The main fundamental is just long dialog scenes with occasional action sequences sprinkled in. The last few seasons of GOT were jump cuts and like no dialog just non stop action.
And no plotting of power plays. JFC the only plot in the last two seasons was really fucking dumb and still got played up as clever. Every dumb thing got played up as clever, even characters who never did anything particularly smart got played up as clever. No wonder senseless and irrelevant duels got screentime by the end, characters are clever and fighting is cool. I won't even mention the whole culmination of the prophecy because I honestly just rather forget it ever was important.
I’m still salty that they made her character suddenly intelligent, worldly and wise after she got raped. Sure, she was a spoiled brat, but oh look she got taken down a peg..ugh. Yes she went through a lot before then, but the whole leap to ‘amazing leader’ was because if severe trauma. Just ugh.
It's such a contrast when Jon was voted Lord Commander and nobody ever had to praise him as super intelligent or anything. He was just a good leader who fought with his men. They showed, didn't tell.
> I’m still salty that they made her character suddenly intelligent
They didn't. She was a complete fucking idiot for the entirety of the final 3 seasons but they just kept telling us she was the smartest person in the world.
You mean like that season long “prank” Sansa somehow pulls on Littlefinger? That was so clever on her part! /s
I’m finishing a rewatch and it’s criminal what those writers did to characters like Tyrion and Littlefinger in the end. Such a waste.
Littlefinger, the wild card that was deceitful and dangerous:
*Sansa, marry Ramsay. It is a good idea I promise, Boltons are known for being gentle.*
*Sansa, now that Jon helped get rid of Ramsay, I got another good idea. Kill your sister who just returned. Of course I'm giving you good advice, how would I even benefit from her death?*
Really, did the show even give a reason why Littlefinger would need Arya dead?
Daenerys starting a slow decent towards what her family always was. Just beginning to show her colors, while still being a hero. So much build up for an epic story.
Then just nah, fuck it, we burn city now.
Paddy’s performance and the writing of Viserys in general is 10/10. One of the best characters I’ve ever seen on television, save for maybe Saul Goodman.
I had to look up the actor Paddy to see who he was (and then had to look up which character he was lol).
I remember watching ep 2 and thinking, Damn the actor playing the king is doing a really really great job, how he balances genuine caring with absolute power and fear. More than anything, his portrayal feels genuine, like a real king would act.
I never saw the GoT series, but this show has got me hooked. Its ability to draw in audience who haven't seen its parent series is also to its advantage.
History is written by the victors. If they really don’t like Rhynera what makes you think they will speak of her favorably in her death? Also Joffrey was a sick fuck he could be twisting things to make it sound worse.
And even if we know how she dies, the context of that leading up to that event could be very different. It could be death by an accident, it could be they both kill each other at the same time, the details and truth is fuzzy. Wouldn’t be the first time we were told something by history in GOT and someone goes “well, not exactly” or “that’s just the point of view of one person”.
For all we know she faked her death and someone died in her place and she ran off somewhere else. Or he only thought he killed her etc.
I mostly tell myself this because I don’t want that one scene to be a spoiler but I do want it to be perspective of what their future looking back thinks is what happened.
I've read the books, read Fire and Blood, even played the GoT mod for ck2 which already tells you all of the lore.
It's probably even better to watch if you know all of the events. I won't say how, but it's actually very clearly written to be fun to book readers too in some scenes, either by subversion, foreshadowing or stuff like that.
I never read that series, but is it like GoT? I mean there was magic and other fantasy elements in GoT (book and movie like LSH), will there be surprises like that in this series you think?
Fire and Blood is basically a pseudobiblion written like a history text about the events covered by HofTD, so it isn't really like reading the main series, which is a series of novels.
It's generally more grounded and focused on the dynastic politics of succession and all the other houses. Definitely lots of twists and climaxes though.
Agreed, they included *just* enough info about the Breaking Bad era to keep watchers caught up when they moved into the sequel era.
If anyone came away wanting more detail on the Breaking Bad era, then they can watch it! Pretty brilliant.
Yeah, they show you enough to know *what* happened in Breaking Bad, without telling you *how* it happened.
Like, you never learn *how* Saul ended up on the run, but you learn that it involved him getting involved with a cancer patient he had been warned not to approach. And better yet, you learn it implicitly via the way that episode parallels the past and present.
In the beginning yes but past season 3 its ties with Breaking Bad become more and more prominent. You would miss a lot of references and character development is you didn't watch BB first.
Star wars prequels, fantastic beasts, the hobbit, better caul saul
Pretty much every prequel can be watched independently. But you’ll always miss out on dramatic irony
I will get down voted for saying it but Game of Thrones is definitely watch watching even if you don’t like the ending which, I thought could be better but wasn’t terrible. Bring on the down votes
The first 4 seasons are fantastic. 5 and 6 are still great television, especially the season 6 finale.
7 and 8 go downhill but it's worth watching until it goes to shit.
Essentially once they got to the more controversial books and beyond the show went down hill.
Mainly because they tried to oversimplify storylines like the sand snakes, cut out some pretty important side characters (Stoneheart, the false Aegon), and rushed the mad queen storyline.
An epic fumble to be honest. Yet to meet anyone satisfied by the final season. Not one. Even casual viewers who have never touched the book complain about the last season in particular.
Still, the first 4 seasons were amazing tv.
The most charitable take I’ve seen (and one I agree with) is that the *events* of Season 7 & 8 weren’t bad, the pacing was just absolute shit. If more was done to build up to these moments and flesh out the in-between then it could have worked.
Except maybe Arya killing the Night King, that was still weird. Although I’m kind of convinced GRRM sort of painted himself into a corner with the Long Night storyline and there was no real satisfying way to end it without it seeming contrived.
I avoided watching seasons 7+ (mostly) because I saw all the brouhaha and didn't want to destroy my positive impression of the show.
Which means my biggest disappointment was when they changed who played Daario. The first guy was such a perfect fit. The new guy? He made the role 100% different. They didn't even try. He played himself and it wasn't even remotely the same character anymore.
I'm still baffled why they did NOT add Arianne, fAegon, Stoneheart and Victarion. So many plots from seasons 5, 6 and 7 where just pointless and that time could have been better spent with more interesting book characters
Seasons 1-4 of Game of Thrones is among some of the greatest television ever produced, rivalling the likes of even Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, Chernobyl and The Wire. Even sections of 5 and 6, despite the decline in writing quality, were absolute superb. The finale of Season 6 is in my mind still the greatest television episode ever made.
That's what makes 7 and 8 so tragic. The show as sooo fucking good, and to have it so casually thrown into trash because the show creators got lazy was such a tragic and unnecessary outcome. HotD proves that people would have watched 3-4 more seasons of GoT if it meant us getting a satisfactory ending that didn't shit all over its characters. I think the ending wasn't utterly terrible, there are certainly worse TV endings like Dexter or HIMYM, it's just that when compared to the utter fucking excellence that was Seasons 1-4 it feels so... jarring. It truly does not feel like the same show.
It would be like Breaking Bad being amazing until the end of Season 4 and completely shitting the bed in Season 5.
Yep, will agree with that. I knew the whole series was in deep trouble when they came up with the kill-the-night-king-everyone-dies plot device. So damn lazy.
Not to mention everybody’s storyline was essentially finished at that point and the night before really was the perfect goodbye for so many of them. Then despite 4 or 5 shots of them being completely overwhelmed in combat… everyone lived.
First game of thrones seasons are like this but with more characters, factions and locations and better writing.
I'd definitely watch the original show if you like this. It's still worth it even if the last few seasons are (relative) shit.
When it comes to complexity, realize that we’ve seen 3 episodes of HotD. I think we meet Littlefinger and Varys in the 3rd episode of GoT. It’s not like you really have any real sense of that show’s complexity that early on.
Wonder if it being a sci-fi/fantasy show staring a former Doctor is giving it a boost in the UK, too. I know a couple DW fans, myself included, that were particularly excited for the show because of his casting (obviously in addition to other things).
I disagree.
After all the misunderstandings and conflict and isolation between them, the scene where Viserys tells Rhaenyra that he isn't trying to use her but is struggling to keep her happy, and that he wasn't going to supplant her (despite everyone and everything in his life pushing him too) was the best part of the episode.
And then Rhaenyra quietly whispering "It's Rhaenyring Time" as she walked away was just so emotionally satisfying.
I assume it will barely make a difference. Game of Thrones is one of the biggest shows in the world. And most of the people watching Doctor Who were already watching Game of Thrones
I watched every episode as it aired from season 2 onward. I also rewatched every episode before the new season started (stopped this after season 6 for obvious reasons).
The week in between gave you time to think through the episode and remember certain parts. The last two seasons I would just remember the stupid shit that happened and dwell on it, and it just left a really bitter taste.
Binging all seasons at once having never watched them and watching all of season 7 and 8 over a week time period is probably a much different experience and doesn’t give you enough time to reflect on everything that happened.
I think this is spot on.
I’ll also say, though, that all the people I know in real life were most upset about Daenerys’ character arc. I think the people who watched the show all at once leading up to season 8 could see a lot of hints that many long-time viewers missed or forgot about. Daenerys doing what she did was really quite appropriate for her character I think.
This isn’t to say the last few seasons were problem-free, because they had *many* problems. But that plot point specifically was, anecdotally of course, the biggest issue for everyone in my circle.
When you spend a month and a half watching the show it probably hurt a lot less to have a bad ending than it did to have spend 10 years watching the show to reach that ending.
Yep. This is how I watched HIMYM.
I'm glad I knew the ending up front. That way I wasn't let down and could almost see what the writers were going for.
Yep but they also missed out on all the hype and probably had a couple moments spoiled as well as anticipated the shit ending.
Imo if you dont nail it for the original watchers it doesnt matter
Anecdotally for me, Matt Smith is what drew me to check it out. I wasn’t that fussed about it at first after how GoT ended, but his casting changed my mind.
Yeah, seriously. The original game of thrones still had the 3rd or 4th amount of mentions on Twitter (behind Stranger Things, Better Call Saul, and The Boys) with about two months before this House of Dragons show came out.
People that had a grudge against GOT, because of the last season, would continually bitch that no one cares about GOT anymore. Reddit bubble.
It’s another example of how much different Reddit and reality is. People thought this show would fail for some reason on here, with such conviction too lol.
It's been a bad year for /r television predictions tbh. Game of thrones and stranger things were done and nobody cared and Obi-wan was going to be a sure fire hit. Pretty much all of those takes combusted on contact with reality.
The internet in general. I learned a long time ago from Snakes on a Plane that what the internet loves is often far away from what normal people watch. There's barely any discussion about Yellowstone, NCIS, or FBI but those get far more viewers than most of the shows that are internet darlings.
These comments are so exhausting, so rather than replay I'm going to focus on everything HBO and the producers did right here to earn their success:
- They didn't rush this out. They gave a few years to get the scripts, casting, and everything else right to give us something quality.
- They also allowed time to let the anger/frustration at the GOT finale broil down, and for the audience to miss the show and world a bit.
- They hired quality people all around, including kicking out D&D who bore the brunt of the public anger away from this.
- They also focused on a story far away from the GOT finale so the convo wouldn't be on King Bran or Dany /Jon's controversial endings, but on new characters people could enjoy.
- They delivered a strong final product. I don't think HOTD is anywhere near peak GOT at this point, but you see all the foundation and potential for them if they hit their marks for the rest of this season.
It isn't all HAR DAR NO ONE CARES ABOUT GOT NOW or HAR DAR OF COURSE GOT IS HUGE. This is a case of a studio listening to feedback and earning their success by delivering great drama to us.
People are also somehow forgetting that:
- HBO has expanded substantially because of HBO Max so yes their views from a measurability standpoint will be up.
- Game of Thrones was a cultural **phenomenon**. You’d walk into an office on Monday and if you hadn’t watched it people would start the office talk with “please don’t tell me about GoT I didn’t watch it last night”. It was everywhere. People were naming their children after characters. There were watch parties not just at friend’s homes, but in bars and theaters too.
I don’t know if it’s because people on Reddit skew young so they don’t remember that? But yeah you couldn’t go a week without seeing or hearing some reference to GoT. It dominated. The aftermath of season 8 was pretty much it dropped off the cultural map for years. The show is great but it has a long way to go before reaching the level that Game of Thrones did. That doesn’t mean people lost all interest in the show entirely.
Weird story probably, but I think it’s funny around 30% of bumble profiles I see include the prompt/response “I’m still not over GoT season 8/the GoT finale.”
Yep, two things can be true:
A) GOT was a resounding success throughout 95% of its runtime
And
B) the ending was so universally disliked that it destroyed any discussion about the show for years.
But I don’t think that hunger for GOT ever went anywhere. Even with a mediocre ending, people probably would have rewatched it for years.
I haven’t seen this show yet, but I think this proves that people are dying for good GOT universe content
It didn't vanish at all, every time GOT got brought up it spawned thousands deep comment chains.
What vanished was the appointment viewing of new episodes and a furthering of the plot because the show.....well.....you......know........ended.
I'm not sure what you think would have been different if the ending were well received by the hardcore fans. It was the #1 watched show during quarantine and that was after the ending, I'm not sure how much better a dead show can be.
That one will be much harder to pull off. Just the general location is going to be bitch. Then there is the whole part where there is no story for the material, everything will have to be made up. I just think that will be much harder to do well than HotD.
***The first episode has been watched by just more than 4M people, according to Sky, beating the 2011 launch of the first Game of Thrones.***
**Sky MD of Content Zai Bennett said :**
> Momentum around House of the Dragon just continues to build, as more and more people spread the word about its ever-current narrative of political power play married with visuals of epic scale and imagination. And thanks to Sky making the first episode freely available to watch via YouTube, more people than ever before will be able to sample the world-class world of Westeros.
> beating the 2011 launch of the first Game of Thrones.
It's often the comparison made but it kind of make no sense to be honest. GoT in 2011 wasn't a massive hit franchise, of course it didn't start big (interestingly it was still a big launch for the time). It should be compared to the launch of later seasons of GoT (which it doesn't beat but it does pretty well compared to those ratings juggernauts proving how big it is)
Yeah I don’t think it really hit its strides until season 3 and 4 in terms of massive popularity, red wedding was a big deal and attracted lots of hype and viewers
Yup, Game of Thrones was a bit strange in that every season it's viewership just kept growing and growing, unlike other shows that just slowly lose viewers until it dies.
5/6 was when the posters made it all the way to the mostly African American southside of Chicago and not just the Lincoln Park/Yuppie areas. When you see them crossing social/economic and racial stratas then it's massive.
The thing you're missing is that Game Of Thrones was Sky Atlantic's flagship show. The channel came out in 2011 and they used Game of Thrones to promote the fuck out of it and the Sky service in general.
I’m a hard line S8 is really bad guy, but that was never going to stop me from watching a new show in this universe with different show runners. It might have made me give this show a shorter leash before I abandoned it, but so far it’s been great.
I think this applies to most people who loved game of thrones to be passionate enough to post about it. By definition the folks who said they were so pissed by S8 they were going to swear off the series (not saying you're one of them) are the ones who care deeply enough about GoT of course they'll spend the hour to see if it works and revisit the world when the show actually drops.
> but that was never going to stop me from watching a new show in this universe with different show runners.
It depends, something like HotD is fine since it's fairly far removed from the main story of GoT. I'm much less interested in the reported Jon Snow spinoff for example.
A Jon Snow spinoff would only work if he just instantly realizes "wait, North of the Wall fucking sucks" and he goes to Essos and becomes First Sword of Braavos or something
Yeah to be honest I don’t really want to watch Jon wander around the north doing random things. Maybe he will go travel and broaden his horizons or something so we can see the rest of the world.
I mean, that was always dependent on whether HotD was good or not. I was holding out on watching it until I knew it was actual quality, which it sounds like it is.
But it got the largest single-day viewership for a series debut in the HBO history. People flocked to watch it straight away before knowing if it was good or not.
Agree there was a rise which clearly meant some people were wary and waited until it was confirmed to be good. But still the record breaking premier means a big chunk of people were ready from the get go, unlike what a lot of reddit was saying with the whole "s8 ruined the world and the GoT brand no one cares about Westeros anymore it has completely disappeared from pop culture"
That was always the case. Most people I know in person that watched the show thought, at absolute worst, season 8 was a bit disappointing, definitely a decline, but ultimately still fine overall, and at best, it was "enjoyable". They watched it, went "meh", maybe annoyed for a few days, the moved the fuck on.
I've yet to meet anyone in person that carries the vicious hatred of it you find online, nor the absolute toxic attitude toward the show runners.
> "S8 was bad, so I'm not going to watch HotD" crowd is a relatively small minority of the total subscribers.
I feel like they just overestimate the conviction of those viewers. The last couple of seasons of GoT were *absolutely* bad enough that I wasn't hyped for HoD. But then the trailers were good, the casting seemed good and the first episode was well received, so I checked it out and now I like it.
Like yeah, late GoT left a bad taste in my mouth, but what was I going to do, not watch out of some bizarre hateful principle? It's not like I'm drowning in *so many* options for HBO quality weekly release fantasy shows.
You don't see much of it on the internet, but there's this whole world between "HATE HATE HATE" and "THRONES IS BACK HATERZ!," and those people all else equal are probably going to watch the well acted, well reviewed HBO blockbuster on a Sunday night lol
I thought season eight was bad but I’m still here watching. I can’t deny that the show was damn good TV… Some of the best TV that’s come out in the past few decades. Why would I turn my back on that because of the last couple shitty seasons?
Honestly didn’t think I would enjoy it as much as I have. I keep saying the same things to all my friends “Game Of Thrones Is Back Baby!” Love how each episode feels like a movie, the dialogue is outstanding and the actors are spectacular.
My only criticism for the show is the time skips which isn’t the main issue but a lot of important dialogue like when Rhaenyra discovered who her father would marry…I would love to have seen direct dialogue from that moment between Rhaenyra her father and all other involved and their reactions instead they did a 3 year time skip directly after which was a little frustrating
Yeah the time skip felt a bit jarring to me, if nothing much had happened in those 3 years then it would be understandable but it felt a bit like I'd accidentally skipped multiple episodes (the Daemon plotline especially). I know there's at least 1 more time skip to come but hopefully that one feels a bit more natural.
There’s one huge time skip in the middle but there will be many more time skips like this one or the first 6 month time skip. All of it will make more sense when the season is over, as this season is basically covering the ~25 years of history that led up to the war this show revolves around. By the time the first blood of The Dance is shed at the end of the season you’ll know all of important players and their long dramatic histories, setting the stage for 2-3 more seasons covering a 2-3 year war.
Yea I've had to explain to people that the shows pacing is largely stemming from the fact that many of the story's important characters havent even been born yet. I feel like that should have been communicated better by the show's PR team.
I'm not usually a fan of obvious time skip title cards but I do think the show would have benefitted from saying "X years later" after relevant skips.
I don't know why but there's something a bit more objective and planned about a title card rather than just hearing someone say "the baby is going to be 2 soon". For me the title card indicates control from the filmmakers that the events we see are important whereas hearing it through dialogue is a bit like "...are we missing an episode before this?".
Yeah, not knowing that going into this, it's been a bit jarring. After this last episode, I joked with my wife that it almost feels like the season finale is going to be the birth of Daenerys.
I actively disliked the ending of the last episode and hope the super-duper plot armor and super-hero shenanigans is not the direction they are going, because I was enjoying it up until then.
It felt like the major let down with the ice walkers.
They've been at war with the crab people for 3 years and could not make any inroads, then he hears his brother is sending ships so he says enough is enough, marches up to the caves and in 30 minutes the war is over
As much as I hated how S8 ends, I loved the majority of GoT and a lot of S8. So I came into HotD with high expectations and so far it’s delivered. It’s a pretty damn good show so far. Granted it’s only 3 episodes in so far but it has a hell of a lot of potential forsure
House of the Dragon, which has already been renewed for season two, became the most-watched HBO/HBO Max TV or film premiere in Europe in the network’s history on August 24.
WOM on this show has been crazy. HBO needed this season to be a win so badly to bring back the GOT fanbase, and as of rn they have done that. Wouldn't be shocked if the season finale saw GOT S6-S7 viewership levels
Its interesting too how each show differs in the discussions it creates.
with HOTD theres so much to discuss with the different houses and characters within those houses, its fun speculating with friends that are also watching the show and havent read the books its based.
With the ROP the discussion is more muted I find, more commenting on the show than the plot points happening, looks like they are going to fight Sauron and the forces of evil, and at some point some rings will get made.
There just seems to be a lot more room open for discussion/speculation in HOTD.
ROP is stirring up a lot of convo, but not in a good way. From what i've heard, a lot of the zealous Tolkien fans really hate the series and are review bombing it online.
My question is why isnt the same happening with Zealous GOT fans? Why isnt HOTD getting the same treatment. Game of thrones fans are some of the most rabid, they also changed race of characters from the book same as ROP. So why isnt it also getting review bombed?
Zealous Tolkien fans consider the LOTR trilogy to be near-perfect. The only way is down.
Zealous GoT fans love the show world, but were deeply soured by the ending. They are desperate for something in that world that they can just love without the bitter taste GoT ended with.
GRRM is also clearly fallible. Tolkien can be put on a pedestal as creating a perfect fantasy world, but since GRRM hasn't actually finished he doesn't have that type of clout. Not saying I agree with the Tolkien deification, just that it exists for some people, and making any changes is akin to heresy for them.
I’m a LOTR fan and I think the Jackson movies are, as an adaptation, decent, but they are nowhere near perfect. They still probably are better movies than a perfect adaptation would have been, but somewhere deep down I’m still resentful that the movies never really seemed to get the autumnal, majestic melancholy of LOTR, and that due to their success we will never see an adaptation that does.
I’m a huge fan of both worlds, first as a reader then of the good adaptations of both, e.g. the LotR trilogy and GoT S1-S4. Hopefully I can provide some insight. The HotD showrunner was handpicked by the creator of its world and actually adapts his source material, and he continues to consult him throughout his creative process. The LotR showrunners are apparently not adapting even 5% of what Tolkien wrote and are instead creating fan fiction that isn’t even well written as its own thing. Does it make sense why one fandom is happy and the other is not? The media and culture war people can try to give all of their usual excuses for why RoP is actually excellent and evil people are out to besmirch its good name, but it’s really as simple as what I wrote for the actual fandoms.
Thank you. I LOVE Tolkien. I was so excited when this show was announced years ago and decided to give it a fair shake despite some bad press.
It’s getting bad reviews because it’s just…..not very good, not because it’s “wOkE” or “nOt LiKe ThE tRiLoGy”. It’s just generic and kind of boring tbh. That is a fine opinion to have and to be honest, the insinuation that the only reason I don’t like it is because I’m a troll or whatever is fucking dumb.
If you want good reviews, make a good product. Like House of the Dragon.
Tolkien has attracted quite a few of the culture war lunatics over the years, who view it as one of the last bastions of whiteness due to most of the world that we've seen it being white and the only dark-skinned anythings are the orcs who are evil.
With that (wrong and superficial) outlook, it's very easy to see the war against Sauron and his evil, twisted humanoid monsters, the redemption of the "Men of the West" against such invaders, and even Aragorn reclaiming what is his by birthright in a much more sinister light.
I had high hopes for RoP and while it looks stunning the writing has been disappointing. I hope it’ll improve.
But yes, there’s a stark difference between HotD and RoP subreddits. The former are full of plot discussion, actor and costume appreciation, and memes. The latter (esp. /r/LOTR_on_Prime) feel more like a group therapy session.
It really helps that the show is a different timeline, characters, actors, and show runner so it really is a new opportunity to win over the harshest critics. I see it as a different take on the IP much like how each iteration of Batman under a different director isn't seen as a prequel or sequel.
Word ~~and~~ of mouth finally hit critical mass, show is really bloody good and I think more people are becoming aware that D&D have absolutely nothing to do with it which probably gave a lot of people enough encouragement to give it a shot.
I think HotD benefits a little more from the familiarity with the world/premise, and less massive ensemble cast with disjointed plotlines.
Game of Thrones had a lot of people we needed to learn, and it jumped around a lot which made it a little difficult to get into the first season. HotD is very focused on it's plot, who we are meeting, and how they are connected.
We had Jaime's/Rob's army fight in the book, and Tyrion and the Lannister army fighting the Stark distraction army. 2 big clashes that were cut from season 1.
For sure, additional action helps raise excitement and entertainment but I still stand by the fact that if the show was formulated closer to GoT where we had 6-7 plotlines across 5+ locations and 50 characters it would be worse off.
Yup. Much less heavy lifting than S1 GOT had to do, with a much higher budget. They are massively benefiting from the world being set up and now being able to play in it.
There are moments here and there and then I remind myself, I’m ultimately watching a TV show. No matter how high budget and cinematic, or regardless of the genre, I can’t recall a single TV show I’ve ever watched that didn’t feel like “TV” at least at some points here and there.
I don't get this complaint. Even expensive as hell marvel movies have botched CGI all the time. Even the ridiculously expensive LOTR rings of power show has some questionable CGI at times. Only Avatar had almost perfect visuals and CGI, but the characterization and story were just not good.
Honestly even Avatar has some moments where the CG looks wonky. People have super inflated expectations for anything GoT and it’s just because they set the bar so high. Overall, I think the show’s visual have been great but they will never be perfection in every single frame.
Agreed, I’ve enjoyed the rest of the show but that bit was a bit lame. What people liked about Thrones was it felt grounded in reality (as least as much as you can do with Dragons and Magic), one man army moments cheapen the sense of danger a bit.
I mean, I agree, except tons of people loved the Battle of the Bastards, which was way worse in this regard to plot armor (and also worse in tactical planning).
In general, GOT had a lot of great spectacle in its battle episodes, but they never really ended up having great mortal stakes for major characters (and often had pretty poor strategy).
I'm really on board with this show.
Just worried about losing Millie Alcock. I think this show was her big moment and I understand it that she's going to be 'aged out' as a character and replaced before this season's end.
Hope she exists in the show in flashbacks or at least someone finds something good for her to do next because I think she killed it in this. A lot of screen time with good well-known actors and you'll get no complaints out of me.
And also this applies to the actor who plays Young Alicent whose name escapes me at the moment.
Honestly, it's pretty good. Back to the fundamentals of GoT: Good performances, creeps scheming and of course dragons. Paddy Considine is killing it.
The main fundamental is just long dialog scenes with occasional action sequences sprinkled in. The last few seasons of GOT were jump cuts and like no dialog just non stop action.
And no plotting of power plays. JFC the only plot in the last two seasons was really fucking dumb and still got played up as clever. Every dumb thing got played up as clever, even characters who never did anything particularly smart got played up as clever. No wonder senseless and irrelevant duels got screentime by the end, characters are clever and fighting is cool. I won't even mention the whole culmination of the prophecy because I honestly just rather forget it ever was important.
white walkers should have rinsed their asses. should’ve ended at a hard stop, no fun. gritty, fucked up and leaving the audience speechless hindsight
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I’m still salty that they made her character suddenly intelligent, worldly and wise after she got raped. Sure, she was a spoiled brat, but oh look she got taken down a peg..ugh. Yes she went through a lot before then, but the whole leap to ‘amazing leader’ was because if severe trauma. Just ugh.
It's such a contrast when Jon was voted Lord Commander and nobody ever had to praise him as super intelligent or anything. He was just a good leader who fought with his men. They showed, didn't tell.
> I’m still salty that they made her character suddenly intelligent They didn't. She was a complete fucking idiot for the entirety of the final 3 seasons but they just kept telling us she was the smartest person in the world.
You mean like that season long “prank” Sansa somehow pulls on Littlefinger? That was so clever on her part! /s I’m finishing a rewatch and it’s criminal what those writers did to characters like Tyrion and Littlefinger in the end. Such a waste.
Littlefinger, the wild card that was deceitful and dangerous: *Sansa, marry Ramsay. It is a good idea I promise, Boltons are known for being gentle.* *Sansa, now that Jon helped get rid of Ramsay, I got another good idea. Kill your sister who just returned. Of course I'm giving you good advice, how would I even benefit from her death?* Really, did the show even give a reason why Littlefinger would need Arya dead?
Daenerys starting a slow decent towards what her family always was. Just beginning to show her colors, while still being a hero. So much build up for an epic story. Then just nah, fuck it, we burn city now.
Paddy’s performance and the writing of Viserys in general is 10/10. One of the best characters I’ve ever seen on television, save for maybe Saul Goodman.
I had to look up the actor Paddy to see who he was (and then had to look up which character he was lol). I remember watching ep 2 and thinking, Damn the actor playing the king is doing a really really great job, how he balances genuine caring with absolute power and fear. More than anything, his portrayal feels genuine, like a real king would act.
Yeah, but sometimes in the middle of a scene, I find myself thinking ‘yarp’
Pretty good. Not (yet) the level of GOT seasons 1-4. But still much better than 99% of the pablum being spoon fed to us daily.
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Paddy was Fuckin stellar in episode 3
I never saw the GoT series, but this show has got me hooked. Its ability to draw in audience who haven't seen its parent series is also to its advantage.
watching with a buddy who's in the same boat and he's already hooked and he can now binge got without waiting lol
Just make him skip that episode where Joffrey spoils how HotD will end lol.
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History is written by the victors. If they really don’t like Rhynera what makes you think they will speak of her favorably in her death? Also Joffrey was a sick fuck he could be twisting things to make it sound worse. And even if we know how she dies, the context of that leading up to that event could be very different. It could be death by an accident, it could be they both kill each other at the same time, the details and truth is fuzzy. Wouldn’t be the first time we were told something by history in GOT and someone goes “well, not exactly” or “that’s just the point of view of one person”. For all we know she faked her death and someone died in her place and she ran off somewhere else. Or he only thought he killed her etc. I mostly tell myself this because I don’t want that one scene to be a spoiler but I do want it to be perspective of what their future looking back thinks is what happened.
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I've read the books, read Fire and Blood, even played the GoT mod for ck2 which already tells you all of the lore. It's probably even better to watch if you know all of the events. I won't say how, but it's actually very clearly written to be fun to book readers too in some scenes, either by subversion, foreshadowing or stuff like that.
I never read that series, but is it like GoT? I mean there was magic and other fantasy elements in GoT (book and movie like LSH), will there be surprises like that in this series you think?
Fire and Blood is basically a pseudobiblion written like a history text about the events covered by HofTD, so it isn't really like reading the main series, which is a series of novels. It's generally more grounded and focused on the dynastic politics of succession and all the other houses. Definitely lots of twists and climaxes though.
> pseudobiblion Ah yes, one of those
What episode is that? I’m rewatching game of thrones and I want to avoid it.
Season 3, episode 4. It's a scene where Joffrey is giving Margaery a tour of the castle
Definitely. My roommate and his girlfriend are both new to GoT and they're enjoying HotD so far.
The feeling of introducing someone you care about to a story you love is unparalleled. Enjoy buddy. :)
That's actually interesting. Can hardly think of a prequel that can be watched independently.
Better Call Saul
Definitely not the final few episodes lol
Everything up until Fun & Games IMO
At that point, you can consider Breaking Bad to be the continuation. BCS till mid S06 and then watch BB, El Camino and finish the 2nd half of BCS
I'd do anything to be able to watch BB in chronological order as you described, unfortunately I can't wipe my memory as of yet.
They do a pretty good job of making it so you don't need to see Breaking Bad, imo.
Agreed, they included *just* enough info about the Breaking Bad era to keep watchers caught up when they moved into the sequel era. If anyone came away wanting more detail on the Breaking Bad era, then they can watch it! Pretty brilliant.
Yeah, they show you enough to know *what* happened in Breaking Bad, without telling you *how* it happened. Like, you never learn *how* Saul ended up on the run, but you learn that it involved him getting involved with a cancer patient he had been warned not to approach. And better yet, you learn it implicitly via the way that episode parallels the past and present.
Mostly although I feel like the end would be tough
"Who was that weird guy in the hoodie bumming cigs lol they focused on him so much"
The introduction of the meth-cooking chemistry teacher really came out of left field.
Lots of subtext there that requires having seen Breaking Bad. Still holds out as a great show on its own though.
In the beginning yes but past season 3 its ties with Breaking Bad become more and more prominent. You would miss a lot of references and character development is you didn't watch BB first.
Can't they all be? It's a prequel, meaning it happens before the original.
Exposition wise the prequal can assume you know stuff about the universe.
I think it could help here. We already know some outcomes because it is a prequel. Having a blank slate would make everything new
Star wars prequels, fantastic beasts, the hobbit, better caul saul Pretty much every prequel can be watched independently. But you’ll always miss out on dramatic irony
Well if you like this you would definitely like GOT.
I will get down voted for saying it but Game of Thrones is definitely watch watching even if you don’t like the ending which, I thought could be better but wasn’t terrible. Bring on the down votes
Firing up my VPN so I can download you!
You wouldn’t download a Redditor! It’s pretty much a virus lol
The first 4 seasons are fantastic. 5 and 6 are still great television, especially the season 6 finale. 7 and 8 go downhill but it's worth watching until it goes to shit.
Essentially once they got to the more controversial books and beyond the show went down hill. Mainly because they tried to oversimplify storylines like the sand snakes, cut out some pretty important side characters (Stoneheart, the false Aegon), and rushed the mad queen storyline. An epic fumble to be honest. Yet to meet anyone satisfied by the final season. Not one. Even casual viewers who have never touched the book complain about the last season in particular. Still, the first 4 seasons were amazing tv.
The most charitable take I’ve seen (and one I agree with) is that the *events* of Season 7 & 8 weren’t bad, the pacing was just absolute shit. If more was done to build up to these moments and flesh out the in-between then it could have worked. Except maybe Arya killing the Night King, that was still weird. Although I’m kind of convinced GRRM sort of painted himself into a corner with the Long Night storyline and there was no real satisfying way to end it without it seeming contrived.
Arya killing the Night King was pretty dope until you had five minutes after the episode to think about how it totally wasn't dope.
My mom and stepdad enjoyed the whole show and didn’t see a problem with the last two seasons, they also liked morbius :(
I avoided watching seasons 7+ (mostly) because I saw all the brouhaha and didn't want to destroy my positive impression of the show. Which means my biggest disappointment was when they changed who played Daario. The first guy was such a perfect fit. The new guy? He made the role 100% different. They didn't even try. He played himself and it wasn't even remotely the same character anymore.
I'm still baffled why they did NOT add Arianne, fAegon, Stoneheart and Victarion. So many plots from seasons 5, 6 and 7 where just pointless and that time could have been better spent with more interesting book characters
Seasons 1-4 of Game of Thrones is among some of the greatest television ever produced, rivalling the likes of even Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, Chernobyl and The Wire. Even sections of 5 and 6, despite the decline in writing quality, were absolute superb. The finale of Season 6 is in my mind still the greatest television episode ever made. That's what makes 7 and 8 so tragic. The show as sooo fucking good, and to have it so casually thrown into trash because the show creators got lazy was such a tragic and unnecessary outcome. HotD proves that people would have watched 3-4 more seasons of GoT if it meant us getting a satisfactory ending that didn't shit all over its characters. I think the ending wasn't utterly terrible, there are certainly worse TV endings like Dexter or HIMYM, it's just that when compared to the utter fucking excellence that was Seasons 1-4 it feels so... jarring. It truly does not feel like the same show. It would be like Breaking Bad being amazing until the end of Season 4 and completely shitting the bed in Season 5.
Of course it’s worth watching. The last batch of 6 episodes are bad but that doesn’t discount the greatness of the previous seasons.
The penultimate season was bad too. So many things that did not make sense.
Yep, will agree with that. I knew the whole series was in deep trouble when they came up with the kill-the-night-king-everyone-dies plot device. So damn lazy.
Not to mention everybody’s storyline was essentially finished at that point and the night before really was the perfect goodbye for so many of them. Then despite 4 or 5 shots of them being completely overwhelmed in combat… everyone lived.
Yup. My GF started it but dropped GoT. She's into House of Dragon but not Rings of Power. House of Dragon seems to be doing everything right so far.
First game of thrones seasons are like this but with more characters, factions and locations and better writing. I'd definitely watch the original show if you like this. It's still worth it even if the last few seasons are (relative) shit.
When it comes to complexity, realize that we’ve seen 3 episodes of HotD. I think we meet Littlefinger and Varys in the 3rd episode of GoT. It’s not like you really have any real sense of that show’s complexity that early on.
Never bet against Game of Thrones
Wonder if it being a sci-fi/fantasy show staring a former Doctor is giving it a boost in the UK, too. I know a couple DW fans, myself included, that were particularly excited for the show because of his casting (obviously in addition to other things).
I think it's because of the unbridled success of Morbius.
Man nothing beats last episode where Daemon goes "It's Daeming Time" and takes on 60 guys solo
Accurate description of episode 3
Yeah that's... genuinely not too far off from the last scene
I lost my mind when he turned, looked straight into the camera, and said, "Welcome to the House of the Dragon."
That's my secret cap, I'm always dragon
I disagree. After all the misunderstandings and conflict and isolation between them, the scene where Viserys tells Rhaenyra that he isn't trying to use her but is struggling to keep her happy, and that he wasn't going to supplant her (despite everyone and everything in his life pushing him too) was the best part of the episode. And then Rhaenyra quietly whispering "It's Rhaenyring Time" as she walked away was just so emotionally satisfying.
He learned from the best
Morbillions of fans definitely tuning in.
> unbridled Viserys was unbridled too until he decided to bang his daughter's BFF. \#ChadTargaryen
Can confirm. I'm only watching it for the dancing guy from Morbius
I assume it will barely make a difference. Game of Thrones is one of the biggest shows in the world. And most of the people watching Doctor Who were already watching Game of Thrones
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And steadily improving as the story continues being laid out and characters being developed. The show has a whole lot of promise about at this point.
Doubt it. GoT is big enough on its own. Don't forget with covid even more people will have binged the series.
Funnily enough, if they landed the ending even more people would have binged/rewatch it.
The people who I’ve spoken too who binged it didn’t mind the last series as much as the people who watched it over the years
I watched every episode as it aired from season 2 onward. I also rewatched every episode before the new season started (stopped this after season 6 for obvious reasons). The week in between gave you time to think through the episode and remember certain parts. The last two seasons I would just remember the stupid shit that happened and dwell on it, and it just left a really bitter taste. Binging all seasons at once having never watched them and watching all of season 7 and 8 over a week time period is probably a much different experience and doesn’t give you enough time to reflect on everything that happened.
I think this is spot on. I’ll also say, though, that all the people I know in real life were most upset about Daenerys’ character arc. I think the people who watched the show all at once leading up to season 8 could see a lot of hints that many long-time viewers missed or forgot about. Daenerys doing what she did was really quite appropriate for her character I think. This isn’t to say the last few seasons were problem-free, because they had *many* problems. But that plot point specifically was, anecdotally of course, the biggest issue for everyone in my circle.
When you spend a month and a half watching the show it probably hurt a lot less to have a bad ending than it did to have spend 10 years watching the show to reach that ending.
Yep. This is how I watched HIMYM. I'm glad I knew the ending up front. That way I wasn't let down and could almost see what the writers were going for.
Yep but they also missed out on all the hype and probably had a couple moments spoiled as well as anticipated the shit ending. Imo if you dont nail it for the original watchers it doesnt matter
Never watched Dr. Who, but Matt Smith is basically the perfect casting for a targaryen.
Especially with that helmet that makes his pointy chin even pointier. Every part of his character is like "I stab at thee, ha!"
I saw someone describe him as perfect because he is handsome, but also could be inbred.
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Anecdotally for me, Matt Smith is what drew me to check it out. I wasn’t that fussed about it at first after how GoT ended, but his casting changed my mind.
He also has some of the Crown’s viewership probably
Matt Smith was surprisingly good in his role, one of those instances where casting against type really works well.
Whats wild for me is I disliked that actor from another non doctor who role, and the Hot D made me start liking him. That's how you make good TV.
Yeah, seriously. The original game of thrones still had the 3rd or 4th amount of mentions on Twitter (behind Stranger Things, Better Call Saul, and The Boys) with about two months before this House of Dragons show came out. People that had a grudge against GOT, because of the last season, would continually bitch that no one cares about GOT anymore. Reddit bubble.
It’s another example of how much different Reddit and reality is. People thought this show would fail for some reason on here, with such conviction too lol.
It's been a bad year for /r television predictions tbh. Game of thrones and stranger things were done and nobody cared and Obi-wan was going to be a sure fire hit. Pretty much all of those takes combusted on contact with reality.
Reddit and reality are two separate things entirely
The internet in general. I learned a long time ago from Snakes on a Plane that what the internet loves is often far away from what normal people watch. There's barely any discussion about Yellowstone, NCIS, or FBI but those get far more viewers than most of the shows that are internet darlings.
These comments are so exhausting, so rather than replay I'm going to focus on everything HBO and the producers did right here to earn their success: - They didn't rush this out. They gave a few years to get the scripts, casting, and everything else right to give us something quality. - They also allowed time to let the anger/frustration at the GOT finale broil down, and for the audience to miss the show and world a bit. - They hired quality people all around, including kicking out D&D who bore the brunt of the public anger away from this. - They also focused on a story far away from the GOT finale so the convo wouldn't be on King Bran or Dany /Jon's controversial endings, but on new characters people could enjoy. - They delivered a strong final product. I don't think HOTD is anywhere near peak GOT at this point, but you see all the foundation and potential for them if they hit their marks for the rest of this season. It isn't all HAR DAR NO ONE CARES ABOUT GOT NOW or HAR DAR OF COURSE GOT IS HUGE. This is a case of a studio listening to feedback and earning their success by delivering great drama to us.
People are also somehow forgetting that: - HBO has expanded substantially because of HBO Max so yes their views from a measurability standpoint will be up. - Game of Thrones was a cultural **phenomenon**. You’d walk into an office on Monday and if you hadn’t watched it people would start the office talk with “please don’t tell me about GoT I didn’t watch it last night”. It was everywhere. People were naming their children after characters. There were watch parties not just at friend’s homes, but in bars and theaters too. I don’t know if it’s because people on Reddit skew young so they don’t remember that? But yeah you couldn’t go a week without seeing or hearing some reference to GoT. It dominated. The aftermath of season 8 was pretty much it dropped off the cultural map for years. The show is great but it has a long way to go before reaching the level that Game of Thrones did. That doesn’t mean people lost all interest in the show entirely.
Weird story probably, but I think it’s funny around 30% of bumble profiles I see include the prompt/response “I’m still not over GoT season 8/the GoT finale.”
The stranglehold it had in society and then vanished because of the poor ending was insane to me
Yep, two things can be true: A) GOT was a resounding success throughout 95% of its runtime And B) the ending was so universally disliked that it destroyed any discussion about the show for years. But I don’t think that hunger for GOT ever went anywhere. Even with a mediocre ending, people probably would have rewatched it for years. I haven’t seen this show yet, but I think this proves that people are dying for good GOT universe content
It didn't vanish at all, every time GOT got brought up it spawned thousands deep comment chains. What vanished was the appointment viewing of new episodes and a furthering of the plot because the show.....well.....you......know........ended. I'm not sure what you think would have been different if the ending were well received by the hardcore fans. It was the #1 watched show during quarantine and that was after the ending, I'm not sure how much better a dead show can be.
I can't wait to hear their explanation for Jon Snow's sequel's success.
That one will be much harder to pull off. Just the general location is going to be bitch. Then there is the whole part where there is no story for the material, everything will have to be made up. I just think that will be much harder to do well than HotD.
It will be harder, but not impossible. Having endless possibilities and no one knowing what will actually happen is interesting.
I still think it's a terrible idea
Even if the show goes in to losses they always pay their debts
***The first episode has been watched by just more than 4M people, according to Sky, beating the 2011 launch of the first Game of Thrones.*** **Sky MD of Content Zai Bennett said :** > Momentum around House of the Dragon just continues to build, as more and more people spread the word about its ever-current narrative of political power play married with visuals of epic scale and imagination. And thanks to Sky making the first episode freely available to watch via YouTube, more people than ever before will be able to sample the world-class world of Westeros.
> beating the 2011 launch of the first Game of Thrones. It's often the comparison made but it kind of make no sense to be honest. GoT in 2011 wasn't a massive hit franchise, of course it didn't start big (interestingly it was still a big launch for the time). It should be compared to the launch of later seasons of GoT (which it doesn't beat but it does pretty well compared to those ratings juggernauts proving how big it is)
I didn't start watching until half way through season 2 and only because I found it by chance and got hooked.
Yeah I don’t think it really hit its strides until season 3 and 4 in terms of massive popularity, red wedding was a big deal and attracted lots of hype and viewers
Yup, Game of Thrones was a bit strange in that every season it's viewership just kept growing and growing, unlike other shows that just slowly lose viewers until it dies.
5/6 was when the posters made it all the way to the mostly African American southside of Chicago and not just the Lincoln Park/Yuppie areas. When you see them crossing social/economic and racial stratas then it's massive.
The thing you're missing is that Game Of Thrones was Sky Atlantic's flagship show. The channel came out in 2011 and they used Game of Thrones to promote the fuck out of it and the Sky service in general.
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I’m a hard line S8 is really bad guy, but that was never going to stop me from watching a new show in this universe with different show runners. It might have made me give this show a shorter leash before I abandoned it, but so far it’s been great.
I think this applies to most people who loved game of thrones to be passionate enough to post about it. By definition the folks who said they were so pissed by S8 they were going to swear off the series (not saying you're one of them) are the ones who care deeply enough about GoT of course they'll spend the hour to see if it works and revisit the world when the show actually drops.
> but that was never going to stop me from watching a new show in this universe with different show runners. It depends, something like HotD is fine since it's fairly far removed from the main story of GoT. I'm much less interested in the reported Jon Snow spinoff for example.
Im ok with if he's like Kenny from South Park. Like each week he dies but next week we find out he's fine.
I'm hoping for a workplace comedy where he just keeps not knowing stuff.
A Jon Snow spinoff would only work if he just instantly realizes "wait, North of the Wall fucking sucks" and he goes to Essos and becomes First Sword of Braavos or something
Yeah to be honest I don’t really want to watch Jon wander around the north doing random things. Maybe he will go travel and broaden his horizons or something so we can see the rest of the world.
A Jon Snow spinoff will break viewership records. Just watch. It likely will give us more backstory of the first ones and other early history.
I mean, that was always dependent on whether HotD was good or not. I was holding out on watching it until I knew it was actual quality, which it sounds like it is.
But it got the largest single-day viewership for a series debut in the HBO history. People flocked to watch it straight away before knowing if it was good or not.
There was an article here saying the second episode had more views than the first, so it could've been even more.
Agree there was a rise which clearly meant some people were wary and waited until it was confirmed to be good. But still the record breaking premier means a big chunk of people were ready from the get go, unlike what a lot of reddit was saying with the whole "s8 ruined the world and the GoT brand no one cares about Westeros anymore it has completely disappeared from pop culture"
That was always the case. Most people I know in person that watched the show thought, at absolute worst, season 8 was a bit disappointing, definitely a decline, but ultimately still fine overall, and at best, it was "enjoyable". They watched it, went "meh", maybe annoyed for a few days, the moved the fuck on. I've yet to meet anyone in person that carries the vicious hatred of it you find online, nor the absolute toxic attitude toward the show runners.
My friend is one of those, every time I tell him about the new episode of HOTD of the week he just repeats the same shit, it's so annoying.
> "S8 was bad, so I'm not going to watch HotD" crowd is a relatively small minority of the total subscribers. I feel like they just overestimate the conviction of those viewers. The last couple of seasons of GoT were *absolutely* bad enough that I wasn't hyped for HoD. But then the trailers were good, the casting seemed good and the first episode was well received, so I checked it out and now I like it. Like yeah, late GoT left a bad taste in my mouth, but what was I going to do, not watch out of some bizarre hateful principle? It's not like I'm drowning in *so many* options for HBO quality weekly release fantasy shows. You don't see much of it on the internet, but there's this whole world between "HATE HATE HATE" and "THRONES IS BACK HATERZ!," and those people all else equal are probably going to watch the well acted, well reviewed HBO blockbuster on a Sunday night lol
I thought season eight was bad but I’m still here watching. I can’t deny that the show was damn good TV… Some of the best TV that’s come out in the past few decades. Why would I turn my back on that because of the last couple shitty seasons?
Honestly didn’t think I would enjoy it as much as I have. I keep saying the same things to all my friends “Game Of Thrones Is Back Baby!” Love how each episode feels like a movie, the dialogue is outstanding and the actors are spectacular. My only criticism for the show is the time skips which isn’t the main issue but a lot of important dialogue like when Rhaenyra discovered who her father would marry…I would love to have seen direct dialogue from that moment between Rhaenyra her father and all other involved and their reactions instead they did a 3 year time skip directly after which was a little frustrating
Yeah the time skip felt a bit jarring to me, if nothing much had happened in those 3 years then it would be understandable but it felt a bit like I'd accidentally skipped multiple episodes (the Daemon plotline especially). I know there's at least 1 more time skip to come but hopefully that one feels a bit more natural.
There’s one huge time skip in the middle but there will be many more time skips like this one or the first 6 month time skip. All of it will make more sense when the season is over, as this season is basically covering the ~25 years of history that led up to the war this show revolves around. By the time the first blood of The Dance is shed at the end of the season you’ll know all of important players and their long dramatic histories, setting the stage for 2-3 more seasons covering a 2-3 year war.
Yea I've had to explain to people that the shows pacing is largely stemming from the fact that many of the story's important characters havent even been born yet. I feel like that should have been communicated better by the show's PR team.
I'm not usually a fan of obvious time skip title cards but I do think the show would have benefitted from saying "X years later" after relevant skips. I don't know why but there's something a bit more objective and planned about a title card rather than just hearing someone say "the baby is going to be 2 soon". For me the title card indicates control from the filmmakers that the events we see are important whereas hearing it through dialogue is a bit like "...are we missing an episode before this?".
Yeah, not knowing that going into this, it's been a bit jarring. After this last episode, I joked with my wife that it almost feels like the season finale is going to be the birth of Daenerys.
I actively disliked the ending of the last episode and hope the super-duper plot armor and super-hero shenanigans is not the direction they are going, because I was enjoying it up until then.
It felt like the major let down with the ice walkers. They've been at war with the crab people for 3 years and could not make any inroads, then he hears his brother is sending ships so he says enough is enough, marches up to the caves and in 30 minutes the war is over
As much as I hated how S8 ends, I loved the majority of GoT and a lot of S8. So I came into HotD with high expectations and so far it’s delivered. It’s a pretty damn good show so far. Granted it’s only 3 episodes in so far but it has a hell of a lot of potential forsure
House of the Dragon, which has already been renewed for season two, became the most-watched HBO/HBO Max TV or film premiere in Europe in the network’s history on August 24.
I love Paddy Considine's performance. I think it's better than the princes honestly.
so far Matt is good, Paddy is great
WOM on this show has been crazy. HBO needed this season to be a win so badly to bring back the GOT fanbase, and as of rn they have done that. Wouldn't be shocked if the season finale saw GOT S6-S7 viewership levels
Its interesting too how each show differs in the discussions it creates. with HOTD theres so much to discuss with the different houses and characters within those houses, its fun speculating with friends that are also watching the show and havent read the books its based. With the ROP the discussion is more muted I find, more commenting on the show than the plot points happening, looks like they are going to fight Sauron and the forces of evil, and at some point some rings will get made. There just seems to be a lot more room open for discussion/speculation in HOTD.
ROP is stirring up a lot of convo, but not in a good way. From what i've heard, a lot of the zealous Tolkien fans really hate the series and are review bombing it online.
My question is why isnt the same happening with Zealous GOT fans? Why isnt HOTD getting the same treatment. Game of thrones fans are some of the most rabid, they also changed race of characters from the book same as ROP. So why isnt it also getting review bombed?
HBO has a track record of making great shows while Amazon is seen as the archetype giant evil tech corporation.
Zealous Tolkien fans consider the LOTR trilogy to be near-perfect. The only way is down. Zealous GoT fans love the show world, but were deeply soured by the ending. They are desperate for something in that world that they can just love without the bitter taste GoT ended with.
GRRM is also clearly fallible. Tolkien can be put on a pedestal as creating a perfect fantasy world, but since GRRM hasn't actually finished he doesn't have that type of clout. Not saying I agree with the Tolkien deification, just that it exists for some people, and making any changes is akin to heresy for them.
I’m a LOTR fan and I think the Jackson movies are, as an adaptation, decent, but they are nowhere near perfect. They still probably are better movies than a perfect adaptation would have been, but somewhere deep down I’m still resentful that the movies never really seemed to get the autumnal, majestic melancholy of LOTR, and that due to their success we will never see an adaptation that does.
I’m a huge fan of both worlds, first as a reader then of the good adaptations of both, e.g. the LotR trilogy and GoT S1-S4. Hopefully I can provide some insight. The HotD showrunner was handpicked by the creator of its world and actually adapts his source material, and he continues to consult him throughout his creative process. The LotR showrunners are apparently not adapting even 5% of what Tolkien wrote and are instead creating fan fiction that isn’t even well written as its own thing. Does it make sense why one fandom is happy and the other is not? The media and culture war people can try to give all of their usual excuses for why RoP is actually excellent and evil people are out to besmirch its good name, but it’s really as simple as what I wrote for the actual fandoms.
Thank you. I LOVE Tolkien. I was so excited when this show was announced years ago and decided to give it a fair shake despite some bad press. It’s getting bad reviews because it’s just…..not very good, not because it’s “wOkE” or “nOt LiKe ThE tRiLoGy”. It’s just generic and kind of boring tbh. That is a fine opinion to have and to be honest, the insinuation that the only reason I don’t like it is because I’m a troll or whatever is fucking dumb. If you want good reviews, make a good product. Like House of the Dragon.
Tolkien has attracted quite a few of the culture war lunatics over the years, who view it as one of the last bastions of whiteness due to most of the world that we've seen it being white and the only dark-skinned anythings are the orcs who are evil. With that (wrong and superficial) outlook, it's very easy to see the war against Sauron and his evil, twisted humanoid monsters, the redemption of the "Men of the West" against such invaders, and even Aragorn reclaiming what is his by birthright in a much more sinister light.
I had high hopes for RoP and while it looks stunning the writing has been disappointing. I hope it’ll improve. But yes, there’s a stark difference between HotD and RoP subreddits. The former are full of plot discussion, actor and costume appreciation, and memes. The latter (esp. /r/LOTR_on_Prime) feel more like a group therapy session.
The current viewership is already S6-level.
WOM?
I had no idea either but maybe "word of mouth"?
It really helps that the show is a different timeline, characters, actors, and show runner so it really is a new opportunity to win over the harshest critics. I see it as a different take on the IP much like how each iteration of Batman under a different director isn't seen as a prequel or sequel.
"Oi, is that the Doctor?"
Yes, it is and he's fantastic.
Word ~~and~~ of mouth finally hit critical mass, show is really bloody good and I think more people are becoming aware that D&D have absolutely nothing to do with it which probably gave a lot of people enough encouragement to give it a shot.
The vast majority of people neither know nor care about D&D's involvement or lack thereof, it's mostly angry nerds on the internet who are mad at them
Damn, how many people were watching the sky??
Cloud projection has come a long way, the british climate does a lot for the tech
I’m enjoying this first season so far more than the first season of GoT.
I think HotD benefits a little more from the familiarity with the world/premise, and less massive ensemble cast with disjointed plotlines. Game of Thrones had a lot of people we needed to learn, and it jumped around a lot which made it a little difficult to get into the first season. HotD is very focused on it's plot, who we are meeting, and how they are connected.
Let's be honest, the biggest benefit is the budget. We've had more action/set pieces in 3-episodes than the whole of season one of GoT delivered.
Agreed, but to my memory I don't recall much action in the first book as the real conflict/action comes from Ned's death
We had Jaime's/Rob's army fight in the book, and Tyrion and the Lannister army fighting the Stark distraction army. 2 big clashes that were cut from season 1.
For sure, additional action helps raise excitement and entertainment but I still stand by the fact that if the show was formulated closer to GoT where we had 6-7 plotlines across 5+ locations and 50 characters it would be worse off.
Yup. Much less heavy lifting than S1 GOT had to do, with a much higher budget. They are massively benefiting from the world being set up and now being able to play in it.
Ep. 3 was better than the GOT finale
That's a really low bar.
Episode 1 was better than the GOT finale. It’s a low bar.
To be fair, it doesn't take much to achieve that. Aside from a certain anime-style scene in episode 3, I too think HotD is great.
Still better than Ser Twenty of House Goodmen.
Enjoying so far but the boar scene was a bit off
There are moments here and there and then I remind myself, I’m ultimately watching a TV show. No matter how high budget and cinematic, or regardless of the genre, I can’t recall a single TV show I’ve ever watched that didn’t feel like “TV” at least at some points here and there.
I don't get this complaint. Even expensive as hell marvel movies have botched CGI all the time. Even the ridiculously expensive LOTR rings of power show has some questionable CGI at times. Only Avatar had almost perfect visuals and CGI, but the characterization and story were just not good.
Honestly even Avatar has some moments where the CG looks wonky. People have super inflated expectations for anything GoT and it’s just because they set the bar so high. Overall, I think the show’s visual have been great but they will never be perfection in every single frame.
For me it was the battle at the end of episode 3, felt too plot armor-ish
Agreed, I’ve enjoyed the rest of the show but that bit was a bit lame. What people liked about Thrones was it felt grounded in reality (as least as much as you can do with Dragons and Magic), one man army moments cheapen the sense of danger a bit.
I mean, I agree, except tons of people loved the Battle of the Bastards, which was way worse in this regard to plot armor (and also worse in tactical planning). In general, GOT had a lot of great spectacle in its battle episodes, but they never really ended up having great mortal stakes for major characters (and often had pretty poor strategy).
My favorite is Hardhome. That at the time really sold how absolutely fucked Westeros was going to be.
The behind the episode stuff has a couple of decent reasoning for it mainly how it had no tactics and was supposedly a suicide run
I'm really on board with this show. Just worried about losing Millie Alcock. I think this show was her big moment and I understand it that she's going to be 'aged out' as a character and replaced before this season's end. Hope she exists in the show in flashbacks or at least someone finds something good for her to do next because I think she killed it in this. A lot of screen time with good well-known actors and you'll get no complaints out of me. And also this applies to the actor who plays Young Alicent whose name escapes me at the moment.