Television Game of Thrones (TV) • The watch has ended

Matt Varnish

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I binged watched it over a week after getting Sky.
I gotta say I wasn't impressed, Lord of the Rings it is not, terrible story lines, massive plot holes and poor characters, I reckon Sean Bean asked to be killed off.
George Martin, the producers and directors need serious mental therapy if they consider some of that entertainment.
 

JuveGER

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ShoePolish said:
I remember thinking how the feck are they going to deal with the walkers and Kings Landing within 6 episodes when it was announced it is going to be 6 eps long.
They then proceeded to pretty much waste the first 2 episodes on what i considered drivel.
It's not just the Dumb & Dumbers fault, feck HBO for making them wrap up the show in such short amount of episodes.
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D&D wanted to wrap it up, because they were done with it and wanted to move on. HBO wanted more seasons (obviously, it was their flagship show).
 

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ShoePolish said:
I remember thinking how the feck are they going to deal with the walkers and Kings Landing within 6 episodes when it was announced it is going to be 6 eps long.
They then proceeded to pretty much waste the first 2 episodes on what i considered drivel.
It's not just the Dumb & Dumbers fault, feck HBO for making them wrap up the show in such short amount of episodes.
Click to expand...
HBO wanted several more seasons. D&D were the reason why the show ended so abruptly as they wanted to do their Star Wars project (which got cancelled after the GoT debacle).
 

Matt Varnish

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ShoePolish said:
I remember thinking how the feck are they going to deal with the walkers and Kings Landing within 6 episodes when it was announced it is going to be 6 eps long.
They then proceeded to pretty much waste the first 2 episodes on what i considered drivel.
It's not just the Dumb & Dumbers fault, feck HBO for making them wrap up the show in such short amount of episodes.
Click to expand...
Can someone explain to me how a dragon resurrected turns into a dragon that spews ice, manages to make a hole in a wall made of ice ?
You go through a whole programme of the walkers killing everything in their path, only for a diminutive female to appear from nowhere, perform acrobatics like an Olympic gymnast and defeat the whole arm with possibly the smallest piece of "dragonglass" she could find ?
Not exactly "The Ride Of The Rohirrim"
 

ShoePolish

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JuveGER said:
D&D wanted to wrap it up, because they were done with it and wanted to move on. HBO wanted more seasons (obviously, it was their flagship show).
Click to expand...
Oh wow, I was living a lie. I was sure i saw reports at the time saying HBO want to wrap it up asap, guess i owe them an apology.
 

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Matt Varnish said:
Can someone explain to me how a dragon resurrected turns into a dragon that spews ice, manages to make a hole in a wall made of ice ?
You go through a whole programme of the walkers killing everything in their path, only for a diminutive female to appear from nowhere, perform acrobatics like an Olympic gymnast and defeat the whole arm with possibly the smallest piece of "dragonglass" she could find ?
Not exactly "The Ride Of The Rohirrim"
Click to expand...
They completely fecked it. All that build up to the White Walkers and Night King and it seemed like they gave them 20 seconds.
 

2cents

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It’s mostly George R. R. Martin’s fault.
 

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Matt Varnish said:
Can someone explain to me how a dragon resurrected turns into a dragon that spews ice, manages to make a hole in a wall made of ice ?
You go through a whole programme of the walkers killing everything in their path, only for a diminutive female to appear from nowhere, perform acrobatics like an Olympic gymnast and defeat the whole arm with possibly the smallest piece of "dragonglass" she could find ?
Not exactly "The Ride Of The Rohirrim"
Click to expand...
Magic. The wall was made by it which is why it stopped the White Walkers from crossing it. No dead can cross which is why half dead Uncle Benjen (???) didn't escort Bran south.

I think I read a while back that Ice Fire is more powerful than regular fire hence why it was able to destroy the wall. Anything involving magic requires a bit of a leap of faith.

The rest of their storyline from that moment onwards was awful writing though. In part I imagine due to them needing to end the show as quickly as possible. Along with D&D being shite. Shame given the huge buildup for that story to end that way. Sigh.
 

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Matt Varnish said:
I binged watched it over a week after getting Sky.
I gotta say I wasn't impressed, Lord of the Rings it is not, terrible story lines, massive plot holes and poor characters, I reckon Sean Bean asked to be killed off.
George Martin, the producers and directors need serious mental therapy if they consider some of that entertainment.
Click to expand...
You joking? You know there’s a book series and that his character dies in the first book, right?
 

2cents

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RedSky said:
I agree with this. Doesn't want to finish GoT so keeps getting involved in other projects. When was the last book released? Feels like 15 years ago.
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13 years.
 

Matt Varnish

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Eriku said:
You joking? You know there’s a book series and that his character dies in the first book, right?
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I realise there's a series of books it is adapted from, I just assumed from the terrible acting that Sean Bean asked to be written out early
 

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Matt Varnish said:
I realise there's a series of books it is adapted from, I just assumed from the terrible acting that Sean Bean asked to be written out early
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Interesting. The general consensus is that the first few seasons were cracking. Anyway, Sean Bean went out pretty much when he was supposed to, going by the pacing of the books.
 

Mike Smalling

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Matt Varnish said:
I realise there's a series of books it is adapted from, I just assumed from the terrible acting that Sean Bean asked to be written out early
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The first season is really faithful to the books, and from there on it slowly begins moving away from them. By season 5 they start inventing entirely new storylines for no reason, and season 6 is the first that really delves into what happens after the currently published books.
 

Matt Varnish

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RedSky said:
Magic. The wall was made by it which is why it stopped the White Walkers from crossing it. No dead can cross which is why half dead Uncle Benjen (???) didn't escort Bran south.

I think I read a while back that Ice Fire is more powerful than regular fire hence why it was able to destroy the wall. Anything involving magic requires a bit of a leap of faith.

The rest of their storyline from that moment onwards was awful writing though. In part I imagine due to them needing to end the show as quickly as possible. Along with D&D being shite. Shame given the huge buildup for that story to end that way. Sigh.
Click to expand...
Ah I must have missed the bit about the wall being built by magic, should I re-watch it to find that snippet of information.
Ice fire, that's a new one, it all makes perfect sense now.

NB: Hereford FC on Soccer Manager, me too, originally from Ross on Wye, I was there when Ronny scored "that goal"
 

Matt Varnish

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Eriku said:
Interesting. The general consensus is that the first few seasons were cracking. Anyway, Sean Bean went out pretty much when he was supposed to, going by the pacing of the books.
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I just got the feeling that as the series progressed and "fans" got hooked, the better seasoned actors were gradually written out.
Not having read the books, I had no preconceived ideas about the show, only hearsay from friends.
 

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RedSky said:
HBO wanted several more seasons. D&D were the reason why the show ended so abruptly as they wanted to do their Star Wars project (which got cancelled after the GoT debacle).
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I thoroughly enjoyed the comeuppance they had losing Star Wars. Completely unprofessional finish to GoT and the irony was delicious.
 

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Matt Varnish said:
Ah I must have missed the bit about the wall being built by magic, should I re-watch it to find that snippet of information.
Ice fire, that's a new one, it all makes perfect sense now.
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The real answer is that this stuff isn't explained in the show, and it hasn't happened in the books yet. But yeah, the dragons are magic and the white walkers are magic, so an undead zombie dragon obviously also has some magic to it. And I don't think it's ever shown to be ice that it's spewing - it looks more like blue fire.
 

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Matt Varnish said:
Can someone explain to me how a dragon resurrected turns into a dragon that spews ice, manages to make a hole in a wall made of ice ?
Click to expand...
The plot point that the Night King and the white walkers were able to produce a giant, probably kilometres long iron chain, and have it attached to a dragon in the bottom of a frozen lake in the span of a few days, with no means of production whatsoever, still lives rent free in my head.
 

Matt Varnish

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Eplel said:
The plot point that the Night King and the white walkers were able to produce a giant, probably kilometres long iron chain, and have it attached to a dragon in the bottom of a frozen lake in the span of a few days, with no means of production whatsoever, still lives rent free in my head.
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I was coming to that bit.
 

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Eplel said:
The plot point that the Night King and the white walkers were able to produce a giant, probably kilometres long iron chain, and have it attached to a dragon in the bottom of a frozen lake in the span of a few days, with no means of production whatsoever, still lives rent free in my head.
Click to expand...
This was so incredibly stupid. Especially because they had previously showed us that the Night King dude can turn corpses into wights by simply raising his hands. He didn't have to touch them previously. So they could have had a cool scene where he does that next to the lake and then the dragon busts through the ice.
 

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Matt Varnish said:
Ah I must have missed the bit about the wall being built by magic, should I re-watch it to find that snippet of information.
Ice fire, that's a new one, it all makes perfect sense now.

NB: Hereford FC on Soccer Manager, me too, originally from Ross on Wye, I was there when Ronny scored "that goal"
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I live just north of Hereford, my local team.

I think the magic bit was mentioned by Benjen when he meets up with Merra (sp) and Bran. Bran the Builder built the wall hundreds/thousands of years ago and used magic on the foundations or some bullshit. I remember it being a thing as there was discussion on how the white walkers would get past it. Some suggested they'd freeze the ocean and walk round it.
 

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Anyway, what "made" the show was the (geo)political intrigue, the mind games, the clever and calculated characters and the mystery.
By the end of season 4 most of that was dead in favour for the magic and the hamfisted plot points, the intriguing characters were mostly killed off in favour of the boring mary sues, and I could no longer pretend it was even a serviceable show beyond season 5.
 

Mike Smalling

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To be fair, there is some really rough acting even in season 1, but mostly from the kids and the minor characters.

 

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Matt Varnish said:
I binged watched it over a week after getting Sky.
I gotta say I wasn't impressed, Lord of the Rings it is not, terrible story lines, massive plot holes and poor characters, I reckon Sean Bean asked to be killed off.
George Martin, the producers and directors need serious mental therapy if they consider some of that entertainment.
Click to expand...
I assume you mean the first Season? I don't think it's even possible to watch the entire show over a week. It's too long surely?
 

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Haven't watch the show for ages, but wasn't the magic aspect mentioned when Bran was learning with the three eyed raven and got touched by the Night King in one of his visions. Allowing the Night King to enter that safe place and also with Bran crossing the wall weakening that magic too?
 

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Mike Smalling said:
It happened a lot earlier than that. I'd say after Season 4 there was nothing special about it besides the budget. By then it was living off the name of the first seasons, which were excellent. There were still some good set pieces and exciting scenes, but the clever writing was gone. It was just that the wheels fully came off in the last two seasons, so that even casual fans could see it was pure nonsense.

I can't think of a show that reached a similar high in terms of cultural impact, and then fell into complete obscurity after it ended.
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S5 defo had some strange stuff. Also Arya being stabbed multiple times, jumping into water then out running terminator lady was something.
Also the whole dorne stuff was boring. But S6 I thought hold the door was good, and the last two episodes were brilliant to watch. Of course mostly action but thought S6 final episode was done so well. I think S6 is when I started watching it on sky Atlantic 'live' at 2am
 

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Matt Varnish said:
Can someone explain to me how a dragon resurrected turns into a dragon that spews ice, manages to make a hole in a wall made of ice ?
You go through a whole programme of the walkers killing everything in their path, only for a diminutive female to appear from nowhere, perform acrobatics like an Olympic gymnast and defeat the whole arm with possibly the smallest piece of "dragonglass" she could find ?
Not exactly "The Ride Of The Rohirrim"
Click to expand...
Because D&D were probably told that the books will end with;

1) the wall being destroyed/the white walkers invading the North
2) the Night King (Night's King) gets an undead big burny seagull to fly around on
3) Jon Snow, as the Prince Who Was Promised, fights and kills the Night King

But because the source material isn't written yet, D&D are too fecking thick to come up with their own ways to get to points 1 and 2, we ended up with the shite we got. And with point 3 they wanted to, in their own words, "subvert expectations" because their favourite moment in the books is the Red Wedding and they loved it for all the wrong reasons. Rather than "actions have consequences" they thought it was just "shocking".

As an additional note - the show became a parody of itself, desperately trying to recapture the shock value of the Red Wedding, or the Viper and the Mountain, or the mess they made of the book's Dorne plot, so that dickheads standing in a bar could post reaction videos on YouTube. It was rife with these videos and D&D knew it made the show more popular, but it was a joke - certainly a joke that was funnier than the multiple ones about Varys having no cock Iol.
 

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Eplel said:
The plot point that the Night King and the white walkers were able to produce a giant, probably kilometres long iron chain, and have it attached to a dragon in the bottom of a frozen lake in the span of a few days, with no means of production whatsoever, still lives rent free in my head.
Click to expand...
Just to add to your pain - the chain isn't tight so how are they able to pull the dragon out of the lake anyway?

 

Eplel

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Mr Pigeon said:
Just to add to your pain - the chain isn't tight so how are they able to pull the dragon out of the lake anyway?

Click to expand...

I wonder what the hierarchy system is? Why are some people just standing there and not helping with the chains? Are they from HR?
 
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