S08.00: The Last Watch

[Umbelina]

No specific book talk here, just book spec and even that is vague, AND completely guessing on my part.

I have many problems with the writing of the last couple of seasons, and even more problems with the last season's writing.

I don't give a shit who sits on the throne.  I never did.

What I care about is answers to the many, and interesting, questions raised in the books and in the show.

I have understood why Bran is King since the first spoilers came out, I actually think I was the first one here to believe them.  It makes sense to me, because I think I know where GRRM is heading with that whole thing, with the off chance of a twist of "evil" Bran.

However, the show runners didn't EARN that, let alone explain it in any kind of understandable way.  They left so many threads dangling, they made so many previously canny and intelligent characters become brain dead, and they focused far too much WOW or SHOCK moments, and far too little on character development, motivation, or believably.

Dany being murdered by Jon because she's dangerous makes sense to me.  Cersei's ending does not, she's probably long dead in the books, and Dany is fighting someone else in KL.  The threat of WINTER is probably the final real battle, and it probably involves most of Westeros, since GRRM has said it's his metaphor for Climate Change, and that makes it the biggest threat to humankind, plants, animals, all of it.

I get that the showrunners wanted battles and sword fights over magic and despair of starvation and a devastated world.  However, in the books I feel pretty positive that having Bran as King will be a huge relief, that most of the power hungry murderous war mongers will die.  They pretty much all have to if the world is to be saved.

So, the final season was bad writing, but great visuals.  It was beyond a pity that Jon had about two lines for most of the season, endlessly repeated, "She's ma Kween!"  It's sad we didn't see and hear their supposed "love story" so it would have mattered when Jon killed her.  Lots of sad things here, including that very few characters got lines, because words do matter.

The Stark kids barely had any time together, after being apart for 7 seasons!  WTF?  Did they exchange more than a couple of sentences?  The wolves and that magic were ignored.  On and on into disappointmentville, but for me, that had absolutely nothing to do with Dany's inevitable end.

We know nothing.

Thanks D&D.

Edited June 7, 2019 by Umbelina

[scrb]

On 5/26/2019 at 9:14 PM, Ladyrain said:

I knew that tons of work went on behind the scenes to put on a production like GOT, but I had no idea just how much!   Given what I learned from this, it's a miracle that they put out a season in just one year for seven years in a row.  Well done, set designers, carpentry, hair and makeup, wardrobe, lighting, sound, special effects......just everyone!

Wondering how they came to choose Belfast.  Obviously much cheaper than say London.

Was there a film making infrastructure there or did they just fly in the main crew and hired local people (obviously the extras) for some functions.

The couple that did the visual effects said they had nothing, not even tables for putting on the makeup and such.  Were they local or did they come from somewhere else?  If they were local, there must have been some kind of film making activity in Belfast but she does say something about whether there would be another project of the scale of GoT there.

I saw Titanic Studios are they strictly linked with GoT of they have done other projects but GoT probably would have made it grow.

Seems like Benioff and Weiss do very little day to day.  With the size of the production staff, they have to delegate a lot.  But that one director at least, they seem to be executing his vision of the script.  One thing they didn't show is the writers interacting with the director and the talent.

Yeah it seemed like all involved were dedicated to the project and came to bond with each other over the course of the series.

I didn't realize it was such a phenomenon though, the biggest show in the world.  They're in Spain and they recognize the guy playing the Night King and they all mimic his gesture of raising the dead?  He did that twice in the whole series!

[plurie]

It's my impression that GoT grew the nascent NI film industry into a behemouth. They built the Titanic Studios soundstages, which have been used for other productions as well, but mostly for GoT.

I don't think too many of the crew were "locals," but they surely hired a lot of local people to work on the production. Some of them are now trained and can work on other productions.

I'm pretty sure the food truck was local. <G>

[Nashville]

5 hours ago, scrb said:

Wondering how they came to choose Belfast.  Obviously much cheaper than say London.

Offhand, I’d guess tax breaks; Northern Ireland has some of the world’s most stupid corporation-friendly tax laws, especially for media and technology corporations.

[rmontro]

7 hours ago, scrb said:

I didn't realize it was such a phenomenon though, the biggest show in the world.  They're in Spain and they recognize the guy playing the Night King and they all mimic his gesture of raising the dead?  He did that twice in the whole series!

That was impressive.  I don't think I would have recognized the guy who played the Night King.  And I doubt if I would have gotten the significance of his arm raising gesture either, before season eight had even aired.

[QuinnM]

12 hours ago, rmontro said:

That was impressive.  I don't think I would have recognized the guy who played the Night King.  And I doubt if I would have gotten the significance of his arm raising gesture either, before season eight had even aired.

It was funny when he walked over to the crowd he really walked ‘like the NK’.  I thought dang whoever saw this guy working in stunts and says he has the right stuff for the NK deserves a raise.  And how great for that stunt guy.  Thanks to GoT he now has choreographer on his CV.  (In the future, some guy is going to ask him if he might have seen something he choreographed and he’ll answer, Cleagonbowl.). And he has acting credits as well.  So this series has really changed his life.  And I like when that kind of thing happens.