Terrific post. I agree with it in entirety. I didn’t feel like challenging the member who said that the producers sat in multiple meetings with Martin and still ‘chose to go their own way’. No they didn’t. Martin didn’t have much other than some vague ideas for characters and, likely, multiple possible endings. Truth be told, Martin left the show to its own devices after season six. His reason was, “to concentrate on his writing” How’d that work out, George? Fact is the producers and the network counted on Martin finishing the damn series or they wouldn’t have green lit it. I remember reading an interview with a Martin at his home in Santa Fe circa the second season and the interviewer asked him, “what happens if the series gets beyond your writing” (I believe there was three books out at this juncture). His response “impossible, it’ll never happen”. Well, guess what? Fail. Kind of a bad idea to sink millions of dollars and viewer’s investment in a story that was not finished by its creator. So, shame on HBO, shame on Benioff and Weiss, but the biggest shame and egg on the face belongs to Martin. Comicons, Jets games, and whatever else that turned his fancy overtook his desire to finish a franchise people were deeply invested in (tv series and books). Such an embarrassment for a obviously talented fantasy writer who was so good early on then mailed it in and, finally, quit altogether. In light of all that, we’re lucky we got an ending at all; never mind that it disappointed some fans. Be grateful for what you got.
For me, the true irony of the whole thing is; I didn't even WATCH "GOT" until, once "LOST" ended, GRR 'tweeted' that "Game Of Thrones" would end WAY better than "LOST" did!
Heh. I never watched “Lost” but have heard moans and groans about the ending. I can’t speak to it obviously. I can say that most long running series have trouble ending the thing. For instance, I thought the “Breaking Bad” finale was awful. Gilligan said he wanted to “check all the boxes” with it. Perhaps he did, but I still found it pretty bad. Long story short: you can never please everyone.
I'll say THIS about "BB"! I'm STILL amazed that it was a dying fan's wish to bring back Gretchen and Elliot, and no one in the writers room thought to do that!
i wanna say I heard it straight outta the Gillagan's mouth, in one of those 'behind-the-scene'-type thingys!
Nice thoughts and I agree with you but not on the last paragraph. There is a YouTube channel called Trope Anatomy and the episode titled “Foreshadowing Is Not Character Development” that is really well done and I highly recommend to anyone still debating this finale. I would link it but don’t know if it’s allowed... or exactly how. Not just an angry fan ranting. I also watched the whole thing last Summer for the first time start to finish...I always assumed she would turn evil but IMO and millions of other fans it was handled pathetically. For me the moment I knew they were really botching the last season was when that goof shot her second dragon dead out of the sky.... not at all believable. This was a show built on expecting the unexpected and crazy unbelievable stuff being presented as believable. Then in the last season it was one unbelievably stupid scene after another. And so many character arcs literally crumbled to the point that it was as if I wasted all summer waiting for a payoff that never came. Cersi.... dies under a pile of rocks... are you kidding me???!!!! They did that with Kirk in ST Generations decades ago and it was lazy then. Ok...Kirk fell into the rocks but you get my point. I could go on and on like I did last summer to family and friends about all of the inane plot holes and such but I’m over it now... sort of. I understand why there was such backlash. I was out of sorts after power watching the whole thing over two months, if I’d watched for YEARS and waited nearly two years for the big finale and then got what we got I might have had to create my own YouTube channel to vent too.
If it's on YT, then there's a video, no? Scroll down and right under the vid locate and click on share and an address will appear. Press the link icon on the forum page and type the entire address including http, etc and then click insert. Voila!
Fine with Lost ending in comparison with GOT. No qualms with Breaking Bad ending. The Sopranos ending kinda wtf, but GOT.. worse.
Manapua, thanks! Hope this works. Some people may have expected a John and Dany happy ending but I never did. This guys video explains my sentiments perfectly. And it applied to ALL the main characters in the last season. It boiled down to very sloppy writing IMO.
I will defend Cersei's death scene...I thought it was very fitting. Sure, it would have been more satisfying (and major fan service) for Arya to have stayed there and killed her by stabbing her in the heart, but to see someone as proud and arrogant as Cersei go out whimpering and scared out of her mind in her dying moments, before part of the Red Keep collapses and crushes her to death, was poetic justice, IMO.
To each their own and I’m not one of those people that thinks I’m going to change someone’s mind on a forum. I thought it was awful and even worse the way Tyrian just happened to walk right up and find her under a couple of rocks when half the city just collapsed. Come on! We fans already got to see her squirm during the walk of shame. She also spent most of her screen time in season 8 staring out windows with a glass of wine. The writers were done and didn’t know what to do anymore. The show was over the top violent and graphic as hell and they didn’t even SHOW her die... nor Jamie...the walls stared crumbling..cut... and then later there they are dead? Bad bad bad. Joffrey could have died many ways too and when he got his it was believable and satisfying. We’ll agree to disagree.
Yep, we can agree to disagree, and like you, I never think I will change anyone's mind either. I am just offering a different perspective.
It's supposed to be re-graded again for the next Full Series UHD BD set so everything is more visible. I personally expect they re-grade the whole 8th season as it's too low on contrast on UHD BD for my taste.
