Just a friendly reminder, author of the literary series "A Song if Fire and Ice" which "Game of Thrones" was based, George R. R. Martin hasn't finish the sixth book in the series "The Winds of Winter" in over a decade. HBO's "GoT" ended 2 1/2 years ago. However, if "GoT" waited for Martin to finish the fifth book, we'd still be waiting after 5 1/2 years for the sixth season. With the seventh & eighth season no where in sight. Anyone complaining about the ending needs to realize "GoT" would have essentially ended after season five. So no ending at all!!
This should be a cautionary tale to not do a TV series or film (with planned sequels) about a story if the writer of the books has not finished in in full yet. Even though I don't think the last few GoT seasons were the disaster that some did, they likely would have been better had Martin finished the books.
I think GoT was handled right and Martin was properly consulted and rewarded. I certainly don't think this is a cautionary tale about proceeding with a series beyond what has been published. Nor do I blame Martin for his hiatus from writing. Who wants to continue toiling in the lonely endeavor of writing if you've done that for decades and can finally enjoy a big bank account?
Well HBO's "GoT" certainly is a cautionary tale, for the network & the show runners. You'd better have people in place you have complete confidence in to finish a series you sank tens of millions of dollars in. Imagine being in production of season five not even close to being finished, without enough original source material to even complete the season, let alone the entire series. Not only did Martin never come close to finishing the literary series, Martin stopped contributing episodes for HBO's series as well!! Certainly when tens of millions of dollars are concerned, one must be cautionary. That just makes $ense!
True, but all parties in question made out very well financially, so what advantage would more caution really have yielded?
Who said "more"? One of the few who were satisfied with the series. The post was in response to someone denying a cautionary tale even existed concerning "GoT". The extreme backlash against the final season/episode is proof positive of the risks involved in not only "selling" seasons after Martin stopped writing episodes & "GoT" ran out of published literary sources, also for the potential of selling physical media. Which HBO has done quite well with. All because the show's runners kept the quality up & the fans interest up as well. HBO's subscriptions grew during "GoT" & dropped off after "GoT".
I think that there are a lot of fans that are delusional and think they can run or write a show by watching too many stupid YouTube deepdive videos and podcasts. Enjoy it for what it is.
Oh please. The "extreme backlash" was more like extreme whining by a vocal minority who didn't understand that character dev sets up the endgame in stories. They expected more character dev when the pieces were set and rapidly being taken off the board. You can't please everyone, especially malcontents, but the show--including the final season--was and will remain a crowning achievement of television that was better by leaps and bounds than the LotR films and nearly every other show or movie in that genre. But that apparently won't stop the whining.
For what it's worth, I never read the books so whatever the showrunners did with the material was neither here nor there with me but I still felt the final season seemed rushed and not as enjoyable as the rest. It's the only one I don't own and I'm in no hurry to complete my collection. Still looking forward to the prequel, though.
Received the Game Of Thrones 4K box set today for Christmas so we will need to revisit the entire series, this time in 4K. We previously watched it on an inferior 1080p television that was failing (a Sony SXRD) so I am looking forward to it.
Obviously, there's a few folks who haven't read Martin's last 2 books in the GOT series. Plainly put, they sucked! Martin's been past his prime for over a decade now. If they had followed the books the result would've been even worse. Be careful what you wish for!
Check out worse season endings on the World Wide Web! "GoT" is up there with "Lost", "The Sopranos", "Seinfeld", etc. You don't know what you're talking about! You may have not been scared for the rest of your life & am definitely OK with it. However there is definitely a consensus that "GoT" has one of the worse ending in history: https://www.ecosia.org/search?q=wor...time&_sp=62d75bd2-49fc-4ea9-ad80-1140258d2ff3
Pretty much moot! HBO's "GoT" couldn't have "followed" Martin's literary series, there's no books to follow.
Benioff and Weiss didn't need the books because they had Martin. Unless you're saying he needed the books to know what was in his own mind? They consulted with him to understand all the characters, their arcs and stories--beginning, middle and end. We knew that Benioff and Weiss knew the ending years at least four years before the final season was produced, and probably from the very beginning. If you thought it was a big deal that the ending hadn't been published first, you weren't paying attention. ‘Game of Thrones’ Showrunners Know How George R.R. Martin’s Books End – The Hollywood Reporter
Hear that a lot! Just the simple math of all the characters on the show from season one though season seven was super obvious to me it was going to be a prodigious undertaking to tie up all the loose ends in the final season. Add the books not being finished & truncated amount of episodes [compared to the earliest seasons]. No doubt the show runners had their hands full & fans of specific characters wouldn't get the ending they were wishing for. First episode was 54 & the second 58 minutes long. Episode three at 82 minutes is the longest episode of the series. Episodes four and five are 78 minutes. The final episode is 80 minutes. So although only six episodes, it's the equivalent of seven hours. Not enough to completely finish every single storyline, nonetheless at great expense, a massive effort for series on cable. Enjoy! Boring: Posted this before; found episode one from season eight to be grandly cinematic. From the opening scene alone. Can enjoy video for many, many, different artistic endeavors. Art doesn't have to be perfectly all wrapped up for me to be enthralled by it. [heck even enthusiastic over studio jams]
When "books" are stated, mean books. Martin actually writing episodes early on was impressive. Having the outlines were undoubtedly helpful. However, "The Winds of Winter" & "A Dream of Spring" outlines don't have an ending. Martin said while the final season was in production he didn't know what would happen to all the characters let alone who would be on throne at the end in the books. Edited: Well then if Martin was responsible for "GoT", then Martin should receive all the hate the show runners got!
From your link [March 11, 2014]: Martin noted that not all of the pieces of the puzzle are in place. "I can give them the broad strokes of what I intend to write, but the details aren’t there yet."
Well, that's another press report. It's like Donald Fagen telling music reporters what Steely Dan songs are about. You're never getting a straight answer. Also, there were liberties taken by Benioff & Weiss all along. The show was not 100% faithful to the books--they were different animals. They always used Martin as their launching pad, but had a sense of what each character, arc, episode and season needed to be, and made it happen with great production values. The ending was known years in advance--that much is clear. If you want to argue that the details weren't filled in until the actual season started shooting, I'm sure to some extent that was the case with all the seasons. Making a show of 8 seasons, each having a set number of episodes, and each episode a set number of minutes, is just a much different endeavor than writing books. It was still a crowning achievement in television. The episodes made up of battle scenes rivaled any comparable battle I've seen on the big screen. The way the characters ended up was emotional, depressing and uplifting at the same time. That's not easy to do. I could nitpick as much as you, but why? We were lucky to get this show at all. Looking forward to the Targayen show coming next year.
Amen! Probably the best television in the last decade. Movie-like episodes that could never have been done in that medium without taking years between each release. Cast, crew and creators delivered against impossible odds.
Thanks, you've proven my point. Enjoy the next ideation! [hopefully expectations are meet or a least not set so high! ] Happy 2022!!