HUNGER GAME OF THRONES, A SYNOPSIS: A long time ago or from now on a familiar continent, all seven or twelve regions of the continent fought bloodily until the ascension of a brutal dictatorship, which ruled by dragons, or helicopters, from a capital blithely detatched from the suffering it imposed. It came to pass that annual tradition, or Nielsen imperatives, or incest and regicide, called forth from each of the seven or twelve regions a champion or two, chosen by birth or acclaim or television hostess, to fight for the throne, honor, survival, or free rent. The champions forged and betrayed alliances, employing the assistance of magic and science and sex and hairstylists and a lot of dumb luck. Quickly, or interminably, everybody killed everybody else, until at long or short last, our heroes lived the rest of their lives in peace, or died gruesomely, or undied gruesomely, or slinked off to hide behind a retreating publication date.
Outside the arena of battle, armies argued mercilessly about casting.
Are people unhappy about the Games of Throne cast?
ReplyDeleteNot unhappy, but they speculated about it endlessly. Pretty much the only character that didn't have a thousand names speculatively attached to it was Tyrion. Fans pretty much nailed that one.
ReplyDeleteI never read Game of Thrones but the preview HBO has aired seemed interesting, if not a bit confusing. I am planning to check it out.
ReplyDeleteI have read The Hungar Games trilogy and cringe at the idea of it being filmed.
I love Peter Dinklage. When I heard he was in Game of Thrones it was what drew my interest.
ReplyDeleteJust recently read Game of Thrones in advance of the series, and I am 98% happy with the casting. Very curious how filming the "unfilmable" series will ultimately work out, but I am excited!
ReplyDeleteI may do an actual post about this at some point. The multiple narratives makes it really hard. Let's say there are 13 episodes in Season 1. Daenerys is about 1/13 of Book 1, and her part needs to be told. But if you do it as a stand-alone episode, it takes you out of the flow of everything else in Westeros. If you split it up into 13 separate segments, the majority of them -- maybe 9 or 10 of them -- will have essentially nothing happening. I have a feeling that for most of the season, people who didn't read the books are going to be saying "WTF with the white-haired girl in the desert?"
ReplyDeleteAnd then, of course, there's no way they have the budget to do her story in the later books.
So I guess I need to read this series, huh?
ReplyDeleteThe first season will be 10 episodes, and they won't be doing stand-alones from what I understand, although not all characters will be in all episodes. I would bet we'll have a couple Dany-less eps.
ReplyDeleteYou and me both.
ReplyDeleteIt will be really interesting to see what happens if this series is a success and after a few years, the number of seasons catches up with how far along GRRM's story is.
ReplyDeleteI think they're going to have to greenlight a second season no matter what the ratings are - they are making a killing by selling it internationally already. Book 3 is so huge that I wouldn't be surprised to see that split into 2 seasons. Sounds like book 5 will also be huge, so maybe another 2 seasons there?
ReplyDeleteEveryone else was reading it while we were watching Bachelor Pad, I guess.
ReplyDeleteIssac - It's the budget issues that have me most curious as well. There are a lot of set pieces in the ensuing books that would test a big feature film budget; not sure how they attack those. I am also very curious to hear Sepinwall's take, as I've already heard mutterings on Twitter that the plot is hard to follow if you haven't read the books (as he hasn't). Hell, I found some plot elements hard to follow even on a second read of the books!
ReplyDeleteAlan's review thus far is quite positive. Unlike a number of other HBO shows, I don't know how much "sunk cost" there is. For "Rome" and "Boardwalk Empire," massive sets had to be built and a multi-season situation was the only way to recover. At least from what I've seen thus far, GOT seems to use a lot more exterior/practical locations where they didn't build much. Obviously, costuming is big, but that may not be enough.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I have little or no question that they'll be greenlighting a second season this time next week once the ratings for the premiere are in, and am going to be interested to see how the flow from GOT to Treme works. I don't see the shows as compatible, but certainly will give Treme a big leadin.
It's not the sets that will be expensive. I think T&C is talking about some scenes that are going to have to rely on a ton of CGI to create suitably large crowds and suitably widespread action. Some of the stuff that happens along the wall or off-continent just cannot be done on the cheap.
ReplyDeleteI haven't read either series and I still loved this recap.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure that the GOT -> Treme is the best pairing in the world, but they do have one thing in common: a love of food. ASOIAF spends a tremendous amount of time talking about food, while Treme had Anthony Bourdain on as a contributing writer for much of the restaurant stories in this upcoming season.
ReplyDeleteGame of Thrones is going to be an expensive show, because Martin wrote it to be unfilmable. Though CGI makes many of the elements possible, it is still an expensive show, with a large cast, location filming and CGI work. The advantage for making season 2 a likely pickup is the fact that the show has been picked up by a lot of international partners, and so HBO may recover a lot of its investment from international licensing fees.