The trailer is here. #GameofThrones pic.twitter.com/L48jOwsUzn
— Game of Thrones (@GameOfThrones) March 5, 2019
What you may need to know:
1. There’s just too much to get into at this stage. It’s season 8, with a dizzying amount of loose ends, subplots and mysteries to be sorted out. At this stage you’re either in or out.
2. The shortened season will consist of six episodes rather than the usual ten, with each hyped as a “mini-movie”
3. It has gotten its share of criticism over the years, due to excessive and often gratuitous violence and scenes of rape.
4. Some say Game of Thrones took a dip once the writers overook George R.R. Martin’s source material, but there’s no question it will go down as one of the all-time great TV series and pop-culture touchstones.
5. This is hardly goodbye. HBO has already confirmed it will go back to the well for a new “prequel” series, set in one of the multitude of historical eras outlined in the mythology.
6. Glorious fart acting from Lena Headey at 1.06.
Doug’s verdict: Winter really is coming this time
Release: April 14/15, Sky Atlantic
“Some say Game of Thrones took a dip once the writers overook George R.R. Martin’s source material, ”
Those would be the people that never actually read the books and don’t realise that the writers not only did an outstanding job of abridging and adapting the source material (hugely improving it) but managed to do what Martin seemingly can’t do. Write a bloody sequel.
I don’t disagree, but there’s no denying that it “felt” different once GRRM was out of the picture. It was a damned if you do etc situation for the producers because they had a lot of piece moving to do in order to set up their own finale, but it was definitely accelerated.
One specific example would be John and the lads’ quest north of the wall in the last season. They nipped from one end of the country to the other in between one scene and the next, in a flash. Never would have happened in the earlier series.
Exactly. That’s why that season was brilliant.
I don’t think it’s just the pacing, although that is a factor. It’s also the switch in recent seasons from being a character driven show to a plot driven one. The plot in early seasons is generally derived from the many (terrific) characters bouncing off each other and the conflicts created from that. In recent seasons though it’s become evident that the show has a very clear end point that it’s in a hurry to get to, so characters have started behaving in ridiculous and uncharacteristic ways so that the plot can get to where it needs to.
E.g. Melisandre’s volte face at the end of season 5 because the plot needed her character to be at Castle Black to interact with Jon et al. The entire series she’s characterised as being a zealot with absolute faith in Stannis and the Lord of Light, until abruptly she doesn’t… because. Stannis loses half his army to desertion and her faith collapses, even though in season 2 Stannis lost 95% of his army at Kings Landing and she was totally unperturbed.
There are loads of examples like this in recent seasons.
Also, the number of characters adopting plot armour.
Yeah it’s a shame the show decided to get sloppy about obeying the ground rules of the world they’ve created. Getting the balance right between acknowledging assorted logistics and not being boring as feck is a part of epic fantasy fiction and the show just ignores it when convenient and feels less grounded as a result. Arguably Martin got bogged down in the other extreme with the most recent book so it’s easy to see why they did it with so many moving parts. They weren’t killing off characters to shock by the latest seasons they were just trying to manage all the plots. What’s slightly worse is giving characters the idiot stick to hold so they can force sometimes lazy story beats. The suspense in the final season won’t be who lives and who dies it’ll be does the whole thing fall apart by the end?
I better go back and watch the last season, I can hardly remember anything.