They really did a fantastic job on the first 5 seasons + of GOT. I'll keep my hopes up.

No D&D shit writing, GRRM very involved, and the story is already finished.

No, it’s going to be meh at best. I’ll watch because of some sick compulsion, but I fully expect to not be impressed. It should be better than Wheel of Time though, so there’s that.

This is the key.

D&D simply didn't know what to do without source material. So it impacted not only storytelling but even the pacing. They sped up because they tailored the ending to get get it done faster because they wanted to move on.

If you have the beginning, middle and end set in stone for the new writers, you'd have to think they won't rush the end game and botch it like D&D did.

Exactly. This show likely won't have the peak of GOT, but I think people will be more satisfied with its conclusion.

I can live with that. Very few shows have peak GOT type runs, but it can still be a very solid, entertaining show as long as they can keep the pacing reasonable.

That winged-dragon-helmet @00:43 looked sweet. I'll be watching.

Yea, peak GOT is arguably the GOAT, so it's a pretty high ****ing bar.

Is there any reason to be optimistic about this?

Big CGI isn't really what made GOT interesting in the first place and overly focusing on it at the end helped to give GOT a weak, rushed ending.

But sure, let's do Hollywood movie part 8 because we can make a buck.

Any takers?

This is off the mark. The ending was rushed because the writers wanted to wrap it up quickly and move onto other projects.

There was more CGI naturally near the end as the story culminated in large battles with White Walkers and dragons.

I still have the same bad taste too.

I think it might have a chance when I found out that Miguel Sapochnik who directed the best episodes of GOT(Battle of the Bastards, Hardhome, Winds of Winter etc) is the show runner. He has to be better at it than D&D. And the plot is already done in the books by GRR.

And I don't think people understand just how MUCH CGI was used throughout that show. They have all kinds of cool little videos out there on it.

People started bagging on the CGI later in the show because the show was bad. Meanwhile the CGI had been present throughout the show and people didn't care when the show was good.

They just ****ed the pacing right up and that's all there is to it. And frankly, if that was GRRM's ending, his ending to the saga sucked as well (I don't know how you polish the King Bran turd among other stupid things). Everything was just too abrupt.

Did y'all see that a Jon Snow spinoff is said to be in the works?

https://collider.com/game-of-thrones...arrington-hbo/

I think an Arya one would've been more interesting. I'm just not sure how much you can mine out of Jon wandering the north with the Free Folk. They gonna unroll the entire ending to the Night King saga and bring back Walkers in some form? Is it gonna be a 10 episode arc of him trying to be Mance Rayder and get along with the Thenns?

I honestly don't see it.

Y'know - maybe 8 !@#$ing episodes from D&D (4 in front, 4 in back) that covered ALL this crap and actually developed the run up to the finale would've handled it pretty cleanly.

I just don't get it at all.

I'm less critical than many on the individual endings, though I will admit it was not satisfying based on the rushed pace.

I actually have no doubt that King Bran and mad Queen Dany were GRRM's ideas. If he ever were to finish the books, the payoff would have been infinitely more fulfilling.

In the show, the events leading up to everything just don't make sense. Daenerys loses a dragon going North of the Wall for absolutely no reason. She loses another 'cause she "kinda forgot" Euron was around and apparently he's able to 360 no scope a full grown dragon from a mile away. Then how did Missandei even get captured again? I forgot.

She was getting increasingly more pissed off and distraught, but the jump to nuking a surrendering city was just too quick given how things played out on TV.

And don't even get me started on Bran. Dude became a potato after he returned to civilization. He should have been one of the most powerful people on the continent and all he did in the last couple seasons was vegg out and do some recon with a flock of birds.

Then they've got the audacity to pull the "who has a better story than Bran?" line lol uhhhh, literally anyone?!?