HBO's Game of Thrones (Partial SPOILERS)


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HBO's Game of Thrones (Partial SPOILERS)

Post by Ampoliros »

Well I just got done with episode one.

Something was...off. I'm not sure what yet. I think it felt like 80% of the cast just wasn't fully in to their characters, as if some of the characters from the book were meeting with actors who would be portraying the rest of the roles and at the moment were just reading off a script.

The music doesn't fit. It feels like the music was rushed and it sounds canned. Actually, now that I think about it, I might have to watch the episode again: I think the entire sound production could be what I was missing.

I'm hoping it has more to do with pilot-itis than over all production. So many things were spot on: I'm loving Tirion, but if they hadn't gotten him right the whole series would be pointless. I'm hoping the rest of the season isn't as 'clipped' as this was, they could have had 5 seconds of Robb and Theon racing as a simple transition from the opening execution to the discovery of the direwolf pups.

Right now I'm bordering on 2-3 stars for the first episode, but it also looks more likely to get better than worse.

For those who are interested: Episode 1 is on http://www.watchgameofthrones.com/
Oh, and HBO, if you were to offer the episodes on itunes, I'd gladly pay for them!









[SPOILER: I'm not sure yet if its brilliant or too much overbearing foreshadowing, but Sean Bean plays Ned like he's already dead. It both works and it doesn't...]
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Re: HBO's Game of Thrones (Partial SPOILERS)

Post by Ampoliros »

The actor playing Jamie Lannister has a looong way to go to convincing me he was the right choice. Cersei as well. She just seems dead inside rather than a major player in the Game of Thrones.
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Re: HBO's Game of Thrones (Partial SPOILERS)

Post by A Thing of Eternity »

I thought it was really good - I'll agree the music didn't blow me away though. It was a little clipped, but I don't think there will be a whole lot of getting around that, even without commercials fitting all of this book into 10 hours is not going to be easy at all.

Some of the minor actors were a little weak for sure in their dialogue, but I thought pretty much all of the major ones did a very good job.

Pretty much the only actors playing major characters that I'm not 100% on are the Lannister twins (especially Jamie, I'm with you on that).

I'm really looking forward to seeing how this goes.

EDIT: And you're the second person saying Bean is too dark for Ned, frankly I think the Ned in the book is just as serious and stern, if not more so. I don't think Bean is coming across as dour or anything, if anything I think he's actually playing the character a little more light-hearted than he was written in the book.
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Re: HBO's Game of Thrones (Partial SPOILERS)

Post by E. LeGuille »

I couldn't take the show seriously, my self. I kind of get tired of the same show over and over.

It's like all the other Dark Age / Age of Kings shows. This came off like "The Tudors", with some sort of gimmick about it's character and storyline. This is what you do in a story ARC not the whole of a story entire. You could say that about a lot of shows, but to me a show that promotes a flimsy sort of gimmick about it's uniqueness of the same stuff we've already seen, makes me groan.

I'll let it carry on for another few episodes, but so far I am not impressed.
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Re: HBO's Game of Thrones (Partial SPOILERS)

Post by SadisticCynic »

I'm not particularly impressed either, I must admit.

1) It's likely due to the length, but I felt things were happening too quickly. If I didn't know the story already I might be a little lost.

2) It somehow doesn't feel quite as grim as it did when I read it.

3) None of the characters were how I imagined them. (A very subjective point, this one)

(As an aside, does anyone think Daenerys is hot? :drool: )
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Re: HBO's Game of Thrones (Partial SPOILERS)

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I think you hit it there E. At least for the first episode there where to many gimmicks to show us what was going on rather than letting it occur naturally.

the scene where Jon Snow is putting up the arrows and Catelyn was glaring at him. It felt too obvious: "this character hates that character". I think the better scene to show that would be when Catelyn refuses to allow Jon in to see Bran. You get to see a vicious side to Catelyn that will become important later.

I think its the things where they want to put in something so the fans of the book will go "Just like the book!" They felt forced and unnatural. Jamie's delivery of the line "The things I do for love" felt incredibly anti-climactic, he really didn't have much feeling in it at all.

I'm hoping the whole clipping thing gets better as the series progresses, there is a lot of potential for the show. Its amazing how much more they could do with one more episode, and I really felt like as big a deal as they made over this series they could have splurged on a 2 hour opener.

Kahl Drogo's wedding night really needed to be extended. That's a major moment of transformation for Daenerys, they are going to have to work harder later on to convince us those two characters fall in love.

With that said, I do agree with AOTE that a lot of the actors knock it out of the park. They got my two favorite characters right: Tyrion and Jon. Aside from my nitpick about Sean Bean, the entire Stark family is well cast. Viserys is perfect, but I hope they show him out of control soon.

Daenerys is well cast (And pretty cute, which is better than "hot" for her role). At first I scoffed at the amazing size of her hips on a woman so small and thin, but hey, she is going to be "Mother to Dragons"...
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Re: HBO's Game of Thrones (Partial SPOILERS)

Post by SadisticCynic »

Daenerys is well cast (And pretty cute, which is better than "hot" for her role).
I use 'hot' as a catch-all term for an attractive woman. I see what you're saying though.
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Re: HBO's Game of Thrones (Partial SPOILERS)

Post by Tleszer »

The books were amazing and I'm looking forward to watching it either tonight or tomorrow.

On a side note, did anyone else this weekend get a chance to sit on the Iron Throne?
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Re: HBO's Game of Thrones (Partial SPOILERS)

Post by Spicelon »

Ampoliros wrote:Well I just got done with episode one.
The music doesn't fit. It feels like the music was rushed and it sounds canned. Actually, now that I think about it, I might have to watch the episode again: I think the entire sound production could be what I was missing.
Interesting, as I thought the music was one of the better parts of the episode, except maybe there should have been more of it.
Ampoliros wrote:I'm hoping it has more to do with pilot-itis than over all production. So many things were spot on: I'm loving Tirion, but if they hadn't gotten him right the whole series would be pointless. I'm hoping the rest of the season isn't as 'clipped' as this was, they could have had 5 seconds of Robb and Theon racing as a simple transition from the opening execution to the discovery of the direwolf pups.
This. I think these were the first awkward steps of a future Kentucky Derby winner. And Dinklage as Tyrion is SPOT ON. Very impressed. I also think the child characters over all could be very good, something I wasn't expecting.

My initial gut rating was an 8 of 10, but really we're talking somewhere between 7 and 8. Tremendous upside.
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Re: HBO's Game of Thrones (Partial SPOILERS)

Post by Spicelon »

I could see where people who haven't read the books think this is just a repackaging of the same old story, which it isn't. But some of that is to be expected. Surprisingly, this episode played very well with the "haven't read the book" people. I did not expect that.
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Re: HBO's Game of Thrones (Partial SPOILERS)

Post by A Thing of Eternity »

E. LeGuille wrote:I couldn't take the show seriously, my self. I kind of get tired of the same show over and over.

It's like all the other Dark Age / Age of Kings shows. This came off like "The Tudors", with some sort of gimmick about it's character and storyline. This is what you do in a story ARC not the whole of a story entire. You could say that about a lot of shows, but to me a show that promotes a flimsy sort of gimmick about it's uniqueness of the same stuff we've already seen, makes me groan.

I'll let it carry on for another few episodes, but so far I am not impressed.
Have you read the books? It's definitely not just a period piece with a gimmick, but I could see how it came off that way in just a short episode.
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Re: HBO's Game of Thrones (Partial SPOILERS)

Post by A Thing of Eternity »

I'll totally agree that the main problem so far is attempting to cram too much into a short amount of time. Dany's wedding was indeed too short, especially the scene where her and Drogo consumate the thing (it was much more tender in the book, I can see they attempted that, but it didn't quite make it across). And yes, she's pretty fine looking in my books. :D

Lots of the characters aren't exactly what I'd imagined, but most are pretty good. Robert is perfect I think, doesn't just look like a slob, but a fine person who became a bit of a loser due to emotional damage. Uncle Benji I love, totally perfect. The children are pretty much all perfect, Rob wasn't how I pictured him but that's not their fault. Catelyn is more haggard than I'd expected, but I think it works very well for her character.

Bean isn't visually how I'd pictured Ned, I pictured him more like Aragorn than Boramir, but again, doesn't really matter. As long as he plays it well.
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Re: HBO's Game of Thrones (Partial SPOILERS)

Post by E. LeGuille »

A Thing of Eternity wrote:
E. LeGuille wrote:I couldn't take the show seriously, my self. I kind of get tired of the same show over and over.

It's like all the other Dark Age / Age of Kings shows. This came off like "The Tudors", with some sort of gimmick about it's character and storyline. This is what you do in a story ARC not the whole of a story entire. You could say that about a lot of shows, but to me a show that promotes a flimsy sort of gimmick about it's uniqueness of the same stuff we've already seen, makes me groan.

I'll let it carry on for another few episodes, but so far I am not impressed.
Have you read the books? It's definitely not just a period piece with a gimmick, but I could see how it came off that way in just a short episode.
I have never read them, no. My problem with the show is that alot of the portrayl is just some gimmick in everything from character, to story, to cinematography. I can't help what HBO does with its marketing, but what I can do is change the channel when I see the Tudors with gimmicks on.
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Re: HBO's Game of Thrones (Partial SPOILERS)

Post by A Thing of Eternity »

E. LeGuille wrote:
A Thing of Eternity wrote:
E. LeGuille wrote:I couldn't take the show seriously, my self. I kind of get tired of the same show over and over.

It's like all the other Dark Age / Age of Kings shows. This came off like "The Tudors", with some sort of gimmick about it's character and storyline. This is what you do in a story ARC not the whole of a story entire. You could say that about a lot of shows, but to me a show that promotes a flimsy sort of gimmick about it's uniqueness of the same stuff we've already seen, makes me groan.

I'll let it carry on for another few episodes, but so far I am not impressed.
Have you read the books? It's definitely not just a period piece with a gimmick, but I could see how it came off that way in just a short episode.
I have never read them, no. My problem with the show is that alot of the portrayl is just some gimmick in everything from character, to story, to cinematography. I can't help what HBO does with its marketing, but what I can do is change the channel when I see the Tudors with gimmicks on.

Yeah, I think you've really gotten the wrong impression of this thing. The characters and story are definitely not gimmicks, but whether the TV version will show that the same way that the books do is another question. As to the cinematography, I'm not really qualified to judge it frankly.

This is the beginning of a seriously well done story, one of the best I've ever read.
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Re: HBO's Game of Thrones (Partial SPOILERS)

Post by Mandy »

You guys are crazy, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau makes a great Jaime Lannister (also, he's smoking hot) :P
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Re: HBO's Game of Thrones (Partial SPOILERS)

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I think they found someone who will make a great Jamie in the long run, but for season 1, he's just not "bad" enough.
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Re: HBO's Game of Thrones (Partial SPOILERS)

Post by Ampoliros »

Well I'm watching it again, I think my problems with the sound came from the bad streaming version.



PS Peter Dinklage kicks major ass.
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Re: HBO's Game of Thrones (Partial SPOILERS)

Post by SadisticCynic »

Bean isn't visually how I'd pictured Ned, I pictured him more like Aragorn than Boramir, but again, doesn't really matter. As long as he plays it well.
I couldn't help but think of him as Boromir either. :)
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Re: HBO's Game of Thrones (Partial SPOILERS)

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I think Boromir is why they chose him.
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Re: HBO's Game of Thrones (Partial SPOILERS)

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Ampoliros wrote:I think they found someone who will make a great Jamie in the long run, but for season 1, he's just not "bad" enough.
I don't know.. he seemed just like Jaime. There really wasn't time in the pilot for him to be "bad", and the way he nonchalantly pushed Bran off the tower was pretty much pure Jaime. Did you read A Storm of Swords?

I do agree that Cersei was probably miscast. I love Lena Headey and think she's a really good actress, but she doesn't seem very Cersei-like. Maybe she'll grow on me.

I expect the second episode to be much better than the pilot. They will all be heading off in various directions, and things will get really interesting. I was really excited to see The Hound, I'd forgotten about him, till I saw the helmet.
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Re: HBO's Game of Thrones (Partial SPOILERS)

Post by A Thing of Eternity »

Forgotten about the Hound?! Shame!

Cersei is the weak one for me, I love that actress, but she just seems too genuinely nice and sweet to be Cersei. Maybe she'll show her ability to act like a bitch as time goes on.

Jamie is ok for me, just not my favourite.

I'm also expecting this to get better. I really enjoyed it but most of it didn't blow me away. Which isn't really a surprise, not much happens to blow anyone away that that point in the story, it's just starting to get started!
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Re: HBO's Game of Thrones (Partial SPOILERS)

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The credits, in case anyone wants to see them again.

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Re: HBO's Game of Thrones (Partial SPOILERS)

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I forgot to mention how great the casting was for Viserys. What a creepy little shit!
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Re: HBO's Game of Thrones (Partial SPOILERS)

Post by A Thing of Eternity »

Yeah, I hated him as soon as I saw him, mirrored how I felt about him when reading the book perfectly.
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Re: HBO's Game of Thrones (Partial SPOILERS)

Post by Ampoliros »

Yeah, Hope they don't change how he gets crowned!
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