Not because they were trying to make a more mainstream fantasy series or because some of GRRM's ideas couldn't be easily adapted, but simply because they didn't understand them and couldn't be bothered to try.
That's why the Others were presented as generic ice-zombies rather than a species with their own culture, motivations and morality, the Warlocks of Qarth and House of the Undying visions were completely watered down from how they were in the books, the Red Comet was quickly retconned into S2 as if it'd always been there because people complained it wasn't in S1, they completely removed Lady Stoneheart, Euron was transformed from a terrifying Lovecraftian figure who's heavily into sorcery into a lame, Hot-Topic wearing wannabe Jack Sparrow, Bran was completely absent for S5 (likely because they only figured out how to include it in S6) and his warging abilities do not amount to anything, Arya's faceless man skills do not amount to anything and the entire Azor Ahai subplot went completely nowhere. Yeah, I was sitting there hoping the Night King would actually say something, anything, to Wheelchair Willy in hopes that the show would add a layer of intrigue it was sorely lacking for a while. But no, the Blue Man Group gets shanked by Assassin Rogue Supreme and it's just over. All that's left is Winehilda smirking from a balcony waiting for the First Order to show up and sack the Red Keep.
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Post by alanc9 on Jan 14, 2020 18:11:30 GMT
Concerning the Danipocalypse, I can see how Dani's gonna end up in the same place anyway. The black hole at the center of her entire mission is that a Targaryen restoration doesn't have any real constituency. But ruling by terror is still a viable strategy.
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Post by Treacherous J Slither on Jan 14, 2020 21:20:08 GMT
I'm glad Lady Stoneheart was taken out. That bitch should stay dead.
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Post by Sifr on Feb 4, 2020 3:33:52 GMT
Concerning the Danipocalypse, I can see how Dani's gonna end up in the same place anyway. The black hole at the center of her entire mission is that a Targaryen restoration doesn't have any real constituency. But ruling by terror is still a viable strategy. "Anyone who needs dragons to be King, is no true King."
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Post by Iakus on Mar 18, 2020 21:35:35 GMT
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Post by Sifr on Mar 19, 2020 7:02:07 GMT
It did for me to make a dedicated effort to finally finish reading them.
(Also to get a crack on and start writing my own!)
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Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Mass Effect Andromeda, SWTOR, Anthem
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XBL Gamertag: ObadiahPearce
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Post by Obadiah on Mar 22, 2020 14:31:15 GMT
Lol, that's not what the article says - he could just be NOT finishing that GoT prequel nonsense he started up!
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Post by Sifr on Mar 23, 2020 6:13:31 GMT
Lol, that's not what the article says - he could just be NOT finishing that GoT prequel nonsense he started up! GRRM is only working on House of the Dragon at the moment, but even if he's more involved with it than he was with the canned Long Night prequel, I don't know how much of his time that will really take up. GRRM already did the lion's share of the work by writing Fire and Blood, so the show only has to adapt and expand upon that pre-existing lore, rather than create anything original.
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Post by Sifr on Mar 24, 2020 5:50:37 GMT
Spoilers for Westworld S3;
Seems that Benioff and Weiss' surprise cameo has gone down like a lead balloon among the GOT fandom.
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Post by AnDromedary on Jul 21, 2020 17:49:43 GMT
Hello! So I just finished watching s8 last night. Don't tell me I am late to the party. Here are my thoughts on the whole affair: Disclosure first, I have really REALLY been trying to avoid spoilers over the last year, hence I never read anything in this thread or others. Somewhere, somehow, someone slipped some info into some post that I read that Bran had become King in the end, so I knew that (and of course I knew about the general reception) but otherwise, I was completely unspoiled. I had watched the series up to the end of s7 a while ago but I just rewatched the entire series again over the past couple of weeks. And here the thing: I really don't think it was all that bad.Ok, yes, the series gets more silly, more over the top and more rushed starting around s4/5 but I still think it was really really good and enjoyable to watch. A few specific points (by far not all I could think of) 1. The Battle of Winterfell I had heard that everyone took a lot of offense at the battle of Winterfell but I loved it! Of course it was completely over the top and of course everyone has plot armor and of course there is some weird stuff going on but on the whole, I thought in its effect it was brilliant. I heard a lot of people complained that it was too dark. I thought that was fantastic. It really got across the fact that this is the battle of the apocalypse and if they loose here and now, the whole world will fall into that kind of literal darkness. Yes, it was bit weird that the dead are swarming the outside battlements and courtyards like a freaking locust invasion (which in itself was great of course) while Arya gets to sneak around inside the castle but to me that was offset by the great conclusion of Beric Dondarrion's arc and how it all came together with Arya killing the Night King. Of course a lot of the main characters had a lot of plot armor but hey, this had to be a little out of scale IMO. It was a true epic conclusion to what I figured was the more suspenseful conflict anyway. And I loved it. 2. Some character developments mid season So, at times, this season felt like a lot of fan service. You had soooo many scenes of characters that hadn't seen each other for a long time (often since s1) meeting again and having some great interactions. Here, the show capitalizes a lot on the emotional build up over the years and why not? Yes, I would agree that it's often a bit much at once (one of my biggest complaints is that the season felt rushed and would definitely have benefited from an extra episode) but in general, I liked most of those scenes. Also, they set up a lot of expectations for what a happy ending could look like, which will become important later. But I definitely caught myself hoping that maybe John and Dany could work out their issues, that maybe Tyrion and Sansa would actually develop genuine affection for each other and re-marry in the end, that maybe after King's Landing, a changed Arya would go to Storm's End... Maybe finally, some people would the right thing and become freaking happy for once? Well, wait for the punchline in point 5. 3. The Bells of King's Landing Now, here is probably the bigge4st criticism I have about s8. I agree with most people (I think it's what most people thought) that Daenerys' Dragon attack after the bells rang was just baffling and frankly simply unexplained. Now, I am not saying that it makes absolutely no sense for her to just loose her shit. That was foreshadowed pretty well with increasing (though always somewhat justifiable until now) acts of horrific violence and her increasing enthusiasm for burning people alive. However, I don't think they provided a good explanation as to what turned her in this moment. She saw the bells ringing, Tyrion had explained to her what that meant and she could even hear all the cries of surrender throughout the city. She could see the Lannister soldiers throwing their swords to the ground. She had every reasons to believe that Cercei was trapped in the Red Keep. I'd even get that she'd fly up to the Red Keep and have Drogon blow the upper levels there to bits. But instead she methodically burns street after street in the lower city and THAT did not make sense at all, especially since she only did extremely surgical air strikes on the walls before this. So the authors clearly wanted to show that she lost it in this moment but why? There is no reason given. After watching, I read an article about a deleted scene where she sees all the Lannister sigils in the throne room but it didn't sound like that would make it better. IMO, there wasn't much needed there. Ideally, Cercei would have taunted her one last time (in order to keep her remaining troops from surrendering), maybe by catapulting the remains of the Targaryen ancestors at her or maybe the dragon skull of Balerion from the dungeons (and than Drogon could also be the one going mad and she more follows him along rather anything else). Give us some spark and I would have gotten it but that spark was not provided and thus her final turning point lacked reasoning. (BTW, loved the later shot where the dragon spreads his wings behind her, so she looks like a dragon herself, awesome cinematogrpahy there.) Otherwise, I think the destruction of King's Landing worked well and was visually absolutely stunning. You could tell that they took some glee in taking their sets apart finally. 4. The council of lords So yea, that council was a bit arbitrary. IMO, here again, a few more intermediate exposition scenes would have gone a long way (again, one more episode would have been great for this season). I have so many questions. Who's the dude from Dorne? Whatever happened to the Dathraki? Why is Greyworm being offered to found his own house in the Reach if he and the Unsullied cannot produce offspring? Why is the Greyjoy arc ended by Yara saying one single line and then just shutting up? I don't know, just jumping from the day of the battle to this council, which obviously happens weeks later (I think Tyrion specifically says 8 weeks) did the whole thing a disservice. Even a montage where we see some of the aftermath would have done wonders here. But while I am not entirely happy with the scene, I don't have half as many grudges as many and it did have it's high points. For example, when Sam suggests democracy and everyone just laughs their ass off or when Edmure sits back down after his rather misguided bid for the crown and bangs his sword against that pole, I did chuckle for sure. But yea, Bran becoming king, which seemed to have everyone in an uproar didn't bother me at all. I thought it was fantastic. Yea, he is the three eyed raven but I don;t see that as a problem. And when he accepts, you can tell, he sees it as a burden and a service he is supposed to provide for others, which is exactly what makes him perfect for the position. Yes, the way they do it is a bit random but over all, the outcome is perfectly fine to me. 5. Character conclusions So here again, I deviate from what seems to be the general opinion and that has to do with my earlier point 2. As I said before, they did set up structures throughout the season as to what could be the "happy ending" for those characters. But true to the general themes of this series the subverted these expectations. Nonetheless, I think it's pretty safe to say that most characters ended up in positions where they will be at least somewhat happy or at the very least at peace with themselves. In a funny way, a lot of them actually ended up in exactly the positions that they wanted to be in in the very first episode of season 1 but with a twist. John Snow wanted to be in the Night's Watch. That's where he is in the end (or in the true north as a leader of the free folk, which is basically the same thing at this point). I also think he will be much more happy there than if he'd stayed in King's Landing. After the tragic events there, even if they'd let him, I really don't think he'd have had any inclination to deal with that shit anymore. Sansa wanted to get the hell out of Winterfell and be queen (as in the wife of a king). Well, she is a queen now but without the king and she is queen in Winterfell. But after all her character development, that befits her perfectly. Tyrion always wanted to "play the game", as he states himself, outsmarting and out-talking people because that is what he is good at. He wanted to be seen as something else than the Lannister dwarf. As hand of the king, he got his wish exactly, albeit maybe with less recognition than he thought (that scene with the book where he is not mentioned was hilarious). In fact, I loved that entire small council meeting at the end (although, yes, Bronn being master of coin is super weird, again, there are one or two scenes missing here, we need an extra episode to explain that stuff, dammit). But their banter and the general vibe in that room make me confident that they will work well together and that Tyrion will also be at least somewhat happy in his position. And Arya, well, she never wanted to be a Lady, she finally got it out of her head to just be a ruthless killer (in one of the best scenes in s8 IMO, when Sandor talks some sense into her during their final goodbye). I mean, yea, her just "going west" like a lonesome cowboy was a bit lame but well, it's certainly not the worst that could have happened to her. So overall, while certainly not perfect by any means, I really don't think the ending was such a disaster as the outcry from last year made it out to be. Sure, I may have gone in with somewhat lower expectations because of that outcry but still, while I may personally not agree with every single thing they did here, in general I do think it's a more than decent wrap-up of the story. The whole series is one heck of an epic story and I am honestly considering buying that Blue Ray special edition because of it (something I rarely do anymore). But I am kinda glad I am one year too late with this post because I guess, otherwise I would have been shredded to bits (or maybe I still will, let's see ).
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Post by Sifr on Jul 30, 2020 7:26:32 GMT
3. The Bells of King's Landing Now, here is probably the bigge4st criticism I have about s8. I agree with most people (I think it's what most people thought) that Daenerys' Dragon attack after the bells rang was just baffling and frankly simply unexplained. Now, I am not saying that it makes absolutely no sense for her to just loose her shit. That was foreshadowed pretty well with increasing (though always somewhat justifiable until now) acts of horrific violence and her increasing enthusiasm for burning people alive. However, I don't think they provided a good explanation as to what turned her in this moment. She saw the bells ringing, Tyrion had explained to her what that meant and she could even hear all the cries of surrender throughout the city. She could see the Lannister soldiers throwing their swords to the ground. She had every reasons to believe that Cercei was trapped in the Red Keep. I'd even get that she'd fly up to the Red Keep and have Drogon blow the upper levels there to bits. But instead she methodically burns street after street in the lower city and THAT did not make sense at all, especially since she only did extremely surgical air strikes on the walls before this. So the authors clearly wanted to show that she lost it in this moment but why? There is no reason given. After watching, I read an article about a deleted scene where she sees all the Lannister sigils in the throne room but it didn't sound like that would make it better. IMO, there wasn't much needed there. Ideally, Cercei would have taunted her one last time (in order to keep her remaining troops from surrendering), maybe by catapulting the remains of the Targaryen ancestors at her or maybe the dragon skull of Balerion from the dungeons (and than Drogon could also be the one going mad and she more follows him along rather anything else). Give us some spark and I would have gotten it but that spark was not provided and thus her final turning point lacked reasoning. (BTW, loved the later shot where the dragon spreads his wings behind her, so she looks like a dragon herself, awesome cinematogrpahy there.) Otherwise, I think the destruction of King's Landing worked well and was visually absolutely stunning. You could tell that they took some glee in taking their sets apart finally. Regarding the Bells, the Youtuber DragonDemands actually got a hold of the script for that episode that was submitted to the WGA for their archives (which anyone can request to see) and it seems to be vastly different from the final episode that we got. This means that it was either an early draft, a fake script that they for whatever reason chose to submit anyway, or that D&D deliberately made huge changes from what they had originally intended.
The evidence pointing to the script being changed include;
Concept art and comments by the VFX team revealing that most of the destruction of King's Landing was originally supposed to be from an accidental Wildfire explosion set off by Dany, rather than her intentionally carpet-bombing the city with Dragonfire. The VFX team even talk about how some of the shots of civilians being killed by Dragonfire was meant to be Wildfire and they changed the colour from Green to Red, as well as how the bricks collapsing on Jaime and Cersei was originally meant to be Dragonfire. (Another note about the VFX being changed at the last minute is that they were still working on completing the finale three weeks before it aired... yikes.)
In Emilia Clarke's interviews she never acts like Daenerys snapped or went crazy, but instead talks about how her anger was directed entirely towards Cersei. That makes sense if she believed that Dany's sole target was Cersei and that any destruction Dany caused in King's Landing was accidental, whereas the final episode has Dany take her sweet time burning the city needlessly rather than go directly to the Red Keep to take down Cersei.
DragonDemands actually went further to suggest that Emilia Clarke might not even have known that Dany would burn down the city and it was kept from her. After all, all her filming for that scene involved sitting on a rig surrounded by Greenscreen, so it's not exactly like she'd see anything that would tip her off. Keep in mind, we never actually cut back to Dany's POV after Drogon takes off.
While that might sound conspiratorial, Emilia did admit that she was confused why in the next episode that Jon was acting so furious towards Dany in the throne room, as if she was completely unaware of what Dany had done in purposefully burning down King's Landing. Another interesting detail is that Emilia completely made up on the spot Dany's speech in the final episode, cobbled from what she remembered of previous speeches she's given in previous seasons. That she had to improvise it rather than having it written by the language consultant who'd normally write that dialogue, definitely hints at this being a last minute change to the script, meant to make her seem more sinister and justifying Jon having to kill her. Of course, the entire thing is speculation, but the various bits of information we've gotten, coupled with how much of a complete omnishambles S8 was and how D&D often seemingly made huge creative decisions on a whim (like adding Dorne in at the last minute in S5), it does kinda paint a compelling picture.
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Post by AnDromedary on Jul 30, 2020 14:51:18 GMT
3. The Bells of King's Landing Now, here is probably the bigge4st criticism I have about s8. I agree with most people (I think it's what most people thought) that Daenerys' Dragon attack after the bells rang was just baffling and frankly simply unexplained. Now, I am not saying that it makes absolutely no sense for her to just loose her shit. That was foreshadowed pretty well with increasing (though always somewhat justifiable until now) acts of horrific violence and her increasing enthusiasm for burning people alive. However, I don't think they provided a good explanation as to what turned her in this moment. She saw the bells ringing, Tyrion had explained to her what that meant and she could even hear all the cries of surrender throughout the city. She could see the Lannister soldiers throwing their swords to the ground. She had every reasons to believe that Cercei was trapped in the Red Keep. I'd even get that she'd fly up to the Red Keep and have Drogon blow the upper levels there to bits. But instead she methodically burns street after street in the lower city and THAT did not make sense at all, especially since she only did extremely surgical air strikes on the walls before this. So the authors clearly wanted to show that she lost it in this moment but why? There is no reason given. After watching, I read an article about a deleted scene where she sees all the Lannister sigils in the throne room but it didn't sound like that would make it better. IMO, there wasn't much needed there. Ideally, Cercei would have taunted her one last time (in order to keep her remaining troops from surrendering), maybe by catapulting the remains of the Targaryen ancestors at her or maybe the dragon skull of Balerion from the dungeons (and than Drogon could also be the one going mad and she more follows him along rather anything else). Give us some spark and I would have gotten it but that spark was not provided and thus her final turning point lacked reasoning. (BTW, loved the later shot where the dragon spreads his wings behind her, so she looks like a dragon herself, awesome cinematogrpahy there.) Otherwise, I think the destruction of King's Landing worked well and was visually absolutely stunning. You could tell that they took some glee in taking their sets apart finally. Regarding the Bells, the Youtuber DragonDemands actually got a hold of the script for that episode that was submitted to the WGA for their archives (which anyone can request to see) and it seems to be vastly different from the final episode that we got. This means that it was either an early draft, a fake script that they for whatever reason chose to submit anyway, or that D&D deliberately made huge changes from what they had originally intended.
The evidence pointing to the script being changed include;
Concept art and comments by the VFX team revealing that most of the destruction of King's Landing was originally supposed to be from an accidental Wildfire explosion set off by Dany, rather than her intentionally carpet-bombing the city with Dragonfire. The VFX team even talk about how some of the shots of civilians being killed by Dragonfire was meant to be Wildfire and they changed the colour from Green to Red, as well as how the bricks collapsing on Jaime and Cersei was originally meant to be Dragonfire. (Another note about the VFX being changed at the last minute is that they were still working on completing the finale three weeks before it aired... yikes.)
In Emilia Clarke's interviews she never acts like Daenerys snapped or went crazy, but instead talks about how her anger was directed entirely towards Cersei. That makes sense if she believed that Dany's sole target was Cersei and that any destruction Dany caused in King's Landing was accidental, whereas the final episode has Dany take her sweet time burning the city needlessly rather than go directly to the Red Keep to take down Cersei.
DragonDemands actually went further to suggest that Emilia Clarke might not even have known that Dany would burn down the city and it was kept from her. After all, all her filming for that scene involved sitting on a rig surrounded by Greenscreen, so it's not exactly like she'd see anything that would tip her off. Keep in mind, we never actually cut back to Dany's POV after Drogon takes off.
While that might sound conspiratorial, Emilia did admit that she was confused why in the next episode that Jon was acting so furious towards Dany in the throne room, as if she was completely unaware of what Dany had done in purposefully burning down King's Landing. Another interesting detail is that Emilia completely made up on the spot Dany's speech in the final episode, cobbled from what she remembered of previous speeches she's given in previous seasons. That she had to improvise it rather than having it written by the language consultant who'd normally write that dialogue, definitely hints at this being a last minute change to the script, meant to make her seem more sinister and justifying Jon having to kill her. Of course, the entire thing is speculation, but the various bits of information we've gotten, coupled with how much of a complete omnishambles S8 was and how D&D often seemingly made huge creative decisions on a whim (like adding Dorne in at the last minute in S5), it does kinda paint a compelling picture.
Wow, that is interesting. Thanks for that info. Pretty crazy. I think if the destruction of King's Landing had truly been an accident, caused by wildfire no less (which Dany could have attributed to Cercei then), that would have changed the dynamic of the last two episodes entirely. I am not sure if it would have been better or worse. If they'd have still kept the whole rest of the plot as it is, there would have been endless debate on whether Jon's actions later were justified or not (I'd say going as far as to kill Dany was only somewhat justified because she mass murdered civilians before and showed intent to do so again). It might have been very interesting but it might also have pushed all the other characters into a very unbelievable actions. Or maybe the entire plotline after the destruction of King's Landng could have changed in which case, who knows if it would have been better or worse. Yea, but I can definitely see Emilia Clarke going WTF?!? when she first saw the final cut. I could imagine that might happen to actors rather frequently. There is a lot of stuff you can do with editing. As I wrote before, I think the general plotline with Dany going slightly insane is actually fine. IMO, all they needed was to improve and better explain the flipping moment. But well, that's all water under the bridge now. Also, I didn't realize the inclusion of Dorne into S5 was a last minute decision. If so, it certainly doesn't look it. I am glad they put it in there.
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Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquistion, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire
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Post by Sifr on Aug 4, 2020 9:16:37 GMT
Wow, that is interesting. Thanks for that info. Pretty crazy. I think if the destruction of King's Landing had truly been an accident, caused by wildfire no less (which Dany could have attributed to Cercei then), that would have changed the dynamic of the last two episodes entirely. I am not sure if it would have been better or worse. If they'd have still kept the whole rest of the plot as it is, there would have been endless debate on whether Jon's actions later were justified or not (I'd say going as far as to kill Dany was only somewhat justified because she mass murdered civilians before and showed intent to do so again). It might have been very interesting but it might also have pushed all the other characters into a very unbelievable actions. Or maybe the entire plotline after the destruction of King's Landng could have changed in which case, who knows if it would have been better or worse. Yea, but I can definitely see Emilia Clarke going WTF?!? when she first saw the final cut. I could imagine that might happen to actors rather frequently. There is a lot of stuff you can do with editing. As I wrote before, I think the general plotline with Dany going slightly insane is actually fine. IMO, all they needed was to improve and better explain the flipping moment. But well, that's all water under the bridge now. Also, I didn't realize the inclusion of Dorne into S5 was a last minute decision. If so, it certainly doesn't look it. I am glad they put it in there. What makes it stranger is; The show actually seemed to be setting up the accidentally destruction of King's Landing by wildfire earlier in the season, as we're shown Cersei bringing in civilians into the Red Keep to act as human shields and sending Qyburn to locate all of Aerys' remaining hidden caches of wildfire. It definitely seemed like Cersei's plan was either to blow up the city and blame it on Dany or trick her into attacking the Red Keep and trigger a chain reaction that would destroy the city. The whole Dorne debacle in S5 was due to similar mismanagement.
D&D are huge fans of Indira Varma (which I can't blame them for) and wanted to show her off more than they did in S4, where she was mostly limited to being just Oberyn's girlfriend. So they decided to "re-conceive the role around her" in S5 to make her the leader of the Dornish faction pushing for war with the Lannisters, despite her character being firmly anti-war in the books and largely fading into the background after Oberyn's death.
The set design and costuming department reportedly had to rush to get everything ready/built on such short notice and the fight choreographers had a tough time because D&D insisted on filming the palace scenes in a world heritage site, despite the very strict filming regulations limiting what they could do. That's why most of the fight scenes in the palace are choppily edited and have a ton of continuity errors, because it was an absolute nightmare trying to film.
I get the feeling that in ten years, once all the cast have the freedom to be more candid, we're going to get some amazing tell-all books/interviews revealing some of the mayhem that happened behind the scenes.
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Noxluxe
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Post by Noxluxe on Jan 29, 2021 7:24:01 GMT
Am now three seasons and one-and-a-half audiobook into a Game of Thrones binge.
Giving them a fresh look, I've formed the opinion that the second and third seasons are much better than the first one, or at least more enjoyable, with less exposition and setting the stage and fewer long-winded speeches, and more actually seeing the characters in action.
Only exception is Dany's storyline, which has a lot of pathos in the first season when she's having to earn her new people's devotion by immersing herself in their culture. Once she gets her dragons it feels like her story mostly becomes about others doing competent work in her name out of love for her that she doesn't really earn, and her sometimes being presented with fairly cheap opportunities to do humanitarian work which incidentally just so happens to also further her goals.
Watching those scenes again, I can definitely see the budding megalomania messiah complex thing. It's a real shame they didn't flesh that properly out at the end, because that could have been a really poignant payoff to her journey.
Tyrion, Tywin, Jaime, Bronn, Arya, The Hound, Roose and Ramsay, Brynden Tully, Oberyn and Stannis are awesome as always, and for some reason I'm also enjoying Margaery, Shae, Sam, Osha, Varys and Robb a lot more this time around. Or, well, were enjoying, in Robb's case. Jon is still a moping, floppy-haired bastard until season 4, but 4 and 5 are pretty good to him if I remember right, so I'm looking forward to that. Ygritte and Mance and Tormund all rock, though.
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Post by KingDarious BBB on Feb 2, 2021 10:26:21 GMT
So we know that House of the Dragon will probably be premiering sometime next year. There are supposedly making 2 other prequels about Roberts Rebellion, and Dunk & Egg. Now there’s rumor about a Game of Thrones animated series.
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Heimdall
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Post by Heimdall on Feb 3, 2021 16:02:45 GMT
So we know that House of the Dragon will probably be premiering sometime next year. There are supposedly making 2 other prequels about Roberts Rebellion, and Dunk & Egg. Now there’s rumor about a Game of Thrones animated series. I think those other two prequels were just ideas floated around, not something that made it to production. Where’d you hear the rumor about the animated series.
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Post by KingDarious BBB on Feb 3, 2021 18:36:30 GMT
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Post by Sifr on Feb 3, 2021 18:36:38 GMT
I think those other two prequels were just ideas floated around, not something that made it to production. Yeah, based on reports, there were 5 pitches, but only two were ever seriously considered.
House of the Dragon was Martin's favourite pitch, but it was initially passed in favour for the failed Bloodmoon pilot that seemingly nobody (except maybe execs that greenlit it) was excited about or thought would work. When the Bloodmoon pilot tanked (as everyone knew it would), they went ahead with the safer, Martin-approved pitch about the Dance of the Dragons that had an entire tie-in book to draw upon.
Bloodmoon... what can we be said about this pitch. Rumours are it would have been set during the Age of Heroes, featured the origins of the White Walkers, the pilot would have included a Stark and Casterly wedding and the show would have retconned the Children of the Forest to be cursed black people (no, seriously... what the hell were they even thinking?). The only good thing about this pilot was the cast, who hopefully might get reused for HotD or any other future projects.
Empire of Ash was another considered pitch, a Valyrian prequel set a century before the Doom around the time of Dany the Dreamer. Admittedly, this would have been cool to see, since Martin loves to write about Targaryens and this would have given us them as never seen before, a minor house struggling to survive, rather than the major power player we're used to.
The other two pitches were unclear.
It's likely that Robert's Rebellion was pitched, but passed on. Presumably this was because Game of Thrones had already revealed most of what happened, leaving us without any real twists and turns to expect. Also fans are still angry at how badly they bungled the ending of GOT, so it'd not be good to add more fuel to the fire by giving us the younger versions of characters they utterly ran into the ground before unceremoniously killing off (Jaime, Littlefinger, Stannis, Varys, etc).
Dunk and Egg was another one that was rumoured but never confirmed, although now seems to be in the works at HBO.
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Post by KingDarious BBB on Mar 19, 2021 3:08:34 GMT
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Post by cribbian on May 10, 2021 14:13:37 GMT
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mousestalker
Inactive Moderator
ღ The Untitled
Just here for the cosplay
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Post by mousestalker on Jun 6, 2021 23:10:34 GMT
GRRM's final ending for the series. It resolves all open plot threads. Eddard woke up in a sweat. His wife was breathing softly next to him in bed. Robert still reigned and it had all been a very bad dream. Inspiration here
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Post by AnDromedary on Jun 7, 2021 18:26:13 GMT
GRRM's final ending for the series. It resolves all open plot threads. Eddard woke up in a sweat. His wife was breathing softly next to him in bed. Robert still reigned and it had all been a very bad dream. Inspiration hereEpilogue: Eddard threw back the furs, covering him and got up, shivering as he stood naked in the room, the chill of Winterfell's early morning fog seeping through the walls of the castle. Through the window, he already heard his children playing. He dressed, then, deep in thought he picked up a spinning top, that he had carved for Bran and spun it on the table. Hearing the children yell out again, he left the room, never once looking back to see if the wooden spinner would topple over or just keep spinning.{/spoiler]
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I never knew that love had a sound until i heard you laugh.
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Post by Patricia on Aug 17, 2021 13:04:46 GMT
She's so funny.
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