Game of Thrones

  On 4/30/2019 at 9:17 AM, xxx said:

I'm impressed you guys saw all this. My screen was amorphous blobs of black and gray frenzy for an hour. I needed that visually impaired narration thing: "Jon Snow rises up from the rubble. Samwell struggles under the weight of undead attackers" etc

Man, I've been skeptical of this "it was too dark" observation but I suppose it varies from person to person. It just seems a lot of people my age or younger don't really appreciate how hard it is to film low lit stuff and likewise how much HD quality has improved playback of it. Post-production color editing and all that gave us both a dark and high resolution episode. And it should of been, It was a dire, dim, apocalyptic night winter battle against an army of the dead. I remember watching Batman (1989) on VHS on a 80s era CRT tv as a kid.I could hardly see anything toward the end, which made the violence more ominous and disturbing. I know the same combination of well-worn VHS tape, old faded 640×480 VGA playback affected a lot of noir and horror films of that era. There was no other option. That shit was literally dark AF, still effective in a sense but far more limited.

  On 4/30/2019 at 3:40 PM, chenGOD said:

Why would the night king have a chat with Bran? He's not there to negotiate, he's there to extinguish the entirety of human life. It's not really a complex situation. And din't they already know that killing the night king would fell his army?

bran picked the place to be that would result in the night king being defeated because he could see the possible futures, right? i guess the night king was attracted to the three eyed raven, maybe wanted to kill him to bring him on board.

decent enough. i'm just glad it's over, so they can spend the last 3 episodes on other things. this was a Lost situation that could have gone worse.

I wasn't thinking negotiations or small talk, just some evil villain gloating, and Bran with some humanity is great and won't be defeated type waffle, with some revelation of some interesting history/mythos or something. They obviously wanted to portray them as this relentless mindless evil, but the effect of that was diminished by how easily he was defeated in the end, and at little cost in terms of the main characters, if they were going to do away with what they were making out to be the main threat from the last couple of seasons in order to focus on more human concerns for the final episodes they should have at least had some kind of interesting reveal, instead they've just snuffed it out and moved on, was a bit of a damp squib.

i am really wondering about a season 9. it's such a fucking cash cow, and they now have story license to do what they want. interesting that they had this opportunity to kill off a ton of characters and didn't really kill anyone important...

Caught up on episode 3 last night.... complete cringe fest. I would have expected it from the latest Disney-fied Hollywood claptrap for 10 year olds. From GOT? No way. So disappointed. 7 seasons of build up just for that. May as well of had little Lyanna Mormont just bitch slap him in front of everyone and him run away like a sissy girl back beyond the wall. Would have made about as much sense.

i see dead people

  On 4/30/2019 at 4:28 PM, caze said:

I wasn't thinking negotiations or small talk, just some evil villain gloating, and Bran with some humanity is great and won't be defeated type waffle, with some revelation of some interesting history/mythos or something. They obviously wanted to portray them as this relentless mindless evil, but the effect of that was diminished by how easily he was defeated in the end, and at little cost in terms of the main characters, if they were going to do away with what they were making out to be the main threat from the last couple of seasons in order to focus on more human concerns for the final episodes they should have at least had some kind of interesting reveal, instead they've just snuffed it out and moved on, was a bit of a damp squib.

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But we already know the history of the night king? It was a useful (not great, useful) plot device to show how badly the Targeryian forces have been diminished, and also to show how Cercei has betrayed them all even further. He wasn't defeated easily, Arya trained for however many years, there was a massive loss of life (except for main characters, and I don't get why everyone is so eager to see them snuffed out), he had to be set up exactly etc. etc. I don't know what possible interesting reveal the audience could expect - the fucker's dead and so is his army. As I said, we already know his motivation and history, so what reveal?

I agree with caze here. Even in terms of being a plot device. His death could have gotten more gravity, instead of the sudden death by a single blow while the two characters with the longest history in the story were just staring at eachother.

The whole backstory became useless with a single blow. Which will be problematic to the rest of the series as well. As from this point on, you know the story doesn't even try to make sense any more. It just tries to put the audience on the wrong foot, without any interest in the backstory. 

I also disagree with the idea that the audience already knew enough about his history and motivations. What you frequently see in moments like these is that the audience is introduced to some new perspective which can give the entire backstory a new meaning. And in the best cases even gets the audience to understand the villains perspective. Such that the audience can sympathize. It's a plot device in itself. The writers missed this opportunity.

Although the bigger problem is the one i mentioned earlier. GOT turned into another Lost where everything goes and nothing matters any more. 

I'm afraid the explanation is simple though. The original story just wasn't there yet. So instead we have a couple of producers winging it. If you're a fan of the books my guess is you can breathe comfortably as it seems obvious the books will be completely different.

  On 5/3/2019 at 9:31 AM, goDel said:

. As from this point on, you know the story doesn't even try to make sense any more. It just tries to put the audience on the wrong foot, without any interest in the backstory. 
 

You can't possible know this though.

The producers have said they view parts 3,4 and 5 as one long story. So there's potentially information we haven't been given concerning the end of this one.

i can't wait to binge watch all of this when it's available, half paying attention

  On 5/3/2019 at 10:21 AM, hello spiral said:

You can't possible know this though.

The producers have said they view parts 3,4 and 5 as one long story. So there's potentially information we haven't been given concerning the end of this one.

 I wonder if there is a time travel backstory with  Bran that happened  during the time  he was away just before the Night King was killed

  On 5/3/2019 at 10:21 AM, hello spiral said:

You can't possible know this though.

The producers have said they view parts 3,4 and 5 as one long story. So there's potentially information we haven't been given concerning the end of this one.

They also said they tried to put the audience on the wrong foot. They think being unpredictable will keep the story exciting. 

My only argument is they pushed it too much and now they've broken the logic of the story. 

What do you think will save this? Night king is not dead? It was just his ghost, or something? He's got a spare army somewhere? 

Again, i think they're pushing too much to create "excitement". And i believe it's to compensate for the lack of an actual story. 

  On 5/3/2019 at 9:31 AM, goDel said:

I'm afraid the explanation is simple though. The original story just wasn't there yet. So instead we have a couple of producers winging it. If you're a fan of the books my guess is you can breathe comfortably as it seems obvious the books will be completely different.

That's my hope. They weren't allowed to touch any of GRRM's ideas anymore, so they decided to go full-Hollywood on it instead. All the clever stuff and greatness I miss from the earlier seasons will be in the books.

It's going to be so predictable from here on though. Another filler episode next as they head to Kings Landing. More plot armour and just-in-the-nick-of-time moments for the next underwhelming battle. Several opportunities to kill Cersei and pirate boy, only for them to evade death at the last second. Eventually she gets a merciful death from either Jaime, Tyrion, Daenerys or Arya (just so she can tick her off her list). Drogon eats Euron. Clegane bowl with The Mountain getting the better of the Hound, and then the Hound appeasing to the inner Gregor in a flashback childhood scene, in which he becomes good and throws the onlooking Qyburn over the castle wall in some shit Darth Vader-esque moment. Jon never reveals his true identity so Daenerys can have the throne. Brienne and Arya are made head knights. Everyone cheers and claps. The end.

  On 5/3/2019 at 10:36 AM, o00o said:

 I wonder if there is a time travel backstory with  Bran that happened  during the time  he was away just before the Night King was killed

Probably nothing more than turning himself into a beacon so the Night King would know exactly where to come.

  On 5/3/2019 at 9:31 AM, goDel said:

I agree with caze here. Even in terms of being a plot device. His death could have gotten more gravity, instead of the sudden death by a single blow while the two characters with the longest history in the story were just staring at eachother.

The whole backstory became useless with a single blow. Which will be problematic to the rest of the series as well. As from this point on, you know the story doesn't even try to make sense any more. It just tries to put the audience on the wrong foot, without any interest in the backstory. 

I also disagree with the idea that the audience already knew enough about his history and motivations. What you frequently see in moments like these is that the audience is introduced to some new perspective which can give the entire backstory a new meaning. And in the best cases even gets the audience to understand the villains perspective. Such that the audience can sympathize. It's a plot device in itself. The writers missed this opportunity.

Although the bigger problem is the one i mentioned earlier. GOT turned into another Lost where everything goes and nothing matters any more. 

I'm afraid the explanation is simple though. The original story just wasn't there yet. So instead we have a couple of producers winging it. If you're a fan of the books my guess is you can breathe comfortably as it seems obvious the books will be completely different.

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The whole sequence a couple of seasons ago where it was explained how he was created gave us enough to go on. Prior to Arya killing him, the night king had flown his wight-dragon into battle against jon and daenerys, been torched by a full blast of dragon fire, and raised another army of the dead to replace the one that had just been killed. I don't see how the backstory becomes useless.

Also the writers gave plenty of clues in season 7 that Arya would be the one to kill him, so it's not totally out of the blue.

I agree the quality of the writing has declined somewhat - but the show runners have apparently had significant access to GMMR's notes for the upcoming books, so they're not entirely winging it. I think it's more a question of trying to wrap things up in a format that allows for less exposition than the books, and so it feels a bit forced. I still think this is amazing TV, and the whinging doesn't remember what TV used to be like....

  On 5/3/2019 at 4:10 PM, chenGOD said:

Also the writers gave plenty of clues in season 7 that Arya would be the one to kill him, so it's not totally out of the blue.

The problem with that is that you could just pick one of several characters and say exactly the same thing. Jaime, Brienne, Daenarys, Jon, Samwell, Sansa, Tyrion. There would be enough to pick out of previous seasons to rationalise that somehow they were the chosen one to kill the Night King. If Sam had found his father's sword on the battlefield and managed to get to the Night King with it and strike him down with a lucky blow, then you would be saying that he was always going to be the one to do it. He brought his fathers sword all this way. He was the one first to kill a wight with dragon glass. It's backwards rationalisation, and the same cheap rubbish they use in weekday mid afternoon murder mysteries. Not GOT.

GOT was alway cleverer than that. Massive amounts of shrewd foreshadowing and set up that created plot twists that actually made sense and built on its epic story. Not random shit that just happens for the sake of it just to shock the viewer.

I hope episode 4 puts all the moaners to rest.

(Not watched any of the new season yet btw)

I liked it

All that shit for one episode and one moment. It just feels wrong

lol this page

GoT fans might be worse than Tool fans

  On 5/3/2019 at 5:33 PM, Somanymachines said:

The problem with that is that you could just pick one of several characters and say exactly the same thing. Jaime, Brienne, Daenarys, Jon, Samwell, Sansa, Tyrion. There would be enough to pick out of previous seasons to rationalise that somehow they were the chosen one to kill the Night King. If Sam had found his father's sword on the battlefield and managed to get to the Night King with it and strike him down with a lucky blow, then you would be saying that he was always going to be the one to do it. He brought his fathers sword all this way. He was the one first to kill a wight with dragon glass. It's backwards rationalisation, and the same cheap rubbish they use in weekday mid afternoon murder mysteries. Not GOT.

GOT was alway cleverer than that. Massive amounts of shrewd foreshadowing and set up that created plot twists that actually made sense and built on its epic story. Not random shit that just happens for the sake of it just to shock the viewer.

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Nah, Bran specifically gave her the dagger that she used to kill the night king. There are some other clues as well,   but can’t be arsed typing them out as it’s not that important. 

  On 5/4/2019 at 4:08 PM, chenGOD said:

Nah, Bran specifically gave her the dagger that she used to kill the night king. There are some other clues as well,   but can’t be arsed typing them out as it’s not that important. 

He gave it to her and she executed Littlefinger with it (who was behind Bran's attempted assasination). That was the point of it. Justice for Bran.

To me the problem isn't necessarily Arya killing the night king or anything. It's just that the story was sucky sucky. She went from being a badass outside on the wall, to being scared and chased inside. And then walked out the door into the shadows. Jumped out of nowhere and killed the night king. Why did she even had trouble being chased inside the castle, if it was so easy to just jump the night king. She simply past entire armies. Come on. 

The whole episode was like a random sequence of events which hardly made any sense. Regardless of visibility, btw. To me the story lost any credibility. But I'm repeating myself here.

Fundamentaly, a little girl single handedly killed a giant. Another little girl single handedly killed the Night King. The stuff of Saturday morning cartoons.

There's even no need for a battle with Cersei. Arya could just go to Kings Landing in disguise and kill her like she did Walder Frey. The whole story has fallen apart.