4 ms·

(Complete tangent) Can someone explain to me why HBO isn’t spending $100M to recut season 7-8 and maybe reshoot a few new dialogue scenes while the actors are a

by breck 6y ago

(Complete tangent) Can someone explain to me why HBO isn’t spending $100M to recut season 7-8 and maybe reshoot a few new dialogue scenes while the actors are all still available? It seems to me in this day and age they could look at the 5 episodes with terrible IMDB scores, remaster them, and then ship it again, and everyone would forgive them and the show would make billions more because people could recommend it again. I don’t understand from a business point of view why they are letting such a gold mine just collapse.

jasonv 6y ago
Good Q. Those seasons were so bad it killed — or at least severely diminished — the casts’ star power. Who’s still hot from GoT?
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
  Sean Bean. If you want a character to get killed, nobody does a better job of dying heroically.
  - dmoy 6y ago
    Fingers crossed for World on Fire. Frankenstein didn't pan out - he died.
    - hoten 6y ago
      Bit of a spoiler there, isn't that the end of S1?
      - RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
        My embargo period for spoilers is 5 years max.
- dogma1138 6y ago
  TBH it felt like almost no one on the writing side wanted to deal with this anymore, they’ve could’ve gotten JRRM in to finish the show somehow but I think even he might be in the position where he just doesn’t want too / can’t finish what he started. It’s not like JRRM doesn’t have the issue of putting in too many strings that don’t pan out, at this point the books are almost too complex to actually finish. PS I think the “stars” were more responsible for killing their own careers than the show..:
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    The writing for especially the last season baffled me. They had 6 episodes to tie off a vast array of plot lines and they spent so much of that on nonsense. I think one whole episode was just mindless, irrelevant chatter between characters with no plot advancement at all. It really felt like the writers were phoning it in so they could focus on ruining star wars.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Who’s still hot from GoT? Kit Harrington, Emilia Clarke, Peter Dinklage, Lena Headey, Sophie Turner, Maisie Williams, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Iain Glen, ... whose not?
  - fnord77 6y ago
    Reek
    - BlueTemplar 6y ago
      Hopefully Alfie Allen won't get stuck in this type of character... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjK0UVBjl-Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjK0UVBjl-Q
z3phyr 6y ago
They don't have a source material to go with, and they cannot obviously match the underlying narrative structure.
dogma1138 6y ago
Because it likely won’t collapse the spin-offs would live and die on their own regardless of how good or bad GoT prime ended. GoT as a franchise is now big enough to kick off other productions even with all the controversy around the final season or from insert season here. The outcome of the Targaryen prequel or w/e they working on won’t change if they reshoot the “bad” seasons of GoT. So if they are gonna invest $100M into the franchise they might as well invest in new material.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> Can someone explain to me why HBO isn’t spending $100M to recut season 7-8 and maybe reshoot a few new dialogue scenes while the actors are all still available? Because the actors that matter aren't available any more, and neither are the sets, and COVID would complicate production, and because you grossly over estimate the value it would have even if none of that were a problem. It's done, the world has moved on. If there is more money to be made on the franchise, the ROI is going to be in other series based on the property (of which they have one in development), not tweaking the old one.
- mparramon 6y ago
  But they're doing a similar thing with Justice League: The Snyder Cut right now though. I wonder why then?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - oarsinsync 6y ago
    Snyder left during post production, to deal with death in his family. The resultant film wasn’t what he envisioned, as Whedon took over. He’s back and wants to finish making his film the way he wanted it. GoT is exactly what D&D envisioned. The fans didn’t like it, but it’s their vision, and they DGAF what anyone else thinks. We might not like that outcome as viewers, but should respect the artistry all the same. PS: the cast of justice league didn’t dedicate 8 years of their life to making that film like the cast of GoT did. They’re understandably done and moving forward, not looking back.
    - jessaustin 6y ago
      Obviously D&D wouldn't be involved with a hypothetical second draft of season 8. It's not their property anyway.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > But they're doing a similar thing with Justice League: The Snyder Cut right now though. Well, (1) the source is one feature film, not five, some feature-length, episodes of a TV series, (2) the main actors involved were available for reshoots, etc., because they are under contract for a multifilm franchise, (3) redeeming Justice League is more central to marketing further DC universe contebt than redeeming the last season of GoT is for marketing a prequel series with a different creative team, since the expected linkages are closer between the content, (4) it's also a reconfiguration from feature film to multi-episode mini-series, so it's optimizing for a different consumption format as well as “fixing” issues (in a hypothetical universe where external factors were driving business from serial streaming to theaters, reconfiguring the last season of GOT into a theatrical trilogy while fixing other issues along the way might make some sense.)
watwut 6y ago
Outside or obvious business reasons, there is also the aspect of actors and dialogues not being the issue. Atrocious writing, lack of consistency and inability to move plot where they want it to be in sensible way was the biggest issue. Especially in comparison with great writing of first series. Remastering few dialogs wont fix anything.
goto11 6y ago
The hype is gone. The hype around GoT was very much centered around the shocking twists and reveals and speculation around how everything would play out. Redoing the last seasons with better scripts would be enormously expensive, but would not generate the same hype so would not get a large audience. Making a sequel show would be a much better RoI since it could at least create some hype again, even if the hype of the original show would be hard to top.
- Mauricebranagh 6y ago
  Yes let it go and do Faferd and the Grey Mouser, Jason Mamoa as Faferd and Masie Williams as Mouser. And yes I could totaly make Faferd being biraical Cannon.
  - wow_yes 6y ago
    Wait this is a really good idea - he'd be incredible
Nursie 6y ago
Because it's been and gone? The time to intervene was probably when S7 was reviewed. Future DVD and streaming revenues are probably not going to cover the costs or reworking them so ... leave it. Honestly, on a lockdown-enabled rewatch this year, I didn't think they were as bad as I remembered. I'm still frustrated with how far it goes downhill, some of the stories really don't finish well and the dialogue is just bad. OTOH I did sit in the dark and re-watch the really dark episode with the brightness mangled a bit on an OLED ... and I caught a lot more of what actually happened this time round. That episode really needs remastering in HDR...
- alexilliamson 6y ago
  This was my impression when I rewatched with my Dad... not as bad as I remember, still sad in parts because the quality was bad in places. In retrospect, even if the showrunners had the best intentions, they were put in impossible situation with a wildly complicated story and no ending in the source material.
birdsbirdsbirds 6y ago
When the books are done, there is another ending. I would assume that they remake the ending then.
- breck 6y ago
  Ah, I love this theory.

by breck 6y ago

jasonv 6y ago

Good Q. Those seasons were so bad it killed — or at least severely diminished — the casts’ star power. Who’s still hot from GoT?

RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
Sean Bean. If you want a character to get killed, nobody does a better job of dying heroically.
- dmoy 6y ago
  Fingers crossed for World on Fire. Frankenstein didn't pan out - he died.
  - hoten 6y ago
    Bit of a spoiler there, isn't that the end of S1?
    - RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
      My embargo period for spoilers is 5 years max.
dogma1138 6y ago
TBH it felt like almost no one on the writing side wanted to deal with this anymore, they’ve could’ve gotten JRRM in to finish the show somehow but I think even he might be in the position where he just doesn’t want too / can’t finish what he started. It’s not like JRRM doesn’t have the issue of putting in too many strings that don’t pan out, at this point the books are almost too complex to actually finish. PS I think the “stars” were more responsible for killing their own careers than the show..:
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  The writing for especially the last season baffled me. They had 6 episodes to tie off a vast array of plot lines and they spent so much of that on nonsense. I think one whole episode was just mindless, irrelevant chatter between characters with no plot advancement at all. It really felt like the writers were phoning it in so they could focus on ruining star wars.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> Who’s still hot from GoT? Kit Harrington, Emilia Clarke, Peter Dinklage, Lena Headey, Sophie Turner, Maisie Williams, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Iain Glen, ... whose not?
- fnord77 6y ago
  Reek
  - BlueTemplar 6y ago
    Hopefully Alfie Allen won't get stuck in this type of character... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjK0UVBjl-Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjK0UVBjl-Q

z3phyr 6y ago

They don't have a source material to go with, and they cannot obviously match the underlying narrative structure.

dogma1138 6y ago

Because it likely won’t collapse the spin-offs would live and die on their own regardless of how good or bad GoT prime ended. GoT as a franchise is now big enough to kick off other productions even with all the controversy around the final season or from insert season here. The outcome of the Targaryen prequel or w/e they working on won’t change if they reshoot the “bad” seasons of GoT. So if they are gonna invest $100M into the franchise they might as well invest in new material.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> Can someone explain to me why HBO isn’t spending $100M to recut season 7-8 and maybe reshoot a few new dialogue scenes while the actors are all still available? Because the actors that matter aren't available any more, and neither are the sets, and COVID would complicate production, and because you grossly over estimate the value it would have even if none of that were a problem. It's done, the world has moved on. If there is more money to be made on the franchise, the ROI is going to be in other series based on the property (of which they have one in development), not tweaking the old one.

mparramon 6y ago
But they're doing a similar thing with Justice League: The Snyder Cut right now though. I wonder why then?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- oarsinsync 6y ago
  Snyder left during post production, to deal with death in his family. The resultant film wasn’t what he envisioned, as Whedon took over. He’s back and wants to finish making his film the way he wanted it. GoT is exactly what D&D envisioned. The fans didn’t like it, but it’s their vision, and they DGAF what anyone else thinks. We might not like that outcome as viewers, but should respect the artistry all the same. PS: the cast of justice league didn’t dedicate 8 years of their life to making that film like the cast of GoT did. They’re understandably done and moving forward, not looking back.
  - jessaustin 6y ago
    Obviously D&D wouldn't be involved with a hypothetical second draft of season 8. It's not their property anyway.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > But they're doing a similar thing with Justice League: The Snyder Cut right now though. Well, (1) the source is one feature film, not five, some feature-length, episodes of a TV series, (2) the main actors involved were available for reshoots, etc., because they are under contract for a multifilm franchise, (3) redeeming Justice League is more central to marketing further DC universe contebt than redeeming the last season of GoT is for marketing a prequel series with a different creative team, since the expected linkages are closer between the content, (4) it's also a reconfiguration from feature film to multi-episode mini-series, so it's optimizing for a different consumption format as well as “fixing” issues (in a hypothetical universe where external factors were driving business from serial streaming to theaters, reconfiguring the last season of GOT into a theatrical trilogy while fixing other issues along the way might make some sense.)

watwut 6y ago

Outside or obvious business reasons, there is also the aspect of actors and dialogues not being the issue. Atrocious writing, lack of consistency and inability to move plot where they want it to be in sensible way was the biggest issue. Especially in comparison with great writing of first series. Remastering few dialogs wont fix anything.

goto11 6y ago

The hype is gone. The hype around GoT was very much centered around the shocking twists and reveals and speculation around how everything would play out. Redoing the last seasons with better scripts would be enormously expensive, but would not generate the same hype so would not get a large audience. Making a sequel show would be a much better RoI since it could at least create some hype again, even if the hype of the original show would be hard to top.

Mauricebranagh 6y ago
Yes let it go and do Faferd and the Grey Mouser, Jason Mamoa as Faferd and Masie Williams as Mouser. And yes I could totaly make Faferd being biraical Cannon.
- wow_yes 6y ago
  Wait this is a really good idea - he'd be incredible

Nursie 6y ago

Because it's been and gone? The time to intervene was probably when S7 was reviewed. Future DVD and streaming revenues are probably not going to cover the costs or reworking them so ... leave it. Honestly, on a lockdown-enabled rewatch this year, I didn't think they were as bad as I remembered. I'm still frustrated with how far it goes downhill, some of the stories really don't finish well and the dialogue is just bad. OTOH I did sit in the dark and re-watch the really dark episode with the brightness mangled a bit on an OLED ... and I caught a lot more of what actually happened this time round. That episode really needs remastering in HDR...

alexilliamson 6y ago
This was my impression when I rewatched with my Dad... not as bad as I remember, still sad in parts because the quality was bad in places. In retrospect, even if the showrunners had the best intentions, they were put in impossible situation with a wildly complicated story and no ending in the source material.

birdsbirdsbirds 6y ago

When the books are done, there is another ending. I would assume that they remake the ending then.

breck 6y ago
Ah, I love this theory.