Well? Verdict? It's screening in the US right now...
Yay or Nay? Woke or No?
What say you?
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/house_of_the_dragon/s01
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MovieChat Forums > House of the Dragon (2022) Discussion > Well? Verdict? It's screening in the US ...
It's not as engrossing as the GoT pilot and I think most characters were introduced better in the original, but it's well made.
No doubt it will be much better that Rings of Power.
The Cardinal Rule in telling a story, whether fiction or not, is that the opening must grab and engage the audience. In journalism, that means the FIRST SENTENCE MUST answer the questions who? what? where? when? how? and, sometimes, why? In either journalism or fiction, the first word of you story must be the STRONGEST word. The first sentence must be the STRONGEST sentence. The first paragraph MUST BE THE STRONGEST paragraph. The opening to A Tale of Two Cities: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." Everyone who reads that wants to know more.
House of the Dragon has a milquetoast opening when compared with Game of Thrones, which probably had as strong a first 5 minutes as any other TV show, ever. (On the other hand, it's not like those appologist first eps like those for Succession and Breaking yawning Bad, where the pudgy, Mom's cellar-dwelling fanboys bleat,"It gets a lot better after a bit." Fuck you. Your beloved show sucked from the get-go, violating the Narrative Prime Directive, so color me Gone.)
I hope I'm wrong. i am SO GLAD that D&D apparently have naught to do with this. The king and heir-apparent princess are likeable characters and actors. The jousting is the bloodiest I have see; so, Bravo. This is just not up to Game of Thrones in its overture.
It is the crown jewl property in the HBO lineup. Unless HBO is, like, COSMIC stupid, they are going to move heaven and earth to retain their subscribers and their revenue stream. i'm in.
Kane,
You didn't like Breaking Bad? I just started watching it not too long ago and I'm on season 3 right now. I think it's some very entertaining stuff. You just don't like crime dramas or what?
Kane is not my family name. My name is one word, R_Kane, and that is how people address me.
Do not flail around trying to sound tough, mom’s cellar-dweller.
I like "Kane" more.
And I wasn't trying to sound tough. I was genuinely interested to know why you didn't like BB because "boring" is the last thing I would call it.
It's okay that you didn't like it but I just wondering. I actually haven't been very impressed with the last 3 or 4 episodes of BB. I'm going to watch the final episode of season 3 today and then move on to season 4 soon.
But yeah, S3 episodes 9-12 have been the worst episodes so far. Hopefully it will go back to being good again.
I agree.
But I am starting to accept that the standards have changed. Mostly because there is so much more content.
Your dislike of BB and Succession is not in your favor. But good to know that your opinion is not related to a show's quality.
sharei never saw GoT
shareWatching this first and then GoT might be a wise move. But it's hard to say. GoT is considered to be one of the best TV shows of all time while HOTD is brand new but it is based on the same source material written by George Martin. So it has potential of being very good as well.
Apparently it's not broadcasting until tonight. I have HBOMAX and I don't see that it's available yet. So, all we can do is wait.
shareI liked it, will keep watching. It kinda came across as a chick flick during a lot of parts, but I wouldn't say it was that woke. I don't remember any comments about women being "better at everything", or any pander-y bullshit like that.
shareIt wasn't as bad as I feared, neither was it as good as I'd hoped.
The show's visuals look good enough but the colours were washed out and I don't like that. But at least there was no wobble-cam !
The story ( conflict over the succession to the iron throne ) is pretty thin so I hope there is going to be more to it than that.
The casting is not stellar compared to Game of Thrones. I liked Milly Alcock ( the girl who is playing Rhaenyra ) although I wouldn't call her either a great actor or a great beauty. As for Matt Smith playing Daemon I just can't see why the guy has such a following, he seems quite ordinary to me. Rhys Ifan is good as Otto Hightower but the rest were bland and unremarkable either as actors or as characters or often both.
No humour in the first episode either. And I'd hate to be the servant that has to clean the throne room. Dusting the iron throne and its peculiar and lengthy "extensions" would be a bitch !
I agree there’s a couple “diversity hires”. But I think we may have something here…it was quite good…especially for a 1st episode.
I remember I wasn’t hooked on GoT until ep 3 or 4. This is a much stronger first episode than GoT ep 1.
>>This is a much stronger first episode than GoT ep 1.<<
That's somewhat debatable. HOTD Ep1 was a solid opening but slightly predictable and cliche. It appears as though Daemon Targareyen is going to be our "bad guy" right from the get go and Ray will be the "good gal". One thing that really worked in GoT was not establishing "good versus bad" in the early episodes. I just hope they didn't have "fixing the poor ending of GoT" in mind when they decided to create this show.
We'll see if this works in HOTD. And plus, why were the dragons wearing saddles? Lol... we didn't see that in GoT.
I agree that's definitely debatable. But I've watched GoT 3 times and every time I watch those first eps I always cringe a bit. Some really cheesy acting from the adults and the kids are just plain horrible - all of them. But it rights itself pretty quickly. I've tried a lot (if not all) of the fantasy shows since GoT and none of them have stuck. I'm not saying HoTD will...but it is one of the stronger starts I've seen. I'm not as hopeful with The Rings of Power...
shareI am pulling for HOTD because I thoroughly enjoyed watching GoT. I do agree, the first 3-5 episodes of GoT were not that greatest but it really picked up in the later episodes of season one. By the end of season 2, I was pretty much hooked on the show and binge watched it every other day. I actually just finished watching the entire show a few months ago.
I am undecided as to whether or not I'm going to watch Rings Of Power. I might but I have other shows I'm watching right now. So, we'll see. But I am secretly hoping that HOTD beats it. lol.
"I just hope they didn't have "fixing the poor ending of GoT" in mind when they decided to create this show."
There is no fix for that. Outside of reshooting the entire season.
Even then I wouldn't trust them . . .
Yeah, hard to fix it but I think most people wanted to see Dany win the day without going mad. We might see this kind of ending for HOTD... as if they're "fix'in" the broken ending in GoT.
And I will say this, we have different writers for this show. If anything, this should work in HOTD's favor. In fact, George Martin is doing about half the writing for this show.
At least according to IMDB he is... here's the link... https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11198330/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm
****EDIT**************
I just noticed one thing. On IMDB, Martin is listed on the writer credits as 'creator'. I guess this means he passed the idea on to them and Condal wrote the screenplay or what? Hmmmm... anyone know?
Episode 2 has a proper intro sequence. It says something like "created for television by Ryan Condal"
shareIt is based on part of one of his books.
shareYes, it is based on the the book but did Martin write the screenplay for a certain number of episodes? It just says 'creator' but it lists his credits as 'number of episodes'. So, I suppose what they did was take a few chapters of the book and then someone other than Martin wrote the screenplay.
shareI think it's gonna be good. After 2 episodes in, it looks promising. 2nd episode is directed by Greg Yaitanes, he did the later seasons of Banshee.
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