A Song of Tits and Wine (Spoilers!)

[Skalpadda]

Am I? I feel like you to are trying to sell “Technically, it is possible for it to not happen!”.

But do you actually believe it won’t?

Because I would literally bet money on it at this point. Do you guys even remember what happened after the Hound reached the same point in the show? Because it was very GRRM, and it seems very, very unlikely that D&D made that whole bit up.

You mean where he hangs out in a hippie commune and then Lem Lemoncloak and some rogue offshoot the the Brotherhood comes and murders everyone and does buttsex jokes? Seemed very show-y on the whole to me compared to what’s in the book, though Brother Ray’s speech was a good critique of the cycle of violence that felt pretty GRRM-y.

I meant what I said above, I think it could go either way and as I said back when the episode came out I hope it doesn’t.

Arguments against: It’s kinda written as a figurative death in the books. The Hound and Sandor Clegane have died and been resurrected in different men (through the helm Rorge (I think?) takes up). The impression I get both from ASOIAF and the short stories I’ve read is that Martin believes the only way out of vicious violent spirals is to outright reject them and the Hound as it stands in the books would be a pretty good representation of that.

Both brothers have “died” and been “resurrected”, Gregor as a tormented husk at the hands of Qyburn and Sandor potentially free of the Hound persona with the help of the Elder Brother. In a sense Sandor has already “won” and I’d be happy for the books to leave it there.

Arguments for: Well, aforementioned Hollywood writing rules. It is set up as righteous antagonism in the first book and the Hound as the antihero having to defeat one of the most outright evil characters in the books makes sense (though I suspect it would be even more hollow in the books than show given what Gregor has become).

Rorge takes the helm from the Hound’s “grave” and is then killed by Brienne. I think it’s then picked up by Lem Lemoncloak, who in the show is one of the Brotherhood members who murder Sandor’s new hippie friends. We could definitely get a scenario where Sandor ends up fighting “the Hound”. There’s no telling where that goes (Lady Stoneheart isn’t in the show and we don’t know what’s up with Brienne, for starters), maybe he picks up his old persona again, or maybe he’ll reject it. It could be an interesting story either way, if it happens.

[BillButNotBen]

I will admit my memories of the details of the books are a bit fuzzy at times… what with it being rather complex, rather long, having a shed load of characters and also being up to a decade ago that I read them.

But I also feel like The Hound in the show is a different beast the The Hound in the books.
His sarcastic humor and relationship with Arya seemed much more pronounced in the show… leading to him becoming a fan favorite. As such it seems much more likely that he’d return in the TV show.

Nobody wants to consider the whole. Vandelay alluded to the same problem - in the context of the whole, S8 is not bad. It’s a distinct improvement on S7.

I agree that s8 wasn’t as bad as some people (not me!) say. But I was talking about the points that annoyed me and the cleganebowl was one of them. There were also a lot of things I liked in the season, but I wasn’t talking about those.

At what point, before meeting Gregorstein/Ser Robert Strong, does the Hound actually know that? Because I don’t think there is any point where he does. That’s part of why this seems like incredibly dodgy criticism to me.

I’m probably missing something, but IIRC the Hound meets his brother at the Dany/Cersi truce meeting and knows it is him (his identity doesn’t really seem to be much of a secret in the show anyway).

He also decides to ride a very long way, infiltrate a city under siege by dragons and make his way to fight Cersi’s guard, while implying that he knows he’ll die, and also giving the distinct impression that he thinks this will be his last chance to kill The Mountain.

So, I get he want’s revenge, and I get the hollywood logic setting it up that it 'has to be me!".
But it’s basically “i need to go and kill him before he gets killed - and die in the process”.
Which would probably be very poetic and dramatic if it hadn’t been so underwhelming and pointless.

It’s not a make or break point for me… it’s just that it felt shoehorned in for fanservice reasons rather than anything else.

[Skalpadda]

Part two.

[Det.Bullock]

Needle & Pen (ForArya)

These guys are supposed to be writing a Star Wars trilogy.

[Skalpadda]

Come on, Benioff wrote X-Men Origins: Wolverine. How could it possibly go wrong?

On the same topic, the Rise of Skywalker is written by Abrams and some guy who did Batman v. Superman and Justice League. So Star Wars is probably completely fucked. I mean sure, it was thoroughly fucked with Lucas’ prequels, but there was a glimmer of hope with TFA, and while TLJ was divisive at least it did some interesting stuff and had fun ideas.

[Det.Bullock]

Come on, Benioff wrote X-Men Origins: Wolverine. How could it possibly go wrong?

On the same topic, the Rise of Skywalker is written by Abrams and some guy who did Batman v. Superman and Justice League. So Star Wars is probably completely fucked. I mean sure, it was thoroughly fucked with Lucas’ prequels, but there was a glimmer of hope with TFA, and while TLJ was divisive at least it did some interesting stuff and had fun ideas.

The guy also wrote Argo IIRC.

[LexW]

Honestly the trailers for Rise look good. I guess we’ll know soon but I will be very surprised if Star Wars is indeed “fucked”. Especially when we consider the prequels, which left Star Wars far more “fucked” than Rise possibly could at this point, given TFA was decent and TLJ was pretty great!

Also re D&D making an SW trilogy, unless things have changed recently, Rian Johnson is also making an SW trilogy. So balance may yet come to the Force. D&D are making an Old Republic-set one I note.

Honestly I didn’t find their answers as offensive as some people but I’ve always known people in the film industry and I think I have far fewer illusions about how it all works, and never thought of D&D as anything beyond “competent enough”.

[Shadoko]

“competent enough”.

That’s basically how I consider them. They’re good artisans that are capable of putting a show together in technical terms. But they aren’t artists. Typically the kind of people who should film other people’s scripts, not make their own.

[Skalpadda]

Well, I’ll be very happy if I’m wrong and it all turns out great. For me a couple of the video games (KotOR, Jedi Outcast etc) kept Star Wars alive and fun after the prequels, but nothing I’ve seen of Disney’s EU stuff seems to be for me, so there’s just the movies now. TFA was a fun space adventure, TLJ was very uneven but on the whole I liked it, I didn’t like Rogue One and Solo was so mediocre I haven’t bothered to form any real opinion on it. Abrams is a good director but I don’t like his writing, and the other writer doesn’t seem to have written anything good ever. So I have no expectations. The one teaser I’ve seen, invoking Palpatine and stuff, doesn’t look all that promising either.

Similarly with D&D they did a great job adapting the GoT source material and they seem to be pretty good showrunners but I don’t expect them to do any worthwhile original writing, The latter seasons of GoT where they took on the actual creative writing seem to have held together despite them, by everyone else involved being fantastic, rather than because of them.

I actually didn’t know Rian Johnson was doing more. That’s some cause for hope, unless the internet going mad over TLJ has made Disney put him in creative shackles.

[LexW]

Solo was so mediocre I haven’t bothered to form any real opinion on it

Yeah that sounds like Solo! Ouch. So true though!

The latter seasons of GoT where they took on the actual creative writing seem to have held together despite them, by everyone else involved being fantastic, rather than because of them.

Yup. If it helps, they’re not writing the Old Republic stuff they’re filming. Laeta Kalogiridis is. Her stuff hasn’t all been great but it has been solid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laeta_Kalogridis

(The worst being Terminator Genisys, but I maintain that movie was bad because it had easily the worst casting in the history of casting. I cannot think of a movie more miscast. Every role, too, except Arnie!)

So I suspect she’ll produce something pretty cool, with the Old Republic to work from, and then D&D will likely be able to make that work. I doubt it’ll blow anyone away. But I doubt it’ll be as bad as, say, Solo.

I actually didn’t know Rian Johnson was doing more. That’s some cause for hope, unless the internet going mad over TLJ has made Disney put him in creative shackles.

I’m just worried Disney has or will cancel his trilogy out of risk-averse-ness. I doubt they’ll creatively shackle him. It’s more likely they’ll just outright cancel it if they’re actually scared. I suspect if Rise does good he’ll be good because it looks like it’s more stylistically and thematically akin to TLJ than TFA.

[BillButNotBen]

I didn’t like Rogue One

Really?

(The worst being Terminator Genisys, but I maintain that movie was bad because it had easily the worst casting in the history of casting. I cannot think of a movie more miscast. Every role, too, except Arnie!)

This is so true. The Terminator sequels (after 2) have all had problems with casting. Nick Stahl was a rubbish John Connor (and Danes and Loken weren’t stellar). Christian Bale should have been a good Choice but wasn’t. Sam Worthington is the most bland action hero since Jai Courtney.

I’m just worried Disney has or will cancel his trilogy out of risk-averse-ness

Me too. I’m somewhat surprised they haven’t already.
I’m also somewhat worried they’re going to roll back on a lot of the stuff some people didn’t like in TLJ in Rise. (I haven’t seen much of Rose in the trailers, for example).

[mrpier]

Well, seems like D&D walked away from the Disney Star Wars deal anyway.

[LexW]

Well, seems like D&D walked away from the Disney Star Wars deal anyway.

Yeah, like literally a few hours ago.

I mean, that’s good, because they can find someone better, and it makes Rian Johnson’s trilogy more likely because Disney have less options. It does worry me slightly that they are so busy with Netflix that they can’t do it, because what the fuck are they making on Netflix? I guess at least it’s not HBO? Because that means they can’t be making Confederate, which sounded like the most cursed concept for a TV series that has happened post-2010.

EDIT - Oh oh oh woooooow - this is worth reading if you want to feel slightly sick - here one of them is talking about the Netflix deal: https://deadline.com/2019/08/game-of-thrones-creators-netflix-overall-deal-david-benioff-d-b-weiss-1202663930/

And it basically seems, by their own account (!!!), like they got the deal because they’re the same age and background (and let’s be real, broad ethnicity, because that contributes to background) as all the big players at Netflix, and essentially charmed them by being such. Jesus. Talk about white men failing upwards and so on (not that we can honestly call GoT a failure overall but…). Also “master storytellers”? PUKE. GRRM is a “master storyteller”. These guys… are not.

All we know about what they’re doing with their “9 figure” deal is making a show is a “water cooler” show and “captures the zeitgeist”. The vast majority of even half-decent (and some bad!) fantasy and SF novels have been optioned (about 60% of them by Amazon!) and many are in production now so god knows what they’re actually going to do - it seems like they’d really need someone who had already written a good series of novels to prepare the ground for them in order to repeat the GoT trick (which was also successful partly because of untapped demand for fantasy stuff of a decent quality, a demand which is unlikely to remain untapped - though that said no other similar fantasy series is actually airing - but a GoT prequel, the LotR prequel, and the Wheel of Time show are all actively in production, with other shows planned).

(I haven’t seen much of Rose in the trailers, for example).

She wasn’t in the TLJ trailers much either, to be fair, and she is definitely in Rise. But it seems like there’s an awful lot of new characters and stuff to so it’s going to be pretty jam-packed, even if it’s like 3 hours.

[Skalpadda]

The worst being Terminator Genisys, but I maintain that movie was bad because it had easily the worst casting in the history of casting. I cannot think of a movie more miscast. Every role, too, except Arnie!

The actual plot didn’t make that much sense either as I recall it, but then complicated time travel plots rarely do. The only other things of hers I’ve seen are Shutter Island and Altered Carbon I think, both of which I remember as okay but not great. I’m guessing with D&D leaving anything could happen to that project though.

Really?

Didn’t like any of the characters and the plot wasn’t interesting so I wasn’t invested in what was happening at all. It looked pretty good, but that’s about the only positive impression it left on me.

[Shadoko]

not that we can honestly call GoT a failure overall but…

GoT certainly isn’t a failure overral but it might be the first show in history that succeeded despite its showrunners, not because of them.

[Det.Bullock]

And at least there are some good news.
I’m hoping they’ll keep Rian Johnson.

[BillButNotBen]

it makes Rian Johnson’s trilogy more likely because Disney have less options.

That was my first thought.
I actually don’t think they’d automatically have done a bad job with Star Wars. Their style of narrative would probably have been a better fit for SW than GoT, plus SW is much less demanding narratively anyway.
But I’d rather have Johnson.

The vast majority of even half-decent (and some bad!) fantasy and SF novels have been optioned (about 60% of them by Amazon!) and many are in production now so god knows what they’re actually going to do - it seems like they’d really need someone who had already written a good series of novels to prepare the ground for them in order to repeat the GoT trick (which was also successful partly because of untapped demand for fantasy stuff of a decent quality, a demand which is unlikely to remain untapped - though that said no other similar fantasy series is actually airing - but a GoT prequel, the LotR prequel, and the Wheel of Time show are all actively in production, with other shows planned).

It seems like the thing people (not you) keep forgetting is that one of the main things that main GoT so huge and ‘zeitgeist’ was that it was being broadcast at the same time as the novels.

You got this weird synergy of the people who hadn’t read them who didn’t know what was coming, and the people who had read them and couldn’t wait for the others to get to the shocking bits, and wondering what was going to happen when they caught up with the novels, etc…
Also, the books were popular, but they weren’t hugely well known at first.

Any TV show based a classic Fantasy / Sci-Fi novel is gonna have the problem of everyone knowing how it ends, which will probably limit any ‘water cooler’ excitement and zeitgeist.
(the main other water cooler shows I remember being 24 and Lost, both of which were at least in part ‘what’s gonna happen??’ shows).

Plus if netflix does its usual thing of dumping the whole season at once, then that kills the water cooler thing in one move.

His Dark Materials starts next week, and might be awesome. But I already know how it goes.
I don’t know if The Dark Tower tv show is still in production, but I could see that one having a shot.

[LexW]

GoT certainly isn’t a failure overral but it might be the first show in history that succeeded despite its showrunners, not because of them.

I am quite sure it is not the first show in history where that is the case!

Also, I think it may have succeeded in the early days because of them. Hear me out! Stop booing and throwing things!

I think this because the ASoIaF novels were intentionally challenging to film. GRRM, by his own account, wrote something he thought could never be filmed, because there’d never be the budget or will. I feel like a lot of showrunners, especially experienced ones, would have realized this and not even tried to film them “as they were”. They’d have made vast cut and fundamental changes, which D&D did not do in the first seasons, because they’d have seen the issues. They’d also probably have cut and compressed a bunch of the characters, and changed them in ways beyond making them all about two-three years older. Further, I suspect most showrunners would have not used as much of GRRM’s dialogue, because they’d have “known better” than to do that.

So my thesis is that their naivete and the fact that they had no idea what they were doing caused them to both “go for it” and try for something bigger than most people would have, and to retain vastly more of GRRM’s dialogue and plot lines than other showrunners would have, simply because they didn’t have confidence in their own. The first two-three seasons run astonishingly close to the books and benefit from it.

Had another showrunner handled the same material, I suspect they would have produced something far more mainstream and less bizarre, which captured the public imagination less, and was less true to the (very popular) books.

Of course, the exact same traits are what fucked them in the end - they understood the material and characters significantly less well than the actual actors, they couldn’t write much good dialogue without GRRM there to help them (though “chaos is a ladder” is pretty immortal), and without the solid structure of GRRM’s plot, which they lost actually due to GRRM, but still, they proved that they were not great plotters. Still, I suspect a GoT by a more “competent” or experienced showrunner would have been a lot less true to the books, and probably less exciting overall.

[LexW]

Any TV show based a classic Fantasy / Sci-Fi novel is gonna have the problem of everyone knowing how it ends, which will probably limit any ‘water cooler’ excitement and zeitgeist.

There’s some truth in this, and I think that’s why some of the shows are what they are (prequels and spin-offs), but there are also a lot of books which like, most people didn’t make it to the end of (Wheel of Time), or which are in that same state of low-level popularity ASoIaF was in say, 2010 (Grishaversa). I’ll actually do a separate thread on them.

[BillButNotBen]

most people didn’t make it to the end of (Wheel of Time)

I was sooooo close though!!!