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Game of Thrones - Season 8 - Starting April 14th


TwinIon

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Nice spoiler free teaser.

 

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I'm rewatching the series now to get ready. It's been a long time since I revisited either the books or the early seasons. I've rewatched an episode or two during the seasons, but that's about it.

 

I'm now up to Episode 7, "You Win or You Die," and some things are really sticking out to me. The first thing I noticed is how cheap and small it all seems. The scale is just so much smaller, and even though the production quality is still quite good, it's immediately striking to see how much better they got at everything over the years. There's zero sense of scale in King's Landing in particular. I know this is a show that went from "expensive TV" to "the most expensive TV" to "summer tentpole" levels of budget, and you can see it on screen.

 

I really don't miss all the sexposition. It's just terrible. Not the nudity, that's fine, if unnecessary. It just never feels natural. I can maybe buy Theon spilling his guts to a prostitute, but why the hell is Littlefinger telling a few new recruits his life story as he teaches them to be better whores? I'm glad the series slowly got over the need for this kinda thing.

 

I'd forgotten how much happens in the early run. I remember that with season 1 in particular each episode was almost exactly another 10% on my kindle, and there's just so much plot happening. One of my favorite things in media is to see a world take shape, and season one does a pretty great job at that. There's so much to introduce, and by and large the writing in season one does an excellent job of it. Not only that, but there are so many great lines (mostly verbatim from the book) that continue to resonate in the show and throughout popular culture.

 

Anyone else hyped for season 8 and revisiting any of the show or books?  

 

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17 minutes ago, TwinIon said:

I really don't miss all the sexposition. It's just terrible. Not the nudity, that's fine, if unnecessary. It just never feels natural. I can maybe buy Theon spilling his guts to a prostitute, but why the hell is Littlefinger telling a few new recruits his life story as he teaches them to be better whores? I'm glad the series slowly got over the need for this kinda thing.

...

Anyone else hyped for season 8 and revisiting any of the show or books?  

 

 

I'm not a prude but this is one of the very few things I skip in anything ever when I'm rewatching. That scene is just too much.

 

And I am hyped beyond belief for GoT. April can't come soon enough. I plan on revisiting the show but right now I'm actually reading Fire & Blood Part 1. I won't have time to revisit the other books. 

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9 minutes ago, number305 said:

I'm excited for the conclusion and will probably watch some 5 minute youtube recap before the new season starts to refresh myself.

 

Don't know how you all find the time to re-watch a series.  There is so much new content all the time... ain't no one got time for that.

I tend to re-watch stuff when something doesn't require my full attention. I can throw it on while I'm cooking or cleaning or working on a project in my office. It's something that doesn't require my full attention and I'm not annoyed when I need to pause it in the middle of an episode. If I'm going to watch something new, I'd rather find time to pay more attention to it.

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1 hour ago, skillzdadirecta said:

How is Fire and Blood?  I love the World and Lore of GOT but not enough to reread the books. I WILL start rewatching the show in anticipation of the final season thought.

 

As far as the sec goes,  a lot of it was over the top but Spartacus was on around the same time and GOT had NOTHING on that show :p

 

It's the Song of Ice and Fire version of the Septuagint. :P 

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I'm not super hyped at this point. I guess it's been so long and there are other shows I enjoy more these days. I'll be watching it to see it through to the end. Wonder how predictable it's going to be.

 

26 minutes ago, SoberChef said:

IDK why we'd need 2 separate threads when its' clearly dedicated to the show and the books aren't out yet. Perhaps if/when it comes to speaking about something NOT in the shows but books only that spoilers are hidden then?

I think you missed the sarcasm.

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I’m going to rewatch all of the eps starting towards late-Feb. I’m debating on getting an open-box of UHD S1 off of eBay for the HDR (it’s only around $25-30 used)... but, it’s hard to justify it since I’d be going back to 1080p for the rest of the seasons. HBO really needs to get their crap together and offer 4k HDR streaming on their apps :/ 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Lttp for me and GoT but we recently busted out all 7 seasons and I loved it. Agreed on the sex feeling a bit unneeded  at times and forced especially the little finger scene, that felt like an eternity... But overall loved everything else and pumped for season 8. 

 

Glad I won't have to wait the 2 years that everyone else has had to wait, just wrapped it up in December so April will be here fairly quick. 

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I've been burning through this rewatch. It's a lot easier to get through episodes when I can put it on in the background or be fine with watching half an episode at a time, very much not how I typically enjoy the show. It's a great show to binge watch. A lot happens, but when you can just get to the next episode, it's quite satisfying. It's easy to see why it gained such a following.

 

The show really finds its footing by season 3. Daenerys, Arya, and John are all really coming into their own. Brienne and Jamie are doing their thing, there's plenty of intrigue in Kings Landing, and of course the Red Wedding sends everything tumbling down. Season 4 was also great. Oberyn Martell was such a strong presence in the show, Arya is running around with the Hound, Sansa is finally becoming a character. Of course, everything to do with Theon is a huge drag. It's crazy it took up so much screen time. Not one of those sequences needed to be as long.

 

Season 5 was pretty rough though. I didn't like Arya's time training in Bravos, Dany is bumbling around in Mereen, Jamie is far less interesting trying to get back with Cersei than he was with Brienne, I hate everything to do with the Sparrows, and of course, there are the freaking sand snakes. Like every season there are some high points, but I think 5 is easily the weakest, and probably weaker than average ratings have it.

 

Season 6 gets back on track. Lots of memorable moments, good reveals, and satisfying character pairings. The high sparrow is still a drag, but at least his story has a pretty satisfying conclusion. The Battle of the Bastards is quite a thing, though it still bugs me Sansa didn't say anything about the knights of the vale. It's kinda funny that I'd forgotten just how far ahead of the books the show has gotten. I guess the book stuff has stayed in my memory better, so I probably needed a refresher on season 6 more than earlier ones. I'm going through the whole show much faster than I expected to. The wait until April will be long.

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I started my rewatch a couple days ago. I'm trying to take it slow, so I can finish it close to the start of the new season, but when I have the time it's so easy to just roll right into the next ep. I laughed when I got to episode 3 and oh yeah, Renly Baratheon is a character. It's been years since I've seen anything from the first few seasons. I'm looking forward to it. 

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Season 5 was definitely the low point for me. They may as well have ignored Dorne opposed to showing what was aired. And LOL at the "fight scene" between the Snakes and Jaime/Bronn. I had a bad feeling beforehand when they never casted Arianne Martell.

 

The last 2 seasons have been better other than "the plan" from season 7. A lot of box-checkng to get to where we are but it hasn't too bad. I look forward to the end but mostly to see what spin-offs come about.

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Seasons 5 and 7 are easily the low points of the entire show. All the other seasons have a bad plot line or two in them, but overall are otherwise highly entertaining and well done seasons. 

 

Season 5 is bad because the writers were trying to stall hoping book 6 would be out so they could do more book material for the inevitable season 6, but that didn't happen so they said "fuck it" and moved past the books (quite excellently) for season 6 instead. Season 7 . . . they continued to go off book, of course, but this time, they just didn't keep the characters consistent with what had been established and it felt like they were forcing plot lines to go in directions that didn't make sense because they needed characters in certain positions and places for the upcoming season 8. 

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1 hour ago, GeneticBlueprint said:

Even though seasons 5 and 7 are generally regarded poorly they still have great moments. "Hardhome" is typically on any greatest episode list and watching Drogon melt Lannisters was really cool. And while the idea of going north to get a wight seems stupid, having the half-bathed half-dozen all together was fun times.

 

I won't question that seasons 5 and 7 had high points, particularly season 7, but oftentimes those highs felt very unearned to me. But because it was cool and awesome and well directed and acted, etc. it papered over how thin and illogical some of the stuff happening was for people (and no, I'm not referring to the speed of ravens, I'm referring to things like how season 7 handled major, important characters that should have been very hard to defeat like Roose Bolton and Littlefinger). 

 

You can put as much prestige TV superficiality to make a turd into gold, but in the end, story and character are always what matter and I felt season 7 dropped the ball on those counts. Season 6's off-book material was incredible, so it's not like I'm beholden to the books, but season 7 reminded me why I like Martin's very tight plotting in terms of one thing following logically to the next thing, even if it feels a bit laborious to read I appreciate it more now than ever.

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I finished my rewatch and I'd really forgotten a lot of what happens in 6 and 7. Season 7 in particular is a odd mix of the best and worst of the show. It's never quite Sand Snakes or Theon's torture bad, but there's a lot that just doesn't track. Dany's character feels all over the place, as does Tyrion. The crazy plan to grab a walker beyond the wall doesn't make sense even when you're not entirely paying attention. The teleporting around the world is much more noticable and the antagonism between the sisters doesn't feel right even knowing how it ends. Still, there are some amazing sequences that really justify the build up over the years. The train attack is brilliant, as is Hardhome. Everything feels like it has the appropriate scale and weight, with nothing being held back by budget.

 

Even with whatever failures the most recent seasons have had, I'm still left very excited to see how it all ends. It's utterly unlike anything else on TV, and unless Amazon's LOTR series takes off like they hope it will, I don't expect to see anything really equal what we've gotten from GOT.

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I'm looking forward to seeing the ending! GoT is overall a fantastic show, even with some of its minor weaknesses (and yes I've read the books). I will always be thankful for it because it extended the golden age of TV to fantasy and now we are going to get some high budget productions of LoTR, Wheel of Time, The Witcher, etc.

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20 hours ago, Massdriver said:

I'm looking forward to seeing the ending! GoT is overall a fantastic show, even with some of its minor weaknesses (and yes I've read the books). I will always be thankful for it because it extended the golden age of TV to fantasy and now we are going to get some high budget productions of LoTR, Wheel of Time, The Witcher, etc.

I eagerly await seasons 4-6 of Wheel of Time exclusively featuring Perrin doing nothing, Rand getting harder like that Metapod fight from the Pokémon anime, and Nynaeve tugging her braid... a lot. 

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33 minutes ago, Massdriver said:

Lol, I had the displeasure of watching season 1. It was most out of curiosity since I read the books in grade school. 

 

I watched the majority of the first episode and never went back. Twilight with magic and elves. :p 

I’ll assume that the books were very different? 

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3 minutes ago, Spork3245 said:

 

I watched the majority of the first episode and never went back. Twilight with magic and elves. :p 

I’ll assume that the books were very different? 

From what I remember of the books, it wasn't half as bad as the show. I'll just add the show is like Twilight, but lower budget.

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