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Post by blueshift on Feb 24, 2014 19:02:09 GMT
Catching up on series 3 of Game of Thrones. I bought the dvd box set on Saturday, started watching Sunday and now am 2 eps from the end!
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Post by The Doctor on Mar 1, 2014 11:52:25 GMT
Also need to sit done and rewatch Game of Thrones before season 4. Went in to season 3 last year without having rewatched Season 2 and got all confused. Just bought seasons 1-3 of Game of Thrones from Sainsbury's. I've only ever seen the first episode but had a distinct sense I was missing out on something special. Hope I don't regret my purchase! Martin I decided not to watch GOT when I was told what happened to a pregnant woman in one episode and thought: 'nah, don't want to see that'. I'm not a huge fan of Fantasy anyway. -Ralph |
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Post by blueshift on Mar 1, 2014 12:00:11 GMT
Ralph that is a massive spoiler!
Also she wasn't visibly pregnant, if that makes it any better!
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Post by The Doctor on Mar 1, 2014 12:03:11 GMT
I won't watch anything where I am pre-warned there is violence towards women. I just won't watch it.
-Ralph
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Post by blueshift on Mar 1, 2014 12:04:57 GMT
There is violence perpetrated to, and by, everyone. It is a very equal opportunities series.
Also apparently Mark Gatiss is in series 4!
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Post by The Doctor on Mar 1, 2014 12:09:31 GMT
Oh I hear that it is but I will not watch anything with certain types of violence or abuse towards women if I know about it beforehand. I don't care if it is one scene or a major plot issue. The Internet banged on about just one short moment in one episode and that was enough to tell me this series is not for me. In context this particular scene may fit tonally, etc but I don't want to see it.
I watch very little tv so am quite particular about what I put time aside to watch.
-Ralph
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Mar 5, 2014 7:23:30 GMT
Game of Thrones is top television - at least when watched in the condensed box set way. I'm not sure I wouldn't lose patience with it watching it one episode per week, because there are so many plotlines that each individual one only progresses a small amount in each episode. (And then only ten episodes per series and a very long wait until the next series.) It's quite unlike any series I've seen before in that it is 100% ongoing story with no standalone episodes. Because there is no A-plot taking up the majority of an episode, but rather several story arcs all hundreds of miles apart from one another, the episodes blur into one another, except when marked by some memorable event such as dragons kicking ass for justice.
How would I sum it up... like Shakespeare at his bloodiest - Macbeth springs to mind - with fine scripts, dialogue and characters and lots of nudity - but that alone wouldn't sell it to me. (I'm not a big Macbeth fan.) But it also has beautiful settings, from Arabian Nights-type oriental fantasy lands to snowy wildernesses, with Robin Hood-type forests in between, it has magic (though most of the people in the middle lands haven't seen evidence of it yet) and despite all the lust and revenge going on in the middle lands, there are also two more epic conflicts between good and evil building on the periphery - the rangers' battle to keep back the zombies from the north, and the dragon girl's crusade against slavers, child-murderers and rapists in the east - both of which look likely to hit the middle lands soon enough and render their petty wars somewhat redundant. I'm rooting for the dragons!
Edit: Forgot to add, I can't remember when I saw a more brilliant opening credits than the ever-changing Game of Thrones living map fly-through of the world.
Martin
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Post by Benn on Mar 5, 2014 8:52:14 GMT
I too have decided that GoT is not a show I shall be watching, despite the presence of Sean Bean. I'm not really a fan of shows with a high body count where the point seems to be to get you to care about folks just so it'll have "impact" when something horrible happens to them.
Call me crazy if you will, but I don't see the point in spending my limited free time watching something that I know will upset and anger me.
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Post by blueshift on Mar 5, 2014 19:06:09 GMT
Game of Thrones is top television - at least when watched in the condensed box set way. I'm not sure I wouldn't lose patience with it watching it one episode per week, because there are so many plotlines that each individual one only progresses a small amount in each episode. (And then only ten episodes per series and a very long wait until the next series.) It's quite unlike any series I've seen before in that it is 100% ongoing story with no standalone episodes. Because there is no A-plot taking up the majority of an episode, but rather several story arcs all hundreds of miles apart from one another, the episodes blur into one another, except when marked by some memorable event such as dragons kicking ass for justice. How would I sum it up... like Shakespeare at his bloodiest - Macbeth springs to mind - with fine scripts, dialogue and characters and lots of nudity - but that alone wouldn't sell it to me. (I'm not a big Macbeth fan.) But it also has beautiful settings, from Arabian Nights-type oriental fantasy lands to snowy wildernesses, with Robin Hood-type forests in between, it has magic (though most of the people in the middle lands haven't seen evidence of it yet) and despite all the lust and revenge going on in the middle lands, there are also two more epic conflicts between good and evil building on the periphery - the rangers' battle to keep back the zombies from the north, and the dragon girl's crusade against slavers, child-murderers and rapists in the east - both of which look likely to hit the middle lands soon enough and render their petty wars somewhat redundant. I'm rooting for the dragons! Edit: Forgot to add, I can't remember when I saw a more brilliant opening credits than the ever-changing Game of Thrones living map fly-through of the world. Martin Yay. How far have you got, Martin? I see it as the War of the Roses on steroids. |
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Mar 5, 2014 22:27:04 GMT
I'm not really a fan of shows with a high body count where the point seems to be to get you to care about folks just so it'll have "impact" when something horrible happens to them. I hate shows like that, which is why I stayed away from Game of Thrones for so long, until people convinced me that that wasn't what it was about at all - and I'm glad they did. Don't get me wrong, I think it would be better with less blood and deaths, which aren't really my thing, but they aren't enough to put me off the cracking story. None of the major character deaths are random - you can always see the foreshadowing with hindsight, and the new plot directions that the deaths enable for those who remain, which wouldn't have been enabled otherwise. It's really very clever! However, the way the deaths are visualised is gratuitously graphic and I could do without it. Matt - I'm most of the way through season 3. And yes, I do know what happens in the penultimate episode. Thankfully, they aren't among my favourite characters... none of which have been killed off yet, actually, though some of them have been on uncertain ground a few times. Martin |
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Post by blueshift on Mar 5, 2014 22:53:08 GMT
Yeah its not mean-spirited with its violence. I hate shows like that too. Pretty much every character who comes to a sticky end does so out of their own hubris. Also some of the best character work I've ever seen; by around season 2 it becomes really easy to legitimately sympathise with pretty much every character (who isn't Joffrey) even if they are initially a bit of a black hearted villain
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Mar 5, 2014 22:54:53 GMT
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Post by blueshift on Mar 5, 2014 22:59:55 GMT
I am secretly rooting for Stannis |
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Mar 5, 2014 23:14:50 GMT
I am secretly rooting for Stannis Not so secret now, Matt! Having said all the above in favour of Game of Thrones, I can see how the violence may make it impossible for some folks to enjoy, as equivalent (but different) unpleasant things prevent me from enjoying certain other series (e.g. treatment of Earth in RG1). It's actually amazing the number of things that we'd all find completely repellent in real life but which we can accept as part of fiction that we enjoy, from murder mysteries and western shootouts to alien invasions... Martin |
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Post by blueshift on Mar 5, 2014 23:18:06 GMT
I am secretly rooting for Stannis Not so secret now, Matt! Having said all the above in favour of Game of Thrones, I can see how the violence may make it impossible for some folks to enjoy, as equivalent (but different) unpleasant things prevent me from enjoying certain other series (e.g. treatment of Earth in RG1). It's actually amazing the number of things that we'd all find completely repellent in real life but which we can accept as part of fiction that we enjoy, from murder mysteries and western shootouts to alien invasions... Martin Honestly, I find the gratuitous sex scenes far far more off-putting than the violence, though thankfully they tone it down a lot after series 1 |
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Post by Bogatan on Mar 6, 2014 12:46:35 GMT
Even Joffrey is kind of.... well no he's vile, but it's also pretty clear he has been badly failed by all his parental figures, his Mother literally lets him get away with murder, his father seemingly has no interest in him and his "uncle" doesn't seem that involved either. Tyrion might have been a positive influence but Joffrey has clearly adopted his mothers dislike for him and Tywin has left it far too late. I doubt he would ever have been a nice guy, but he could have been better than he is. Still his poor up bringing does result in the single most rewarding slap in television history. |
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Mar 9, 2014 8:05:07 GMT
Actually, Daenerys' brother in season 1 and the guy who has spent several episodes torturing that other guy are also pretty much all bad.
I had steeled myself against episode 3.9, but wasn't prepared for how uplifting and feel-good a note season 3 went out on. Such a contrast between the silent end credits of 3.9 and the inspiring music over the 3.10 end credits. The stuff across the sea really does feel like it's a different series from the rest. I wish there was an easy way to re-watch all of those scenes back-to-back like a movie without cutting to Westeros at all.
Martin
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Post by blueshift on Mar 9, 2014 8:34:34 GMT
Actually, Daenerys' brother in season 1 He was the bad guy from the Doctor Who story Human Nature/Family of Blood. It took ages to twig as he has different colour hair in this! and the guy who has spent several episodes torturing that other guy are also pretty much all bad. Yes but if anyone deserved spending several episodes being tortured, its him! |
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Post by Philip Ayres on Mar 9, 2014 11:30:29 GMT
Actually, Daenerys' brother in season 1 He was the bad guy from the Doctor Who story Human Nature/Family of Blood. It took ages to twig as he has different colour hair in this! |
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Post by legios on Mar 9, 2014 20:48:03 GMT
"Game of Thrones" is an oddity - it is really one of the few works of deconstruction that has interested me in recent years. I'll admit to using the television show as an alternative to actually sitting down and reading "A Song of Fire and Ice", mostly due to the fact that my tolerance for large volumes which barely move a series plot onwards has been sorely tested in recent years ("Yes Weber, I'm talking about you. Either shoot or get off the plot"). It is one of those shows that has almost lost me on several ocassions over the course of the first two seasons, but I have tended to remain with the show because of one or two characters and associated actors.
I get that the original intent was to start with a gritty, muddy, middle-ages with murky politics and murkier hygiene, and to slowly let that collide with the standard fantasy tropes to see what that does to those standard "bits", and some of the time I like that idea - having magic actually be a sinister and worrying force does give it a much more interesting flavour than most fantasy settings which often seem to have mechanically recovered D&D parts in the ingredients list - other times I do think that it errs a little too much on the bleak side. I can see why it is beyond the pale for some folks, it is perhaps a little darker than I like my fantasy to be honest.
In a complete change or genre - I finished Season Three of "Nikita" this evening. Hmmm... With apologies to Melinda Clarke, the show never really feels it recovers from the lack of Xander Berkley. His character, Percy, was just on the right side (i.e slightly over the line) of larger than life that he carried a large chunk of the first and second seasons, and Melinda Clarke's character is just too "small" in her ambitions to really live up to that. Which is a shame, because when the show puts its mind to it they can deliver some really good super-spy stuff - the writing team know how to do intrique and they have a top-notch fight-team working on the show (although even they aren't quite up to working out how to choreagraph a gunfight against superior numbers which doesn't require a large chunk of the enemies to demonstrate the tactical sense of a rice pudding, but they are much better once they get it down to even numbers). I'll still give the fourth and final season a go in due course, but I do think that they reached a point of "where now" at the end of Season Two which they never quite recover from (interesting, considering that the end of Season Two was thematically quite similar to the overall end-game of the previous "Nikita" television series. Perhaps they are actually bumping up against the edges of the concept where it backs on to the rest of the super-spy genre).
Karl
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Post by Andy Turnbull on Mar 17, 2014 10:24:48 GMT
I started to watch Game of Thrones but never got past the first series. Not because it was bad just issues of free time amongst other things. I keep meaning to grab the blu rays and just sit and catch up.
One thing I have been watching is True Detective starring Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaghey. Gripping stuff. At the halfway point now. Eight eps in total as it's an HBO show.
Andy
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Post by Toph on Mar 18, 2014 17:35:02 GMT
I got to watch the first season in marathon a couple months ago when DirecTV unlocked HBO for a promotional weekend.
To be quite frank, I found the series to be extremely bland and tiresom, filled with unlikable characters.
The only ones i genuinely liked were Boromir, boromir's youngest daughter, the white haired princess who's brother sold her as a sex slave yet she turned herself into a queen, and the "dwarf." (I call him that as he's called that in the fiction)
The rest of them, even the ones that I tended to not mind, I really couldn't care less about their fate. I just couldn't find any reason to emotionally invest in the series to bother watching any more of it.
All it really boils down to, is everyone standing around talking about betraying everyone else. Except Boromir, who said "dudes, we got better things to do." To which they promptly betrayed him.
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Hero
Fusilateral Quintro Combiner
King of RULES!
Everything Rules
Posts: 7,500
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Post by Hero on Mar 18, 2014 23:06:31 GMT
I rewatched the first episode via Sky on Demand yesterday to give this show another chance. Truth be told I didn't get past the first 10-15 minutes the first time it was on. I find some of the themes are off-putting, but as Martin said - there is a cracking story there and I guess that is why I want to like this show.
I will casually try and catch up in time.
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Post by blueshift on Mar 18, 2014 23:33:27 GMT
I rewatched the first episode via Sky on Demand yesterday to give this show another chance. Truth be told I didn't get past the first 10-15 minutes the first time it was on. I find some of the themes are off-putting, but as Martin said - there is a cracking story there and I guess that is why I want to like this show. I will casually try and catch up in time. I found the first ep a bit of a struggle due to all the characters being introduced at once, but after 2 eps I found it unstoppable viewing. |
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Post by Grand Moff Muffin on Mar 19, 2014 19:28:45 GMT
The only ones i genuinely liked were Boromir, boromir's youngest daughter, the white haired princess who's brother sold her as a sex slave yet she turned herself into a queen, and the "dwarf." Those are the main ones from season 1 to attach yourself to. The latter three are in it for the long term - Boromir sadly had to cop it to enable the story arcs of all the other characters, particularly his younger children (who almost fill Hobbit-like roles in the cast relative to the big people), to develop. He'd have constrained a lot of the storylines had he remained. I was always going to watch all three seasons because I had the box set, but had I only bought season 1, I might not have gone on to buy season 2 had it not ended the way it did. The hatching of the dragons guaranteed my coming back for more, and the key dragon moments from then on have been one high point after another. But the story arcs of many other characters have also made it worthwhile. It's just the Jon Snow stuff I find really dull and could do without... though I do like what Sam has become. Martin |
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Post by blueshift on Mar 19, 2014 19:34:22 GMT
Psst Martin dont put spoilers in this thread, there are several people who have said they havn't watched it/have only started watching it!
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Rich
Protoform
Posts: 880
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Post by Rich on Mar 19, 2014 19:53:20 GMT
I had the good fortune to pick up the first book completely innocently several years ago. I wanted a fantasy book to read and it was to hand and after I'd burned through it, there were 3 more to read and I didn't have to wait, unlike the readers who were there at the very start. The tv show is currently at the high point of the books, the last two of which were a relative disappointment.
The tv show has been great. I was eagerly anticipating it from the moment it was announced, but also filled with trepidation, but it's been fantastic. I'd just like more direwolves, and as the budget has clearly gone up again, I might just get them.
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Post by Toph on Mar 19, 2014 19:56:59 GMT
Dire wolves that are dire wolves, and not grey wolves pretending to be dire wolves, would be really cool.
The Dire wolves in season one were MASSIVE disappointments.
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Post by blueshift on Mar 19, 2014 20:02:54 GMT
I had the good fortune to pick up the first book completely innocently several years ago. I wanted a fantasy book to read and it was to hand and after I'd burned through it, there were 3 more to read and I didn't have to wait, unlike the readers who were there at the very start. The tv show is currently at the high point of the books, the last two of which were a relative disappointment. The tv show has been great. I was eagerly anticipating it from the moment it was announced, but also filled with trepidation, but it's been fantastic. I'd just like more direwolves, and as the budget has clearly gone up again, I might just get them. I was more disappointed with book 4 than book 5, though most of those sentiments are down to pacing issues and the sudden influx of new characters, both things I am sure the tv series will handle far better (and I'm sure they'll merge books 4 and 5 which will alleviate most complaints.) |
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Post by Bogatan on Mar 19, 2014 20:46:46 GMT
When my flatmate moved to Canada I adopted her book collection for a couple of years and the first 3 or 4 books were amongst them and after a year or two I picked the first one up and gave it a read and was kept busy for a few months. I bought a book right after but after that I've been driven nuts waiting for the next. Mainly because its bloody impossible to remember exactly who was doing what without rereading the whole thing.
So I can never remember which book is which, especially as the UK split one of them. I can't remember which I felt were weakest. I know one was less interesting because that was down to the books only featuring half the characters and the later books felt as though they had ground to a halt in places.
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