4 ms·

IMO, that's part of what made Game of Thrones fall off a quality cliff. It wasn't just subpar writing on the main plot lines when the source material ran out. T

IMO, that's part of what made Game of Thrones fall off a quality cliff. It wasn't just subpar writing on the main plot lines when the source material ran out. The world itself became hollowed out, and the main characters stopped existing within an organic world. It turned into an avengers movie, where the leads were largely alone on screen only interacting with each other (except for designated Crowd Scenes).

duxup 4y ago
> where the leads were largely alone on screen only I feel like that is many movies now. The worlds are small and the consequences / events are just there for the primary actors to respond to and seem entirely disconnected from any kind of universe. Massive events happen just for the sake of having a hero mug for the camera. But no consideration otherwise. At this point in the Star Wars universe I expect the regular people of the universe would realize that ALL force sensitive people are more trouble than they are worth… but no the people of the universe show up, say dumb things, die (or don’t show up… literally nobody at times) at the appointed time for really no reason that to give the heroes or villains something to do.
- LarryMullins 4y ago
  There does seem to be an absence of "angry villagers raid the wizard's tower" stories in the Star Wars universe. Missed opportunity, probably has something to do with Star Wars primarily being escapist fantasy for people who wish to be the wizard. Maybe the EU novels have such stories, but I haven't read those.
  - Izkata 4y ago
    There's a scene in the original movie that kind-of explains this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzs-OvfG8tE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzs-OvfG8tE > "Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerer's ways, Lord Vader. Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes, or given you clairvoyance enough to find the rebels' hidden fortr-" From what I remember from wikis the EU novels expanded on this as: Jedi/Sith/force-sensitives are rare enough that even at the height of the Jedi's power, most people believed them to be a myth, that the Jedi Order was more like a powerful religious group of regular people.
    - spiffytech 4y ago
      This is reinforced in The Mandalorian, where (to memory) the protagonist hadn't even heard of the Force or Jedi. And Mando was much better-traveled than most of the Star Wars universe population.
    - duxup 4y ago
      It works there but the later trilogy just falls apart and makes no sense how invested everyone is in jedi-ism...
lordnacho 4y ago
Is there a particular season when this happened?
- mmanfrin 4y ago
  Seasons 7/8.
- mindslight 4y ago
  Season 2. Everyone was too busy suspending disbelief or distracted by their phones/laptops to really notice. I gave the show the benefit of the doubt until the end of Season 4, when Tywin Lannister would have come in and eliminated Joffrey - his family's success relied on installing a competent king to keep the throne, not a useless brat coddled by his incompetent kids. But then rewatching it for the second time, the lack of causality was apparent in Season 2. There's a reason stories don't generally kill main characters, and that's because viewers invest in them. If they do kill a main character, there has to be strong point that leads to even more character development. But once you see through the charade, the whole series is revealed as a series of vignettes that imply awesome character development, without ever actually doing the work to bring it to fruition. The show was able to coast in pop culture until season 8, when it was no longer possible to ignore that the characters weren't going anywhere. I thought they would have taken a step back and applied more massaged production to HoD. After all, this franchise had an outsized amount of upmarket interest, only to crater at the end to the point of completely falling out of the zeitgeist. But rather, it seems like they continued the same tack of not really having a good story and filling in gaps of time in place of showing character development - like the episode where all the actors switched out and everyone is just older. Classic GoT!
  - markeibes 4y ago
    Yet apparently you still paid (at least your attention) to give house of dragons a try reinforcing this disgusting habit of making only remakes and childish franchise bollocks. We must punish them
    - mindslight 4y ago
jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago
GoT has the same dynamic as Lord of the Rings, where the world itself is arguably the protagonist, and the characters are there to explore it for you. The GoT show runners appear to have totally misunderstood that, and threw the suspense and world building stuff under the bus for creating moments of interpersonal drama. But the drama and actions increasingly made no sense vs the buildup of the previous seasons. Who are the white walkers? What is the rest of their history? What are their goals? This was the big driving mystery of the show, and they simply decided to wrap it up in a single big battle with no further revelations. That totally removed the payoff a lot of people were waiting for. Much like Lost, it became clear there's no actual coherent mystery. Maybe GRRM deserves some criticism for not having things wrapped up himself. But mostly I think the show runners just totally misunderstood what was driving the earlier seasons.
- mark38848 4y ago
  From episode one it was a telenovela with more nudity, wigs, and CGI. There was one good scene between Cersei and her husband, though.
- pbronez 4y ago
  Ugh the Lost thing was so infuriating.
  - whstl 4y ago
    The Lost finale was definitely disappointing, but at some point it was expected. At some point it became clear that the mystery was just a huge MacGuffin, and the writers had painted themselves into a corner. I think that taught newer generations of Showrunners to not make the same mistake. Modern shows like Breaking Bad and Dark managed to finish right on time with perfect endings. (GoT however...)
    - jfengel 4y ago
      New generations, maybe. JJ Abrams himself still seems to love a mystery box, to the detriment of more than one major franchise.
acdha 4y ago
To be fair, that was also a problem with the books: the scale was completely off in quite noticeable ways – huge armies but no mention of how they’re supplied, cities which are referred to as large but feel small in terms of logistics, etc. We’re repeatedly told winter is coming but there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of stockpiling supplies, building greenhouses, etc.?
- IIsi50MHz 4y ago
  Stocking supplies is much better conveyed in the books. Also notable that although the main map is shaped somewhat like England+Wales+Scotland, it seems to be continent scale, allowing southern parts to seemingly not even stock winter gear. Greenhouses…would be a very rare luxury for a rich few, and would offer minimaly supplement for them; also, heating them (IRL, with coal) would be prohibitively expensive in labour, fuel, and fuel storage.
  - acdha 4y ago
    I was referring to the books – my primary memories of ASoIF were that the level of violence should mean more desertion and economic collapse back home and unless they just magicked it away there’d nowhere near enough food to survive the promised winter. It’s not like the books didn’t have good parts but I had to consciously suspend disbelief a lot while reading it. Greenhouses don’t require heating but it’s also a proxy for the questions about urgency: if you knew this was coming, shouldn’t you have people working on every aspect of storage, stretching growing seasons, migrating south, etc.?

duxup 4y ago

> where the leads were largely alone on screen only I feel like that is many movies now. The worlds are small and the consequences / events are just there for the primary actors to respond to and seem entirely disconnected from any kind of universe. Massive events happen just for the sake of having a hero mug for the camera. But no consideration otherwise. At this point in the Star Wars universe I expect the regular people of the universe would realize that ALL force sensitive people are more trouble than they are worth… but no the people of the universe show up, say dumb things, die (or don’t show up… literally nobody at times) at the appointed time for really no reason that to give the heroes or villains something to do.

LarryMullins 4y ago
There does seem to be an absence of "angry villagers raid the wizard's tower" stories in the Star Wars universe. Missed opportunity, probably has something to do with Star Wars primarily being escapist fantasy for people who wish to be the wizard. Maybe the EU novels have such stories, but I haven't read those.
- Izkata 4y ago
  There's a scene in the original movie that kind-of explains this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzs-OvfG8tE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzs-OvfG8tE > "Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerer's ways, Lord Vader. Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes, or given you clairvoyance enough to find the rebels' hidden fortr-" From what I remember from wikis the EU novels expanded on this as: Jedi/Sith/force-sensitives are rare enough that even at the height of the Jedi's power, most people believed them to be a myth, that the Jedi Order was more like a powerful religious group of regular people.
  - spiffytech 4y ago
    This is reinforced in The Mandalorian, where (to memory) the protagonist hadn't even heard of the Force or Jedi. And Mando was much better-traveled than most of the Star Wars universe population.
  - duxup 4y ago
    It works there but the later trilogy just falls apart and makes no sense how invested everyone is in jedi-ism...

lordnacho 4y ago

Is there a particular season when this happened?

mmanfrin 4y ago
Seasons 7/8.
mindslight 4y ago
Season 2. Everyone was too busy suspending disbelief or distracted by their phones/laptops to really notice. I gave the show the benefit of the doubt until the end of Season 4, when Tywin Lannister would have come in and eliminated Joffrey - his family's success relied on installing a competent king to keep the throne, not a useless brat coddled by his incompetent kids. But then rewatching it for the second time, the lack of causality was apparent in Season 2. There's a reason stories don't generally kill main characters, and that's because viewers invest in them. If they do kill a main character, there has to be strong point that leads to even more character development. But once you see through the charade, the whole series is revealed as a series of vignettes that imply awesome character development, without ever actually doing the work to bring it to fruition. The show was able to coast in pop culture until season 8, when it was no longer possible to ignore that the characters weren't going anywhere. I thought they would have taken a step back and applied more massaged production to HoD. After all, this franchise had an outsized amount of upmarket interest, only to crater at the end to the point of completely falling out of the zeitgeist. But rather, it seems like they continued the same tack of not really having a good story and filling in gaps of time in place of showing character development - like the episode where all the actors switched out and everyone is just older. Classic GoT!
- markeibes 4y ago
  Yet apparently you still paid (at least your attention) to give house of dragons a try reinforcing this disgusting habit of making only remakes and childish franchise bollocks. We must punish them
  - mindslight 4y ago

jasonwatkinspdx 4y ago

GoT has the same dynamic as Lord of the Rings, where the world itself is arguably the protagonist, and the characters are there to explore it for you. The GoT show runners appear to have totally misunderstood that, and threw the suspense and world building stuff under the bus for creating moments of interpersonal drama. But the drama and actions increasingly made no sense vs the buildup of the previous seasons. Who are the white walkers? What is the rest of their history? What are their goals? This was the big driving mystery of the show, and they simply decided to wrap it up in a single big battle with no further revelations. That totally removed the payoff a lot of people were waiting for. Much like Lost, it became clear there's no actual coherent mystery. Maybe GRRM deserves some criticism for not having things wrapped up himself. But mostly I think the show runners just totally misunderstood what was driving the earlier seasons.

mark38848 4y ago
From episode one it was a telenovela with more nudity, wigs, and CGI. There was one good scene between Cersei and her husband, though.
pbronez 4y ago
Ugh the Lost thing was so infuriating.
- whstl 4y ago
  The Lost finale was definitely disappointing, but at some point it was expected. At some point it became clear that the mystery was just a huge MacGuffin, and the writers had painted themselves into a corner. I think that taught newer generations of Showrunners to not make the same mistake. Modern shows like Breaking Bad and Dark managed to finish right on time with perfect endings. (GoT however...)
  - jfengel 4y ago
    New generations, maybe. JJ Abrams himself still seems to love a mystery box, to the detriment of more than one major franchise.

acdha 4y ago

To be fair, that was also a problem with the books: the scale was completely off in quite noticeable ways – huge armies but no mention of how they’re supplied, cities which are referred to as large but feel small in terms of logistics, etc. We’re repeatedly told winter is coming but there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of stockpiling supplies, building greenhouses, etc.?

IIsi50MHz 4y ago
Stocking supplies is much better conveyed in the books. Also notable that although the main map is shaped somewhat like England+Wales+Scotland, it seems to be continent scale, allowing southern parts to seemingly not even stock winter gear. Greenhouses…would be a very rare luxury for a rich few, and would offer minimaly supplement for them; also, heating them (IRL, with coal) would be prohibitively expensive in labour, fuel, and fuel storage.
- acdha 4y ago
  I was referring to the books – my primary memories of ASoIF were that the level of violence should mean more desertion and economic collapse back home and unless they just magicked it away there’d nowhere near enough food to survive the promised winter. It’s not like the books didn’t have good parts but I had to consciously suspend disbelief a lot while reading it. Greenhouses don’t require heating but it’s also a proxy for the questions about urgency: if you knew this was coming, shouldn’t you have people working on every aspect of storage, stretching growing seasons, migrating south, etc.?