Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Lid
Feb 18, 2005

And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

oliwan posted:

the ending of Lost was just absolutely painful, the fact that these hacks were allowed to write anything at all after that is a goddamn travesty

Yes how dare they make *checks notes* Fringe and The Leftovers

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

mastershakeman
Oct 28, 2008

by vyelkin

Horizon Burning posted:

BSG was at its best when it was doing a sci-fi story about preserving humanity in the face of nuclear apocalypse.

It was at its worst whenever it decided it had to be topical about 9/11 and Iraq War stuff. The exception to this is the New Caprica arc. However, for the most part whenever they tried to draw a parallel between Cylons and Muslims, it led to the most hackneyed, offensive stuff written. The Cylons literally Direct Democracied the Colonies into nuclear hellscapes - that's not exactly what happened on 9/11! And how the people who were opposed to the Cylons buddying up with Galactica in the later seasons were all portrayed as weird racists.

you gotta admit that a nearly extinct humanity suicide bombing to try to break free from their robot overlords and quisling traitors was a phenomenal idea

but yeah game of thrones there's just nothing to say. a huge portion of people were ok with season 7 and 8 because they thought it was leading to something and it turned out that no, it absolutely wasn't.
every single person telling jon that the white walkers couldnt pass the wall were completely correct until he brought them a dragon. i guess dany losing one there like an idiot foreshadowed her losing another one later like an idiot . just season on season of 'ok now this happens' with no foundation for it, best to forget it ever happened and only pretend the books exist

mastershakeman fucked around with this message at 21:18 on Jun 16, 2020

bobjr
Oct 16, 2012

Roose is loose.
🐓🐓🐓✊🪧

Lost had a few characters get dui’s or want to leave, so I do wonder how much that changed any character arcs or plot points along the way.

Game of Thrones only had a few actors leave, and outside of Daario still doing nothing and the Mountain looking different every few years it didn’t seem to really happen there.

Lid
Feb 18, 2005

And the mercy seat is awaiting,
And I think my head is burning,
And in a way I'm yearning,
To be done with all this measuring of proof.
An eye for an eye
And a tooth for a tooth,
And anyway I told the truth,
And I'm not afraid to die.

bobjr posted:

Lost had a few characters get dui’s or want to leave, so I do wonder how much that changed any character arcs or plot points along the way.

Game of Thrones only had a few actors leave, and outside of Daario still doing nothing and the Mountain looking different every few years it didn’t seem to really happen there.

When the people on Lost got a DUI they had them shot in the head.

Bip Roberts
Mar 29, 2005
But seriously why doesn't grrm just get some sw:ew writer to put down a novelization of season 5-8 and call it a day.

Vichan
Oct 1, 2014

I'LL PUNISH YOU ACCORDING TO YOUR CRIME

mastershakeman posted:

but yeah game of thrones there's just nothing to say. a huge portion of people were OK with season 7 and 8 because they thought it was leading to something and it turned out that no, it absolutely wasn't.

When I poked fun of people on Reddit thinking up elaborate theories on how the battle of Winterfell was going to turn out only for people to tell me that I was a book purist who just wanted to hate the show. The amount of smug vindication I got afterwards will probably never be paralleled.

This is pretty apt in hindsight:

https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/bihqqa/yet_another_tactical_analysis_of_the_upcoming/

I will say this; they put way more effort into it than the show-runners ever did.

Mat Cauthon
Jan 2, 2006

The more tragic things get,
the more I feel like laughing.



oliwan posted:

i remember that abrams or lindelof replied to the criticism about how the mythical elements of the show were handled with something like "actually, it was always a love story about humans and the mythical world was just a backdrop and unimportant :smuggo:" which is the worst thing i have ever heard a screenwriter say.

I mean that's consistent for both of them and it definitely explains a lot of what they've done since. Lindelof seems to have improved somewhat if all the people I see raving about Leftovers and Watchmen can be trusted at all. Abrams...no redemption for that guy, although he did direct the MI movie with the best villain.

Algol Star posted:

I hate the mystery box style of TV storytelling it's so cheap. The whole reason people get invested in a mystery is that you believe there's some cleverly hidden truth just under the surface that will explain everything but 99% of the time the writers don't even know and there's a 'worry about it next season just give them a hook to keep watching' philosophy. Unless you get really lucky there's no way they can come up with a satisfying explanation when nothing was planned, it's hard to write a mystery and tease the answers but it's easy to just put in a bunch of cool mysterious events with no rules and then bullshit out an explanation after the fact. Makes it so hard to get invested in any TV show when you know there's a good chance they're just pulling it out of their rear end.

IMO True Detective S1 did this exactly right - take a normal cop story, drop some hints in there around weird eldritch stuff plus evil human tendencies taken to the extreme, make one protagonist an unreliable possibly psychotic narrator, and then at the end it's just a really shady pedo ring run by rich guys who will probably never get caught but the characters get some personal resolution.

I attribute 90% of that to it being a one season plotline and Fukunaga making it work while being smart enough to not come back and try to top it.

zenguitarman
Apr 6, 2009

Come on, lemme see ya shake your tail feather


God, True Detective S1 is so loving good, it has to be Top 3 TV for me. The supernatural element, if you can even call it that, is so perfectly explained, but you still get a hint of something that is bigger than us, almost No Country For Old Men like.

Lid posted:

When the people on Lost got a DUI they had them shot in the head.

Mr. Eko was the best character on the show, dammit.

Darko
Dec 23, 2004

Pedro De Heredia posted:

The ending of Lost had a mixed response at the time; it certainly got a lot of good reviews and positive comments on this very website. It's only retroactively that the whinier elements of online discourse have insisted it's the worst thing ever.

I'd say it's similar with GoT in that a lot of over-the-top hatred for the ending itself is a delayed reaction to the weak quality of the last seasons. Lost has more or less single-season plotlines even though it's a serial, and the one for S6 just wasn't very good.

Realize, too that a literal half of the people complaining about the ending think the island was purgatory or some ridiculous thing that didn't exist and was spelled out otherwise in text of the show.

The show had huge issues like not having a plan for half of it, but it did end up going to an actual ending that made sense for the second half when they decided for one at least. Whatever people envisioned with the first half was different, though, since there were lots who thought they weren't making it up as they go.

Phenotype
Jul 24, 2007

You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance.



The issue I had with LOST was that you never got much more than a cursory explanation of what the island was. It's just kind of a magic island that sometimes merges into our reality, and a there's a vaguely-defined struggle between good and evil that takes place there. And the cast of the show is just there because of destiny or the pull of the vaguely-defined good and/or evil guy on the island. I suppose they never really could have explained it better than that, but it seemed like a letdown at the time.

And the last few seasons were likewise kind of anticlimactic -- you found out more about the mysterious Dharma Corporation but it turns out they were just a bunch of hippies and scientists who didn't know what the gently caress the island was either, and then you even got to see the backstory for the leader of the Others, and it turns out they were just a bunch of castaways and shipwrecks and even THEY didn't really know what the gently caress the island was.


But, again, I'm not really sure what they could have done that would have been more satisfying, in retrospect.

Mulva
Sep 13, 2011
It's about time for my once per decade ban for being a consistently terrible poster.
It's the nexus of all life. Don't need much more than that.The only conflict is that the Man in Black really, really wants to leave the island, but his rear end in a top hat brother Jacob tied him to it for eternity [He didn't mean to, he's just a loser gently caress up]. Because of this the only way he can leave the island is to sort of, you know, threaten the fabric of existence. It's not even like he did anything particularly wrong during his mortal life other than.....try to leave the island, and kill a crazy woman that slaughtered a bunch of innocent people. And he's not so much evil as he is totally jaded about the value of human existence. Really the plot of Lost is that Jacob is a loving moron, and his brother is kind of a sadistic rear end in a top hat. Also literally every single person that has ever come to the island had a real real bad time of it.

I don't black bar any of that because it highlights an interesting point: This is the central conflict of the entire run of Lost, but it also has basically zero relevance on any part of Lost you will watch.

Mat Cauthon
Jan 2, 2006

The more tragic things get,
the more I feel like laughing.



zenguitarman posted:

God, True Detective S1 is so loving good, it has to be Top 3 TV for me. The supernatural element, if you can even call it that, is so perfectly explained, but you still get a hint of something that is bigger than us, almost No Country For Old Men like.


Mr. Eko was the best character on the show, dammit.

Yeah I loved that TD left it just ambiguous enough to go either way. Just that subtle creeping feeling that there's something going on out of sight and you can't be sure if it's better to know or just leave it alone.

I thought Eko's actorleft because his parents died, not because of island shenanigans? He really was great though, I feel like whatever the plot for that character was having to get dropped really threw a wrench into things.

Pedro De Heredia
May 30, 2006

Phenotype posted:

It's not even that hard, man. Here's my two-minute spitball idea: The Others were secretive and religious, tentative friends with the First Men until the men committed some tragedy against them borne out of misunderstanding because the Others are so alien and weird -- maybe Others grow into trees when they die and the men burned their bodies in a funeral pyre, maybe when humans sow seeds in their land it cripples their magic and aborts their children, I dunno, give it a little bit of brainstorming and you can come up with something interesting. The Lord Commander of the Night's Watch and the Night King make a truce to avoid outright war (maybe they're loving like in that one horrible fanart), and the humans retreat beyond the wall vowing never to come back, until thousands of years later when they've forgotten and they push the wildlings north and the wildlings accidentally commit the same tragedy.

Then you've got a link between Jon and the Night King, tragic mysterious backstory, humans are at fault but they still don't want to be genocided, etc. It's not super original or subversive, but I'm sure you can punch it up quite a bit if you have people paying you millions of dollars to work on it fulltime, and there's a story you can put there. The Night King blames Jon for breaking the deal, maybe he doesn't exactly understand that Jon isn't the same Lord Commander because the Others are so weird and timeless, there's a lot of guilt there once you find out why the Others are attacking, the humans win by genociding the Others even though they're to blame for the war. It's a fuckton better than what we got and it took me all of five minutes to come up with.

This idea you've spitballed in two minutes is not any better than what the show gave us. The reason is because the idea does not matter. What matters is the storytelling. And the storytelling is this: for five novels (and five seasons of a television show) the Others are a practically non-existent presence. Meanwhile, you have been given dozens of characters, and multiple centers of power, all of which have to be resolved. The book series is meant to be seven books. We are still waiting for book six and the main characters (Jon, Tyrion, Daenerys) haven't even met yet. There isn't enough to tell any kind of real story about the Others. There aren't enough words. There isn't any space in the narrative to do any kind of real development. It's taken by the other dozen things that are going on.

But let's assume that there was space and time to explore this idea. In that case, you'd be introducing a narrative about how 'actually, humans are at fault,' and resolve it by saying 'the humans win by genociding the Others even though they're to blame for the war.' What you'd be doing is taking a canvas that is already covered in shades of grey, and throwing yet another shade of grey at it. What you end up with is a big blob of paint where you can no longer tell anything apart anymore. Stories need contrasts. The story is already telling you that men are flawed and bad (that's what the whole 'war for the throne' thing is about; we know the ending of the conquest part of the story is tragic), the 'world-ending crisis' story with the Others is meant to be a contrast to that. It's supposed to highlight different aspects of humanity. If it were all supposed to hit the same note, then why bother doing both plotlines?

Pedro De Heredia fucked around with this message at 09:24 on Jun 17, 2020

Pedro De Heredia
May 30, 2006

quote:

And the last few seasons were likewise kind of anticlimactic -- you found out more about the mysterious Dharma Corporation but it turns out they were just a bunch of hippies and scientists who didn't know what the gently caress the island was either, and then you even got to see the backstory for the leader of the Others, and it turns out they were just a bunch of castaways and shipwrecks and even THEY didn't really know what the gently caress the island was.

I think this is the key problem with Lost. The narrative is always telling you "that thing you cared about for a while? does not matter and/or was a deception." It does not work well with the message of "gotta have faith." Faith in what, the show that constantly lies to you?

Pedro De Heredia fucked around with this message at 08:45 on Jun 17, 2020

Stefan Prodan
Jan 7, 2002

I deeply respect you as a human being... Some day I'm gonna make you *Mrs* Buck Turgidson!


Grimey Drawer

oliwan posted:

i remember that abrams or lindelof replied to the criticism about how the mythical elements of the show were handled with something like "actually, it was always a love story about humans and the mythical world was just a backdrop and unimportant :smuggo:" which is the worst thing i have ever heard a screenwriter say.

Weirdly this was the case for the leftovers also but for me that show worked and had a super good ending

Happy Thread
Jul 10, 2005

by Fluffdaddy
Plaster Town Cop

Pedro De Heredia posted:

This idea you've spitballed in two minutes is not any better than what the show gave us. The reason is because the idea does not matter.
...

I agree with the rest but hoo boy is this giving what the show gave us too much credit.... That two minute spitball post is like infinity times better just by virtue of having some new information to it at all

zenguitarman
Apr 6, 2009

Come on, lemme see ya shake your tail feather


Mat Cauthon posted:

Yeah I loved that TD left it just ambiguous enough to go either way. Just that subtle creeping feeling that there's something going on out of sight and you can't be sure if it's better to know or just leave it alone.

I thought Eko's actorleft because his parents died, not because of island shenanigans? He really was great though, I feel like whatever the plot for that character was having to get dropped really threw a wrench into things.

He didn't leave the show because of behind the scenes drama like Ana Lucia. I swear I read somewhere that Mr Eko was basically going to become a main character, either what Locke or Jack became.

SunshineDanceParty
Feb 7, 2006

One Road. Two Friends. One Ass.

zenguitarman posted:

He didn't leave the show because of behind the scenes drama like Ana Lucia. I swear I read somewhere that Mr Eko was basically going to become a main character, either what Locke or Jack became.

He was and and him leaving had them scrambling.

Phenotype
Jul 24, 2007

You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance.



Pedro De Heredia posted:

This idea you've spitballed in two minutes is not any better than what the show gave us. The reason is because the idea does not matter. What matters is the storytelling.

Well, yeah, what matters is the storytelling. That's why I said it's not super-original or subversive or anything -- it's just a bare outline -- but at least there's an actual story you can tell with that kind of set up. What we got was a complete absence of story, with no climax beyond the destruction of the army of the dead. What we got was exactly what you said: the Others had a non-existent presence in the plot, with no ties to any of the dozens of characters we've been following. I'm not saying I came up with an incredible plot, only that it was a two-minute example of how they might have linked the Others to the human cast and put some sort of storyline around it so that there would be some kind of emotional or character-based climax to that whole plot. And it's a serious indictment of the highly-paid producers that they didn't bother to come up with anything at all, even a two-minute spitball so they could put a story there.

thexerox123
Aug 17, 2007

Pedro De Heredia posted:

I think this is the key problem with Lost. The narrative is always telling you "that thing you cared about for a while? does not matter and/or was a deception." It does not work well with the message of "gotta have faith." Faith in what, the show that constantly lies to you?

I don't think the message is "gotta have faith", though? Look at where faith got John Locke.

The message at the end is that what's important are the people and connections in your life.

It doesn't really come down in favour of either side of the 'Man of Science, Man of Faith" argument, despite the spiritualistic ending.

kaworu
Jul 23, 2004

thexerox123 posted:

I don't think the message is "gotta have faith", though? Look at where faith got John Locke.

The message at the end is that what's important are the people and connections in your life.

The older I get, the more I realize Kurt Vonnegut was right about what the meaning of life was (and in his second book, no less): Love whomever is around to be loved. He got there before John Lennon did, and with a lot more cynicism and a better sense of humor. That's no small feat!

Stefan Prodan
Jan 7, 2002

I deeply respect you as a human being... Some day I'm gonna make you *Mrs* Buck Turgidson!


Grimey Drawer

kaworu posted:

The older I get, the more I realize Kurt Vonnegut was right about what the meaning of life was (and in his second book, no less): Love whomever is around to be loved. He got there before John Lennon did, and with a lot more cynicism and a better sense of humor. That's no small feat!

sirens of titan is my favorite vonnegut book

kaworu
Jul 23, 2004

Stefan Prodan posted:

sirens of titan is my favorite vonnegut book

Mine too, I still remember reading it for the first time when I was 14, and even though there was so much I wasn't quite understanding about this joke or that reference, what I did understand resonated with me more than anything else I'd ever read in my life.

It's funny too, because I read it again this past year for what must've been the 15th time, as well as the first time in at least 15 years (I'm 35 now). It was a really strange experience reading something that is immediately extremely familiar as I read the words, but up until then I have no clue what's going to happen - like everything feels both new and familiar at the same time. Actually, it was deeply surreal, especially since I found myself feeling like it was almost a letter I wrote to an older version of myself, because it was bringing to mind so many feelings and memories that I had not thought about or remembered in a very long time.. Then 10 pages later I got to the part where the main character is reading a letter from... yeah. I couldn't tell if it was me fooling myself, or a coincidence, or what. But anyway, I wish I could encounter a new piece of sci-fi nearly as witty, incisive and cutting that one was.

Actually, I've never quite understood with Sirens was never adapted into a proper film. I know Vonnegut books have like, NEVER been successfully adapted, but that one is special. It'd need a pretty big budget to do it any justice - maybe that's why.

kaworu fucked around with this message at 01:06 on Jun 23, 2020

Plucky Brit
Nov 7, 2009

Swing low, sweet chariot

zenguitarman posted:

Mr. Eko was the best character on the show, dammit.

I'm still irritated by that. His character had so much potential!

Didn't they do the same to Jin, only to have such a massive outcry that they retconned him into not actually dying?

emanresu tnuocca
Sep 2, 2011

by Athanatos

kaworu posted:

The older I get, the more I realize Kurt Vonnegut was right about what the meaning of life was (and in his second book, no less): Love whomever is around to be loved. He got there before John Lennon did, and with a lot more cynicism and a better sense of humor. That's no small feat!

And he didn't beat up his wife and son.

Blaise330
Aug 13, 2007

GOD'S FAVORITE CHAMPION
When I saw how many posts this thread got i thought the 6th book got a release date or something

My biggest regret was not watching BSG week to week as it aired with a reaction thread.

Chubby Henparty
Aug 13, 2007


vonnegut posted:

Gomburg’s book, while first-rate on business details, suffers from Gomburg’s central thesis, to the effect that Magnum Opus was a product of a complex of inabilities to love. Reading between the lines of Gomburg’s book, it is increasingly clear that Gomburg is himself unloved and unable to love.

I read Sirens when I was quite young and this line has stuck with me over the years as a sensational burn.

TOOT BOOT
May 25, 2010

Blaise330 posted:

When I saw how many posts this thread got i thought the 6th book got a release date or something

Oh we did, it's 'not soon'

https://georgerrmartin.com/notablog/2020/06/23/writing-reading-writing/

Groovelord Neato
Dec 6, 2014


There's no way he lives long enough to finish the series.

Phenotype
Jul 24, 2007

You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance.



I think that New Zealand convention he mentions is the one that we thought it would be released by** -- when he was there last year, he said something about "If it's not done by the time I'm here next year, you guys can imprison me in a cabin til I finish." And of course the con is virtual-only this year due to COVID, so we don't get the delight from having him thrown to the ground and his shoulders dislocated as the NZ police pin him down and cuff him.


e:

**we were all pretty sure he'd fail

Phenotype fucked around with this message at 21:28 on Jun 23, 2020

Sky Shadowing
Feb 13, 2012

At least we're not the Thalmor (yet)
At this point GRRM sees all the hate for the TV show's ending and is looking at his outline which matches up perfectly and seeing hundreds of nerds on the internet say "don't worry George will do it better" and GRRM's just saying "well, poo poo, the gently caress do I do now."

An insane mind
Aug 11, 2018

Sky Shadowing posted:

At this point GRRM sees all the hate for the TV show's ending and is looking at his outline which matches up perfectly and seeing hundreds of nerds on the internet say "don't worry George will do it better" and GRRM's just saying "well, poo poo, the gently caress do I do now."

He will do what he has been doing and what has been working for years namely not bring out the books.

Blaise330
Aug 13, 2007

GOD'S FAVORITE CHAMPION
He'll do more books like "This one takes place 220 years before game of thrones!" "This one takes place 841 years before game of thrones!" "this one takes place 334 years before game of thrones!"



The zombies are literally walking backwards.

SimonChris
Apr 24, 2008

The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.
Grimey Drawer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swPSKCrL_tM

Grey Worm just released his first album.

ALFbrot
Apr 17, 2002

SimonChris posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swPSKCrL_tM

Grey Worm just released his first album.

Second album, but still. He also directed this video.

General Dog
Apr 26, 2008

Everybody's working for the weekend
edit: wrong thread

Vorgen
Mar 5, 2006

Party Membership is a Democracy, The Weave is Not.

A fledgling vampire? How about a dragon, or some half-kobold druids? Perhaps a spontaneous sex change? Anything that can happen, will happen the results will be beyond entertaining.

Pedro De Heredia posted:

What you'd be doing is taking a canvas that is already covered in shades of grey, and throwing yet another shade of grey at it. What you end up with is a big blob of paint where you can no longer tell anything apart anymore. Stories need contrasts. The story is already telling you that men are flawed and bad (that's what the whole 'war for the throne' thing is about; we know the ending of the conquest part of the story is tragic), the 'world-ending crisis' story with the Others is meant to be a contrast to that. It's supposed to highlight different aspects of humanity. If it were all supposed to hit the same note, then why bother doing both plotlines?

OK, the White Walkers are moral purists and enacting a crusade to wipe humanity off the face of the earth because we're lying, cheating whoremongers who would just as soon kill our own brothers as look at them.

Nobody in GoT would have any defense.

henpod
Mar 7, 2008

Sir, we have located the Bioweapon.
College Slice

Phenotype posted:

And the last few seasons were likewise kind of anticlimactic -- you found out more about the mysterious Dharma Corporation but it turns out they were just a bunch of hippies and scientists who didn't know what the gently caress the island was either, and then you even got to see the backstory for the leader of the Others, and it turns out they were just a bunch of castaways and shipwrecks and even THEY didn't really know what the gently caress the island was.


This was pretty much how I felt.

Cool, ok, guys on a weird island. Oh, there are others. They must know what's going on on. Nope. Ok, we get to Ben, maybe he knows. Nope. Then we get the Dharma people. Don't know poo poo. Then we have that Richard guy who's been there for hundred of years. Doesn't know poo poo. Then we get Jacob and Man in Black. The big mysteries. They didn't know poo poo either'. It was curtain after curtain being pulled back and at the end of it all there was a brick wall with 'gently caress you' written on it. I enjoyed Lost for what it was, but if there ever was an example of writers not knowing what to do, this is it.

henpod fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Jul 28, 2020

LividLiquid
Apr 13, 2002

They explained exactly what the Island was, though.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

thexerox123
Aug 17, 2007

WSAENOTSOCK posted:

They explained exactly what the Island was, though.

Yeah, each of those layers gives a bit more information and context, so you get the full picture by the end.

Each of those groups has a different relationship to the island. Why would the show need a character/group who knows everything?

Anyways, Joop the orangutan knows everything that's going on.
If the show ever got prematurely cancelled, they were going to have him come out and explain everything. (Or they joked about doing so, at least.)

thexerox123 fucked around with this message at 23:47 on Jul 29, 2020

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply