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GAME OF THRONES


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On 9/7/2022 at 3:35 PM, Positivatee said:

 

Narration by Jim Dale or bust. 

 

Jim Dale is outstanding, his performance in the Harry Potter books were probably the best I've ever heard. But because of that, I just can't picture him doing Game of Thrones. He has such a welcoming, nonthreatening voice & manner which totally suits the Wizarding World but might be a tad friendly for bloody Westeros. ROTFLMAO  

 

Then again, he might bring a bit more variety than Roy Dotrice (RIP), who, God rest is soul, always sounded like an asthmatic who'd just finished chewing gravel, whether he was doing an eighty-year-old man or a ten-year-old girl. When Arya Stark sounds exactly the same as Walder Frey, it might be a good idea to find someone with a bit more range.  Especially given the number of characters in those (very) bloody books.

 

On 9/7/2022 at 8:44 PM, bruce marshall said:

Narrator: John Lee

 

Hmmmmm. You might be on to something here.

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23 minutes ago, Pellaeon said:

Aww, I have to say I love Roy Dotrice’s work to death. Character voices aren’t everything. His narration was absolutely marvelous.

 

Yeah, I might be overstating it a bit. In a way, Dotrice's stark (no pun intended) performance is perfect for Game of Thrones.  Like an old Maester spinning legends of Westeros around a winter campfire. But going forward, I wouldn't mind someone bringing a bit more...variety...to the character's voices.

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I tried to listen to the Fire & Blood audiobook narrated by someone other than Dotrice (who had already passed away), and found it unlistenable. I think GRRM’s phony “historian” affectation that he writes the novel in is partially to blame, but the narrator really does a corny Ren Faire treatment on it.

 

I’ll have to just read the book. Maybe next time I re-read the series, which will be after Winds of Winter is announced.

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3 hours ago, Pellaeon said:

I tried to listen to the Fire & Blood audiobook narrated by someone other than Dotrice (who had already passed away), and found it unlistenable. I think GRRM’s phony “historian” affectation that he writes the novel in is partially to blame, but the narrator really does a corny Ren Faire treatment on it.

 

I’ll have to just read the book. Maybe next time I re-read the series, which will be after Winds of Winter is announced.

 

Yeah Fire and Blood strikes me as something that wouldn't really be a good listen. It's all very encyclopaedic with hardly any narrative flair, and no character outside of the "narrator". It's an interesting read if you're imagining a very biased Maester writing his version of history, but it's fairly dry all the same.

 

Lol any time GRRM announces something about Winds it really just reminds me how remarkable it was that the show was made at all. For all its faults towards the end at least they finished the bugger, and there was still plenty to enjoy in the last few seasons IMO. I often wonder if in another reality where the show never aired he'd currently be writing A Dream of Spring already. I personally think he's a victim of his own success, and the pressure of finishing the series in a satisfactory way has all but killed his ability to write. But it's more likely that we'd be in the same boat; GRRM loves to build worlds but it's clear he doesn't enjoy the labour of actually working a narrative towards an ending.

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7 hours ago, Docteur Qui said:

Lol any time GRRM announces something about Winds it really just reminds me how remarkable it was that the show was made at all. For all its faults towards the end at least they finished the bugger, and there was still plenty to enjoy in the last few seasons IMO. I often wonder if in another reality where the show never aired he'd currently be writing A Dream of Spring already. I personally think he's a victim of his own success, and the pressure of finishing the series in a satisfactory way has all but killed his ability to write. But it's more likely that we'd be in the same boat; GRRM loves to build worlds but it's clear he doesn't enjoy the labour of actually working a narrative towards an ending.

 

That's right. The fact is that GRRM is unable to bring his story to an ending. The way the story has grown, it's literally impossible to finish  it in any decent way in two more books (I can't believe how people who think the final seasons of GOT were rushed can't see this: there were three GOT seasons after season 5, whereas there are only two more books after book 5!)

 

Whether you liked the ending of GOT or not, the truth is that they managed to finish the series. As it is now, GOT has clear first, second and third acts. ASOIAF currently is somewhere towards the middle of the second act, with a huge amount of characters and storylines. It would need at least three or four more books (and many convinient twists) to wrap it all up. 

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6 hours ago, Edmilson said:

Fixed.

The books are an even bigger mess than the show. The show, for all its faults, managed to tell a story with a beginning, middle, and end. That will never happen in the books. 

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12 minutes ago, His Royal Noelness said:

The books are an even bigger mess than the show. The show, for all its faults, managed to tell a story with a beginning, middle, and end. That will never happen in the books. 

 

I guess you're right. Martin created such a huge, sprawling, messy story, it'll be extremely hard to close all the narrative arcs. Which may explain why he seems so uninterested with Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring.

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7 minutes ago, Edmilson said:

 

I guess you're right. Martin created such a huge, sprawling, messy story, it'll be extremely hard to close all the narrative arcs. Which may explain why he seems so uninterested with Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring.


He’s great at creating a story and he’s a terrific world builder but he’s an awful writer. His “I’m a Gardner not an Architect” approach is just an excuse for being a poor author. He had no fucking clue how he was going to get from point A to B and now he’ll never get there because of all the ridiculous detours he took. 

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2 hours ago, His Royal Noelness said:


He’s great at creating a story and he’s a terrific world builder but he’s an awful writer. His “I’m a Gardner not an Architect” approach is just an excuse for being a poor author. He had no fucking clue how he was going to get from point A to B and now he’ll never get there because of all the ridiculous detours he took. 

 

I'm all for the "gardener" approach when done with skill and some sense of architectural craft; look at something like Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul. Television stories, yes, but the writers famously didn't plot out future seasons and only went one at a time. There was an idea of where things needed to be at the end, but entire characters and storylines were developed along the way using this method, creating some of the most compelling storytelling I've ever encountered. Admittedly it's probably easier to reign things in when working collaboratively in television as opposed to writing a novel yourself; GRRM clearly needs more people around him to do the work he's not willing to. I don't think many fans would mind if the books were ghostwritten from this point onwards if it meant actually reaching the end of the story; it's no accident that seasons 1-4 of Thrones were so good - it's because the producers and writers were able to work through all the material and create something compelling and rich. The result of ghostwriters couldn't be much worse than the unwieldy A Feast for Crows which in my mind is the low point of the novels.

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I wouldn't be against GRRM hiring some other writers (or even ghostwriters) to help him finish the books. He clearly doesn't care enough to finish them by himself.

 

Perhaps Hans Zimmer should give Martin some lessons about letting other people do your job for you? :lol:

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3 hours ago, bruce marshall said:

I'm not sure what " I'm a gardner, not architect " means.

Never heard that phrase😳

 

“I think there are two types of writers, the architects and the gardeners. The architects plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house. They know how many rooms are going to be in the house, what kind of roof they're going to have, where the wires are going to run, what kind of plumbing there's going to be. They have the whole thing designed and blueprinted out before they even nail the first board up. The gardeners dig a hole, drop in a seed and water it. They kind of know what seed it is, they know if planted a fantasy seed or mystery seed or whatever. But as the plant comes up and they water it, they don't know how many branches it's going to have, they find out as it grows. And I'm much more a gardener than an architect.” - George R R Martin.

 

From his own mouth:

 

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14 hours ago, Edmilson said:

I wouldn't be against GRRM hiring some other writers (or even ghostwriters) to help him finish the books. He clearly doesn't care enough to finish them by himself.

 

Perhaps Hans Zimmer should give Martin some lessons about letting other people do your job for you? :lol:


I don’t know if anyone can solve the Myreenese knot! And now he’s in an awkward position where he’s original ending hasn’t gone down well. He’s now got to try and fix that. 
 

I think Bran becoming king was always his plan. It’s foreshadowed in the books. Even the very first chapter is from Bran’s POV. I think Dany was always supposed to go mad and be the bad guy. 
 

In saying all that, a couple of extra episodes, Jon killing the Night King, and Arya killing Cersei might have gone a long way towards saving the reputation of the show.

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I don't think the show's reputation needs " saving".

It's a landmark in television history.

Many classic shows ended with supbar last season's..MIAMI VICE, X- FILES, THE WIRE...

They are still considered classics.

Just skip the last season

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29 minutes ago, His Royal Noelness said:

I don’t know if anyone can solve the Myreenese knot! And now he’s in an awkward position where he’s original ending hasn’t gone down well. He’s now got to try and fix that. 

It is actually funny how GRRM complicated the Meereen part of the story so much that now that plot is basically unsolvable! :lol:

 

That's one of the problems with the "gardener" approach. Instead of planning a narrative with clear objectives ("Dany will go to Meereen, do this, this and that and then move on to Westeros"), he let that part of the story become immense and sprawling. No wonder he lost interest in the ASOIAF books.

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4 hours ago, His Royal Noelness said:

I think Bran becoming king was always his plan. It’s foreshadowed in the books. Even the very first chapter is from Bran’s POV.

 

Foreshadowed to be Lord of Winterfell, I’d say.

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1 hour ago, Docteur Qui said:

I've never really agreed with things like Jon killing the Night King and claiming the Iron Throne or Arya getting revenge on Cersei. Part of the point (and appeal) of this series was the subversion of fantasy tropes like the unlikely king, and considering how telegraphed all of those things have been from day 1 it's very much in the spirit of this world for those things to not happen. 

 

For what it's worth I really, really liked that Dany descended into becoming the "villain" of the show. I don't think it was rushed at all; she constantly struggles with violent and egotistical urges but is kept in check by her close allies. When they're all killed and she is rejected by Jon it's not so much "woman go crazy", but more that in her head there's no reason for her to fight the narcissism that has plagued her whole existence. 

Finally, one person with taste and intelligence!

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I am of the mind that it the whole Daenerys descending into madness was not something that happened only in S8. From the beginning on she had this side to her. Throughout the seasons she has had multiple moments where she kinda let's loose, but it's always done in a 'tasteful' sort of way. This wasn't really possible with burning down Kingslanding and it's residents. But it wasn't a surprise really.

She's a Targaryen for god's sake. They are famous for their temper etc.

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8 hours ago, Docteur Qui said:

For what it's worth I really, really liked that Dany descended into becoming the "villain" of the show. I don't think it was rushed at all; she constantly struggles with violent and egotistical urges but is kept in check by her close allies. When they're all killed and she is rejected by Jon it's not so much "woman go crazy", but more that in her head there's no reason for her to fight the narcissism that has plagued her whole existence. 

 

Absolutely. Doesn't change the fact that almost everything else in the final season is a horrible mess.

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What the finale does, all in all, isn't all bad. Many of the individual resolutions are solid, from a macroscopic point of view. But almost all of it so badly handled in the scripts that it really takes a lot of willpower to see it. So the good parts are largely theoretical.

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On 13/5/2019 at 9:17 AM, Alex said:

e. God knows how they’re going to wrap up everything next week, but I’m sure whatever they do will leave a lot of people pissed.

understatement of the millennium

10 hours ago, Docteur Qui said:


I partly agree with you there. Things like Euron Greyjoy (an absolute disaster of a character, show-wise) ambushing the fleet and killing a dragon in minutes were absolutely unforgivable. Bran’s entire arc in the final season was terribly handled; stilted by the writers wanting to wait until the last minute to justify his ascendancy to the throne.
 

That said, much of the final two episodes (especially the penultimate) is really quite good when viewed as a single finale split into climax and denouement. The burning of King’s Landing is shocking and brutal. Cersei dying in absolute terror as the Red Keep collapses on top of her is arguably more poignant than being assassinated by Arya, even if it feels narratively unsatisfying (again, that’s partly the point of it). Jaime dying alongside her is a tragic end for a complicated character. The haunting imagery of the ruined city, covered in equal parts ashes and snow, is beautiful. As I’ve said before, there’s still plenty to enjoy IMO. I understand people’s disappointment (putting it mildly), but it’s a shame that what does work is completely overshadowed by what doesn’t.

 

Ive said this before, but I think the destruction Kings Landing was inspired by the firebombing of Dresden.

In Feb. 1945, with victory over Germany inevitable, the RAF completely destroyed one of the most beautiful cities in Europe.

It had no strategic value.

it was not ' logical'.

One hundred plus thousand civilians died a horrible death

A " civilized" country resorted to the barbarism of its enemy.

 

I also think Danys decision to " break the chains" of the world was inspired by the US.

america entered  World War II to liberate Europe from tyranny.

But, once that noble goal was accomplished did they go home? No, they stayed.

Now, we were going to " defeat" Communism around the world.

What followed were decades of unprovoked wars, slaughter, and the toppling of Democratic regimes.

 

think about the parallel (or, don't.)

 

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Well if you think about it. If Daenerys hadn't burned down The Red Keep & King's Landing, than Jon wouldn't have killed her and there would still be a Queen/King on the Iron Throne that nobody really asked for. Now a king was chosen in a more democratic way. So in a way it does make sense what happenend in the last season

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Right.

Once again the finale relates to US history.

A leader was chosen , not by inherited rights, but by merit.

Not a true democracy but a limited one, like the Founding Fathers created.

The FIRST step to forming a democratic, pluralistic society is rejecting MONARCHY.

That is what the small council did.

Tyrion believed in Dany because he could not imagine a society that wasn't based on inherited power. She seemed the best hope for a leader with compassion and generosity.

Jon.Snow was really the one who rejected the existing system of kings and queens

 

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1 hour ago, bruce marshall said:

Dolby Vision ?

Are they going to crop the image to 2:1?

That would be sacrilege!

 

Dolby Vision has absolutely nothing to do with aspect ratio whatsoever

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Dolby Vision is one of the two competing HDR formats - it's Dolby Vision Vs HDR10.  Most TVs sold now support both, but initially you had to be careful because most manufacturers initially chose one or the other

 

Of course now there's HDR10+ which is better than both...

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1 hour ago, bruce marshall said:

Yes.

It does.

It's a 2:1 aspect ratio format

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_Vision

 

It's not an aspect ratio format. It even has metadata to specify an aspect ratio.

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  • 2 weeks later...

 

On 22/7/2022 at 10:22 PM, Jay said:

Dolby Vision is one of the two competing HDR formats - it's Dolby Vision Vs HDR10.  Most TVs sold now support both, but initially you had to be careful because most manufacturers initially chose one or the other

 

Of course now there's HDR10+ which is better than both...

 

Most (if not all) UHD TV's that don’t "support" Dolby Vision simply display the image as standard HDR10. It's not like you can’t watch a DV film in HDR if your TV doesn’t support it.

 

And I'm not sure I'd describe HDR10+ as "better" than DV. It's a competitor, but I don't think there's any widespread agreement that the picture quality is better than DV. In any event, given how few films use HDR10+, and how few TV's support it, I don't think it's much of an issue at the moment.

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I think HDR10+ is being slowly phased out anyway. Being limited to only one or two brands of TVs didn't do it any good. Out of 230+ 4K Blu-ray films I've got only 3 or four have HDR10+ (one of them being Alien) and one of them has both (The Wizard of Oz).

 

Karol

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On 15/07/2022 at 11:08 AM, Docteur Qui said:


It’s not so much that it doesn’t make sense, it’s just that the show failed to properly set up Bran of all people being nominated the king. As the Stark heir he’s not exactly politically neutral (even if he claims to be) and the council selects him based on the advice of Tyrion, who in the eyes of most of Westeros is a kinslayer who murdered his father (and allegedly his nephew), a traitor, and the trusted adviser of the person who literally just nuked Kings Landing. Bran may be the three-eyed raven, but omnipotent knowledge is arguably as dangerous as a dragon depending on what it’s being used for. There isn’t enough connective tissue to make the choice work which is why it’s such a big gripe for me.

 

 

 

the status quo will last five minutes

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Visited the Studio Tour today in Banbridge Northern Ireland. 
 

Great day out! The staff were great, a lot of them worked as extras on the show which is cool. The Winterfell Great Hall set hasn’t moved an inch since it was first constructed back in the day. 

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1 hour ago, Bilbo said:

Visited the Studio Tour today in Banbridge Northern Ireland. 
 

Great day out! The staff were great, a lot of them worked as extras on the show which is cool. The Winterfell Great Hall set hasn’t moved an inch since it was first constructed back in the day. 

 

Cool! Pics?

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