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Game of Thrones: the last series [SPOILERS]

Started by sheridan, 15 April, 2019, 11:09:22 AM

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Funt Solo

Maybe Illyrio Mopatis has a whole cellar full of dragon eggs.
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

Link Prime

Dissapointing.

< Explodes into a thousand pieces of ice >

radiator

Granted that was a pretty amazing episode of TV and I was on the edge of my seat the whole time... ([spoiler]thankfully the body count of named characters was far lower than I anticipated[/spoiler]) but if I were to nitpick - and I will - it kind of both seemed a bit much (in terms of sheer carnage*) and also not enough at the same time...

[spoiler]By 'not enough' I mean that for me it didn't get anywhere close to living up to what had been  teased through visions in previous episodes (a burned-out throne room with snow falling for one) and especially the visuals conjured by Old Nan's story from back in season 1:[/spoiler]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P15M4IcZmgA&

Quote"Thousands of years ago, there came a night that lasted a generation. Kings froze to death in their castles, same as the shepherds in their huts; and women smothered their babies rather than see them starve, and wept, and felt the tears freeze on their cheeks... In that darkness the White Walkers came for the first time. They swept through cities and kingdoms, riding their dead horses, hunting with their packs of pale spiders big as hounds."

I never figured 'The Long Night' would [spoiler]be so literal, and I always imagined the 'War for the Dawn' would be an actual war rather than one battle in a single location on a single day. It reminds me a bit of finally seeing the Clone Wars and it not living up to my imagination, and thinking 'oh, that was it?'.

Despite the spectacle, it all felt a bit underwhelming to me after all the years buildup because the way things unfolded on the show, the war against the dead had almost no impact on the Seven Kingdoms as a whole, and conceptually if you weren't right there in Winterfell on that particular day, you'd never believe it even took place (if that makes any sense?). I always had it in my head that after the wall fell, we'd pick things up months later, in the midst of the ongoing war, with Winterfell under siege and the dead marching towards King's Landing.

I'm also not really a fan of the videogame-like logic regarding taking down the White Walkers. It seemed like far too much of an achilles heel and took a lot of the menace away from the White Walkers, and I'm going to assume that all of this stuff (including Arya's role) is a TV show invention and it won't happen at all like that in the books. I also think they overcompensated on the Wights - they seemed way too overpowered compared to how they appeared in previous seasons.

But hey, I freely admit that that's my own preconceptions and expectations colouring things. Taken on it's own terms it was good stuff.

*Seriously, the way it was presented it seems like out of hundreds of thousands, only a dozen named characters and a handful of others survived. I'm sure thats not literally the case, but they sure make it seem that way.[/spoiler]

Jim_Campbell

There are [spoiler]three episodes left and Cersei still to deal with. What on Earth makes you think you won't see a burned-out throne room?[/spoiler]
Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

Jim_Campbell

Stupidly Busy Letterer: Samples. | Blog
Less-Awesome-Artist: Scribbles.

Steve Green

That was enormous fun.

Struggled a bit with following who was where in the gloom, not helped by watching it in daytime or stay off social media just in case but some great sequences

[spoiler]The lighters for the Dothraki and the subsequent snuffing out, Mormont and the Giant[/spoiler]

I had to rewind on [spoiler]Arya's attack, when I first watched it I thought there was someone else attacking with her[/spoiler]

radiator

A fitting end for [spoiler]Melisandre and Theon, I thought.[/spoiler]

[spoiler]Two of my favourite characters (in both book and show) and actors on the show.[/spoiler]

[spoiler]I didn't even feel upset, as I think they both had suitably heroic deaths and got off pretty lightly (by GoT standards).[/spoiler]

JayzusB.Christ

#67
I've just finished the whole episode.  My god, that was intense.  Absolutely breathtaking - literally, in fact; I found myself short of breath and with a pounding heart for most of it.

I'll be able to have a proper, rational think about the episode when I've calmed down a bit. But right now, all I can say is, TV doesn't get more spectacular than this. Absolutely blown away.

You just didn't get that kind of thing with The Man from Atlantis and Automan.
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

sheridan

Quote from: JayzusB.Christ on 29 April, 2019, 10:19:00 PM
I've just finished the whole episode.  My god, that was intense.  Absolutely breathtaking - literally, in fact; I found myself short of breath and with a pounding heart for most of it.

I'll be able to have a proper, rational think about the episode when I've calmed down a bit. But right now, all I can say is, TV doesn't get more spectacular than this. Absolutely blown away.

You just didn't get that kind of thing with The Man from Atlantis and Automan.

Yeah, but it's no Manimal or Tales of the Golden Monkey.

JayzusB.Christ

Quote from: sheridan on 29 April, 2019, 10:57:24 PM


Yeah, but it's no Manimal or Tales of the Golden Monkey.

Well, GoT obviously owes a massive debt to the former what with the warging and that, but what show doesn't?
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

Professor Bear

I thought it dragged on a bit, especially a lot of the cat and mouse bits at the end ([spoiler]fair enough Jon can't past the dragon, but why doesn't it just move forward and squish him?  It waits for him to keep poking his head out and then it just goes "argh" at him.  Likewise Arya for some reason doing a replay of the terrible slasher/horror roles her actress has been lumbered with over the years by hiding from zombies in an old house again.[/spoiler]).  But I enjoyed it so it doesn't matter.

JOE SOAP

#71
Game of Thrones has done better night battles –The Watchers on the Wall– and it was always going to be a challenge shooting/rendering scene after scene of fighting dark, leathery hordes of the undead in pitch blackness, but I suppose the wintry chaos played its part in the brutally unsentimental, silent deaths. I'd liked to have seen the battle graduate to the dawn and seen a bit more as the repetition of dark hacking and slashing shots from Brienne et al. make The Long Night feel a bit of a stretch at 80 minutes – but then again this is still TV and budgets only go so far. A great ending for Arya, though, despite the deadites going down like the Trade Federation's droid army.

The Night King served his purporse in depleting the armies of the North before the end of the story, aka Cersei's plan, and unless there's some other twist involved, taking down the Night king was a good choice and now means it's not quite the same anti-climax – acting purely as an elemental threat with little dynamism he holds nowhere near the meaning of a face-off between the Targaryens and Cersei Lannister.


broodblik

Enjoyed the episode with a satisfactory ending to one of the stories arcs. 
When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

Old age is the Lord's way of telling us to step aside for something new. Death's in case we didn't take the hint.

JayzusB.Christ

Nice to see Melisandre come good in the end.   Now she can get ready to play Medb in the Horned God film.
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

Krakajac

Very much enjoyed it.  It's not often that a TV show can get my heart racing.  My wife was beside herself. :)

I agree with Joe - I would have liked to have seen some of the battle fought after dawn.  Being based entirely in the black of night didn't quite have the same effect as 'Hardhome' and/or 'Battle Of The Bastards' did.  But that's a small quibble.

Would have been kinda cool to see the White Walker 'Generals' get involved in a sword-fight or two - but I guess they had the wights fighting for them.

Love the fact that there's essentially still three more GOT 'movies' to watch over the next three weeks. :)