S08.E00: The Last Watch

[raven]

HBO blurb:.

Quote

An up-close and personal report from the trenches of production that reveals the tears and triumphs of the cast and crew involved in the challenge of bringing the fantasy world of Westeros to life.

Airdate 2019.05.26

In this topic you may discuss this episode with book references.  If you want to discuss this episode without book references,  your topic is here.

[MrsR]

I loved the King of the Extras. Great idea to follow him.

And I got a kick of everyone watching Kit during the table read.

[jeansheridan]

The make-up people were kind of awesome but wow was she scatty. Clearly she is deeply organized but her general air of befuddlement did not inspire confidence.

I loved following the wig around too. Hee.

And who knew the Night King was Czech? 

The table read seems like a very awkward thing to me. Any actors in this forum? Are they fun to do?

[Tryangle]

That table read where Varys was to be killed... the expressions on Conleth Hill's face... yeah. He looked totally fed up and it seemed like a fellow actor (Gwendoline, maybe?) had a hand on his knee in consolation.

Enjoyable 'behind the scenes' bit, that. It's crazy how much goes on in a production like this.

Lottie is adorable and I felt for her mom.

[WatchrTina]

I thought they did a great job including that one script assistant who made the point, early in the documentary, that some of the actors show up for the table-read having read the script first and some do not.  It became clear later on that Emilia had read her death scene in advance but Kit had not.  That was a brilliant moment to be caught on camera.

I'm an even bigger fan of Kit Harrington now.  Not only did he seem genuinely upset by that turn of events (learning that Jon kills Dany); and not only did he try to pay that background player who gave him his commemorative jacket; he had to endure over a year of mandated lying to EVERYONE about Jon Snow being dead at the end of season 5.  What a difficult position to be put in.  Ah well, he ended up with a wife in real life thanks to the show so I guess that seems like a fair swap.

I enjoyed that documentary but it was bittersweet.  I'm having flashbacks to watching all the "making of" documentaries that came with the extended cut DVDs of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.  I remember LOVING those but also feeling emotionally drained by watching them.  Part of me wants to sit down and watch this whole documentary over again and part of me thinks I need to take a break.

Sigh.  This show was a great ride.

Edited May 28, 2019 by WatchrTina

[QuinnM]

9 minutes ago, WatchrTina said:

I thought they did a great job including that one script assistant who made the point, early in the documentary, that some of the actors show up for the table-read having read the script first and some do not.  It became clear later on that Emilia had read her death scene in advance but Kit had not.  That was a brilliant moment to be caught on camera.

There was an interview with Sophie and Maisie where they talked about the fact that a lot of the actors did/din't read the script ahead of time.  They noted Kit was famous for not wanting to see it before the table read.  This time the script came on an app that 'ate' it after a set period of time. Maisie was waffling on reading it and Sophie had already gotten to THE scene with Gendry and made her jump ahead to read it.  She said that was about all she read.

Speaking of Maisie, she looks so teeny at the first table read around all those big guys.  What a wild ride she's had.

[Francie]

I saw a few moments of the table read last night. Two issues caught my attention. First, just how much of the “story” was being told in writer’s notes and not in the dialogue.  Cogman talked of Dany’s and Jon’s final kiss being “perfect.” I get what they mean. It’s your traditional romantic kiss. Passionate without be grody.  Etc. Etc. You standard big kiss between a hero and heroine. But that’s part of the problem. The story itself never developed that Jon and Dany would have a perfect kiss. And even for those fans who bought into that Jon and Dany were in love, Jon’s behavior in rejecting Dany immediately prior to that scene made that kiss a puzzle to nearly ever fan. It didn’t make sense. It didn’t flow from their prior scenes. And to those fans (like me) who never saw a love connection, not only was the kiss puzzling (well, except that it wasn’t), but it was booooring.  And it would have been puzzled, having come out of nowhere in light of Jon’s prior emo brooding and rejection, except that we immediately knew that he was using the kiss as an opportunity to stab her.  So, I get bored by the kiss and get the not so shocking “shocker” that he stabbed her. For that scene to have worked, we’d all have to be lulled into believing that Jon was truly kissing her sincerely. We didn’t. And it (the scene) didn’t.

The second issue was when Cogman was reading off the writers’ notes about the death of Jorah.  I’m going from memory from last night, but I believe the phrase was “He’s getting pounded harder than Hodor at the door.” It could have been “hit” or “assaulted” I forget the verb. But for the writers to bring up one of their few shining moments of the last four seasons in such a casual way.  These writers just thought they were too cool for school. They thought cleverness equaled talent. And they thought their low brow humor equaled cleverness.

[WatchrTina]

34 minutes ago, Francie said:

The second issue was when Cogman was reading off the writers’ notes about the death of Jorah. . . . “He’s getting pounded harder than Hodor at the door.” . . . for the writers to bring up one of their few shining moments of the last four seasons in such a casual way.  These writers just thought they were too cool for school.

I completely disagree.  I thought it showed great affection by the writers to take the time to spike the table-read scripts with little inside-jokes that the cast would understand and appreciate.  As we saw from the show, the table-read is a very emotional event.  Character deaths are announced.  Epic moments are announced (e.g., Arya's slaying of the Night King.) I thought the writers' spiking the narration with small moments of humor (amid all that death and destruction) was completely appropriate, and judging from what we saw on camera, the cast felt that way as well.

Edited May 27, 2019 by WatchrTina

[Francie]

1 minute ago, WatchrTina said:

I thought the writers' spiking the narration with small moments of humor (amid all that death and destruction)

The problem is that the writers didn't just spike the narration with what they considered humor. Their attempts at comic relief on the these last four seasons were awful.  We got a plethora of cock jokes, short jokes, a "bad pussy" line, and a riff on Sam stealing books.  

My critique stands: What these guys thought was funny 9 times out of 10 wasn't.  

[Umbelina]

Yeah, these writers weren't big on dialogue, unless it was in a different language OR it was Peter or Lena using it.

It's probably my biggest complaint about the show, and was especially evident when they left the books behind.

It was mostly

• Fight scenes!
• Battle scenes!
• Dragons!
• CGI!

Actual character development, most specifically Bran and the so-called "love" between Dany and Jon?  Were left by the wayside.

[Brn2bwild]

7 hours ago, Francie said:

But for the writers to bring up one of their few shining moments of the last four seasons in such a casual way.  These writers just thought they were too cool for school. They thought cleverness equaled talent. And they thought their low brow humor equaled cleverness.

I remember one comment in the S7E10 script was something like: "Sansa stood looking like the French Lieutenant's Woman, something Sophie Turner will just have to Google."  Amusing, but also very pleased with themselves.  They were clearly used to everyone telling them they're geniuses and were as high on their supply as Dany supposedly was in the end. 

[bijoux]

4 hours ago, Brn2bwild said:

I remember one comment in the S7E10 script was something like: "Sansa stood looking like the French Lieutenant's Woman, something Sophie Turner will just have to Google."

That’s really condescending. I also kind of gave the Long Night director the side eye when he was directing Sophie and Maisie to act like they had a stomachache on the battlements and one of them replied with something like,  Sure, like we’re dreading the Night King’s attack. -Yeah, yeah, just act like your stomach aches. Maybe he directed everyone that way, but this felt like infantilizing two grown young women, as if they couldn’t understand trepidation but needed to be directed to act as if they need to hit the john.