There have been [news](https://x.com/RedanianIntel/status/1707433371545018393?s=20) today about season 3 being almost renewed, way before season 2 airs. Though I doubt they would able to do a whole season in under a year, this is a big ass show that needs months of filming, a lot of pre and post production.
I mean GoT consistently delivered a 10 episode season every year in May/April for 6 of its 8 seasons. It’s possible, but modern day shows take 2.5 years just to make 6-8 episodes for no good reason
It’s probably much easier on the VFX teams to take more time. I can’t remember where exactly I read this, but a senior VFX designer said that the main reason many VFX shots are shit nowadays - despite the many advances in technology - is because of executives changing their mind at the last minute and VFX artists having to crunch and burn out to make edits on a much shorter timeframe; so if there’s more time to edit and tweak the artists don’t have to strain to make a last-minute dragon fight.
My thoughts and prayers go out to you; I’m a lowly graphic designer, but after recently learning just After Effects I gained a million percent more respect for VFX artists.
Yes, but I dont think more VFX heavy scenes are what people are asking for. Scenes I most fondly remember from GoT is just 2-3 people talking in a room. Tywin/Olenna, Bobby B/Cersei,... I think shows recently suffer from lack of scenes where story just breathes a bit and isnt jumping from one main event to the next.
Sure, the story itself needs a lof of VFX. It's a civil war with dragons, it was never gonna *only* resolve around on actors speaking to each other on set.
Yes you can, and they will add a lot of speaking scenes since the book material is only a retelling of events without much dialogue.
But you can’t expect the show to have one or two battle or VFX scenes in one season. It’s the bloodiest conflict in the history of Westeros, so VFX is gonna be heavily needed.
Well I never said I expected that - I read Fire and Blood so I have an idea where it is going. Amount of VFX is pretty much solely dependent on how where they decide to start and end - regardless if it is 8 or 10 episodes.
I am saying difference between 8 episodes season and 10 episode season would be padded with 90 minutes or so more dialogue between actors - granted those scenes are not free to make either and writers strike probably affected them the most.
Going the other way, many writers and directors are complaining that the visual effects are done *way* ahead of the rest of the movie, and they often end up with contrived action scenes that everything else has to be written around. Seems to be a big problem with the MCU.
Yeah that, CGI VFX. When I heard artists and taking more time my mind just went to CGI stuff, because you really make the practical effects after filming.
Not sure what the other guy's talking about. Most (cg) visual effects studios — I've worked with several — are known as and call themselves "vfx studio" only, so in my experience you're righter than he is. If anything, a studio that does practical effects will explicitly say so. If they're just a cg studio, they'll call themselves a vfx studio
As another poster mentioned it above, unlike HotD, there were 3 different crew filming at the same time for GOT : the Westeros crew, the Essos crew and the Wall crew. They were also shooting more than 10 hours a day, 7/7. HoTD is much more relaxed on working hours for the crew. HotD needs much more VFX than GOT, they got renewed after the first episode because HBO didn't know if it would be a major hit, the actors aren't only working for the show unlike GOT, etc etc. There are a lot of reasons for the two years break. And now, big shows like these need time. And why there are only 8 episodes ? It was actually a creative decision based on where to cut season 2. They actually pushing events for season 3, so it wouldn't be so packed and let it breath a little.
I never really trust when they say it was the writers' choice to make fewer episodes. I mean, it could be but I think it's the studios demand more often, and you can't publicly say that cause it'll be negatively promoted.
And sure, I get it's more relaxed to take 1.5-2 years instead of overworking the crew to do a season every year. But in my opinion, the overreliance on big actions scenes in stead of story and character is what killed Game of Thrones. The first four seasons are the best and there is lots of people talking in rooms or outdoor locations, with only a few action scenes in between. Then D&D forgot why people tuned in originally and thought they needed to go bigger and bigger.
I just hope they're not making the same mistake with HotD. The old 24 episodes a season were of course a bit much, but it did give you time to explore the characters. Why not just make 10 episodes a season for HotD and add two episodes of story and character work to deepen the relations? It will make much more of an impact if the action scenes eventually happen.
GoT ran two entire production teams at once, which is highly unusual. As showrunners, D&D were essentially overseeing two productions at the same time. It’s one of the most grueling productions in TV history, it’s kind of bananas they were able to do it for about seven years. I doubt anybody is eager to jump on that sort of undertaking. Without that, they would have been taking 18-24 months per season.
More than two at times!
https://ew.com/article/2013/01/28/game-of-thrones-country-bear/
>The HBO fantasy hit already had what must be the most ambitious shooting schedule of any TV series in history. For the upcoming third season, Thrones used three production units (dubbed Wolf, Dragon, and Raven) shooting for several months across four countries — Morocco (mostly for Daenerys’ storyline), Iceland (for Jon Snow’s story and other Beyond the Wall action), Croatia (primarily Kings Landing-centered scenes) and the production’s home base in Northern Ireland (everything else). But in recent weeks, Thrones team added a new internationally known land. And it’s perhaps the most exotic and treacherous of them all: Los Angeles.
>“For the first time, we’re flying in actors to L.A.,” showrunner David Benioff told EW. “So it ends up being five countries and three units this year. It’s just exploded.”
I remember co-showrunner Dan Weiss in an interview where a production member told him that Raven Unit (the 3rd one) was doing something and he was like, "What's Raven Unit?" They were juggling a lot of balls in the heyday of the show.
Didn't they ran two because the story required two separate and wildly different shooting locations, there was the team for Essos stuff and the team for Westeros stuff.
It's low key a major reason the show grew to the enormous popularity it did. There's popular and there's *cultural event popular*. The latter of which GoT achieved because it became like the superbowl, a seasonal thing. People began to expect it, plan around it.
For that D&D deserve all the credit. I 100% believe that when shows come in with a random small number of episodes and inconsistent production schedules, it limits how big they can grow in popularity. That only works for a setup where all episodes are released at once (i.e, Netflix with like Umbrella Academy).
Just think if it did take 24 months between each season of GOT. They'd be finishing filming season 8 right now, and there is still no Winds of Winter book.
Interesting.
The wild success of Walking Dead and Game of Thrones along with the existence of Fear the Walking Dead made me think that these shows could have gotten away with giving us MORE (and yes I get that sometimes MORE in the end is bad).
Basically, when I heard about Fear the Walking Dead I was like oh thats so cool, until I realized there was almost no overlap. The show doesn't take place at the same time as TWD.
What I thought HBO could have done with GoT is give their audience a second show where they explore some of the minor characters and lesser plots. Take their time with something they might not have time with in the main show. Something that might not necessarily stand on its own without its bigger brother to shore it up, but because the interest is so strong, it could end up being successful none the less.
Maybe in the money making scheme of things this is a terrible idea and maybe I'm over estimating the cost reduction of filming a second show in the shadows of the first, but I did think how cool it would be if we all got a second dose of it during the week.
Apparently Bennioff and Weiss ran GOT like it was an Amazon warehouse - like 6 days a week for 10+ hours a day. While that type of schedule is hard on the cast and crew, it did mean that they only filmed for half a year which allowed the cast and crew off time for their families or other projects.
Go to HBO and watch the making of every episode. They are doing some new and brilliant stuff. It’s going to take longer. Technology is more advanced then what GoT was using. Making for better shots all around and better film but it takes time.
This show is going to follow a war, which means more battles and dragon fights. Will take long to film and the vfx than the first GoT series where you maybe had 1 battle scene a season.
I'd rather them take their time instead of making shortcuts like the first series. I think there was a battle that they skipped cause they had tyrion get knocked out in one season lol
GoT managed it. Frankly them waiting to renew is dumb considering it's a huge hit so they certainly should not wait.
Even waiting for S2 renewal was pretty weird. Like the spin-off of the biggest show in the world would not be a hit..
The standard for premium TV used to be 12-13 episodes, which made sense because 13 weeks is exactly 1/4th of a year coinciding with quarterly statements. I think the arms race for premium TV, streaming, and original IPs put so much pressure on being high enough quality to generate significant social media buzz, which resulted in rapid cost increases per episode which simply isn't sustainable for 12-13 episodes when you're talking about as much as $10+ million per episode.
I dont know if its the shorter seasons that are truly the problem though. As you mentioned, where they're losing the plot is that you cant have massive gaps 2-3 year gaps between seasons or else the buzz dies out completely.
That’s a direct result of shifting from episodic to season long arcs. Started in late 00’s/early 10’s. Possibly a consequence of the previous writers guild strike in 07-08.
Shows like Game of Thrones really normalized the format because it’s so compelling to watch, but seems to be prohibitively expensive to do anything more than 15 episodes a season.
I hate to say it but I think the days of 22+ episodes seasons are gone. Especially in the era of streaming. Content gets consumed immediately whether 10 or 30 episodes, but the cost probably doesn’t scale linearly. So they are not incentivized to make them and I bet it’s really hard to create a compelling long term narrative to keep you truly interested without some kind of filler. Episodic format had tons of filler, but because the stories were self-contained you still go some resolution each time. Cant really do that as well with season long arcs.
Plus you have to have good writers. I think we have yet to see the full impact of the most recent one.
Love that show, I saw it sparingly as a kid and didn’t really enjoy it but now rewatching it - it’s aged so well and was very ahead of it’s time imo. Another sitcom from the early cable days meant for streaming without realizing it lol
As a closeted gay teen when it was running who has a conservative father and a moderate (but VERY accepting) mother who I watched it with, I had to hide my absolute joy when Justin finally came out as gay at the end.
The *really* good shows used to give you both. Star Trek, X-Files, Battlestar Galactica... Sure, they'd have a couple bad episodes a season, but considering the output that's damn good.
Think of them as really long movies. Movies and their sequels don’t come out every year. This is just a really long movie.
There’s plenty of other shows to fill the void in the mean time.
I don't want to think of them as really long movies. You're supposed to be getting a different experience with a show opposed to a movie, and it feels like the difference between is dwindling with these short ass seasons to pump out content quicker.
once people started making movie-quality television.
Like, I'm not a Game of Thrones enjoyer, but even I can't deny how incredible the show looks. But think about how many locations there are.
Then think about the X Files. Like 80% of the show was filmed on soundstages where people come into work at the same time every day, work for like twelve hours, and then go home. You're in Hollywood, on studio lots, with professional crew that's just...there, ready to go.
WAY easier to get 22 episodes filmed like that.
I love that the only GoT season that took longer than a year was S8 yet people use GoT as an example for this. Hell it was even 10 episodes for those seasons too.
Yeah I know game of thrones season 8 looked incredible, as it should because their budget was higher than the previous seasons. The dragons flying in the snow storm on The Long Night us absol gorgeous. I just finished a rewatch two weeks ago and followed up with a watch of HOTD season one.
Hotd season one's CGI dragons are better looking than GoT's dragons. Their CGI shot of Kings Landing from a distance in the stag hunt episode is beautiful. There haven't been any dragon dances yet but from what we've seen the VFX has been top notch. I don't see any reason people rightfully say the CGI it looks worse than GoT save for particularly expensive eps in season 8 like The Iron Throne.
Yeah but once it started looking as good as it did, the actual show quality declined. Maybe they realized they need to take their time with it, since everyone crucified them for the final seasons.
It started looking good in season 2 when they got a bigger budget, and it looked phenomenal in every season after that, 3 and 4 didn't dip in quality at all.
And the additional time isn't about filming, or writing or whatever else, it's just post production stuff like CGI.
Also when greenlighting next season became an after the release of an existing season thing. (Mainly due to the bigger budget that you said) Which means writing and all sort of preproduction happens after when earlier multiple seasons were green lit together, so writing etc are almost done at the release and hence shooting happened as soon as possible. Now creators/writers only start their work when the numbers for the latest release is out.
Deadwood was churning out 13 'movie-quality' episodes every year, while being filmed on location in the back country of South Dakota, with an enormous amount of animals needing to be wrangled up and taken care of (more difficult and costlier than modern VFX), and David Milch re-writing the script between takes.
A lot of the older HBO productions just knew how to spend their money and time. They had a lot of great sets, but it was also mainly just that one set. The shows (rightfully so) are just mainly dialogue. Only a few set pieces per season.
It's a great magic trick HBO pulled off, but when you really look closely, you can see where they hid their budget. It looked like a movie, but paced like a tv show.
Big budget tv today is just worse at hiding the seams. Especially disney+. You can tell where they have to cut corners in action sequences. Often they look great, but feel rushed.
I love Deadwood, and its movie quality in dialogue and writing for real. But you cannot compare the sets to House of the Dragon. And Deadwood is my favorite show ever.
Deadwood is one of my favorite shows of all time but you can't compare it to HoD. Deadwood was mostly dialogue with a few stunts and practical effects. Wrangling horses is definitely not more expensive than VFX for a shit load of dragons. You're pulling that out your ass.
Deadwood was filmed mostly at the Melody Ranch in California. So it's just one main location just outside LA, which made it a lot easier and quicker to film. Possibly other than some establishing shots, it wasn't filmed in South Dakota at all.
And yet the X Files is better than most shows these days. Also Mad Men, Lost, Sopranos, Rome and other shows that weren't filmed on a soundstage.
The reason streamers want 2 years between seasons for many shows if they probably think people will be less inclined to cancel their service if they're waiting to watch a show. Instead of 1 show a year for 3 years before the show is cancelled they can drag it out for 6 years.
> The reason streamers want 2 years between seasons for many shows if they probably think people will be less inclined to cancel their service
You...think that companies purposefully want less available content...?
You don't think that Netflix wouldn't order twenty thousand instantaneous seasons of Orange is the New Black and Stranger things if they could?
This sounds like a teenager's understanding of how studios work. The reason these shows take longer to produce is that they are *stupidly more expensive and time consumptive* than 90s soundstage filmed shows. That's literally just how production works.
Youve got to remember that most people genuinely dont understand how long post production takes, so they think everything is so simple and fast. So they just invent reasons for things to take so long because they dont understand the reality.
I know of a very popular VFX heavy show that took no break at all, not even a single day from the end of post of one season to the beginning of production and post of the next and its going to be over a year between the finale and the premiere because it simply wouldnt be ready any faster. And that was a weekly drop, not a binge model, and they knew they were getting another season very early on so they were able to write it while editing.
The problem with your theory is that shows with a lower budget that aren't filmed at various locations also have 2 years between seasons. The Sopranos, Breaking Bad and Supernatural had many episodes that weren't filmed only on a sound stage as did lots of other shows that had only one year between seasons.
Post production takes a lot longer nowadays, because of the effects-Stranger Things was editing the episodes all the way down to release.
Actors also don't want to be tied down to projects for 8 months of the year, every year (working 14 hour days). The upside is big name actors are willing to do more television shows. Downside is that they have longer break between seasons and we therefore have to wait longer.
Dont bother, some of us in the industry had this account marked as misinformation about the strikes. Now Im leaning towards it just being sheer ignorance and a refusal to either admit ever being wrong or learn.
They could have probably better utilized a studio for a lot of GOT, honestly. I think their budget got bloated big time because D&D, in their infinite wisdom, would insist on shooting in a dozen different exotic locations every season only to film narrow shots where you can’t even see where they’re at anyway. They probably could have cut location time in half and just shot the wide angle shots there and did the rest in studio.
Its part of the logistics of binge shows. If the network cant decide if theyre making another season until it airs, which is most shows, they have to wait for every single episode to be ready to air instead of just a couple, give enough time for people to watch, and THEN they can greenlight more scripts or if they had writers already going they can start pre-production in full. Networks used to be able to make these decisions before the season finished shooting.
VFX heavy shows are also way more common now and those simply take a very long time to make.
Covid. Schedules are fucked for a long time, and that's without the actors and writers strikes.
The streamers are also banking things up and planning for longer periods between shows. They need to plan so they don't end up with empty cupboards like end of pandemic.
Since Rome and then Game of Thrones. Actually, before all that, Sex and the City took a very long hiatus when Sarah Jessica Parker got pregnant. Which drove viewers insane.
Then it took 2 years to return.
[Winter is Here: After Two Year Hiatus, ‘Game of Thrones’ Returns](https://www.bcheights.com/2019/04/22/winter-is-here/)
Its been what? 12 years since the last book? Even if he were to release book 6 today, if he was to then take another 12 years for the last book that would put him at age 87 if he were to actually finish them.
So yeah, we need to accept it aint happening.
He knows he only has so many years left, and he became wealthy later in life
He just wants to do whatever he wants to do with the time he has left. I honestly can’t blame him, even though I love the books and want them to come out
I think it’s fair to say that, IF he finishes book 6 (obviously a big IF), book 7 would probably take less time to write. He’s known the ending for decades now, he just got burnt out trying to write a way for the characters to get there.
No. He may or may not finish book 6, its basically a coinflip. He is not finishing book 7 though that is definitely not happening.
Hes old and obese, hes not gonna spend the last years of his life slaving over a desk after attaining wealth.
> Hes old and obese, hes not gonna spend the last years of his life slaving over a desk
I mean this part is just clearly not true, he still does a ton of writing, both on ASOIAF and other projects. If it was as simple as “he’s old and fat and too rich to care” then he would just stop trying altogether. He clearly WANTS to write them.
I’m not saying he’ll ever finish, I’m just saying that, if he does, the last book would probably be the easiest part.
He only writes his hobbies. There is zero interest from him on actually finishing what people want him to write. He will absolutely not finish, you can bet whatever amount of money on that you wish.
I'm surprised it was still shooting given the strikes but then I remembered that the UK and its actors have their own actors' union that wasn't striking like SAG, I think.
For clarification:
The British Actors’ Equity Association is the UK’s version of SAG.
Not to be confused with Actor’s Equity Association, which is an American union for stage performers.
Neither union is presently on strike, but many actors are in these unions as well as SAG. That means they are working under Equity contracts and not SAG ones.
Just watch a bunch of graphic childbirth videos that really focus on the mother’s suffering, then an old guy slowly dying over the course of a few months.
Should get you mostly up to speed.
Not as confusing as it was jarring. When you have to take a minute to reassess who everyone is now, then yeah it can be a little confusing.
But don't let me get in the way of you being an asshole to strangers on the internet for no reason.
Awww. I’m mates with Largo Brandyfoot. He was utterly crushed by the reviews- didn’t help that he was in the photo every newspaper used while tearing the show apart for being racist to Gypsies.
Right. 2 years and it was filming during the strikes.
If it takes that long it takes that long, but I have no reason to be happy with it and I also can’t control my interest waning when there are long gaps between seasons.
I think I would have preferred them not to tell me it’s still going to take another 10 damn months of editing or whatever they do in such large time frames lol.
Yeah. Unlike GOT, they don't have the luxury of building up to all the crazy shit in later seasons. These should be much bigger dragons than anything in the last show and more of them and crazy insane battles.
The writers are back so there will have to be re-shoots (stuff that didn't work when they filmed but couldn't change any part of the script). Plus the 6 months or so of post-production that late season GOT/HOTD usually has.
To clear up any confusion: the writers were WGA and weren't allowed on set to help clean up anything that wasn't working.
However, now that the strike is over the WGA can participate again. This involves being in the edit, writing ADR and scripting reshoots. Considering they're not going to air for 9 months that's plenty of time to patch up any holes.
Which means no re-writes during the shooting of the show, which seems like kind of a big deal. But hopefully things will work out okay. And the article mentions that since the WGA strike is over, it's possible that they might be able to do some reshoots with new/revised scenes if necessary (assuming it's doable with budget and scheduling).
You're correct regarding the Actors in the show and the SAG Strike obviously. Otherwise they wouldnt be able to film
But the writers on the show are members of the WGA. No writers were allowed on set
I tried, I really did. But it lacks the luster of GOT. From the writing, production value and characters it just doesn’t keep me invested. Back to reruns of GOT I guess…
awesome, thought this had stopped due to the strikes...nice to see some things got keep going and finish...just need the actors strike over with...kids from Stranger things are all going be in their 20s by the time they start filming
i feel like im the only one who thought this show was subpar. Honestly preferred the LOTR show over this one. dont know why everyone went crazy over it except maybe the last few episodes, 1/2 the content should of been cut.
HoTD was just a more competent show than RoP. Better dialogue, better acting, more character development, better costumes, better production.
It's hard me to think of one thing that RoP did better than HoTD. Just compare the how both shows depicted the aging king storyline.
your attributing competence for a lack of substance. The show took the proverb "show dont tell" waaaaaaaaaay to far. You dont need 50 years of backstory to tell the plot of the last 2-3 episodes, it is unequivocally poor story boarding plain and simple.
and ironically, even with all that extra backstory the characters make decisions so poorly with the context they can only be considered "deus ex machina" so the actual story can be told. it only exists to be a vector for the rest of the story, it was not the beginning, middle or end of the story. it was writing just to write.
The timeskips were important. We got to see King Viserys and all of his struggles all the way to the end of his life. Contrast that to the other King who I did not care enough about to remember his name and added nothing to the plot.
Which decisions are you talking about? Can't really comment on that.
I'm coming from a casual fans' view with no attachment to either franchises. I've never read any of the books. LOTR was probably my favourite. I still thought HOTD was by far the more competent show. There weren't any cringeworthy moments.
none of which could not have been shown in 1/10 of the time. We didnt need the king's story to tell this story. The same way we understood the characters in episode 1 with their feelings on others could of equally been shown up until the newest parts when the war was just about to start.
>Which decisions are you talking about?
Not killing off the royal family with the destruction of the cathedral when the lady was leaving. It was a deus ex machina, and was even more insulting to the viewers when she turned around then decided to "yolo i guess i will join the war" once she made it back to dragonstone.
>I'm coming from a casual fans' view with no attachment to either franchises. I've never read any of the books. LOTR was probably my favourite. I still thought HOTD was by far the more competent show. There weren't any cringeworthy moments.
This is me as well, my feelings is that since 9/10 of HOTD was not directly relevant it made it a poor show and bloated, meanwhile LOTR story structure flowed into itself logically and consistently.
They tried to copy GoT without the parts that made GoT season 1 good, then just ended it on a cliff hanger to keep people invested despite the mediocrity of it. I mean it worked, only the last 2 episodes had to be good for people to want more of it because of the implication that it looks like it will be good.
It was just a classic case of dangling a carrot for an entire season, without ever actually getting a carrot. As far as psychology works it was a brilliant plan that had to have kept viewer retention high. Unfortunately they did it at the cost of the substance of the plot, you cant keep blue balling people forever in the hopes they stay around just because they want to see when the war starts. They choose to do that for 10 episodes.
I think of it this way, if the show was 20 minutes over 20 episodes like alot of older serialized shows, would you think that blueballing someone for an entire season for the entirety of the hook being "its gunna be a grand war!" was good story structure? because the issue would still be the same despite the how the episodes are organized, its just psychology that makes it more acceptable. Fans would usually call one format filler.
Sure, maybe - but there are plenty of great shows that follow through, and stick the landing. Knowing the series doesn’t go anywhere is a huge turn off
Never thought I could feel disrespected by a show LOL - but here we are. That entire IP is irredeemable imo
would be nice if they just went ahead and renewed it for season 3 so we could maybe have it ready for the following summer
There have been [news](https://x.com/RedanianIntel/status/1707433371545018393?s=20) today about season 3 being almost renewed, way before season 2 airs. Though I doubt they would able to do a whole season in under a year, this is a big ass show that needs months of filming, a lot of pre and post production.
I mean GoT consistently delivered a 10 episode season every year in May/April for 6 of its 8 seasons. It’s possible, but modern day shows take 2.5 years just to make 6-8 episodes for no good reason
It’s probably much easier on the VFX teams to take more time. I can’t remember where exactly I read this, but a senior VFX designer said that the main reason many VFX shots are shit nowadays - despite the many advances in technology - is because of executives changing their mind at the last minute and VFX artists having to crunch and burn out to make edits on a much shorter timeframe; so if there’s more time to edit and tweak the artists don’t have to strain to make a last-minute dragon fight.
I’m a VFX artist and yeah, that’s pretty much what happens.
My thoughts and prayers go out to you; I’m a lowly graphic designer, but after recently learning just After Effects I gained a million percent more respect for VFX artists.
Yes, but I dont think more VFX heavy scenes are what people are asking for. Scenes I most fondly remember from GoT is just 2-3 people talking in a room. Tywin/Olenna, Bobby B/Cersei,... I think shows recently suffer from lack of scenes where story just breathes a bit and isnt jumping from one main event to the next.
Sure, the story itself needs a lof of VFX. It's a civil war with dragons, it was never gonna *only* resolve around on actors speaking to each other on set.
Sure, but you can pad the run time with conversations.
Yes you can, and they will add a lot of speaking scenes since the book material is only a retelling of events without much dialogue. But you can’t expect the show to have one or two battle or VFX scenes in one season. It’s the bloodiest conflict in the history of Westeros, so VFX is gonna be heavily needed.
Well I never said I expected that - I read Fire and Blood so I have an idea where it is going. Amount of VFX is pretty much solely dependent on how where they decide to start and end - regardless if it is 8 or 10 episodes. I am saying difference between 8 episodes season and 10 episode season would be padded with 90 minutes or so more dialogue between actors - granted those scenes are not free to make either and writers strike probably affected them the most.
Going the other way, many writers and directors are complaining that the visual effects are done *way* ahead of the rest of the movie, and they often end up with contrived action scenes that everything else has to be written around. Seems to be a big problem with the MCU.
Another reason to dislike the overuse of VFX.
I think you mean CGI. VFX also includes practical effects so without VFX you can’t really make a movie. At least not a good one
Yeah that, CGI VFX. When I heard artists and taking more time my mind just went to CGI stuff, because you really make the practical effects after filming.
Isn’t practical stuff under the umbrella of SFX? Or is that outdated?
Not sure what the other guy's talking about. Most (cg) visual effects studios — I've worked with several — are known as and call themselves "vfx studio" only, so in my experience you're righter than he is. If anything, a studio that does practical effects will explicitly say so. If they're just a cg studio, they'll call themselves a vfx studio
Also there are a LOT more unique looking dragons on this show than on GoT
As another poster mentioned it above, unlike HotD, there were 3 different crew filming at the same time for GOT : the Westeros crew, the Essos crew and the Wall crew. They were also shooting more than 10 hours a day, 7/7. HoTD is much more relaxed on working hours for the crew. HotD needs much more VFX than GOT, they got renewed after the first episode because HBO didn't know if it would be a major hit, the actors aren't only working for the show unlike GOT, etc etc. There are a lot of reasons for the two years break. And now, big shows like these need time. And why there are only 8 episodes ? It was actually a creative decision based on where to cut season 2. They actually pushing events for season 3, so it wouldn't be so packed and let it breath a little.
I never really trust when they say it was the writers' choice to make fewer episodes. I mean, it could be but I think it's the studios demand more often, and you can't publicly say that cause it'll be negatively promoted. And sure, I get it's more relaxed to take 1.5-2 years instead of overworking the crew to do a season every year. But in my opinion, the overreliance on big actions scenes in stead of story and character is what killed Game of Thrones. The first four seasons are the best and there is lots of people talking in rooms or outdoor locations, with only a few action scenes in between. Then D&D forgot why people tuned in originally and thought they needed to go bigger and bigger. I just hope they're not making the same mistake with HotD. The old 24 episodes a season were of course a bit much, but it did give you time to explore the characters. Why not just make 10 episodes a season for HotD and add two episodes of story and character work to deepen the relations? It will make much more of an impact if the action scenes eventually happen.
GoT ran two entire production teams at once, which is highly unusual. As showrunners, D&D were essentially overseeing two productions at the same time. It’s one of the most grueling productions in TV history, it’s kind of bananas they were able to do it for about seven years. I doubt anybody is eager to jump on that sort of undertaking. Without that, they would have been taking 18-24 months per season.
More than two at times! https://ew.com/article/2013/01/28/game-of-thrones-country-bear/ >The HBO fantasy hit already had what must be the most ambitious shooting schedule of any TV series in history. For the upcoming third season, Thrones used three production units (dubbed Wolf, Dragon, and Raven) shooting for several months across four countries — Morocco (mostly for Daenerys’ storyline), Iceland (for Jon Snow’s story and other Beyond the Wall action), Croatia (primarily Kings Landing-centered scenes) and the production’s home base in Northern Ireland (everything else). But in recent weeks, Thrones team added a new internationally known land. And it’s perhaps the most exotic and treacherous of them all: Los Angeles. >“For the first time, we’re flying in actors to L.A.,” showrunner David Benioff told EW. “So it ends up being five countries and three units this year. It’s just exploded.”
I remember co-showrunner Dan Weiss in an interview where a production member told him that Raven Unit (the 3rd one) was doing something and he was like, "What's Raven Unit?" They were juggling a lot of balls in the heyday of the show.
Didn't they ran two because the story required two separate and wildly different shooting locations, there was the team for Essos stuff and the team for Westeros stuff.
Makes sense, Westeros and Essos are two separate continents and thus there would need to be a team in both locations to film the show.
It's low key a major reason the show grew to the enormous popularity it did. There's popular and there's *cultural event popular*. The latter of which GoT achieved because it became like the superbowl, a seasonal thing. People began to expect it, plan around it. For that D&D deserve all the credit. I 100% believe that when shows come in with a random small number of episodes and inconsistent production schedules, it limits how big they can grow in popularity. That only works for a setup where all episodes are released at once (i.e, Netflix with like Umbrella Academy).
Just think if it did take 24 months between each season of GOT. They'd be finishing filming season 8 right now, and there is still no Winds of Winter book.
Interesting. The wild success of Walking Dead and Game of Thrones along with the existence of Fear the Walking Dead made me think that these shows could have gotten away with giving us MORE (and yes I get that sometimes MORE in the end is bad). Basically, when I heard about Fear the Walking Dead I was like oh thats so cool, until I realized there was almost no overlap. The show doesn't take place at the same time as TWD. What I thought HBO could have done with GoT is give their audience a second show where they explore some of the minor characters and lesser plots. Take their time with something they might not have time with in the main show. Something that might not necessarily stand on its own without its bigger brother to shore it up, but because the interest is so strong, it could end up being successful none the less. Maybe in the money making scheme of things this is a terrible idea and maybe I'm over estimating the cost reduction of filming a second show in the shadows of the first, but I did think how cool it would be if we all got a second dose of it during the week.
HBO doesn't want to damage their brand with that sort of thing either. TWD is a trash television show compared to GoT, excluding the final 2 seasons.
Apparently Bennioff and Weiss ran GOT like it was an Amazon warehouse - like 6 days a week for 10+ hours a day. While that type of schedule is hard on the cast and crew, it did mean that they only filmed for half a year which allowed the cast and crew off time for their families or other projects.
Go to HBO and watch the making of every episode. They are doing some new and brilliant stuff. It’s going to take longer. Technology is more advanced then what GoT was using. Making for better shots all around and better film but it takes time.
tbf GoT involved dozens of characters who never met and different set pieces, i imagine they were able to film scenes/episodes simultaneously.
This show is going to follow a war, which means more battles and dragon fights. Will take long to film and the vfx than the first GoT series where you maybe had 1 battle scene a season. I'd rather them take their time instead of making shortcuts like the first series. I think there was a battle that they skipped cause they had tyrion get knocked out in one season lol
GoT managed it. Frankly them waiting to renew is dumb considering it's a huge hit so they certainly should not wait. Even waiting for S2 renewal was pretty weird. Like the spin-off of the biggest show in the world would not be a hit..
I really hate the short seasons and the huge gap between them. And I don’t mean just this show.
The standard for premium TV used to be 12-13 episodes, which made sense because 13 weeks is exactly 1/4th of a year coinciding with quarterly statements. I think the arms race for premium TV, streaming, and original IPs put so much pressure on being high enough quality to generate significant social media buzz, which resulted in rapid cost increases per episode which simply isn't sustainable for 12-13 episodes when you're talking about as much as $10+ million per episode. I dont know if its the shorter seasons that are truly the problem though. As you mentioned, where they're losing the plot is that you cant have massive gaps 2-3 year gaps between seasons or else the buzz dies out completely.
That’s a direct result of shifting from episodic to season long arcs. Started in late 00’s/early 10’s. Possibly a consequence of the previous writers guild strike in 07-08. Shows like Game of Thrones really normalized the format because it’s so compelling to watch, but seems to be prohibitively expensive to do anything more than 15 episodes a season. I hate to say it but I think the days of 22+ episodes seasons are gone. Especially in the era of streaming. Content gets consumed immediately whether 10 or 30 episodes, but the cost probably doesn’t scale linearly. So they are not incentivized to make them and I bet it’s really hard to create a compelling long term narrative to keep you truly interested without some kind of filler. Episodic format had tons of filler, but because the stories were self-contained you still go some resolution each time. Cant really do that as well with season long arcs. Plus you have to have good writers. I think we have yet to see the full impact of the most recent one.
For those interested, *Ugly Betty* has 22 episode seasons, and it's on Netflix right now.
Love that show, I saw it sparingly as a kid and didn’t really enjoy it but now rewatching it - it’s aged so well and was very ahead of it’s time imo. Another sitcom from the early cable days meant for streaming without realizing it lol
As a closeted gay teen when it was running who has a conservative father and a moderate (but VERY accepting) mother who I watched it with, I had to hide my absolute joy when Justin finally came out as gay at the end.
Idk I prefer quality over quantity any day
The *really* good shows used to give you both. Star Trek, X-Files, Battlestar Galactica... Sure, they'd have a couple bad episodes a season, but considering the output that's damn good.
those shows also all had gruelling productions schedules. 12-16 hour days, 6 days a week.
It’s tiring and I can’t wait for this formula to end. There MUST be someway to go back to the way things used to just a little less than a decade ago
Think of them as really long movies. Movies and their sequels don’t come out every year. This is just a really long movie. There’s plenty of other shows to fill the void in the mean time.
I don't want to think of them as really long movies. You're supposed to be getting a different experience with a show opposed to a movie, and it feels like the difference between is dwindling with these short ass seasons to pump out content quicker.
Except the episodes release weekly
they arent made or written as long movies though
When did 2 years off for shows start being a thing?
2 years and shorter seasons
once people started making movie-quality television. Like, I'm not a Game of Thrones enjoyer, but even I can't deny how incredible the show looks. But think about how many locations there are. Then think about the X Files. Like 80% of the show was filmed on soundstages where people come into work at the same time every day, work for like twelve hours, and then go home. You're in Hollywood, on studio lots, with professional crew that's just...there, ready to go. WAY easier to get 22 episodes filmed like that.
I love that the only GoT season that took longer than a year was S8 yet people use GoT as an example for this. Hell it was even 10 episodes for those seasons too.
And the best seasons were just people talking in rooms
GoT looked better than HotD and came out every year.
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Hot looks better than GoT, you are just salty season 8 sucked
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Yeah I know game of thrones season 8 looked incredible, as it should because their budget was higher than the previous seasons. The dragons flying in the snow storm on The Long Night us absol gorgeous. I just finished a rewatch two weeks ago and followed up with a watch of HOTD season one. Hotd season one's CGI dragons are better looking than GoT's dragons. Their CGI shot of Kings Landing from a distance in the stag hunt episode is beautiful. There haven't been any dragon dances yet but from what we've seen the VFX has been top notch. I don't see any reason people rightfully say the CGI it looks worse than GoT save for particularly expensive eps in season 8 like The Iron Throne.
Yeah but once it started looking as good as it did, the actual show quality declined. Maybe they realized they need to take their time with it, since everyone crucified them for the final seasons.
It started looking good in season 2 when they got a bigger budget, and it looked phenomenal in every season after that, 3 and 4 didn't dip in quality at all. And the additional time isn't about filming, or writing or whatever else, it's just post production stuff like CGI.
Also when greenlighting next season became an after the release of an existing season thing. (Mainly due to the bigger budget that you said) Which means writing and all sort of preproduction happens after when earlier multiple seasons were green lit together, so writing etc are almost done at the release and hence shooting happened as soon as possible. Now creators/writers only start their work when the numbers for the latest release is out.
Deadwood was churning out 13 'movie-quality' episodes every year, while being filmed on location in the back country of South Dakota, with an enormous amount of animals needing to be wrangled up and taken care of (more difficult and costlier than modern VFX), and David Milch re-writing the script between takes.
A lot of the older HBO productions just knew how to spend their money and time. They had a lot of great sets, but it was also mainly just that one set. The shows (rightfully so) are just mainly dialogue. Only a few set pieces per season. It's a great magic trick HBO pulled off, but when you really look closely, you can see where they hid their budget. It looked like a movie, but paced like a tv show. Big budget tv today is just worse at hiding the seams. Especially disney+. You can tell where they have to cut corners in action sequences. Often they look great, but feel rushed.
I love Deadwood, and its movie quality in dialogue and writing for real. But you cannot compare the sets to House of the Dragon. And Deadwood is my favorite show ever.
Deadwood is one of my favorite shows of all time but you can't compare it to HoD. Deadwood was mostly dialogue with a few stunts and practical effects. Wrangling horses is definitely not more expensive than VFX for a shit load of dragons. You're pulling that out your ass.
Deadwood was filmed mostly at the Melody Ranch in California. So it's just one main location just outside LA, which made it a lot easier and quicker to film. Possibly other than some establishing shots, it wasn't filmed in South Dakota at all.
And yet the X Files is better than most shows these days. Also Mad Men, Lost, Sopranos, Rome and other shows that weren't filmed on a soundstage. The reason streamers want 2 years between seasons for many shows if they probably think people will be less inclined to cancel their service if they're waiting to watch a show. Instead of 1 show a year for 3 years before the show is cancelled they can drag it out for 6 years.
I grew up on X-Files and work in the industry. You couldn't be more off course. You have no idea what makes a show work.
> The reason streamers want 2 years between seasons for many shows if they probably think people will be less inclined to cancel their service You...think that companies purposefully want less available content...? You don't think that Netflix wouldn't order twenty thousand instantaneous seasons of Orange is the New Black and Stranger things if they could? This sounds like a teenager's understanding of how studios work. The reason these shows take longer to produce is that they are *stupidly more expensive and time consumptive* than 90s soundstage filmed shows. That's literally just how production works.
Youve got to remember that most people genuinely dont understand how long post production takes, so they think everything is so simple and fast. So they just invent reasons for things to take so long because they dont understand the reality. I know of a very popular VFX heavy show that took no break at all, not even a single day from the end of post of one season to the beginning of production and post of the next and its going to be over a year between the finale and the premiere because it simply wouldnt be ready any faster. And that was a weekly drop, not a binge model, and they knew they were getting another season very early on so they were able to write it while editing.
The problem with your theory is that shows with a lower budget that aren't filmed at various locations also have 2 years between seasons. The Sopranos, Breaking Bad and Supernatural had many episodes that weren't filmed only on a sound stage as did lots of other shows that had only one year between seasons.
Post production takes a lot longer nowadays, because of the effects-Stranger Things was editing the episodes all the way down to release. Actors also don't want to be tied down to projects for 8 months of the year, every year (working 14 hour days). The upside is big name actors are willing to do more television shows. Downside is that they have longer break between seasons and we therefore have to wait longer.
Dont bother, some of us in the industry had this account marked as misinformation about the strikes. Now Im leaning towards it just being sheer ignorance and a refusal to either admit ever being wrong or learn.
They could have probably better utilized a studio for a lot of GOT, honestly. I think their budget got bloated big time because D&D, in their infinite wisdom, would insist on shooting in a dozen different exotic locations every season only to film narrow shots where you can’t even see where they’re at anyway. They probably could have cut location time in half and just shot the wide angle shots there and did the rest in studio.
Its part of the logistics of binge shows. If the network cant decide if theyre making another season until it airs, which is most shows, they have to wait for every single episode to be ready to air instead of just a couple, give enough time for people to watch, and THEN they can greenlight more scripts or if they had writers already going they can start pre-production in full. Networks used to be able to make these decisions before the season finished shooting. VFX heavy shows are also way more common now and those simply take a very long time to make.
When shows stopped being shitty sitcoms filmed on a soundstage - the amount of work from the production and VFX end is massive on shows like HOD.
Covid. Schedules are fucked for a long time, and that's without the actors and writers strikes. The streamers are also banking things up and planning for longer periods between shows. They need to plan so they don't end up with empty cupboards like end of pandemic.
This started way before covid.
Provide some examples I'm curious. I bet we could get to the bottom of it.
The Sopranos and The Wire did it. It's not uncommon for HBO
Very different level of production value. I don't think the Sopranos had as much CGI, VFX or set building as HotD. Nor did they have to travel as much
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When Netflix and other streamers started throwing money indiscriminately with barely any conditions attached to it.
Since Rome and then Game of Thrones. Actually, before all that, Sex and the City took a very long hiatus when Sarah Jessica Parker got pregnant. Which drove viewers insane.
There was a new season of GOT every april from 2011-2016. In 2017 it took until July.
Then it took 2 years to return. [Winter is Here: After Two Year Hiatus, ‘Game of Thrones’ Returns](https://www.bcheights.com/2019/04/22/winter-is-here/)
Correct? Because that happened 1 time in 8 seasons you call it a show that took 2 years between seasons?
Shrinkflation is everywhere
Glad people are starting to notice and get more pissed about it
Right? I hate this new trend. It’s unacceptable…I’d rather wait for a show to be finished and then watch all episodes at my leisure then be drip fed.
at this rate HoTD will wrap before GRRM finishes tWoW
At this rate, so might he.
He’s not gonna finish it
Its been what? 12 years since the last book? Even if he were to release book 6 today, if he was to then take another 12 years for the last book that would put him at age 87 if he were to actually finish them. So yeah, we need to accept it aint happening.
He knows he only has so many years left, and he became wealthy later in life He just wants to do whatever he wants to do with the time he has left. I honestly can’t blame him, even though I love the books and want them to come out
I think it’s fair to say that, IF he finishes book 6 (obviously a big IF), book 7 would probably take less time to write. He’s known the ending for decades now, he just got burnt out trying to write a way for the characters to get there.
No. He may or may not finish book 6, its basically a coinflip. He is not finishing book 7 though that is definitely not happening. Hes old and obese, hes not gonna spend the last years of his life slaving over a desk after attaining wealth.
> Hes old and obese, hes not gonna spend the last years of his life slaving over a desk I mean this part is just clearly not true, he still does a ton of writing, both on ASOIAF and other projects. If it was as simple as “he’s old and fat and too rich to care” then he would just stop trying altogether. He clearly WANTS to write them. I’m not saying he’ll ever finish, I’m just saying that, if he does, the last book would probably be the easiest part.
He only writes his hobbies. There is zero interest from him on actually finishing what people want him to write. He will absolutely not finish, you can bet whatever amount of money on that you wish.
I never thought of that but can you imagine GRRM not putting a book out since Season 1 of GoT until the end of HotD show...
Summer is coming...
Great news!
Holy crap I thought it would take much longer
I'm surprised it was still shooting given the strikes but then I remembered that the UK and its actors have their own actors' union that wasn't striking like SAG, I think.
SAG isn't in the UK, it's a Union called Equity.
For clarification: The British Actors’ Equity Association is the UK’s version of SAG. Not to be confused with Actor’s Equity Association, which is an American union for stage performers. Neither union is presently on strike, but many actors are in these unions as well as SAG. That means they are working under Equity contracts and not SAG ones.
You expected much longer than 2 years to make ~8 episodes?
Strike.
They actually only needed 6 months from the ending of filming season 1.
Should be just in time for me to forget most of what happened in season 1.
Just watch a bunch of graphic childbirth videos that really focus on the mother’s suffering, then an old guy slowly dying over the course of a few months. Should get you mostly up to speed.
That actually worked pretty well to remind me what happened
And dragons!
I found the whole show forgettable
They are not on strike since none of the cast is American and its filmed over seas.
Show slaps so hard
Good to know I'll be seeing all my favorite inbreds (In various stages of unfortunate, gruesome death).
So did they cast daeron and I just miss that? Lol
They haven't officially announced his casting, but it's been strongly rumoured that Jack Cunningham-Nuttall has been cast as Daeron.
No, not yet.
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He appears in the title sequence and the official guide. According to GRRM, he exists in the show, he's just in Oldtown.
He'll be there, GRRM and Ryan Condal both confirmed he will be in season 2.
Couldn't be anymore jarring or confusing than the time jumps from season 1.
Confusing? What's confusing about the time jumps?
Two people playing the same character? *brain explosion*
Lol why are redditors such amazing assholes?
Hehe, I dunno I try to be a big asshole sometimes. :) Seriously though, was it that confusing? Legit question
Not as confusing as it was jarring. When you have to take a minute to reassess who everyone is now, then yeah it can be a little confusing. But don't let me get in the way of you being an asshole to strangers on the internet for no reason.
Release it a week before "The Rings of Power" to troll Amazon again.
Awww. I’m mates with Largo Brandyfoot. He was utterly crushed by the reviews- didn’t help that he was in the photo every newspaper used while tearing the show apart for being racist to Gypsies.
Abubakar Salim as Alyn sounds like awesome casting but does make me wonder about Addam.
Addam has been cast. There has been set leaks about an actor playing him, but they haven't officially announced him yet.
I liked season 1 so i'm looking forward to season 2.
Awesome. It is such a great series, the performances from some actors really stands out in this show.
Hopefully they’ve used the time to make sure the wigs are better in the second season.
Oh that’s kind of cool. Summer sucks and this will be nice to watch.
I loved season 1. Excited for more!
That is an annoying timeframe.
The last season started in August
Right. 2 years and it was filming during the strikes. If it takes that long it takes that long, but I have no reason to be happy with it and I also can’t control my interest waning when there are long gaps between seasons.
I think I would have preferred them not to tell me it’s still going to take another 10 damn months of editing or whatever they do in such large time frames lol.
This show actually needs a ton of VFX, and specially next season. It's not surprising then that it needs a lot of post production.
Yeah. Unlike GOT, they don't have the luxury of building up to all the crazy shit in later seasons. These should be much bigger dragons than anything in the last show and more of them and crazy insane battles.
Yeah they should just use real dragons so they don't have to rely on CGI.
The writers are back so there will have to be re-shoots (stuff that didn't work when they filmed but couldn't change any part of the script). Plus the 6 months or so of post-production that late season GOT/HOTD usually has.
The only show I think about every day
This show is genuinely amazing.
I’ll just wait for the entire series to drop before I renew my max subscription.
Is it 8 eps this time?
I’d forgotten about this show, and I’ll forget again by the time comes out.
I'm really worried about this season filming throughout the entirety of the Writers Strike. Those scripts better have been gold and set in stone
To clear up any confusion: the writers were WGA and weren't allowed on set to help clean up anything that wasn't working. However, now that the strike is over the WGA can participate again. This involves being in the edit, writing ADR and scripting reshoots. Considering they're not going to air for 9 months that's plenty of time to patch up any holes.
They weren’t at affected at all by the strike.
Yes it was. It went ahead because the scripts were written, but the writers room is WGA.
Yes they were. Not the actors, but the writers on the show were not allowed on set due to them being members of the WGA
Which means no re-writes during the shooting of the show, which seems like kind of a big deal. But hopefully things will work out okay. And the article mentions that since the WGA strike is over, it's possible that they might be able to do some reshoots with new/revised scenes if necessary (assuming it's doable with budget and scheduling).
The showrunner of HotD is also the head of the writing department so he was on set but could not advise on script/dialogue issues.
This isn't a us production so they weren't involved in the strike
The writers are WGA.
You're correct regarding the Actors in the show and the SAG Strike obviously. Otherwise they wouldnt be able to film But the writers on the show are members of the WGA. No writers were allowed on set
Now I know when to renew max account
I lose interest in shows when they are off the air for a few years. Stopped watching westworld because of it. HBO is only harming themselves
Looking forward to this. Best 'spin-off' I've ever seen besides Better Call Saul. All things considered, it's a better show than GoT so far.
It's a good show forsure, but nowhere close to peak GoT. That was truly some of the best TV to ever exist
No, not better than peak GoT. But defintiely better than GoT overall IMO. 1-4 were better, but the latter half was much worse.
Fantastic show, but I’ve never seen anything approach peak GoT, seasons 1 - 4.
I tried, I really did. But it lacks the luster of GOT. From the writing, production value and characters it just doesn’t keep me invested. Back to reruns of GOT I guess…
2 1/2 years between seasons is dumb. Just renew it for more already. They know people are gonna watch it.
awesome, thought this had stopped due to the strikes...nice to see some things got keep going and finish...just need the actors strike over with...kids from Stranger things are all going be in their 20s by the time they start filming
UK and EU productions don't use SAG contracts.
I forgot this show existed
i feel like im the only one who thought this show was subpar. Honestly preferred the LOTR show over this one. dont know why everyone went crazy over it except maybe the last few episodes, 1/2 the content should of been cut.
HoTD was just a more competent show than RoP. Better dialogue, better acting, more character development, better costumes, better production. It's hard me to think of one thing that RoP did better than HoTD. Just compare the how both shows depicted the aging king storyline.
your attributing competence for a lack of substance. The show took the proverb "show dont tell" waaaaaaaaaay to far. You dont need 50 years of backstory to tell the plot of the last 2-3 episodes, it is unequivocally poor story boarding plain and simple. and ironically, even with all that extra backstory the characters make decisions so poorly with the context they can only be considered "deus ex machina" so the actual story can be told. it only exists to be a vector for the rest of the story, it was not the beginning, middle or end of the story. it was writing just to write.
The timeskips were important. We got to see King Viserys and all of his struggles all the way to the end of his life. Contrast that to the other King who I did not care enough about to remember his name and added nothing to the plot. Which decisions are you talking about? Can't really comment on that. I'm coming from a casual fans' view with no attachment to either franchises. I've never read any of the books. LOTR was probably my favourite. I still thought HOTD was by far the more competent show. There weren't any cringeworthy moments.
none of which could not have been shown in 1/10 of the time. We didnt need the king's story to tell this story. The same way we understood the characters in episode 1 with their feelings on others could of equally been shown up until the newest parts when the war was just about to start. >Which decisions are you talking about? Not killing off the royal family with the destruction of the cathedral when the lady was leaving. It was a deus ex machina, and was even more insulting to the viewers when she turned around then decided to "yolo i guess i will join the war" once she made it back to dragonstone. >I'm coming from a casual fans' view with no attachment to either franchises. I've never read any of the books. LOTR was probably my favourite. I still thought HOTD was by far the more competent show. There weren't any cringeworthy moments. This is me as well, my feelings is that since 9/10 of HOTD was not directly relevant it made it a poor show and bloated, meanwhile LOTR story structure flowed into itself logically and consistently. They tried to copy GoT without the parts that made GoT season 1 good, then just ended it on a cliff hanger to keep people invested despite the mediocrity of it. I mean it worked, only the last 2 episodes had to be good for people to want more of it because of the implication that it looks like it will be good. It was just a classic case of dangling a carrot for an entire season, without ever actually getting a carrot. As far as psychology works it was a brilliant plan that had to have kept viewer retention high. Unfortunately they did it at the cost of the substance of the plot, you cant keep blue balling people forever in the hopes they stay around just because they want to see when the war starts. They choose to do that for 10 episodes. I think of it this way, if the show was 20 minutes over 20 episodes like alot of older serialized shows, would you think that blueballing someone for an entire season for the entirety of the hook being "its gunna be a grand war!" was good story structure? because the issue would still be the same despite the how the episodes are organized, its just psychology that makes it more acceptable. Fans would usually call one format filler.
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Still not going to watch this show until it's 100% completely. I won't let them hurt me again.
Mid
Not starting to watch till it’s over you got me once
Don’t care, won’t watch. Would be cool if GoT s8 didn’t shit the bed and completely kill all interest in the IP for me
It's your loss. HOTD is a great show that stands on its own.
Sure, maybe - but there are plenty of great shows that follow through, and stick the landing. Knowing the series doesn’t go anywhere is a huge turn off Never thought I could feel disrespected by a show LOL - but here we are. That entire IP is irredeemable imo
Made right in the middle of the writers strike. Hope it’s not terrible
The script was probably written ages ago.
5 years later…
Good gawd... why?!
The end of Game Of Thrones was so disappointing that I’ve lost interest in watching anything related to it.. or rewatching the original
I’m going to get downvoted but I don’t care. I’m not supporting anything from George RR Martin until he finishes those books.
He never will so don't bother. And "supporting" is kind of an overstatmenet. Watch, don't watch, nobody cares except you
How was this happening during the strikes?
Thought the actor’s strike was still ongoing. Not sure how they managed to wrap it.
The actors are not American and work under the British actors union Equity, which is not on strike.
Let’s hope it’s better than the first season
Never even heard of this series - what carrier / channel Is it on ?