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Steve Yun posted:The costumers have some brilliant things to say with the clothes the women wear. When Sansa and Cersei were maintaining the lives of feminine luxury they wore pastels. When their families were at odds they wore bold colors of their families. Now they’re both wearing dresses that look like armor to emphasize their militarism which is cool, but both of them wearing black seems like a misstep because black is such a vague generic “look out I’m badass now” color Stuff like the overall color scheme of the outfit is decided by the "head creative people", as in the assholes who come up with all these horrifically awful "creative" solutions to story problems and visual conundrums and think they're utterly brilliant when they hire extremely talented craftsmen and say "dress Cersei in something SCARY and BLACK!" and they come up with that fantastic outfit, D&D get to pat themselves on the back for being brilliant and whatever hugely talented creative force that actually MADE the dress is relegated to a tiny credit that nobody outside of the industry will ever pay much attention to 
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May 15, 2019 11:49
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| # ¿ Apr 24, 2024 23:30 |
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What really depresses me about "D&D" is that I think David Benioff is/was a legitimately talented worker when he sticks to what he's actually good at it. In fact, one of the few things Benioff did before Game of Thrones was he wrote a book called "The 25th Hour" when he was young back in 2001, which Spike Lee quickly adapted into a film in 2002, which Benioff wrote the screenplay for. And it was an AMAZING goddamn movie. I still think it's maybe the best thing Spike Lee has done since Do The Right Thing and he hasn't topped either one since. 25th Hour is also possibly the ONLY movie that actually captured what the tone and feeling was in NYC in the ~6-12 months following 9/11. There was a surreal, apocalyptic sense of everything coming to end, and the film rides that note and that tone to some spectacular places. I dunno - it showed such promise, and Benioff was a young up-and-coming writer. And for the first ~3 seasons I did think he was doing a reasonably good job! I remember thinking in Season 3.... "My god, they are just RACING through all the fantastic stuff that makes up the bulk of Book 3, because so many exciting things are happening that could be explored and elaborated on!" And I just remember feeling so depressed that over the course of seasons 1-3, the pacing just got faster, and faster, and FASTER till the show was just constantly trying to cram all this endless exposition into scenes in the later seasons... a lot of it just made up and not particularly significant to the story. I mean... I really don't know, but I wish to *hell* they had focused more on developing the actual characters. Maybe with some... naturalistic dialogue that doesn't feel stilted and "lordly" and somehow wooden. I wish to hell they had spent two whole seasons on ASOS and actually let the story run its course, instead of rushing from one event to another. That was the beginning of the "teleporting" and it only got worse, worse, and worse yet. It kinda reminds me of the recent Star Wars movies we've gotten, or a standard MCU film, this season 8. It feels much more like a very slick and cool-looking product that's full of very slick and painstakingly executed action sequences, with even the previously complex and witty characters like Tyrion having nothing but platitudes and the obvious to say, besides pure exposition. At this point all the characters are sort of locked into doing what they were always "supposed to do", especially with Dany, for instance. I wish they had based her final character arc on the performance by Emilia Clarke and the character she and the writers have developed over the course of the show... Which in my opinion is something rather different than Book-Dany. That's basically my take on it all, right there. This is likely one of those things GRRM said was going to inevitably happen no matter WHAT in the story's climax. I imagine he told them in his initial meeting with D&D - where he told them about HOLD THE DOOR, for an example of another long-planned book-twist. So yeah, that is MY take on it. This feels SO wrong because the Dany we know on the show is, well, a fairly kind and gentle person who was ONLY ever cruel to those who deserved it. Given that they HAD to know about this, they really should have written some scenes with Dany actually wrestling with the dark side of her Targaryen nature and coming down on Fire and Blood side more often, because it seems like she NEVER had her "coin flip land on that side" until that exact moment, frankly. Before then she had CHAINED UP her dragons because they had happened to kill ONE CHILD BY ACCIDENT. And that was like season 5 or 6! kaworu fucked around with this message at 16:07 on May 15, 2019 |
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May 15, 2019 16:02
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thexerox123 posted:I don't think the message is "gotta have faith", though? Look at where faith got John Locke. 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!
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Jun 23, 2020 00:29
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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 |
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Jun 23, 2020 00:50
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Was that the climactic battle they shot entirely in the dark, in which I could barely see anything in because I didn't have a newer flatscreen with perfectly balanced and neutral blacks? Because gently caress that episode.
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Aug 2, 2020 02:58
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I've been doing a re-read of the books recently - actually, I'm listening to them for the first time on audible. I'm currently on A Feast for Crows, and the Cersei chapters are definitely the best part of that book, I think. They're just so much fun! Something you forget about the Cersei chapters is just how hilariously and cartoonishly evil she really is, in addition to the arrogance, ignorance, and dangerous stupidity. I mean, in the scene where she reveals what she heard happen to Loras on Dragonstone to Margaery, she literally licks at her tears and thinks how delicious they are. Hilariously, that book was written after "Scott Tenorman Must Die" so I guess that's just something else GRRM stole 
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Mar 8, 2021 07:36
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Zane posted:couldn't really disagree more. tywin isn't changed. and everything the show did with cersei is bad. I pretty much agree that everything the show did with Cersei was bad. I was talking about how cartoonishly evil and over-the-top she is in her AFFC chapters in the books, as I'd just re-read those chapters those week and enjoyed them quite a lot. But show-Cersei was really boring and awful and poorly written and portrayed from season 4 at least onwards, maybe earlier than that. She was a joke of a cliche by the end, not even a character.
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Mar 28, 2021 18:44
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In a way, as an act of creative destruction Season 8 is almost impressively comprehensive, because it really did gently caress up and destroy a lot of what was or could have been great about the first 7 seasons, and there's something awe-inspiring about that. I remember back when Lost ended and a lot of fans of that show were pretty disappointed by both the finale and the final season in general - myself included. Lots of people argued that the last few episodes somehow invalidated their enjoyment of the first five seasons, and I strongly disagreed with this at the time. I felt that there was no way a finale could be so bad that it could invalidate anything brilliant that a show had already accomplished, that the journey itself was sacred and not effected. Now, all I can think is that I was pretty much wrong - an ending really can be so awful that it just obliterates any and all good that had been accomplished.
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Apr 5, 2021 10:45
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I always kinda liked the theory that Dany was the (bastard) daughter of Ashara Dayne and Ned Stark. It answers a semi-mystery from the first book that has yet to be addressed to some extent, which is why Ned seemed so intent on saving Dany from Robert's wrath. That might not seem like such a mystery at first glance, but Ned actually goes very far on Dany's behalf - as far as resigning his position as Hand of the King (and effectively endangering his family) entirely on for her sake. Ned is honorable and principled, and he was appropriately disgusted at the Lannisters and the death of Rhaegar's children; but I'm not sure if that goes far enough in terms of explaining Ned's actions on her behalf. It's definitely a bit out there though, especially as it would mean that Dany's really a 'fake Targaryen' which admittedly doesn't seem terrible likely. The Daynes are a pretty fascinating house, though - not least because they seem to greatly resemble the Valyrians in terms of their physical appearance - with Ashara Dayne supposedly sharing a resemblance with Dany.
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Apr 13, 2021 02:13
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Sanguinia posted:I ascribe to the theory that this is explained by both her and Viserys being delivered to the Sealord of Braavos, and that the Lemon Tree was part of his menagerie (which we see surrounded by trees on the map in World of Ice and Fire) and might have even explicitly been a gift of House Martel to bring him into the restoration conspiracy, to which he provided those three Dragon Eggs. I have to admit that I can't get on board entirely with this theory. She'd probably remember the menagerie of animals - including the velociraptors - not to mention the hundreds of servants and the lemon tree in question being in a glass conservatory along with other impossibly exotic plants. And all the riches and luxury. The house with the red door is described in fairly simple, pastoral terms - it really doesn't quite work for me that she was really staying in a palace within a massive city and somehow failed to mention that context or forgot.
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Apr 13, 2021 02:17
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bobjr posted:There was probably a good time for her to head to Westeros when she got a huge army of unsullied, but then she says for 3-4 more seasons. This (and several other recent comments) to me speaks to a fundamental area that GRRM *really* screwed up in, starting around the latter part of book 3 when a number of important plot threads begin to get wrapped up, and continuing onward from there. Thing is, there was supposed to be this really critical, significant, and important 5-year time skip that took place approximately at the end of ASOS, and the arcs of pretty much ALL the significant characters up to that point are ALL reaching natural resting points where the interesting plot action was supposed to come to a screeching halt. You can run down essentially ALL of the main POV characters from the first three books within this context. Dany was supposed to stay in Meereen for 5 years as ruler, doing essentially nothing while her dragons (and base of power) both got significantly bigger and more imposing and grew up from a girl into a woman herself. Jon was supposed to be doing more or less the same thing as Lord Commander of the Night's Watch for 5 years - that is, doing little but consolidating power and growing to adulthood. Bran was supposed to have just reached Bloodraven in time to spend the next 5 years learning to be a badass Tree Wizard. Arya was also meant to be undergoing transformative training of her own in Braavos that frankly would have been cooler had it remained a mystery, and we just see Arya's return to Westeros transformed by her training. Sansa was tucked away safely in The Vale doing boring political machinations with Littlefinger. Catelyn and Robb's story had come to a natural conclusion, and coming back to her as Lady Stoneheart 5 years later probably would have been more meaningful. Everything with Tyrion since he left King's Landing has felt forced and contrived, which makes sense if you figure that his next appearance probably would have been immediately alongside Dany - which would've been much more interesting, and worked out far better. That's not even taking into account other things he was very obviously setting up for the 5-year time skip - like Edric Storm, the Dayne bastard who was a little older than Arya (and Jon Snow's milk brother) and clearly meant to play some role - most likely wielding the sword Dawn - 5 years into the future. But because that didn't happen, little Edric gets dropped and instead this random edgelord named Darkstar who is "of the night" shows up out of nowhere and it feels really forced and stupid. I dunno, I do remember there were reasons why he felt he had to abandon the time-skip, but I mean... from where I'm sitting, it sure looks like that was the single biggest way he wrote himself into a corner. Every last character is currently stuck in a place where they were obviously never intended to be. It's like when you're playing massive open-world video game, and about two thirds of the way through the game when the map opens up completely, you get sidetracked doing all these optional sidequests and excessively challenging optional dungeons, ignoring the main quest completely for a while. But in the process you get bored with the game and lose interest, and never actually end up finishing. I feel like that's essentially what happened to GRRM.
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Aug 26, 2021 01:32
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| # ¿ Apr 24, 2024 23:30 |
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That last season just felt so deeply insulting to me, as a viewer. And given how much I really adored the show and mythology at one point, I thought I could forgive drat near any crappy direction this show could possibly go in. But I didn't take into account that I could feel fundamentally disrespected by a TV show, but there you go. I will say that GoT created a somewhat unique situation. I really can't think of many other IPs that experienced such an extreme and severe drop in quality, certainly not any recent ones. I also used to think that the "journey" always counted more than the "destination", and I thought that any show that was good for a period of time would always be good no matter how bad it got by the end. Boy, was I wrong about that one - now I know that a show ABSOLUTELY can get bad enough at the end to completely eviscerate any enjoyment that could possibly be gleaned from those early seasons. I truly never knew that a franchise could deteriorate to such an extreme degree. Like, I remember back in the summer of 2017, Twin Peaks: The Return aired first and then Season 7 of Game of Thrones started up as well, and I remember thinking at the time that I had an approximately equal degree of interest in keeping abreast of both shows as they aired week-by-week, which now seems.... utterly insane, that I could have even had them in the same folder on my computer at one point.
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Sep 6, 2021 23:36
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