MovieChat Forums > Game of Thrones (2011) Discussion > Fans were surprised this show fell apart...

Fans were surprised this show fell apart?


I could tell from season one this was just a ridiculous porn parody of Lord of the Rings.

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Yeah, I had issues with this show and the book series from the start, because it is probably about as far from the awesomeness of "Lord of the Rings" as you can get.

I knew something was gonna wrong when they eventually ran out of book material.

See, the tv show was moving about 1,000x faster than Martin's writing, and only 5 books had been written, with 2 more on the way. In fact, they were lucky that he published "A Dance with Dragons" right as the show started. I had a feeling that at some point, the tv show was going to overtake the books, and back then, I wondered what they were gonna do without any book material to work with.

Turns out, I was correct on the first part: 6 years later, they ran out of book material (even after splitting book 5 in two) and from what the fans said, they did "sort of" okay in Season 6, simply by working with the material they had, and following the logical outcomes of previous events. The trouble was, nobody had any idea how clueless and lazy the show's two producers were when it came to story-writing, and they were totally lost when they went into uncharted territory for Seasons 7 and 8. So instead of reaching out to fans for help, they wrote some slapped-together shitty scripts, shot them, and then went home rich and hated by every GOT fan for the rest of their lives.

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It was not just when they ran out of book material; it was anytime they deviated from the source things fell apart (Dorne is Season 5 for example). The first indication I knew something was wrong was in season 2 when they had Arya serving Tywin and he doesn't put 2 and 2 together (not in the books). Then the next big indication I got was when they had Brienne meet and fight the Hound in Season 4. Both of these were fan service at expense of plot and showed the writers didn't know what they were doing outside of adapting the material.

The books themselves are good (Martin is a good writer) and many plots come to logical and properly set up conclusions. But He is no Tolkien and he wrote himself into a corner with his stupid Gardener method of writing and now, not only did the show that needed his books as the source material to finish, HE will never finish the books either.

D&D were total and utter hacks at writing original material but they definitely were competent with adapting the source material to the screen (give credit where it is due). But by Season 5 it was clear they were complete and utter shit heads when doing anything original; that should have lit a fire under Martin's fat ass to finish the material for them; but he can't figure out how to finish the story; he can't sort out the wild garden he created; he would have to accelerate plots and come up with plot contrivances and deus ex machinas to get out of the corner he is in. He knows this which is why it is taking so long and he purposefully delays.

Tolkien set out to create a extremely deep and mythological story and did just that. He also had tons of side material that augmented the story that he never really finished but the main story he made damn sure to complete; that is why Tolkien was a great writer and Martin will never be considered on the same level.

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I know what you mean; if you read the books side-by-side with watching the show, you can actually see where they manipulated the story to include somethings, but left out some better stuff. I mean, they left out horses in some scenes that included them, I guess, due to budget or something. Or they left out some really great scenes in the books. There were some scenes that were too extreme, even for HBO's loose standards of what was allowed on tv, but made other scenes actually worse than how they were portrayed in the books. They also used the show to promote an agenda (that shall remain nameless) which wasn't actually a central part of the story-telling. There were some parts, such as the Purple Wedding, which were done similarly in the book, but were made more dramatic and using slightly different methods. The tv series also looks kinda "cheap" compared to the richness and extravagance of R.R. Martin's world. It's like, some parts of the show they got right (before the book material ran out) and other times they just plain got it wrong or made it worse.

I especially don't think it's fair what they did the Daenerys, particularly to her dragons, or the rate at which she lost her mind, or her falling out with Jon Snow. It was pretty much a sloppy and very cruel character assassination. I hate that they chose the cheap, easy, Targaryen madness route.

You're right, Tolkien at least put an effort towards doing an entire story arc, and made sure he finished it before he died.

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For a film/tv production the production value, costumes, set design, camera work, etc was all exceptionally good; even when the show's writing was bad the cast and crew all did commendable work. There was always going to be things too grand and big in scale to make like the books; that happens in literally almost every film adaptation. They didn't have unlimited budges so they did really good with what they had; it is when they had to write their own material that we really ran into problems (and oh man were there a lot of them)

Oh the last 2 seasons were bad the last season was just insultingly terrible. That wasn't them just not knowing how to finish the story; that was malicious laziness on the part of D&D. They didn't give a crap anymore and it showed. The entire last season almost everyone was character assassinated. The shows ending is arguably the worse final season of any show. it not only killed all rewatch value but also killed literally all interest in the franchise. I am betting the House of the dragon prequel series is going to burn in flames.

That is it though; technically his 'magmum opus' he did not finish (The Silmarillion) it was published after his death by his son who assembled it and filled in some gaps. But Tolkien was not going to release that in segments. When he published his work the stories were already complete.

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It was good all the way till end of season 7. The pace of the show changed. Show is not like Lord of the Rings.

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Are season 7 and 8 as good as the previous? No, but they're far far better than 99% of TV.

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Normally I would disagree with you, but in this case, I'm gonna have to agree that regular tv has gotten so bad, the last 2 seasons are vacations by comparison.

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ur an idiot. this show has far more depth than LOTR ever could have.

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Yep, particularly when it comes to how deep people in that show can plunge knives in each other's backs, how low into the gutter the characters can go with their speech, or how far the men can plunge their dipsticks before they can't get them back.

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I shouldn't have been surprised that the show went to hell, the books went to hell in a handbasket starting with #4. But yeah, I was surprised.

For quite a while ther the show was better than the books, for the most part they gave the material from books 4 and 5 the ruthless editing it needed. But then it all went to hell.

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