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Chairman Capone
Dec 17, 2008

I liked Troy. I wished there had been an Odyssey sequel with Sean Bean.

Thwomp posted:

It’s telling that they could set up and bring to life all these characters but lost sight of all of them as they ran out of source materials. Motivations, character development, and consistency all flew out the window in the last seasons. Whatever to serve to connect the bare dots given to them.

I mean, by book 4 GRRM was basically losing all character motivations and consistency from the first three books while also adding in sprawling new characters and story lines and convoluted backstory conspiracies out of nowhere (and which the show at least was wise enough to almost completely ignore).

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feedmyleg
Dec 25, 2004
Yeah, the Troy treatment is exactly what The Odyssey needed. Who likes fun and monsters and gods, anyway? Cut that poo poo out and give me the story of a guy getting lost on a boat!

davidspackage
May 16, 2007

Nap Ghost

PriorMarcus posted:

They are filming a prequel series now, baring it having been paused for the hiatus, with a full order of episodes.

I thought that was cancelled? Might be thinking of something else since they were boasting about like 5 spinoff shows at some point.

I went real hard from "this is my favorite show ever!" for GoT seasons 1-4 and then increasing misery from season 5 and onwards. Seems to me Benioff & Weiss just badly needed Martin to tell them where to take things, and he wasn't interested anymore. But then, after x amount of seasons, any show is bound to turn to poo poo. It becomes a tug of war between writers, producer and actor egoes, and perceived fan demands. Ideally, the fat man would've finished his story and we would've at least gotten a unified vision. I figure Martin's plan was to suddenly have the Others march past the Wall, interrupt everyone's storyline and force an ending, anyway.

Alan Smithee
Jan 4, 2005


A man becomes preeminent, he's expected to have enthusiasms.

Enthusiasms, enthusiasms...

feedmyleg posted:

Yeah, the Troy treatment is exactly what The Odyssey needed. Who likes fun and monsters and gods, anyway? Cut that poo poo out and give me the story of a guy getting lost on a boat!

okay the cyclops is just a dude with one good eye but he's like really big

dont you wanna know how he lost the other one?

feedmyleg
Dec 25, 2004
I mean, O Brother pulled it off well.

davidspackage posted:

I thought that was cancelled? Might be thinking of something else since they were boasting about like 5 spinoff shows at some point.

I went real hard from "this is my favorite show ever!" for GoT seasons 1-4 and then increasing misery from season 5 and onwards. Seems to me Benioff & Weiss just badly needed Martin to tell them where to take things, and he wasn't interested anymore. But then, after x amount of seasons, any show is bound to turn to poo poo. It becomes a tug of war between writers, producer and actor egoes, and perceived fan demands. Ideally, the fat man would've finished his story and we would've at least gotten a unified vision. I figure Martin's plan was to suddenly have the Others march past the Wall, interrupt everyone's storyline and force an ending, anyway.

Setting something cool up is always easier than paying it off. That's why so many movies have cool first and second acts and dogshit third acts.

Grendels Dad
Mar 5, 2011

Popular culture has passed you by.

Antifa Poltergeist posted:

Imo, brad pitt and especially eric bana do great work on troy.
The costume design is great.
Also sean bean, who plays completelly against type and does not die.
i think people were expecting it to be the next big thing and its kinda underwhelming when compared to LoTR.
I still like it.

I think Troy owes it's existence and middling audience reaction to Gladiator and the expectations that one set up more than to LotR. Gladiator rekindled interest in ancient Rome stuff without any of that childish dwarf nonsense, had a charismatic lead, great supporting cast, kick-rear end score. They tried to replicate that one with diminishing returns until we ended up with Pompeii, and I think Troy was the first attempt.

Silver2195
Apr 4, 2012
Troy makes some weird changes to the source material, although I've seen it defended as actually a surprisingly faithful adaptation of the Illiad, specifically; it just ignores the rest of the Trojan War-related mythology. Unless I'm misremembering, Briseis kills Agamemnon and she and Achilles live happily ever after. The former could at least be considered a condensed version of what happens to Agamemnon as revealed in the Odyssey and later sources; he returns home, but gets killed by his wife, who's presumably mad at him for killing (or, in some versions, trying to kill) their daughter; either way, he's killed by a woman who has a good reason to be angry at him. But the happy ending struck me as a strange choice.

PriorMarcus
Oct 17, 2008

ASK ME ABOUT BEING ALLERGIC TO POSITIVITY

davidspackage posted:

I thought that was cancelled? Might be thinking of something else since they were boasting about like 5 spinoff shows at some point.

So originally there was 5 pitches for a prequel series that they whittled down to two. I believe they cancelled one before it was in production and what remains is a Targaryen prequel series thats filming now. I'm fairly sure its not been cancelled.

I also totally agree that GoT went to poo poo in the later series, in many amazing, baffling ways. Even the set design and location scouting became inconsistent and clashed terribly with what came before. Very odd.

RBA Starblade
Apr 28, 2008

Going Home.

Games Idiot Court Jester

The Odyssey starring Sean Bean would just have a twist ending

Cacator
Aug 6, 2005

You're quite good at turning me on.

A couple of my GoT book reading friends quit the show when it became apparent they were cutting out a ton of the Dorne plots; it turns out they were right to do so.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAbu_uWVz4c

AceOfFlames
Oct 9, 2012

Cacator posted:

A couple of my GoT book reading friends quit the show when it became apparent they were cutting out a ton of the Dorne plots; it turns out they were right to do so.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAbu_uWVz4c

And here I thought all pussy talk on the show was limited to Drunk Sofie Turner.

Grendels Dad
Mar 5, 2011

Popular culture has passed you by.

Silver2195 posted:

Troy makes some weird changes to the source material, although I've seen it defended as actually a surprisingly faithful adaptation of the Illiad, specifically; it just ignores the rest of the Trojan War-related mythology. Unless I'm misremembering, Briseis kills Agamemnon and she and Achilles live happily ever after. The former could at least be considered a condensed version of what happens to Agamemnon as revealed in the Odyssey and later sources; he returns home, but gets killed by his wife, who's presumably mad at him for killing (or, in some versions, trying to kill) their daughter; either way, he's killed by a woman who has a good reason to be angry at him. But the happy ending struck me as a strange choice.

You're misremembering the part about the happy ending. Achilles gets an arrow in the heel, but he dies from the three other arrows Paris put in him :v: The one in the heel is just the one he didn't manage to pull out before dying, and thus the myth of Achilles' Achilles Heel was born. Troy does that a lot.

Alan Smithee
Jan 4, 2005


A man becomes preeminent, he's expected to have enthusiasms.

Enthusiasms, enthusiasms...
Ngl I wanna see unhinged cuz Russell Crowe is basically Russell Crowe 10 years ago

Silver2195
Apr 4, 2012

Grendels Dad posted:

You're misremembering the part about the happy ending. Achilles gets an arrow in the heel, but he dies from the three other arrows Paris put in him :v: The one in the heel is just the one he didn't manage to pull out before dying, and thus the myth of Achilles' Achilles Heel was born. Troy does that a lot.

Ah. It's been over a decade since I watched it, so I guess it's not surprising I misremembered the ending.

Edit: Just checked the plot summary on Wikipedia, and it seems that actually Briseis runs off with Paris and lives happily every after. That's an even stranger ending than the one I remembered.

Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 20:23 on Aug 17, 2020

MH Knights
Aug 4, 2007

Did Troy get some extended Director's Cut that was better than the theatrical release? I know the extended version of Kingdom of Heaven was considered to be superior to the theatrical.

Grendels Dad
Mar 5, 2011

Popular culture has passed you by.

MH Knights posted:

Did Troy get some extended Director's Cut that was better than the theatrical release? I know the extended version of Kingdom of Heaven was considered to be superior to the theatrical.

I happened upon a director's cut or extended cut without realizing it and felt it improved the movie in some places, but nothing as drastic as the difference between the two Kingdoms.

Rageaholic
May 31, 2005

Old Town Road to EGOT

AMC sent me an email with showtimes for some movie called "Words On Bathroom Walls" that's coming out on Friday. They really want me to "return to the movies" lmao

Alan Smithee posted:

Ngl I wanna see unhinged cuz Russell Crowe is basically Russell Crowe 10 years ago
Is the plot that Russell Crowe gets pissed off and can't let it go so he tortures someone? I'd watch that if it came to VOD.

e:

quote:

Academy Award winner Russell Crowe stars in Unhinged, a timely psychological thriller that explores the fragile balance of a society pushed to the edge, taking something we’ve all experienced- road rage - to an unpredictable and terrifying conclusion.
lol

Rageaholic fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Aug 17, 2020

Gatts
Jan 2, 2001

Goodnight Moon

Nap Ghost
From that description and his reputation did someone just say "Here's a camera, Russell, just be you and go ham."

Teriyaki Hairpiece
Dec 29, 2006

I'm nae the voice o' the darkened thistle, but th' darkened thistle cannae bear the sight o' our Bonnie Prince Bernie nae mair.

Gatts
Jan 2, 2001

Goodnight Moon

Nap Ghost
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdxDXoODKN8

The trailer to Unhinged

Lovely Joe Stalin
Jun 12, 2007

Our Lovely Wang

Antifa Poltergeist posted:

GOT went downhill by the double whammy of both the executive producers not giving a poo poo AND the author also not giving a poo poo because the original material was also becoming poo poo.
A poo poo confluence that basicaly sunk almost everyones careers.

Yeah this is it pretty much. They were clearly excellent at adapting the books, and were probably adapting drafts or detailed notes after they ran out of published books, but once they were down to a bare bones of where GRRM was going to end things they completely fell apart. They just couldn't do it on their own.
GRRM for his part lost the plot, figuratively and literally, years before the series started filming. I have no faith in him either finishing the series or, if he does, those books being good.

That said, I don't hate the end of the programme at all. I think it was deeply flawed and disappointing in its execution, but I don't have a problem with the ideas behind how it ended. Anyone who was paying attention could have predicted that Daenerys was going to have to be stopped, but they really really needed to highlight it a bit more to cut through to the audience who reacted to watching someone commit horrific atrocities with "yaaas queen".

Rochallor
Apr 23, 2010

ふっっっっっっっっっっっっck

Lovely Joe Stalin posted:

Yeah this is it pretty much. They were clearly excellent at adapting the books, and were probably adapting drafts or detailed notes after they ran out of published books, but once they were down to a bare bones of where GRRM was going to end things they completely fell apart. They just couldn't do it on their own.
GRRM for his part lost the plot, figuratively and literally, years before the series started filming. I have no faith in him either finishing the series or, if he does, those books being good.

That said, I don't hate the end of the programme at all. I think it was deeply flawed and disappointing in its execution, but I don't have a problem with the ideas behind how it ended. Anyone who was paying attention could have predicted that Daenerys was going to have to be stopped, but they really really needed to highlight it a bit more to cut through to the audience who reacted to watching someone commit horrific atrocities with "yaaas queen".

I imagine GRRM had the ending pretty well fleshed out, which is why the last couple episodes work (terrible dialogue aside). But it botches Dany's big moment because a) in the books we'd have her as a POV character and would be privy to her thoughts, and b) the show systematically killed off anybody who would confide with her because the writers are stupid.

It's the big question mark between the published material and the end that resulted in a lovely season and a half, as well as a full loving decade since ADWD.

Silver2195
Apr 4, 2012

Rochallor posted:

I imagine GRRM had the ending pretty well fleshed out, which is why the last couple episodes work (terrible dialogue aside). But it botches Dany's big moment because a) in the books we'd have her as a POV character and would be privy to her thoughts, and b) the show systematically killed off anybody who would confide with her because the writers are stupid.

It's the big question mark between the published material and the end that resulted in a lovely season and a half, as well as a full loving decade since ADWD.

I read a "thinkpiece" arguing that a lot of the problems with the final seasons of Game of Thrones were the result of a fundamental tension built into the books; they're stories about complex political and military conflicts between humans with Renaissance-era at best technology and few real supernatural powers, but they also seem to be building up to a dumber type of fantasy story about prophesied heroes, dragons vs. zombies, and so forth. The writer of the article points to the part of the show where Bran uses his druid-werewolf powers to expose all of Littlefinger's secrets as an example of the problems this leads to. (Yes, better writers would probably have found a way to avoid letting Bran's storyline intersect with Littlefinger's like that, but similar problems arise all over the place; much of the human conflict can only exist at all because of people's lack of knowledge of the threat posed by the Others, for instance.)

wizardofloneliness
Dec 30, 2008

PriorMarcus posted:

So originally there was 5 pitches for a prequel series that they whittled down to two. I believe they cancelled one before it was in production and what remains is a Targaryen prequel series thats filming now. I'm fairly sure its not been cancelled.

Yeah originally there were a bunch of prequels that they pitched. The big one was supposed to be set in the “Age of Heroes”, 10,000 years or whatever before the series, and be about all the cool historical things mentioned in the books. Naomi Watts was one of the stars. It was announced sometime before the finale and seemed like a foregone conclusion that it would be picked up, but then HBO watched the pilot and was like “nah”.

If I cared about watching a GoT prequel series I would be kind of disappointed. That one seemed to have more potential to be interesting than a Targaryen origin story, which sounds boring and awful.

Silver2195
Apr 4, 2012
This is not the article I was referring to, and instead points to a completely different set of issues, but reaches the same conclusion: that the story set up by the books wasn't building to a satisfying resolution: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xz5vv/game-of-thrones-was-doomed-by-a-song-of-ice-and-fire

Groovelord Neato
Dec 6, 2014


Yeah as much as I like making GBS threads on the dopes running the show some of it is the fault of GRRM. But I'm also a weirdo who liked the show for the politics and hated the actual fantasy parts.

PriorMarcus
Oct 17, 2008

ASK ME ABOUT BEING ALLERGIC TO POSITIVITY

wizardofloneliness posted:

Yeah originally there were a bunch of prequels that they pitched. The big one was supposed to be set in the “Age of Heroes”, 10,000 years or whatever before the series, and be about all the cool historical things mentioned in the books. Naomi Watts was one of the stars. It was announced sometime before the finale and seemed like a foregone conclusion that it would be picked up, but then HBO watched the pilot and was like “nah”.

If I cared about watching a GoT prequel series I would be kind of disappointed. That one seemed to have more potential to be interesting than a Targaryen origin story, which sounds boring and awful.

I've got to assume that the main draw of the Targ prequel, from HBO's point of view, is that dragons have become tied into the branding so much that they feel a series without them might underperform.

Antifa Poltergeist
Jun 3, 2004

"We're not laughing with you, we're laughing at you"



Its because no one gives a drat about GOT mithology, dragons or no dragons. and the GOT finale basically killed the apetite for big sweeping fantasy epics, like HIMYM killed the traditional sitcom.

This probably wont change until some studio buys the rights to the silmarillion for a cool billion.maybe the second age show will be good.

Its kinda interesting because film and tv inform so much of the zeitgeist, but much less so than before the age of the internet, and they are always following each others tails especially in the last couple of decades.
When tv was doing gritty, prestige dramas, movies where starting the whole superheroes thing, and now every network needs to have a superhero show. And you kinda cant see where movies will go to.maybe the 90 minute actioner is due again.
I kinda though the next thing would be sci-fi, but then westworld happened.which is why dune probably will be a great movie and will probably flop.

mycot
Oct 23, 2014

"It's okay. There are other Terminators! Just give us this one!"
Hell Gem

Antifa Poltergeist posted:

Its because no one gives a drat about GOT mithology, dragons or no dragons. and the GOT finale basically killed the apetite for big sweeping fantasy epics, like HIMYM killed the traditional sitcom.

Come to think of it the Hobbit movie trilogy also didn't go over so hot and ended on a fart.

feedmyleg
Dec 25, 2004
It also started on a fart.

Leave
Feb 7, 2012

Taking the term "Koopaling" to a whole new level since 2016.
Did HIMYM really kill traditional sitcoms?

Anonymous Zebra
Oct 21, 2005
Blending in like it ain't no thang
I could write way too many pages on GoT and where things went right and wrong, but I'll focus on the one thing that made ending the show the same way GRRM wanted to end the books impossible.

Tyrion is the final villain.

GRRM has dropped hints in interviews for years that his original intent for the books was to use POV writing to gently caress with the reader's ideas of heroes and villains. His goal was to essentially make the reader follow along and cheer for a man inside his thoughts, only to go, "Oh God no!" as they realize he is the villain, while at the same time making the reader sympathize with someone they think is a monster (Jaime) by seeing his thought processes.

Book Tyrion and show Tyrion are the same through the adaptation of Book 3, but after that their characters wildly diverge. The showrunners obviously didn't want to make handsome Peter Dinklage into a poison-tongued villain who gaslights Dany into committing genocide, but when they made that choice they really couldn't end the show the same as the books.

If you want to read about different book Dany and show Dany are, then just watch Lindsay Ellis's YouTube as she does a far better job of pointing out how show Dany lacks most of the character flaws book Dany displays.

Snowman_McK
Jan 31, 2010

Leavemywife posted:

Did HIMYM really kill traditional sitcoms?

No. There's plenty still being made.

muscles like this!
Jan 17, 2005


Amazon is making a Lord of the Rings show although it is in a weird position where it is Middle Earth but not the time period of the books, instead it is set much earlier. They're also doing an adaptation of The Wheel of Time and once trailers for that start showing up there are going to be some pissed off chuds because they changed multiple main characters to be POC.

Antifa Poltergeist
Jun 3, 2004

"We're not laughing with you, we're laughing at you"



Snowman_McK posted:

No. There's plenty still being made.

In terms of cultural footprint?absolutely,imo.
Stuff like the good place, community, unbreakable kimmy schmidt are wildly diferent shows than HIMYM.
Or fleabag.or always sunny, or curb your enthusiasm, or atlanta.
Hell modern family and b99 are the closest and they are still very diferent shows.

But really i just want absurd comedies back, someone please bring back police squad tia.

Snowman_McK
Jan 31, 2010

Antifa Poltergeist posted:

In terms of cultural footprint?absolutely,imo.
Stuff like the good place, community, unbreakable kimmy schmidt are wildly diferent shows than HIMYM.
Or fleabag.or always sunny, or curb your enthusiasm, or atlanta.
Hell modern family and b99 are the closest and they are still very diferent shows.

But really i just want absurd comedies back, someone please bring back police squad tia.

Modern Family and B99 and both absolutely traditional sitcoms. This is a really weird distinction you're trying to make.

SomeJazzyRat
Nov 2, 2012

Hmmm...
I think the distinction is Single Camera "Prestige Comedies", and traditional three camera, laugh track filled Sitcoms. Community and How I Met Your Mother are both Sitcoms, in the same way that The Exorcist and Human Centipede are both horror.

Enos Cabell
Nov 3, 2004


Antifa Poltergeist posted:

But really i just want absurd comedies back, someone please bring back police squad tia.

They tried, it was called Angie Tribeca on TBS.

Snowman_McK
Jan 31, 2010

Enos Cabell posted:

They tried, it was called Angie Tribeca on TBS.

It wasn't bad, it was just a little too stretched. The remarkable thing about things like police squad and airplane is just how lean they are. Everything that isn't a joke or a set up to a joke is cut out. Angie's joke to time ratio was high, but not high enough.
Also the male lead, Hayes MacArthur, didn't quite get how to be a straight man doing comedy, which the rest of the cast did extremely well.

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MechanicalTomPetty
Oct 30, 2011

Runnin' down a dream
That never would come to me

muscles like this! posted:

They're also doing an adaptation of The Wheel of Time and once trailers for that start showing up there are going to be some pissed off chuds because they changed multiple main characters to be POC.

I think any WoT adaptation would more than a few major issues to deal with, the big one being that binary gender is apparently a hard-coded law of reality and the basis of the settings entire magic system.

If nothing else I'm glad someone finally managed to pry the adaptation rights away from Red Eagle's deathgrip. I'm still pissed off about that ashcan short they poo poo out just so they could hold onto the rights.

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