Launching a megabudget, high-profile show based on a series of books that hadn't even concluded yet? Why did anyone assume that would even work?
D&D were never more than reasonably competent TV hacks. They never showed signs of being any sort of creative geniuses. Why did anyone think they could produce material on a par with a brilliant novelist who's been working for decades?
In retrospect it kind of seems it was always doomed to fail.
They should have realised their limitations when they ran out of source material and let someone more intelligent take over. Or perhaps they did realise their limitations and their selfish and arrogant pride dictated instead. I mean you surely can't be that stupid to not see the flaws in logic in writing the military tactics during The Long Night, or the decision of Jon and Co. to go in search of a wight beyond the Wall? They must have, only they decided to treat us the audience like idiots, and assume we'd lap it up with the lashings of praise that the previous seasons have had. Now who are the idiots!
shareI think the structure was wrong - S7 should have been about Dany taking the Iron Throne - and S8 about the battle with the dead. From the beginning it was "Winter is Coming" the main theme throughout the series - it should have ended with Winter.
shareThe Sand Snakes were the tell that D & D were lost without Martin.
shareIt would have turned out great if George Martin had pulled his finger out of his arse and finished the books.
Shame as Seasons 1-4 were incredible.
Yeah I think that is the key to it. D & D were great at adapting the books and maintaining a show with incredible production value. The second they ran out of source material and started doing their own, it went down hill fast. I actually think they didn't want to create it they wanted to adapt. So they started losing interest when it became clear Martin was not going to finish them on time like they thought. This could be why they rushed to finish the last 2 seasons, they stopped caring as much and just wanted out.
So they can be blamed for being writing hacks who should have brought on better writers that could come up with good scripts that could match Martin's notes and Martin can be blamed for not finishing his books on anything even close to a reasonable amount of time. 6 years between A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons, now a almost 10 year gap between Dance and Winds. Yeah that is not reasonable amount of time to make people wait. I read the books before the show came out, after seeing the show's end and knowing what I know about Martin being a notoriously lazy and slow writer I wish I never got invested in this series in the first place. Now I just want to see how the damn books end to see if the conclusion is any better than the show, which should not be too hard to accomplish.
I think Martin might even have trolled D&D somewhat and actually give them a different ending to the one he really has planned.
shareMaybe not, but he gave them endpoints with No context whatsoever. Think about this way, imagine after Star Wars first came out in 1977 George Lucas then gave the partially completed script to Empire and told them only that at the End Vader would kill the Emperor. The adapter would be free to get to that endpoint anyway they choose. What if they wrote it that vader killed the emperor to take power himself only to be defeated by Luke after Luke has killed Vader only then is it discovered Vader was his father. The same thing happens but the context of when and how significantly changes the final product.
I imagine what the show ending is, is a similarly poor adaption as the one I just did for Star Wars. The books I am sure will be better if they ever actually get finished.