HBO adaptation of Game of Thrones - will this be just for nerds? (NO SPOILERS PLEASE)

that is some ugly composited architecture, the wall one has two horizons ffs

Okay, I keep looking but I'm not seeing these two horizons at all.

Already watched much of those 15 minutes through teasers, but still nice to see. Especially inside Winterfell. Was hoping to get the show's title sequence, though.

looked great...looking fwd to the start of this.

Productions values are satisfyingly high anyway

From the mid-season tv thread:

Not going to the Game of Thrones thread(s), but as someone who's never read the books, should I try to get in on the miniseries?

― Leeeter van den Hoogenband (Leee), Saturday, April 16, 2011 11:16 AM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

YES

― VegemiteGrrl, Saturday, April 16, 2011 11:19 AM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Not going to the Game of Thrones thread(s), but as someone who's never read the books, should I try to get in on the miniseries?

― Leeeter van den Hoogenband (Leee), Saturday, April 16, 2011 6:16 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

The thread for the series is spoiler-free I believe.

― Gukbe, Saturday, April 16, 2011 1:03 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i tried reading the book a couple years ago but i hated the writing and never got more than 40 pages in. that said, reviews for the show have been stellar so far and i'm really excited for it.

― Mordy, Saturday, April 16, 2011 1:12 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

stellar? NYT and slate both hated it

― ban drake (the rapper) (max), Saturday, April 16, 2011 1:26 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Both those reviewers seemed to have chips on their shoulders

― Number None, Saturday, April 16, 2011 1:31 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

and the Slate review is basically unreadable

― Number None, Saturday, April 16, 2011 1:33 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Yeah, I was reading something someplace that compared it favorably to a D&D The Wire (possibly on Wired.com?).

― Leeeter van den Hoogenband (Leee), Saturday, April 16, 2011 1:33 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

From the NYT review:

While I do not doubt that there are women in the world who read books like Mr. Martin’s, I can honestly say that I have never met a single woman who has stood up in indignation at her book club and refused to read the latest from Lorrie Moore unless everyone agreed to “The Hobbit” first.

In other words, I don't think Ginia Bellafante is predisposed to this sort of fare.

― reggaeton for the painfully alone (polyphonic), Saturday, April 16, 2011 1:36 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ilana-teitelbaum/game-of-thrones-hbo_b_850014.html

― reggaeton for the painfully alone (polyphonic), Saturday, April 16, 2011 1:41 PM Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Heather Havrilesky from NYT doesn't dislike it but has some interesting thoughts.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Riff-t.html

Sepinwall loved it, VanDerWerff really liked it, but they have the advantage of 6 episodes.

Oh, and should we throw down some ground rules if people are going to be discussing this week-by-week? i.e. if you've read the books don't discuss anything further than where we are, but discussion of any differences in the TV show and the books from what we've seen is fine.

obv i know but we don't want another Doctor Who thread on our hands.

and to breakdown VanDerWerff's thoughts from his podcasts:

He has larger issues with HBO moving away from episodic television, and those issues manifest themselves in GoT. He wasn't too enthused when he'd watch one episode, but when he'd watch two in a row he'd really be into it. Also aside from the nudity of one character, he finds a lot of it to be somewhat gratuitous.

Also, Myles McNutt has a series of posts in the lead-up:

A Televisual Love Letter

A Question of Taste

On Winter's Doorstep

and Zoller Seitz has weighed in on the reviews:

Slate, NYT to fantasy buffs: Grow Up

that seitz article is good

it's basically getting two kinds of reviews as far as i can tell - good ones, and fantasy-hating dismissive ones (i didn't think there'd be so many of these!)

Oh, and should we throw down some ground rules if people are going to be discussing this week-by-week? i.e. if you've read the books don't discuss anything further than where we are, but discussion of any differences in the TV show and the books from what we've seen is fine.

― Gukbe, Saturday, April 16, 2011 4:51 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

this seems sufficient to me

Sepinwall loved it, VanDerWerff really liked it, but they have the advantage of 6 episodes.

― Gukbe, Saturday, April 16, 2011 4:49 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

i think almost every reviewer is working w/the first 6 eps btw

Fantasy-hating dismissive reviews make me want to take up my sword >:(
jerks

Yeah, Gukbe's ground rules sound good to me too.

Alan Sepinwall gave it a great review: http://hitfix.com/blogs/whats-alan-watching/posts/review-hbos-game-of-thrones-an-epic-mature-well-crafted-fantasy-series

JESUS, this is starting tonight! For some reason I thought it was next fall.

so excited!

WOOHOOO

HBO doesn't do itunes season passes do they? may have to break my moratorium on bittorrent to watch these without waiting months

yayayayayayaay

I got an invitation from someone who has HBO!!!!!! Pretty excited over here.

No HBO. Gonna try to stream or download it.

lets do this

Started watching but the stream was shut down. So how was it?!

It was good. The story doesn't really start moving along until farther along in the story. This was more just of an introduction. What makes it so good is the characters and what happens to them.

so that was the queen and her brother at the end there?

Yeah. "the things I do for love"

Production was second to none. Great look and sound to this. Having read the book I was also pleased with the storytelling. The one gripe I have is at the end of the episode, which diverges from the book as I remember it. But a minor point.

The sets look great, as was the dialogue. And I had planned on expecting them to change some things in the story line. There is a lot to the story.

The one gripe I have is at the end of the episode, which diverges from the book as I remember it. But a minor point.

― calstars, Sunday, April 17, 2011 10:25 PM (39 minutes ago) Bookmark

Yeah, that was the only change I didn't care for. Otherwise, pretty good.

AV Club review claims this is the weakest of the first six eps.

It's a lot of build up and character introduction, mostly. You get to start seeing the viciousness of some of the characters as it goes along.

Sooooo sad I missed it this week, had prior engagement to see a good friend place music. But I do think I have a place to watch it squared away in the future (with Laurel!) so that is dope as hell.

Pretty good! The only thing for me was all the boobage...I mean, it fit with the story and all but it also felt like they were meeting some kind of HBO quota

Love Dinklage as Tyrion, and <3 Sean Bean as Ned Stark, casting is top notch. Danerys and Drago are so spot on it's kind of scary.

One other small thing is that I wished they'd shown Danerys riding the horse Drago gives her, how much she loves it the way they describe in the book... seemed like a missed opportunity to me?

Sean Bean is great in the role. It's unfortunate that in this and lotr he plays such tragic characters.

He's so good at it though....think that face was pretty much made for it.

It's funny though, every time I see him I sigh a little and say "Oh brave Boromir" lol

It is a very solemn face. To a degree Boromir and Ed Stark are similar characters... both trying to save the kingdom.

sigh swoon noble hero

ok just caught up w/ this, really enjoyed it. it seems as if they're gonna write Theon out of the story completely, which makes sense since iirc he doesn't actually do much until the 3rd or 4th book and even then isn't a crucial character. everything else seemed like it was plotted straight from the book, i didn't catch whatever difference you folks were talking about at the end but i haven't read the books in 6 years so maybe my memory's off.

bran overhears queen and bro talking about their conspiracy, so it's not just that he sees them doing the nasty that gets him pushed out the window, it was that he had knowledge of their plot also

i doubt they're writing Theon out, he just doesn't have much to do in book 1 besides smirk a lot.

re: the ending of the episode, in the book when Bran stumbles onto jaime & cersei he listens in on them for a while and hears about a bunch of ~intrigues~ before watching them bone - i can understand why they cut it out, but i missed it all the same

xp

allmypulp's last two posts seem a little spoilery to me, maybe a mod should edit them? not to be all thread police-y but

I won't argue if they are. But you may want to edit some of the reviews that are listed, since they contain spoilers also.

allmypulp: just understand that there's several people on here watching this who haven't read the books, and this series has a lot of huge out-of-nowhere plot twists so it's particularly prone to spoiler-ruination

That's a good warning! xp

Okay, that's fair. Well I would've liked to more of Theon also. But it is just the first episode which I enjoyed, and am still anticipating the rest.

yeah i don't remember theon doing anything interesting at least until book 2.

(sadface.)

Peter Dinklage is the best.