Game of Thrones: Hardhome
This is my first time starting a board topic - so be gentle.
I didn't see a thread for tonight's episode, and I wanted to hear others' thoughts. I thought it was fantastic, with some great new interactions. Tyrion and Daenerys were especially good. The battle sequence at Hardhome was great too, and I am a big fan of Tormund now that he is the Wyndham Wyzard in the real world, so his scenes were a bonus too.
Next episode should be intense, since the ninth episode usually has the craziest stuff. Thoughts?
Isn't it amazing how everyone (myself included) so loved a scene in which two people talked. That was it. A pure dialog scene between Tyrion and Dany was met with universal acclaim. That's how great those characters, those actors and the events and context that has led to their meeting all are.
There WAS a spin-off with Tyrion, Princess Leia from Star Wars, Happy Hogan from Iron Man, Latrine from Men in Tights and Adam Maitland from Beetlejuice sitting around, drinking wine, eating and chatting.
You gotta remember, that in the books, Tommen is like ~7-9 years old. So they aged him up a lot in the series, but in order to follow the storyline, they need to keep him childish and naive.
I agree on the Dany/Tyrion/Varys thing though. I got so excited just to see Dany and Tyrion in the same scene.
Couldn't the same be said of most of the main characters? Isn't Dany like 13 in the books? Sansa was 11 at the start of the first book. If I recall correctly, they had to age up A LOT of the characters for television.
Yeah, good point. In the books, Tommen really seems young though, he'd rather play with his cats than anything else. So maybe it's just a character thing, not an age thing.
"Tommen might just be the most ineffectual king ever. Say what you will about Joffrey, but if his wife and/or mother were imprisoned against his wishes, the people that arrested them would have their heads on spikes before the end of the day."
Boy you really mangled the names there. I think you meant to write "Hoke might just be the most ineffectual king ever. Say what you will about Harbaugh, but if his wife and/or mother were imprisoned against his wishes, the people that arrested them would have their heads on spikes before the end of the day."
and Bronn....
Bronn gets his own show with the sand snake girl. She sits there naked in various poses while he sings sea shanties and other drinking songs.
I'd watch the hell out of that for an hour each week.
Easily the best episode of the season. I loved the Dany Tyrion stuff, Jorah is such a bitch, Arya story is finally getting halfway interesting. But oh man, the last 20 minutes were freaking epic. The 28 days later/dawn of the dead speed that the white walkers move at was frightening. They make the walking dead look so lame in comparison. Great stuff all around in that battle. The whole white walker threat makes the actual game for the throne pretty insignificant in my book. Hopefully next week the Ramsey and his 20 dudes will put on a show for us. It is episode 9, so it has to bad ass?
My one major gripe about this season has been the Arya storyline. I don't see how it pays off in the end, and is such a BORE this season. Like, just fast forward through this stuff please.
My two minor gripes about last night's episode:
1) The White Walker Fog that just knocks a bunch of wildings (who are essentially untamed warriors) dead? And then there's a big battle? What is up with that fog? Shouldn't there have been a bunch of screams from dying wildings, or noises from the clashing of swords - like the rest of the fight?
2) That last boat with Jon Snow and Tormund. Come on guys. You cut back/forth from it so many times, and then at the end it's like 20 feet from the shore?? That's absurd!!
Overall, though, what a freaking episode... wow...
was weird. The wights are preceeded by the fog/storm, but I didn't know that it was deadly in and of itself.
And I agree about that last scene. They weren't even rowing the boat.
There actually were occasional screams and battle sounds after the fog rolled in, but they were muted a bit to keep the eerie atmosphere. You can especially hear them when the Thenn looks through the hole in the Hardhome wall.
I'm assuming the fog was cover for the first wave and that unlike those inside the wall, the wildlings outside never had much of a chance to fight back. After all, the majority of the wights we saw were waaaay too decayed and skeletony to be the wildlings outside.
That is why I come back every week and why this show is in my top 5. This season has largely been a waste, slow and plodding, but man this episode was really good and the last 20 min was epic. With next week being ep 9, we should see this great momentum continue to a great conclussion to an otherwise average season. Is the show not without faults, of course not, but when it is at this level, there a few better shows out there. When they focus on these storylines the show flourishes. I personally get bored with Kings landing and the faith militant and the dorne stuff, but everything else is pretty damn good.
More great Tweets:
Whole time I was like #GameofThrones pic.twitter.com/KeAqX6GNE0
— Jon Snow (@Daxnx) June 1, 2015
last 20 mins of #GameofThrones had me like... pic.twitter.com/MxAJbEySKg
— . (@childishxbreezy) June 1, 2015
I enjoy looking at imdb.com to see what the general feelings are about various shows.
This episode is rated 9.9 - the highest of any episode in the series. #2 is the Red Wedding at 9.7. I guess that over the coming week as more ratings come in, the score will go down a litte. But I'm still amazed that over 5,000 people have rated this episode with the avg being 9.9. That's remarkable and I'm guessing the highest rated non-obsure TV episode ever on imdb.
I loved it. The last 30 minutes were flawless in my opinion.
Person of interest has a bunch of episodes with a 9.9 episode rating, and like GoT, that show is freaking awesome as well. This was one of my favorites of the series, easily. Great stuff.
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I'm not so sure that TWD needs to really change anything ... been pretty successful to date and the makeup and special effects have been top notch.
That said, I was extrememly impressed with GoT Army of the Dead ... the entire episode was done well and the last 20-30 minutes were absolutely thrilling.
I think the walking dead could do a number of things different to improve that show. The zombies moving slowly thing has been that way since the beginning of the show so I don't see that changing nor should it. The zombies here though were really terrifying, like dawn of the dead level.
Seriously? Why would you even compare them? Why would zombies from two completely different universes need to be the same? The GOT "zombies" are mostly skeletal wights animated by some dark magic force (allowing them to move nimbly even with no muscle or ligamets) and controlled by evil wraith-like leaders with a purpose to destroy the human world. In short they aren't mindless flesheaters. The Walking Dead zombies are the result of a virus which reactivates and reprograms the cerebellum and brain stem following death. Of course they move slowly and awkwardly because they don't have fine motor skills and because most of them are maimed or decomposing and don't have the benefit of fantasy world magic to give them purpose or fighting ability. Once the Walking Dead zombies decompose too much they can't even move. They have no unified purpose, just a herd like behavior that results from their desire for human flesh. You might as well ask why the wizards from a Terry Goodkind series differ from Harry Potter or why the dwarves from Snow White are different from the dwarves in Lord of the Rings.
Seriously tho, I prefer this season to last years. The slower plot line allows for some better story and character development.
And yes the WW looked like they were from army of darkness.
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When Jon and the others ran to jump on the last boat, there was a cloaked figure already sitting in the back. It couldn't have been an accident. As a book reader, I have two ideas, but don't want to spoil things.
Anyone else notice this?
HUGE, huge fan of this show. Best series on television, like ever and stuff.
Anyway, my 3 cents....
This season was rolling along very slowly. Many of my friends who are more into carnage and action were falling asleep. I really enjoyed it so far because i like the political banter and positioning for future power plotting. However, i too was craving for action and honestly, the last 25 minutes of the episode blew any battle, including blackwater, out of the door IMO. It was VERY well done.
Dany is overrated as an actress. Cute as hell eye-candy, but extremely overrated. I need to see some more of her material in other films to see if she is this straight up monotone/boring - or if she actually can act. She seems so stiff.
Peter Dinklage is/has been doing a fantastic job, and does deserve the credit he is getting. But man o man, i hope true film critics see who is literally the star of the show. Lena Headey does such a great job playing Cersei Lannister - she, IMO, is the best thing this series has going (outside a few dragons, and maybe the physical appearance of one sand snake). She should have won every Golden Globe/Emmy for a series from the start. EXCELLENT job Lena!
BTW, speaking of horrible acting, the sand snake scenes are really difficult to watch. Its like watching a low budget family movie from the 40's. Im not sure if they are that horrible of actresses, or the scenes themselves are directed poorly. I cannot complain about the frontal shot in the cell though, that was a thing of beauty.
One other pet peave - i feel they are fast forwarding too quickly. Everythinig is just moving way to fast. We are missing so many great details in between events. I feel the show is going to end in 2 years at this pace. I would like them to slow down and show more detail.
Anytime that Emilia Clarke gets "angry" is a time that you can see how bad of an actress she is. It's like she's trying to make an angry face and snarl while talking.